The Beggar King

  The ambassador’s lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line, just the hint of a smile playing across them.

  Simon turned to Magdalena. “Have you noticed how our dear little Venetian can suddenly speak perfect unaccented German? All along he’s been playing the part of the clumsy, innocent, love-struck Silvio, and you fell for it! He may be the official ambassador from Venice, but clearly he’s working for more than one side!”

  Silvio drew his rapier with a soft whoosh and ran it lightly across Simon’s throat.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t slaughter you like a pig right here and now!” he hissed. “Nobody’s going to listen to your cute little conspiracy theories. Not even the raftsmen right over there! So tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

  “Kill me as you did the bathhouse owner, his wife, the baker, the bishop’s brewmaster, and all the others?” Simon gasped, his eyes fixed on the point of the sword at his throat.

  Silvio’s eyes glassed over. “The… brewmaster?” His voice was suddenly uncertain. “Maledizione!” he growled. “That was someone else. And the other murders, too.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. “I never should have gotten involved with that one. He’s the reason my entire plan is in danger! The fool! He could have lived out his life in the lap of luxury, but he acted impetuously!” Silvio spat angrily on the ground, and his makeup began to run, revealing a face full of hatred beneath.

  Simon held his breath.

  So there was someone else…

  Someone else who was responsible for killing Magdalena’s aunt and uncle, someone involved in Silvio’s plans! Someone who had been doing Silvio’s dirty work. Who? Was it the same man who wanted revenge on Magdalena’s father? Evidently the Venetian was clueless about what had happened in the bishop’s palace the night before. Feverishly, Simon tried to think of a way to use this knowledge to his advantage.

  The little ambassador turned to Simon once more, letting the point of his sword wander slowly across his prisoner’s chest. “All right, then, I’ll worry about that later. I’ll attend to you first, you little quack, too smart for your own good!”

  “The city council knows about this,” Simon gasped suddenly.

  Pausing, Silvio looked down at his victim with pity. “You’re lying; this is just a cheap trick to prolong your pathetic life a few moments.”

  Simon shook his head desperately. This was his last chance. If the Venetian saw through him now, he’d slit him from belly to throat like livestock in a slaughterhouse. Then he’d force Magdalena to eat the ergot.

  “Then how do you think I know so much about your plans?” Simon said as self-assured as possible, his voice as solid and regular as a well-oiled clock. “Your irascible crony broke into the bishop’s residence last night. He murdered the brewmaster, then was captured by the guards. He confessed everything on the rack! I listened through the door but ran off before the others because I feared for Magdalena’s life.” He grinned broadly at the ambassador. “In half an hour or less the city guards will be knocking down the door, and then, by God, your entire plan will go up in smoke!”

  It was such a bald-faced lie even Simon didn’t think he’d get away with it. Yet the Venetian hesitated.

  “Even if that were true,” Silvio said at last, “what reason would that be to let you live?”

  “I can divert the guards!” Simon sputtered. “I’ll go to city hall and tell them you’re already half crazed from the ergot and holding Magdalena hostage. If it works, you can let her go.”

  Clearly the Venetian would never let them both go at the same time, but this just might buy Simon some time until he could come up with something better. At least now Silvio had sheathed his rapier and seemed to seriously consider the offer.

  “So they’ve caught him…” Silvio said, more to himself than to anyone in particular, shaking his head, clearly still undecided about what to do next. Finally he spoke. “What you’ve described is entirely possible. He has been my concern from the start. He is so full of hate; I knew one day it would be his undoing. I never should have involved the hangman in this matter,” he said, angrily kicking a bag of grain. “A single, swift blow in some dark alley would have been the end of the bathhouse owner! But he had to have his revenge. And now the whole thing’s gone sour.”

  The ambassador stood up and began to pace silently among the sacks of grain. Then, in a flash, he turned to gaze thoughtfully at Magdalena. His voice, muted now, was laced with fear.

  “By all the saints in heaven, Karl Gessner is a real devil. Sometimes I wish your father had sent that man straight back to the hell he arose from all those years ago.”

