The Play of Death
“Jakob, Jakob.” Lechner sighed deeply, collapsing on the chair the accused had occupied earlier and shaking his head. “How long have we known one another? Twenty years? Thirty? Believe me, I value your work. And further, I not only admire your work, I admire you, Jakob, above all your intelligence.” The secretary frowned. “It’s really a disgrace that high officials are sometimes as dumb as sheep and that those of lesser birth are blessed with the intelligence of rulers. But that’s just how it is. And just because you are so intelligent you should understand we won’t achieve anything here if you embarrass me.” He pointed to one of the armchairs for the observers, but the hangman remained standing, his arms crossed. Lechner shrugged.
“As you will. I only want you to understand that our fates are linked together. You want your son, Georg, to come back from Bamberg someday, and I want the trusteeship over Murnau, which I can obtain only if I can demonstrate a success in this accursed village.” Lechner rubbed his hands. Despite the embers still burning in the pan, it was unpleasantly cold.
“The Ettal abbot and his judge will always try to put a spoke in my wheel,” he continued. “The monastery will do everything to keep the jurisdiction from being transferred to Schongau. If word gets around that the Schongau hangman is making his secretary look foolish, they will use that against me. Do you understand?”
Jakob grinned. “As you said yourself, I’m not stupid. On the other hand, you want me to help you. What’s in it for me if I keep silent?”
“Don’t be so impudent.” Lechner leaned forward curiously. “I noticed before that you know something, so spit it out, now that we’re alone.”
The hangman bared his teeth. Lechner and he had in fact known one another for years, and he was sure the secretary would understand his message and come to visit him later.
“It’s about these figurines with the strange inscription,” Jakob said in a low voice. “Your suspicion is completely justified. Simon told me that there’s one like that in the house of the deceased bathhouse owner, too. A stranger with red hair broke into the house and left it there.”
“Xaver Eyrl. Hmm, that sounds possible.” Lechner nodded, mulling it over. “But why?”
“It must have something to do with these two Latin words, ET TU. It sounds almost like a warning. Perhaps Dominik Faistenmantel also found a figurine like that at home.”
The secretary frowned. “You think Eyrl gives these figurines to certain people and afterward he kills them? But according to what I’ve heard, the old bathhouse keeper died of a fever and not through some act of violence.”
“Well, Eyrl had been away from Oberammergau for a long time and couldn’t know that old Landes was already dead. He placed the statuette in his house and only later learned of his death.” Jakob took out his pipe and lighted it from the pan of embers as little clouds of smoke rose toward the ceiling.
“Hmm, I don’t know.” Lechner rubbed his nose, thinking it all over. “If you’re right, and you looked in Urban Gabler’s house, you’d also have to—”
He stopped short on hearing a little click and something falling into his lap. Surprised, the secretary held up a wooden statuette, broken in two.
It was a Pharisee, and it looked just like the other wooden figurines that had just been standing on the table. On the base were the words ET TU.
“Where did you get that?” Lechner asked in surprise.
“It was lying near the place where Urban Gabler was murdered. I found it there in the mud. As I said, it was perhaps meant as a warning.” Jakob turned around and went back to working on his tools. “Look for another figurine like this either at Dominik Faistenmantel’s house or in the cemetery where he was murdered. If you find one there, then we have our connection between the murders. Three dead men, three figurines, and then perhaps Eyrl will confess before I have to torture him.”
Johann Lechner smiled, stood up, and carefully slipped the broken statuette into his coat pocket. “Damned smart, hangman,” he said approvingly. “I wasn’t mistaken about you, and if you’re right, you can expect a reward. In any case I’ll immediately send out the guards to look for other statuettes like this, and perhaps we’ll find out whether to expect other victims.”
His face suddenly hardened. “Tomorrow morning we’ll continue the interrogation with all the consequences, just as the statutes provide. This fellow looks like a tough customer, and blood will have to flow.” Lechner nodded with determination. “So we’ll need a doctor or a medicus, as is customary in such inquisitions. Finally, we won’t want Eyrl to die before he confesses.”
