"You were a...soldier?" asked Simon carefully.

The hangman was again silent for quite some time before answering.

"I joined Tilly's army. Scoundrels, highwaymen, but also honest men and adventurers, like myself..."

"You told me once that you were in Magdeburg..." Simon asked again.

A brief shudder went through the hangman's body. Even here in Schongau, people had heard the horror stories about the fall of the town in the far north. The Catholic troops under General Tilly had practically leveled the place, and only very few inhabitants had survived the ma.s.sacre. Simon had heard that the soldiers had slaughtered children like lambs, had raped women, and after that had nailed them to the doors of their homes like our crucified Savior. Even if only half the stories were true, it was enough to make Schongauers utter prayers of thanks for having been spared such a bloodbath.

Jakob Kuisl marched on. Walking briskly, Simon caught up with him on the road to Altenstadt. He sensed that he had said too much.

"Why did you come back?" he asked after a while.

"Because a hangman is necessary," mumbled Jakob Kuisl. "Otherwise everything goes to the dogs. If there has to be killing, then at least it should be the right kind, according to the law. And so I came home to Schongau so that things would be in order. And now be quiet. I have to think."

Simon tried one last time: "Will you think it over again, about Magdalena?"

The hangman gave him an angry look from the side. Then he walked on at such speed that Simon had trouble keeping up with him.

They had been walking side by side for a good half hour when the first houses of Altenstadt appeared. From the few sentences Kuisl had uttered during that time, Simon was able to gather that Johannes Stra.s.ser had been found dead very early that morning in his foster father's stable. Josepha, one of the servant girls at the inn, had discovered him among the bales of straw. After telling the innkeeper, she ran over to the hangman's house in Schongau to get some Saint-John's-wort. When woven into a wreath it was supposed to help ward off evil powers. The servant girl was convinced that the devil had taken the boy. The hangman gave Josepha the herb and listened to her story. He left shortly thereafter, stopping only to give his daughter's lover a good thrashing before continuing on his way. In the gray morning light he had simply followed their tracks and had easily found the barn.

Now they were both standing in front of the inn at Altenstadt, which Simon had visited only a few days earlier. They were not alone. Local peasants and wagon drivers were crowded in the square around a makeshift bier nailed together from a few boards. They were whispering-some of the women held rosaries in their hands and two servant girls knelt at the head of the bier and prayed, their bodies swaying back and forth. Simon also recognized the village priest of Altenstadt in the crowd and heard mumbled verses in Latin. When the people in Altenstadt noticed that the hangman was approaching, some of them made the sign of the cross. The priest interrupted his litany and stared at the two, his eyes flashing with hostility.

"What is the Schongau hangman doing here?" he asked suspiciously. "There's no work for you here! The devil has already done his work!"

Jakob Kuisl wouldn't be put off. "I heard there was an accident. Perhaps I can help?"

The priest shook his head. "I told you already, there's nothing to be done. The boy is dead. The devil surely got him and branded him with his mark."

"Just let the hangman come!" It was the voice of Stra.s.ser, the innkeeper. Simon recognized him among the peasants standing around the bier. "Let him see what that witch did to my boy, so that he may give her an especially slow death!" The face of the innkeeper was white as chalk and his eyes glowed with hatred as he looked back and forth between the hangman and his dead foster son.

Inquisitively, Jakob Kuisl stepped closer to the bier. Simon followed him. It was nailed together from planks and covered with fresh pine twigs. The scent of their sap could not entirely cover the stench coming from the corpse. Johannes Stra.s.ser's body was already showing black spots on the limbs, and flies were buzzing around his face. Someone had mercifully put two coins on the open eyes that were wide with horror as they stared up at the sky. There was a deep cut below the chin which extended nearly from one ear to the other. Dried blood stuck to the boy's shirt, which was crawling with flies as well.

Simon couldn't help wincing. Who would do such a thing? The boy was twelve years old at the most and his greatest sin so far had probably consisted of swiping a loaf of bread or a pitcher of milk from his foster father. Now he lay here, pale and cold, having met a b.l.o.o.d.y death at the end of a much too short, unhappy life. Tolerated but never loved, an outcast even in death. Even now there was no one who would shed sincere tears for him. Stra.s.ser stood at the bier with his lips pressed together, furious and full of hatred for the murderer but not actually grieving.

The hangman turned the Stra.s.ser boy's body gently on its side. Below the shoulder blade was the purple mark, blurred but still quite visible, a circle with a cross extending beneath it.

"The devil's mark," whispered the priest, crossing himself. Then he intoned the Lord's Prayer.

"Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum..."