  From up in the Weidenfeld church belfry, raftmaster Karl Gessner looked down scornfully on the two hangmen below. His jet-black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he wore the colorful, loose-fitting costume of a foot soldier and an old, threadbare coat over that. Behind one shoulder rose the glittering pommel of a shortsword strapped to his back by its scabbard. Only his red bandanna signaled this was the same man responsible for the daily shipments of goods moving through the Regensburg raft landing. The Gessner so well liked by about everyone had changed almost overnight into a deadly warrior eerily risen from the past.

  He’s dead, thought Kuisl. I killed him with my own hands. This can only be a ghost…

  After Gessner’s shrill laughter had died away, he wiped his eyes as one might after a particularly funny joke.

  “Jakob, Jakob,” he said, as if addressing an old friend. “Who would ever have thought we’d meet again in this miserable little town? It’s a pity you didn’t come alone. I’m afraid our history will only bore the Regensburg executioner.”

  He gestured at Teuber, who stood beside Kuisl with his rapier drawn, looking upward with fury. “Seems age has made a coward of you,” he continued. “Oh, well, we all get older, and weaker.”

  “You can be sure this concerns only the two of us,” Kuisl said. “I packed you off to hell once before, and I’ll do it again.”

  Gessner closed his eyes as if lost in a dream. “Do you know what I’ve enjoyed most? Watching you writhe on the rack like a blathering cripple, your despair at not knowing who brought this misery upon you. I’m almost offended you didn’t recognize my voice, seeing how we’ve been through so much together.” He clicked his tongue. “It’s a shame you’re always running from me, first in the torture chamber, then in the bordello. We should have split the girl between us. Just as in the old days.”

  “He is the third inquisitor!” Teuber exclaimed. “I wanted to tell you from the start. As the Regensburg raftmaster, Karl Gessner is a member of the Outer Council. Fat Thea heard from her ‘customers’ in city hall that he did everything possible to be present at your torture.”

  Gessner nodded, dangling his legs from the window ledge. “Wasn’t all that easy. Those fat patricians will defend their privileges tooth and nail, but they did relent at last. I do have some influence with those simple people, after all.”

  “I might have figured as much when Simon told me about the freemen—and that you, of all people, are their leader,” Kuisl replied. “Stirring people up has always been your forte. And then this story about the philosopher’s stone. Only you would come up with such nonsense!”

  Gessner shrugged. “I had to do something to distract that conniving little medicus, or he would have figured out what our special powder really was. He fell for my little ruse, and now he’ll come running to me with everything he learns.” He smiled. “The little quack isn’t quite as clever as he’d like to think.”

  “What do you have to do with this powder?” Kuisl asked.

  “Nothing that concerns the two of us, Jakob.”

  All of a sudden Gessner leaped from the window opening, landing on a burial mound thickly overgrown with ivy. His sinewy body tensed up like a cat as he bent his knees to absorb the impact. With powerful strides he approached the two hangmen, who watched him warily.

  “But since
you asked, I just happen to have an answer,” he continued. “The powder is poison. Poison enough for an entire city.”

  Kuisl kept his eye on the pommel of the sword that jostled at Gessner’s shoulder with every movement. It was a last-resort kind of weapon, a katzbalger, or shortsword, with a cross guard in the form of a snake and a wide, tapering blade. In hand-to-hand combat this sword was highly prized, and pikesmen and cavalry often carried it as backup. It was capable of delivering a lethal wound.

  Especially when your opponent carries only a rusty dagger, Kuisl thought.

  Gessner reached over his shoulder, unsheathed the katzbalger, and regarded his reflection in the polished iron blade.

  “An influential man was in need of my help,” he said softly. “I met him in the course of smuggling goods down the Danube. He was very pleased to learn that I, as a leader of the freemen, command a small secret army.” Gessner smiled, running his thumb along the katzbalger’s blade. “For years I’ve been trying to figure out how to break the backs of those fat patricians and smug noblemen. Now, the struggle that began with the great Peasants’ Wars over a hundred years ago will finally come to a close. A new age is dawning! Once this is over, I’ll be richer and more powerful than the entire Regensburg city council.”

