“I think the actors are somewhere up there,” Barbara said, and started running up the stairs so fast that Magdalena had a hard time catching up with her. The basket in her hand was full to the bursting point and getting heavier with every step.
On the second floor they indeed found the troupe. The area was dominated by a huge dance floor, surrounded on three sides by a gallery with a walkway. At the opposite end, several actors were standing on a stage normally used by musicians. They were setting up a structure whose purpose Magdalena didn’t understand. After a few moments she spotted the tanned youth again, now sweaty and wearing an open shirt, doing gymnastic tricks and putting together a pole from two pieces, at eye level, dividing the stage in two halves. Magdalena was amused to see that Barbara had spotted him, as well, and was once again playing with locks of her hair.
“Ah, I see the ladies are admiring our equipment,” they suddenly heard a voice behind them say. “Good gracious! You two would truly make charming queens.”
Magdalena turned around and saw the haggard man who had given the dramatic speech earlier. Despite his height, he was as thin as a rail, and his body was wrapped in a long, black coat that fluttered like a scarecrow’s. He was pale and poorly shaven, and he had dark eyes that appeared to bore into everyone he spoke with. Strands of a cheap wig curled like dead snakes down to his shoulders. When the man noticed the women’s hesitation, he bowed slightly.
“My dears, I completely forgot to introduce myself,” he continued in that strange, soft accent that Magdalena had noticed before. “My name is Malcolm. Sir Malcolm, to be precise. I am the director of this outstanding theater group.” He gestured to the men on the circus wagon and bowed. “We strive to entertain you. Or, as Shakespeare once said, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’”
“Shakespeare? Entertain?” Barbara’s mouth opened wide in amazement. “I’m afraid I don’t understand . . .”
The gaunt man’s laugh sounded like the bleating of a billy goat. “Don’t tell me you beautiful ladies have never heard of William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe? Well, then you can count yourself lucky, because Sir Malcolm’s troupe of itinerant actors is the best, the most sensational, and”—he gave a conspiratorial wink and lowered his voice—“surely the most risqué in the whole German Empire.” His smile was so broad that Magdalena was able to see and admire a row of astonishingly sharp white teeth behind it. “I would be delighted to welcome you to one of our next performances—perhaps tomorrow afternoon, when we shall present Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus—you surely have heard of our legendary production?”
“Well, I’m not sure . . . ,” Magdalena began, struggling for words. “What kind of play is it?”
“Doctor Faustus? Oh, it’s an ancient tale of a learned man who made a pact with the devil. Lots of hocus-pocus, smoke, and goose bumps. Sometimes the people run out of the theater screaming, because they’re so terrified.” He bared his teeth, like a wolf. “In other words, they love it.”
“And the devil also appears in it?” Barbara asked.
Malcolm nodded. “I play that part myself, and in all modesty I must say there’s no more diabolical devil in the entire German Empire. Markus plays the part of the old man, Faust, and Matheo the beautiful Helen of Troy. Markus, Matheo! Come here! I’ve found two admirers of our art.”
Two of the men working on the stage looked over at them. Barbara’s eyes sparkled on seeing that one of them was the suntanned youth. The other was a pale man of around forty with a strangely magnetic, melancholy look. Magdalena thought she could sense in his gaze a glimmer of infinite sadness. Both men jumped down from the stage and approached them.
“Matheo comes from an old Sicilian family of jugglers,” Malcolm explained as Barbara tugged excitedly at her linen dress. “He can juggle balls like no one else, and he always plays the part of either the handsome hero or the beautiful girl.” He lowered his voice and whispered, “It’s true that nowadays you see more women taking women’s roles, but here under the auspices of the bishop, we thought it better to keep things the way they are. We don’t want to do anything to spoil our relations with His Excellency, of course.”
“Certainly Matheo is quite qualified to play either role—the handsome hero or the beautiful maiden,” Magdalena said with a grin, and looked at her sister. “What do you think, Barbara? Don’t you think he’d make a beautiful girl?”
Barbara rolled her eyes as if Magdalena had just said something terribly embarrassing, but Matheo just laughed and curtsied.
Magdalena now turned to the pale man that Sir Malcolm had referred to as Markus. “For the role of an old scholar you are astonishingly young,” she said, curious.
The man smiled, but the sadness in his eyes remained. “You have no idea what a little makeup can do—and sometimes I really do feel very old.” He nodded toward the haggard director. “Sir Malcolm is a miserable slave driver.”
Malcolm let out a bleating laugh. “I pay my slaves damned well. And besides, soon everyone will be talking about you, and not just in Bamberg,” he said, turning serious again. “Markus Salter is not only an actor, he is also our playwright,” he continued. “We take the original plays of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and Markus gives them . . . well, the necessary polish.”
“Aren’t the plays good enough by themselves?” Barbara asked.
“Well, for the general public they’re sometimes just too difficult and dry, so we cut out the long monologues and concentrate on the funny parts and, above all, the bloody passages. Many of the pieces have not yet been translated into German, and Markus takes care of that, as well.”
