The Poisoned Pilgrim

  Suddenly she stopped.

  Suppose the hunters had already been here? The two Semers at least knew that the Kuisl family was living here. Still, the ramshackle cabin at the forest edge seemed quiet—there was no one in the little vegetable garden; only a few goats were tethered there, grazing in the meadow next to the stable. Smoke rose from the chimney, suggesting someone was home.

  Magdalena struggled to make up her mind, then finally ran toward the house. She had no other choice. She would never find her children by herself. Hesitantly she knocked on the door.

  “Graetz, are you there?” she asked softly.

  She was about to knock a second time when the door swung open and the knacker appeared, visibly shaken.

  “Thank God, Magdalena,” he cried with relief. “You’re finally back. Hurry, come in.” Graetz looked around suspiciously in every direction, then pulled the hangman’s daughter into the bedroom and barricaded the door.

  Magdalena was horrified to see the chaos in the little room. The table, bench, and chairs were knocked over; the large heavy chest in the corner had been broken into; and torn clothes and broken dishes lay strewn all over the room.

  “Those fat moneybags from Schongau were just here with two bailiffs,” Graetz said right off, pointing at the destruction all around. “They left no stone unturned here. No stone!”

  Magdalena could see the veins in Graetz’s brow turn red and swell up, and his whole body started to tremble. “Asked me where your father and Simon were. But I didn’t tell them a thing. I told them to first prove that Kuisl had stayed here.” His face turned red with rage.

  He picked a chair up from the floor and sat down, exhausted. “They can do this to us poor people,” he wailed. “They took off with all my wife’s dowry, God rest her soul. She’d turn over in her grave if she knew that.”

  “Graetz,” Magdalena said, still struggling for breath from her long run. “I need your help. The… the children are gone.”

  “The children?” The knacker looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean, they’re gone?”

  Magdalena had to struggle to get ahold of herself as tears ran down her sweat-stained cheeks. “I… I was over in the monastery garden with them,” she blurted out. “They were playing in the garden, and then suddenly they were gone. I think they’ve fallen in the gorge, perhaps, or… or that this madman has abducted them.”

  “Do you mean that sorcerer? Why would he do anything like that?”

  In short, broken words, Magdalena told the knacker about the attacks on her and about what she feared.

  “I think the sorcerer doesn’t like our snooping around here,” she said excitedly. “He tried to kill me a few times already, and now he’s probably taken my children.”

  Just as Graetz was about to reply, someone pounded on the door again. The knacker cringed.

  “Good Lord, I hope it isn’t those scoundrels again,” he cursed. “Be careful. If they’re still looking for your father, be prepared for a few unpleasant questions. It would be best for now if the bailiffs don’t even see you.”

  He motioned to Magdalena to slip into the next room, but the hangman’s daughter just shook her head.

  “If it’s really them, let it be,” she said softly but with determination. “Just let them in. They won’t keep me from looking for my children.”

  Shrugging, Graetz went to the door and opened it a crack. When he saw who was standing there, he breathed a big sigh of relief.

  “Ah, it’s just you, Matthias. Come in. We have—”

  Suddenly he stopped short. Looking down, he saw that Matthias was holding a folded note in his hand. The assistant’s face was expressionless; only his lips trembled slightly.

  “What’s wrong, Matthias?” Magdalena asked, moving closer. A wave of apprehension came over her. “What’s that in your hand?”

  “Mmmm … aaa … eena.”

  She looked at him, confused.

  “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “Mmmm… aaa… eena… Mmmm… aaa… eena,” he kept saying in a monotone, then walked up to her hesitantly and handed her the note. Only now did Magdalena understand he was trying to pronounce her name.

  “The… the letter is for me?” she whispered, her heart beating wildly.

  The mute assistant nodded and handed her the letter with a slight bow.

  Opening the letter, she found only a few scribbled words, but they were enough to knock the wind out of her. She fell back onto the chair, as white as a ghost, staring down at the note.

  It was a short, evil poem.