  Gessner swung his katzbalger through the air. Though he was approaching fifty, he was as agile as a man thirty years his junior. His eyes flashed blue, and his teeth were a dazzling white.

  Nothing changes, Kuisl thought. He certainly hasn’t. Evil and crazy as a rabid dog—except now he goes by another name…

  “Philipp Lettner!” the hangman whispered. “Years ago I strung you up from an old gnarled oak right here in Weidenfeld. You can’t be alive. Who—what are you? A ghost?”

  The man who was once Philipp Lettner grinned. “You’re right, Jakob. Lettner is dead. But on that very day twenty-five years ago Karl Gessner was born. Karl, just like my little brother whom you strung up beside me. Gessner, a fat, rich riverman whose raft I stole a few days later after I’d slit his throat. I took his raft and his wares and came to Regensburg.”

  He ripped the bandanna from his neck, where a red scar seemed to have eaten a ring into the skin all around his neck.

  “Take a close look! This here is the beginning of my new life,” Gessner yelled. “I should actually thank you for all that happened back then. Karl Gessner is much richer, much more powerful and evil, than Philipp Lettner ever could have been. From a mangy mercenary to a respected raftmaster! I’ve come a long way, Jakob.”

  As the raftmaster drew menacingly closer, Kuisl’s world became a blur and he cursed softly, realizing he was starting to sway. The fever had returned, not strong, but enough to bring cold sweat to his forehead in spite of the stifling heat.

  “You botched the job back then, hangman,” Lettner whispered. “You should have waited just a bit longer until our bodies had quit twitching in the branches. But you were in such a hurry to make off with your sweetheart. It was too late for Karl, but not for me. I was still breathing; I was still salvageable.”

  Gradually Kuisl felt a chill settling in.

  Cold, just like back then…

  The warped old houses seemed to straighten up again before his eyes. In the center, around a well, was the hard-packed dirt of the village square. The rooftops on fire, the crackling of the flames, the cries of the women and children.

  And in the middle of it all, Lettner, his second in command. The bloodsucker. The bane of his existence.

  Everything around him began to spin. Kuisl closed his eyes as the images came pelting down around him like a heavy rain.

  The screams…

  So very long ago, half a lifetime. It’s a cold November day somewhere near Regensburg. The air is fresh, and snowflakes shimmer among the trees like little stars. A good day for hunting, a very good day in contrast to the murderous boredom of a mercenary’s life whiled away between battles. New troops have enlisted, eager young farm boys, setting out with the old battle-hardened men in the direction of Lothringen. Fresh blood that soon will quench the dry, thirsty fields. Jakob has already seen so many die. In the end they all call out for their mothers.

  Even now, on this November day, he’s surrounded by pimple-faced, hot-blooded youths, as well as a handful of scarred old veterans he knows he can trust. He promises them all a boar hunt, just as in the old days before the war. Most of these new recruits, though, know no other world; “before the war” is little more than a tale told around the campfire.

  The screams come from far off. At first like the chirping of angry birds. Only as Jakob and his men draw near can he distinguish the people’s desperate wails. He pushes his way through branches to stare down at a burning village. Fire is eating through the roofs of the houses, acrid smoke fills the air, and twisted bodies lie scattered on the ground in pools of blood. Cowering in the center of the village square are the women—old, young, pretty, ugly—all wearing thin shirts and trembling, screaming, crying.

  Around a crackling fire a few men are roasting chickens and laughing.

  Jakob’s men.

  They’re throwing dice. Cheers go up, then one mercenary grabs a woman by the hair and disappears with her behind the burning houses. There’s a long, drawn-out scream, a quiet whimper, then silence.

  Another round begins. A new game, a new winner.

