The Play of Death
The boys were just climbing over a boulder alongside the Malenstein down to the path, when they suddenly heard steps coming up the trail from the south. Jossi grabbed Peter by the collar and yanked him back behind the rock, and when Peter was about to object, Maxl put his finger to his lips.
“It’s possible Poxhannes is snooping around, looking for us,” he whispered, fear showing in his face. “He likes to wander around in the forest. Let’s have a look at who it is.”
As they waited, the sound of the footsteps drew closer, and soon the footsteps were right in front of their hiding place. Peter held his breath, but there was no reason to be afraid. Whoever was coming up the path was in a hurry and ran on past them. Curiously, Peter peeked over the top of the rock—and froze.
There, just a few yards in front of him, Franz Würmseer was jogging up the trail. Soon he disappeared behind a clump of trees.
“Come on, let’s see where he’s going,” whispered Jossi, who had clearly smelled blood.
They followed the trail, scurrying over moss-covered boulders and fallen tree trunks, trying not to lose sight of Würmseer. Once or twice Peter stepped on a dry branch and cringed, fearing that Würmseer might have heard it, but the wagon driver seemed completely wrapped up in his thoughts. He was running so fast that they lost sight of him a few times, but he stayed on the path and each time they were able to catch up.
After a while the path led out of the forest and back to the country road. Franz Würmseer was now just a tiny figure with a coat fluttering behind him as he hurried back to Oberammergau. An icy wind swept down the mountain, and Peter was freezing cold. High above, the clouds gathered in dark masses, and he had to squint to protect his eyes from the gusts of wind.
When he opened them again, Würmseer had disappeared.
“Damn! That’s not possible,” Maxl muttered. “He can’t have just vanished in thin air—it’s almost like black magic.”
“I think it’s a lot simpler than that,” Jossi answered. “Follow me.”
As fast as their feet could carry them, the boys ran across the muddy fields strewn with cow droppings and toward the road. Now that they’d lost sight of Würmseer, they threw caution to the wind and had soon reached the road, which here, just outside of Oberammergau, was full of ruts and puddles. The ancient flagstones had shattered or were missing completely. At this point the road ran atop a slightly elevated embankment through the moor.
“Now you must be very quiet,” Jossi whispered, “and I’ll show you how Würmseer was able to disappear.”
They scurried along the road through the bushes and heather until Jossi suddenly stopped and pointed downward excitedly. A ramp led down from the road to a cattle trough with a stone shrine and a bench alongside it.
And in fact, Franz Würmseer was sitting there.
In the hollow he would be invisible from the forest. Two black horses bathed in sweat were there, drinking from the trough, and behind them stood a wagon like the ones wagon drivers used. At that moment a man with a shaggy beard and wearing a battered floppy hat stepped out from behind the wagon. He had been lashing the barrels and sacks together on the wagon, and now he appeared to be very annoyed.
Jossi motioned to the other boys, and they crouched down behind a stunted mountain pine to see what would happen.
“We’ve got to stop this, it’s becoming too dangerous,” the man said as he tightened the ropes around a chest. “The Tyrolean thinks so, too.” He looked up nervously at the sky, where black storm clouds were gathering.
“Not if you do exactly what I say,” Würmseer said, his voice oddly soft and high-pitched. “We’ve already taken this too far, and there’s no going back, and that goes for you, too.”
“That Schongau hangman will put you on the rack when they find out,” the other man answered angrily. “And before that he’ll yank your guts out and feed them to the dogs. I don’t want to end up on the scaffold like you, Franz, not for all the money in the world.”
“Nobody is going to end up on the scaffold,” Würmseer reassured him. “Believe me, all this nonsense concerning the Passion play can only benefit us. People fear the anger of God more than anything else, and that fear is our best defense. I’m sure the Schongau secretary has no idea what’s going on. Remember, I sit on the council.”
