She avoided the Münzgasse, the wide main street, as well as the busy squares, in hope of not being recognized as she ran toward the dungeon. Most people were working in their shops or out in the fields, so she encountered only a few people along the way. She turned her face to the side and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible.
All morning she’d been worrying about her little sister, languishing now for several hours in the Schongau dungeon. Magdalena still couldn’t figure out how her ancestor’s books had showed up under Barbara’s bed. She must have found them somewhere—or had the books been planted there by Ransmayer along with the mandrake root? To find out, she had to speak with Barbara.
She had left little Paul with Martha Stechlin. After the attack on Melchior Ransmayer, it took a lot to persuade the guards not to take Paul along, as well. The boy had been so upset he was crying and striking out wildly at anyone who tried to speak to him and had threatened several times to slash open the evil doctor’s stomach with his woodcarving knife. Magdalena was shocked by the rage flashing in Paul’s eyes. Sometimes she could barely control her younger son.
In the shadow of the buildings she cursed under her breath and crept closer to the dungeon. Rarely had she experienced such a hopeless situation, and she deeply regretted not having spoken to her sister earlier. Melchior Ransmayer and Burgomaster Buchner could put a noose around Barbara’s neck because of the mandrake root alone, but especially so because of the books of magic. As it says in the Bible:
For the magicians you shall take their lives . . .
Magdalena’s greatest fear was that her sister would be burned at the stake. Then the question was: Who would administer the torture and perform the execution? Certainly not her own father, but an executioner from somewhere else. But there was another problem: if things went badly, her father could be charged with witchcraft along with Magdalena and the rest of the family. Magdalena had heard of trials in which the mere mention of a name during questioning sufficed for a conviction. How long would Barbara hold up under the pain of torture without mentioning everyone who was near and dear to her—her father, her sister, her twin brother, perhaps even her two little nephews?
With hurried steps, Magdalena turned a corner and approached the dungeon, a chunky three-storied building clinging like a festering sore to the town wall. Two guards stood in front, holding halberds and staring wearily into space. When Barbara was led away earlier that morning, Magdalena had asked the sympathetic constable Andreas to tell her who was on guard that day in front of the dungeon. At midday two guards she knew well were there, Andreas himself and Johannes, both of whose wives she’d assisted in the birth of their children.
She cautiously approached them, still bent over like an old woman.
“Hey, old woman, get out of here,” Andreas growled. “You have no business—” He stopped short on recognizing Magdalena beneath the scarf. He glanced furtively in all directions.
“Come in quickly,” he whispered. “If Buchner hears about this, he’ll give us hell.”
Andreas quickly pulled out a large bunch of keys, then he opened the door while his colleague kept an eye on people passing by. Behind the door was a long, damp corridor with individual cells along the sides. Andreas led Magdalena to the last door on the left, which he opened with another key.
“You have until the next bell rings,” he whispered. “Then comes the changing of the guard—so hurry up.” Magdalena bent down to enter the low, musty room, and the cell door slammed loudly behind her.
Barbara was huddled against the opposite wall beneath a barred window. Her shaggy black hair hung down into her face, her dress was soiled and torn, and her eyes were fluttering, but at least she appeared uninjured. When she recognized her older sister in the dim light, her tension seemed to melt away.
“Magdalena . . .” she said, hesitantly. Tears rolled down her dirty cheeks. “I’m . . . so sorry . . .”
Magdalena knelt down beside Barbara and ran her hand through her hair just as she used to when her little sister had had a nightmare. All their quarrels were forgotten. “Did they hurt you?” she asked in a gentle voice.
Barbara shook her head. “Ransmayer wanted to tear off my dress. He said he wanted to look for more evidence, but the guards didn’t let him.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around her knees. “When I heard the door, I thought he . . . he was coming back.”
“They won’t let him in,” said Magdalena, trying to comfort her. “I’ll see to that. Nevertheless, you are in deep trouble.”
