The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman's Daughter Tale (12 page)

“Oh Dear Lord, I have doubted, pardon me,” he pleaded. “I was a fool, a doubting Thomas. But you sent me a sign, Glory to God in the Highest! This is a miracle, a miracle!”

He fell on his knees and swayed back and forth, clutching a little wooden cross hanging by a chain from his neck.

“By all the saints… what… what is wrong with you?” Magdalena asked cautiously. Had pain and fear driven the monk mad? “Is it something I said?”

Finally Broker Johannes raised his head. “You… you… are an angel,” he began in solemn tones. “An angel passing through on a mission from God.”

He really has gone mad.
Magdalena shuddered.
Perhaps I should call the guards before he attacks me?

She smiled uncertainly. “An… an angel?”

Brother Johannes nodded eagerly. “An angel sent to me to
announce Jakob’s coming.” He looked at her earnestly, and suddenly the maniacal expression vanished from his face.

“By God,” he whispered. “Your father is the only one who can still save me.”

Plumes of smoke rose into the sky above Schongau like the shadows of restless spirits.

As he had the day before, Jakob Kuisl sat beside the moat, looking down into the same green water where just a hundred years ago women who had murdered their children had been drowned. Kuisl liked this lonely place, as people very rarely wandered into it. The moat was regarded as cursed because so many poor souls had met their ends here, and the people of Schongau believed you could hear the dead crying here when the moon was full. Kuisl had never heard anything—on the contrary, the moat was a place of silent tranquility that the hangman missed all too often in town.

Kuisl needed rest. He wondered what to do about the Berchtholdt brothers. Was it advisable to go to the secretary and tell him about the thefts in the warehouse? At one time, Kuisl wouldn’t have hesitated, but now his two grandchildren were there, and they were in danger. Would the Berchtholdts really attack innocent children?

No matter how hard Kuisl tried to achieve clarity, his thoughts kept returning to the past. His conversation the day before with his son Georg had awakened memories of the war—the many dead and the battles, but above all the only true friend he’d ever had in his life. Together they’d gone through hell; they’d stood together in the front lines when they were attacked. They’d been almost the same age, like brothers.

But above all, they were bound together by a fate that separated them from all others.

As Kuisl stared into the water mirroring the willows along
the bank, he suddenly had the bitter taste of gunpowder in his mouth, and in the distance he imagined he could hear shouting and the clanging armor.

It was as if he were looking through a tunnel as an indistinct image emerged at the other end.

Drums beat; flutes play; smoke and the scent of frying mutton are in the air. Eighteen-year-old Jakob wanders from campfire to campfire. As far as he can see, there are colorful tents alongside the dirty canvas-covered wagons belonging to the sutlers—the peddlers, traders, and whores who follow the army. In the foreground are the hastily dug trenches, and in the distance, the city they will storm the next day.

Will he still be alive tomorrow?

Jakob has been traveling with the army for five years. The pimply drummer boy has become a broad-shouldered man, a fearsome warrior who always stands in the frontlines with his two-handed sword. The captain awarded him a master’s certificate for the long sword, and his men fear him because they know his sword is thirsty for blood, a magic blade that moans when battle begins.

A hangman’s sword.

With the sword strapped to his back, he strides through the camp. The mercenaries who know him step back and cross themselves. The hangman’s son is not a welcome guest here; he is respected but not loved.

When Jakob senses someone looking at him, he turns around to see the ugliest fellow he’s ever met. With a face swollen like a pig’s bladder, eyes bulging, and mouth crooked, the stranger crouches like a fat toad in front of a campfire. It takes Jakob a moment to realize that the stranger is smiling.

A fine blade indeed,” says the stranger. His voice sounds soft and intelligent, out of character with his face. “No doubt cost a lot. Or did you steal it?”

“What business is that of yours?” Jakob grumbles. He is about to turn away when the other reaches behind him to extract his own sword from a pile of rags. A two-hander without a point—almost seven feet long, with a blood groove and short crossguard—it looks remarkably like Jakob’s sword.

Inherited the sword from my father, who was fetched by the devil,” the ugly stranger says with a grin. “In Reutlingen, where I come from, people say it shouts for blood on execution day. But ever since I was a little kid, I’ve never once heard it shout. It’s only the others who do the shouting.”

