The Council of Twelve Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER SERIES

  “Swift and sure, compelling as any conspiracy theory, persuasive as any spasm of paranoia, The Dark Monk grips you at the base of your skull and doesn’t let go.”

  —Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Out of Oz

  “Oliver Pötzsch has brought to life the heady smells and tastes, the true reality of an era we’ve never seen quite like this before. The hangman Jakob and his feisty daughter Magdalena are characters we will want to root for in many books to come.”

  —Katherine Neville, bestselling author of The Eight and The Magic Circle

  “I loved every page, character, and plot twist of The Hangman’s Daughter, an inventive historical novel about a seventeenth-century hangman’s quest to save a witch—from himself.”

  —Scott Turow

  “Oliver Pötzsch takes readers on a darkly atmospheric visit to seventeenth-century Bavaria in his latest adventure. With enough mystery and intrigue to satisfy those who like gritty historical fiction, The Dark Monk has convincing characters, rip-roaring action, and finely drawn settings.”

  —Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

  “In this subtle, meticulously crafted story, every word is a possible clue, and the characters are so engaging that it’s impossible not to get involved in trying to help them figure the riddle out.”

  —Oprah.com

  “Pötzsch effectively conjures up an atmosphere of claustrophobia and paranoia in seventeenth-century Germany in his fifth whodunit featuring the Kuisl family . . . The tension, as the Kuisl family finds itself in the midst of the hunt, is palpable, leading to a cleverly clued solution.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “The setup is delicious . . . Good fun overall.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “An intoxicating mix with frenetic pacing, strong doses of adventure and wit, and 17th-century historical detail. The hefty length doesn’t detract from vivid storytelling along the lines of Katherine Neville and William Dietrich.”

  —Library Journal

  Also by Oliver Pötzsch

  IN THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER SERIES

  The Hangman’s Daughter

  The Dark Monk

  The Beggar King

  The Poisoned Pilgrim

  The Werewolf of Bamberg

  The Play of Death

  * * *

  The Castle of Kings

  The Ludwig Conspiracy

  FOR YOUNG READERS

  Book of the Night (The Black Musketeers)

  Knight Kyle and the Magic Silver Lance (Adventures Beyond Dragon Mountain)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Oliver Pötzsch

  Translation copyright © 2018 by Lisa Reinhardt

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Die Henkerstochter und der Rat der Zwölf in 2017 by Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH in Germany. Translated from German by Lisa Reinhardt. First published in English by AmazonCrossing and Mariner Books in 2018.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  eISBN: 9781503956919

  Cover design by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  For Elijana, Quirin, Vincent, Leon, Camira, and all others yet to come.

  Welcome to the Kuisl clan!

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  In memory of . . .

  MAPS

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  A foreigner is only a foreigner in a foreign land.

  —Karl Valentin

  In memory of Lee Chadeayne

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE KUISL FAMILY

  JAKOB KUISL, Schongau executioner

  MAGDALENA FRONWIESER (NÉE KUISL), Jakob’s elder daughter

  BARBARA KUISL, Jakob’s younger daughter

  SIMON FRONWIESER, Schongau medicus

  PETER, PAUL, AND SOPHIA, children of Magdalena and Simon

  GEORG KUISL, Jakob’s son

  BARTHOLOMÄUS KUISL, Jakob’s brother

  THE COUNCIL OF TWELVE

  MICHAEL DEIBLER, Munich executioner

  JOHANN MICHAEL WIDMANN, Nuremberg executioner

  MASTER HANS, Weilheim executioner

  PHILIPP TEUBER, Regensburg executioner

  CONRAD NÄHER, Kaufbeuren executioner

  KASPAR HÖRMANN, Passau executioner

  JÖRG DEFNER, Nördlingen executioner

  MATTHÄUS FUX, Memmingen executioner

  MICHAEL ROSNER, Ingolstadt executioner

  LUDWIG HAMBERGER, Ansbach executioner

  BARTHOLOMÄUS KUISL, Bamberg executioner

  JAKOB KUISL, Schongau executioner

  MUNICH CHARACTERS

  ELECTOR FERDINAND MARIA, ruler of Bavaria

  ELECTRESS HENRIETTE ADELAIDE, his wife

  PRINCE MAX EMANUEL, their son

  JOHANN KASPAR VON KERLL, electoral court conductor

  DR. MALACHIAS GEIGER, physician

  DANIEL PFUNDNER, Munich city treasurer

  JOSEF LOIBL, captain of the guard

  LUKAS VAN UFFELE, manufactory director

  MOTHER JOSEFFA, brothel keeper

  WALBURGA DEIBLER, wife of the Munich executioner

  VALENTIN, city musician

  GUSTL, Au clerk

  LORENTZ, city dogcatcher

  ANNI, ELFI, and EVA, three weavers

  AGNES and CARLOTTA, also weavers

  SCHORSCH, SEPPI, and MOSER, members of the Anger Wolves

  LUKI, leader of the Au Dogs

  PROLOGUE

  MUNICH, MORNING, JULY 26, AD 1649

  THE SMELL OF DEATH WAS as rotten as dead fish and roused Johanna Malminger from the sweetest dreams.

