Bartholomäus wiped the remains of the stew out of his beard and grinned scornfully. “Ha! Do you really think you can run around through the streets of town and catch this werewolf . . . or whatever it is out there . . . and you’ll get your Matheo back?” He shook his head. “You can forget about that. Even if you found out who or what was behind all these missing-persons cases, the hunt will go on. That’s what happened during the witch trials. Now the big cleanup is at hand.”
“And you’ll make good money because of it, won’t you, Bartl?” said Jakob from behind a dense cloud of tobacco. “Every burning at the stake will bring you at least twenty guilders. Tell me, was this fine house bought with the death of all those witches back then? Was it one of the many buildings standing empty because their owners are no longer alive? A good deal for a hangman—isn’t that so?”
“How dare you!” Bartholomäus pounded the table so hard that the two boys were frightened and ran over to their mother. His voice trembled slightly, and once again Magdalena noticed that her uncle wasn’t really the tough fellow he sometimes pretended to be. “Who the hell are you to pass judgment on me, Jakob?” he raged. “You’ve killed at least as many people as I have.”
“Not one of them was a witch, Bartholomäus. Everyone I executed died for a good reason—or if not, at least I didn’t extend their suffering unnecessarily. Can you say that of yourself?”
Bartholomäus clenched his teeth. “Damn it, I had nothing to do with those damned witch trials. I came to Bamberg just after that. The job was available because . . . because the old hangman simply ran away, disappeared without a trace after he’d tortured and executed hundreds of people.”
“And still, his work clings to you like a curse,” replied Jakob.
Suddenly Bartholomäus leapt up and seemed about to grab his brother by the throat. “Ha! That’s him! The big, smart-ass brother,” he shouted, “who could do everything better. If you’re so damn smart, Jakob, so self-satisfied, then tell your loving children the story of how you ran away. Do you know how old I was then, Jakob? Or have you forgotten? Twelve! Our sister, little Elisabeth, was just three. And you just ran away, abandoned us.”
“I had my reasons.”
Magdalena looked at her father and frowned. Jakob suddenly looked unsure of himself, nervously sucking on his pipe.
“Abandoned?” she repeated. “You never told us what happened when you left Schongau, Father. Why did you—”
At that moment there was a loud pounding on the door.
Everyone held their breath for a moment, then Bartholomäus shouted, “Who’s out there?”
“It’s me, Katharina. Please open the door. I . . . I . . .”
Her voice failed and turned into a long, wordless lament. Bartholomäus jumped up at once and hurried to the door. He opened it and she rushed into his arms, sobbing. She was soaked with rain and completely out of breath, as if she’d run all the way.
“What happened?” Bartholomäus asked in a hoarse voice. For the first time, Magdalena saw something resembling fear in his eyes. When she didn’t answer but just continued sobbing, he began to shake her. Now the two boys started to whimper and whine.
“Katharina, just tell us!” the Bamberg hangman shouted over the general commotion. “What the hell happened?”
“They . . . they’ve forbidden it,” she finally gasped. “Simply forbidden!”
Bartholomäus looked at her, perplexed. “Who has forbidden what?”
“Oh, God, I think I know,” Magdalena whispered to Simon, who, like all the others in the room, was staring in bewilderment at the large woman.
“What do you think? The wedding feast,” Katharina replied in a choked voice. She pulled out a large handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. “Those fine people in the city council have turned down our celebration in the wedding house. My . . . my father just returned from the city hall, where they gave him the news. A dishonorable executioner may not celebrate a wedding in a public building, on orders from the suffragan bishop.”
“That damned Harsee,” Simon mumbled. “I should have guessed. That bigot thinks the world will come to an end if someone has a party.”
For a moment there was silence in the room, except for Katarina’s muted sobs and the whining of the two boys. Bartholomäus shook his head with obvious relief.
“My God, and I thought . . . ,” he groaned. Then he looked sternly at his fiancée. “Why didn’t you wait until tomorrow to give us this news? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to run through the streets after nightfall? God knows what might have happened.”
