The Beggar King: A Hangman's Daughter Tale Page 5

  As he started down the steep staircase, he could see his father sitting on a bench downstairs. With a vacant look, old Fronwieser pushed a few rusty coins across the table, apparently all that remained from his drinking spree. Alongside him was a cup half full of brandy. Without saying a word, Simon picked it up and poured the contents onto the floor. It was only then that his father seemed to notice him.

  “Stop that!” the father said angrily. “I’m still your father.”

  “You sold ergot to Berchtholdt,” Simon said in a flat voice.

  His father stared at him with small, tired eyes. For a moment it seemed he was going to deny it, but finally he shrugged. “And if I did… what business is it of yours?”

  “The baker gave the ergot to his maid, Resl, and she died yesterday from taking it.”

  There was a long pause, and Bonifaz appeared unwilling to reply.

  Finally, Simon continued, “She screamed so loud that all of Schongau could hear it—like a pig being slaughtered. But you were out carousing and didn’t hear a thing, I’m sure.”

  Old Fronwieser folded his arms over his chest and threw his head back defiantly. “I gave the stuff to Berchtholdt because he positively begged for it. What he did with it is his business and doesn’t concern me. If his maid—”

  “You told him it would be better to take too much than too little!” Simon interrupted, his voice quivering. “You gave him the ergot as if it were herbal tea or arnica, but it’s poison! Deadly poison! You’re nothing but a charlatan, a quack!”

  The last words, which slipped out by accident, sent his father over the edge.

  “Quack?” he growled, digging his fingernails into the tabletop. “You call me a goddamned quack? Let me tell you who’s a quack in this town. It’s your damned hangman! Folks are always begging him for their elixirs and their salves. Now that he’s away, I finally have a chance to make a little money, and you make me out to be a murderer! My own son!” The old man stood up and pounded the table so hard the cups on the wall started rattling. “The damned hangman! That quack! That devil! I’ll burn his house down.”

  Closing his eyes, Simon turned his face toward the ceiling. Bonifaz’s jealousy had been a thorn in his side for years, a thorn tipped in poison. Many Schongauers preferred to take their sicknesses and little aches and pains secretly to the hangman rather than to the town doctor. This was, of course, far cheaper, and moreover executioners were considered better not only at treating the broken bones and external injuries they had often themselves inflicted but also at healing internal diseases. By virtue of their experience with torture and executions, they had a more thorough understanding of the human body than any doctor with a university diploma.

  What angered old Fronwieser most, however, was that his son was a good friend of the executioner. The young medicus had learned more from Kuisl than from his own father and the entire faculty of Ingolstadt University put together. The hangman owned books on medicine that couldn’t even be found in most libraries. He knew every poison and medicinal herb and had studied writings that traditional scholars considered the work of the devil. Simon idolized the hangman and was in love with his daughter—two things that got under Bonifaz’s skin and made him seethe with rage.

  As the old man continued his rant about the hangman and the hangman’s family, Simon walked over to a pot of hot water that had been standing on the hearth all night. He knew he would need some coffee if he hoped to withstand the next few minutes.

  “I’m not going to be scolded by the likes of someone who’d go to bed with the hangman’s daughter.” His father’s tirade was approaching its climax. “It’s a wonder, in any case, that you’re at home and not out with that little harlot of yours.”

  Simon’s hands curled around the hot rim of the pot. “Father… I beg you!”

  “Ha! You’re begging me!” his father said, mocking him. “How often have I begged you—how often?—to put an end to this shameful affair, to help me here in my work, and to marry Weinberger’s daughter or even Hardenberg’s niece, who at least does decent work at the hospital. But no, my son carries on with the hangman’s daughter, and the whole town gossips!”

  “Father, stop it! At once!”

  But by now Bonifaz had worked himself into a frenzy. “If only your dear mother knew!” he scoffed. “It’s just as well the reaper carried her off so long ago—it would have broken her heart. For years we tramped along behind the military, serving them as field surgeons, saving every last kreuzer I could so that our son might attend the university and have a better life someday. And what did you do? You squandered the money in Ingolstadt and wasted your time loafing around with riffraff.”

