Jakob Kuisl had been drinking heavily all night. He had started off on wine and beer, then in the wee hours had moved on to brandy. Several times his head had dropped onto the table, but time and again he had straightened up and raised the mug to his lips. Occasionally, Anna Maria Kuisl had peeked into the smoke-filled kitchen, but she knew that she couldn’t help her husband. These excesses occurred at regular intervals. Complaining was pointless: it would only have made him angrier and prodded him to drink even more heavily. So she let him have his way, as she knew that it too would pass. As the hangman always drank alone, most burghers weren’t even aware of his periodic drunkenness. Anna Maria Kuisl, however, could predict with some accuracy when it would happen again. It was worst when an execution or a torturing was coming up. Then he sometimes screamed deliriously and his fingernails clawed the table, while his brain was swept by nightmares.
Jakob Kuisl was tall, and so he could hold his drink rather well. Yet this time there seemed to be no way of getting rid of the alcohol. As he swam across the small duck pond once again, he realized how his fear was getting the better of him. He pulled himself up on the wooden pier, hurriedly put on his clothes, and headed for his house.
In the kitchen, he searched the cupboards for something to drink. When he found nothing there, he went to his apothecary cabinet in the room next door. On the top left shelf of the six-foot cupboard he discovered a vial that held a shining, bilious green liquid. Kuisl grinned. He knew that for the most part his cough syrup consisted of alcohol. The added herbs could only help him in his present state. The opium poppy in particular would have a soothing effect. The hangman tipped his head backward and let the liquid drip onto his tongue. He wanted to taste every drop of the potent brew.
When he heard the creaking of the kitchen door, he froze. His wife was standing there, sleepily rubbing her eyes.
“Drinking again?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you rather stop now—”
“Leave me alone, woman. I’ll need it.”
He lifted the little bottle again and emptied it in one swig.
Then he wiped his mouth and stepped out into the kitchen. He reached for the heel of bread on the table. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday noon.
“You have to go to see the Stechlin woman?” asked Anna Maria, who was well aware of the hard task that her husband faced.
The hangman shook his head. “Not yet,” he said with his mouth full. “Not before noon. First the bigwigs have to discuss what to do on account of what happened to the Stadel. You see, there are others to be interrogated now too.”
“And those you’re also going to have to—”
He laughed dryly. “I don’t really think they’ll put the branding iron to one of the Fugger wagoners. And as for Georg Riegg—everyone knows him here, and he has his cronies.”
Anna Maria sighed. “Yes, it’s always the poor people who suffer.”
Angrily, the hangman slammed his fist on the table, so that the beer tankards and the wineglasses tottered dangerously. “It’s the wrong people that suffer, not the poor. The wrong ones!”
His wife stepped behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. “You can’t change it, Jakob. Just let it be,” she said.
He pushed Anna Maria’s arms off and began to pace back and forth in the narrow room. He had been racking his brains all night about how he might avoid the inevitable. But nothing had occurred to him. The alcohol had made his thoughts slow and clumsy. There was no way out; after the twelve o’clock bell he’d have to start torturing Martha Stechlin. If he didn’t go, he would be relieved of his office and banned from the town along with his family. He’d have to earn his living as an itinerant barber, or a beggar.
On the other hand…Martha Stechlin had brought his children into the world, and he was convinced that she was innocent. How could he torture this woman?
He finally stopped pacing in front of his apothecary’s cupboard. The chest next to it, where he kept his most valuable books, was open. On the very top there lay a yellowed, worn copy of the book about herbs by the Greek physician Dioscorides, an ancient work, which, however, was still useful. On a sudden impulse, he reached for the book and began leafing through it. As so often, he felt admiration for the exact drawings and precise descriptions of many hundreds of plants. Each leaf and stem was perfectly described.
Suddenly, as his fingers scanned a few lines, he stopped, mumbled to himself, then finally a grin passed over his face. Grabbing his overcoat, hat, and knapsack, he hurried out.
“Where are you going?” his wife called as he left. “At least take a piece of bread with you!”
“I can’t right now,” he called back from the yard. “Time is pressing! Stoke the fire; I’ll be back soon.”
“But Jakob…”
Yet her husband didn’t seem to hear her. At this very moment Magdalena was coming down the stairs with the twins. Barbara and Georg were yawning. Their father’s shouting and banging about had awakened them and now they were hungry.
“Where is Father going?” Magdalena asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Anna Maria Kuisl shook her head. “I don’t know. I really don’t know,” she said, pouring milk for the small children into a saucepan on the fire. “He was looking through his book on herbs, and then he ran off like he’d been stung by a bee. It’s got to have something to do with the Stechlin woman.”
“With the Stechlin woman?” Suddenly Magdalena was wide awake. She watched as her father disappeared behind the willows down by the pond, then snatched the last heel of bread from the table and ran after him.
“Magdalena, stay here!” her mother called. But when she saw her daughter running full speed toward the pond, she just shook her head and went back in, to the children.
