Magdalena nodded. “So this is the way we’re going to distribute the work. Simon will get the necessary ingredients today from Doctor Samuel, Georg will go to the furrier for the furs and hides, and tomorrow night, Father, Uncle Bartholomäus, and I will sneak down to the dungeon in the old courthouse.”
Simon looked at his wife, confused. “Why you? I thought—”
“At first I wasn’t especially crazy about the idea, myself,” Jakob interrupted, “but Magdalena convinced me that she could perhaps distract some of the guards. We don’t know how many there are. If there are only two or three of them, Bartholomäus and I can manage, but if there are more, we’ll have a problem.”
“Damn it! If something goes wrong, you’ll all be hanged as heretics and devil worshippers,” Simon groaned. “Do you realize that?”
“I think they’d rather break us on the wheel and cut our guts out,” Jakob replied. “That’s what they used to do in Schongau. What do you think, Bartholomäus?”
His brother nodded. “They could also boil us in oil, which is what they sometimes do with warlocks and counterfeiters, but to do that they need a competent hangman. It will be hard to find one so quickly. Perhaps the Nuremberg executioner?”
“Just stop that,” Simon groaned. “That . . . that’s dreadful.” He turned to his wife. “Magdalena, I won’t allow you to be part of this madness.”
But Magdalena just shrugged and turned away. “Oh, come, Simon. We’ve survived all sorts of adventures together. And besides, you forget that most of the guards will probably be down at Geyerswörth Castle. Nothing will happen.”
Simon closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Why did he have to marry such a stubborn, rebellious woman?
I can only hope that our sons turn out a bit more like me. But at least in Paul’s case, I already have my doubts. He shuddered.
In the excitement, he’d completely forgotten to inquire about the children. “And where are Peter and Paul?” he asked, frowning. “They’re not at Katharina’s house. She’s there with her father crying her eyes out.”
Magdalena squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry, they’re being well cared for. The old tavern keeper over at the Wild Man is keeping an eye on them and telling them exciting stories. I looked in on them a while ago, and they’re fine. I just thought it would be better for us to have a good talk and not be distracted.” She looked over at her younger brother and smiled. “But as soon as Georg gets back from the furrier’s, he’ll be a good uncle and care for them. Won’t you?”
Georg folded his arms in front of his chest and jutted his chin forward. “Hey, that wasn’t what we agreed on. Magdalena gets to go along with Father and Uncle Bartholomäus to free Matheo, and I’m supposed to stay home caring for the kids and singing lullabies? That’s not fair.”
“Damn it, Georg. You’re only fifteen,” his father growled. “It’s bad enough that Magdalena is involved in this. You’ll stay here, and that’s my last word.”
Georg was going to object, but when he saw the severe look on his father’s face, he kept quiet. After a moment’s silence, Bartholomäus cleared his throat.
“There’s something else I’ve got to tell you,” he began cautiously. “Before I started out for the Bamberg Forest this noon, I was down at the river. I spoke with the ragpicker Answin on account of the filth in the moat. Answin also has the job of making sure the Regnitz stays more or less clean, so I thought he could help me to clean the moat, too.”
“And?” Jakob asked harshly.
“Well, this morning Answin fished another body out of the water. I only got a brief look at it, and it’s in bad shape, but I think it’s Thadäus Vasold—you know, the missing councilman.”
“Damn it!” Jakob jumped to his feet. “Why didn’t you say that before? We must have a look at the body. Every victim has something to tell us about the murderer. Now Answin has probably taken it to the guards’ office in city hall.”
Bartholomäus shrugged. “Not necessarily. Sometimes he keeps the body—especially if it is in as bad condition as Vasold is—and the guards come to him and inspect the corpse there before it’s buried.”
“Then let’s pay a visit to Answin as soon as we can, before it gets dark.” Jakob was already halfway out the door. “I don’t think we’ll be allowed to examine the corpse, as we did the last time, if it’s already in the hands of the guards,” he said, rubbing his huge nose. “And I’m convinced this dead man has a story or two to tell us.”