“Do you mean . . .” Jakob started to say.
“Naturally. Your son-in-law, Simon Fronwieser, must be here for the torturing. He’s the only one around, isn’t he?” Lechner was already heading toward the door. “The fellow is too sensitive—a good doctor, but just too sensitive. It’s time he learned that sometimes it’s necessary not just to relieve pain, but to inflict it.”
The door slammed shut and once again Kuisl was alone in the room. Deep in thought, the hangman puffed on his pipe as his thirst got stronger and stronger.
He couldn’t imagine his son-in-law would be especially fond of Lechner’s plans.
Once more, Magdalena checked the knot in her headscarf as the line of people ahead of her gradually moved toward the checkpoint on the bridge. Horses whinnied, drivers grumbled and cursed, and down below at the Schongau landing another raft cast off heading for Augsburg. She could smell the slightly moldy odor of the river. The Tanners’ Quarter wasn’t far away, and there the stinking waste and animal remains were dumped into the steep streets around the bend and washed into the river the next time it rained.
Magdalena was standing at the western end of the wide bridge spanning the Lech that led to the small towns of Peiting, Rottenbuch, and Soyen on the other side. From there the old trade route headed south into the Ammer Valley toward the Alps. Once, huge caravans of merchants with their goods traveled the road, but the flow had gradually declined. The road ran along the river a ways, a dusty brown thoroughfare, finally disappearing behind the hills. At this time of year the Lech had overflowed its banks and flooded the meadowlands on both sides, leaving the bridge the only way to cross.
Magdalena raised her trembling hand to her bodice, beneath which Jakob Schreevogl’s letter was concealed. Yesterday evening the patrician had written and sealed a long letter addressed exclusively to Johann Lechner. Schreevogl had strongly enjoined Magdalena to make certain the letter did not fall into the wrong hands; Burgomaster Matthäus Buchner would surely deal harshly with a traitor in his own ranks. Magdalena had left her son Paul temporarily in the care of Martha Stechlin. Barbara would receive a short message from her, as she had no time to waste. She estimated it would take at most two days before word got around that she was no longer in Schongau and Buchner got wind of it.
She had two days to find Lechner, warn him of what was happening, and convince him that Barbara was innocent and in great danger.
All around her she heard the grumbling of many small traders and farmers who were on their way to Ammergau that morning. The wooden beams of the bridge groaned under the weight of the carts and wagons. Ordinarily travelers were simply waved through the checkpoint, but today the guards were being scrupulous.
And I know why, Magdalena thought to herself.
“What’s the matter with the guards?” an old farmer alongside her grumbled. “Are they asleep? If I’m not in Peiting by noon, there’s no point in my trying to sell my carrots anymore. I will miss the market.”
“It took just as long yesterday,” a shabbily dressed wood collector chimed in. He was wearing a knapsack loaded to the top with wood and pinecones he’d picked up in the forest. “Evidently they’re looking for someone,” he whispered conspiratorially. “It probably has something to do with the young Kuisl girl who was found to have those books of magic. Did you hear about it? Perhaps she has already broken out of the dungeon.”
In the darkest pos
sible colors, the wood collector told his listeners about the dangerous powers these magic books conferred on their owner. “If they hadn’t caught the girl, she would surely have let loose an army of mice on our fields,” he said in a hushed tone. “Just like a few years ago, when the mice swarmed all over and ate everything. The priest had to walk up and down the fields three times with the staff of Saint Magnus in order to drive the pests away.”
“I’m not sure,” said the old farmer alongside him. “These Kuisls may indeed be dishonorable, but I know of no one better when it comes to healing. Just last year I went to the hangman with a dislocated shoulder, and I must say . . .”
Magdalena carefully stepped back a few paces in order not to be recognized by the old man. She was wearing a headscarf, just like yesterday, and had rubbed some soot on her face, and with a basket in her hand and a crooked cane she looked at first glance like a traveling merchant. But Magdalena had no illusions. Anyone who knew her even slightly wouldn’t be fooled for long by this disguise. That was the reason she hadn’t set out at sunrise, as originally planned. The guards on duty at this hour came from neighboring Altenstadt and only knew her by name.
