The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman's Daughter Tale (57 page)

“Aha, do you see now why I need the child as a hostage?” he screamed, turning to Matthias. “This hangman and his whole
damned family. When you first told me about them, I knew they would give me trouble. Didn’t I tell you a dozen times to get rid of that inquisitive woman?”

Now Matthias had seen the hangman, as well. He stood uncertainly in the middle of the platform, surrounded by the raging storm like a rock in the sea. He seemed paralyzed with indecision.

“Get him, Matthias,” Virgilius roared. “He wants to destroy our plan. Don’t you understand? Think about your voice.”

Kuisl stood up behind the belfry, looking calmly into the tearful eyes of the knacker’s boy, raising his hands in a gesture of friendship. “You know this is wrong, don’t you, Matthias?” Kuisl said. “You can’t fool me. I’m a hangman. I’ve seen many murderers, but you are not one—at least not a murderer of children.” Cautiously, he advanced toward the silent assistant, who was still frozen in place. “If you overcome me in a fight, this madman will make short work of the boy—he will throw him from the tower. The boy means something to him only as long as he can use him to blackmail me. And you mean nothing to him, either.”

“That’s… that’s not true, Matthias,” Virgilius interrupted. “Think how I cared for you when you were young. Haven’t I taught you everything, the writing, the experiments, the apparatuses? Haven’t I given you a language to use for making yourself understood even without a tongue?”

The watchmaker clung tightly to the screaming and struggling Paul. “Yes, he’s crying now,” he continued unctuously. “He’s afraid—that’s understandable—but you, too, were afraid when you came to my laboratory the first time. Do you remember? You were a small, mute child without parents, an outcast, ridiculed by others, and I was the first to give you something that makes you a better person than all these boors. Knowledge. And if you’re patient just a while longer, I’ll give you back your voice. Aurora, you, and I will be a family. We’ll adopt this boy and—”

“Where’s my second grandchild, you monster?” the hangman shouted, approaching Virgilius with a menacing look. Paul saw his grandfather now and tried to squirm out of the grip of the hunchback, but Virgilius held him in a vicelike grip.

“Speak up, you crippled scum. What did you do to him?” Kuisl shouted again.

Matthias looked at Virgilius as if he, too, expected an answer.

“He… he’s with his father,” the watchmaker stammered. “He’s safe and sound…”

There was a growling sound like that of an angry bear as Matthias shook his head wildly. Kuisl could see how the journeyman was struggling with himself. Virgilius, too, seemed to notice it. With the boy twisting in his arms, he approached Matthias, keeping a suspicious eye on Kuisl. For a moment the hangman considered throwing himself at the watchmaker and seizing the boy, but the risk of something happening to Paul was still too great, especially since Kuisl still didn’t know what Matthias would do.

“Come and look,” Virgilius said to his servant, putting his hand solicitously on the young man’s broad shoulder and leading him over to the knee-high barrier above the yawning abyss. “Can you see Erling over there?” he asked, pointing into the raging storm. “The little cemetery at the edge of the village? That’s where your parents are buried. Do you remember how often you cried in the years after their deaths? That miserable knacker Graetz paid you and fed you, but a clever boy like you is destined for greater things. You will be a witness to how man creates life. Look at the cemetery.”

Virgilius nudged Matthias even closer to the barrier. Something in the watchmaker’s voice seemed to reassure him, and reluctantly the servant moved closer, bending over the edge and staring out at the little cemetery that was almost invisible now in the streaming rain.

“All the dead lying there,” Virgilius continued gently. “We can bring them back—your parents, too. What do you think? Do you know what would be even better? You could simply go and…
visit
them now. Farewell.”

The hunchback gave the strapping youth a sudden shove, and Matthias flailed his arms around wildly as he tottered like a mighty oak in the storm. Kuisl could see the watchmaker’s hate-filled eyes flashing through the darkness, but before the hangman could react, Virgilius gave his servant another push. Astonished, Matthias grunted, turning his head briefly one more time toward his master, as if expecting an explanation. Then he fell through the flimsy wooden barrier. Without another sound, he plunged toward the roof of the church, landing on a temporary canvas cover which slowed his fall just slightly before it ripped and the journeyman fell with a loud impact onto the floor of the nave.