Without another word, he disappeared into the street.
A short while later, Simon and Magdalena were sitting alone at the table. Bartholomäus had followed Jakob down to the river, and, after sulking a while, Georg had started on his way to the furrier’s. On his way back, he’d pick up the two boys at the Wild Man. For the first time in a long while, Simon was sitting together undisturbed with Magdalena—there were no whining children, and no grumbling father-in-law to constantly tell him what to do.
The sweet smell of resin came from a few logs crackling in the fireplace, and Simon suddenly noticed how hungry he was. He’d had nothing to eat that day except for a skimpy breakfast before the council meeting. He walked over to the stove, cut off a few slices of smoked sausage hanging from the chimney hood, put them onto two plates along with some bread, then pushed one plate down the table to Magdalena, who immediately started eating.
For a while they ate silently while Simon tried to gather his thoughts. There was so much to discuss that he hardly knew where to begin. Magdalena was still firmly determined to stay for the wedding that had been postponed indefinitely. Perhaps now, however, everything would happen much faster than they’d expected. Once Matheo was free, there would be no reason for Barbara to hide from her father, and perhaps they could soon leave for home.
But it’s also possible we’ll be branded as witches and conjurers of werewolves, then quartered and boiled in oil.
Suddenly, Simon had lost his appetite. He poured cups of diluted wine for his wife and himself, then took Magdalena’s hand. “Are you really sure you want to go through with this?” he asked. “If something goes wrong tomorrow night—”
“Nothing will go wrong,” Magdalena snapped, and pulled her hand away. “Besides, a family always has to stick together, no matter how tough things get. That’s something you’ll have to learn if you want to become a real Kuisl.” She gave him a wan smile. “I’m especially happy that Father and Uncle Bartholomäus will work together to get this poor fellow out of the dungeon. Perhaps that will help, finally, to end their hostility.”
“You dropped a few hints before,” he said. “Did you finally learn what came between the two of them long ago?”
Magdalena nodded gloomily. “Oh, yes, I know. Perhaps I even know more than I want to.”
Hesitantly, she told Simon about the death of her drunken grandfather and her father’s sudden flight from Schongau.
“And he simply left Bartholomäus and little Elisabeth behind, all by themselves?” He frowned. “Just what was he thinking?”
“He was still just a boy, Simon. And he didn’t want to become an executioner. I can understand what he did,” she said with a dark expression. “I had the impression that Uncle Bartholomäus was bothered even more by something else . . . Something to do with our family, with my great-grandfather’s legacy.”
“What sort of legacy?” he asked, surprised. “I’ve never heard anything about that.”
But Magdalena just shook her head. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. It’s . . . a family matter.” She hesitated, then nodded with determination. “Most of all, I’m glad we’ve put all this madness behind us.” Then she looked at him with curiosity. “But you haven’t told me yet about what happened this morning in the council meeting.”
Simon sighed and shrugged. “Actually, nothing of importance, except that the suffragan bishop evidently has some sort of fever coming on. Also, they’ve offered a reward to anyone who can provide a tip about other suspects. You can ima
gine how many werewolves we’ll have in Bamberg before long.” He took a sip from his cup, then paused. “But after that, something really strange happened. It has to do with Bartholomäus’s future father-in-law. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it before, when your uncle was here. He might have gotten angry and refused to help us.”
In a low voice he told Magdalena about his visit to the Hausers, his conversation with Hieronymus, and the latter’s strange behavior.
“He went straight over to the old courthouse, and from there probably right to the bishop’s archive,” he said finally.
“The bishop’s archive?” She stopped to think. “What do you think he was looking for there?”
“Well, it’s possible it didn’t have anything to do with us. But perhaps it did. Who knows, but it appears he was going to check something in the records.”
“Do you think we could find out what that was?” she asked.
