Sebastian Harsee clenched his fist and pounded the bedpost so hard that the pain at least made him forget his headache for a moment. He couldn’t get sick now, not when everything was going his way. For half his life, he’d waited for this werewolf. The devil had finally come to Bamberg spreading fear, and fear was the glue that held this city together. Finally his flock had gathered around their shepherd, finally they turned to the Lord God in their despair. With the help of this werewolf, Harsee would succeed in doing what had been denied to him and his followers almost forty years ago: to turn Bamberg into a City of God. And now, this accursed illness had confined him to his bed.
In addition, the bishop of Würzburg, Johann Philipp von Schönborn, an elector of the Empire in person, had announced his arrival the next evening. Together with the Bamberg bishop, Schönborn would be attending this ridiculous competition between the two theater groups that His Stupid Excellency had naively thought up in order to impress his powerful neighbor.
Harsee shook his head angrily as a new wave of pain racked his body. It was finally time for him to take the reins of leadership firmly in hand in this city. His bishop was so enamored of his menagerie—his monkeys, bears, peacocks, and all his other useless pastimes—that it was quite possible he would soon retire to his estate in the country and turn over the rule to the cathedral chapter. And Harsee had already softened up the cathedral chapter, gaining their trust. Finally, he, Sebastian Harsee, the most devout servant in the vineyard of the Lord, would be the man of the future—a powerful adversary of the depraved worldliness spilling over from the neighboring bishopric of Würzburg.
Harsee and the Würzburg Bishop Schönborn had for a long time shared a deep antipathy for each other. Unlike the Bamberg suffragan bishop, Johann Philipp von Schönborn had always been a vocal opponent of witch trials, which he had forbidden for years in the Würzburg bishopric. Harsee was well aware that Schönborn would do everything he could to limit the suffragan bishop’s hard-won influence, a project that was all the more threatening because Johann Philipp von Schönborn was not only the Würzburg bishop but at the same time the bishop of Worms, archbishop of Mainz, and, as elector and friend of the kaiser, one of the mightiest men in the entire Reich.
Sebastian Harsee groaned and clenched his teeth as another bout of shivering came over him. He had to be there at all costs, to stop this coward Schönborn from talking to Rieneck about the werewolf trials. In the worst-case scenario, Schönborn might even talk the Bamberg bishop out of holding the trials. His whole plan was in danger if he didn’t recover soon. At least he’d been able to prevent this miserable executioner’s reception in the wedding house. A hangman dancing with honorable citizens. That contradicted the divine order and every sense of morality. It was really high time to lead this city back on the right path.
There was a knock on the door, and an anxious servant entered, bowing and scraping.
“What is it?” Harsee asked crossly, dabbing the cold sweat on his forehead.
“You . . . you asked for the bishop’s physician, Your Excellency,” the servant answered, looking down at the floor. “He has just arrived.”
“Well, then, send in that Jewish quack doctor, so he’ll at least earn his exorbitant salary.”
The servant disappeared, and Harsee licked his dry lips. He’d delayed a long time before calling Master Samuel. As a pious Christian, he couldn’t stand the Jews, even though Samuel’s family had converted long ago. In addition, Bishop Rieneck put blind trust in the doctor. Ever since the doctor had started treating the bishop’s mistress for the French disease, His Excellency had become more and more attached to the quack. Harsee feared that Samuel would secretly give the bishop false advice—after all, the doctor was also an opponent of the werewolf trials. He should never have allowed the man to serve on the committee.
And from the very outset Harsee had disliked the doctor’s friend, this dubious little scholar whom he brought with him to the meetings. Who was he, anyway? Some sort of impostor? Well, as soon as he recovered, he’d make inquiries. Perhaps he could use this acquaintance to make a noose for the Jewish doctor.
There was another knock on the door, and Master Samuel entered with a shamelessly casual bow. He was carrying a large, worn leather bag.
