Teuber seemed to nod; then he turned away like a sick animal and didn’t stir. His breath whistled and rattled, though, as if he wanted to let everyone know he wasn’t dead yet.
“We’ll take him home,” an official’s voice spoke up from Kuisl’s right. “His wife will take care of him. The rest is in God’s hands.”
Kuisl turned around and looked straight into the eye of the man with the crimson hat. He had an old wrinkled face and wore a pince-nez on his nose, but his gaze was as sharp and clear as that of a man in his thirties.
“So you’re this Jakob Kuisl fellow,” Mämminger said, looking him up and down with a severe but curious gaze. “You haven’t made it very easy on us. You can’t be locked up, and torture won’t make you confess—and evidently you can’t be hanged either. Who are you? The devil? A ghost?”
The hangman shook his head. “Just a Kuisl,” he murmured. “We’re a tough breed.”
Mämminger laughed. “I’ll believe you there! Indestructible, the whole lot of you—your daughter and future son-in-law included.” He turned to a guard alongside him. “Cut this man’s bonds; he’s suffered enough. Then bring the other two over here. Now that the mob has cleared out, they have nothing to fear.”
The bailiff cut the ropes from Kuisl’s wrists and jumped down from the scaffold. Shortly thereafter he returned with Simon and Magdalena.
“Thanks to the Virgin Mary and all the saints in heaven! You’re alive!” When the hangman’s daughter caught sight of her father again, she was unrestrainable. With outstretched arms she rushed to the scaffold, clambered swiftly up the pile of crates, and wrapped her arms around her father, squeezing him so hard he thought he was being strangled a second time.
“I don’t want you ever to leave me again, do you hear?” she whispered, placing her hands on his face as if she still couldn’t believe he was alive. “Promise?”
“And don’t you ever leave me, either, shameless wench,” Kuisl replied. “Just think what you’ve done to your mother, vanishing from Schongau like that. She must be crying her eyes out day and night.”
He let out a chest-rattling cough as Magdalena ran her hand through his hair. “We’re on our way home now,” she said, “but first you’ve got to get better. You’ve got a fever—that much is clear—and there’s something wrong with your shoulder as well.”
The hangman blinked warily at Simon, who’d climbed onto the scaffold in the meantime. “Don’t you think for a moment I’m going to let myself be treated by this dubious little quack,” he growled. “I’d rather smear Teuber’s stinking ointment all over my body again.”
Simon grinned and bowed slightly. His clothing was still ripped and wet from his fight with Silvio, but some color had returned to his face. “Please do. You’re more than welcome to saw your own arms off, if you like. Less work for me.”
“Impertinent little shit. If you lay so much as a finger on my daughter again, I’ll smack you in the face.”
“In your condition?”
Kuisl was about to let loose a tirade, but Magdalena cut him off. “If you’re well enough to quarrel, your fever can’t be too serious,” she snapped. “And now let’s clear out of here before the Regensburgers change their minds and decide to hang the hangman again.”
“Just who are all those people back there?” Kuisl inquired, pointing to the band of beggars gathered around an elderly man in a tattered coat and wide-brimmed hat. When the old man noticed Kuisl looking at him, he grinned, revealing a sparkling gold tooth.
“They look just like the people I have to beat up and run out of town back home. Are they with you?” the hangman asked.
Magdalena smiled. “You might say that, or we with them.”
She jumped down from the scaffold and skipped off between the crates while Simon, Kuisl, and the old treasurer stared after her.
“A headstrong girl, that daughter of yours,” Mämminger said. “Takes after you.”
Suddenly the hangman’s face darkened, and he stared off into space. The two nooses swayed back and forth in the wind like two enormous pendulums.
“Whether she takes after me or not, she certainly is one hell of a woman,” Kuisl replied. “A hangman’s daughter is always in league with the devil.”
He climbed down from the scaffold with Simon and walked toward the pier. For a while they stood silently on the shore, watching waves splash and foam between the grimy pillars under the dock. The hangman took a crumpled piece of paper from his shirt pocket, tore it into small pieces, and scattered them over the water. Like tiny white leaves, they drifted away until finally the waves swallowed them up.
