One seat was now empty.
Without stopping to think, he hurried to a house at the edge of the marketplace. Behind him the sounds of laughter and music faded. He had heard enough.
Now he must act.
The man sat in a heavy armchair upholstered in velvet and looked out the window. On the table in front of him was a bowl full of walnuts and a jug of water. He could no longer tolerate any other kind of food. It was difficult for him to breathe, and stabs of pain went through his abdomen. He could hear the sounds of the revelry outside, and there was a gap in the drawn curtains through which he could have observed the activity below. But his eyes were going bad, and the fires and dancers all blurred into a misty picture without contours. His hearing, however, was excellent, and so he was aware of footsteps behind him, even when the intruder was endeavoring to enter the room unnoticed.
“I’ve been expecting you, Simon Fronwieser,” he said, without turning around. “You are a nosy little know-it-all. I was against you and your father obtaining burghers’ rights back then, and I have since been proved right. You bring nothing but unrest to our town.”
“Unrest?” Simon no longer took the trouble to be quiet. With quick steps he hurried to the table, while he continued to speak. “Who has brought unrest to this town, then? Who ordered the soldiers to kill small children who had seen too much? Who caused the Stadel to be burned? Who saw to it that fear and hate returned to Schongau and that witches should burn at the stake again?”
He had worked himself up into a rage. With one more step he reached the chair and spun it round toward him. He looked into the blind eyes of the old man, who just shook his head as if he pitied him.
“Simon, Simon,” said Matthias Augustin. “You still haven’t understood. All this happened only because you and that wretched hangman interfered. Believe me, I don’t wish to see any more witches burned. I saw too many people burned at the stake when I was a child. I only wanted the treasure. It belonged to me. Everything else that happened is the responsibility of you two.”
“The treasure, that damned treasure,” Simon muttered as he let himself fall into the chair next to the old man. He was tired, simply tired out. He spoke on, almost as if in a trance.
“The parish priest gave me the decisive clue in the church, but I didn’t understand him correctly. He knew that you were the last one to speak to old Schreevogl before he died. And he told me that you and he were friends.” Simon shook his head before he went on. “When I went to him for confession at that time, I asked him if anyone else had recently shown any interest in the site,” he said. “Until today he had forgotten that you had indeed asked him about it shortly after old Schreevogl’s death. It wasn’t until today, at the May feast, that he suddenly remembered.”
The gray-headed patrician bit his bloodless lip.
“The old fool. I had offered him a lot of money, but no, he just had to build that damned leper house…But the property should have been mine, mine alone! Ferdinand should have left the site to me. It was the least that I expected of the old miser! The very least!”
He took a walnut from the table and cracked it with a practiced hand. Fragments of shell scattered over the tabletop.
“Ferdinand and I had known each other since our childhood. We went to grammar school together, as little boys we played marbles together, and later we had the same girlfriends. He was like a brother…”
“The painting in the council chamber shows you both in the middle of the patricians. A picture of trust and unity,” Simon interrupted him. “I had forgotten about it until I saw you this evening at the table with the other aldermen. In the painting you are holding a paper in your hands. Today I asked myself, what was on it?”
Matthias Augustin’s eyes turned to the light of the flames visible through the open window. He seemed to be looking into the far distance.
“Ferdinand and I were both burgomasters at that time. He needed money, desperately. His stovemaking business was nearly bankrupt. I lent him the money, a considerable sum. The paper in the painting is the receipt. The artist thought I should, as burgomaster, hold a paper in my hand. So I took the receipt, without the others noticing what it was. An eternal witness to Ferdinand’s debt…” The old man laughed.
“And where is the receipt now?” asked Simon.
Matthias Augustin shrugged.
“I burned it. At that time we were both in love with the same woman, Elisabeth, a redheaded angel of a girl. A bit simple perhaps, but of unsurpassable beauty. Ferdinand promised me that he would have nothing more to do with her, and in return I burned the receipt. Then I married this woman. A mistake…”
He shook his head, regretfully. “She bore me a useless, stupid brat and then died during childbirth.”
