And then God took her away from them again.
It had been one of those fevers that plagued Schongau at regular intervals, first the elderly and the children. Desperately, Simon had tried to fight the fever with leg compresses, mugwort, and chamomile, but the child slipped through their fingers like snow in the sun. They had carried little Maria to her last resting place just a few days after her first birthday. The hurt in Magdalena’s soul was still fresh, and occasionally it would break out again.
Just as it had now.
Simon clearly felt it was better to say nothing, and he gently caressed his wife, waiting for the sobbing to pass. Finally she nuzzled up to him again and tried to forget.
“I don’t think my uncle is as coarse a fellow as he pretends to be,” she said after a while. “He may act just as surly as Father, but there is something soft and very sad in his eyes. Something must have come between the two of them long ago. Maybe it has something to do with his lame leg. Perhaps back then Jakob teased his little brother. A cripple is always an easy target.”
“Didn’t your father ever tell you anything about Bartholomäus?” Simon asked with interest, glad to change the subject.
Magdalena shook her head. “Never. It was like his brother didn’t exist. Bartholomäus must have left Schongau soon after Father went off to war as a young man. During the war, Father probably visited him here in Bamberg. Only after Georg had to leave Schongau to find an apprenticeship did the two start corresponding regularly.”
“Why does he always talk so much about how well-off the executioners are here in Bamberg?” Simon wondered. “And then this reference to all the abandoned houses in the city, and how he knew why that was so. Why must you Kuisls always make a big secret out of everything?”
“Whatever it is, this city has certainly seen better days. And then these stories about the bloodthirsty monster. You don’t believe in that, do you?”
“Of course not,” Simon snorted. “Remember all the stories about alleged witches in Schongau, and they were nothing but dumb superstition. But just the same . . .” He paused and looked out the window, worried. The shutters were open a crack, and the pale moon shone into the room through the heavy fog. “Just the same, I feel uneasy knowing that your father is out there prowling around.”
Magdalena laughed softly. “You forget he is not alone. Two fierce Kuisls—please! If I were the monster, I’d run away as fast as I could.”
She snuggled up to Simon again, and in a few minutes she’d finally fallen asleep.
Soon after the two brothers had left the hangman’s house, Jakob became confused and disoriented again in the narrow lanes. In a sullen mood, he stomped along behind his brother, who was pulling a two-wheeled cart smeared with blood and dirt. Bartholomäus kept turning one way or the other in apparently random fashion at crossings, preferring the narrow lanes between houses where the cart was just able to squeeze through. Out here in the darkness, his limp was barely noticeable.
He’s learned to deal with it, Jakob Kuisl thought. How much effort did that require? How much malice has he been forced to endure? But by God, he’s really become a tough bastard. I wouldn’t have thought he could do it.
“Didn’t you say the carcass was over there in the south moat?” Jakob asked finally. It was the first time since they’d left that he addressed his brother. “Why didn’t we just take the road along the moat from your house? Wouldn’t that be shorter?”
“So the guards patrolling there can ask stupid questions?” Bartholomäus snorted contemptuously. “The carcass has been there since this morning. I should have picked it up during the day, but I had other things to do, so I’m going to get it now.”
“Aha, before the guards discover the thing early tomorrow and you have to pay a stiff fine.” Jakob grinned. “Now I understand. Well, the main thing is that the tobacco is good.”
In addition to his work as a hangman, Bartholomäus had the job of disposing of garbage and dead animals, just like Jakob Kuisl did in Schongau. The authorities attached great importance to disposing of corpses as fast as possible, because of the fear of plagues. The dead animals were often butchered by knackers who lived outside of town, but sometimes the hangman was responsible for this work, as well.
“You’re not going to flay the animal at home, are you?” Jakob asked as they continued their march through the foggy back streets. “I didn’t see any scraping-knife or other tools in your house, and besides, it would stink like hell.”
“The city council wouldn’t allow it, so I have to take the carcass out to my knacker’s cottage in the Bamberg Forest. There used to be a splendid hunting lodge with a lot of servants nearby who were also responsible for disposing of corpses, but since the war that’s all gone, and I have to do this filthy job alone. Miserable work and shitty pay,” Bartholomäus grumbled as he pulled his cart through an especially narrow passage between a pile of horse excrement and other garbage. “We’ll take the horse to my stable first, then see what we can do tomorrow.”
For a while both brothers were silent, then Jakob carefully broke the ice.
“Listen, I’ve wanted to thank you for a long time,” he began softly, “for taking Georg as a journeyman who—”
“Forget it,” Bartholomäus interrupted gruffly. “I don’t need your thanks. Georg is a big help to me. He does the work of three or four men and will be a good hangman himself someday.” He turned to Jakob and sneered. “Perhaps even here in Bamberg.”
“Here in . . .” Jakob looked at his brother, astonished. “You’re going to retire and give him your job? That wasn’t our arrangement. I need Georg in Schongau. When his apprenticeship is over and he can finally return home, then—”
“Ask him yourself what he wants to do,” Bartholomäus cut in. “Maybe he’s had enough of his lying father.”