“It was so stupid of me,” Barbara said in a hoarse voice. “I’ve gotten you all into trouble because of these books that I found in a nook up in the attic. God knows why Father hid them there. I only wish there was some way I could make up for it.”
“Indeed, that was a stupid thing you did,” Magdalena replied with a sad smile. “Very stupid, even. But that won’t help you get out of here. We can only hope the Schongau Council shrugs it off as superstitious nonsense. There are some enlightened men on the council who perhaps—”
“Ransmayer and Burgomaster Buchner want to get rid of me,” Barbara interrupted. Unbridled anger flashed in her eyes, suddenly drowning out her fears. “They won’t let anything stop them. The two of them are involved in a shady deal, and they know I’ve figured out what they’re up to. That’s the reason they planted the mandrake root in the house, and now I have given them another way to get at me.” She shook her head sadly. “I could kill myself.”
“Don’t worry, others will do that for you,” Magdalena answered, a little more harshly than she intended. “Especially if you don’t put an end to these weird suspicions. That won’t . . .” A wave of nausea suddenly came over her as pregnancy made itself felt again. She closed her eyes and struggled against the urge to throw up. “That won’t get us anywhere. So just stop with that nonsense.” She lowered her voice on hearing footsteps outside the barred window.
“Ransmayer can’t hurt us,” she continued in a soft voice. “He planted the mandrake root in the house as revenge for the beating Father gave him. But everything else is pure nonsense—dark figures in the cemetery, secret meetings in the church . . . Come on, Barbara! Just tell me why you kept those accursed books under the bed.”
“I . . . don’t know myself.” Barbara slumped down, and in the dim light she was now nothing more than a dark, quivering shadow. “Haven’t you ever wished you could perform magic? I thought if I tried those words . . . perhaps there is one that can carry me off to another place—one where I am no longer a hangman’s daughter, where no one knows me, where I can begin all over again.”
“I’d like to find some magic words that could carry us both off now to another place,” Magdalena replied, smiling. “But believe me, I’ve never in all my life seen any real magic. It doesn’t exist. There’s just a lot that we can’t understand, and we like to think of that as magic.”
“Then the women our ancestor executed were not witches?” Barbara asked. “Not even one of them?”
“They were women just like you and me, Barbara. They suffered horrible pain and were made to confess anything their tormenters demanded. And so will you, if something doesn’t happen soon.” Magdalena straightened up. “I must speak with the council, that’s our only chance.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Barbara replied despondently. “We are dishonorable. Nobody will listen to us.”
“But there is one.” Magdalena nodded grimly. “There is one who will do it. He owes a lot to us Kuisls.”
“Watch out!”
Simon heard Jakob’s voice and at the same moment felt a strong hand on his shoulder. He was yanked back, stumbled, and took a painful fall. In the place he was standing just a moment ago, a huge avalanche of tree trunks and boulders thundered past and down into the valley.
Horrified, Simon looked up. The pile of logs had disappeared, and all that remained was bare black earth. There was a rumbling and crashing as another tree trunk rolled down toward him and Jak
ob. Simon dived to one side, and the trunk roared past only inches away. A few smaller rocks flew by, then silence returned.
“Thanks,” Simon groaned. “That was close.”
He got up on shaking legs and brushed off his trousers and jacket. The handsome new jacket he’d bought just recently in Augsburg was badly torn, and his shirt was sprinkled with tiny drops of blood from a cut on his arm. Simon’s annoyance at his soiled clothing made him forget his fear of death for a moment, but then it occurred to him that without his father-in-law he would probably now be lying crushed to death down below alongside the Laine. He turned to Jakob. “If you hadn’t reacted so quickly . . .”
“My pleasure,” Kuisl said with a dismissive wave, but then he pointed down, where shouts and cries of pain could be heard. “It seems we’re not the only ones to be surprised by the avalanche. Quick, let’s go and see if we can help.”