"Where did you find him?" asked Jakob Kuisl without taking his eyes from the corpse.

"In the stable, all the way in back, hidden under some bales of straw."

Simon looked around. It was Franz Stra.s.ser who had spoken. Full of hatred, the innkeeper looked down on what had once been his ward.

"He must have been lying there all the time. Josepha went to look this morning because of the smell. She thought it was some dead animal. But then it turned out to be Johannes," he mumbled.

Simon shivered. It was the same kind of cut that little Anton Kratz had a few days ago. Peter Grimmer, Anton Kratz, Johannes Stra.s.ser... Peter Grimmer, Anton Kratz, Johannes Stra.s.ser... What about Sophie and Clara? Had the devil caught them too by now? What about Sophie and Clara? Had the devil caught them too by now?

The hangman stooped down and began to examine the corpse. He brushed his fingers across the wound, looking for other injuries. When he did not find anything he sniffed at the body.

"Three days, no more," he said. "Whoever killed him knew his business. A clean cut through the throat."

The priest eyed him angrily from the side. "That's enough now, Kuisl," he barked. "You can go. This is the church's business. You look after that witch in your own town, that Stechlin woman! She's responsible for everything here, after all!"

Stra.s.ser, standing next to him, nodded. "Johannes was often at her place. Together with the other wards and with that redhead Sophie. She bewitched him, and now the devil is coming for the souls of the little children!"

Many people could be heard murmuring and praying in the crowd. Stra.s.ser felt encouraged.

"Tell those big shots in town," he shouted at the hangman, his face red with wrath, "that if they don't clean up that brood of witches soon, we'll come and get them ourselves!"

Some of the peasants agreed loudly as he continued his harangue. "We'll hang them on the highest gable and light a fire underneath. Then we'll see who else is in bed with them!"

The priest nodded deliberately. "There's truth to that," he said. "We cannot just look on as our children fall victim to the devil, one by one, without stopping him. The witches must burn."

"The witches?" asked Simon.

The priest shrugged. "It is obvious that this cannot be the work of one single witch. The devil is in league with many of them. And furthermore..." He lifted his index finger as if to provide the final proof in a logical chain of arguments. "The Stechlin woman is in jail, isn't she? Then it must be someone else! Walpurgis Night is coming very soon! Most likely Satan's lovers are already dancing with the Evil One in the forest at night and kissing his a.n.u.s. Then they swarm into town, naked and besotted, to drink the blood of innocent little children."

"Come on, you don't believe that, do you?" interjected Simon, his voice somewhat uncertain. "These are just horror stories, nothing more!"

"The Stechlin woman had flying salves and witch hazel in her house," cried one of the peasants farther back in the crowd. "Berchtholdt told me so. He was there during the torture. Now she cast a spell to make herself unconscious so as not to betray her playmates! And on Walpurgis Night they'll come and get more children!"

Franz Stra.s.ser nodded in agreement. "Johannes was in the forest a lot. They probably lured him there. He always babbled something about some kind of a hiding place."

"A hiding place?" asked Jakob Kuisl.

For the past few minutes the hangman had been examining the corpse in silence, even taking a close look at the blood-smeared hair and fingernails. He had also inspected the sign once more. Only now did he seem to take an interest in the conversation again.

"What kind of hiding place?"

Franz Stra.s.ser shrugged.

"I already told the physician," he mumbled. "Somewhere in the forest. Must be some kind of cave. He was always covered with dirt when he returned."

One more time the hangman contemplated the boy's fingers, now rigid in death.

"What do you mean by 'covered with dirt'?" he asked.

"Well, full of clay, you see. It looked as if he had been crawling around somewhere."

Jakob Kuisl closed his eyes. "d.a.m.n it all! I'm a complete idiot," he mumbled. "It's so clear, and I didn't see it!"

"What...what is it?" whispered Simon, who was standing next to him and had been the only one to hear the hangman's words. "What didn't you see?"

Jakob Kuisl grabbed the physician by the arm and pulled him away from the crowd. "I...I'm not entirely sure yet," he said. "But I believe I know now where the children's hiding place is."

"Where?" Simon's heartbeat quickened.

"There is something else we must check out first," the hangman whispered, swiftly taking off down the road in the direction of Schongau. "But for that we'll have to wait until it's dark."

"Tell the highborn gentlemen we are not going to just stand by and wait much longer! The witch must burn!" Franz Stra.s.ser called after them. "And that redheaded Sophie, we're going to look for her ourselves in the forest. With G.o.d's help we shall find that hiding place, and then we shall smoke out that witches' nest!"

