“God in heaven, someone will have to pay for it!” he whined. “Someone must pay!”
The blind Matthias Augustin struck his stick impatiently on the oaken floor. “Cursing won’t get us anywhere,” he said. “Let Master Lechner tell us what the questioning of the wagon drivers has revealed.”
The court clerk looked at him thankfully. At least there was one beside himself who was keeping a clear head. Then he continued. “As you all know, yesterday evening little Clara Schreevogl was abducted by an unknown person. Like the other two dead children, she used to visit the Stechlin woman. People maintain they’ve seen the devil on the street.”
A whispering and murmuring went through the council chamber, and many crossed themselves. Johann Lechner held up his hands to calm them. “People see a lot, even things which don’t exist,” he said. “I hope that we will be able to say more after the examination of the Stechlin woman this afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you put the witch on the rack long ago?” grumbled old Augustin. “There was time enough all night.”
Lechner nodded. “If it were up to me, we would be further along,” he said. “But the witness Schreevogl asked for a postponement. His wife is not well. Anyway, first we wanted to ask the wagon drivers about the fire.”
“Well then?” Almshouse superintendent Hardenberg looked up, his eyes flashing with anger. “Who was it? Who is the swine? He should be dancing at a rope’s end by the end of the day!”
The court clerk shrugged. “We don’t know yet. The watchman from the bridge and Georg Riegg both said the fire spread very quickly. Someone did more than just set the fire, but nobody saw any of the Augsburgers. They came later to rescue their goods.”
“They came very quickly,” said third burgomaster Matthias Holzhofer, a corpulent bald-headed man, who had made a fortune with gingerbread and sweets. “They got all their bales out and lost hardly anything. They did it all right.”
Burgomaster Semer tugged at his thinning hair. “Would it have been possible for the Augsburgers to start the fire and then rush all their goods to safety?” he asked. “If they really want to set up a new trade route, they have to make sure that people can no longer store their goods here with us. And they have succeeded.”
Püchner, the second burgomaster, shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “All it would have taken would be the wind coming from the wrong direction, or a burning beam, and they’d have lost their goods just as we did.”
“What if they did?” said Karl Semer. “What are a few bales and barrels for the Augsburgers? If they get their trade road, then those are worth their weight in gold. First it’s the leper house in front of the town wall, now it’s the burning of the Stadel. They’re cutting the ground from under our feet!”
“Speaking of the leper house,” the court clerk broke in. “It wasn’t just the Stadel that was destroyed yesterday, but someone also vandalized the site where they are building the leper house. The priest told me that the scaffolding was torn down and parts of the foundation were destroyed. Mortar has been stolen, building wood splintered…and weeks of work gone down the drain.”
Burgomaster Semer nodded thoughtfully. “I have always said that the building of such an establishment for lepers is not welcome here. Quite simply, people here are afraid that traders will stay away if we set up an asylum directly in front of the gates. And who can guarantee that the disease will stop outside the town? Such diseases can spread!”
Wilhelm Hardenberg, the gray-headed almshouse superintendent, agreed with him. “This destruction is certainly reprehensible, but on the other hand…you can understand that people want to protect themselves. Nobody wants this institution, but in spite of that it’s being built. And all because of a mistaken concept of compassion!”
Burgomaster Semer took a big gulp from his lead-crystal glass before speaking. “Compassion has to stop when the interests of the town are endangered, that’s what I think.”
Blind Augustin pounded the table with his stick, so that the expensive port wine in the carafes swished dangerously back and forth.
“Absolute rubbish! Who cares about the leper house at a time like this! We have bigger problems. When the Augsburgers find out we have locked up one of their head wagon drivers, and one of the Fuggers to boot…I tell you, let the wagon drivers go and burn the witch, and then we’ll have peace again in Schongau!”
The second burgomaster Johann Püchner shook his head again. “None of this makes any sense,” he said. “The fire, the murders, the kidnapping, the damage to the leper house…The Stechlin woman has been locked up for quite a time, and it still goes on nevertheless!”
