The Hangman’s Daughter thd-1 Read online

  But he still felt he was in danger. After taking a few deep breaths, he ran on unsteadily toward the raft landing, looking behind him all the way. As he turned his head once again toward the forest, he collided with someone in front of him.

  “Simon?”

  It was Magdalena. She had a basket in her hand filled with wild herbs. She looked at him, in astonishment.

  “What’s happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Simon pushed her down the few remaining yards to the raft landing and collapsed onto a stack of beams. Not until he was here amid the busy activity of the raftsmen and wagon drivers did he really feel safe.

  “He…was after me,” he stammered at last, when his breathing was more or less regular again.

  “Who was?” Magdalena asked anxiously and sat down beside him.

  “The devil.”

  Magdalena laughed, but her laughter did not sound genuine. “Simon, don’t talk nonsense,” she said finally. “You’ve been tippling, in the midday sun!”

  Simon shook his head. Then he told her everything that had happened since the morning: the destruction at the building site, the pursuit with her father in the woods, the conversations with the parish priest, Schreevogl, and Sophie, and finally his flight down to the raft landing. When he had finished, Magdalena looked at him with worried eyes.

  “But why did the devil pick on you?” she asked. “You don’t have anything to do with it, do you?”

  Simon shrugged. “Probably because we are on his heels and because we almost got him.” He looked at Magdalena very earnestly. “Your father is in danger too.”

  Magdalena grinned. “I’d like to see the devil try to punch my father. My father’s the hangman, don’t forget that.”

  Simon got up from the pile of wood. “Magdalena, this is no joke,” he cried. “This man, or whatever he is, has presumably murdered a few children! He wanted to kill me, and perhaps he’s observing us at this very minute.”

  Magdalena looked around. Right in front of them, wagon drivers were loading two rafts with cases and barrels and lashing them into place. Further on, a few men were clearing away the charred remains of the Zimmerstadel, and elsewhere new beams were already being put up. One of the men occasionally turned to look at them and then whispered to his neighbor.

  Simon could well imagine what they were whispering: the hangman’s whore and her lover boy…the physician’s son, who goes to bed with the hangman’s wench and doesn’t believe that the devil is making his rounds in Schongau, or that the midwife must be burned.

  Simon sighed. Magdalena’s reputation was ruined anyway, and by now, his as well. He put his hand against her cheek and looked deep into her eyes.

  “Your father told me that you found a mandrake in the forest,” he said. “You probably saved Martha Stechlin’s life with it.”

  Magdalena grinned.

  “That’s a fair exchange. After all, she gave me my life. I was a real pain when I was born, my mother says. I was the wrong way around and didn’t want to come out. If it hadn’t been for Martha Stechlin, I wouldn’t be here. Now I can pay her back.”

  Then she became serious again.

  “We must go to my father and warn him,” she whispered. “Perhaps he’ll think of some way that we can catch the devil.”

  Simon shook his head. “Above all we must find out who took part in the meeting with this so-called devil and the other soldiers at Semer’s inn. I’m sure this person is the key to everything else.”

  Both fell silent in thought.

  “Why did the devil come back?”

  “What?” Simon was startled out of his thoughts.

  “Why did he come back to the building site?” Magdalena asked once more. “If he and his men were really responsible for the destruction there, why did he go there once again? They had already done everything they wanted to.”

  Simon frowned. “Perhaps because he’d lost something, perhaps the tobacco pouch that your father found. He didn’t want people to discover that and draw conclusions.”

  Magdalena shook her head.

  “I don’t believe that. There was no monogram on the pouch, nothing that might have given him away. It must have been something else…”

  “Perhaps he was looking for something,” Simon suggested. “Something that he didn’t find the first time.”

  Magdalena was deep in thought.

  “Something draws him to the building site,” she said. “Goodwife Daubenberger told me that witches used to dance there, and soon it will be Walpurgis Night again…Perhaps he really is the devil.”

  Both fell silent again. The sun was almost too hot for April. It warmed the stack of beams they were sitting on. From a distance they heard the voices of the raftsmen as they drifted down the river toward Augsburg. The water glittered like liquid gold. Suddenly it was all too much for Simon-the flight, all the questions, the brooding, the fear…

  He jumped up, took Magdalena’s basket, and ran upriver.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “To look for herbs, with you. Come on, the sun is shining, and I know a nice cozy place.”

  “And what about my father?”

  He swung her basket and smiled at her.

  “He can wait a bit. You said yourself that he fears neither death nor the devil.”

  Under the disapproving looks of the wagon drivers she ran after him.

  Dusk stretched out its fingers from the west and settled on the woods around Schongau. The Hohenfurch Road lay in complete darkness, and so the man who now approached from the west could scarcely be discerned among the bushes at the edge of the clearing. He had decided against taking the road and had gone through the high thickets parallel to it. It took almost twice as long that way, but he could be sure that nobody would see him. The gates of the town had been closed half an hour ago and the probability that he would meet anyone out here was extremely small. But the man did not want to run any risk.