Hooting and cheering broke out, and through it all the priest's high voice could be heard intoning a Latin hymn, though they could make out only a few words.

"Dies irae, dies illa. Solvet saeclum in favilla... Day of wrath, that day of burning! Earth shall end, to ashes turning..." Day of wrath, that day of burning! Earth shall end, to ashes turning..."

Simon bit his lip. The day of wrath was indeed close at hand.

Court clerk Johann Lechner blew sand over what he had just written and then rolled up the parchment. With a nod he enjoined the bailiff to open the door to the small chamber. As he rose, he turned once more toward the Augsburg wagon driver.

"If you told the truth, you have nothing to fear. The brawl is of no interest to us...at least not yet," he added. "We only wish to know who set fire to the Stadel."

Martin Hueber nodded without looking up. His head was hanging over the table, and his skin was pale and sallow. Just one night in the detention room and the antic.i.p.ation of possible torture had been sufficient to transform the formerly arrogant wagon driver into a bundle of misery.

Johann Lechner smiled. If the Fuggers' delegates were really going to come in the next few days and insist indignantly that their wagon driver be handed over to them, they would find a repentant sinner. Lechner would then generously order his release. It was quite possible that Martin Hueber would still have to sit in jail in distant Augsburg, if only to atone for his superiors' embarra.s.sment...Lechner felt certain that next time the Augsburg merchants would be much more deferential.

On the whole, Martin Hueber had confessed to what he had already hinted yesterday. Less than two weeks ago, some of his men were involved in a brawl at the Stern, on which occasion Josef Grimmer had thrashed one of them so soundly that he had to be taken to the infirmary. Together with a gang of cronies they had then sneaked down to the raft landing on Tuesday night in order to teach the Schongau guards a lesson they wouldn't forget. But by the time they reached the Stadel, it was already burning. Martin Hueber did see a few figures looking like soldiers running away from there, but he had been too far away to make out more than that. A brawl occurred afterward nevertheless, but only because the Schongau men had suspected them of arson.

"And who do you think set fire to the Stadel?" Lechner asked just before leaving, as he was already standing in the door.

Martin Hueber shrugged. "Those were foreign soldiers, not from around here. That much is certain."

"It's just strange that no Schongau guard had noticed them, only you fellows from Augsburg," Lechner added.

The wagon driver resumed his lament. "By the Holy Virgin Mary, I told you already! Because the Schongauers were so busy putting out the fire! And besides, it was difficult to make out anything with all that smoke!"

Johann Lechner gave him a piercing look. "May our Savior keep you from lying," he murmured. "Otherwise you'll hang, and I won't give a hoot that you are a wagon driver for the Fuggers or, for all I care, the emperor himself." He turned to leave.

"Give the prisoner some warm soup and a piece of bread, by G.o.d!" he called back to the bailiff as he went down the stairs to the Ballenhaus. "After all, we are no monsters!" Behind him the door of the cell fell shut with a squeak.

Johann Lechner stopped once more on the worn steps and from this high vantage point surveyed the town's warehouse. In spite of worm-eaten beams and peeling paint, the hall was still Schongau's pride. Bales of wool, cloth, and the finest spices were stacked up to the ceiling in places. A scent of cloves hung in the air. Who could be interested in seeing this wealth go up in flames? If they really were soldiers, they must have been under someone's orders. But whose? Someone in Schongau? An outsider? Maybe in fact the Augsburgers? Or could it have been the devil himself, after all? The court clerk furrowed his brow. He must have missed something, and he could not forgive himself such a thing. He was a man of perfection.

"Sir! I have been sent by Andreas, the bailiff at the jail." Johann Lechner looked down, where a young lad in wooden clogs and a threadbare linen shirt had just come through the door. He was out of breath and his eyes sparkled.

"The bailiff Andreas?" Johann Lechner asked inquisitively. "What does he want?"

"He says the Stechlin woman is awake again, and she's howling and whining like ten furies!" The boy was standing on the lowest step. He was not yet fourteen years old. Expectantly he looked at the court clerk. "Are you going to burn her soon, sir?"

Johann Lechner looked at him with satisfaction. "Well, we shall see," he said as he placed a few small coins in the boy's hand. "Just go look for the physician now, so that he may confirm the good health of the Stechlin woman."

The boy had already run off when he called him back once more.

"But get the old physician, not the young one! Do you understand?" The boy nodded.

"The young one is a little too..." Johann Lechner hesitated, then he smiled. "Well, we all want to see the witch burning soon, don't we?"

The boy nodded. The ardor in his eyes almost frightened Lechner.