“But don’t you understand what that means, Bartholomäus?” Katharina lamented. “We have to call it all off. The musicians, the food, the wine, the table decorations . . .”
“Then just celebrate here in the hangman’s house,” suggested Jakob, still sitting on the bench smoking. “Just like me and my Anna. Anyway, it’s a lot nicer and cozier. Who needs all this pomp and ceremony?” He shook his head. “They didn’t forbid the marriage, just the celebration in the wedding house, right?”
“I’m reluctant to agree with my brother, but in this case he’s right,” Bartholomäus grumbled. “All this celebrating is so garish, anyway. We’ll just uninvite most of the guests and you can cook a tasty stew for us, there will be one or two mugs of beer, and then . . .”
Whatever else he had to say was drowned out by Katharina’s renewed sobs. The two Kuisl brothers looked at each other, at a loss, and Georg frowned as well.
“I’m afraid you men don’t understand,” Magdalena said. She rose to her feet and embraced her future aunt, who again broke out sobbing. “Katharina has already put a lot of time and effort into preparations for the wedding feast. This rejection is a slap in the face to her. Just having to uninvite all the guests offends her sense of pride.”
“She’ll have to get used to that if she marries into the family of a hangman,” Jakob growled.
“Is there no chance we can persuade the council to change their mind?” Simon asked, but Bartholomäus waved him off.
“You can forget about that. The council will never get involved in a controversy with the suffragan bishop on such a trivial matter.”
“Trivial?” Katharina glared at him. “This is no trivial matter. My God, it’s our wedding,” she shouted, her face darkening. Magdalena had never before seen her so angry and determined. “In any case, I’m not going to celebrate my wedding in this stinking room—at least not until we’ve tried everything else,” she said, ready for a fight. “I’ll ask my father to bring up the matter again. Maybe . . . maybe we’ll have to take the small room in the Wild Man. That would be a compromise, but we’ll just have to postpone the wedding until that’s all straightened out. Perhaps the suffragan bishop is just upset now about this werewolf, and soon—”
“Postpone?” Jakob took the pipe out of his mouth. He looked a little pale. “You mean to postpone the wedding? We can’t just stay in Bamberg forever.”
“If what I’m hearing is correct, you’ll have to stay around here longer anyway, on account of your stubborn daughter,” she replied stiffly. She had apparently regained her former self-confidence. “It’s no longer a question of a few days, more or less.”
She turned to her future husband. “I’m going to spend the night here in your room—without you, as is proper—and you’ll move upstairs to the attic. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do next. And Bartholomäus,” Katharina said, taking the hem of her skirt and wiping the remains of the stew from the beard of the astonished hangman, “you need to take a bath more often, or you’ll be going to bed alone even after our wedding, as well. Good night to you all.”
She sniffed once again, wiped the last of the tears from the corners of her eyes, then, holding her head high, walked into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
Jakob grinned and winked at his brother. “You know what, Bartholomäus?” he said as he lit his pipe again. “I like your fiancée. She’s just like my Anna,
God bless her soul. Why should you be any better off than I was?”
About an hour later, Simon and Magdalena lay upstairs in the attic, listening to the snoring of Jakob and Bartholomäus coming from the next room. Peter and Paul were sleeping next to them on a straw mattress and pillows filled with horsehair. In the darkness, Simon could just see their outlines. The older boy clung to the younger one, as if trying to shield him from all the dangers of the world.
It was in such moments that Simon thought of little Maria, who had been taken from them so soon, and he suspected that Magdalena did, as well.
She had propped herself up on the bed and was watching the children, lost in thought. After a while, she whispered, “I hope Katharina can still have children despite her age. She’d really be a good mother.”
“Sure . . . sure . . .” Simon nodded, half dreaming. There was something he absolutely had to discuss with Magdalena. He didn’t know if this was the right time, but perhaps there really was no suitable time for it.