  Sleep, baby, sleep, your mother likes to peep.

  She snoops and noses far and near;

  that’s not so good for baby dear.

  Sleep, baby, sleep.

  Bye, baby, bye, your grandpa likes to pry.

  If he won’t let this habit be, the sorcerer will strangle me.

  Bye, baby, bye.

  “What’s wrong, Magdalena?” Graetz stepped closer, looked over her shoulder, and made out the few words while the hangman’s daughter sat there, petrified.

  “My God,” Graetz gasped finally. “You were right. This madman has indeed abducted the boys.” Angrily he turned to his assistant. “Where did you get this letter?” he shouted. “Tell me right now who gave it to you.”

  Matthias opened his mouth, struggling to be understood. “Aaa-annn,” he said.

  “A man?” Magdalena asked hopefully. “What kind of a man, Matthias?”

  “Aaaarrrzzer Aaannn. Aaaaarrrrzzzer Aaaann.”

  “Confound it! Speak clearly!” Graetz said, furious. “Who was it?”

  “I’m afraid we’re not going to get very far like this,” said Magdalena, swallowing hard. She was so concerned about her children that she could hardly think straight. Once more she studied the black lines. The letters were smudged; a few drops of ink had run down the paper leaving spots that reminded her of blood.

  Sleep, baby, sleep, your mother likes to peep.

  Suddenly Magdalena remembered that, even though Matthias couldn’t speak, he could write. Frantically she looked for a quill pen and an inkpot among the clutter on the floor. When she finally found them both undamaged in a corner of the room, she turned the paper over and handed it to Matthias with the writing implements.

  “Write on the back who gave you the letter,” she asked him.

  Matthias nodded and smiled wanly; then he scribbled a few lines on the stained note and handed it back to Magdalena.

  Quickly she scanned the words he had written in an elegant, flowing script.

  A man wearing a black robe and a hood gave me the letter at the entrance to the monastery. He told me to bring it to the daughter of the hangman from Schongau, but I don’t know who the man was.

  The tall, thickset man looked back at Magdalena expectantly, like a little dog looking for some praise.

  “Thank you, Matthias,” Magdalena said finally as she folded the note and tucked it in her skirt pocket.

  “Can it have been a monk?” she asked. “After all, he wore a black robe. Tell me, was it one of the Benedictines?”

  The assistant shrugged and grinned sheepishly. “Ahnaa reallli…”

  “You don’t know, you idiot?” Graetz chimed in impatiently. “But the voice—did you recognize the voice?”

  Matthias seemed to be struggling inside, rocking his head of red hair back and forth. But he didn’t say another word.

  “Good God,” Graetz fumed, grabbing his assistant, who was almost two heads taller than he, by the collar. “If you don’t open your mouth right away—”

  “Let him be,” Magdalena interrupted. “Clearly he doesn’t know, and you can’t beat it out of him. We’ll just have to think of something else.” Her lips tightened and a renewed determination flashed in her eyes. This so-called sorcerer had abducted her children to silence her and her father. Unconsciously she clenched her hands into tight little fists. At least now the uncertainty had passed. She knew what had happened to the
two children—and she could act.

  “First I have to find my father and Simon,” she finally said in a near whisper. “Father will know what to do; he has always found a way out.”

  “But what if the bailiffs have already picked him up?” said Graetz.

  “Father?” Magdalena smiled wearily. “It would take more than a few dumb Andechs hunters. I’ll bet anything that he and Simon have escaped. The only question is where they are now.” She stopped for a moment to think. “People are searching for them all over Andechs, and they wouldn’t come here to Erling. So there has to be a place outside the village that both my father and I know…” Suddenly her face brightened. “Of course. It’s possible,” she cried out. “In any case, it’s the only place I can think of where we can all get together for a quiet chat and certainly no one will disturb us. In Schongau, I sometimes meet him there, too.”

  She turned to the puzzled knacker and asked him the way.

  Graetz nodded hesitantly. “If I know your father, you could be right. He was always a bit…” He grinned in embarrassment. “Well, strange.”

