“A friend of the city doctor?” Magdalena gasped. “Was it perhaps a little guy with a feather in his hat?”
“Uh, yes.” The guard finally seemed to notice her. “Do you know him? He must be a stranger here—I’ve never seen him before. Well, now that the werewolf has bit him, it’s probably curtains for him.”
“Bitten by the werewolf? My God, we’ve got to get to the castle right away and—” Magdalena was about to run away, but her father held her back.
“You’re not going anywhere like that, and certainly not alone,” he whispered to her. “As a dishonorable person you can’t enter the castle, anyway. If worse comes to worst they’ll suspect you of being in league with the devil. Look around. The whole city is in an uproar. We’d best get Matheo to a safe place and see if the children are all right.”
Magdalena stopped to think. She would, in fact, have difficulty getting into the castle, and besides, Simon had told her that Samuel had introduced him as a famous and widely traveled scholar. Even if she succeeded in getting through to Simon, she could hardly say she was his wife. In addition, she was worried about the children. The whole city seemed seized by panic, and she could only hope Georg hadn’t let the boys out of his sight.
“Very well,” she responded hesitantly. “Let’s first go have a look at the children.”
They all ran over the bridge together, leaving the befuddled watchman standing there, wondering what this strange group was up to. From all sides, curious people came toward them heading for the brightly lit castle. Others seemed to just have come from there and were excitedly telling their fellow citizens what they’d seen.
“I swear by Saint Barbara, our dear suffragan bishop turned into a terrifying werewolf,” a stout, elderly woman cried out, raising her hands imploringly toward the night sky. “I saw it with my own eyes—he has long teeth and even longer claws, and now he’s out in the city looking for victims. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Get yourself and your children to safety. Pray, or we will all be lost!”
Some of the braver young men had armed themselves with cudgels, pitchforks, and burning torches and were heading toward the castle.
“We must help the guards kill the beast,” one of them was shouting, evidently one of the journeymen of the dyer who had his workshop down by the river. “Up on the cathedral mount, the guards have already killed another werewolf—a huge beast. The battle must have been awful.” Magdalena saw that the journeyman was one of the men who’d nearly lynched the salesman the day before. In a raucous voice he was trying to stir up his friends.
“Surely we’ll find even more werewolves in the city,” he cried. “Follow me, friends!”
The grim-faced young men marched past the three Kuisls and the semiconscious Matheo without paying any attention to them.
“Good Lord, has everyone gone mad?” Jakob Kuisl murmured. “If the city guards don’t step in, they’ll all kill each other.”
“Your beautiful plan is all shot to hell, in any case,” Bartholomäus snapped. “With the suffragan bishop and the dead wolf up in the palace, all hell has broken loose here, no thanks to you. I’ll no doubt have more torturing and executions than I can handle. Why did I ever get involved in this?”
“No one could have foreseen that on this very night the suffragan bishop would go mad,” Jakob shot back. “But at least in all the turmoil no one will suspect you gave us the key to the dungeon.” He glared at his brother. “Besides, now you can’t blame yourself for not having done enough. Isn’t that what you always wanted—to be a good executioner? Now you can prove it.”
“Hah, you’ve still got the same fresh mouth as always. Just wait, I’ll . . .”
Bartholomäus prepared to take a swing at his brother but noticed at the last moment that something was standing between them: Matheo. With a grunt of disgust, he lowered his arm.
“Once again I have to wonder why I ever invited you to my wedding,” Bartholomäus grumbled. “I hoped you would have changed, Jakob, but you’re still the same old smart-ass.”
Jakob spat on the ground. “Don’t forget you’re not the one who invited me, but Katharina, because she wanted to have peace in the family.”
“Well, she sure made a mess of it.”
Magdalena turned her eyes away while the two men bickered back and forth. Finally she’d had enough.
“For God’s sake, can’t you ever think about anything but yourselves?” she asked. “May I remind you that you’re carrying a wounded man who needs your help and probably has a headache listening to all your whining?”
“You don’t talk to your father that way,” Jakob growled, but now in a calmer voice.
“And you don’t talk to your brother that way, either,” she replied. Bartholomäus started to snicker, but she glared back at him. “That goes for both of you.”
Silently they continued through the dark city, along the foul-smelling city moat, while the shouts behind them gradually faded away. Finally they arrived at the executioner’s house, which lay in total darkness. Magdalena looked up suspiciously at the second-floor windows.
“It looks like Georg has already gone to bed,” she said with a frown. “There’s no light up there.”
They opened the door and stepped inside. The house was cold, with only the odor of dead ashes in the air.
“Georg?” Magdalena called out. “Peter? Paul?”
When there was no reply she took the lantern and ran upstairs—but soon returned.
“They’re not here,” she said. “Where in the world can Georg have gone with the children? I hope nothing has happened to them.”
Nor to Simon, she thought suddenly, and a chill ran down her spine. Only then did it occur to her how bitter cold it had become in the last few hours.
“Perhaps Georg took the children to the castle to see what’s going on there,” said her father, trying to console her. But he, too, seemed slightly shaken.