“This wedding . . . ,” he began hesitantly. “The fact that Katharina is now putting it off is . . . ah, so unfortunate—”
“But completely understandable,” Magdalena interrupted. “If it were me, I’d try everything before I’d celebrate here in this stinking hole. Remember our own wedding, after Secretary Lechner had given his permission as representative of the elector?”
Simon couldn’t suppress a smile. Their wedding had been possible only because he’d given up his status as a doctor in training. Only as a simple bathhouse owner was he allowed to take the hangman’s daughter as his wife. They’d had to celebrate in one of the simpler taverns in Schongau, not in the refined Star, but they did it nevertheless in good style with a lot of wine, a roast suckling pig, and a half dozen musicians. The party had cost a fortune, and because of it Simon had had to sell a few of his beloved books.
“I can really understand Katharina,” Magdalena continued. “Bartholomäus is just as uncouth as our father. No doubt both of them would rather have just two guests—a big keg of beer and a pot of onion stew. Then at least they wouldn’t have to strike up a conversation.”
Simon sighed. “But your father is right. We can’t stay here forever. We’ve already been away for more than a month. In the meantime my patients will start going to the new doctor in town, and if I don’t go home soon, they’ll never come back and I can close my bathhouse.”
Magdalena looked at him darkly. “What are you trying to say? That we shouldn’t stay for the wedding?”
“Ah, well . . . ,” Simon waffled. “If it’s going to go on much longer, then I do think, in fact, that—”
“That’s out of the question.” Magdalena lay back down on the bed. “Until Barbara is back, we can’t leave, and Barbara will hide out until Father can think of something to do for Matheo.”
“Do you realize what that means?” Simon could feel the anger welling up inside him. Didn’t anyone ever think of him? “Both your father and I have work to do in Schongau,” he grumbled. “Do you want us to lose our jobs? Have you even thought about what Secretary Lechner will say if his hangman and the local bathhouse owner stay a few more weeks here in Bamberg?”
Magdalena tried to calm him down. “It doesn’t have to be weeks more. Katharina didn’t ask for more than a few days’ postponement, and Father will never go without Barbara, that’s for sure.”
“Well, great.” He groaned as he sank back into the pillows. “Every day here costs me a fortune. Why do we always get mixed up in these crazy adventures? All I want is to be an ordinary, respectable bathhouse owner.”
“Evidently God has other plans for you.” Magdalena grinned and kissed his forehead, but then she turned serious. “I want to know what it was that came between Father and his brother back then. Whatever it was, it really hurt Bartholomäus.” She sighed. “Sometimes I think I really don’t know my father.”
“You’re not the only one. Nobody knows him.” Simon took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “He probably doesn’t even know himself.”
The old patrician’s house at the foot of the cathedral mount groaned and moaned like a huge animal. In the last few hours the rain had increased, and the wind had gotten stronger, periodically rattling the shutters as if loudly demanding entry.
The home’s owner, Agnes Gotzendörfer, sat alone in the living room, wrapped in heavy woolen blankets. It was a cold night at the end of October, and the wet logs burning on the hearth gave off only a small bluish flame. Agnes’s legs were suffering from gout, and the constant clattering of the shutters got on her nerves.
The old patrician’s widow had never liked this house—it was too large and drafty, and the stone flooring in the entryway and kitchen was cold as ice even in midsummer. In addition, it was hard to find servants, as the simple folk were still firmly convinced the old house was haunted. Agnes used to just shake her head at those superstitions, but on nights like this, she herself believed in evil spirits.
Especially since these nightmares had come to torment her.
Her late husband, the once so influential city councilman Egidius Gotzendörfer, had acquired the property at a bargain price more than thirty years ago. It was one of the houses standing empty after the great wave of persecution and the subsequent witch trials. Once it had belonged to the Haans, a venerable patrician family in the city. Dr. George Haan had advanced to the position of chancellor, and the family had owned several properties in the city, but suddenly the Haans had been suspected of witchcraft, and one by one the hangman had tortured, beheaded, and burned the family at the stake.