  His shoulders ached from carrying the shovel. Sweat streamed over his forehead; thorns and thistles clung to his coat and left small tears in many places. The man cursed. What drove him on was the certainty that all this would soon be over. Then he could come and go as he pleased and there would be nobody to tell him what to do. Sometime in a distant future he would tell his grandchildren about it, and they would understand. They would realize that it was for their sake that he had done all this, for the survival of their family, their dynasty. That it was he who had saved the family. But then it occurred to him that he had already gone too far. He couldn’t tell anyone about it anymore. Too much had already happened, too much that was dirty and bloody. He would have to take the secret with him to the grave.

  A twig cracked in the darkness, a flapping noise could be heard. The man stopped and held his breath. Carefully he pulled out the small lantern that he had concealed under his coat until then and pointed it in the direction of the sound. Not far from him, an owl flew up into the air and across the clearing. He smiled. Fear had almost made a fool of him.

  He looked around on all sides for the last time, then he entered the building site and hurried to the construction in the middle.

  Where should he begin? He walked round the foundation walls that had been destroyed and looked for a clue. When he found nothing, he climbed over a heap of stones into the interior and struck a flagstone on the ground with his shovel. The metallic noise seemed to go right through him. He had a feeling they could hear it all the way to Schongau, and he stopped at once.

  Finally he climbed a small wall adjacent to the main building and gazed over the clearing. The leper house, the chapel, heaps of beams, a well, sacks of lime, a few upset buckets…

  His eye fell on an old linden tree in the middle of the clearing. Its branches reached almost down to the ground. For some reason the builders had left it standing. Perhaps the church did not want to chop it down, thinking of a future use as shade for the invalids.

  Or perhaps because the old man
had willed it so?

  With hasty steps he ran to the linden, ducked under the branches, and began to dig. The earth was as firm as clay. A tough network of roots spread from the linden in all directions. The man cursed as he dug until streams of sweat began to soak through his coat. He gripped the shovel with both hands and drove the blade through roots as thick as arms, until they splintered, only to reveal other roots beneath them. He tried it in another place nearer to the tree, with the same result. He panted and spluttered. He hacked faster and faster on earth and wood, then he stopped, struggling for breath, and leaned on the shovel. It must be the wrong place. Nothing had been buried here.

  With his lantern he examined the linden for possible knot-holes. Beneath the first branch, just high enough to be out of his reach, there was a hole about as big as a man’s fist. He put the lantern down and pulled himself up by the branch. The first time he slipped down because his hands were so wet with perspiration, but at last he managed to hoist his heavy body up. Slowly he moved toward the trunk until he could manage to put his right hand into the knothole. He felt wet straw and then something cold, hard. Obviously metal.

  His heart jumped.

  Suddenly a sharp pain shot through his hand. He pulled it out, and at the same moment he saw something large and black flying away protesting furiously. On the back of his hand there was a cut as long as a finger that began to bleed profusely. Cursing, he threw away the rusty spoon which he had continued to clutch in his hand, and let himself slide to the ground. He licked the blood from the wound, while tears of pain and despair flowed down his cheeks. The scolding of the magpies seemed to be mocking him.

  Everything was in vain.

  He would never find it. The old man had taken his secret to the grave with him. Once more he glanced over the building site. The walls, the foundations of the chapel, the well, stacks of wood, the linden, a few stunted pines at the edge of the clearing. There had to be something that had been there before-something noticeable, something that could be found again. But perhaps the builders, unknowingly, had already removed this landmark.

  He shook his head. The site was too big. He could dig here night after night without finding the slightest thing. But then a defiant spirit welled up within him. He could not give up so easily. Not so soon. Too much depended on it. A new plan, then…He must proceed systematically, divide the site up into smaller parcels and then search it section by section. One thing at least was sure-the thing he was looking for was here. It would take patience, but in the end it would be worth it.

  Not far away, leaning against a tree trunk near the clearing, the devil stood and watched the man digging. He blew a smoke ring into the night sky and watched it climb up toward the moon. He had known that there was something else interesting about the building site. He wouldn’t be lied to. That made him angry. Actually, he would have liked immediately to cut the throat of the man down there between the walls and sprinkle his blood around the clearing. But then he would spoil things in two ways: he would not be paid for further mischief, and he would never find out what the man was so desperately seeking. He would therefore have to be patient. Later, when the man had found it, there would be time enough to punish him for his lies. Just as he would punish the physician and the hangman for pursuing him. This time the quack had managed to get away from him. That would not happen again.

  The devil puffed another cloud into the night sky. Then he made himself comfortable on the soft moss at the foot of a fir tree and carefully observed the man digging. Perhaps, after all, he would find something.