“Your Excellency, you called me?” he asked, looking at Harsee with concern. “You didn’t look well today at the council meeting. It appears you have a fever.”
Harsee nodded with visible impatience. “It doesn’t take a doctor to see that,” he mumbled. “I called for you so you could do something for me, and quickly. Can you?”
“That depends entirely on what’s ailing you. Tell me exactly how you feel.”
Annoyed, Harsee told the doctor about his stabbing headaches, vomiting, and dizziness. Master Samuel listened silently and finally opened his leather bag with its dozens of little pockets and compartments. After looking around, he pulled out a long wooden stick.
“For heaven’s sake, what is that?” Harsee mumbled. “A cooking spoon?”
“It’s a tongue depressor, Your Excellency. I’d like to have a look at your throat, and that’s why I need this instrument. Would you please open your mouth?”
With a shrug, the suffragan bishop let himself be examined. Master Samuel pressed his tongue down and seemed to put it all the way into the back of his throat.
“Harrummff . . . ,” Harsee croaked.
“Say again?” Samuel pulled the stick back out of the bishop’s mouth.
“I said spare me this newfangled treatment,” Harsee grunted. “If you’ll bleed me properly, it’ll get better.”
Samuel frowned. “In your present condition, I’d strongly advise against that. You’re already weak enough. A bleeding could kill you.”
“Kill me? Ha!” Harsee shook his head, and again a stabbing pain passed over his forehead. “I just have a fever, that’s all. If you can’t bleed me, then find something else to do so I can get out of bed by tomorrow night at the latest. You know yourself that the bishop of Würzburg is coming to visit us, and I must be there.”
“I’m sorry, Your Excellency, but the bishop will have to do without you,” the doctor replied calmly. “Absolute rest is the only thing—”
“Damn it all! I . . . I order you to . . .” Sebastian Harsee tried to get out of bed, but his body was again racked by a spasm of pain. He fell back, groaning, and allowed Master Samuel to unbutton his shirt and place an odd-looking wooden horn against his chest. The doctor put his ear up to it and appeared to be concentrating intensely.
“What . . . what are you doing there?” the suffragan bishop gasped. “What sort of devilish instrument is that?”
“It’s an instrument I invented to check a patient’s heartbeat,” the doctor answered as he put it back in his bag. “Yours is much too fast. You shouldn’t get so excited.”
Samuel was carefully palpating the patient’s chest when, suddenly, he stopped.
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing to a little scab on his patient’s neck.
“Oh, that? Nothing important.” Harsee waved him off. At that moment the spot began to itch badly again, and he scratched it hard. “Something probably bit me there. It just won’t heal, that’s all.”
Samuel fetched another strange instrument from his magic bag, a large glass lens with a handle, and looked at the wound more closely.
“Do you know what kind of creature that might have been?” he asked.
“No idea.” Suspiciously the suffragan bishop studied the lens. “Something must have bitten me during the night, perhaps a God-damned rat. Who cares?”
The doctor looked at him somberly. “There’s a red circle around the wound. I don’t like that at all. You should have put a bandage on it right away.”
“Damn it! If I need a bandage, I’ll go to a bathhouse,” Harsee growled. “I don’t call the bishop’s personal physician for that. Just tell me what to do about the fever and these damned headaches.”
Samuel was sti
ll examining the wound and appeared to be lost in his thoughts. Finally, he straightened up.
“Well, I’ll brew a potion for you out of elderberries and thistles. That will lower the fever. In addition, I’ll give you some willow bark for the headache.” Samuel pulled out a little bottle of a brownish liquid. “I always have a little bark essence with me. I suggest you take a few spoonfuls right away dissolved in wine.”
The suffragan bishop demurred. “Put it on the table over there. I don’t feel like drinking it right now.”
Samuel looked at him with concern. “But you should drink a lot. That’s important.”
“I said I just don’t want to,” Harsee snapped. “The very sight of any liquid makes me sick to my stomach. So get that stuff out of my sight.”