Jakob laughs softly. For the first time in a long while.

Now the Reutlingers will have to do their dirty work by themselves,” he growls. “Serves ’em right, the fat old moneybags.”

As the ugly man nods and runs his huge hands over the freshly sharpened blade, Jakob knows he has found a friend for life.

The Schongau hangman tossed a stone in the moat. As little waves spread in circles, his image in the water dissolved. He stood up and headed for home, his heart pounding.

It wasn’t good to awaken too many old memories.

For a long time, Magdalena could only stare at the monk in the Andechs dungeon in disbelief.

“You… You know my father?” she finally asked.

Brother Johannes was still kneeling in front of her. Now he crossed himself and struggled to his feet.

“Let’s say I knew him,” he murmured. “Better than my own brother. But I didn’t know he’d gone back to Schongau and become an executioner again. We’ve not been in touch for more than thirty years.” He laughed and raised his hands to heaven. “It’s a miracle that I’m now meeting his daughter. Perhaps everything will turn out well, after all.”

Magdalena looked at him skeptically. “Even if you knew him, why should everything turn out for the better now? How could my father help you?”

“You’re right.” Brother Johannes sighed and crouched down in his corner again.

“I’ll probably wind up burned at the stake soon, but if anyone could help, it would be your father, believe me. I don’t expect he’s lost any of that quick mind, has he?”

Magdalena had to smile. “Nothing of his sharp mind or his pig-headedness. Was he always like that?”

“He was the most pig-headed damn guy in the whole regiment. A great fighter and smart as a whole army of Jesuits.” Johannes grinned, then he began his story: “We had known each other since the battle at Breitenfeld. We were both hangmen’s sons and both running away from our former lives. War is a great equalizer—there’s no better place to start over again. We understood each other from the start.” He laughed, causing his swollen lip to burst open again. Cursing, he wiped the blood from his mouth. “I got a job as a whipping boy and had soon worked my way up to our regiment’s executioner. Your father, despite his dishonorable status, became a sergeant, something very few simple people manage to do. He was so damned clever that he figured out almost every case of theft in his regiment. Every unauthorized raid, every rape.” Johannes’s face darkened. “Then it was my job to string up the poor bastards. I can still see them in my dreams, twitching and thrashing about up in the trees. My God, how I hated that.”

For a while, the only sounds were the chirping sparrows outside the window.

“Is that why you became a monk?” Magdalena finally asked. “Because you were no longer able to stomach the killing?”

Johannes nodded hesitantly. “Jakob… he… could simply handle death better,” he continued in a halting voice. “He’d run away from home, just like me, because he didn’t want to be a
hangman, but really he never gave it up.” He raised his hands dismissively. “Not bloodthirsty—not that—but rather an… an… archangel like Michael who came down to earth with his sword to vanquish evil. I couldn’t do it… the constant torturing and killing…”

The Brother clapped his hands over his face to hide his tears. “Finally, I deserted. Without a word I just left and wandered about for years until I found a place to stay here in Andechs more than ten years ago. My apothecary’s license was forged, but that didn’t bother the abbot at the time. All that mattered to Father Maurus Friesenegger was that I knew about herbs. The new abbot, Maurus Rambeck, also knows about my past. But if the others learn about it… a hangman disguised as a monk and apothecary.” He laughed bitterly. “What does it matter? Nothing matters anymore.”

Still on his knees, he slid across the floor to Magdalena, who to this point had been listening in silence.

“Please,” he stammered. “You must tell your father I’m in trouble. He’s my only hope. Tell him… tell him ugly Nepomuk needs his help.”

“Nepomuk?” Magdalena stopped short. “Is that your real name?”

“Nepomuk Volkmar. I was baptized with that name.” Groaning, he rose to his feet. “The name is a curse. I renounced it when I took my vows.”

At that moment, footsteps could be heard again. The door creaked and swung open, and Simon entered. He looked over at Magdalena with concern, but hardly glanced at the monk at her side.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he said, shrugging. “But the abbot had a few more questions. Now everything is clear.” He smiled. “We are free to go.”