Rhythmic knocking, as if a heavy hammer was being pounded again and again against a door, had awakened Martha Stechlin. When she opened her eyes, she noticed that the hammer was raging inside her body. A pain such as she had never experienced before ran through her right hand at regular intervals. She looked down and saw a shapeless black and blue pig's bladder. It took her a while to realize that this bladder was in fact her hand. The hangman had done a good job with the thumbscrews. Her fingers and the back of her hand were now swollen to more than twice their normal size.

She vaguely remembered having drunk the potion Jakob Kuisl gave her. It had tasted bitter, and she could imagine what it contained. She was a midwife, after all, and familiar with drugs made of thorn apple, monkshood, or mandrake. In small doses, Martha Stechlin had often used those as painkillers during childbirth. Of course no one was supposed to know this, as those plants were widely reputed to be witches' herbs.

The drink the hangman had given her was so strong that she could only vaguely remember the events that had followed. She had been tortured, but the court clerk, the witnesses, and also the hangman had been strangely far off, their voices sounding like fading echoes. She had not felt any pain, only a pleasant warmth in her hand. Then the blackness had come, and now finally the rhythmic pounding that had brutally fetched her back from the land beyond fear and suffering. The pain flowed into her like water into an empty vessel, filling her completely. She began to scream and to shake the bars of her cell with her undamaged hand.

"Well, you witch, can you feel the fire yet?" shouted Georg Riegg, the raftsman, from the adjoining cell. He and the guardsman from the raft landing were still imprisoned with her. Martha Stechlin's screams were a welcome diversion.

"Why don't you witch yourself out of here, if you can, or did the devil abandon you?" sneered Georg Riegg.

The guardsman who was locked up together with him grabbed his shoulder. "Stop, Georg," he admonished him. "The woman is in pain. We should call the bailiff."

But that was no longer necessary. Just as the raftsman was about to launch himself into yet another hateful tirade, Andreas the jailkeeper opened the door to the keep. The screaming had awakened him from his nap. When he saw that Martha Stechlin was rattling the bars he left in a hurry. Her sobbing and crying followed him out into the street.

Just half an hour later, the witnesses, Berchtholdt, Augustin, and Schreevogl, were informed and summoned to the jailhouse. There Johann Lechner was already waiting for them with the doctor.

Old Fronwieser was the town's most compliant henchman, meekly a.s.senting to anything they asked him to do. Just now he was stooping down over the midwife, winding a damp cloth around her swollen hand. The cloth was spotted and stank as if it had been used in the past to cover other bodies.

"Well?" asked the court clerk as he contemplated the sobbing midwife with as much interest as he would some rare, mutilated insect. Her cries had now become a constant wailing, like that of a child.

"A simple blood swelling, nothing more," said Bonifaz Fronwieser, tying the cloth into a tight knot. "Of course the thumb and the middle finger are probably broken. I gave her a compress of arnica and oak bark. It'll make the swelling go down."

"What I want to know is whether she is ready to be interrogated," Johann Lechner insisted.

The doctor nodded obsequiously as he packed up his bag of ointments, rusty knives, and a crucifix. "However, I'd use her other hand for continuing the torture. Otherwise there is a risk she may again lose consciousness."

"I thank you for your pains," said Lechner, placing a whole guilder in Bonifaz Fronwieser's hand. "You may withdraw now. But stay within reach and we shall call you if we need you again."

Bowing and sc.r.a.ping, the physician took his leave and rushed out into the street. Once outside, he shook his head. He could never understand the necessity of healing someone who had already been tortured. Once the painful interrogation had started, the poor sinners almost inevitably ended at the stake or, like shattered dolls, on the wheel. The midwife would have to die one way or the other, even if his son Simon was convinced of her innocence. At any rate, Fronwieser had at least earned some money because of her. And who knows? It was quite possible that he would be called back once more.

Contently he played with the guilder in his pocket as he headed for the market square to buy himself a hot meat pie. The treatment had whetted his appet.i.te.

Inside the torture cellar, the witnesses and the court clerk had already taken their places on their chairs. They were waiting for the hangman to bring down the midwife and render her compliant. Johann Lechner had ordered wine, bread, and slices of cold meat prepared for all of them, because today the interrogation might last a little longer. Lechner considered Martha Stechlin to be hardheaded. Never mind, however. They had at least another two days until the Elector's lieutenant and his entourage would make their appearance and start living at the town's expense. By then the midwife would have confessed. Lechner was certain of that.

But the hangman had not yet arrived, and without him they couldn't get started. Impatiently, the court clerk drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

"Kuisl has been told, hasn't he?" he asked one of the bailiffs. The bailiff nodded in reply.