With a shrug, Samuel put the little bottle down on the table, then turned back to his patient.
“If you really want to get better, I can only advise you to drink a lot. And you absolutely must stay in bed the next few days. You are seriously ill, Your Excellency.”
“Just let me worry about that.” Harsee forced a grin—he had calmed down somewhat. “I assume the bishop also invited you to the play tomorrow and the following evening, as the two of you understand each other so well,” he added smugly.
Samuel nodded. “Indeed he has, as well as my friend Simon Fronwieser. It’s a great honor.”
“Ah. You see? If something happens to me, there will be two capable doctors available. I’m as safe as in the bosom of Abraham.”
Samuel sighed with resignation, then stood up and packed his bag.
“I can’t order you to do anything,” he said, shrugging. “Do what you think is right, Your Excellency. I just thought you wouldn’t be especially interested in worldly theater plays, anyway.”
“Believe me, the action that evening won’t be just on the stage,” the suffragan bishop replied dryly. “There will also be politics, with no prepared script, and I want to be sure to be there and play my part.” He winked, but it sounded like an order. “And now, farewell. I’ll wait for my medicines, and until then I have no need for you here, Jew.”
Master Samuel seemed to flinch on hearing the final words, but he excused himself silently with a stiff bow. Sebastian Harsee waited for the door to close, then let out a long, loud moan. His headache was killing him.
Absentmindedly he scratched the scab on his neck until he felt blood on his fingertips.
At least the itching took his mind off the fever.
“A runaway dog?”
Simon looked at Magdalena, astonished. Night was falling, but his wife and the two Kuisl brothers had returned to the executioner’s house only a few minutes before. Young Georg had been there for a while already and was chatting with the medicus. Simon had learned from him what had happened down by the river. Georg had finally been able to alert the guards in city hall, and the unfortunate peddler was saved at the last moment. He was now sitting in the city dungeon, awaiting his fate.
Simon had intended to tell the others about his strange encounter with Hieronymus Hauser, but what Magdalena told him now sounded so peculiar that he kept his own story to himself for the moment.
“I never believed that Bartholomäus had anything to do with this sleep sponge,” he said, casting a sympathetic glance at the Bamberg executioner, who was sitting with folded arms at the far end of the table. “Well, at least we know now what killed the stag we discovered in the Bamberg Forest as we were coming to town, and also why some people say they’ve seen a monster out there.” He shook his head. “It was just a dog.”
“Believe me, you can’t think of it as just an ordinary dog.” Magdalena smiled grimly. “It’s more like a—” she started to say when her father interrupted her rudely.
“It’s a monster of a beast,” he growled, “as large as a calf and with long teeth. Even if it isn’t the werewolf we’re looking for, it’s still some sort of monster.”
“You don’t know Brutus,” Bartholomäus objected. “I raised him since he was a little pup. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, he’s just playing.”
“Damn it, that’s the last straw.” Jakob pounded the table with his fist and glared at his brother. “Your beloved Brutus probably killed two people, Bartl. If we didn’t have so many other problems now, I’d report you to the authorities.”
“You’d turn in your own brother?” he snarled. “That would be just like you.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with snitching, you dumb yokel. We have to protect people from this beast. Now just shut your mouth before I do it for you.”
Simon sighed softly as he looked at the two brothers. Just a while ago it seemed they’d finally reconciled with each other. Magdalena had suggested that they were on speaking terms again, after their rehashing of events that had happened a long time ago. But evidently their enmity ran too deep.
“You mentioned before that there was a way we could help Matheo and Barbara,” said Simon, turning to his father-in-law to try to put an end to the awkward topic. “What was your plan?”
“Bah! That’s no plan, it’s a suicide mission,” Bartholomäus scoffed. Then he turned silent and leaned back on the bench, sulking.
Jakob cleared his throat, then briefly explained what he wanted to do. Simon and Georg listened silently while cold sweat poured down Simon’s back.