Spellbound, the three boys hunkered down behind the mountain pine to listen. Peter had no idea what they were talking about, but he suspected it was connected somehow with the terrible murders. Was this unscrupulous wagon driver perhaps the murderer everyone was looking for? Or was it Franz Würmseer? He stuck his head out a bit farther to get a better look. Suddenly, a duck came out of a bush nearby, quacking and fluttering its wings, and Würmseer looked up. In the last split second, Peter pulled his head back in again.
“What was that?” Würmseer asked in an undertone.
“You saw it yourself—it was a duck,” the other man answered with a shrug. He made a little quacking sound and laughed. “You’re so anxious.”
“Rightly so. This is too important, and we can’t be careless. If anyone hears us and reports it, we’re finished. We’d better not stay here any longer.” Würmseer got to his feet. “I’ll see you tonight after sundown on the Döttenbichl, right?”
The other man sighed. “Very well, if that’s the end of it.” He snickered diabolically. “But you’re right, it’s all worth it just to have a chance to spit in that fat bastard’s face again.”
The bearded stranger led the horses away from the trough and started hitching them up again while Franz Würmseer walked up the ramp to the road.
He was walking straight toward the three boys.
Peter put his hand to his mouth in horror, as the crippled pine was not a very good hiding place. Even if the boys could have disappeared down a rabbit hole, Würmseer would still see them.
He came closer and closer, three paces, two paces, one . . .
“Hey, Franz!” the man called at that moment from down below. “These damn animals are refusing to move again, they won’t let me hitch them up. Come on, I need your help.”
Cursing, Würmseer turned on his heels and walked back down again to the trough. The children used this chance to run to the other side of the road, down the embankment where they couldn’t be seen, and back to Oberammergau.
“That was damn close,” Maxl panted as they ran along. “I don’t know what they would have done if they’d found us, but it would certainly be more than a spanking.”
“They would have killed us,” Jossi replied simply. “Did you recognize the wagon driver? That was the knacker Paul who sometimes drives for Würmseer. He’s a gloomy character who lives alone out on the moor, and they say he’s robbed people’s coaches and slit the drivers’ throats.”
Now they were running along the road again atop the embankment. In front of them they saw the Ammer River bridge, behind which the first houses of Oberammergau were visible.
“Was this knacker Paul perhaps the one who crucified the son of your council chairman?” Peter whispered, slowing down with exhaustion.
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Jossi replied. “I’m just happy we—”
He stopped short on seeing a figure that appeared as if out of nowhere on the bridge in front of them. Evidently the person had been waiting down along the river and had jumped up over the railing like an angry spirit.
It was Poxhannes.
In his hand he clutched a switch made of fresh walnut, the kind he always used in class. It whistled as he swung it through the air while he grinned triumphantly.
“Ha! I knew you little brats would come back from playing in the forest sooner or later,” he said, bending the switch into a U as if testing its strength. “You had to come back over the bridge, didn’t you? There’s no other way back.” His face darkened. “Didn’t I tell you to be back by the four o’clock bell? We have work to do tonight, and the others are waiting.”
Maxl’s face was as white as a sheet. He pointed up at the
sky, where dark clouds were gathering. “But it looks like we’ll have a thunderstorm today,” he replied hesitantly. “In this weather, do we really want to—”
“Shut your fresh mouth,” Hannes snarled, and drew the whip across his neck in an unambiguous gesture. His pockmarks turned a fiery red. Impatiently he pointed at Peter. “You, brat, beat it, or I’ll whip your ass so hard you won’t be able to walk for a week. And you other two, come with me. Get moving.” Maxl screamed as Hannes grabbed him by the hair and dragged him across the bridge and toward the moor. Jossi hesitated briefly, then followed the two, his head bowed. He turned around one last time and looked sadly at his friend. Silently, Peter mouthed a single word.
Why?
But Jossi didn’t answer. He turned and ran after Maxl and Poxhannes through the moor and into the mountains, where threatening clouds hovered overhead like giant black mushrooms.
