The Beggar King
He embraced the hangman’s daughter and held her close. “Thank you for your offer, Your Excellency,” he whispered. “But I’ll accept only on the condition that you also welcome the new doctor’s future wife. Magdalena knows more about herbs than anyone. She’ll be an invaluable help to me.”
Lechner frowned. “A hangman’s daughter, the town doctor’s wife? How do you figure that?”
“You don’t have to call him a medicus,” Magdalena replied defiantly. “If it’s only a question of the title, then Simon will…” She thought for a while, then her face brightened. “Then he’ll become a bathhouse owner.”
There was a brief silence broken only by the crows cawing from rooftops.
“Bathhouse owner?” Simon stared at her in disbelief. “Cleaning dirty wooden tubs, bleeding people, and shaving their beards? I don’t think I’d care for that. It’s a dishonorable vocation that—”
“Exactly; then you will fit in with me,” the hangman’s daughter interrupted. “And I’ll be glad to take care of the shaving, if you really find that so disagreeable.”
Lechner shook his head thoughtfully. “Bathhouse operator? Why not? Actually, that’s not a bad idea at all. We do have one in town already, but he’s a drunken scoundrel, and the only thing he knows how to do is bleed people of their money. For all intents and purposes you’ll be working as a medicus, I guarantee that. After all, there’s no doctor in town, so you won’t have any competition.” Satisfied, he nodded. “Bathhouse operator. That could be a solution.”
“And the people?” Anna-Maria interjected. “What will people say? When I think of Berchtholdt and the way they taunted my poor Magdalena…” She shook her head. “I never want to live through a night like that again.”
“You don’t have to worry about Berchtholdt anymore,” Johann Lechner replied. “The Plague claimed him two days ago. Not even his wife shed a tear.” The secretary shrugged. “All the St. John’s Wort, rosaries, and Ave Marias in the world couldn’t save him in the end. Last night they took him down to Saint Sebastian’s Cemetery and buried him as fast as they could. May his soul rest in peace.” The secretary quickly crossed himself. “So are we agreed, Fronwieser? Bathhouse owner for life, and I’ll do what I can to get the council to approve marriage with the hangman’s daughter.”
Simon hesitated for just a moment, then they shook on it. “Agreed.”
“Just a moment,” Kuisl grumbled. “You can’t go ahead and arrange a wedding here without first asking my permission. I always said the Steingaden executioner would make a good match for Magdalena—”
“Oh, stop with that foolishness!” Anna-Maria interrupted. “You can’t keep hiding the fact that you actually like Simon, and after everything he’s done for you, it would be an outrage if you were to refuse him now. So give him your blessing, then leave the two of them be. You’ve played the surly old bear long enough.”
Kuisl stared back at his wife, his mouth hanging open in astonishment. But words apparently failed him, and he said nothing more.
“Then I’ll leave the young couple to themselves.” A hint of a smile played across the secretary’s lips as he turned and hurried abruptly off with the guards in the direction of the Lech Gate. “I’ll expect to see you in two hours at your father’s house,” he called back to Simon. “And bring your woman along; there’s a lot to be done.”
The freshly crowned bathhouse owner grinned. As so often, Simon had the feeling Lechner had achieved exactly what he wanted. Simon took Magdalena by the arm and strolled back into the town with her, toward his father’s house.
As the couple disappeared through the Lech Gate, Kuisl and his wife entered the house and went up the stairs to the room where the twins were napping. They stood for a long time in front of the little beds, holding hands and watching their children’s calm and even breathing.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Anna-Maria whispered.
Kuisl nodded. “So innocent. And to think their papa has so much blood on his hands.”
“You numbskull! The children don’t need a hangman but a father,” she replied. “Remember, you’re the only one they have.”
A shadow passed over Kuisl’s face. He let go of his wife’s hand and stomped down the stairs without a word where he sat on the bench beneath the family altar for a long time, staring off into space and cracking his knuckles now and then.