“I butcher Shakespeare’s plays by turning them into bloody spectacles for the masses,” Markus sighed in despair. “Carefully constructed pentameter, beautiful images—for that the world clearly has no taste nowadays. The more blood, the better. But I myself have written original pieces that—”
“Yes, yes,” Malcolm interrupted, “that would be enough to make Shakespeare cry, I know—or simply put him to sleep. I’m afraid you’re boring the ladies, Markus. Just like your plays. We can’t afford experiments. After all, I have a whole troupe to feed,” he said, clapping his hands. “But now it’s time to get back to building the stage. Will you excuse us?” He bowed to Magdalena and Barbara and stomped off toward the stage, but not without first casting a final, reproachful look at his two actors.
“Old slave driver,” Markus mumbled and followed him, while Matheo paused a moment and winked at Barbara.
“Then can we look forward to seeing you again at tomorrow’s performance? We’ll save a few seats for you up in the gallery. Ciao, signorine.”
“Ciao,” Barbara said, batting her eyelashes as Matheo, in one single, flowing movement, jumped back onto the stage.
Magdalena grinned at her sister. “Ciao?” she asked. “Is that the way a Schongau hangman’s daughter says good-bye, or are you an Italian contessa addressing her prince just before their wedding?”
“You . . . you are a rude, stupid old biddy, do you know that?” Barbara snarled, back to her familiar tone of voice, as she ran for the exit. Magdalena followed, laughing, but her sister was so fast that she lost sight of her rushing down the stairway in the central dome.
Barbara was positively foaming at the mouth. As she ran out into the square by the harbor, she thought of a dozen choice curses for her big sister. How Magdalena had humiliated her! She still treated Barbara like the little girl she used to read bedtime stories to and take to pick blueberries, though she was now fifteen. Fifteen! An age at which other young women were married.
For example, to good-looking, suntanned lads like Matheo.
But in the next moment she saw what a fool she was. She didn’t understand what was going on inside her. Recalling her conversation with the attractive young man, she suddenly felt so incredibly foolish, simply ridiculous. She felt as if he could see right through her. Hadn’t he flashed her that str
ange smile, as if he could read her thoughts?
She slowed her pace as she gradually calmed down. Her frantic flight was actually pretty stupid. What had really happened? Magdalena had only teased her a little. That harmless ribbing was just the drop that caused the barrel to overflow. The long trip, the bizarre severed arm on the riverbank, her happy reunion with Georg . . . The stress and excitement were probably getting to her. She hadn’t seen her twin brother for two years, but his greeting the night before had seemed cool to her. Yes, Georg had been glad to see her, but she’d thought he would at least want to spend the next day with her. Instead, he went out to flay an old horse, and she went shopping for her future aunt.
The things they’d bought . . .
Suddenly she stopped. She had left her packages up in the wedding house! Should she turn around? Surely then she would meet her big sister, and she had no desire to talk with Magdalena. She was still too ashamed because of her bad behavior. Besides, Magdalena had probably picked up the packages of onions, tobacco, and herbs and was on her way back to the hangman’s house. She could put it out of her mind and keep going.
Barbara looked around to see where she was. She had left the noisy harbor behind and was walking down a wide street toward the city moat. On an impulse, she turned into a narrow lane lined by houses crowded closely together. The roofs almost touched, so that only a few rays of sunlight reached the ground. There was no more crying of fishwives to be heard, and the only sound was that of a faraway church bell.
She soon realized she had gotten into a real labyrinth. In all directions there were intersections and forks in the road leading to shadowy squares and niches. Here and there were stinking, gurgling ditches, which after a few feet disappeared under a small bridge or house. Only occasionally did she see any pedestrians, but she was too afraid to ask for directions. Strangers weren’t welcomed anywhere, she knew from her experiences in Schongau.
She was about to take a turn into another side street when she felt a burning sensation between her shoulder blades, a gnawing and itching, as if someone were watching her. She turned around and just caught a glimpse of a gray, indistinct figure scampering over one of the low-hanging roofs. She heard a scratching sound, and a roof shingle fell directly at her feet.
“For heaven’s sake . . . ,” she said, but then fell silent on hearing a thumping sound coming from the house in front of her.
Somewhere inside, a door squeaked.
As she examined the house more closely, it occurred to her how deserted it seemed. The shutters were askew, the paint had flaked off, and the roof had partly caved in so that the exposed rafters looked like gnawed-off ribs. This had to be one of the abandoned houses they had all noticed the night before.
Now sounds could be heard inside. Someone was running down the stairs.
Or perhaps something, Barbara suddenly thought.
She recalled the horror stories about the beast, and all the severed body parts that had been found both in and outside of the city.
Suddenly she felt entirely alone and forsaken.
“Is . . . is someone there?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
Though everything inside her was screaming for her to turn and run as fast as she could, she moved forward as if being pulled by an invisible string in the direction of a run-down cottage. As the hangman’s daughter, Barbara had inherited from her father not just his obstinacy and love of books but also his notorious curiosity.
I don’t have to actually go inside, she thought, just have a quick look.