  Simon was still clutching the pot by its rim. Although it had become painfully hot from the fire, he seemed barely to notice the heat, and his knuckles turned white with the force of his grip.

  “Magdalena is not riffraff,” he said slowly. “Nor is her father.”

  “He’s a damned quack and a murderer, and his daughter is a whore.”

  Without a second thought, Simon flung the pot against the wall. With a loud hiss, the near-boiling water splashed over the shelves, table, and chairs, filling the room with a cloud of steam. Dumbfounded, Bonifaz looked back at his son. The pot had just barely missed his face.

  “How dare you…” he began.

  But Simon was not listening anymore. He dashed out the door into the early-morning light with tears streaming down his face. What had gotten into him? He’d almost killed his own father!

  Distraught, Simon tried to pull his thoughts together. He had to get out of here, away from this stifling town that was making a recreant of him, a town that forbade him to marry the woman he loved, a town that tried to prescribe everything he did or thought.

  He stepped out into the narrow street where foul-smelling garbage was pushed into huge piles. All of Schongau smelled that way—like muck, feces, and urine. Simon staggered through the empty streets, past the closed shop doors and bolted shutters. Another sweltering day had dawned in town.

  The mouse was close to Jakob Kuisl’s ear. He could feel it brush past his hair, its tiny nose grazing his cheek. The hangman tried to breathe as softly as possible so as not to frighten the little creature. It sniffed his beard where tiny bits of yesterday’s stew still clung.

  In a single, rapid motion, the hangman reached up and nabbed the rodent by the tail. The mouse dangled in front of his face, squeaking and flailing its legs in the air as Kuisl calmly examined it.

  Trapped, just like me. Thrashing around and getting nowhere…

  He’d spent the night locked in this hole in the Jakob’s Gate Tower in Regensburg: a little room in the cellar that was apparently most often used for storage. Surrounded by rusty cannons and disassembled matchlock guns, the hangman awaited his fate.

  Could he just be imagining it, or was somebody really out to get him? Some of the guards had whispered among themselves when they took him into custody, pointing at him as if they somehow already knew who he was. Kuisl thought about the leering grimace of the raftsman who’d watched him for days. And what about the farmer he’d met while waiting outside the city gate? Had he been trying to pump him for information, too? Was it possible they’d each played a part in some conspiracy against him?

  Is it possible I’m just losing my mind?

  Again he tried to remember where he had seen the raftsman before. It must have been long ago. In battle? A tavern brawl? Or could he be one of the many whom, in the course of his life, Kuisl had put in the stocks, beaten with whips, or tortured? Kuisl nodded. That seemed most likely. Some minor offender who had recognized the Schongau executioner. The guards had him arrested because he’d assaulted one of their colleagues. And the curious farmer—well, he’d been just a curious farmer.

  So there was no conspiracy, just a series of coincidences.

  Kuisl set the mouse down carefully on the ground and let go of its tail. The animal scampered off toward a hole in the wall and disappea
red. And just a few moments after that, the hangman was startled by a noise. The door to his cell opened with a creak and a narrow gap appeared, letting in the dazzling morning light.

  “You are free to go, Bavarian.” It was the captain of the guards at Jakob’s Gate, with his twirled mustache and gleaming cuirass. He held the door open wide, gesturing for the hangman to leave. “You’ve had enough lolling around on your ass at the city’s expense.”

  “I’m free?” Kuisl asked with surprise, getting up from his bedraggled sheets.

  The captain nodded impatiently, and in his eyes Kuisl noticed a peculiar nervous flicker that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  “I hope you’ve cooled down a bit. Let it be a lesson to you not to tangle with the Regensburg city guards.”

  With a face as impassive as a rock, Kuisl pushed past the captain, headed up the stairway, and stepped outside. It was early morning, but another long line of people had already formed in front of Jakob’s Gate, and merchants and farmers were streaming into the city with their full packs and carts.

  I wonder if the scar-faced raftsman is among them, the hangman thought, casually observing the faces. But he couldn’t see anything that looked suspicious.

