The Werewolf of Bamberg (46 page)

“I feel much better now,” Jakob grunted, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I sweated like an old pig under that pelt.”

“We just need to make sure nobody smells us,” his brother replied with a grin, “or they’ll put us in a dog kennel.”

In the meantime, Magdalena had walked out onto a rickety dock and stood looking over at the eastern part of the city.

“Geyerswörth Castle is brightly lit,” she whispered excitedly. “That’s where all the noise is coming from. But I don’t see a fire anywhere.” She sighed. “I hope nothing has happened to Simon at that bishop’s reception.”

“Well, at least the boys are safe at home with Georg,” her father replied in a reassuring voice. “They probably went to bed long ago. Let’s hurry home to Bartholomäus’s house, and perhaps on our way there we’ll learn what happened.”

With the groaning Matheo between them, they hurried along the towpath toward the lower City Hall Bridge, where, despite the late hour, they could see a number of people running back and forth. The shouts had now become much louder.

“At least we won’t have to worry that someone will stop us for being out after curfew,” Bartholomäus grumbled. “It looks like all of Bamberg is out and about.”

Up on the bridge, the Bamberg executioner stopped the first passerby he met. It was one of the guards responsible for keeping order in the eastern parts of town. He was running with a lantern in his hand toward the city hall.

“Hey, Paulus!” Bartholomäus called out to him. “What’s going on? No decent Bamberger can sleep with all this noise.”

The guard stared at him absentmindedly. He didn’t seem surprised that the city executioner was up at this late hour, nor did he wonder about the groaning lad in the dirty clothing who was supported on the other side by another huge man. Evidently he had other things on his mind at the moment than lecturing an apparently drunk fellow who had no doubt just been sick to his stomach.

“Haven’t you heard?” the guard snapped. “In Geyerswörth Castle, the suffragan bishop himself turned into a werewolf and is attacking one citizen after the other! The news is spreading like wildfire. I’m going to get reinforcements to try to calm people down. Everybody is going wild.”

“The . . . the suffragan bishop is a werewolf?” Magdalena couldn’t contain herself. “Who told you that?”

“On my honor, I saw it myself,” he affirmed. “I was in the dance hall with our captain when the beast—” He stopped short. “Excuse me, naturally I meant the suffragan bishop . . . Well . . . When he attacked a friend of our city doctor.”

“A friend of the city doctor?” Magdalena gasped. “Was it perhaps a little guy with a feather in his hat?”

“Uh, yes.” The guard finally seemed to notice her. “Do you know him? He must be a stranger here—I’ve never seen him before. Well, now that the werewolf has bit him, it’s probably curtains for him.”

“Bitten by the
werewolf
? My God, we’ve got to get to the castle right away and—” Magdalena was about to run away, but her father held her back.

“You’re not going anywhere like that, and certainly not alone,” he whispered to her. “As a dishonorable person you can’t enter the castle, anyway. If worse comes to worst they’ll suspect you of being in league with the devil. Look around. The whole city is in an uproar. We’d best get Matheo to a safe place and see if the children are all right.”

Magdalena stopped to think. She would, in fact, have difficulty getting into the castle, and besides, Simon had told her that Samuel had introduced him as a famous and widely traveled scholar. Even if she succeeded in getting through to Simon, she could hardly say she was his wife. In addition, she was worried about the children. The whole city seemed seized by panic, and she could only hope Georg hadn’t let the boys out of his sight.

“Very well,” she responded hesitantly. “Let’s first go have a look at the children.”

They all ran over the bridge together, leaving the befuddled watchman standing there, wondering what this strange group was up to. From all sides, curious people came toward them heading for the brightly lit castle. Others seemed to just have come from there and were excitedly telling their fellow citizens what they’d seen.

“I swear by Saint Barbara, our dear suffragan bishop turned into a terrifying werewolf,” a stout, elderly woman cried out, raising her hands imploringly toward the night sky. “I saw it with my own eyes—he has long teeth and even longer claws, and now he’s out in the city looking for victims. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Get yourself and your children to safety. Pray, or we will all be lost!”