When his wife saw him brooding there, she couldn’t help but smile. Anna-Maria had grown accustomed to her husband’s moods; she knew he’d take his time before speaking again. Sometimes it took days. Without a word, she began pounding angelica root in a stone mortar. For a long time the rhythmic scrape of the pestle and the crackle of the flames were the only sounds in the room.
Finally, when she had had enough, she put down the pestle and ran her hand through her husband’s black hair, which was beginning to show the first signs of gray.
“What’s the trouble, Jakob?” she asked softly. “Don’t you want to tell me what happened in Regensburg?”
The hangman shook his head slowly. “Not today. I need some time.”
When Kuisl finally cleared his throat, he looked his wife directly in the eye.
“I’d just like to know one thing…” he began haltingly. “Back then, in Weidenfeld, when I saw you for the first time…”
Anna-Maria bit her lip and drew back. “We weren’t ever going to talk about that again,” she whispered. “You promised me that.”
Kuisl nodded. “I know. But I have to know, or it’ll tear me apart worse than the rack.”
“Then what is it you want to know?”
“Did any of those men touch you? You know what I mean—did they attack you? Philipp Lettner perhaps, that filthy bastard?” Kuisl put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Please tell me the truth! Was it Lettner? I swear it won’t change anything between us.”
For a long time the only sound in the room was the crackling birchwood on the hearth.
“Why do you want to know that?” Anna finally asked. “Why can’t things stay the way they were? Why must you hurt me?”
“Yes or no, for God’s sake!”
Standing, Anna-Maria walked over to the family altar and turned the crucifix around so the wooden Jesus faced the wall.
“The Savior doesn’t need to hear this,” she whispered. “No one does, except us.” Then, haltingly, she began to speak. She left nothing out. Her voice was hard and even, like the pendulum of a clock.
“Do you know how I washed myself after that?” she said finally. She stared off into space. “I washed for hours in the icy brooks along the way, in the rivers, ponds, whatever pool of water there was. But it didn’t help. The filth remained, like a mark of Cain that only I could see.”
“You kept silent a long time,” the hangman said softly. “You’ve never said a word about this until today.”
Anna-Maria closed her eyes for a moment before she continued. “When we got to Ingolstadt, I slipped away from you for a while. I went to visit an old midwife down by the river. She gave me a powder to get rid of it. The blood flushed it out—it was nothing but a little red clot.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “A week later, we made love for the first time. I held on to you, and I thought of nothing else.”
Kuisl nodded, his gaze transfixed by the past. “You clawed at my back. I couldn’t figure out whether out of pleasure or pain.”
Anna-Maria smiled. “The pleasure helped me forget the pain. The pleasure, and the love.”
“The powder from the midwife,” he asked. “What was it?”
His wife bent over him and ran her finger across the creases in his face. They were deep, like furrows in a field, and she knew each one intimately.
“Ergot,” she whispered. “A gift from God, or from the devil—take your pick. Just don’t take too much or you’ll fly off to heaven and never return.”
“Or to hell,” the hangman replied.
Then he took his wife in his arms and held her tight until all that remaine
d of the birch on the hearth were glowing embers.
TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO REGENSBURG
The book you have just read is actually a love letter. If a person can be said to love a city, then I love Regensburg, and I hope you will feel the same after reading this book. If you’re planning a visit, let me reassure you that today Regensburg doesn’t stink, all the roads are paved, and you won’t be locked up in the House of Fools if you’re out and about after eight o’clock in the evening.
While Regensburg is part of Bavaria, it feels very Italian—with its narrow lanes, café tables in the open air, any number of churches, a real cathedral, and a history that dates back to the Roman Empire. A wonderful city, it was just recently named a UNESCO World Heritage site.
If you want to learn more about Regensburg, I recommend a tour, either with one of the city guides or with STADTMAUS—an organization whose novel tours bring old Regensburg back to life with actors and dramatizations. But perhaps you’ll want to set out in the footsteps of the hangman’s daughter and visit the places that play a role in my book.
If you’re the type of person who insists on reading the last pages first, consider yourself warned: if you continue reading, you’ll learn who the villain is. Is that what you want? No? Then go back to the Prologue and start from the beginning. I hope you enjoy it!