Simon laughed, at a loss. “I’m afraid that would be hard to do. If the archive is as large as I think, there are thousands of files there. It would be like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.” He shook his head. “Hieronymus would have to tell us himself, and he probably won’t do that.”
He pushed the cup aside with a sigh and stood up. “It’s time for me to pay a visit to Samuel and ask him for the necessary ingredients for your cloak-and-dagger operation.” One last time he gave Magdalena an earnest look. “And then let’s pray this hocus-pocus doesn’t send us all to an early grave.”
“Damn it all, won’t you wait?” Jakob heard the voice of his brother behind him and the familiar scraping sound as Bartholomäus dragged his crippled leg through the mud.
Jakob stopped and turned around. “Have you decided to come along after all?” he asked crossly.
“You . . . you don’t know Answin,” Bartholomäus gasped, out of breath, as he caught up with his brother. “If I’m not there with you, he won’t tell you a damn thing.”
“I’d make him talk,” Jakob grumbled as he stomped ahead through the narrow lanes, which were already in the shadows on this autumn afternoon. Despite his grumpy reply, Jakob was glad that Bartholomäus was coming along—not only because he really did have a better chance of learning something from the ragpicker if his brother came with him, but also because he still felt rather moved by the earlier confession in the forest. As young children, he and Bartholomäus had played together a lot; they’d practiced beheadings using carrots hung on strings, they’d run through the forest with wooden swords, and they’d watched when their father took down the huge executioner’s sword and polished it on a large grindstone with a leather strap. Jakob had never loved his younger brother—they were too different—but there was still a bond between them, even now, after all the years. Their fight in the forest had shown Jakob once again that one can’t run away from one’s own family.
You take them in, no matter what.
Since those days, he’d visited Bartholomäus only once before in Bamberg. That was during the Great War, when Jakob was a sergeant under General Tilly. He’d learned by chance that a certain Bartholomäus Kuisl was the executioner in Bamberg, and since the army was passing near the city, he wanted to make sure that this Bartholomäus was actually his brother. Their conversation was short and gruff, because while Jakob had expected something like an absolution for running away, there was no forgiveness, and he felt his younger brother had cut ties with him.
But that wasn’t the main reason their parting had been unfriendly. It all went back to their grandfather, Jörg Abriel, the most famous and most feared of all the hangmen in the German Reich.
Jakob had told Bartholomäus that he’d burned Abriel’s magic books shortly after he left, without knowing how much those books had meant to his brother. Bartholomäus had reacted with horror and revulsion on hearing that Jakob had simply consigned the family’s most valuable heritage to the flames.
What Jakob had really done with them, Bartholomäus would never know; Jakob had sworn to take that secret with him to the grave.
Bartholomäus had never forgiven his older brother for the destruction of their heritage, and ever since then, Jakob had looked down condescendingly on his younger brother, who was earning good money in Bamberg but cared little for the wisdom and logic of medicine. Instead he had decided to seek salvation in ancient grimoires, books of black magic.
They’d parted ways, but then Jakob had become a hangman himself and, out of necessity, sent his son Georg to serve Bartholomäus as an apprentice. Suddenly he himself couldn’t tell right from wrong.
“When we’re with Answin, let me do the talking,” Bartholomäus said, putting an end to Jakob’s dark musings. “He’s a little peculiar. It must have something to do with his job.”
“The man is a ragpicker,” Jakob replied. “What’s so peculiar about that?”
“Well, you have to understand that Answin doesn’t just collect rags. The Regnitz washes ashore all kinds of filth, which he has to fish out. A lot of things get stuck in the millwheels and weirs that otherwise would have settled to the bottom of the river and disappeared forever.” His face darkened as they walked through the busy alleys. “Every year there are at least a dozen corpses among them. Some are suicides—people who’ve suffered some tragedy and jumped in the river—and many are people who were robbed and murdered. The city guards go to visit Answin regularly. He’s not just a ragpicker but a corpse fisher, and he makes good money doing it.”