“Your son, Georg,” Simon interjected.
Matthias Augustin nodded curtly. Then he went on, while his thin gouty fingers twitched.
“The treasure is mine by right! Ferdinand told me about it on his deathbed, and that he had hidden it somewhere on the building site. He told me I would never be able to find it. He wanted to have his revenge. Because of Elisabeth!”
Simon walked around the table. Thoughts rushed through his head in confusion, then came together again in a new pattern. Suddenly it all made sense. He remained standing and pointed to Matthias Augustin.
“You yourself stole the sketch of the deed of gift from the town archives,” he cried. “Fool that I was! I thought that only Lechner or one of the four burgomasters would have known about the hiding place behind the tile. But you?”
The old man chuckled.
“Ferdinand had that hiding place made when he built the stove. He told me about it. A tile with a picture of a court clerk with documents coming out of his arse! He was always well-known for his coarse sense of humor.”
“But if you had the sketch—” asked Simon.
“I couldn’t make sense of it,” Augustin interrupted him. “I turned it this way and that, but I couldn’t see anything there about the damned hiding place!”
“So then you had the work on the building site disrupted so that you could have more time to look for it,” reasoned Simon. “And then the children overheard you, and you simply had them killed because of the dangerous knowledge they had. Did you know that they hadn’t recognized the instigator? All these murders were unnecessary.”
Angrily, Matthias Augustin cracked another nut.
“That was Georg, the simpleton. He got his brains from his mother, not from me. He was supposed to give the soldiers money only for the destruction of the building site. But even for that he was too stupid! He was careless and let himself be overheard, then gave the order to kill the children. He didn’t seem to realize the trouble that sort of thing would cause!”
The patrician seemed to have forgotten Simon. He continued his rant, without paying any attention to the physician.
“I told him to stop! He was to tell that devil that it was enough. What great secrets could the children have revealed? And who would have believed them anyway? But the killing went on. And now the children are dead, the Landgrave is sniffing around looking for witches in the town, and in spite of all that we still haven’t got the treasure! An absolute disaster! I should have left Georg in Munich. He has ruined everything!”
“But why do you worry about the treasure?” asked Simon incredulously. “You’re rich enough. Why risk so much for a few coins?”
The old man suddenly pressed his hands to his stomach and bent forward. A wave of pain seemed to pass through him before he could speak further.
“You…don’t understand,” he panted. “My body is a lump of rotten flesh. I’m rotting away while I’m still alive. The worms will be eating me soon. But that…is…not important.”
Once again he had to stop briefly and let the pain pass over him. Then the attack seemed to be over.
“What counts is the family, our reputation,” he said. “The Augsburg wagoners have almost driven me to ruin. Damned pack of Swa
bians! Before long, our house will go to the dogs. We need this money! My name is still good enough to obtain credit, but soon even that will be of no use. I need…this treasure.”
His voice turned into a soft rattle, while his fingers grasped the edge of the table convulsively. The colic pains returned. With increasing horror, Simon saw the old man twitch, jerk his head back and forth, and roll his blind eyes. Saliva drooled from the corner of his mouth. The pain must have been beyond imagining. Perhaps an obstruction in the gut, the physician thought, perhaps a growth that had spread over the whole abdomen. Matthias Augustin would not live much longer.
At this moment Simon noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. As he started to turn around a mighty blow hit him on the side of the head. He sank to the floor, and as he fell he saw young Georg Augustin standing there, his hand grasping a heavy iron candlestick raised for a second blow.
“No, Georg!” his father gasped from behind. “You’ll only make things much worse!” Then a black wave swept over Simon—he didn’t know if the candlestick had hit him again or if he had lost consciousness from the first blow.