  CHAPTER 11

  SUNDAY APRIL 29, A.D. 1659 SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Simon was awakened by a creaking noise, a soft sound that had insinuated itself into his dreams. In a second, he was wide awake. Next to him, Magdalena was still in deep sleep. Her breath was even, and the smile on her lips suggested she was in the midst of a beautiful dream. Simon hoped that she was dreaming of last night.

  He had walked with Magdalena along the river to gather herbs. He had tried not to say a word about the recent events in Schongau. At least for a brief moment he wanted to forget. He didn’t want to think of the man they called the devil, who was intent on murdering him. He didn’t want to think of the midwife in the town jail, who was still unconscious, nor the dead children. Springtime was here, the sun was shining warmly, and the waters of the Lech burbled along softly.

  After a good mile through the meadowland along the riverbank they reached Simon’s favorite spot, a small gravelly cove that could not be seen from the path. A large willow spread its branches over the cove, so that the river behind it sparkled through the leaves. In recent years he had often come to this spot when he wanted to sit and think. Now he was looking out over the river with Magdalena. They talked about the last market day, when they had danced together and people’s tongues were wagging at the tables all around. They told each other about their childhood. Simon spoke of his time as an army surgeon, and Magdalena of the fever that had laid her low for many weeks when she was seven years old. During that time she had also been taught to read by her father, who remained at her bedside day and night. Ever since then she helped him mix his potions and grind his herbs, and she always learned something new when she rummaged through her father’s books.

  To Simon it seemed like a miracle. Magdalena was the first woman he could discuss books with. The first woman to have read Johann Scultetus’s Wundarzneyisches Zeughaus or Surgical Armory, and to know the works of Paracelsus. Only now and then did he feel something like pangs of regret when he remembered that this girl could never become his wife. As the hangman’s daughter she was dishonorable, and the town would never permit their union. They would have to go to some foreign country, a hangman’s wench and a traveling field surgeon, and they would have to live by begging in the streets. But then, why not? His love for this girl was so strong now, at this moment, that he would readily give up everything for her.

  All afternoon and evening they had talked, and all of a sudden they could hear the ringing of the six o’clock bell from the parish church. In another half hour the gates of Schongau would be closed. They knew that they would never get back in time. And so they went to an abandoned barn nearby, where Simon had already slept on previous occasions, and there they remained for the night. They talked on, laughing over the pranks they played as children long ago. Schongau, its gossiping burghers and both of their fathers were far, far away. From time to time Simon ran his hand across Magdalena’s cheek or stroked her hair, but every time his fingers approached her bodice she smiled and pushed him away. She did not yet want to give herself to him, and Simon accepted it. At some time in the night they had fallen asleep next to each other like two children.

  At the break of dawn, the creaking of the barn door woke Simon out of a light sleep.

  They had settled down high up under the roof, from where a ladder descended to the barn floor. Carefully, the physician peered around a bale of straw and far down to the barn floor. He saw that the door was open a crack and the first light of dawn was shining through. He was sure that he had closed the door the evening before, if only to keep out the cold. Silently he slipped on his trousers and cast a last glance at Magdalena, who was still asleep. Directly below him, hidden by the wooden floor of the loft, he could hear shuffling steps approaching the ladder. Simon felt around in the straw for his knife, a perfectly honed stiletto he had already used for dissecting corpses and amputating the limbs of wounded men. With his right hand, he firmly gripped the handle, and with his left hand he pushed an especially large bale of straw directly to the edge of the loft.

  Below him a figure appeared. He waited for a moment, then gave the bale a last shove so that it fell directly onto the figure. With a piercing cry Simon jumped after it with the intention of pulling the stranger to the floor and, if necessary, stabbing him in the back.

  The man ducked to the side without even looking up and the bale hit the floor next to him, bursting into a cloud of dust
and straw. At the same time the man raised his arms and warded off Simon’s attack. The physician felt strong fingers grabbing his wrists in a viselike grip. Groaning with pain, he released the stiletto. Then the figure rammed a knee into his abdomen so that he sank forward to the floor. All went dark before his eyes.

  Blind with pain he crawled around on the floor, desperately feeling for his knife. A boot came down on his right hand, softly at first, then harder and harder. Simon gasped for air as something started to crack inside his wrist. Suddenly the pain eased. The figure, which he was able to see only as through a fog, had removed the foot from his hand.

  “If you seduce my daughter again I’ll break both your hands and lay you out on the rack, understand?”

  Simon held his abdomen and crawled some distance away.

  “I didn’t…didn’t touch her,” he groaned. “Not like you think. But we…we love each other.”

  The response was a dry, suppressed laugh.

  “I don’t give a damn! She’s a hangman’s daughter, have you forgotten that? She is dishonorable! Do you want to expose her to even more ridicule, just because you can’t control yourself?” Jakob Kuisl was now standing directly over Simon and rolled him over on his back with his foot so that he was able to look directly into his eyes.

  “Be glad I didn’t castrate you on the spot,” he said. “It would’ve saved you and some girls in town a whole lot of trouble!”