In the belfry, the only sounds were the wailing child and the steady drumbeat of the rain. With an exhausted expression, Virgilius stared down at the damaged roof while Paul continued struggling in his arms.

“A shame, really a shame,” Virgilius said finally, stepping back from the splintered railing. “He was a good pupil, and so… closed-mouthed.” He smiled weakly and looked up at the lightning that flashed through the darkened sky. “But you’re right, hangman. In the end he really didn’t mean anything to me; he was a hindrance, just as all the others were hindrances.” Suddenly he looked straight at Kuisl, his eyes reduced to narrow slits. “And if you move a single step, your grandson will be such a hindrance, too. Do you understand me?”

The hangman nodded grimly and raised his hands again. “I understand,” he said softly. “And what do you intend to do now? Are you going to wait forever for a bolt of lightning? It isn’t going to strike just because my friend Nepomuk hung a little bit
of wire up here. It could happen today, or in the next storm, or in a few years—your automaton will simply rust away up here.”

“Ha! You don’t understand anything,” Virgilius hissed. “Do you think I would have gone to all this trouble if I hadn’t seen that it really works?” He extracted a little bottle from under his jacket and approached the smiling puppet in the upright bier.

“Your simple-minded Nepomuk told me about his experiments with lightning,” he continued with a laugh. “I was the only one who knew he’d hung up one of his so-called lightning rods in the tower. And then the lightning actually hit here.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
From that point on, I knew I was on the right path. The only thing I lacked was the
aqua vitae
…” He pulled the cork out of the bottle with his teeth and began pouring the liquid carefully into a hole in the puppet’s back.

“This water of life will pulse through her artificial veins like blood,” he murmured. “Like blood. The lightning will strike, and my Aurora will finally return to me; the waiting will be over.”

When the bottle was finally empty, Virgilius threw it out of the tower with a shout. Then with the boy in his arms, he moved to another corner, leaned against the wall, and waited, his lips moving quietly as if in prayer.

“Lightning, water of life. This is craziest nonsense I’ve ever heard,” the hangman scoffed. “Nepomuk’s experiments, however, were pure science. Now give me back my boy and tell me what you’ve done with Peter and my son-in-law. I hope for your sake they’re still alive. If not, this thunderstorm will be nothing compared to what happens when I get hold of you.”

Kuisl still didn’t dare make a move to approach Virgilius or the boy. Matthias’s murder had shown him the watchmaker would stop at nothing. So Kuisl’s threats were meant only to kill time until Virgilius made a false move. But the monk only gripped the screaming child tighter.

“Don’t come any closer,” Virgilius snarled. “Many people have already died so my dream can come true, and this little life here is of little importance to me now.” He cast a longing glance at the automaton as thunder rolled over the countryside. “Now let’s just stand here and wait.”

At that moment, a soft tapping could be heard on the steps beneath them: footsteps, slow and deliberate, yet clearly audible over the sound of the pouring rain.

Someone was coming up the tower.

Down in the catacombs of the castle, Magdalena felt paralyzed as blue flames spread quickly across the altar. In a matter of seconds, the entire stone block was engulfed in a blaze that spread to the ground and, from there, in small pathways to the many mounds of white powder.

“Get out of here,” Magdalena shouted, grabbing her son. “At once!”

Then she realized with horror that Simon couldn’t run. She hesitated a moment, then pointed toward the exit and gave Peter a push. “Run, Peter! Quickly! I have to help your father!”

The boy seemed to understand. Ignoring the flickering blue sea of flames all around him, he ran toward the door and vanished. In the meantime, Magdalena leaned over her husband and started to shake him.

“Simon, you must get up.”

Simon groaned and raised his arms slowly, but his legs seemed as if they were tied to the rock with strong ropes. Magdalena realized he wouldn’t make it without her help, so she grabbed him under the arms and pulled him up until he was standing in front of her and leaning against the wall, his face as white as chalk. Bluish flames were crackling all around them, eating their way through the overturned shelves and broken mechanical devices, leaving only a narrow path open to the exit.

“You’ve got to hold onto me,” she shouted over the roaring of the flames. “Do you understand, Simon? Hang on to me!”

She turned around, bent over, and pulled his arms over her shoulders, then stood up, gasping, and dragged her husband like a sack of flour through the raging flames.