  Only a moment ago she’d been dancing with a strapping young lad, twirling so fast her brow was sweaty. They had danced very close, her hips pressing against his loins, his hand stroking her back and bottom demandingly, their lips almost touching. But when she tried to kiss the handsome stranger, he was suddenly wearing a mask.

  And when she tore off his mask, she was looking at the grinning face of a skull with black, stinking eels creeping from its eye sockets.

  The stench had woken Johanna. The stench and the cold.

  She shook herself, but the foul smell and the cold didn’t go away. She had a terrible headache, and her dry tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, but for some reason she seemed unable to move it. Her eyes were still closed, sticky with sweat and dirt. When she managed to open them, Johanna found that she wasn’t lying next to her sister on the flea-ridden mattress at the Au hostel, nor underneath the dance floor put up for the Jakobi Fair over on Anger Square. No, she was lying in some kind of cold, damp hole. Bright rays of sunshine streamed
in through a square opening in the opposite wall. Johanna squinted—it was broad daylight outside.

  Broad daylight?

  Panic shot through Johanna. She had overslept! Now old Trude would throw her out for certain, and she had only started at the sewing workshop two weeks ago. The old hag had given Johanna her final warning the last time she was late. What would become of her and her sister, Liesl, then? Liesl was only ten. They would have to live on the street and beg, like so many other girls who had come to Munich in the hope of a better life. Johanna and Liesl’s parents had died of the Plague in their small village near Straubing, and marauding soldiers had slit open their older brothers like cattle. That was during the last attack of the Swedes, before the long unholy war finally came to an end. Johanna had hoped to find work as a maidservant or nurse, but she soon realized that young women like her were a dime a dozen in Munich. They were dross, dirty strays who were pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables by the arrogant citizens of Munich—if they were paid any attention at all.

  All Johanna had was her body.

  Back in Straubing, the lads had told her how pretty she was, and here in Au, too, outside the gates of the big city, she had noticed the looks. Johanna had resisted at first, but the young journeymen had lured her with sausages and bacon, like a cat. In the end, she’d even begun to like it. She was already nineteen, and life was short and dirty—why shouldn’t she be allowed a bit of fun? And at least that way, she and Liesl got a decent meal from time to time and a bed that was better than the filthy straw mattress at the hostel, where they had to sleep crowded in with all the other lost girls from the country.

  But then something had happened that never ought to have happened, and Johanna had decided to change her life. Miraculously, she had found employment at the Haidhausen sewing workshop, and Johanna knew it was her last chance. And now she had danced, boozed, and overslept. That accursed Jakobi Fair! Some fellow had probably taken her home with him. Not a baker’s apprentice, judging by the stench, nor a dapper musician, but a fisherman. Why was it so cold in this stinking shack? She really needed to get going, if it wasn’t already too late.

  Johanna tried to sit up but found, to her astonishment, that she couldn’t. Again she tried to move her tongue, but something was stuck in her mouth and making her gag. She realized the strange taste in her mouth came from a rag—a rag and something else, something metallic tasting, like a coin.

  She was bound and gagged.

  Slowly it dawned on Johanna that the merry dancing at the fair had landed her in a mess much worse than merely losing her job. Tossing back and forth, she frantically tried to remember what had happened the night before. She had danced with the young man—blond, blue eyes, and a smile as sweet as cherries in June. She couldn’t remember his name or his profession—the beer had flowed freely. Johanna remembered Liesl tugging at her skirt, but she had shaken off her little sister like a burr and danced even more vigorously. It was the first Jakobi Fair since the end of the Great War, the biggest fair in town. People had caroused as if there were no tomorrow. The blond fellow had kept refilling her jug. Hadn’t the beer tasted a little odd at the end, too bitter? But the harder Johanna tried to sort out last night’s events in her head, the more muddled they became.

  She started at a sudden noise—a scraping sound followed by a slap. Her eyes had somewhat adjusted to the light, so she looked over to the window, where the noise had come from.

  She caught her breath. The window had grown smaller.

  Was it possible? She squinted, and now she saw where the scraping and slapping were coming from: the opening in the opposite wall was not a window but a square hole at hip height that grew smaller by the minute. Johanna saw a trowel deposit a portion of wet mortar in the opening, then a hand placed a brick on top.

  Slap and scrape, slap and scrape . . .

  Someone was walling her in.

  Johanna tried to scream, but the gag pressing against the roof of her mouth made her want to vomit. Again she thought she tasted metal. Or was it blood?

  If I vomit, I suffocate . . . Who is going to look after Liesl?

  Johanna forced herself to stay calm. With a pounding heart she tried to listen for any other sounds from outside. Where was she? She could hear the steady rushing of water, so she guessed she was close to the Isar River. Could she be on one of the fishing islands near the great bridge? Or somewhere by the lower raft landing? But why was it so terribly cold? It was the middle of summer. Now she could hear voices, shouting and laughter. There were people out there, not far from her. Again she tried to scream but only managed a rattle in her throat.

