All of a sudden Josef Grimmer realized that his dead son must still in fact be down by the river. In his hatred he had just left him lying there and had hurried after the others. Tears came to his eyes.

With an agility that n.o.body would have suspected of him, the man with the pipe in his mouth climbed over the bal.u.s.trade of the parapet and leaped down into the garden. He was taller by at least a head than all others there. The giant bent down to Martha Stechlin. She could now see his face quite close above her, the hooked nose, the wrinkles like furrows, bushy eyebrows, and deep-set brown eyes. The eyes of the hangman.

"Now you will come with me," whispered Jakob Kuisl. "We'll go to the court clerk, and he will lock you up. That's the safest thing for you at the moment. Do you understand?"

Martha nodded. The hangman's voice was soft and melodious, and it calmed her.

The midwife knew Jakob Kuisl well. She had brought his children into the world, both the living and the dead...Most often the executioner himself had lent a hand. Occasionally she bought from him potions and poultices to cure interrupted menstruation or unwanted pregnancies. She knew him to be an affectionate father who adored his youngest children, the twins, above all else. She had also seen how he laid the noose round the necks of men and women and pulled away the ladder. And now he's going to hang me, And now he's going to hang me, she thought. she thought. But first he saves my life. But first he saves my life.

Jakob Kuisl helped her up, then looked around at the bystanders expectantly. "I'm taking Martha to the keep now," he said. "If she really has anything to do with the death of Grimmer's son, she will receive her just punishment, I can promise you that. But until then, leave her in peace."

Without another word the hangman seized Martha by the scruff of the neck and pushed her through the middle of the group of silent raftsmen and wagon drivers. The midwife was quite sure he would make good on his threat.

Simon Fronwieser panted and cursed. He felt his back slowly getting damp. It was not sweat that he felt there, but blood, which had soaked through the sheet. He would have to resew his coat; the stains were all too clear on the black fabric. And the bundle across his shoulders was getting heavier with every step.

Simon crossed the Lech Bridge with his awkward burden and turned to the right into the tanners' quarter. As the physician entered the narrow lanes, he at once smelled the acrid odor of urine and decay, which pervaded everything. He held his breath and trudged past frames as high as a man, between which sheets of leather had been hung out to dry. Half-tanned animal skins even hung from the balcony railings, giving off their penetrating stench. A few apprentices looked down inquisitively at Simon and his bloodstained bundle. It must have looked to them as if he was taking a slaughtered lamb to the hangman.

At last he left the narrow alleys behind him and turned left up the path to the duck pond to the executioner's house, which stood under two shady oak trees. With a stable, a big garden, and a shed for a wagon, it was quite an impressive property. The physician looked around, not without a feeling of envy. The executioner's profession might be dishonorable, but still one was able to make a decent living from it.

Simon opened the freshly painted gate and entered the garden. It was April, the first flowers had already appeared, and everywhere aromatic plants were springing up.

Mugwort, mint, lemon balm, stinkwort, wild thyme, sage...the executioner of Schongau was known for the herbal riches of his garden.

"Uncle Simon, Uncle Simon!"

The twins, Georg and Barbara, scrambled down from the oak tree and ran with loud cries to Simon. The physician was their friend, and they knew that he was always ready for a game or a romp with them.

Anna Maria Kuisl, aroused by the noise, opened the front door. Simon looked at her, smiling a little stiffly, while the children tried to jump up on him to see what he had in the bundle over his shoulder. Although she was just about forty, the hangman's wife was still an attractive woman, who with her raven-black hair and bushy eyebrows looked almost like his sister. Simon had often asked himself if she was not a distant relative of Jakob Kuisl's. Since executioners were regarded as dishonorable and could only marry burghers' daughters in exceptional circ.u.mstances, their families were often closely related by marriage. In the course of centuries whole dynasties of executioners had formed, and that of the Kuisls was the largest in Bavaria.

Laughing, Anna Maria Kuisl came out to meet the physician, but when she noticed the bundle on his back, his warning glance, and his defensive gesture, she motioned to the children to leave.

"Georg, Barbara! Go and play behind the house. Uncle Simon and I have something to talk about."