Quite a few people claimed to know for certain that the family’s souls still wandered restlessly through the house. And in fact, for several weeks Agnes had felt pursued by these souls. She saw them in her dreams, and was chased and tortured by them. As a child, Agnes had always feared ghouls and ghosts, the horrible bands of murdered people who, especially on raw winter nights, swooshed through the air with their dogs, horses, and other beasts.
In her nightmares, these creatures reached out for Agnes and dragged her down through a whirling vortex into the deep.
Another strong gust of wind shook the shutters, frightening the old woman. Agnes Gotzendörfer lived alone in this huge house; her children and other family had all died or moved to other cities. Lisbeth, the only maid, had long ago gone to bed. She was a lazy, garrulous old maid, but the only person who’d agreed to work in the haunted house. Agnes couldn’t stand her, but at the moment she wished Lisbeth were here to keep her company. Normally the nearly-eighty-year-old woman felt more or less secure here in her own four walls, but now a cold fear was creeping up her spine that even all her blankets couldn’t keep out.
Just an hour ago, long after the night watchman had announced the curfew, Agnes had heard quick footsteps in front of the house, and through a slit in the shutters she recognized Katharina, the daughter of the city scribe Hieronymus Hauser. Agnes’s husband, Egidius, had often called upon the young Hieronymus to take minutes of the meetings, so Agnes also knew his chubby daughter. What was the woman doing in the street at this hour? Agnes had heard she would soon be marrying the Bamberg executioner, a gloomy fellow who, it was said, drank the blood of his victims and sold magical amulets.
Perhaps even some that could turn their owner into a werewolf?
Agnes felt a chill and huddled down even deeper into the woolen blankets on her armchair. Her maid had told her that in the marketplaces the only thing people talked about was this horrible werewolf. It was said to have killed a countless number of people, and evidently a militia had already assembled since no one trusted the city council or even the bishop anymore. Agnes knew that Lisbeth liked to exaggerate, but she herself had heard of the missing people from other patrician widows she had spoken with. Among the missing were Klaus Schwarzkontz and Thadäus Vasold, two old city councilors her husband had known before his death ten years ago. They had sat together on various commissions and had both gotten rich, powerful, and f
at. It seemed that the werewolf would stop at no one, and stole and ate everything it could catch—rich and poor, young and old, men and women . . . It was quite possible that fat Katharina would be next. Why did that stupid woman have to run through the streets at this hour? It would be her own fault if—
A soft rapping interrupted Agnes Gotzendörfer’s thoughts. At first she couldn’t say where it was coming from—her hearing wasn’t what it used to be—but when she finally figured it out, the hair on the back of her neck stood up.
The knocking came from one of the shutters.
It was one of the shutters facing the street. The knocking grew louder, so that Agnes could no longer brush it off as a figment of her overworked state of mind.
Knock . . . knock . . . knock . . .
“Is someone there?” she called out in a hoarse voice that broke apart and crumbled like an old, moldy rag. But even as she spoke those few words, she had a suspicion that no one would answer. Instead, the knocking began again.
Knock . . . knock . . . knock . . .
She closed her eyes, struggling to think as her heart pounded wildly. She’d better call Lisbeth—but Agnes knew the maid was a deep sleeper and her bedroom was on the top floor, just underneath the roof. Agnes would probably have to go up and get her, but she was eighty, and going up stairs was getting harder for her by the week. The stairway was steep, the steps smooth, and just last month she had slipped and barely managed to grab the banister in time.
In her nightmares, Agnes saw the shadows of restless spirits trying to push her down the stairway, again and again.
Knock . . . knock . . . knock . . .
When the knocking resumed, Agnes made a decision. She would look through a slit in the shutters and see who or what was outside, then she could still decide whether to call for help. She really had nothing to fear, as there were thick bull’s-eye windowpanes between her and the street, and beyond them, solid iron bars to protect the property from burglars. Only then came the shutters. No one, nothing, could break in here.