When he came to, he felt a tightness around his chest, hands, and feet. His head throbbed with pain, and he could not open his right eye. Presumably blood had run into it and clotted. He was sitting on the chair where he had been before, but he could no longer move. He looked down and saw that he was tied to it with a curtain cord from top to bottom. Simon wanted to call out, but only succeeded in uttering a choking sound. A gag had been stuffed into his mouth.
In front of him the grinning face of Georg Augustin appeared. With his sword he poked at the physician’s doublet, and some of the copper buttons popped off. Simon cursed inwardly. When he saw that Matthias Augustin had disappeared from the May feast, he had not given a thought to this son of his but hurried directly to the Augustins’ house. The young patrician must have secretly followed him, and now his perfumed and beautifully barbered head of hair was directly in front of Simon’s face, looking him straight in the eye.
“That was a mistake,” he hissed. “A damned bad mistake, you quack! You should have kept your big mouth shut and screwed your hangman’s wench. It’s such a lovely feast out there. But, no, you have to make trouble…”
He stroked Simon’s chin with his sword. In the background the physician could hear old Augustin groaning. When he turned his head in that direction he saw the old man lying on the floor near the table. He dug his fingers into the cherrywood floorboards; his whole body twitched with cramps. Georg gave him only a brief glance before he turned again to Simon.
“My father will not disturb us any further,” he said, casually. “I have gotten to know these fits. The pain increases until it is intolerable, but then it stops. And when it stops, he’s just an empty carcass, much too exhausted to do anything. He’ll fall asleep, and when he wakes up again, there’ll be nothing left of you.”
Once again the patrician moved his sword slowly over Simon’s throat. Simon tried to cry out, but the gag only slipped down farther into his throat. He had a choking fit. Only with much trouble could he calm himself.
“You know,” whispered young Augustin. He bent down to Simon again, so that the smell of his expensive perfume wafted over him. “At first I cursed when I saw you going to see my father. I thought that would be the end. But now, well…other possibilities have arisen.”
He stepped to the fireplace, where a little fire was burning, and reached for the poker. Its tip was glowing red. He held it close to Simon’s cheek so that the physician could feel the heat. Grinning smugly, he continued.
“When we were watching the hangman doing his torturing down there in the keep, I thought I might enjoy this sort of thing. The screams, the smoke rising from human flesh, the pleading looks…Well, the witch wasn’t quite to my liking. You, on the other hand…
With a swift movement he lowered the poker and pressed it firmly to Simon’s breeches. The heat ate its way through the fabric and hissed as it touched his thigh. Simon’s eyes filled with tears. He gave a long howl but the gag wouldn’t let out more than a muffled groan. Helplessly he tossed about on the chair. After a while Augustin removed the poker and looked in his eyes, smiling coldly.
“Your beautiful breeches…Or are these the latest fashion now, these—what do you call them—rhinegraves? It’s a pity. You’re a loudmouth, that’s true, but at least you have a feeling for style. I can’t imagine how a nobody like you, a vagrant field surgeon, would have breeches like these. But all joking aside…”
He took the other armchair and sat astride it, the back facing Simon.
“That just now was only a foretaste of the pain that you are going to feel. Unless…” He pointed the poker at Simon’s breast. “Unless you tell me where the treasure is. Spit it out now. Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me.”
Simon shook his head wildly. Even if he had wanted to, he didn’t know. He had an idea that the hangman had found the treasure. In the course of the day Kuisl had given out one or two hints. But he wasn’t sure about it.
Georg Augustin interpreted his shake of the head as a refusal. Disappointed, he stood up and went back to the fireplace.
“It’s a pity,” he said. Then we’ll have to take it out on your fine doublet. Who is your tailor, quack? Not anyone from Schongau, surely.”