But even that was no protection against accidental discovery.
After waiting awhile, she finally found herself standing in front of the two guards, who regarded her casually.
“So, woman, where are you headed for today?” the fatter of the guards wanted to know. He was poorly shaven and there was a bright yellow boil under his nose.
“To the market, in Soyen,” Magdalena answered quickly in a slightly disguised voice. “I sell my garlic there.” She reached into her basket and pulled out a few moldy, stinking samples. “Would you like to have a few, young man? They’re very good for festering infections, also on one’s nose . . .”
The guard turned away in disgust. “Get out of here with that stuff, old woman. You stink like a whole field of them. If that’s all you have to sell, people will give you a wide berth, I promise.”
“I have nothing else,” Magdalena said, looking down with a guilty look so the man wouldn’t see the smirk on her face. It was for just that reason she had decided on bringing the old garlic.
“Fine, now move along.” The guard waved her through and Magdalena stepped out onto the wide bridge. Other itinerant peddlers, farmers with handcarts, and also wagons and men on horseback went clattering past her. Jakob Schreevogl had offered Magdalena a horse for the trip, but a woman on horseback, especially one in simple clothing, would have been much too conspicuous. It was about a day’s march to Oberammergau, and Magdalena hoped to arrive before nightfall. Then she’d have enough time to warn Lechner, take her son Peter briefly in her arms, and return home.
At best, with her father and Simon.
Magdalena was still angry at her husband for simply abandoning her. At least she wished he’d given her a better explanation, perhaps even made a short visit back to Schongau to talk things over—anything but just that brief message. But there were no two ways about it, Simon was a coward. By this evening at the latest she’d give him a good dressing-down. Basically, though, her anger was nothing compared to her worry about Barbara. Glumly, she went over in her mind the many little quarrels she’d had with Barbara recently. How insignificant that all seemed now. She absolutely had to be back before the hangman arrived from out of town and started going about his work.
The wooden planks creaked as Magdalena walked the final yards across the bridge, finally arriving at the road to Peiting, where there was also a guardhouse and a toll station. The sun came out from behind the clouds and a silent hope began to stir within her. She tucked the basket under her arm and strode toward the wooded hills separating Schongau from the next town. A narrow, determined smile crossed her face. Yes, she would return with Johann Lechner. Perhaps Barbara would be facing a trial, but certainly not torture or execution. Lechner would put this burgomaster and the filthy doctor back in their places. She once again touched the valuable letter under her bodice and breathed a sigh of relief.
Everything would be fine.
“‘Credo . . . in . . . in uno . . . Deum Patrem omin . . . omni . . .’”
“‘Omnipotentem’! God, it can’t really be that hard!” Georg Kaiser pounded his lectern with his book and looked out at the rows of school benches. The children glared back at him, blank-eyed. The fat boy, Nepomuk, was struggling with the first sentence of the Apostolic Creed, and despite the cold temperature in the schoolhouse, sweat poured down from his brow. As so often, there was a faint odor of decay in the room that came from the neighboring cemetery.
“Nobody is expecting you to recite the entire catechism by heart,” Kaiser scolded, “but it must be possible to fit a little Latin in between the work in the stables. Peter, can you help Nepomuk?”
Peter shuddered when the schoolmaster turned to him with an indulgent smile. Surely Kaiser only meant well, but he couldn’t suspect the burden Peter felt in being the only one to know any Latin in a class of almost sixty lazy, stubborn village children. Peter could already feel the eyes of the others boring into him like needles.
“‘Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae,’” he whispered.
Kaiser sighed gratefully. “Well, you see, it’s not so hard. Take Peter as your example—he’ll amount to something. And now—”
Church bells sounded the noon hour and the end of school. Cheering, the children jumped up from their worn benches and ran toward the exit. As he walked by, Nepomuk bumped into Peter, knocking his slate tablet to the floor.