The wind tugged at the shutters in the village, making them rattle like little goblins.
Simon hurried down the deserted street, where gusts of wind stirred up dust and leaves. Somewhere an open garden gate squeaked, while from far off came the groaning of the pine trees swaying back and forth in the gathering storm. He looked up at the black clouds as he clutched his hat tightly, ducked down, and continued running.
Simon was still undecided if it was right to disobey the orders of Johann Lechner and stay in Oberammergau. On the other hand, people here needed him. He’d just returned from a quick visit to the Weidingers, a family of poor workers living outside the village. Peter had told him a little girl lived there who had been badly injured in an accident in the forest. In order not to disappoint his son again, he’d hurried there at once, but when he arrived, all they told him was that the girl was doing much better and she was outside playing with the other children. Strangely, the expressions on their pale faces said something different. The parents looked worried and anxious.
Simon wondered if Jakob Kuisl had really gone out looking for Xaver Eyrl in this weather. Perhaps the hangman was already back in the bathhouse waiting for him. He had decided to pay a visit to the council chairman, Konrad Faistenmantel. After the cancellation of the play, there were some things that had to be discussed—after all, Simon was expected to stay on as the bathhouse keeper and medicus only until the performance. His work was actually finished, and perhaps he could pick up at least part of his pay. In addition, Simon hoped to learn more about Faistenmantel’s threat at the rehearsal that morning.
He turned onto the main road, which looked just as deserted as the other streets in the village. Darkness was falling, and Simon assumed that most people had sought shelter in their homes in this weather. The little bunches of St. John’s wort on the doors swayed in the wind, and a few sprays of the dried herb had been torn off and were blown away over the roofs. One could only hope the storm wouldn’t bring hail that would destroy the fields and bring starvation to these poor farmers.
There was no light in the tavern. Apparently the innkeeper had decided to close for the day. Simon turned down a side street and soon stood before the house of the Faistenmantels, where light was visible behind the bull’s-eye windows. Hesitantly, he knocked on the door. He heard hasty steps approaching, and the door swung open. Kaspar, the elder of the two living sons, looked at Simon in surprise.
“Oh, it’s just you,” he said after a brief pause, with visible disappointment. “I thought Father had finally come back.”
“That’s a shame, I actually wanted to speak with him,” Simon replied. “Do you know where he is?”
Kaspar shook his head. The young, powerfully built man looked genuinely concerned. “We don’t know. This afternoon he apparently got a message from someone, and then he left abruptly.”
Simon stopped short. “Your father got a message? From whom?”
“The journeyman thought it was from a woodcarver’s assistant, but he was just the messenger, and we have no idea who the message was from. We’re getting worried.” Kaspar looked up at the dark sky. “It’s not just that he’s up in the mountains in this weather.”
“He didn’t say anything?”
“Hey, are you listening to me?” Kaspar looked Simon up and down with growing annoyance. “No he didn’t. Anyway, I don’t know what business that is of yours, stranger.”
“Well, I’m waiting for my pay. That ought to—”
The door slammed shut and Simon was standing out in the street, his mouth wide open. For a moment he was tempted to bang angrily on the door again, but then he changed his mind. It was pointless trying to argue with these stubborn Oberammergauers—all it would get him was a bloody nose. In any case, it was interesting that Konrad Faistenmantel had gotten an anonymous message so soon after he’d issued his threats. Had something happened to him? Then again, why should he be interested in the quarrels of these angry little mountain people? Why not just let them bash each other’s heads in? Maybe it was better for him simply to pack his things and go home to Schongau—to Magdalena, Barbara, and little Paul. He scratched his head. He’d have to talk with Peter about that tonight. At least the boy was in good hands with Georg Kaiser. He could only hope he wasn’t out playing in the forest in this weather. If the wind got any stronger, one could easily be killed by a falling branch.
Wrapped up in his thoughts, Simon was wandering through the little streets toward the bathhouse when he heard a familiar voice. It was Peter, running toward him excitedly. Evidently he’d been playing out there after all.