The children, grumbling, disappeared, and Simon was at last able to enter the room and lay the corpse on the kitchen bench. The cloth in which it was wrapped fell to the side. When Anna Maria saw the boy, she uttered a cry.

"My G.o.d, that's Grimmer's boy! What in the world has happened?"

Simon took a seat next to the bench and told her the story. Meanwhile Anna Maria poured him some wine mixed with water from an earthenware jug, which he drank in great gulps.

"And so you need my husband now to tell you what happened?" Anna Maria asked, when he had finished. Shaking her head, she kept on glancing at the boy's body.

Simon wiped his lips. "Exactly. Where is he?"

Maria shrugged her shoulders. "I can't tell you. He went up to the town to the blacksmith's to get some nails. We need a new closet, you know. Ours is full to the bursting point."

She glanced once more at the b.l.o.o.d.y bundle on the kitchen bench. As the wife of the hangman she was more than accustomed to the sight of corpses, but the death of a child always moved her. She shook her head. "The poor lad..."

Then she seemed to come to herself again. Life went on. Outside the twins romped about noisily, and little Barbara screeched at the top of her lungs. "It would be best if you wait for him here," she said, getting up from the bench. "You can read a bit while you're waiting."

The hangman's wife smiled. She knew that Simon often came just to leaf through her husband's dog-eared old books. Sometimes the physician made up some rather feeble excuse for going down to the hangman's house to look up something.

Anna Maria gave the dead boy one more compa.s.sionate glance. Then she took a woolen blanket from the closet and laid it carefully over the corpse, so that there was nothing more to see in case the twins came in suddenly. Finally she went to the door. "I must see what the children are doing outside. Help yourself to the wine, if you like."

The door closed and Simon was alone in the room. The hangman's living room was large and s.p.a.cious and took up almost the entire ground floor of the house. In the corner there was a large stove, which was stoked from outside in the corridor. Next to it was the kitchen table, and above it the executioner's sword hung on the wall. A steep staircase led from the pa.s.sage to the upper room, where the Kuisls and their three children slept. Next to the oven was a low, narrow door, which led to another room beyond. Simon ducked under the lintel and entered the holy of holies.

On the left stood two chests in which Jakob Kuisl kept everything needed for executions and torture-ropes, chains, gloves, but also thumbscrews and pincers. The rest of this threatening a.r.s.enal was owned by the town authorities and was kept in the tower, deep down in the dungeons. Next to the chests, the gallows ladder was leaning on the wall.

But Simon was looking for something else. Almost the whole of the opposite wall was taken up by an enormous closet that reached to the ceiling. The physician opened one of the many doors and looked into a confused ma.s.s of bottles, pots, leather bags, and vials. Inside the closet, herbs were hanging to dry; they smelled like summer. Simon recognized rosemary, goat's rue, and daphne. Behind a second door were countless drawers, labeled with alchemical signs and symbols. Simon turned to the third door. Behind this were piled old dusty volumes, crackling parchment rolls, and books both printed and handwritten-the hangman's library, collected over the course of many generations, ancient knowledge, completely different from what Simon had studied in the course of his many dry-as-dust lectures at the university in Ingolstadt.

Simon reached for a particularly heavy volume, which he often held in his hands. He ran his finger over the t.i.tle. "Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis," he murmured. A disputed book that was based on the idea that all the blood in the body was part of a perpetual circulation powered by the heart. Simon's professors in Ingolstadt had laughed at this theory, and even his father had found it far-fetched.

Simon continued browsing. The Buch der Medicie Buch der Medicie, or Book of Medicine, Book of Medicine, was the name of a handwritten, poorly bound little book in which all kinds of remedies against illnesses were listed. Simon's gaze was arrested by a page on which dried toads were recommended as a remedy against the plague. Next to it on the shelf was a work that the hangman could have acquired only recently. was the name of a handwritten, poorly bound little book in which all kinds of remedies against illnesses were listed. Simon's gaze was arrested by a page on which dried toads were recommended as a remedy against the plague. Next to it on the shelf was a work that the hangman could have acquired only recently. Das Wundarzneyische Zeughaus Das Wundarzneyische Zeughaus, or Surgical Armory, Surgical Armory, by Johannes Scultetus, the city physician of Ulm, was so new that probably not even the University of Ingolstadt had acquired it yet. Reverently, Simon let his fingers glide over the binding of this masterpiece of surgery. by Johannes Scultetus, the city physician of Ulm, was so new that probably not even the University of Ingolstadt had acquired it yet. Reverently, Simon let his fingers glide over the binding of this masterpiece of surgery.

