"As for you, Fronwieser, shut your insolent mouth, will you? Your little affair with this hangman's wench..." He looked across at Magdalena, who quickly turned her head away. "It's illegal and a disgrace, not only for your father. There are some aldermen who would like to see you both in the pillory. What a picture! The hangman putting the mask of shame on his own daughter! Up to now I have shown some restraint, out of consideration for your father, Fronwieser, and also for the executioner, whom I have respected up to now."

At the words "hangman's wench," Jakob Kuisl jumped up, but Magdalena held him back. "Leave him, Father," she whispered. "You'll only make things much worse for us."

Johann Lechner looked over the site once more and signaled to the watchmen to return.

"I'll tell you what I think," he said, without turning around. "I think that there were in fact soldiers here. I'm even prepared to believe that some crazy Schongau patrician hired them to destroy the leper house. Because he was afraid that travelers would avoid the town. But what I do not believe is your tall tale about a buried treasure. And I do not wish to know who this patrician is. Quite enough dirt has been stirred up already. From now on a watch will be set here every night. The building work will continue as the council decided. As for you, Kuisl..." Not until now did he turn to the hangman. "You will come with me and do that for which G.o.d has ordained you. You will torture the Stechlin woman until she confesses to the murder of the children. That is the only thing of any importance. And not a few lousy soldiers on a ruined building site."

He was turning to go when one of the bailiffs plucked at his sleeve. It was Benedict Cost, who had been on duty in the keep this same night. "Sir, the Stechlin woman," he began.

Johann Lechner stopped. "Well, what about her?"

"She...she's unconscious and badly injured. At midnight she was drawing signs on the floor of her cell, and then Georg Riegg threw a stone at her, and now you can't get a peep out of her. We sent old Fronwieser to her to see if he could bring her around."

A red flush came over Johann Lechner's face. "And why haven't you told me this until now?" he hissed.

"We...we didn't want to wake you," stammered Benedict Cost. "We thought it could wait until the next day. I was going to tell you early this morning-"

"Wait until the morning?" Johann Lechner had difficulty keeping his voice calm. "In one or two days the Elector's secretary will be here with bag and baggage, and then all h.e.l.l will break loose. If we can't produce a culprit, he'll undertake the search himself. And then G.o.d help us! It won't be just one one witch that he'll find, you can be sure of that!" witch that he'll find, you can be sure of that!"

Abruptly he turned away and hurried back to the road that led to Schongau. The watchmen followed him.

"Kuisl!" he called back when he reached the road. "You will come with me, and the others too! We're going to squeeze a confession out of the Stechlin woman. And if necessary I'll force speech out of a dead woman today!"

Slowly, the mists of the morning rose.

As the last of them left the site, a quiet sound of weeping was heard from somewhere.

Martha Stechlin was still unconscious and therefore not in a condition to be questioned. She had a high fever and was mumbling in her sleep as Bonifaz Fronwieser held his ear to her chest.

"The sign...the children...all deception..." She uttered sc.r.a.ps of words.

The old physician shook his head. He looked up submissively at Johann Lechner, who was leaning against the cell door and observing the medical examination with increasing impatience.

"Well?" inquired Lechner.

Bonifaz Fronwieser shrugged. "It doesn't look good. This woman has a high fever. She's probably going to die before she regains consciousness again. I'll bleed her, and-"

Johann Lechner gestured dismissively. "Oh, leave that rubbish. Then she'll die on us all the sooner. I know you quacks. Isn't there another way to bring her around for a short time, at least? After she's confessed she can die, as far as I'm concerned, but first we must have her confession!"

Bonifaz Fronwieser was thinking. "There are certain remedies, which I unfortunately don't have at my disposal."

Impatiently Johann Lechner drummed against the cell bars with his fingers. "And who has these certain remedies?"

"Well, the hangman, I suppose. But that is devil's stuff. Draw a large quant.i.ty of blood and the midwife-"

"Watchman!" Johann Lechner was already on the way out. "Bring the hangman to me. He must bring the Stechlin woman around, and quickly. That's an order!"

Hurried steps departed in the direction of the tanners' quarter.

Bonifaz Fronwieser approached the clerk apprehensively. "Can I be of a.s.sistance to you in any other way?"

Lechner only shook his head shortly. He was deep in thought. "Go. I'll call for you when I need you."

"Your pardon, sir, but my fee."

With a sigh, Johann Lechner pressed a few coins into the physician's hand. Then he turned back to the interior of the keep.

The midwife lay on the floor of her cell, breathing with difficulty. Near her, now almost illegible, the sign was still on the ground.