Jakob hurried back along the narrow path that was partially blocked by rocks and fallen trees, and Simon stumbled after him. Finally, when they reached the stream, they found a scene of total devastation. Fallen trees swirled in the churning waters along with a number of the woodsmen, who were desperately trying to avoid being crushed by the logs. The bridge was destroyed, and the nearby shore was strewn with debris and rocks that had rolled down the mountain. Rock dust hung in the air like fog, blinding the men who were groping about in search of their buried comrades. The shouts of pain that Simon and Jakob had heard earlier were now so loud they seemed to drown out everything else.
Jakob ran toward one of the groups of men standing helplessly alongside a huge boulder. A young fellow not even sixteen years old was lying on the ground, pinned under a boulder up to his thighs. His face was white as flour dust and his screams echoed back from the mountain. Behind the almost bestial screams, Simon thought he heard the boy cry for his mother.
“What the hell is going on?” Jakob shouted against the noise.
The men looked up fearfully; they seemed still in shock.
“The rock . . . is too heavy,” one of them stammered, pointing at the boulder. “We can’t get him out from under it.”
“Then, damn it, get a tree trunk! How stupid are you, anyway?”
Without waiting for the reaction of the others, the hangman stomped off and started looking around in the debris, finally locating a birch as thick as a leg that had been knocked over by the avalanche. He grabbed the trunk and carried it like a spear to the scene of the accident.
“Out of my way,” he growled.
The woodcutters finally began to understand what the giant stranger in black clothing had in mind. As the lad continued screaming, they all helped shove the tree into a hole under the boulder to lift it up. It moved a bit, just a few inches, then there was a loud crack and the tree snapped in two.
Jakob lunged forward and pushed to prevent the boulder from falling back down on the youth, but it was like trying to lift a house. The veins stood out on his forehead and one of the sleeves of his shirt burst open, revealing his huge biceps.
“Damn-damn-damn!”
His curses were so loud they even drowned out the screams of the young man. The rock lifted, then suddenly tipped to one side, hit the ground with a loud thump, and finally fell into the surging Laine.
The whole time, Simon had stood off to one side. Earlier he had tried to help the men move the boulder but he’d quickly realized that God had blessed him with other talents. Now he knelt down alongside the lad, who had in the meantime lost consciousness, and inspected his wounds. Except for a few scratches, the right leg seemed fine, but white bone splinters were protruding from the left leg. Blood, stone dust, flesh, and scraps of his trousers mingled in a single mass.
Simon knew what that meant.
As he cleaned the wound superficially to remove the dirt, he turned to the other men.
“Quick, we need to build a litter,” he said. “Then take the poor man as fast as possible to the office of the medicus in Oberammergau.”
“Who is he?” mumbled one of the woodcutters, regarding Simon suspiciously. “I’ve never seen this fancy-looking guy before. A foreigner?”
“He’s the Schongau medicus who’s come to help us for the time being,” another woodcutter whispered. “Faistenmantel hired him.”
“A Schongauer? Well, I don’t know . . .”
“Good God, either you let this Schongauer do his job now, or this boy won’t just lose his leg, but his life.” Simon was beside himself with anger. “And then be sure to put on his gravestone: ‘Murdered by Narrow-Minded Oberammergauers.’ Is that what you want?”
The men grumbled, but no one else said a word. Instead, some of them began building a litter from branches lying around, while an elderly man with a shaggy gray beard turned to Simon.
“I want to apologize for my employees,” he murmured, patting Simon on the shoulder. “They didn’t mean it that way. In a remote area like this, people are a bit reserved toward strangers.” He nodded amiably and gave Simon his hand, gripping it like an iron vise. “Alois Mayer. I’m the forester for the Laine Valley.”
“Simon Fronwieser, medicus from far-off Schongau,” Simon replied between clenched teeth. Then he returned to caring for the injured youth. His anger was still too deep.
“Who’s your friend over there?” Mayer asked. “I’ve hardly ever seen a stronger fellow. He’s got the strength of three oxen.”