Magdalena nodded hesitantly. “Well . . . maybe you’re right. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
They lit a warm fire in the stove and sat down at the table. Jakob busied himself with the injured Matheo, who seemed to have a high fever and kept waking up, screaming, from bad dreams. The hangman gave the young man some strong brandy mixed with valerian and Saint John’s wort until Matheo finally calmed down.
Bartholomäus huddled down on the long bench, cracked his knuckles, and kept looking at the executioner’s sword hanging, as always, in the devotional corner of the room alongside the crucifix.
“How many werewolves do you think they’ll catch tonight?” he asked in a soft voice. “How many men and women will scream their confessions to me on the rack that they’re in league with the devil? How many will I have to put to the stake?”
“Perhaps now you have a better understanding of why I left Schongau back then,” Jakob said as he placed a bandage on Matheo’s ankle coated with a yellowish, pleasant-smelling ointment. “I always preferred healing to killing and torturing.” He chuckled. “But they give us people to heal only after we’ve inflicted pain on them.”
Bartholomäus shook his head. “It wasn’t right, Jakob, and you can’t make it better with the same old explanations. You had responsibilities then, as the eldest. We were helpless, and you abandoned us.” He stopped short. After a while, he continued in a soft voice, staring blankly into space.
“I always loved animals more than people. Their souls are good—without malice or hatred. My first wife, Johanna, was just like that, like a sweet little fawn—not the brightest, but sweet. When she died on me, of consumption, I thought there was nothing more to come . . . but then came Katharina.”
Again there was a long pause.
“You will marry Katharina, it will all work out,” said Magdalena, trying to console him as she anxiously awaited the next ringing of the cathedral bells.
Where are the children? she wondered. Where is Simon?
Bartholomäus laughed out loud. “Do you think Katharina will still want to marry m
e if I turn into a killer? Up to now I’ve only had to deal with thieves and robbers. There was a woman who killed her child; I managed to arrange for her to be beheaded rather than drowned miserably like a cat. But what we’re facing now will be bad, very bad. Many innocent people will die, just like back during the witch trials . . .” Once again his gaze wandered over to the executioner’s sword with the strange sharkskin handle.
“As the story goes, the Bamberg executioner at the time, a certain Michael Binder, went mad after all the torturing and burning,” he said in a flat voice. “One day he just left town and vanished, and that’s why his position was open for me. Who knows, perhaps after all this I’ll turn as mad as Binder and disappear in the forests. Then your son Georg will be the new executioner.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It will start all over again, an eternal cycle. We take the guilt upon ourselves until we can no longer stand it.”
“Unless you step out of the circle,” Jakob murmured. “I at least tried, back then. But I came back.”
In the silence that followed, the only sound was Matheo’s occasional restless moaning. Finally, Magdalena stood up and paced aimlessly back and forth in the room. The far-off sound of bells could be heard from the cathedral.
“It’s midnight, and Georg and the children still aren’t here,” she said, hugging her freezing torso. “We don’t know how Simon is, either. We should go out and look for them. But where? In the castle? It seems to have calmed down a bit there. Just where could they—”
She stopped short, and suddenly her eyes lit up. “I know!” she cried out. “With old Jeremias in the Wild Man, of course. The children so enjoyed being with him yesterday. Perhaps Georg couldn’t figure out what to do with the two rascals, so he went there with them. And then they forgot what time it was.”
And then they met Barbara there, she was thinking. That’s got to be it. Georg found his sister again, and they lost track of the time.
She still hadn’t told her father where Barbara was staying. She wanted to keep her promise until Matheo was brought to safety.
“Still in the Wild Man at midnight?” Bartholomäus shrugged. “Do you really believe the kids are there?”
“Well, it’s at least a possibility.” Magdalena hurried to the door. “I’m going to go there right now—”
“How often do I have to tell you you’re not going anywhere alone tonight?” her father interrupted gruffly. “God knows what these self-appointed guards are doing now. If you go at all, I’m coming along.”
“I thought you were going to the castle to look for Simon there,” Magdalena replied.
Bartholomäus stood up. “I can do that.” He nodded toward the sleeping Matheo. “I’ll just take the lad here up to the bedroom. With his fever and all the brandy Jakob gave him, he’s sure to sleep soundly for a few hours, then we’ll have to think about what to do with him later.”
Magdalena looked at her uncle gratefully.
“Thank you,” she said.
Bartholomäus smiled, but his eyes looked sad.
“This is perhaps the last time for a long while that I’ll be able to do something good. I hope God will remember me for this later on.” He gestured impatiently. “And now let’s get moving before I change my mind.”
Magdalena nodded to him and then disappeared into the night.
Meanwhile, Georg was dreaming of dark malt beer flowing slowly from a giant barrel and spreading across his head. All he had to do was open his mouth and the delectable fluid would completely fill his body.
But then the color of the beer suddenly changed—instead of brown, it was now red, and Georg could taste blood. He was in danger of choking to death on the huge stream of blood, and now through the deluge of red he heard cries, someone seemed to be calling to him. Then he felt someone shaking him roughly, the blood disappeared, and all he felt was a pounding in his head. “Hey!” he heard a voice saying. “Wake up, we’re closing, let’s go, you drunk.”