  The river rushed by, people walked past, and Johanna even thought she could make out the music coming from Anger Square, drums and fiddles. The fair cheerfully went on while her window to the outside world was getting smaller and smaller.

  Not much longer and it would shut completely. Probably forever.

  Slap and scrape, slap and scrape, slap and scrape . . .

  Tears welled up in Johanna’s eyes as she tugged at her fetters in vain. What kind of devil had done this to her? Why had she insisted on dancing with the handsome stranger?

  A painting from the church in her village came to her mind, one that used to frighten her to death as a child: A young man asking a woman to dance. A goat’s foot protrudes from his right trouser leg, and his tongue is long and black like a snake’s.

  The third deadly sin.

  Lust.

  Johanna whimpered softly and prepared herself for the inevitable. Was God punishing her for her sins? Surely He must know about her most terrible crime. Evidently, all her prayers in the Haidhausen church hadn’t been enough to appease the Almighty.

  Slap and scrape, slap and scrape . . .

  The bricks kept filling the opening mercilessly. Soon the hole was down to the size of a man’s head, then a child’s head, then a fist. One last ray of light fell into Johanna’s prison and caressed her face. Desperately she strained toward it.

  My God, I’m so sorry, so very sorry! Please, dear God, show mercy!

  But God wasn’t merciful.

  The final brick slid into place with a crunching sound, and all that remained were silence, cold, and darkness.

  Johanna was alone.

  1

  MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS LATER, SCHONGAU, JANUARY 26, AD 1672

  IT’S NOT THAT IT’S HIS own fault. It’s just that he makes it too easy for the other children.”

  “And what exactly do you mean by that?” Magdalena glowered at the old Schongau headmaster, Hans Weininger, who was kneading the brim of his hat with embarrassment. Then her eyes went down to her son, Peter. Snot and blood ran from the nine-year-old’s nose and dropped onto his only white linen shirt, leaving greenish-red streaks. Peter sniffed and stared straight ahead, clearly struggling to hold back tears.

  “Are you trying to say my son asks to be beaten up?” Magdalena continued. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  They were standing on Münzgasse Lane outside the Schongau Latin School, a gloomy building whose chimney was so crooked that Magdalena feared it might fall down any moment and kill all three of them. The town slaughterhouse was situated on the first floor, and the sweetish smell of blood and meat was in the air. A dry breeze blew through the lanes and drove solitary snowflakes into Magdalena’s face. It was bitterly cold, but Magdalena seethed with hot rage.

  “This is the third time this month already!” she shouted, gesturing toward Peter. “Why can’t you give those good-for-nothings a healthy beating with the switch so they know what it feels like?”

  “Uh, I never actually see them do it,” the headmaster said quietly, keeping his eyes fixed on his hat, as if he were studying a tiny louse. “So I don’t know who they are.”

  Of course you know, Magdalena thought. It’s probably the Berchtholdt children or the Semer brats, or some other imps with fathers on the city council.

  “Perhaps your son should hold back a little with his L
atin exercises,” Hans Weininger suggested. He was a scrawny, angular man who liked to sing cantatas most of the day and hide behind the lectern the rest of the time. Magdalena had known him since childhood. Having studied theology and even law for a little while in Ingolstadt, Weininger was far better qualified than the boozy headmaster of the German school by the cemetery, where the poorer children learned merely the Lord’s Prayer and some basic math with the abacus. That was where Peter’s younger brother, Paul, went, when he wasn’t skipping school and playing down by the Lech River.

  “The boys just don’t like to be corrected by their classmate all the time,” Weininger said. “Especially when . . . um . . .”

  He faltered, but Magdalena knew very well what he was trying to say.

  “Especially when this know-it-all is a hangman’s brat,” she added bitterly. “I haven’t forgotten what family I’m from, thank you very much.”

  Magdalena had almost gotten used to the fact that in Schongau, she would always be the dishonorable hangman’s daughter. Even though her husband, Simon, had been made town physician nearly two years ago, the citizens still steered clear of her. What pained her most was that the stigma of her lineage had transferred to her children.

  It also made her angry.

  “My son has more between his ears than all those darned patrician boys together,” Magdalena raged at the headmaster. “One day he’s going to be a respected physician, and it’ll be no thanks to your pathetic tutelage.”

  Weininger winced, and Magdalena sensed she’d gone too far.

  “If you believe your son is too good for me and Schongau, why don’t you send him to another school?” he said sardonically. “How about the Jesuit college in Munich? I hear you’re planning a trip to the big city anyway.” He smiled. “Why don’t you knock on the door and introduce your dear son. Let’s see what the padres think of him.”

  Magdalena swallowed hard. Weininger had touched a sore spot. “You know very well that’s impossible,” she replied curtly. “Not with his grandfather. And now I bid you a good day, Herr Headmaster.”