The Beggar King: A Hangman's Daughter Tale (US Edition) Read online

  “Hey, you!” The two bailiffs had finally reached the cart. “Get down this instant! Who the hell do you think you are, hawking your magic brew on a Sunday in front of city hall? Don’t you know that around these parts quackery is against the law?”

  “Quackery?” shouted Simon, tearing at his hair in feigned outrage. “I am a medicus with university training who has come upon hard times. Permit me at least to demonstrate my art.”

  “Nothing doing,” one of the guards replied. “You’ll come down right now, and into the stocks you’ll go until morning. That’ll purge this nonsense from your head!” He pointed at a stone column smeared with rotten fruit and excrement off to the side of the square adjacent to the market tower.

  Simon’s face turned a shade whiter. Magdalena, I’ll never forgive you for this…

  “Just give him a chance!” a bystander chimed in. “Maybe he really is a medicus, and if he isn’t—well, you can still give him a good thrashing.”

  After a moment’s consideration the soldier nodded. “All right, then, it’s Sunday and the people want some entertainment; so come on, doc—show us what you can do.”

  The other bailiff appeared to have been struck by an idea and, with a broad grin, waved for someone in the crowd to approach. “What good fortune! We’ve got a patient for you right here.”

  Ducking, Magdalena hastened through the gate, which was slightly ajar, and entered an expansive vault whose low ceiling was so covered with soot and dirt it was pitch black. A few cannons stood rusting in the corner. On her left she spied the wooden gate of a cell that turned out to be empty. Farther back, in a room next to a pile of cannonballs, a few soldiers were sitting around playing dice.

  When Magdalena attempted to breeze by, one glanced up and glared. “Hey, girl,” he cried. “What are you doing here?”

  Magdalena curtsied and looked demurely at the ground. “The two gentlemen at the gate said I could have a look at the bathhouse monster.” Feigning embarrassment, she fumbled with her bodice. “Is it true that at the full moon he changes into a werewolf, with fur and teeth and all that?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The—the two gentlemen, upstairs, just a minute ago.” Like a stupid farm girl, Magdalena drew little circles in the dirt with her right toe and pouted. “And they said I should come back at night sometime so I could see it—I mean, see how he changes.”

  The man laughed and winked at his comrades. “Sure, girl, go ahead and have yourself a look! And when the big bad wolf growls at you, we’ll come and save you.” He pointed toward a corridor on the left where a door stood open, then picked up the dice again. “You’ll find the monster back there—just be careful he doesn’t bite you.”

  She curtsied again as the other guards laughed, then entered the dark corridor. Looking around frantically, she saw a few sturdy doors with iron fittings. Which one is it? She didn’t have much time. The guards would no doubt come after her soon enough, most likely with an invitation to join them in one of the cells for a little fooling around. She didn’t even want to think about what might happen after that.

  “Father!” Magdalena whispered, knocking against the wooden walls. “Can you hear me? It’s me, your daughter!”

  There was a clatter behind the middle door, and finally Jakob Kuisl replied.

  “Magdalena! Good Lord, what are you doing here in Regensburg?”

  The hangman’s daughter pressed her forehead against a small hole beside the door no bigger than the palm of her hand. In the dim light she could see her father’s head, his shaggy, matted beard, and the whites of his eyes gleaming out of a dark face. The stench of rot and excrement nearly took her breath away.

  “I’ll tell you about that some other time,” she whispered. “Simon’s with me. Now tell me what’s happened to you and how I can help. The guards will come back at any moment!”

  “Good Lord, who gave you two permission to just get up and leave Schongau!” Kuisl cursed. “Your mother’s probably worried to death, and surely Lechner’s hopping mad with nobody home shoveling the shit! When I get out of here, I’m going to give your ass such a whipping that—”

  “Papa,” Magdalena whispered, “you really have more important things to worry about. So tell me what happened!”