“What did you tell him about me? God, did you—”
A scream from a nearby house interrupted their conversation. Jakob stopped and looked at his brother, listening.
“Who could that be?” he asked. “It’s hardly your dead horse.”
After some hesitation, Bartholomäus dropped the shaft of his cart and ran toward the place the shouting was coming from, but turned around once to Jakob as he ran. “Before I fight with my brother, I’m going to beat up a few gallows birds. Come on!”
Jakob followed quickly. After a few hurried steps, the brothers arrived in a little square surrounded by small cottages, with a weathered fountain in the middle. A guard was crouched at the base of the fountain with a halberd alongside him on the ground; a lantern at the fountain’s edge cast a dim light. The guard was holding his hand to his mouth and looking around in all directions, horrified. Finally he pulled a clay jug out from under his ragged overcoat and took a long slug.
“Ah, it’s just Matthias, the drunken old night watchman,” Bartholomäus panted with disappointment, and stopped running. “We could have spared ourselves the trip. He’s probably had one too many and is about to throw up into the fountain. He used to be a common foot soldier, but now he drinks so much he can hardly stand up anymore.” Bartholomäus shook his head. “It’s really a shame, the people they have to hire as city watchmen. But the job of a night watchman now is dishonorable, like that of an executioner, and there aren’t many people willing to do it.”
When Matthias discovered the two men entering the square, he sighed with relief. His face was flushed, full of thick veins, and Jakob thought he could smell brandy on his breath.
The watchman staggered to his feet and stood beside the fountain. “I never thought I’d be so happy to see the Bamberg hangman!”
“You scared the hell out of us, Matthias,” Bartholomäus replied. “We could hear you shouting clear down at the hangman’s house. My brother and I took off right away to see what was going on. And now it’s just you and your damned cheap booze. So get moving before I have to put you in the stocks tomorrow morning at the Green Market.”
It didn’t seem to bother Matt
hias that the hangman’s house was much too far away and what Bartholomäus was telling him had to be wrong. He tried to keep his composure, which was clearly difficult to do in his condition.
“By all the saints, I swear . . . I’m not drunk,” he declared, holding up his hand. “At least not so drunk that I don’t know what I saw. And I swear I . . . I saw the monster.”
“What monster?” Bartholomäus asked.
“Well . . . the man-eating monster. It was standing here, right before me!”
The Bamberg hangman rolled his eyes. “Now you’re starting in with that, too. Isn’t it enough that the superstitious women are spreading such foolish gossip?”
“But the monster was here, I swear! I just was about to take a little nap here at the well when I saw the thing come running out of the alleyway. It stopped and stared at me, as if trying to decide if I’d be a good meal. And then, after what seemed like an eternity, it kept on running, that way, down the other alley.” Matthias gestured wildly as he spoke and walked back and forth, wavering slightly. Now he stopped and looked quizzically at the two hangmen.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asked in a soft voice. “You just think I’m drunk.”
“This . . . this monster—what did it look like?” Jakob knew from experience that drunks often had wild visions, especially when tormented by their fears.
“It was hairy, with gray—no, silver—fur,” Matthias declared, casting a quick glance at Jakob for not understanding what he’d been trying to say. “It had a terrifying set of teeth, long and sharp. At first it ran along on all fours, but then suddenly stood up on its hind legs.” The watchman put his hands to his face. “It ran like a human, I swear, like a furry human. Like a werewolf!”
“Be careful of what you say,” Bartholomäus snapped at him. “Don’t be too quick to use words like that. Or do you want to—”
He stopped short when he heard the scream again. At first Jakob thought it was Matthias, but the scream this time was sharper and higher pitched. It came from an alleyway leading to the square and was clearly the voice of a young woman.
The Schongau hangman didn’t hesitate for a moment. He ran past the astonished Matthias and, without even turning to look at either of them, disappeared into the dark alleyway. Without the lantern he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, but somewhere he heard a window slam shut and someone shouting in an upper story as the contents of a chamber pot poured down onto the street. Kuisl groped his way along the row of houses, stumbling into a rotten beer barrel that fell over and went clattering down a cellar stairway. As the hangman cursed and tried to run ahead, he slipped on the top step and fell into a slimy puddle of water. As he scrambled to his feet, he could feel a sticky liquid on his hands whose odor was all too familiar to him.
It was blood.
Somewhere he heard footsteps running away into the darkness. He looked around, squinting, and could just make out the vague outline of something lying at the bottom of the stairs.
“Whatever you are,” he gasped, “man or monster, come out!”
When nothing stirred, he carefully descended a few steps, where he found a body.
It was a young woman lying in her own blood.
“Jakob? Is that you?” a voice called. It was his brother, who had followed him and was now standing at the top of the stairs holding the lantern in his hand, swinging it back and forth. “What did you find down there?”
Jakob held the girl’s hand, trying in vain to feel a pulse.
“A corpse,” he whispered. “Still fresh. It looks like the poor woman’s throat has been slashed. There’s blood all over.”