  He quickly explained how to get there, then turned to his assistant, who was standing off to one side looking sad and depressed, and patted him on the shoulder.

  “Don’t take it the wrong way, Matthias,” he said, trying to cheer him up. “I didn’t want to offend you. You’ll see, the children will show up again, and then you can play with them. Everything will turn out all right.”

  A smile spread over Matthias’s face. He wiped his huge hands on his knacker’s apron, then bowing clumsily several times, backed out the door.

  “A poor fellow,” Graetz sighed. “What he might have amounted to if those mercenaries hadn’t cut out his tongue.” Then he turned back to Magdalena. “I’m going now to visit a few people nearby whom we can trust,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “The gravedigger, the shepherd, the barber down in Herrsching, the coal-burner down at Ramsee… all of them dishonorable.” He laughed briefly. “There are more of us than most people know, and together we’ll find your family.”

  Magdalena squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Graetz. I’ll always be grateful to you for this.” Then a fierce look of determination came into her eyes. “And now I’m going to look for my father,” she said softly but firmly. “Believe me, that damned sorcerer will come to regret ever picking a fight with the Kuisls.”

  Magdalena headed toward Machtlfing, a small village about two miles away. She avoided the main road and stayed in the shadows of the blackberry and hawthorn bushes as she hurried along, her skirt blowing in the wind. It was early afternoon, and the sun was almost uncomfortably hot. Towering thunderheads appeared in the west; a storm was brewing.

  Graetz had described the hill to her exactly. It lay partially hidden in the forest behind the so-called Bäckerbichl, or Baker’s Hill, but even though the knacker had given her only a rough idea of where it was, she couldn’t have missed it. On the crest of the hill surrounded by low-lying bushes were the decaying remains of a wooden frame. At one time three stone pillars had stood here in a triangle connected by wooden beams. One of the beams had fallen to the ground years ago and was rotting away now, and a second leaned precariously against a weathered column. Nevertheless it was easy to see what this structure had been many years ago.

  Magdalena was standing in front of the Erling gallows hill.

  The path was overgrown with weeds and bushes, and she struggled to make her way to the top. Graetz had told her that this had been an execution site since time immemorial, though nowadays hangings were done in the nearest large town, Weilheim, where the district judge resided. Only during the Great War were deserting mercenaries and rebellious farmers occasionally still strung up here. Now, Magdalena couldn’t keep thinking of the father of mute Matthias, who had been hoisted into the air, writhing and twitching in view of his son. “Riding the wind” is what people called such a degrading scene. Sometimes death took up to a quarter hour.

  Magdalena hoped fervently she’d find her father and Simon up here. Both of them knew about the Erling gallows hill, as Graetz had often told them about it. Only a short distance from the highway, it served as a warning to travelers. In recent times, though, bushes and small trees had started growing on the hill. Since the rotting corpses of thieves and highwaymen often dangled from the scaffolding for months, the stench, especially in the summer, was so strong that no one wanted to live there; the nearest house stood hundreds of yards away. The gallows hill, moreover, had always been thought to be cursed, so people avoided it—making it a perfect place, therefore, for a secret meeting. Magdalena prayed her father had thought the same way.

  Full of anticipation, the hangman’s daughter struggled the last few yards to the crest of the hill. A few hungry crows sat on the rotted beams, looking at her distrustfully. Finally, they took flight and, cawing loudly, headed toward the Kien Valley. Thorny blackberry bushes had grown over the rotted wood, bees hummed, a rabbit hopped off into the underbrush, and suddenly Magdalena understood why her father sought out such places to meditate.

  The hectic hubbub of human activity suddenly came to a halt here. The ghostly silence created space for dreaming, meditating, and deep thought.

  She looked around but couldn’t see anything unusual. A wagon rumbled along the back road a few hundred paces to her left, and in the distance she could see the monastery in the milky blue sky of early afternoon. Had she been mistaken?