  “It was a trap,” Kuisl whispered once he’d calmed down. “Someone killed Lisl and her husband and wants to pin the murder on me now.” Quickly he reported what had happened since he’d arrived. “I don’t know what dirty bastard did this to me,” he finally muttered, “but by God, when I find him, I’ll break every last bone in his body.”

  “But you’ve got to get out of here first,” Magdalena replied.

  She looked around frantically for a key, but in vain. Finally she began to rattle the door handle.

  “Quit that,” her father said. “I can’t get out of here, unless you can prove before the awful inquisition begins that someone else bloodied his hands with this dirty deed; then perhaps they’ll put off the torture.”

  Magdalena frowned. “But how do we do that?”

  Her father’s mouth was now very close to her ear—she could smell his familiar scent, sweat and tobacco.

  “Go to my brother-in-law’s house and try to find some kind of clue,” he whispered. “Anything. I’ll bet the culprits didn’t try very hard to cover their tracks. Why should they? They’ve already got their suspect in custody.”

  Magdalena nodded. “And if we don’t find anything?”

  “Then your father will meet his Maker. The Regensburg hangman, so I hear, is savage.”

  There was a lengthy pause; then voices sounded from just outside the dungeon gate.

  “I think someone’s coming,” Magdalena whispered.

  Kuisl pushed his fingers through the little hole and pressed his daughter’s hand so hard she almost cried out.

  “Quick now,” the hangman said, “Get out!”

  The hangman’s daughter took one last look into her father’s eyes before she turned and hurried down the corridor. Just as she was about to set foot in the vaulted anteroom, the watchman she’d been speaking with stepped in front of her.

  “Well? Is the werewolf sprouting fur?” He ran his hands over her bodice and pushed her back down the long hallway. “Do you want to have a look at my fur?”

  Magdalena pointed back down the hallway. “But—but the monster isn’t there anymore. The door to the cell was just standing wide open.”

  “What the devil?”

  Pushing her aside, the watchman ran toward the cells. In a flash Magdalena was in the sooty vestibule again. From there she could see sunlight streaming in through the open gate. Without slowing down, she fled past the astonished guards still playing dice and hurried toward the exit, then out the front gate.

  When she finally reached the city hall square again, she could see that Simon had gotten himself into a mess of trouble.

  Inch by inch, the point of a needle closed in on a wide-open eye. The beggar’s head quivered, but the strong hands of the guard held him, vise-like, while two other guards pinned his arms to his sides. The old man had stopped whimpering and just stared in pure horror at the needle about to pierce his eye. There was no escaping now.

  “Good God, keep still, man,” Simon whispered, trying to focus fully on his quivering target. “I can help you, but only if you don’t move.”

  Sweat streamed down the medicus’s face as the merciless August sun burned down on the marketplace. The onlookers’ boisterous cries had quieted now to a tense murmur. What they were witnessing here was better than the usual cheap theater traveling hucksters had to offer, especially since no one knew how this drama might end.

  The watchman had spotted old Hans Reiser in the crowd and selected him as the ideal candidate for the self-proclaimed medicus to demonstrate whether he really was a master of his art or just some pathetic quack, as most onlookers suspected. For years old Reiser had been shuffling around the square with milky eyes. He was once a well-respected glassb
lower, but his trade had almost completely destroyed his eyesight. Now he was nothing more than a grumbling old man, without money or family—a blind old dotard whose presence at city hall increasingly irritated the watchmen.

  The old beggar suffered from the gray stare—a disease of the eye in which the afflicted has the sensation of seeing the world as if through a waterfall, thus giving the condition its Greek name: cataracts. The pupils, gray in color, looked like two marbles. The operation could only benefit the watchmen: either Reiser would be cured and wouldn’t annoy them anymore, or he would die. That would bring them relief as well—and as for the medicus they could prosecute him for quackery and hang him and be done with it.

  All in all, a perfect solution.