Jakob frowned. “How does he do that?”
His brother stopped and pointed down at the river that wound its way between some warehouses and markets like a black, stinking ribbon. Behind it were the cathedral mount and the other hills.
“Often, the victim’s relatives are looking desperately for the corpse in order to give it a decent burial,” he explained. “Answin is their last hope. For each corpse he fishes out, he demands three guilders, and rich people pay even more. He’s fair, even with his corpses.”
By now, they’d reached the bend in the river that separated the old and the new parts of the city. The city hall lay nearby on the right, and on the left were the piers and jetties, with boats tied up and bobbing in the current in the last light of day. Jakob remembered leaving the knacker’s wagon there almost a week ago when he and Bartholomäus were on their way to city hall. Two rowboats sat on jacks in an open shed near the piers. Next to one of them, a filthy-looking man with matted, flaming-red hair was applying caulk to some holes in the hull with a spatula.
“Good day, Answin,” Bartholomäus said.
The ragpicker raised his head, and Jakob could see he was blind in one eye, with black scabs covering the encrusted tissue. With his good eye he regarded the two suspiciously.
“Who’s the guy with you?” he asked cautiously. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“My brother, who’s come all the way from Schongau. He’s here for the wedding.”
Answin grinned. “For the reception that is probably not going to happen, according to everything I hear. Too bad, I would have fished a few nice clothes out of the river for myself.”
“So you could come to my party stinking like an old catfish?” Bartholomäus laughed. “Perhaps it’s just as well it will probably be a smaller crowd.” Then he turned serious. “But I’m not here to make small talk with you. I came to ask about the corpse you found in the river. Is it still here?”
“That councilor?” Answin nodded. “Of course. He’s not going to run away.”
Now that Jakob was standing right next to him, he noticed that the ragpicker had an old, familiar smell about him—not very strong, but nonetheless overlaying everything.
The smell of rotting corpses.
“I informed the city guards some time ago, but so far no one has taken the trouble to stop by,” he said. “Apparently they’ve got their hands full. Chief Lebrecht has looked pretty damned upset recently. I’d like to know what his problem is. Well, whatever.” He snorted. “Just this noon, a few g
uys tried to drown some poor fellow over in the harbor, and now the guards are checking some tips they got concerning this damned werewolf.” The ragpicker lowered his voice and looked around carefully with his one eye. “The whole city is one huge hornet’s nest. If this doesn’t stop, I’ll have a lot more corpses to fish out of the river.”
“Can we have a look at him?” Bartholomäus asked.
“Sure, sure.” Answin put the bucket of tar on the floor and walked down to the river. “He hasn’t gotten any better, though. If the guards don’t come soon, he’ll start falling apart.”
They followed him to the shore where a dock led out into the water, then walked over moldy, rotten planks to a place where there was a sort of wooden tub alongside the dock, hammered together out of rough boards. Something in it was bobbing up and down, and Jakob at first took it to be a bunch of rags. He had to look twice before realizing it was a corpse floating facedown. The body was clothed in a wet, black overcoat that was moving slowly back and forth in the water.
“I use this tub for keeping eels, and sometimes a dead body,” Answin explained. “Both of them keep better in cold water. Why are you interested in this corpse, anyway?”
“Oh, it’s a long story, Answin,” said Bartholomäus, winking at him. “I’ll tell you some other time—who knows, perhaps over some fine pastry at our wedding reception, if we ever have one.”
“Mmm, pastry, delicious. I like it most of all with lingonberries.” The ragpicker licked his lips. The sight of the corpse, and the foul stench rising from the tub despite the cool river water, seemed not to trouble him. He looked at Jakob curiously as he climbed down a slippery ladder to the tub and tugged at the corpse’s overcoat until the body finally turned over on its back. Cold eyes, like those of a dead fish, stared up at the hangmen.