“Simon,” Magdalena replied, pointing to Nepomuk Volkmar. “This monk knows my father. He—”

“That won’t help him now,” Simon interrupted. “The Weilheim executioner is in charge of executions at Andechs, not the one from Schongau.” Whispering, he continued, “Besides, I don’t know what your father could do here except assure a fast, halfway bearable death.”

“Simon, you don’t understand. Nepomuk was—”

“What I understand is that you’ve been happily chatting away with a man accused of three murders and the guards outside are already looking at us suspiciously,” Simon hissed. “So let’s get out of here, please, before the abbot changes his mind and locks us up for complicity in this case.”

Nepomuk Volkmar gave Magdalena a hopeful look. “You will tell your father, won’t you?” he murmured. “You won’t forsake me?”

“I’ll…” Magdalena began as Simon pulled her out the door. The last thing Magdalena saw as the dungeon door closed slowly behind them was the ugly apothecary’s battered, pleading gaze.

Then the door slammed shut.

Outside, the sun shone brightly in a blue sky as a few puffy clouds passed overhead, and the world seemed like quite a different place. The sound of singing pilgrims could be heard in the distance and butterflies fluttered over the meadows near the monastery.

Magdalena sat down on the ruins of a wall and stared at Simon angrily. “You didn’t even let me finish,” she hissed. “Don’t you ever do that again. I’m not one of your former whores. I’m a woman, damn it—don’t you forget it.”

“Magdalena, it was all for your own good. The guards—”

“Now just shut your mouth and listen to me,” she interrupted. “That man in there is probably my father’s best friend, and unless a miracle happens, he’ll be tortured as a sorcerer and murderer and burned in short order. Can you imagine what will
happen if I don’t tell my father about it? Can you imagine what he’s going to do to you if you stop me?”

“His best friend?” the medicus asked, surprised. “How do you know that?”

Briefly, Magdalena told Simon about the monk’s former life, his time as regimental executioner in the war and his friendship with her father. When she had finished, the medicus still looked skeptical.

“And you believe everything he says? Don’t you think it’s more likely the man is just grasping at straws?”

“He knew details of my father’s life, Simon. He… he described them better than I could.” Magdalena looked into the distance, where a new storm was approaching over Lake Ammer. “Yes, I believe him.”

“Very well,” said Simon, softening his tone. “Perhaps he really does know him, but that’s a far cry from saying he’s innocent.” He held his wife firmly by the shoulder. “Magdalena, all the evidence points to his guilt. The eyepiece at the scene, the argument with the watchmaker, his behavior… Didn’t you yourself say he was behaving strangely? Just think of those strange rods he was carrying in the forest. In the council, too, they said he’s engaged in blasphemous experiments.”

Magdalena gave him an astonished look. “Blasphemous experiments?”

“They… they didn’t say anything specific,” Simon replied hesitantly. “But clearly Nepomuk has often argued with Virgilius, and it no doubt had something to do with his experiments.”

“That strange bier and all those wires up in the belfry,” Magdalena murmured. “Could those have been one of his experiments?”

Simon shrugged. “I don’t know. The monks were very guarded about that. In any case, the entire council is a group of
very strange characters.” He started counting them off on his fingers. “The cellarer is a fat zealot who wants nothing more than to burn the apothecary right off… The prior has something against me… And the old librarian was very cold, as if none of it mattered to him. Only the master of the novitiates seemed concerned about death. I think he’d been crying—his eyes were red, in any case.”

He recounted in great detail his meeting with the abbot and the uproar that ensued when the monks heard about the automaton that had vanished.

“The stupid cellarer really believes the automaton is a sort of golem that haunts the Holy Mountain,” Simon replied, shaking his head. “It’s almost as if time has stood still up here. Musical automata like that are pretty common nowadays.”

“A golem?” Magdalena asked. “What is that?”

“An object that springs to life when life is breathed into it.” Absentmindedly Simon reached for a piece of brick and crumbled it in his hand. “I read about that once when I was a student in Ingolstadt.
Golem
is the Hebrew word for
unformed.
Some Jewish rabbis were said to be able to create a lifeless servant out of clay. It involved some very complicated rituals.” He shook his head. “It’s nonsense naturally, but for literalist Christians, also a perfect opportunity to depict the Jews once again as the devil incarnate. The cellarer in any case was almost foaming at the mouth, and the librarian was just as fired up. If I remember correctly, he was the first to bring it up.”