“For crying out loud,” Simon said, shaking his finger at him. “In this weather you’d better get—”
“Father, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Peter blurted out. “We . . . we found Würmseer. And he said that . . . that . . .” He was so out of breath he couldn’t speak anymore.
Simon smiled and took Peter in his arms. “Calm down first—you’re completely out of breath, child.” For a few moments he was just happy to hug his son and feel his little heart pounding. When this was all over, the two of them would take a long hike in the mountains, go fishing in the Ammer, practice shooting with a bow and arrow, and do all the things that fathers did with their sons.
And certainly not send them out as spies to look for a killer, Simon thought. But that’s just it—we’re not a normal family.
“So,” he finally asked. “What did you see?”
Excitedly, Peter told him about Franz Würmseer and his meeting with the strange wagon driver. “They’re going to meet after sundown on the Döttenbichl,” he concluded, his voice cracking. “And they acted very secretively—they said nobody should find out about it.”
Simon looked over at the Kofel. Its summit already lay in darkness, and a first flash of lightning announced the coming storm. “It will be dark soon,” he mumbled, trying to get his thoughts together. “What did Würmseer say they would be doing there?”
Peter shook his head, but then something occurred to him and his face brightened. “The other man said he’s looking forward to spitting in the fat bastard’s face.”
“The fat bastard?” Simon sucked the air in between his teeth, and a sudden chill ran over him. “Damn! I have a suspicion who this fat bastard could be.”
He struggled to think. If the bastard they’d spoken of was actually Konrad Faistenmantel, he was in grave danger, if not already dead. Somebody had to go up there and check, but who could he trust in the village? Actually there was no one except his old friend Georg Kaiser and, naturally, his father-in-law, but Kaiser was a sick old man and Jakob Kuisl was out somewhere in the valley. He couldn’t wait for him to come back, because then it might be too late. Brushing aside his doubts about remaining in the Ammer Valley, he realized he’d have to climb the Döttenbichl alone, like it or not. A human being possibly needed his help there—and besides, Simon was more than curious what this meeting was all about. He suspected he’d find the key to at least part of the riddle there.
“Where are your friends?” he asked Peter.
Peter put
on an anxious face. “Poxhannes took them away with him, out onto the moor. I don’t know what they’re doing there, but—”
“Peter, I don’t have any time for a long story,” Simon interrupted. “If your friends aren’t here, I’ll take you to Georg Kaiser. I don’t want you playing out here by yourself. After everything that’s happened, it’s too dangerous, especially with the storm coming.”
“But . . . but . . . I wanted to go up to the Döttenbichl with you,” Peter said angrily as the sound of thunder drew nearer.
“Out of the question,” said Simon, shaking his head. “This is not a thing for children, so come now, we’ve got to hurry. It’s going to start raining soon, and it’s bad enough that I’ll get soaked.”
He grabbed Peter by the arm and started dragging him off to the schoolhouse.
“You . . . you are so mean!” Peter shouted. “I helped you.”
“And I’m grateful to you for that, but I can’t take you along. If everything goes well, I’ll be back soon and we’ll look at some books together, all right?”
“I don’t want to look at any books, I want to go to the Döttenbichl.”
Peter protested loudly as Simon dragged him down the road, past the cemetery and the school, until they were finally standing in front of the schoolmaster’s house. They knocked, and an astonished Georg Kaiser answered almost immediately, holding a quill pen in his hand. Evidently he had been hard at work.
“Well, why the uproar?” he asked calmly. “Has Peter gotten into some mischief?”
“No, it’s not that,” Simon replied, trying to catch his breath after struggling with his son. “Actually, he helped me, but now it would be a good idea for him to stay indoors with you.”
He briefly told his friend what he’d learned from Peter, and Kaiser frowned. He tucked his quill pen into the pocket of his housecoat and started polishing his pince-nez, lost in thought.