  Suddenly she heard a rustling behind her. She turned around to see the Schongau hangman standing alongside a hawthorn bush, casually brushing thistles off his coat. He had appeared like a ghost out of nowhere.

  “Father,” she cried with relief. “I knew I’d find you here.”

  “Smart girl.” Kuisl grinned. “You’re my daughter, after all. We have to talk. I…” Seeing fear in her eyes, he stopped short.

  “What happened?” he asked, approaching her warily.

  “Peter and Paul… They’ve disappeared.” She had trouble not screaming. “The sorcerer has abducted them.”

  With trembling hands, she pulled the note from her skirt pocket and handed it to her father. When Kuisl read it, his hand closed so tightly around the paper it seemed he was trying to wring blood from of it. His face was ashen, and his voice soft and flat.

  “He’ll regret that,” he whispered. “By God, this scoundrel will regret it. No one abducts the grandchildren of the Schongau hangman unpunished.”

  Magdalena sighed and struggled to get ahold of herself. “Wild threats don’t get us anywhere either,” she said with determination. “First we have to put our heads together and decide where the children might be. I just can’t understand how they could disappear so suddenly. One moment they were in the garden, and then in the next…” Suddenly she looked around. “And where is Simon? And what have the two of you been up to? Half of Andechs seems to be looking for you two now.”

  “Unfortunately we lost sight of each other,” the hangman grumbled, looking a bit embarrassed. “Those damned Semers recognized me in the church square.”

  He told her about the presentation of the hosts, their flight afterward, and the fight at the edge of the gorge.

  “But Simon is alive,” he concluded, trying to calm her fears. “I heard him calling from down in the gorge.” But then he frowned. “Strange that he didn’t show up again later.”

  “Perhaps the bailiffs picked him up,” Magdalena said, shaking her head. “In any case, we’ve got to think of something. The sorcerer made us an offer if we stop looking for him…”

  “And do you trust him?” Kuisl spat contemptuously on the ground. “After everything this madman has done? He won’t help us at all. He’ll never let the children go. Not even if we promise to return to Schongau at once. He’s taken his hostages, and when he has what we wants, he’ll wring their necks like two young rabbits and laugh.”

  “You… you mustn’t say that,” Magdalena was close to tears again. “If it’s true, then my boys are lo
st.”

  The hangman stared into space, cracking his knuckles. Magdalena knew this habit all too well, one of his usual rituals before an execution.

  Or when he was thinking hard.

  “If the children are still alive, they’ll be crying and whining,” he finally said softly. “He’ll have to take them someplace where no one will hear them. I’m sure that scoundrel is somewhere in those passageways beneath the monastery—a perfect hiding place if you have two screaming youngsters. And if he doesn’t come to us on his own and hand them over, then we’ll have to go to him.” Once again he cracked his knuckles. “We’ve got to smoke him out like a badger in its hole, or send the dogs in after him. I’ll chase this sorcerer until his guts hang out his mouth.”

  “Even if the children are somewhere down there,” Magdalena replied, running her hand through her black hair despairingly, “you forget we still don’t know where the entrance to these passageways is. It seems it was shown on Count Wartenberg’s map, and it’s a shame my husband didn’t bring it with him; all he can remember are those strange Latin words. ‘Hic est porta ad loca inferna’… whatever that means. It’s enough to drive you crazy.”

  “What did you just say?” The hangman stared at Magdalena now as if she’d turned into some strange creature of the forest.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled. “It’s enough to drive you crazy, because—”

  “No, no. The Latin phrase before that.”

  “‘Hic est porta ad loca inferna.’ Why? That’s the sentence Simon told us about.”

  “No, that’s not right.” The hangman broke out in a smile like that of a young boy who’d pulled off a prank. “You misquoted. Simon told us the words on the map were ‘Hic est porta ad loca infera.’ That would mean, ‘This is the entrance to the subterranean places.’ But you just spoke of the ‘loca inferna.’ It’s possible your scatterbrained husband misread it—after all, the writing was a bit hard to decipher. Why couldn’t your sentence be correct?”