Some of the braver young men had armed themselves with cudgels, pitchforks, and burning torches and were heading toward the castle.

“We must help the guards kill the beast,” one of them was shouting, evidently one of the journeymen of the dyer who had his workshop down by the river. “Up on the cathedral mount, the guards have already killed another werewolf—a huge beast. The battle must have been awful.” Magdalena saw that the journeyman was one of the men who’d nearly lynched the salesman the day before. In a raucous voice he was trying to stir up his friends.

“Surely we’ll find even more werewolves in the city,” he cried. “Follow me, friends!”

The grim-faced young men marched past the three Kuisls and the semiconscious Matheo without paying any attention to them.

“Good Lord, has everyone gone mad?” Jakob Kuisl murmured. “If the city guards don’t step in, they’ll all kill each other.”

“Your beautiful plan is all shot to hell, in any case,” Bartholomäus snapped. “With the suffragan bishop and the dead wolf up in the palace, all hell has broken loose here, no thanks to you. I’ll no doubt have more torturing and executions than I can handle. Why did I ever get involved in this?”

“No one could have foreseen that on this very night the suffragan bishop would go mad,” Jakob shot back. “But at least in all the turmoil no one will suspect you gave us the key to the dungeon.” He glared at his brother. “Besides, now you can’t blame yourself for not having done enough. Isn’t that what you always wanted—to be a good executioner? Now you can prove it.”

“Hah, you’ve still got the same fresh mouth as always. Just wait, I’ll . . .”

Bartholomäus prepared to take a swing at his brother but noticed at the last moment that something was standing between them: Matheo. With a grunt of disgust, he lowered his arm.

“Once again I have to wonder why I ever invited you to my wedding,” Bartholomäus grumbled. “I hoped you would have changed, Jakob, but you’re still the same old smart-ass.”

Jakob spat on the ground. “Don’t forget you’re not the one who invited me, but Katharina, because she wanted to have peace in the family.”

“Well, she sure made a mess of it.”

Magdalena turned her eyes away while the two men bickered back and forth. Finally she’d had enough.

“For God’s sake, can’t you ever think about anything but yourselves?” she asked. “May I remind you that you’re carrying a wounded man who needs your help and probably has a headache listening to all your whining?”

“You don’t talk to your father that way,” Jakob growled, but now in a calmer voice.

“And you don’t talk to your brother that way, either,” she replied. Bartholomäus started to snicker, but she glared back at him. “That goes for both of you.”

Silently they continued through the dark city, along the foul-smelling city moat, while the shouts behind them gradually faded away. Finally they arrived at the executioner’s house, which lay in total darkness. Magdalena looked up suspiciously at the second-floor windows.

“It looks like Georg has already gone to bed,” she said with a frown. “There’s no light up there.”

They opened the door and stepped inside. The house was cold, with only the odor of dead ashes in the air.

“Georg?” Magdalena called out. “Peter? Paul?”

When there was no reply she took the lantern and ran upstairs—but soon returned.

“They’re not here,” she said. “Where in the world can Georg have gone with the children? I hope nothing has happened to them.”

Nor to Simon,
she thought suddenly, and a chill ran down her spine. Only then did it occur to her how bitter cold it had become in the last few hours.

“Perhaps Georg took the children to the castle to see what’s going on there,” said her father, trying to console her. But he, too, seemed slightly shaken.

Magdalena nodded hesitantly. “Well . . . maybe you’re right. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

They lit a warm fire in the stove and sat down at the table. Jakob busied himself with the injured Matheo, who seemed to have a high fever and kept waking up, screaming, from bad dreams. The hangman gave the young man some strong brandy mixed with valerian and Saint John’s wort until Matheo finally calmed down.

Bartholomäus huddled down on the long bench, cracked his knuckles, and kept looking at the executioner’s sword hanging, as always, in the devotional corner of the room alongside the crucifix.

“How many werewolves do you think they’ll catch tonight?” he asked in a soft voice. “How many men and women will scream their confessions to me on the rack that they’re in league with the devil? How many will I have to put to the stake?”