“What was that?” asked Simon, surprised. “The letter you received last night?”
Kuisl stared a few moments longer at the water, then turned abruptly toward the Stone Bridge, where Magdalena was already waiting.
“Nothing important—just a little piece of the past. Who cares what happened so long ago?” he answered.
Magdalena let her legs dangle over the side of the pier and watched them approach, her eyes black and sparkling like two embers on a cold night, a broad smile on her lips.
The hangman felt he’d never loved his daughter so much in his life as he did at this moment.
EPILOGUE
REGENSBURG
TWO MONTHS LATER, 1662 AD
BY THE END of October barons, dukes, freemen, and counts had started streaming into Regensburg. With their colorful costumes, boisterous servants, and countless coaches, wagons, and carts—all pulled by handsome steeds—they gave just a taste of what Regensburg was in for when the Reichstag would officially begin in January. The strangers, an exotic crowd from the farthest reaches of the German Empire, filled the narrow streets and houses with noise and life. Speaking in exotic tongues, servants brawled in the taverns with the locals while noble gentlemen shopped the markets until the shelves were bare. The locals whined and complained, and many already longed for the day the kaiser would leave again.
Jakob Kuisl didn’t see much of this, though. For the first few days his fever was so high he woke only from time to time for a sip of thin barley soup. As was customary among hangmen, he stayed at Teuber’s house, where for the next two months Simon, Magdalena, and Teuber’s wife nursed the two executioners back to health. Caroline Teuber said she’d never seen such good friends curse each other so much. When their fevers finally broke after almost ten days and their strength began to return, the two hangmen lay in the Teubers’ wide marital bed quarreling like sick, bored children, complaining constantly about the medicine, the lukewarm mulled wine, and the mushy food.
“I can only hope they get better soon,” Caroline sighed as she stood alongside Magdalena, stirring a pot of fragrant green oil. “I have my hands full with my five youngsters and don’t need to hear any more arguing.”
During those first few days Philipp Teuber had been on the brink of death. He woke up screaming with recurrent fever dreams of being hanged by a furious mob. His chest wound healed surprisingly quickly, however. The bolt, which had missed his lung by less than an inch, pierced straight through the muscles in his shoulder. When Teuber first regained consciousness, he credited the successful cure to his own ointment. Jakob Kuisl, on the other hand, was convinced that bad weeds don’t die. Even Kuisl’s shoulder and the severe burns on his arms and legs were healing well. His blisters left little pockmarks, however, that would remind the hangman forever of his time in the Regensburg torture chamber.
Soon after Kuisl was spared execution at the raft landing, Mämminger proposed to the city council that the Schongau executioner be declared innocent. The treasurer was able to convince the patricians that Kuisl was a victim of the scheming freemen, who after the death of their leader had vanished as suddenly as they’d appeared—almost as if they’d never even existed.
City guards burned the thirty bags of ergot in a field near Regensburg. In the end only Mämminger and a few patricians in the inner circle knew about the monstrous plan to poison the Rei
chstag. The treasurer considered it advisable to let as few people as possible in on the incident—in part, not to upset people unnecessarily, but also to avoid giving any visiting nobles the wrong idea. Even Nathan fell silent, and Simon had to imagine the beggar king had received a tidy sum of money from Mämminger for that.
On a cold, wet October morning, the medicus installed Nathan’s new set of gold teeth as promised. It was on this occasion that Simon learned something interesting about his adversary, the Venetian.
“Yesterday I was out at the wellspring,” the beggar king said casually as the medicus packed his instruments. “And just imagine—they’ve found Silvio!”
“After all this time?” Simon was so astonished he almost dropped his stiletto. “Is he alive?”
Nathan grinned. “Only if there’s life after death.” Then he told the excited medicus what he learned after bribing one of the guards.