The others, too, began to speak up, talking loudly all at the same time.
Court clerk Johann Lechner had been listening calmly to the dispute, occasionally taking notes. Now he cleared his throat. Immediately the aldermen fell silent and looked at him expectantly. He took his time before answering.
“I am not quite persuaded that the Augsburgers are innocent,” he said finally. “I therefore propose that we have the Stechlin woman tortured today. If she confesses to causing the fire as well as to the murder of the children, we can still release the Augsburger wagon driver. If not, I shall not hesitate to question him as well.”
“And the Fuggers?” asked burgomaster Semer.
Lechner smiled. “The Fuggers were a powerful clan before the war. But now nobody really pays them much attention. If the Augsburg wagon driver really confesses to arson under torture, then that’ll be trouble for the Fuggers.”
He rose and rolled up the handwritten parchment. “And then we have a good case against the Augsburgers, don’t we?”
The aldermen nodded. It was good to have a court clerk. One like Lechner. He gave you the feeling that there was a solution for everything.
The devil’s white bony hand grabbed at the girl’s throat and closed its grasp slowly. Clara felt how he was cutting off her air, her tongue swelled to a fleshy lump, her eyes bulged out of her head, and she looked into a face that she could only see unclearly, as if in a fog. The devil was as hairy as a goat, and out of his forehead grew two twisted horns. His eyes burned like glowing coals and now the appearance of the face started to morph into a distorted mask of the midwife clutching her hands round the girl’s neck, with a gaze that seemed to beg for forgiveness. It seemed that she whispered something, but Clara could not catch the meaning of the words.
White as snow, red as blood…
Once more the face changed. Her foster father Jakob Schreevogl knelt over her, his mouth twisted into a crooked grin, still pressing harder and harder. Clara felt her life ebbing away; from a distance she heard children’s voices, the voices of boys. With horror she realized that they were the voices of her dead playmates, Peter and Anton, crying for help. The face changed again. It was Sophie, who was shaking her wildly and trying to speak to her. Now she raised her hand and gave Clara a resounding slap.
The slap brought her back to reality.
“Wake up, Clara! Wake up!” Clara shook herself. The world around her came into focus. She saw Sophie bending over her, stroking her burning cheek. The damp rock wall that surrounded them, smeared with ash-colored signs, crosses, and formulas, lent her a feeling of security. It was quiet and cool, and from a distance the rustling of the trees could be heard. Near her lay her wooden doll, dirty and torn but still a reminder of home. Clara leaned back, relieved. Down here the devil would never find her.
“What…what happened?” she whispered.
“What happened?” Sophie could laugh again. “You were dreaming, and you frightened me with your shouting. I was outside and suddenly I heard you scream. I thought they had found us.”
Clara tried to sit up. When she put weight on her right foot, a stab of pain went up her leg to the hip.
Panting, she had to lie down again. The pain went away only slowly. Sophie, worried, looked down.
When Clara looked also, she could see that her right ankle was
as big as an apple. The foot was covered with blue spots, and the shin above also seemed swollen. Her shoulder hurt when she turned her body. She was shivering. Her fever had returned.
Suddenly she remembered how she had run from the devil: the jump from the window, the panic-stricken rush through the streets of the town, the second jump from the oak by the city wall into the bushes below. She knew she had landed badly, but fear had driven her on, through the fields and into the woods. Branches slapped like hands across her face, once or twice she fell, but she forced herself to get up again and kept running. At last she reached the hiding place. Like a sack of grain she collapsed on the ground and fell asleep at once. It was not until the next morning that Sophie awakened her.
The red-haired girl had slipped out of the town just as Clara had. Clara was so happy that her friend was with her. Sophie was thirteen years old and seemed almost grown-up. She was like a mother to Clara when they played together out here in their hiding place. In fact, without Sophie their group would not even exist, and she would still be a lonely orphan, teased by her foster brothers and sisters, hit, pinched, and kicked, and the whole time her foster parents noticing nothing.