  Stop thinking about it and concern yourself with your little sister!

  Looking straight ahead, Kuisl left the dungeon and started out through the city. From the few letters he had had from her, he knew that Lisbeth, along with her husband, ran a bathing establishment near the Danube, right alongside the city wall. As the hangman plodded along the broad paved avenue that led away from the gate, he was now no longer certain his directions would suffice, and amid the bustling crowd he soon lost his way. Houses four stories high rose up along both sides of the road, casting their shadows on the narrow, winding streets that branched off the main road at regular intervals. Sometimes the buildings stood so close together there was barely a patch of sky visible between them. From far off Kuisl could hear bells tolling in innumerable church spires. It was only six o’clock in the morning, yet there were more people out and about on the main road than on a Saturday afternoon in Schongau. Kuisl saw many richly clothed citizens but also countless poor, among them beggars and wounded veterans of the war, holding out their hands for alms at every other street corner. Barking dogs tore past his legs and down the street, as did two little piglets, squealing loudly. Towering up into the sky to his right was an enormous church whose stone portal, adorned with columns, arches, and statues, looked as if it were the entrance to a castle. Day laborers and derelicts loitered or lay dozing on the broad stone steps. Kuisl decided to ask one of them for directions.

  “The Hofmann bathhouse, eh?” The young fellow grinned, revealing two remaining teeth. When Kuisl addressed him in his broad Schongau dialect, the young man sensed a chance to make some easy money. “You’re not from around here, are you? Don’t worry, I can take you there, but it will cost you a couple of kreuzers.”

  The hangman nodded and handed the derelict a few old coins. Then he quickly seized the beggar’s wrist and twisted it until it cracked softly. “If you cheat me or run off,” the Schongau executioner whispered, “or mislead me or tip off your buddies and try to ambush me, or if you even think about doing any of that, I will find you and I will break your neck. Do you understand?”

  The fellow nodded anxiously and swiftly decided against his original plan.

  Together they turned left, away from the stone portal and onto the next major thoroughfare. Once more Kuisl was astonished at how many people were bustling about in Regensburg at this hour of the day. They all seemed to be in a hurry, as if the day itself were somehow shorter here than the days in Schongau. The hangman had trouble keeping up with the beggar through the labyrinth of the busy little streets. A few times he felt a hand reaching for his purse, but a severe glance or a well-aimed shove sufficed to dissuade the would-be pickpocket each time.

  Finally, they seemed to be nearing their destination. This lane was wider than the preceding ones, and a tiny brook polluted with excrement and dead rats flowed languidly down the middle of it. Kuisl sniffed the air—sharp and rotten, an odor that the hangman knew only too well. Strips of leather hung like flags from balconies and windows. It was clear he was in the Tanners’ Quarter.

  The beggar pointed to a large building at the end of a row of houses on the left, where an opening in a narrow gate led down to the Danube. The house looked neater than the others, freshly plastered, its trim painted bright red. The bathhouse coat of arms, a tin banner depicting a green parrot in a golden field, hung above the entryway, squeaking in the wind.

  “Bathhouse Hofmann,” the man said. “As promised, bone cruncher.” He bowed and stuck his tongue out at the hangman before disappearing into a little side street.

  As Kuisl approached the bathhouse, he again had the unmistakable feeling of being watched, perhaps from one of the windows across the way. But when he turned around, he couldn’t see anything behind the leather hides covering each window.

  Damned city crowds! They’re driving me crazy!

  He knocked on the solid wooden door in front of him, only to discover it was already open. With a loud creak, it swung slowly inward, opening on a dimly lit room.

  “Lisl!” Kuisl called into the darkness. “It’s me, Jakob, your brother! Are you home?”

  A strange feeling of homesickness came over him, memories from his childhood when he’d looked after his little sister. Lisbeth had been so happy to escape Schongau, to get away from the place where she had always been—just like Kuisl’s own daughter now—the free-spirited hangman’s daughter. She really seemed to have made it in the city, but now she was deathly ill and far from home…

  Kuisl stood in the doorway, his heart pounding.