“Just like her father,” she mumbled. “I hope it won’t all end in disaster…”
Simon was awakened by a knock at his bedroom door. Something had been bothering him all night and now, opening his eyes, he realized that it was no dream, but reality. He turned to the window and could see that outside dawn was breaking. Drowsily, he rubbed his eyes. Usually he slept at least until the eight o’clock bell and wasn’t used to being awakened that early.
“What’s the matter?” he grumbled, turning to the door.
“It’s me, your father! Open the door; we’ve got to talk.”
Simon sighed. Once his father had set his mind on something, it was difficult to stop him.
“Just a moment!” he shouted. He sat up on the edge of the bed, brushed the strands of hair from his face, and tried to gather his thoughts.
After yesterday’s riot he had walked home with Jakob Schreevogl. The young alderman had needed someone to comfort him and listen to him. Well into the wee hours he’d been telling Simon about Clara, about her kind, affectionate nature, and how she was so attentive and eager to learn, much more so than her often lazy foster siblings. Simon had almost gotten the impression that Jakob Schreevogl was fonder of his ward Clara than of his own biological children.
Maria Schreevogl had been given a strong sleeping potion and a large dose of brandy by the young physician, and she had soon gone to bed. Simon had assured her that Clara was certain to return soon.
The rest of the brandy had found its way into the throats of Simon and Jakob Schreevogl. In the end, the alderman had told him everything about himself, about his worries over his wife, who was often silent and bitter, and about his fear that he wouldn’t be able to profitably continue the business of his father, who had recently died. Old Schreevogl had been known as an odd bird but also as a thrifty and shrewd man who had had his men well in line. It was never easy to step into the shoes of such a father, especially when one was barely thirty years old. Old Schreevogl had worked his way up from rags to riches. The other members of the stovemakers’ guild had always envied him for his rapid success. Now they were closely watching his son. One mistake, and they’d swoop down on him like vultures.
Just before the old man’s sudden death
—he had died of a fever—Jakob had had a falling-out with his father. It had been over a trifle, a cartload of tiles that had been burned, but the quarrel had been so intense that Ferdinand Schreevogl had changed his will and given his property on the Hohenfurch Road, where Schreevogl junior had already planned to build a second kiln, to the church. On his deathbed, the old man had wanted to whisper something into his ear. But the mumbling had turned into a final cough. A cough or a laugh.
Jakob Schreevogl still wasn’t sure what his father’s final words were to this world.
Memories of the previous night were circling in Simon’s head, which was painfully throbbing from the alcohol. He was going to need a cup of coffee, and soon. The question was, would his father give him time for that?
Right now he was knocking again.
“Coming!” shouted Simon, slipping into his hose and buttoning his doublet. Hurrying to the door he stumbled over the full chamber pot, spilling its contents over the floorboards. Swearing and with soaked toes, he pulled back the latch. The door flew open and hit him on the head.
“At last! Why on earth did you lock the door?” his father said, rushing into Simon’s room. His gaze fell on the books on the desk.
“Where did you get these?”
Simon held his aching head. Then he sat down on the bed to put on his boots. “You don’t really want to know,” he muttered.
He knew that in his father’s eyes all those works that he borrowed from the hangman were considered to be the work of the devil. It didn’t help at all that the author of the book lying open on top of the stack was a Jesuit. Athanasius Kirchner was as unknown to Bonifaz Fronwieser as were Sanctorius and Ambroise Paré. Even here in Schongau the old man remained a field surgeon whose knowledge was based only upon his experience with those injured in the war. Simon remembered how his father used to pour boiling oil into gunshot wounds and administered a bottle of brandy to relieve the pain. The screams of the soldiers had followed him through his entire childhood—the screams and the rigid bodies that Simon Fronwieser dragged from the tent the next day and covered with lime for burial.
Without paying further attention to his father, Simon hastened downstairs to the kitchen. Hastily he reached for the pot by the fireplace, which still held some cold coffee from the previous day. The first sip revived him. Simon couldn’t imagine how he used to cope without coffee. A glorious brew, a true devil’s nectar, he thought. Bitter and invigorating. He had heard from travelers that across the Alps, in Venice and in elegant Paris, certain inns already served coffee. Simon sighed. It would take centuries for Schongau to get that far.
His father stomped down the stairs.
“We have to talk,” he exclaimed. “Lechner was here yesterday.”
“The clerk?”
Simon set down the clay beaker and looked at his father with interest. “Whatever did he want?”
“He has noticed that you’re meeting with the young Schreevogl. And that you dig up things that are none of your business. He says stay away from that. It won’t do any good.”
“You don’t say.” Simon sipped his coffee.
His father wouldn’t let up.
“It was the Stechlin woman, and that’s that, Lechner says.”
Old Fronwieser sat down beside him on the bench in front of the fireplace. The cinders were cold. Simon could smell his father’s foul breath.
“Listen,” said Bonifaz Fronwieser. “I’ll be honest with you. You know that we are not respected burghers in this town. We aren’t even really welcome here. We are tolerated, and that’s only because the last physician died during the plague and the academic quacks prefer to stay far off in Munich and Augsburg. Lechner can kick us out on a whim. He can and he will, unless you shut up. You and the hangman. Don’t put your livelihood at stake on account of a witch!”
His father placed a cold, stiff hand on his shoulder. Simon recoiled.