“Just keep still now.”
Sophie took some oak bark and linden leaves, smeared with an ointment she had brought with her, and began to wrap Clara’s ankle with them. Then she tied it up firmly with bark fibers. Clara felt a pleasant coolness on her foot, and the ankle did not seem quite so painful. While she was admiring the neatly applied bandage her blood sister had made, Sophie reached behind her.
“Here, drink. I brought it for you.” Her friend held out an earthenware bowl containing a grayish liquid.
“What is it?”
Sophie grinned. “Don’t ask, just drink. A…an elixir. I learned it from Mother Stechlin. It’ll make you sleep again, and when you wake up your foot will be much better.”
Clara looked rather skeptically at the brew, which smelled strongly of nettles and mint. Sophie had always been very attentive when she was with the midwife; nothing had escaped her sharp notice when Martha Stechlin had told them about women’s mysteries. She had told them about poisons and potions and warned that only a few drops could sometimes make all the difference between the two.
Finally Clara made up her mind and drank the bowl in one gulp. It tasted hot and horrible, like liquid snot, as it went down her throat. But a short time later she felt warmth pulsing in her stomach, waves of pleasant feelings spreading through her body. She leaned back against the rocky wall behind her and suddenly nothing seemed so hard anymore. It seemed that nothing was out of reach.
“What…what do you think will happen? Will they find us?” she asked Sophie, who was suddenly surrounded by a halo of warm light.
The older girl shook her head. “I don’t think so. We were already too far away from our hiding place. But maybe they will search nearby. In any case you should stay inside here.”
Clara’s eyes filled with tears. “People think we are witches!” she sobbed. “They found this accursed sign, and now they think we are witches! They’ll burn us alive when we come back. And if we stay here the men will find us! The…the devil was close behind me, he grabbed me…” Her words were lost in sobs. Sophie took Clara’s head and laid it in her lap to comfort her.
All at once Clara felt an infinite weariness. She felt that feathers were growing on her arms, wings that would carry her away from this vale of tears to a distant, warm land…
With her last bit of strength she asked, “Did they really kill Peter and Anton?”
Sophie nodded. Suddenly she seemed to be a long way away.
“And Johannes?” asked Clara again.
“Don’t know,” said Sophie. “I’ll have a look for him while you sleep.” She stroked Clara’s hair. “Don’t think about it. You are quite safe.”
With her newly grown wings Clara soared upward toward heaven.
“I…I can never go back home again. They’ll burn us,” she muttered, almost asleep.
“Nobody will be burned,” said a voice from far away. “There’s somebody who will help us. He’ll catch the devil, and then everything will be as it was, I promise…”
“An angel?”
“Yes, an angel. An angel with a huge sword. An avenging angel.”
Clara smiled. “Good,” she whispered. Then the wings carried her away.
About eleven o’clock in the morning Jakob Kuisl knocked at the door of the keep. From inside he heard a key turn in the lock, the heavy door opened, and the surprised bailiff Andreas looked him directly in the eye.
“You, here already?” he asked. “I thought the questioning wouldn’t begin until midday—”
Kuisl nodded. “You’re right, but I have to do some things to get ready. You know…” He gestured as if pulling at his own arm. “Today we begin with the pinching and pulling. I need a hot fire. And the ropes are worn out.”
He held a coil of new rope under the chalk-white nose of the bailiff and pointed to the interior.
“I suppose it will be all right,” Andreas muttered and stepped aside for the hangman to enter. Then he seized him by the shoulder.
“Kuisl?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t hurt her, will you? No more than you must. She brought my children into the world.”
The hangman looked down at the young man, who was a good head shorter. A smile came to his lips.
“What do you think I’m here for?” he asked. “To cure somebody? To set limbs? No. I unset them. You folks want me to do that, so that’s what I do.”