On the other hand, if you’ve already finished, and enjoyed, the book, then take a trip to Regensburg, perhaps for a weekend. Pack comfortable shoes and a copy of this book and go! For the following city tour, you’ll need at least a day or, better yet, two. After all, you’re on vacation, not running a city marathon.
Just like Magdalena and Simon, we’ll start our tour through Regensburg down by the pier next to the Stone Bridge. The oldest stone bridge in Germany, it marked the border between the Free Imperial City of Regensburg and the Duchy and Electorate of Bavaria, right up until the nineteenth century. With its fifteen arches, it was—for people of the Middle Ages—one of the wonders of the world, if not one of the devil’s masterpieces.
In the seventeenth century, at the time of our story, Regensburg was still an important trade junction, thanks to the Danube, which was navigable by ship and connected the city with Vienna and, farther downstream, the Black Sea. The Danube landings teemed with rafts and raftsmen—and no doubt with any number of shady characters. You would search in vain here for raftmaster Karl Gessner’s house—it’s just an invention of mine—though brandy and tobacco smuggling were certainly common. That said, you’ll have a fine view here of the two Wöhrd Islands. On the Upper Wöhrd, the larger island, there were actually mills at the time—hammer mills and sawmills powered by the waters of the Danube. And local rumors claim there was once a smuggler’s tunnel under the Danube, just as in my story.
Fortify yourself with some Regensburg bratwurst, preferably at the famous Wurstkuchl, probably the oldest bratwurst restaurant in the world. The quaint little tavern stands right next to the bridge and was a popular meeting place, even in Jakob Kuisl’s time. The first written record of it dates back to 1616. Look for markings on the wall here that denote historic high-water river levels. The beautiful blue Danube may not seem so harmless anymore.
Walk west along the Danube and turn left into Weißgerbergraben. Three hundred years ago a bathhouse stood on this corner. Of course, there was no secret alchemist’s laboratory here and, as far as I know, never a devastating fire, either. The old house was torn down in the eighteenth century to make way for an imposing structure that housed a doctor’s office—a building still in the hands of the same family today.
Heading south along Weißgerbergraben, cross Arnulfsplatz and turn right onto Jakobsstraße. Farther still from the center of town stands Jakobstor (Jakob’s Gate), the gate by which the Schongau hangman entered the city and the place where he was first imprisoned overnight. The execution site was located only a few steps away at the time but has long since been torn down and built over.
Far more exciting is Jakobskirche (Jakob’s Church) with its famous “Scotch” portal. Itinerant Irish monks, called “Scoti” at the time, laid the cornerstone of this building at the end of the eleventh century. To this day, experts are still trying to decipher the meaning of the innumerable figures depicted in reliefs on the portal. Some represent society’s outcasts, like those who appear in my novel: prostitutes, street performers, beggars, witches. Try to find them all—it took me quite a long time, but in my search I realized society’s outcasts would be a central motif of the novel.
After crossing the Bismarckplatz (Bismarck Square), stroll back into town by way of Gesandtenstraße. Once called Scherergasse or Lange Gasse, this is where patricians and, later, the representatives to the Reichstag lived. Today it’s a shopping district, but the buildings still retain a certain touch of the distinction that characterized Regensburg at the time of the Perpetual Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire (Der Immerwährende Reichstag, 1663–1806). The building at 2 Gesandtenstraße, by the way, was my model for the home of city treasurer Paulus Mämminger—a figure who, like the Regensburg executioner, Philipp Teuber, really existed.
Moving along, we come to Neupfarrplatz (Neupfarr Church Square), where the remains of the Jewish Quarter can be found. In 1519 Jews were driven out of Regensburg, their homes razed. A church was built in this place, and the cellars of the old houses, which were often interconnected, were not rediscovered until 1995, during construction work on the church.