The young patrician held the poker in the fire and waited until it was red-hot again. Meanwhile Simon heard music and laughter from outside. The festival was only a few steps away, but the only thing observant burghers might see from outside would be a brightly lit window and a man sitting on a chair with his back to it. It seemed certain that Georg Augustin would not be disturbed. The man-and maidservants were all down in the market place and had presumably been given permission to stay out until morning. It would probably be after midnight before anyone entered the patrician’s house again.
Behind Simon, old Augustin squirmed on the floor, groaning quietly. The pain seemed to be diminishing. But he was in no position to intervene. Simon prayed that the old man would not pass out. Matthias Augustin was the only hope he had. Perhaps he might succeed in bringing his crazy son to his senses. Simon had already established that Georg was not quite normal.
“My father has always considered me to be a ne’er-do-well,” said the young patrician, turning the poker round in the fire. His eyes looked almost dreamily into the fire. “He’s never believed in me. Sent me away to Munich…But that was my idea with the building site. I hired the soldiers in Semer’s inn. I gave the burgomaster a lot of money to keep quiet about it. He let me in through the back door, the old fool. He thought I needed the soldiers to destroy the leper house because it was bad for business. As if I cared a damn about trade!”
He laughed aloud. Then he came toward Simon with the red-hot iron.
“And now my father will realize that I’m not as useless as he’s always thought me to be. When I’ve finished with you, your little hangman’s bitch won’t recognize you anymore. Perhaps I’ll have a go at her myself, the little tart.”
“Georg…be careful…”
Old Augustin had managed to heave himself upright. He propped himself up, panting, on the table and appeared to be wanting to say something. But pain overcame him, and he collapsed again.
“You have nothing more to say to me, Father,” whispered Georg Augustin as he moved nearer to Simon. “It’ll all be over in a couple of weeks. Then I shall be sitting here and managing the business. You’ll be rotting in your grave, but our house and our name will continue to exist. I shall buy a few new wagons with the money and some strong horses, and then we’ll put those Augsburgers in their place!”
Desperately, the old man gesticulated toward the door behind his son.
“Georg, behind you…”
The young patrician, at first surprised and then obviously shocked, looked at his father, who was pointing his spindly fingers at the entrance. When he finally turned around, it was too late.
T
he hangman flew at him like an avenging fury, and with one single blow knocked Georg Augustin to the floor. The glowing poker flew into a corner of the chamber, landing with a clatter. Dazed, Georg Augustin looked up at the big man above him, who now bent down and pulled him up with both hands.
“You leave torture to me, you fop,” said the hangman. Then he gave the patrician such a head butt with his hard skull that he sank lifeless into the chair. Blood ran from his nose. He keeled over forward, fell, and lay unconscious on the floor.
The hangman paid no further attention to Georg Augustin and hurried to Simon, who was rocking back and forth on his chair and quickly pulled the gag from his mouth.
“Kuisl!” panted the physician. “Heaven has sent you. How did you know?”
“I was at the feast to cool my Magdalena down a bit,” the hangman interrupted him, growling. “Thought I’d catch the two of you flirting. Instead I heard you’d had a tiff. You’re lucky she still likes you and saw you going into Augustin’s place. She told me where you were. When you didn’t come out, I went after you.”
The hangman pointed to the tear in Simon’s hose, under which burned skin, red-black, was showing.
“What’s that all about?”
Simon looked down. When he saw the wound again the pain returned.
“The swine got me with the poker. He was going to burn me alive.”
“Now at least you know what’ll happen to the Stechlin woman,” Kuisl growled. “What’s the matter with him down there?” He pointed to old Augustin, who had meanwhile recovered and sat in his chair, his eyes full of hate.
“He’s the mastermind we’ve been looking for so long,” said Simon, while he bound up his wound with a strip of cloth as best he could. At the same time he told the hangman what had happened.
“The honorable Matthias Augustin,” Jakob Kuisl finally growled when Simon had finished his story, looking at the old man. “You can’t have enough of executions at the stake. Didn’t my grandfather do enough of them for you? Haven’t you heard enough women screaming?”