At five feet tall, Simon was one of the most diminutive men in Schongau; his size was often ridiculed by coarse men in town, especially since Magdalena in fact was a few fingerbreadths taller. Now, however, his delicate stature would prove to be what saved his life. Magdalena felt like a pack mule, but at least she was able to pull Simon step by step from the burning room.

She staggered through the second room with the canopy bed and dressing table, where flames were already licking at the walnut veneer. Finally, gasping, she reached the round doorway as another bookshelf came crashing down somewhere behind her, burying the ivory horn, the globe, and the shiny bronze astrolabe. She was relieved to see that Simon was now able to hold on by himself and that his legs were moving slightly. The paralysis, in fact, seemed to be abating.

Coughing, Magdalena peered into the smoke-filled passageway through which she’d entered just a few minutes ago. She was unable to save her torch from the burning room, but it wasn’t really necessary now. Horrified, she saw little fires burning on the floor of the tunnel as well. Virgilius must have strewn the phosphorus powder all over the catacombs, and now Magdalena realized what that meant: as soon as the flames arrived at the latrine where the laboratory was located, everything would explode.

Frantically she looked around for her son but couldn’t find him in the clouds of smoke. She couldn’t even imagine what might have happened to her second child. She could only hope that Peter had told her the truth and little Paul was somewhere outside with the treacherous Matthias and unharmed.

“Peter!” she shouted, her husband still clinging to her shoulders
with his almost one hundred pounds. “Peter, where are you?”

She heard crying and finally a voice. “Mama, Mama, I’m here!”

Magdalena listened intently. The cry hadn’t come from the right where the corridor led to the hermit’s cave but from the left. Peter had run the wrong way, and she’d have to bring him back as soon as possible. If they spent too long down here, they would all be lost—either they would burn up or the smoke would suffocate them.

Cursing and struggling for breath, she stumbled through gray, foul-smelling clouds, her eyes tearing up from the smoke and Simon’s weight practically crushing her to the ground. Nevertheless, slowly, yard by yard, she moved ahead, calling her son’s name again and again. “Peter! Peter! Here I am!”

The damp, low passageway turned slightly upward, and after a short while, Magdalena noticed that there were fewer mounds of phosphorus, then eventually none at all. Behind her she heard the crash of another wall collapsing. Clouds of smoke reached out to her like long fingers, but she could feel a draft of fresh air coming from somewhere ahead, and the smoke was thinning out. Evidently Peter had intuitively chosen the right direction.

Turning another corner, she finally saw her son. She cried out with relief but just as quickly caught her breath. The passageway ended there; Peter was pounding frantically on a heavy wooden door without a handle.

“Mama! The garden! I want to see the garden.”

“The… garden?” She looked at her son blankly. His face was as black as coal and he was coughing, but she didn’t see any burns on his body. On the contrary, the three-year-old seemed almost cheerful. Carefully she set her husband down on the ground and examined the locked door.

“Which garden do you mean?” she responded.

“The garden with the jolly stone man who spits water,” he said excitedly. “It’s behind this door.”

“You mean the… the monastery garden?” Suddenly she realized how the boys had been abducted. Virgilius must have lured the two from the garden into a hidden passageway there. Anxiously, she examined the weathered wood but couldn’t find a handle or a keyhole. The hinges were massive.

“Damn,” she hissed. “Another of the crazy watchmaker’s infernal objects.” She kicked the door, but it felt like solid brick. Nervously she looked back down the steep, slippery corridor from which clouds of smoke were still rising.

“If we can’t think of something soon, we’ll suffocate here like foxes in a burrow,” she mumbled. In vain she examined the rock walls for hidden cracks or holes. Finally, she turned helplessly to Simon, who was lying on the ground behind her.

“Simon, can you hear me? We’ll suffocate here. Wake up. I need your help.”

Simon groaned and struggled to move as if he was in great pain; finally he managed to turn on one side and sit up. He was panting hard; clearly that little movement had caused him unbelievable effort.

Torn between hope and despair, Magdalena stared at her husband, whose paralysis was slowly beginning to wear off. Would it happen fast enough for him to help her? She doubted that, and in any case, she didn’t know what she expected him to do. Snap his fingers and make the door open? The little medicus had so often come up with an idea that saved the day. She prayed now he would be able to walk and speak again as soon as possible. Tears welled up in her eyes when she thought of the unavoidable fate that awaited them both.