“Perhaps now you have a better understanding of why I left Schongau back then,” Jakob said as he placed a bandage on Matheo’s ankle coated with a yellowish, pleasant-smelling ointment. “I always preferred healing to killing and torturing.” He chuckled. “But they give us people to heal only after we’ve inflicted pain on them.”

Bartholomäus shook his head. “It wasn’t right, Jakob, and you can’t make it better with the same old explanations. You had responsibilities then, as the eldest. We were helpless, and you abandoned us.” He stopped short. After a while, he continued in a soft voice, staring blankly into space.

“I always loved animals more than people. Their souls are good—without malice or hatred. My first wife, Johanna, was just like that, like a sweet little fawn—not the brightest, but sweet. When she died on me, of consumption, I thought there was nothing more to come . . . but then came Katharina.”

Again there was a long pause.

“You will marry Katharina, it will all work out,” said Magdalena, trying to console him as she anxiously awaited the next ringing of the cathedral bells.

Where are the children?
she wondered.
Where is Simon?

Bartholomäus laughed out loud. “Do you think Katharina will still want to marry me if I turn into a killer? Up to now I’ve only had to deal with thieves and robbers. There was a woman who killed her child; I managed to arrange for her to be beheaded rather than drowned miserably like a cat. But what we’re facing now will be bad, very bad. Many innocent people will die, just like back during the witch trials . . .” Once again his gaze wandered over to the executioner’s sword with the strange sharkskin handle.

“As the story goes, the Bamberg executioner at the time, a certain Michael Binder, went mad after all the torturing and burning,” he said in a flat voice. “One day he just left town and vanished, and that’s why his position was open for me. Who knows, perhaps after all this I’ll turn as mad as Binder and disappear in the forests. Then your son Georg will be the new executioner.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It will start all over again, an eternal cycle. We take the guilt upon ourselves until we can no longer stand it.”

“Unless you step out of the circle,” Jakob murmured. “I at least tried, back then. But I came back.”

In the silence that followed, the only sound was Matheo’s occasional restless moaning. Finally, Magdalena stood up and paced aimlessly back and forth in the room. The far-off sound of bells could be heard from the cathedral.

“It’s midnight, and Georg and the children still aren’t here,” she said, hugging her freezing torso. “We don’t know how Simon is, either. We should go out and look for them. But where? In the castle? It seems to have calmed down a bit there. Just where could they—”

She stopped short, and suddenly her eyes lit up. “I know!” she cried out. “With old Jeremias in the Wild Man, of course. The children so enjoyed being with him yesterday. Perhaps Georg couldn’t figure out what to do with the two rascals, so he went there with them. And then they forgot what time it was.”

And then they met Barbara there,
she was thinking.
That’s got to be it. Georg found his sister again, and they lost track of the time.

She still hadn’t told her father where Barbara was staying. She wanted to keep her promise until Matheo was brought to safety.

“Still in the Wild Man at midnight?” Bartholomäus shrugged. “Do you really believe the kids are there?”

“Well, it’s at least a possibility.” Magdalena hurried to the door. “I’m going to go there right now—”

“How often do I have to tell you you’re not going anywhere alone tonight?” her father interrupted gruffly. “God knows what these self-appointed guards are doing now. If you go at all, I’m coming along.”

“I thought you were going to the castle to look for Simon there,” Magdalena replied.

Bartholomäus stood up. “I can do that.” He nodded toward the sleeping Matheo. “I’ll just take the lad here up to the bedroom. With his fever and all the brandy Jakob gave him, he’s sure to sleep soundly for a few hours, then we’ll have to think about what to do with him later.”

Magdalena looked at her uncle gratefully.

“Thank you,” she said.

Bartholomäus smiled, but his eyes looked sad.

“This is perhaps the last time for a long while that I’ll be able to do something good. I hope God will remember me for this later on.” He gestured impatiently. “And now let’s get moving before I change my mind.”

Magdalena nodded to him and then disappeared into the night.