"Pity that you have eyes only for books."

Simon looked up. Magdalena was leaning in the doorway and looking at him brightly. The young physician couldn't help swallowing. Magdalena Kuisl, twenty years old, was aware of the effect she had on men. Whenever Simon saw her, his mouth became dry and his head seemed empty. In the past few weeks, it had become worse, he always kept thinking of her. Sometimes before he fell asleep, he imagined her full lips, the dimples in her cheeks, and her laughing eyes. If the physician had only been a little superst.i.tious, he would have supposed that the hangman's daughter had cast a spell over him.

"I'm...waiting for your father..." he stammered, without taking his eyes off her. Smiling, she came up to him. She appeared not to have noticed the dead boy on the bench as she walked past, and Simon had no intention of bringing it to her attention. The few moments they had together were too precious to fill with death and suffering.

He shrugged and put the book back on the shelf.

"Your father has the best medical library for miles around. I'd be foolish not to use it," he murmured. His glance wandered over her plunging neckline in which two well-formed b.r.e.a.s.t.s were apparent. He quickly looked the other way.

"Your father sees that differently," said Magdalena and slowly came nearer. father sees that differently," said Magdalena and slowly came nearer.

Simon knew that his father considered the hangman's books to be works of the devil. And he had often warned him about Magdalena. Satan's woman, he had said.

And he who has dealings with the hangman's daughter will never be a respected medical man.

Simon knew that there could be no question of a marriage with Magdalena. She was "dishonorable," just like her father. But he couldn't stop thinking of her. Only a few weeks before, they had danced together for a short time at St. Paul's Fair, and for days this had been the subject of gossip in the town.

His father had threatened to beat him if he was seen with Magdalena again. Hangmen's daughters married hangmen's sons-that was an unwritten law. Simon knew it very well.

Now Magdalena stood in front of him and ran her fingers across his cheek. She was smiling, but in her eyes there was an unspoken grief.

"Do you want to come to the meadows with me tomorrow?" she asked. "Father needs mistletoe and h.e.l.lebore..."

Simon thought he heard a pleading note in her voice.

"Magdalena, I..." There was a rustle behind him.

"You can very well go alone. Simon and I have a great deal to talk about. Now off with you."

Simon looked round. Unnoticed by him, the executioner had entered the narrow room. Magdalena looked once more at the young physician and then ran out into the garden.

Jakob Kuisl gave Simon a piercing and severe look, and for a moment it seemed he might throw him out of the house. Then he took his pipe out of his mouth and smiled.

"I'm pleased that you like my daughter," he said. "Just don't let your father know about it."

Simon nodded. He had often had angry words with his father about his visits to the executioner's house. Bonifaz Fronwieser considered the hangman to be a quack. However, his son wasn't the only person he was unable to dissuade from making the pilgrimage to the hangman; half the people of Schongau went to him with their aches and pains. Jakob Kuisl earned only a part of his income from hanging and torturing. The major part of his business concerned the healing art.

He sold potions for gout and diarrhea, prescribed tobacco for toothaches, splinted broken legs, and set dislocated shoulders. His knowledge was legendary, even though he had never studied at a university. It was clear to Simon that his father just had had to hate the executioner. After all, he was his toughest compet.i.tor and, in fact, the better physician... to hate the executioner. After all, he was his toughest compet.i.tor and, in fact, the better physician...

Meanwhile Jakob Kuisl had gone into the living room again. Simon followed. The room immediately filled with great clouds of tobacco smoke-the hangman's lone vice, but one that he cultivated intensely.

Pipe in mouth he went purposefully to the bench, lifted the dead boy onto the table, and turned back the blanket and cloth. He whistled quietly through his teeth.

"Where did you find him?" he asked. At the same time he filled an earthenware bowl with water and began to wash the face and chest of the corpse. He looked quickly at the dead boy's fingernails. Red earth had collected under them, as if little Peter had been digging somewhere with his bare hands.