  Cautiously he entered the room. It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the large, long room that extended the length of the house. Fragrant reeds had been spread over the smoothly planed wooden floors, and from somewhere in the house he heard the steady sound of water dripping—a gentle, steady tapping.

  Tap… tap… tap.

  Kuisl slowly stepped further into the house. Wooden partitions divided the room into private niches at regular intervals along either side. The hangman could see that each contained a bench and, next to it, a large wooden tub.

  In the last tub on the left he found his little sister alongside her husband.

  Elisabeth Hofmann and her husband, Andreas, lay with their heads tilted back and their eyes open wide, as if they were watching some invisible spectacle play out across the ceiling. For a brief moment the hangman thought the couple was taking their morning bath; only then did he notice that both were fully clothed. Lisbeth’s right arm hung over the edge of the tub, and something dripped from the tip of her index finger to the floor like heavy melted wax.

  Tap… tap… tap.

  Kuisl bent over the tub and passed his hand through the lukewarm water.

  It was deep red.

  He jumped back, the hair on the back of his neck standing up straight. His little sister and her husband were bathing in their own blood! Now Kuisl saw the slit across Lisbeth’s throat, grinning up at him like a second mouth. Her black hair floated like a matted net on the surface of the bloody water. The slit in Andreas Hofmann’s neck was so deep that his head was almost severed from his body.

  “Oh, God, Lisl!” Kuisl cradled his little sister’s head in his arms and passed his hand gently through her hair. “What happened? What’s happened to you?” He clenched his jaw as his eyes filled with tears, the first tears he’d shed in years.

  Why? Why didn’t I get here sooner?

  His sister’s face was as white as chalk. He held her in his arms and rocked her back and forth, stroking the hair from her forehead as he’d always done when she was a child in bed, restless with fever. In a deep, faltering voice he began to sing an old nursery rhyme.

  Maikäfer flieg, dein Vater ist im Krieg, deine Mutter ist im… May bug fly, your fathe
r’s gone to die, your mother is in…

  A sound made him pause.

  He turned around to find a contingent of at least five guards quietly entering the room. Two had crossbows trained on him and stood poised to shoot as a third slowly approached him with his sword drawn.

  It was the captain from that morning.

  The man twirled his mustache and smiled at Kuisl as he pointed at the two corpses. “Looks as if you have a problem on your hands, country boy.”

  “But not all of the St. John’s Wort! Good Lord, girl! Pay attention!”

  Magdalena was startled by the voice of Martha Stechlin shouting right into her ear. The hangman’s daughter, who had been busy spooning herbs into a pot, knew how important it was to use just the right quantities of ingredients. But her thoughts were far, far away. When the midwife shouted at her, Magdalena couldn’t say for the life of her how much St. John’s Wort she’d already put in the copper kettle over the fire. The strange aroma coming from the green liquid bubbling in the pot distracted her even further.

  “How often must I tell you: follow the recipe!” Stechlin grabbed the spoon from her hand and began stirring the remaining ingredients into the kettle herself. “You might get away with that when you make green oil,” she mumbled, “but if that were to happen with belladonna or lily of the valley, we’d be convicted for brewing poison and end up burned at the stake. So please, do pay attention!”

  “I’m… I’m terribly sorry,” Magdalena whispered. “I’m not quite myself today.”

  “I’ve noticed,” the midwife replied. “But there’s nothing you can do for Resl anymore. We can only hope people will come back to us midwives now when they need ergot. Those doctors with their university diplomas don’t know a thing about it.”

  Sighing, the hangman’s daughter put the crucibles and glasses back in the drawers. She had gone to Stechlin first thing in the morning to tell her about the baker’s maid who had met such a horrible death the day before. In the last two years a genuine friendship had developed between Magdalena and the midwife, even though Stechlin was older by almost twenty years. Neither was thought of very highly in town, even if people kept calling on them secretly for their aid. The townfolk whispered behind their backs; the men especially gave them a very wide berth, convinced that the women meddled too much in what they believed should be the dear Lord’s work.