“Damn. That’s all I need.” Slowly, climbing over the staves of the smashed beer barrel, Bartholomäus came down the steps. “Matthias, the old drunk, just took off. Now the two of us will have to report the matter in order not to look guilty ourselves, and I’ll have to explain to the city guards what I was doing out here in the middle of the night. Good God!” He stamped his foot angrily. “There are enough people already in the city council who are opposed to my engagement to Katharina and just waiting for a chance to get me. Why didn’t this drunken john find somewhere else to knock off his woman?”
“A drunken john? What makes you think he’s one of those?”
“Just come and have a look.” Bartholomäus was now standing alongside his brother on the narrow, slimy, moss-covered stairway. The entrance to the cellar was blocked by some roughhewn boards nailed together. Like many other buildings in the lane, the house seemed no longer occupied. Its windows were nothing but dark, gaping holes. The dead girl didn’t look more than sixteen or seventeen, with long red hair that encircled her head like a flame. She was wearing nothing but a simple, close-fitting linen dress, now torn and soaked with blood. Her throat was slit wide open and her eyes stared blankly into the night sky.
“Do you see the yellow scarf?” Bartholomäus pointed to a piece of cloth crumpled up in a corner. “The sign of the Bamberg prostitutes. The Green Market is nearby in the Rosengasse, and that’s where the prostitutes usually ply their trade. Evidently the girl and her client weren’t able to agree on the price.”
“And for that he slits her throat?”
Bartholomäus shrugged. “These things happen. In former days the executioner here in Bamberg was concerned about the prostitutes and protected them, but in recent years the women do that themselves. I keep telling them they ought to at least work under the protection of the whorehouse on Frauengasse, but some just want to work for themselves.” He examined the corpse. “I’m sure I’ve seen this one here before. Had her nose up in the air and took only rich clients.” He looked down at her with contempt. “Well, she certainly was pretty, and it’s too bad what happened to her.”
Jakob Kuisl bent down and scrutinized the cut on her throat. It wasn’t smooth but ragged, as if the wound had been inflicted by a heavy tool or a claw, and blood was still seeping out. The Schongau hangman noticed a strange, barely perceptible odor that reminded him of the urine of predatory animals and wet dogs.
“That’s strange,” he mumbled. “The wound is actually too large to have been made by a knife. It’s almost as if an animal—”
“Now you’re starting in with that, too!” Bartholomäus groaned.
Without answering him, Jakob took the lantern from his brother’s hand, went up the steps again, and examined the ground. He bent down and held up a piece of the young woman’s ripped clothing.
“She was probably attacked here,” he said to his brother, who had come along behind him. Jakob pointed to some prints in the muddy ground. “There was a struggle, the girl ran . . .” He hesitated. “No, that’s not right. Look at the marks on the ground here. Evidently the murderer struck her down, grabbed her by the arms . . .” He returned to the steps. “Then he carried her down the steps and calmly slit her throat. But this odor . . .” Kuisl shook his head, trying to figure out what it was. He couldn’t think what these smells reminded him of.
Except what was the most obvious, and at the same time the most improbable . . .
“What odor? I can’t smell anything—but you always had a better nose for these things.” Bartholomäus shook his head. “In any case, she’s dead. We’ll have to alert the guards.” He stumbled over one of the splintered staves. “Damn it, they’ll probably make us take the girl to the potter’s field outside the city in my cart. We’ll have to forget about the horse carcass,” he added, hobbling away. “So let’s get over to the guardhouse near city hall as soon as we can and let them know. The sooner we can get this behind us, the better.”
Jakob took a close look at his brother. He was puzzled about the rush. It seemed to him that for some reason Bartholomäus wanted to put this matter to rest as quickly as possible. Did he fear the criticism of the guards? Once again Jakob looked down the staircase, where the poor woman was lying in her own blood. Then, with a grim expression, he followed the light of his brother’s lantern.
It looked lik
e they’d be transporting not a horse cadaver but the corpse of a young girl through the city. It couldn’t be said that the auspices for his brother’s wedding were favorable.
3
THE HOUSE OF THE BAMBERG HANGMAN, MORNING, OCTOBER 27, 1668 AD
WHEN MAGDALENA AWAKENED THE NEXT morning, the sun was already shining brightly, warming her room on the second floor. Someone had opened the shutters wide, emptied the chamber pots, and strewn fresh herbs and reeds on the floor.
How long did I sleep? she wondered as she yawned and opened her eyes.
She turned to Simon, whose snoring almost drowned out the sparrows chirping outside the window. Barbara was sleeping as well. The bed the two boys had slept in, however, was empty. Magdalena began to worry, but at that moment she heard happy laughter coming from downstairs. She also heard a soft, warm woman’s voice among them, plus the sound of clattering pots and an oven door squeaking as it was opened and closed. She rose to her feet carefully in order not to awaken her husband and her sister, washed her face quickly in the washbowl in the corner, straightened her tousled black hair, and then went downstairs to the living room.
“Mama, Mama!” Peter shouted, running toward her with outstretched arms. “Aunt Katharina is making us some porridge with lots and lots of honey, just as Grandma used to do.”
“Aunt Katharina?” Magdalena asked, puzzled. “Where . . .”