  A moment later an overgrown black-haired man stands and lets out a shriek of laughter as he holds up the dice cup triumphantly. He pulls a girl toward him and grabs her breasts. He’s the double mercenary Philipp Lettner, Jakob’s second in command. Like Jakob, he’s paid double for his service, not on account of his skill with a two-hander but for his ruthlessness at the front. Jakob knows at once that Lettner is the leader of this gang; for years the man has been drinking blood, and all too often Jakob has let him get away with it.

  Jakob’s gaze wanders to the recruits at his side, who stare down at the bloodbath in horror. This is war, and now they’re in the midst of it. They may still want to vomit at the sight of it now, but soon enough they, too, will be plundering villages and raping women with the rest. How can they be expected to know what’s right and what’s not? Who is supposed to show them?

  Jakob closes his eyes for a second, then gives the men at his side the sign to attack. They storm out of the forest, shouting; there’s a brief struggle, curses, swearing, and then the band of murderers is overwhelmed and disarmed. His eyes cold and scornful, Lettner looks at Jakob. Next to Lettner stand his two brothers, fat Friedrich and scrawny Karl—little Karl, who is still just a child, and a monster. How many of the new recruits at Jakob’s side will turn out like Karl?

  “What’s this all about, sergeant?” Lettner asks. “Just having a little fun, that’s all. Let us go.”

  “You were throwing dice for the women…”

  “Why not? They’re only peasants. Who cares?”

  “You threw dice for them, raped them, and then killed them…”

  “There’s still some left. Help yourself, Jakob.”

  Lettner grins, his white teeth shining like a wolf’s in the light of the fire. How often Jakob has seen this grin in the midst of battle, how often has he closed his eyes to it! Cowering in front of Lettner is a black-haired girl, her eyes glassy with fear beneath bushy eyebrows, a silent plea shining in them, her lips formed into a soft prayer.

  She would have been next.

  Jakob is overcome with fury like never before. From his pocket he fetches the dice carved from bone and presses them into Lettner’s hand.

  “You’re on.”

  “What do you mean?” Philipp Lettner looks at him in disbelief, his clear blue eyes flitting back and forth. He smells a trap.

  “You’re going to play for your lives. Every third man hangs.”

  “You goddamned bastard!”

  Fat Friedrich jumps up to plunge his dagger into Jakob’s stomach. But the young sergeant dodges and strikes the fat combatant in the face with the pommel of his sword. H
e hits him over and over. Friedrich staggers toward a burning house, flailing his arms, trying to find something to hold on to, until at last he stumbles over the threshold and falls screaming into the raging inferno. Timbers begin crashing to the ground, and then there’s only silence.

  Turning, Jakob approaches the campfire and points his sword first at Philipp Lettner, then at the dice.

  “I said play.”

  Suddenly he feels the black-haired girl looking at him. Her eyes are deep, murky whirlpools; they’re pulling him down, and he can’t tear his eyes from hers. A fire burns in the pit of his stomach, far hotter than the flames on the rooftops.

  Only later, when the last bits of life twitch in the dangling legs as they sway gently in the breeze, when the final horrid scream has been carried off on the breeze, when he’s ridden away with her, far away, homeward, where there’s no more war—it’s only then, when he’s decided he’ll never be a mercenary again, that he learns her name.

  Anna-Maria.

  She will be his partner for life.

  “Damn, Kuisl! What’s the matter with you? Wake up!”

  The pain in his left shoulder brought Jakob Kuisl back to the present. Teuber had grabbed him and was now shaking him roughly.

  “Wake up before that bastard rams his katzbalger straight through your stomach!”

  Kuisl shook himself until his vision cleared. He looked up to find Philipp Lettner just a few steps away, his sword upraised and a smile still on his lips.

  “Let him be, hangman,” Lettner purred almost tenderly. “It’s the memories taking hold of you, isn’t it, Jakob? All the dead who’ve paved your walk through life. Did you really think you could live happily ever after with your pretty farmer’s daughter in Schongau? No!” His voice suddenly turned sharp and cold, just as it had days ago in the torture chamber. “I swore revenge! I knew I would get a hold of you one day, and now that day has come!”