With a pounding heart she stepped to the window, whose rotted shutters were hanging open. It was so high she had to pull herself up to peer over the windowsill. In front of her she saw an empty room with an oak parquet flooring that had been partially torn up, presumably for use as firewood. The ruins of a tile stove were scattered about, moldy rags were lying in a corner, a rusty candelabra was—
“Hey, what the hell are you doing here? Snooping around?”
A guard’s face had appeared so suddenly in the window that Barbara screamed, let go of the windowsill, and fell back into the dirt. She stared open-mouthed at the guard, who was wearing a metal helmet and a rusty chain-mail shirt, and for a moment she took him to be a furry beast.
“Don’t you know these abandoned houses are off-limits, you filthy brat?” he said.
Now a second, older guard appeared alongside him and placed his hand on his colleague’s shoulder. “Take it easy,” he said, trying to calm the younger man down. “When we were kids, we were curious, too, always wondering what was going on in the abandoned houses. The girl wasn’t up to any mischief.”
“You know exactly what the captain said,” the first guard whispered hoarsely. “No witnesses. Suppose—”
“Shh.” The older man pulled him away from the window. “You’ve already said too much.” He smiled and turned to Barbara. “And you, scram. There are no treasures or ghosts here, only garbage and rats.” Suddenly he frowned. “Who are you, anyway? I’ve never seen you before.”
“I . . . I’m just visiting my uncle,” Barbara replied, scrambling to get up on her feet. “Sorry to disturb you. I’m leaving.”
She ran down the narrow, shaded lane as the guard ran after her, shouting.
“Hey, little girl! Which uncle do you mean? Stop!”
But she didn’t stop; she kept on running until she finally saw sunlight in front of her again. As she stepped out of the labyrinth of gloomy lanes, she was relieved to see she had reached the city moat. It stank of decay and feces, but at least she felt the sun on her face again.
By the time Barbara arrived at the hangman’s house shortly thereafter, the incident with the guards was nothing but a distant memory.
Just as Magdalena was running out of the wedding house on her way to the harbor, she remembered the package that Barbara had put down earlier beside the stage. The little brat was so angry at her older sister that she’d forgotten it.
“Damn it, is it my job to look after everything?”
She cursed as she ran back through the portal and up the stairs. If she showed up at the hangman’s house without the things she’d bought, Katharina would be terribly disappointed—to say nothing of her father, impatient for his tobacco. She walked out onto the dance floor, grabbed the bundle, and hurried back out, intending to give her saucy little sister a good tongue-lashing.
The actors were too busy to notice her. Just the same, Magdalena had to smile. It looked like Barbara had fallen for the suntanned youth.
She’s growing up. It won’t be long before she’ll start driving Father crazy with stories about her boyfriends. And why won’t the old man treat her the same as he did me?
On the stair landing, she heard a mumbling voice coming from a chamber off to one side. Curious, she turned and saw a room full of old chests and theater props. Markus Salter, the playwright, was standing with his back to her, leaning over a small trunk, whispering in an indulgent tone, almost as if speaking with a child. When he glanced over his shoulder and saw Magdalena, he quickly closed the trunk and turned to her. He looked as if he’d been caught doing something forbidden.
Magdalena raised her basket and package apologetically. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just forgot something, and then I saw—”
There was a scratching and scraping in the box, and something was squealing softly. Markus appeared to be thinking for a moment, but finally he uttered a sigh of resignation and stepped aside.
“May I introduce you to Juliet? But promise not to tell Sir Malcolm about this.”
Magdalena looked puzzled. “Juliet? I’m afraid I don’t understand . . .”
Without answering, Markus lifted the lid and pulled out a small, wriggling bundle of fur. It took a while for Magdalena to realize it was a ferret. She laughed with relief.
“This is Juliet?”
Markus nodded and lovingly petted the squirming little animal. “I found her last spring in the forest, along with her brother Romeo. They were the
only ones in their litter to survive. The others were probably eaten by wild boars. That old philanderer, Romeo, unfortunately ran away some time ago, but Juliet stayed with me. She’s rather friendly—see for yourself.”
Markus opened his hand carefully, and the ferret climbed up his right arm to his shoulder, where it sat down and scrutinized Magdalena with beady red eyes. There was an animal intelligence in its gaze that reminded Magdalena of a rat. Alert, in a strange way . . .
Evil?
Magdalena shook her head, and Markus looked at her, surprised.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like ferrets? They’re pretty smart. You can easily train them to chase rats.” He shrugged with the other shoulder. “Unfortunately, Sir Malcolm can’t stand animals—ferrets, martens, weasels, all the little creatures that live in the forest. He says they transmit diseases. What nonsense. I think he’s just afraid of them.”
“Well, they do need a place to live,” Magdalena replied hesitantly. “Ah . . . especially when they’ve been tamed.”
“If Sir Malcolm finds Juliet, he’ll put her in a sack and throw her into the river. Please don’t tell him anything.” Markus petted the ferret, which was still sitting on his shoulder like a kitten. “I’m hiding her here among the stage props until I can find a better place for her. I’ve really become very fond of Juliet.”
Magdalena smiled. “I’ll be as silent as the grave, I promise.” After a few moments she asked, “How long do you intend to stay here in Bamberg?”