Simon peered over at Jakob, who was now moving other rocks aside to clear their path. He laughed bitterly. “He’s Jakob Kuisl, the Schongau hangman, and if your men give me any trouble they’ll have to run like hell to get away from him.”
Alois looked puzzled for a moment, then he nodded. “I’ve heard about him. They say he’s a wild man, hot-tempered and direct, but as sly as a fox.” He broke out in a wide grin. “Damn! If he wasn’t a Schongauer, he could easily pass for an Oberammergauer.”
For a while, neither spoke as Simon silently dabbed the young man’s sweaty forehead, stopping now and then to look up anxiously at the mountain.
“Don’t worry,” Alois said. “There’s nothing more coming, although . . .” He paused as if there was something else on his mind.
“Although what?” Simon asked.
“Well, some of my men think there’s something strange behind all these avalanches. I mean, there were avalanches in the spring, but why so many now?” Alois shrugged. “The men say the Venetians are prowling around again.”
“The Venetians?” Simon stopped short. “Who the hell are they?”
Alois lowered his voice. “Little people living up here in the mountains since ancient times. They’re looking for treasure with the help of secret signs and books. It’s possible they’re somehow in league with the devil.”
Simon laughed softly. “Why does the devil always have to be involved in these matters?” he said, shaking his head. “Couldn’t a sudden earthquake also set off an avalanche like this? In any case, the pile of logs up on the mountain didn’t look very secure.” He shrugged. “Oh, or perhaps the devil stamped his clubfoot on the ground and set off the avalanche. That must have been it, don’t you think?”
Alois Mayer’s face darkened. “You can go ahead and make fun of us, foreigner, but we Oberammergauers know that the little men really exist. Recently we have seen more and more of them. They wear hoods and are the size of children. Black dogs and dragons guard the treasures of these mountains, but the Venetians know how to get past them.”
“Hoods, you say?” Suddenly Simon felt unsure of himself, remembering the strange figure he and Jakob had seen before the avalanche came rolling down. That figure was also small and wore a hood. “That’s peculiar. I myself . . .” Then he stopped short. This superstitious babble drove him crazy. No doubt they’d just seen a child, a shepherd boy, that was all.
Alois looked at him curiously, then waved it off. “What do you flatlanders know about the mountains?”
Simon watched the men who were approaching with a litter made of logs
and branches. The woodcutters who had been swept into the raging Laine had all been able to save themselves. Except for the young man, they all seemed to have survived without anything more than a good scare.
“We can take Martin to the village now,” said Alois as the men picked up the litter. “He’s a good worker and has served me well, even if his parents are only poor immigrant laborers. I will pray a hundred rosaries for him in the church.”
Simon sighed. “Add another hundred—he needs it.” Once again he looked anxiously up the mountain where he and Jakob had seen the strange little hooded man earlier, then he waved goodbye to his father-in-law and walked alongside the litter back to the village to do his bloody work. He suspected there would be a lot more screams that day.
At around the same time, Magdalena ran down the wide Münzgasse toward the Schongau City Hall, where the palatial mansions of the nobility surrounded the square. Colorfully painted walls, balustrades, and stucco figures gave evidence of a time when Schongau was still an important trade center, but now the stucco was peeling from the walls and the panes of bull’s-eye glass were dusty and clouded. Some of the houses were slightly askew, like drunken tavern patrons waiting for better times. Magdalena struggled for breath but ran on without stopping.
The man she was going to visit was her last hope.
Her destination was a three-story middle-class house on the left that looked a little more inviting than the others. She ran up the few front steps and knocked impatiently on the door, and shortly thereafter a pretty young woman about twenty years old appeared.
“Frau Fronwieser!” she exclaimed. “Are any of our servants ill?”
Magdalena shook her head impatiently. “No, Clara. I must speak with your father on an urgent matter,” she gasped. “Is he home?”
“He’s sitting upstairs in the library, as he often does,” Clara replied hesitantly, clearly noticing how upset Magdalena was. “Come, I’ll take you to him right away.”