The entrance to the Document Neupfarrplatz, the subterranean museum, is rather inconspicuous. Because a tour there is possible only with a guide, you’ll need to inquire at the tourist office. But it’s worth seeing! The catacombs offer a vertical cross section of almost two thousand years of Regensburg history. Over Roman ruins the basements of Jewish homes were built, and above them a Catholic pilgrimage site and then a Protestant church. In the Second World War bunkers were built there, and after that, a public restroom. At the end of the twentieth century, when the cellars were partially excavated, a hoard of old gold coins was found there. The catacombs serve as the beggars’ hideout in my novel. I had been seeking such a historically documented setting for a while, and the first time I found myself down below amid the rubble, I knew I’d found it. I also liked the idea that the beggar king, Nathan, was living in catacombs built by his ancestors. Incidentally, Nathan is my favorite character in the novel, and that’s why I featured him in the title.
From Neupfarrplatz we turn into Residenzstraße and then right onto the Domplatz (the cathedral square). Here stands Regensburg’s landmark cathedral. Much has changed inside since Jakob Kuisl’s time. If you want to see the statuette of Saint Sebastian where Paulus Mämminger inserted his message for the kaiser’s agent, you’ll have to visit the cathedral museum next door. The statuette’s long arrow is in fact a tube from which the faithful used to sip consecrated wine during the festival of Saint Sebastian. History is indeed often stranger than fiction.
Nowadays you can doze in the sun or take a short nap on the steps of the cathedral without being assailed by a mob like Magdalena. Take a little break here, but if you’d like to see something really grandiose after lunch, walk over to the Haus Heuport (Heuport House).
The former patrician’s house stands directly across from the cathedral. In my novel it’s the home of the Venetian ambassador, Silvio Contarini, but today it’s a restaurant. Even if you’re not hungry, go and have a look around! Nowhere else can you get a better sense of how a patrician or an ambassador must have lived—with a secluded interior courtyard, magnificent halls, and large windows overlooking the Domplatz. On the stairway you’ll see the statue of the handsome young man with rats, toads, and snakes lodged in his back: an early clue to Silvio’s true character.
To the left of the cathedral stands the Bischofshof (bishop’s palace), where the hangman sought asylum. At that time an independent jurisdiction began just behind the west side of the great portal. The bishop’s brewery has since moved to another location, but the beer is nonetheless s
till highly recommended. I myself took refuge in the restaurant there during a long rain shower, and my appreciation for the brew grew with each glassful.
If you walk around the bishop’s courtyard, you’ll come to the adjoining Porta Praetoria, Regensburg’s oldest cultural monument. The Roman gateway, dating back to 179 AD, is one of the last remains of the castle Castra Regina, which gave Regensburg its name. In 1649 the gateway was part of the bishop’s brewery and wasn’t rediscovered until about two hundred years later. The walled-up passageway from the bishop’s residence into the street Unter den Schwibbögen (Under the Arches) is my invention, although the arches really existed as covered passageways. They led across the street from the bishop’s courtyard to some houses that belonged to the bishop’s residence.
A bit farther from the center of the city but on the same street was the tavern Zum Walfisch (the Whale), where Magdalena and Simon stayed. All that is left of this disreputable establishment is the sign in front showing Jonah and the whale. (The current establishment has nothing at all in common with the legendary Whale.) One of the most enigmatic figures in Regensburg history frequented this place in the late seventeenth century: the English ambassador Sir George Etherege, a dandy par excellence. The quirky nobleman and author of comedies surrounded himself with whores, gamblers, and magicians; held wild parties; and longed for his former profligate life in his native London. To escape boredom in Regensburg, he patronized the most infamous dives and danced half naked with prostitutes in the street. Do you recognize him now? I’ve tried to breathe new life into this strange figure in the character of the Venetian ambassador, Silvio Contarini. But surely Sir George was a lot more likable than the sleazy Venetian scoundrel.
Another character in my novel is based on a historical figure: the madam Dorothea. In the eighteenth century a certain Dorothea Maria Bächlein ran a house of prostitution at Peterstor (St. Peter’s Gate) on the south side of the city. Unfortunately nothing remains of the gate or the bordello, and the Henkershaus (Hangman’s House) at the present-day 2 Königsstraße is no longer standing, either.