"Down by the raft landing," said Simon. He related all that had happened up to the point where everyone had run up into town to take revenge on the midwife. The hangman nodded.

"Martha is alive," he said, continuing to dab at the dead boy's face. "I took her to the keep myself. She is safe there for the time being. Everything else will have to be looked into."

As so often before, Simon was impressed by the executioner's composure. Like all the Kuisls, he seldom spoke, but what he said had authority.

The hangman had completed washing the corpse. Together they examined the boy's ravaged body. The nose was broken, the face beaten black-and-blue. In the chest they counted seven stab wounds.

Jakob Kuisl took a knife from his coat and tried inserting the blade into one of the wounds. On either side there was a gap at least half an inch wide.

"It must have been something wider," he murmured.

"A sword?" asked Simon.

Kuisl shrugged. "More likely a saber or a halberd."

"Who could have done something like that?" Simon shook his head.

The hangman turned the body over. On the shoulder was the sign, faded a bit more after being carried up from the river, but still quite visible. A purple circle with a cross under it.

"What's that?" asked Simon.

Jakob Kuisl bent down over the boy's body. Then he licked his index finger, rubbed it gently over the sign, and put his finger into his mouth. He smacked his lips with relish.

"Elderberry juice," he said. "And not at all bad." He held his finger out to Simon.

"What? But I thought it was..."

"Blood?" The hangman shrugged. "Blood would have washed away a long time ago. Only elderberry juice keeps its color so long. Just ask my wife. She gets very angry when the little ones smear themselves with it. But anyway..." He began to rub the mark.

"What is it?"

"The color is partly under the skin. Someone must have injected it with a needle or a dagger."

Simon nodded. He had seen such works of "art" on soldiers from Castile and France. They had tattooed crosses or images of the Mother of G.o.d on their upper arms.

"But what does the sign mean?"

"A good question." Kuisl drew deeply on his pipe, puffed out the smoke, and remained silent a long time. Then he replied, "It's the Venus mark."

"The what mark?" Simon looked down at the sign. Suddenly he remembered where he had seen this sign before: in a book about astrology.

"The Venus mark." The hangman went back into the little room and reappeared with a stained leather-bound tome. He turned the pages a little while until he found the one he wanted.

"There." He showed Simon the place. Here, too, the same sign could be seen. Next to it was a circle with an arrow pointing up and to the right.

"Venus, G.o.ddess of love, spring, and growth," read Jakob aloud. "Countersign to that of Mars, G.o.d of war."

"But what can this sign mean on the boy's body?" asked Simon, confused.

"This sign is old, very old," said the hangman, taking another puff on the long-stemmed pipe.

"And what does it mean?"

"It has many meanings. It stands for woman as counterpart to man, for life, and also for life after death."

Simon felt as if he could not breathe anymore. And this was only partly because of the clouds of smoke that enveloped him.

"But...that would be heresy," he whispered.

The hangman raised his bushy eyebrows and looked him straight in the eye.

"That's just the problem," he said. "The mark of Venus is a witches' mark."

Then he blew his tobacco smoke directly in Simon's face.

Schongau lay under the light of a pale moon. Again and again it was eclipsed by clouds, and the river and the town were plunged into darkness. Down by the Lech stood a figure looking into the murmuring waters, sunk in thought. The man put up the collar of his fur-lined coat and turned toward the lights of the town. The gates had long been closed, but for men like him there was always a way in. One only needed to know the right people and have the necessary small coins handy. For this man neither was a problem.

The man began to shiver. This was only partly due to the cold, which in April still was carried down from the mountains by the wind. Fear crept over his scalp. He looked carefully all round, but apart from the black band of the river and a few bushes on the bank there was nothing to be seen.

It was already too late when he heard a rustling behind him. The next thing he felt was the point of a sword in his back, boring through his fur coat, velvet cloak, and padded doublet.

"Are you alone?"

The voice was directly behind his right ear. He smelled brandy and rotten meat.

The man nodded, but that didn't seem to satisfy the person behind him.

"Are you alone G.o.dd.a.m.n it?"

"Yes, sure!"

The pain in his back diminished; the sword point was withdrawn.

"Turn around!" hissed the man.