“See you outside, smart guy,” whispered the fat boy, who was almost a head taller than Peter. “It’s hard to speak Latin when your teeth are broken.” But at that moment, the schoolmaster approached, and Nepomuk took off. The schoolmaster ran his finger through Peter’s hair in a friendly way. Evidently he hadn’t heard a word of Nepomuk’s threat.
“Progress here in the classroom must seem very slow to you,” Kaiser said. “But we are just a little village school and have to consider the less intelligent ones. Besides, Nepomuk’s father donates almost half the wood for the schoolhouse stove.” He coughed dryly, pointing at the small, rusty stove standing in the corner; the room was still bitterly cold in May. Wind whistled through the cracks in the walls of the former stable, the few benches were cobbled together from spruce wood full of knotholes, and half the children had no seat at all and had to sit on the cold hard-packed dirt floor.
Kaiser smiled at Peter. “If you like, you can come to my room tonight, and we’ll study Catullus. Something more befitting your intelligence. Shall we say around six o’clock?”
Peter nodded hesitantly. “Uh, fine.” He packed up his things and headed toward the door. “But now I have to—”
“And Peter”—Kaiser put his hand on Peter’s shoulder—“don’t be intimidated by the dolts here. They’re just jealous of you. As I said, someday you’ll amount to something.”
“If . . . if you say so,” Peter replied, “but now I really have to go. The others . . .”
“The other children are waiting for you? Very well, if you have already found friends, all the better.” Laughing, he gave Peter a final friendly pat on the shoulder and left. “Until this evening.”
Peter ran outside, where Jossi and Maxl were waiting impatiently for him in front of the schoolhouse.
“We suspected that Kaiser would have you recite the whole stupid catechism,” said black-haired Maxl in his deep voice, shaking his head. “Where did you learn all that Latin? That’s weird.”
“I don’t know,” Peter replied with a shrug. “I just know it. It’s sort of like a game.”
“A game?” Jossi laughed. “I can show you some better games—catch, marbles, and hide-and-seek, for example. You’re really a bit strange. And then there are your drawings!”
Peter cast his eyes to the ground. “I’m sorry if I—”
Maxl patted him on the shoulder. “Oh, think nothing of it. At least someday I can s
ay I’ve known a real scholar. Now come along before Poxhannes catches us.” He pointed furtively behind them, where Kaiser’s assistant was splitting wood in the yard with an ax.
Hannes was big and broad-shouldered, and his bulging muscles were visible beneath his sweaty shirt. His face was covered with scars that were probably due to an earlier case of smallpox, leading to his nickname, Poxhannes. The schoolhouse assistant chopped wood with the same grim determination that he often showed when handling disobedient children in school, and in less than half an hour Peter had learned to hate him. He was surprised that a friendly man like Georg Kaiser had taken on such a boor as an assistant. Poxhannes couldn’t read any better than most of his pupils, and in Latin he had just barely learned to recite the Lord’s Prayer, but perhaps it was simply impossible to find a more capable school assistant in Oberammergau.
At that moment, Hannes looked up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The boys ducked down, but it was too late.
“Hey!” he called out, and motioned to them to come. “Quit staring and help me with the firewood. Hurry up and get over here.”
“Keep moving,” Jossi whispered. “Act as if we haven’t heard him, or we’ll never get out of here.”
They ran off as Hannes kept shouting after them. “I’ll remember you, you brats!” he yelled. “Don’t think I’ll let you get away with this. When I catch you, you’ll be working your asses off all night.”
“What does Poxhannes want you to do?” Peter asked as they ran. “Work all night? What the hell have you done?”
“It’s not that,” red-haired Jossi panted. “It’s just that he always has something for us working-class kids to do.” He put on a gloomy face. “Especially now. But save your breath for running—keep going!”
Stooped over, they ran alongside the cemetery wall and through the narrow streets toward the Ammer bridge. Peter’s heart was pounding. Yesterday his two new friends had shown him some good places to catch trout, and today they were going to tell him a secret. All morning Peter had shifted around restlessly on his chair in school, and during break outside he’d pestered Jossi and Maxl with questions, but they just wouldn’t tell him—yet. Now he’d learn.