Georg opened one eye and stared into the pasty face of the tavern keeper, who suddenly looked as old and fat as he remembered her from earlier that night.
“Get out, boy!” she yelled. “Get out of here before people start wondering what happened to you. All hell has broken loose outside.”
“Hell . . . ,” he mumbled, nodding slightly. Like hell—that’s how he felt at the moment.
“They caught a couple of werewolves in the city,” the woman continued. “One of them, they say, is the suffragan bishop himself. The whole city’s gone crazy. So move along.” She gave him a shove, and he almost fell off the bench. “I want to close before one of these self-appointed guards shows up and starts wrecking my place.”
“Werewolves . . . Suffragan bishop? I don’t understand . . .” Georg struggled to get up from the table and staggered toward the door. The tavern was deserted, and only a few puddles of beer were there as a reminder of the earlier crowd of partiers. Georg almost fell over once, but the tavern keeper caught him and helped him get his balance.
“You’d better stay on the main streets,” she told him, “or find a few other late-night revelers to take you home. It’s a strange night. God knows who or what is lurking around out there.” She crossed herself and closed the door behind him, and Georg found himself alone on the street.
He took a few deep breaths and rubbed his tired eyes. The cool night air helped him sober up a little. There was a small fountain at the next corner, and he staggered toward it. First he just splashed a little cold water on his face, then he stuck his head all the way in, like an ox at a trough.
The stinging cold water brought him more or less back to his senses. He shook the water from his hair, then cautiously looked around the deserted streets. The only light he could see came from the second floor of the tavern. Everything else lay in darkness.
Georg frowned. The bar woman had said something about captured werewolves. Maybe one of them was the wolf’s carcass that his father, Uncle Bartholomäus, and Magdalena had left behind for the guards up in the old castle. So it seemed Matheo was able to escape. But what about the other werewolves, and what did that all have to do with the suffragan bishop?
He heard loud voices in the distance, perhaps night watchmen calling to one another. Georg shook his head, still clouded by alcohol. It would be best for him to pick up the children and get home as fast as possible, and . . .
Georg’s heart skipped a beat as he remembered how he’d gotten to the Blue Lion. He’d left the boys with Jeremias. That was hours ago. Unless he was really lucky, Magdalena had long since come back home and would be sick with worry. She’d scratch his eyes out if he told her what happened. There was nothing he could do about that—it was the price he’d have to pay for getting drunk. At least the children were in good hands with Jeremias.
Jeremias.
Georg was about to continue on his way toward the City Hall Bridge when he stopped again. The name of the old custodian started him thinking. One thought that had been stirring in his alcohol-befuddled brain suddenly popped out. Standing there at that moment, in the cold autumn night, with freezing hands and water streaming from his hair, it all became clear.
He had seen something.
Something very suspicious that now, after the fact, brought all the pieces of the mosaic together to form a clear picture.
Jeremias . . . the children . . . the sword . . .
Georg began to run.
In her cold, dark prison, Adelheid, the apothecary’s wife, made preparations for her imminent death.
She knew her death would come, sooner or later, in the form of that man whose hood she had ripped off the day before in her escape attempt. She just didn’t know the exact hour.
Or how she would die.
Her heart raced as she thought of all the instruments she’d seen in the torture chamber that had brought death to so many others before her. The rack, the sharp-pointed cone, glowing hot tongs, bronze boots, arm and leg screws . . . Which one would the man use first? Which one last?
r /> The candle had gone out hours ago, and since then the man hadn’t brought a new one. Darkness enveloped her like wet, black soil, and she felt as if she’d been buried alive. By now, she was sure her prison had to be somewhere in the forest. From time to time, as if through a heavy woolen blanket, she could hear the muffled chirping of birds and, when the wind was blowing especially hard outside, the cracking of branches. Since her eyes could see virtually nothing, her other senses had become all the more intense. She could smell the hard dirt floor, the mold on the walls, the tiny feces that the mice left in their nests and passageways. Sometimes she even thought she could hear the sound of roots growing all around her—a constant cracking and crunching—but that was probably her imagination.
Then there was the cold. In their house in Bamberg, the Rinswiesers had a cellar where they stored beer and other perishables. In the winter, Adelheid’s husband cut blocks of ice from the frozen Regnitz, which he stored deep under the house to keep things cool. Adelheid called this the ice hole, and it was as cold there in the middle of summer as in mid-February. She never stayed longer there than absolutely necessary.
And now she’d been lying here for many days in just such an ice hole. And it would probably be her grave.
She was surprised that the man hadn’t returned. There was still a tiny spark of hope in her. She couldn’t stop thinking how the man had cried the day before—an almost childlike sobbing. Or was that already the day before yesterday? It seemed he’d intended to take her to the horrible torture chamber, but then he’d changed his mind. When she recovered consciousness, she found herself tied to the bed like an animal awaiting slaughter. Her throat was sore from the leather noose he’d used when he almost strangled her, and it was hard for her to swallow. The clay cup next to the bed had fallen to the floor, so she was tormented with a terrible thirst that got worse by the hour. But until now, he had spared her. Why?