The bailiffs ordered the well house opened when farmers began complaining about a disgusting odor coming from the door. Just inside the guards found Silvio’s half-decomposed corpse. Evidently the Venetian had wandered for days through the labyrinth of corridors and subterranean springs but, finding no exit, had slowly starved to death inside the well house.
“Do you know what’s so funny about the whole thing?” Nathan said as he admired his gold teeth in a polished copper mirror. “All his pockets were full of that bluish stuff. He must have hidden a little sack somewhere the guards hadn’t seen. As his hunger grew, it seems he ate the flour. His whole jacket was white with it; he must have really stuffed himself full. And now listen to this…” Nathan paused for dramatic effect and winked at Simon. “They swore they’d never seen a corpse with such a horrified expression—his eyes wide with fear, his mouth open in a fixed scream, his cheeks sunken in. And they say his hair was white as snow, as if he’d caught sight of Satan and all the demons of the underworld at once! What a gruesome death!” Nathan shuddered before turning to examine his teeth again, extracting a filament of meat lodged there.
“Alone in the dark for days, a prisoner of his own madness!” Simon mused. “I wonder what sort of nightmares he suffered. Well, in the end, at least he found out exactly how that damn ergot works.”
By early November they were finally ready to leave. Simon and Magdalena paid a final visit to the beggars down under Neupfarr Church Square where they celebrated all night. Hans Reiser cried a bit, but when Simon promised him one of his books about herbs, the old man quickly calmed down again. The medicus knew he’d found a worthy successor in this man who was so thirsty for knowledge, that soon the beggars in Regensburg would be able to seek help from one of their own. After all, healing herbs grew in every garden in town and needed only to be gathered secretly, under the light of the moon.
Long after the little group cast off from the Regensburg raft landing, Nathan and his men stood on the pier waving farewell. Cold November rain lashed the faces of the passengers, and the horses made slow progress along the muddy towpath as they pulled the raft against the current. And in the days that followed, the weather didn’t improve. Wrapped tightly in their cloaks, hoods pulled far down over their faces, Simon and Magdalena stood in the bow, staring into a fog that hung low over the forests and fallow fields. Smoke rose from fires in the fields and wafted westward, homeward. Magdalena had written her mother a letter weeks back announcing they’d be returning, and now homesickness was consuming her with a yearning stronger than anything she’d ever felt.
After two endless weeks of travel, they came to the broad Lech River, and here at last, through the fog, the familiar church towers and gabled roofs appeared atop a hill.
“Schongau,” Magdalena said in a muted voice. “I thought we’d never get back.”
“Are you sure you really want to go back?” asked Simon, pulling her close.
As the cold rain whipped her face, Magdalena grew silent. Finally, through clenched teeth, she whispered an answer. “Do we have a choice?”
As soon as they left the Schongau raft landing and started up toward the Tanners’ Quarter, they noticed something was wrong. It was almost noon, but there was no one in the streets. Many doors had been bolted shut and the windows nailed closed with thick boards. A few stray dogs and cats scurried through the muddy streets, but it was otherwise as quiet as a cemetery.
“Somehow I pictured our homecoming differently,” the hangman said. “Where is everyone? At mass? Or have the Swedes attacked again?”
Simon shook his head. “It looks to me like people are afraid of something.” Little bouquets of St. John’s Wort hung from doors, and some windows were marked with pentagrams and crosses drawn in chalk. “For heaven’s sake,” he muttered. “What happened here?”
Walking faster, they finally arrived at the hangman’s house at the far end of the Tanners’ Quarter. Unlike the other buildings, the door here stood open, and as they arrived, a figure that Magdalena didn’t recognize at first emerged from the house into the gloomy daylight.
My God, Mother…
With a pail of garbage in her hand, Anna-Maria Kuisl shuffled into the yard. Stooped, she looked smaller and more fragile than Magdalena remembered. The hangman’s daughter also thought she noticed a few new white strands in her mother’s black hair.
She’s gotten old, Magdalena thought, old and sad.
When Anna-Maria lifted her head and saw her daughter and the others before her, she dropped the bucket and uttered a loud cry. “Thanks be to all the saints! You’re back! You’re really back!”