“Martha Stechlin isn’t a witch,” he whispered.
“Even so,” said his father, “Lechner wants her to be one, and it’s better for the town as well. Besides…”
Bonifaz Fronwieser grinned, giving his son a fatherly pat on the shoulder.
“Between the hangman, the midwife, and ourselves there are too many here in town who want to make a livelihood from curing the sick. Once the Stechlin woman is gone, there’s more work for us to do. Then we’ll be able to get by. You can help with the births; I’ll leave that all to you.”
Simon jumped to his feet. The beaker fell from the table into the glowing embers on the hearth; the coffee sizzled as it hit the cinders.
“That’s all you ever think about—your livelihood!” he shouted. Then he hastened to the door. His father rose on the bench.
“Simon, I…”
“Have you all lost your senses, or what? Don’t you realize there’s a murderer at large? You’re only thinking about your bellies, and out there someone’s killing children!”
Simon slammed the door and rushed out into the street. The neighbors, startled by his shouts, peeked out of their windows.
Simon looked up angrily.
“Why don’t you mind your own business!” he shouted. “You’ll see! Once the Stechlin woman has been burned, the fun will start for real. And then one more will burn, and one more, and one more! And finally, it’ll be your turn!”
He stomped off to the tanners’ quarter, shaking his head. His neighbors watched as he left. Yes, it was true. Since Fronwieser’s son had taken up with the hangman’s daughter, he wasn’t his old self anymore. She must have bewitched him, or at least turned his head, which amounted to the same thing, anyway. Perhaps more people had to burn in Schongau after all before order could finally be restored.
The neighbors closed their shutters and returned to their breakfast porridge.
With quick strides, Jakob Kuisl took the narrow path from his house down to the river. After a few minutes’ walk upstream on the towpath, he reached the Lech Bridge.
Clouds of smoke were still rising from the ruins of the Stadel and there were occasional glowing embers. Sebastian, the second bridge sentry, was sitting on a bridge pile, leaning on his halberd. When he saw the hangman he saluted him with a tired nod. The short, squat sentry always carried a jug under his overcoat on cold days. This morning, Sebastian needed his drink more than ever. Since his comrade had been imprisoned, he had to do two men’s sentry duty. It would be another hour until he was relieved, and he had been at his post the entire night. Also, he could swear that the devil himself had flitted right past him in the dead of night, a black stooped shadow, with a limp.
“And he waved at me; I saw it clearly,” Sebastian whispered to the hangman, kissing the small silver crucifix he carried around his neck on a leather thong. “Have mercy on us, Holy Mary! Since the Stechlin woman has been practicing her foul sorcery here, the spirits of hell are walking about in town, I’m telling you.”
Jakob Kuisl listened attentively. Then he took leave of the sentry and passed over the bridge, heading for Peiting.
The muddy country road meandered through the forest. Frequently he had to walk around puddles and potholes that seemed particularly deep after the severe winter. In some places the road was practically impassible. When he had walked half a mile he came upon an oxcart that was stuck in the muck. The peasant from Peiting who owned it was laboring to push it from behind but couldn’t dislodge the stuck wheel. Without even waiting to be asked, Kuisl braced his massive body against the vehicle and with one push the cart was free.
Instead of thanking him, the peasant murmured a prayer, careful not to look into the hangman’s eyes. Then he hurried around to the front of the cart, jumped into the driver’s seat, and swung his whip. With a curse, Kuisl hurled a stone after him.
“Off with you, Peiting idiot!” he shouted. “Or else I’ll hang you by your whip!”
It was nothing new to the hangman that many people avoided contact with him. But he still was hurt by it. He hadn’t expected gratitude but at
least a ride on the cart. As it was, he would have to plod along the muddy path. The oaks that lined it offered little shade. Again and again his thoughts returned to Martha Stechlin, who was brought closer to torturing and the stake with every peal of the bell.
It’ll have to start this afternoon, he thought. But I might be able to stall a bit…
When a deer path opened to his left, he bent down and slipped beneath the branches into the forest. The trees surrounded him with a silence that once again comforted him. It was as though the good Lord was holding a protective hand over the world. Morning sunlight was breaking through the foliage, throwing specks of light on the soft moss. Late snow was still on the ground in some places. A cuckoo was calling from afar, and the buzzing of gnats, bees, and beetles hung in the air. As Kuisl was walking through the forest with determined steps, he kept getting entangled in cobwebs, which clung to his face like a mask. The moss muffled the sound of his steps. It was here in the forest that he truly felt at home. Whenever possible, he came here to gather herbs, roots, and mushrooms. It was said that nobody in Schongau knew as much about the plant kingdom as the hangman.
The cracking sound of a breaking branch caused him to stop short. It came from the right, from the direction of the road. Now another breaking sound could be heard. Somebody was approaching him, and this somebody was trying to sneak up on him. He wasn’t doing it particularly skillfully.
Jakob Kuisl looked around and noticed a fir branch that reached down almost to his head. He pulled himself up on it until he disappeared among the branches. A few minutes later, the steps had come closer. He waited until the sound was directly underneath him, then he dropped.