He pushed the bailiff aside and entered the dungeon.
“I…I didn’t want that to happen, no, I didn’t!” Andreas called after him.
Awakened by the shouting, Georg Riegg scrambled to his feet. As an instigator of the fight down at the Stadel he was still keeping the watchman company in the cell on the left.
“Ah, now we have important visitors!” he cried. “Now it’s going to start! Hey, Kuisl, you’ll do it nice and slowly, won’t you, so that we can have some fun when we hear the witch whimper!”
The hangman walked up to the cell and looked thoughtfully at the bridge watchman. Then suddenly he reached through the bars and grabbed him firmly by the crotch. He squeezed hard, so that the eyes of the man on the other side stood out of his head and he gasped for breath.
“You just watch it, Riegg,” whispered Jakob Kuisl. “I know your dirty secrets. I know all of you. How often have you come to me for some herb to give you a hard-on or a bottle of angel’s bane, so that the wife can abort another kid? How often have you fetched the midwife to your house? Five times? Six times? And now she’s the witch, and you’re doing just fine. Bah, you make me sick!”
The hangman let his prisoner go and hurled him backward. He slid slowly down the wall of the cell, whimpering. Then Kuisl went across to the other cell, where Martha Stechlin was already awaiting him with frightened eyes, her fingers clutching the iron bars of the cell.
“Give me back my coat, I’ve brought you a blanket,” said Jakob Kuisl loudly. He passed a woolen blanket in, while the midwife, shivering, took off his coat. As she reached for the rolled-up blanket, he whispered to her, almost inaudibly.
“Unroll the blanket in the dark at the back. There’s a little bottle there. Drink it.”
Martha Stechlin looked at him questioningly. “What is—?”
“Don’t talk, drink,” he whispered again. The bailiff Andreas had meanwhile taken a seat again on a stool near the door. Leaning on his pike, he watched them with interest.
“The important gentlemen are coming when the bell rings at midday,” Jakob Kuisl continued loudly. “You had best begin saying your prayers.”
And quietly he added, “Don’t be afraid. It’s all the best for you. Trust me. But you must drink that bottle now.”
Then he turned and descended the damp stairs down to the torture chamber to get things ready.
The two men sat together over a glass o
f port wine, but for one of them drinking was difficult. His pain caused him to tremble, so that drops of the precious liquid fell on his gold-brocaded coat. Spots like bloodstains spread over the garment. Since yesterday it had become worse, even though he had still been able to conceal it from the others.
“They got away from you,” he said. “I knew that you’d just make things worse. You can’t do anything by yourself, absolutely nothing!”
The other man sipped absently at his wine. “They’ll get them all right,” he said. “They can’t be far away. They’re children.”
Once again a wave of pain flooded the body of the older man. Only with difficulty could he regain the mastery of his voice.
“This is getting out of control!” he groaned. His right hand clutched the cut-glass crystal goblet. He must not give up now, not relax, so near to the goal…
“This can be our ruin, not only yours or mine but the whole family, don’t you understand? Our name will be disgraced forever after!”
“Oh, nonsense,” said the other as he leaned back in his chair. “They are children. Who’s going to believe them? It’s good that the matter of the witch is dragging on. First the children must go, then the witch can be burned. Then no suspicion will fall on us.”
He stood up and went to the door. Business was waiting; things had been neglected for too long. Someone like himself had been lacking, someone who would take the reins in his hand. They had all misjudged him.
“And what about the actual job you have to do?” the older man asked, as he tried to rise, holding on to the table.
“We paid them well to pull that off!”
“Don’t you worry, that’ll be taken care of. Perhaps even today.” He pushed down the door handle and turned to go out.
“I’ll give you another five days,” the older man shouted after him. “Five days! If the matter isn’t taken care of by then, I’ll send our men to take care of the murderers. And don’t think that you’ll get one single penny!”