She ran toward her husband and daughter and, embracing them, began to sob. For a long time they stood there in the rain, a little bundle of humanity lost in their love for one another. Off to one side Simon could only shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
Finally Kuisl straightened up, wiped his eyes, and began to speak.
“What’s happened here?” he asked, gesturing at the surrounding houses. “Speak up, wife; what pestilence did the Lord God send this time to test us?”
“The Plague,” his wife whispered, making the sign of the cross. “The Plague. It’s already claimed more than two hundred people, and every day there are more, and…”
In a flash all the color drained from Kuisl’s face. He took his wife firmly in his arms. “The children! What’s happened to the children?” he gasped.
Anna-Maria smiled weakly. “They’re well, but for how long I don’t know. I made them a potion of toads and vinegar according to a recipe from the hangman Seitz in Kaufbeuren, but Georg won’t drink it.”
“Nonsense!” Kuisl snapped. “Toads and vinegar! Woman, who talked you into this nonsense? It’s high time I put things in order around here. Let’s go inside. I’ll make the children a cup of angelica powder and—”
The sound of footsteps cut him short. Turning, he saw Johann Lechner in the yard behind him. The Schongau secretary wore a long brown fur coat over his nondescript official garb. He looked as if he’d stepped out for a short walk and just happened to drop by the Tanners’ Quarter. To his left and right stood two nervous guards with cloths tied over their mouths, looking for all the world as if they wanted nothing more than to get out of here at once.
“How nice you’re back,” Lechner began softly, a sardonic smile on his lips. “You can see we’ve removed the garbage from town ourselves while you were away. Actually, that’s the hangman’s job, but when he’s nowhere to be found…” He paused briefly, menacingly. “Believe me, Kuisl, there will be consequences.”
“I had my reasons,” the executioner said tersely.
“Of course, of course.” Lechner nodded almost sympathetically. “We all have our reasons. But more than a few people believe the terrible odors and fumes from the trash brought the Plague to Schongau. And that the hangman is therefore to blame for all our misfortune. What do you have to say to this theory, huh?”
Kuisl remained defiantly silent.
Finally the secretary continued, drawing patterns in the mud with his walking st
ick as he spoke. “I’ll admit that when I heard you were coming back, my first thought was to have you dragged out of town in an animal hide and pushed into the nearest manure pit,” he said casually. “But then it occurred to me what an outrageous waste that would be.” Lechner looked the hangman in the eye. “I’m going to take pity on you one more time, Kuisl. The city needs you—and not just to haul the garbage away. People are talking about the wonder of your healing practices, and it just so happens that we could stand a few miracles right now, especially since we don’t have a medicus at the moment…” Lechner’s words hovered in the air like the Sword of Damocles. He turned his gaze to Simon, waiting for a reaction.
“What… what do you mean by that?” Simon felt as if the ground were slipping from under him, and his throat was suddenly parched. “My father… is he…?”
Lechner nodded. “He’s dead, Simon. Your father didn’t hide from this terrible sickness; he visited the sick in their homes. You can be proud.”
“My God,” Simon whispered. “Why him?”
“Only the dear Lord can say. It’s often the bravest doctors who leave us first.”
Simon was overwhelmed now by countless images and thoughts. He’d left his father angry, and now he’d never see him again. Simon remembered when, as a little boy, he accompanied his father and the camp followers in the war. He remembered the years he’d looked up to his father. Bonifaz Fronwieser had been a respected army surgeon at the time, a good doctor and healer, not the drunken, hot-tempered quack he later became in Schongau. Simon hoped he could remember his father as he used to be. Indeed, it seemed he’d regained some of his earlier dignity just before the end.
For a long time no one spoke. Finally Lechner cleared his throat. “We’ll need a new doctor in town,” he said. “I know, Simon, you never completed your university studies, but no one has to know that.”
Simon gave a start. In spite of his grief, hope sparked within him. Had he heard correctly? Had Lechner just proposed he take over as town doctor? He felt Magdalena squeeze his hand, and right then he knew what to do.