“You mean we’ll just pretend we’ve caught a werewolf?” Simon shook his head in disbelief. “Do you really think you can get away with that?”
“No, of course it’s not going to work,” Jakob growled, “because every damn one of you is so chickenhearted. God, if during the war, I had—”
“Let’s not get started about the war again, Father,” Magdalena interrupted. Then she turned to the family, trying to calm them down. “I know the plan sounds absurd at first, but it might succeed for just that reason. If we all work together.”
Simon frowned. “The bishop has invited me to the performance tonight. This Sebastian Harsee is a very distrustful man—he always looks at me with suspicion. If I don’t go—”
“Just stop worrying, you sissy. I have another job for you,” his father-in-law interrupted, “one where you won’t trip over your own feet or get any dirt on your fine clothes. You’re a friend of this Jewish quack, aren’t you? We need a few ingredients from him that Bartl doesn’t have in the house—poppy-seed oil, mandrake, henbane, and hemlock.”
Simon stopped short. “Henbane and hemlock? But they’re all—”
“Ingredients for a sleep sponge, right.” Kuisl nodded. “If the werewolf can use them, so can we. That way, we’ll get rid of the guards. The stuff isn’t very reliable. The men will just be dazed, and not for very long. Everything that happens will seem like a dream to them.” The hangman flashed a mischievous smile. “And let’s make sure it’s a real nightmare. Georg”—he turned to his son—“you go over to the furrier’s and see if you can get some cheap furs and skins.”
“Furs and skins, right.” Georg nodded hesitantly. “But why?”
“Don’t you get it?” Magdalena said, looking around impatiently. “Father and Uncle Bartholomäus are going to dress up like monsters so the guards will think a real werewolf is attacking them. Later, when they wake up, a large, dead wolf will be lying next to them. They’ll think it’s the real werewolf that had attacked them before.”
“And where are we going to find this wolf?” Simon wondered.
Magdalena pointed toward the door. “In the shed next door. A real beast that Aloysius caught in one of his traps. Rigor mortis will have set in already, but in their excitement the guards will never notice.” She winked at her uncle. “After all, they’d just been attacked by a ferocious werewolf.”
“Hold on just a moment.” Bartholomäus bent over the table with a threatening look in his eye. “Maybe I’ll give you the key to the dungeon, fine, but there’s no way I’m going to wrap myself up in a stinking animal hide.”
“Think of your darling little pets,” J
akob said in a grim tone. “You want to keep them, don’t you? So help us. It’s as simple as that.”
“Just stop this!” Magdalena looked at her father angrily, then turned to Bartholomäus and said in a conciliatory tone, “You’re doing it for Barbara. She is your niece, after all. Besides, you’ve said yourself you don’t want this werewolf trial. If we can present people with a dead werewolf, perhaps we can still stop this madness. Katharina would surely want the same thing.”
“Keep Katharina out of this. It’s bad enough that you bring me into it.” Bartholomäus bit his lip and seemed to be struggling. “Very well,” he finally said. “I’ll do it. But if anything goes wrong—”
“It’s not your fault,” his brother interrupted. “Understood.” He turned around to Simon. “Do you think you can talk your Jewish friend into giving us a few more ingredients?”
Simon thought for a moment. “It depends. What were you thinking of?”
“Brimstone, charcoal, and saltpeter.” Jakob grinned again. Despite his age, he sometimes seemed to Simon like a kid thinking up new tricks. “All three ingredients are used separately as medications,” the hangman explained with visible satisfaction, “but together they make up the most devilish stuff man has ever thought up: gunpowder. At the end, we want to give our werewolf a send-off that all of Bamberg will be talking about, don’t we?” He clapped his hands. “We don’t want to cover anything up. Besides, sulfur stinks so much, they’ll think the beast comes straight from hell. Matheo will get out of the dungeon, and no one will suspect my brother of having opened the door.”