"Satan's wh.o.r.e," hissed Lechner. "Say what you know, and then go to h.e.l.l." He kicked the midwife in the side, so that she rolled, groaning, onto her back. Then he wiped out the witches' sign and crossed himself.

Behind him someone rattled the iron bars. "I saw her draw that sign!" cried Georg Riegg. "And I threw a stone at her straight away, to stop her putting a spell on us. You can rely on old Riegg, can't you, sir?"

Johann Lechner spun round. "You miserable bungler! It'll be your fault if the whole town burns down! If you hadn't hurt her, she could sing her devil's song now, and we'd have peace at last! But, no, now the Elector's secretary is coming. And just when the town has no more money anyway. You stupid fool!"

"I...don't understand."

But Johann Lechner was not listening to him anymore. He had already walked out onto the street. If the hangman could not bring the Stechlin woman around by midday, he would have to call a council meeting. Things were getting out of his control.

CHAPTER 13.

MONDAY.

APRIL 30, 30, A.D A.D. 1659.

EIGHT O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING MAGDALENA WAS STRIDING UP THE STEEP ROAD from the Lech to the market square with a basket in hand. She could think of nothing but the events of the previous night. She hadn't slept a wink, and yet she was wide awake. from the Lech to the market square with a basket in hand. She could think of nothing but the events of the previous night. She hadn't slept a wink, and yet she was wide awake.

When Johann Lechner saw that the midwife was indeed unconscious and severely injured, he had dismissed the hangman and the physician, cursing violently. Now they were sitting in the hangman's house, tired, hungry, and at their wit's end. Magdalena had volunteered to go to the market to buy beer, bread, and smoked meat to help to revive them. After she had purchased a loaf of rye bread and a good cut of bacon in the market square, she turned to the inns behind the Ballenhaus. She avoided the Stern since Karl Semer, its landlord and the town's presiding burgomaster, was currently on bad terms with her father. Everyone knew that the hangman had taken the side of the witch. So she went over to the Sonnenbrau to get two mugs of beer.

When she stepped back into the street with the foaming tankards, she heard whispering and giggling behind her. She looked around. A group of children cl.u.s.tered around the door of the inn, eyeing her, partly out of fear, partly out of curiosity. Magdalena was making her way through the throng of children when she heard several voices strike up a little song behind her. It was an insulting rhyme with her name in it.

"Magdalena, hangman's cow, bears the mark upon her brow!

Beckons all young men to play, 'cept for those who run away!"

Angrily, she turned around.

"Who was that? Speak, if you dare!"

Some of the children ran away. Most, however, remained and looked at her, smirking.

"Who was that?" she asked again.

"You've put a spell on Simon Fronwieser, so that he follows you everywhere like a puppy, and you're hand in glove with the Stechlin woman, that witch."

A boy with a crooked nose, approximately twelve years old, had spoken. Magdalena knew him. He was the son of Berchtholdt, the baker. He looked her in the eye defiantly, but his hands were shaking.

"Is that so. According to whom?" Magdalena asked calmly, attempting a smile.

"According to my father," the Berchtholdt boy hissed. "And he says you'll be next to end up burning at the stake."

Magdalena gave him a provocative stare. "Anybody else who believes this sort of rubbish? If so, shove off now, or else you'll get one behind the ears."

Suddenly she had an idea. She reached into her basket and took out a handful of candied fruit. Actually, she had bought it at the market for her siblings. She smiled as she spoke on.

"For everybody else, I might have some candy, if they want to tell me a thing or two."

The children pushed closer to her.

"Don't take anything from the witch!" Berchtholdt's son yelled. "There's sure to be a spell on the fruit that'll make you sick!"

Some of the children looked frightened, but their appet.i.te was stronger. With big eyes they followed all of her movements.

"Magdalena, hangman's cow, bears the mark upon her brow," the Berchtholdt boy repeated. But n.o.body sang along.

"Oh, shut up," another boy interrupted him. He was missing most of his front teeth. "Your father stinks of brandy every morning when I go to get bread. G.o.d knows all the crazy things he thinks up when he's drunk. Now shove off."

Crying and hollering, the baker's son ran off. Some followed him; the others crowded around Magdalena and stared at the candied fruit in her hand as if in a trance.

"Well, then," she began. "About the murdered boys, Clara, and that Sophie girl. Who knows what they did at the midwife's? Why didn't they play with you?"

"They were b.u.g.g.e.rs, real pests," the boy in front of her said. "n.o.body here misses them. n.o.body wanted to have anything to do with them."

"Why would that be?" Magdalena asked.