  Simon knew he’d never live to see next week if he didn’t heal the beggar right here and now in the middle of the city square. Whether Magdalena managed to find her father was of secondary importance at the moment. He tried to put everything else out of his mind and concentrate only on the incision he was about to make. The needle was now just a few tenths of an inch from the pupil, and the beggar’s eye stared up at him like the moon, round and full. The medicus knew that removing a cataract was one of the most difficult of all medical procedures, and it was for this reason—as long as anyone could remember—that it was performed mostly by traveling barber surgeons, who could be far, far away by the time complications developed. Simon himself had performed the operation only twice in his life. It involved inserting the needle sideways into the white of the eye and pressing the clouded lens to the bottom of the eye. Just one slight tremble, the tiniest false move, and the patient could go blind, and even die as the result of subsequent infection.

  When the needle pierced the eye, the beggar jerked and screamed. A second incision followed in the other eye. This time Reiser whimpered but held still, his defiance broken. Simon held the needle against the eye for a while to keep the lens in place, then, as he withdrew it, staggered backward. The back of his shirt was soaked, and sweat was streaming down his face. Only now did he notice that a hush had fallen over the crowd.

  “I’ll put a dressing on it now,” Simon said, his voice weak. “You’ll have to wear it a few days, and then we’ll see whether—”

  “Good Lord!” Reiser interrupted Simon as he held his hands up to his face and shouted with joy. “I can see again! By God, I can see again!”

  The raggedy beggar stumbled across the square, grasping wildly at passersby. It did in fact appear he’d been cured of his blindness, even though his plodding movements suggested he’d not yet regained his sight completely. Elated, Reiser ran his hands over every face within reach, grasping at coattails and the brims of hats. Many backed away in disgust—some even pushed the beggar away—but Reiser didn’t lose heart. The old man staggered over to his savior, missing him twice in his attempt to embrace him. He finally managed on the third pass, pulling Simon firmly to his breast.

  “You—you are a sorcerer!” he cried out. “Look, everyone, see for yourself—this man can work magic!”

  “I… don’t think that’s the right word,” Simon whispered, but Reiser dashed across the square again, embracing complete strangers as he continued pointing at Simon. “This man is a sorcerer, a real sorcerer! Believe me!”

  The medicus cast a cautious glance at the watchmen, to whom this word alone gave the sudden opportunity—in spite of his successful operation—to seize him and send him to the gallows. Might this be enough to have him burned at the stake?

  At this very moment Simon caught sight of Magdalena as she sneaked out through the main gate and waved at him furtively. He feigned a move in one direction, then dashed off in the other, disappearing into the crowd.

  “Stop the sorcerer!” the guards shouted behind him. “In the name of the kaiser, stop him!”

  Simon knocked over a vegetable stand, sending cabbages rolling across the pavement and tripping up one of the guards. Another guard crashed into a maidservant and became entangled in a brawl with some indignant bystanders. Simon darted into a narrow alley leading away from city hall and toward the cathedral. Panting, he leaned against the side of a house to catch his breath. When he turned to pick up his things, he noticed he’d lost one of his two bags, the one containing most of his clothing, including his new petticoat breeches and his French-tailored jacket! At least he’d managed to hold on to his books and medical instruments.

  Just as he was about to slip into the shadows of the narrow alleyway, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He started, then turned around to face a grinning Magdalena.

  “Didn’t I say you can’t be left alone for a minute?”

  The hangman’s daughter gave him a kiss on the cheek and nudged him gently in the direction of the cathedral. They could still hear angry shouts and curses from the city hall square.

  “It would be best if we don’t show our faces here again for a while,” she whispered, now in a serious tone. “We already have enough problems as it is!”

  Simon nodded, still panting. “I say we take the suggestion of the raftmaster and go looking for that peculiar inn. It looks like we’re going to need a cheap place to stay for a while.”

  “The Whale!” Magdalena rolled her eyes. “What sort of cheap tavern do you think it’ll turn out to be?” She turned to leave. “I only hope it doesn’t stink of fish.”

  As they rounded the next corner, a shadow followed. Dirty boots slid almost soundlessly through the dung- and trash-filled lane, almost as if they floated on air.