"'Cause they were b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, weren't they? Wards and orphans," a little blonde girl piped up, as if the hangman's daughter were a bit slow on the uptake. "And besides, they didn't want to have anything to do with us. They always hung around with that Sophie. And one time she beat my brother black-and-blue, that witch!"

"But Peter Grimmer wasn't a ward at all. He still had his father," Magdalena objected.

"He got bewitched by Sophie," the boy with the missing teeth whispered. "He was totally different since they met! They kissed and showed each other their bare a.r.s.es. Once he told us that all the wards had entered a compact together and that they could cast a spell on other children to put warts on their faces and even smallpox, if they wanted to. And just a week later little Matthias died of smallpox!"

"And they learned their witchcraft from the Stechlin woman!" a little boy shouted from farther back in the group.

"They used to sit in her house, and now the devil has taken away his disciples," another one hissed.

"Amen," Magdalena murmured. Then she gave the children an enigmatic look.

"I know witchcraft as well," she murmured. "Do you believe me?" Frightened, her audience backed away a little.

Magdalena put on a conspiratorial face, waving her hands mysteriously. "I can make candied fruit rain from the sky."

She tossed the sweet candies high up in the air. As the children screamed and scrambled to get the fruit, she disappeared around the nearest corner.

She didn't notice that a figure was following her at a safe distance.

"I guess today I'll take a cup of your devil's brew." The hangman pointed at the small pouch dangling at Simon's side. The physician nodded and poured the coffee grounds into the pot of boiling water that was hanging above the fire. A strong, invigorating fragrance filled the air. Jakob Kuisl breathed it in and nodded appreciatively. "Doesn't smell bad at all. Considering it's supposed to be the devil's p.i.s.s."

Simon smiled. "And it'll clear our minds, believe me."

He filled a pewter mug for the hangman. Then he sipped cautiously at his own mug. Every sip helped dispel the tired feeling in his head.

The two men were sitting across from each other at the large, worn table in the main room of the hangman's house, brooding over the previous night's events. Anna Maria, Kuisl's wife, had sensed that the two needed to be alone, so she went down to the Lech to do her laundry and took the twins with her. Silence engulfed the room.

"I bet my behind that Clara and Sophie are still at that building site," the hangman growled after a while, drumming his fingers on the table. "There has to be a hideout there, and a good one at that. Otherwise we or the others would have found it long ago."

Simon winced. He'd scalded his lips with his hot mug.

"That's certainly possible, but there's no way of finding that out now," he said finally, running his tongue over his lips. "At daytime, the workmen are at the site, and at night there are the guards that Lechner dispatched. If they find out anything concerning those children, they're sure to inform Lechner..."

"And Sophie will end up at the stake together with Martha," the hangman concluded. "Jesus Christ, there's a jinx on all of this!"

"Don't say such a thing," Simon grinned. Then he turned serious again.

"Let's recapitulate," he said. "The children seem to be hiding somewhere at the building site. And there's something else hidden there as well. Something that a rich man would like to have. That's why he has hired a handful of soldiers. Resl from Semer's inn told me that these soldiers were meeting with somebody in the upstairs room last week."

"That would've been the mastermind, the patron."

The hangman lit his pipe on a chip of pinewood. Like a tent, the tobacco smoke billowed over the two men, mingling with the fragrance of the coffee. Simon had to cough briefly before he went on.

"The soldiers are vandalizing the building site for the leper house, so that they'll have more time for their search there. That makes sense to me. But why, in the name of G.o.d, does one of them slaughter the orphans? There's no sense in that!"

Thoughtfully, the hangman sucked on his pipe. His eyes were staring at a point in s.p.a.ce. Finally, he spoke. "They must have seen something. Something that mustn't be brought to light under any circ.u.mstances."

Simon slapped his forehead, spilling the remainder of his coffee, which formed a brown puddle that spread across the table. But he didn't care about that.

"The patron!" he shouted. "They have seen the patron who is behind the destruction?"

Jakob Kuisl nodded.

"That would also explain why the Stadel had to be burned down. The devil had an easy time getting his hands on most of the eyewitnesses. He got Peter out there on the river. Anton and Johannes were unwanted orphans and therefore easy prey. But Clara Schreevogl was well protected as a patrician's child. The devil must somehow have found out that she was sick and in bed..."

"And then his cronies set fire to the Stadel to distract her family and the servants, so that he could get the child," Simon groaned. "There was a lot at stake for Schreevogl. He had his stock of merchandise down at the Stadel. Of course he'd rush down to the river."

The hangman relit his pipe. "Clara was home alone, sick in her bed. But she did get away from him somehow. And so did Sophie-"

Simon jumped to his feet. "We have to find the children at once, before the devil gets them. The building site..."

Jakob Kuisl pulled him back on his chair.