  Hunched over, Jakob Kuisl moved from one end of the cell to the other. It was just four paces wide, but he had to keep moving if he wanted to keep his thoughts running.

  Outside he could hear excited voices, shrill shouts and cries. Something seemed to be going on out in the market square, and Kuisl could only hope the tumult had nothing to do with Magdalena and Simon. Why—damn it—were the two of them in Regensburg at all? Had they set out after him because something had happened in Schongau? The hangman shook his head. His daughter would certainly have told him if that had been the case. Most likely his impudent girl had gotten it into her head to pay her sick old aunt a visit and take in a bit of the city life in Regensburg. The Schongau clerk, Lechner, would certainly be looking for Magdalena! It was her job, after all, in her father’s absence, to cart manure from the city streets, and she would be lucky if they didn’t throw her in the dungeon when she returned home for shirking her duty. And that cock of the walk Simon along with her! But Kuisl himself would most certainly be the first to give his daughter a good whipping.

  The hangman paused at the thought that he might never again be in a position to reprimand his daughter, because it was here in Regensburg that he would die. Really, it was an act of providence that Magdalena and Simon had followed him—they were his only hope now of escaping death on the gallows. Besides, his anger at his reckless daughter was at least a welcome distraction from his memories. Though he’d scraped the writing off the wall, the old mercenary song took him back to a time he would rather have forgotten. But the seed of remembrance had been sown, and in the darkness and idleness of this cell his thoughts kept returning to the past.

  Each time he reached the far end of his cell, his gaze fell on the blank space where the line from the song had been etched, and memories flashed through his mind like lightning—the murder, the violence, the brutality all came back to him now.

  Instinctively, Jakob Kuisl began to hum the beginning of the song:

  There is a reaper, Death’s his name…

  HIS BLADE KEEN AND STEADY

  To mow us is ready…

  The hangman listened to himself hum it, but the tune sounded as if it were coming from the mouth of another man.

  He bit down hard on his lip until he tasted blood.

  5

  REGENSBURG

  AUGUST 19–20, 1662 AD

  THE EYE STARED in cold as marble—unblinking, motionless, and dry—without betraying the slightest flicker of emotion. At times Kath
arina believed no being existed behind this eye; that instead an evil, monstrous doll was observing her like a caged bird or a beetle scampering back and forth inside a jar.

  Katharina couldn’t recall how long she’d been imprisoned in this room. Five days? Six? Or more? There was no window for light to enter, only a small hatch in the door through which a gloved hand supplied her with food, drink, and white candles in exchange for her chamber pot. Her only contact with the outside world was through a small fingernail-size hole above this hatch, and though Katharina had tried and tried, all she could see through it was a dark, torch-lit corridor. Now and then she could make out the sound of soft music in the distance, though it wasn’t the kind of music she knew from fairs and church festivals, but solemn and ceremonial, composed of trumpets, harps, and reeds.

  It sounded to Katharina a little like the music of angels.

  She’d discovered the eye would visit her at regular intervals. Sometimes the visit was announced by shuffling and scraping at the door, and very rarely she would hear the sound of feet dragging or a soft, melodic whistle. But more often than not, only a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades alerted her that, when she turned around, the eye would be there again, staring at her, cool and curious.

  Long ago she’d given up calling for help. At first she’d cried, cursed, and screamed until all that remained of her voice was a reedy squawk, but when she realized that this did no good and just made her hoarse, she curled up into herself like a sick cat and retreated far inside her head, where recently everything seemed jumbled together—horrible visions, visions of people impaled on stakes and tortured, of decapitated bodies and the corpses of infants with contorted limbs, of green long-necked monsters throwing helpless souls into vats of boiling oil. But there were also wanton images: naked young boys and tender young girls who caressed her in her dreams, fairy-like creatures who held her high in their arms and carried her to the mountain peak of Brocken, where she joined both men and women in wild orgies.