The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman's Daughter Tale (48 page)

“Be patient just a bit longer,” the hangman grumbled without slowing his pace. He’d left his black coat back at the knacker’s cabin, but his shirt was bathed in sweat. “It can’t be much farther.”

With his huge hands, he shoved a dead tree trunk aside like a blade of grass, then jumped over a small brook. When Magdalena tried to follow, she sank knee-deep in the mud.

“You didn’t have to come along,” he told her impatiently, reaching out to help her. “I have no idea what a helpless woman—”

“This helpless woman just happens to be the mother of two abducted children,” she growled. “So stop this nonsense and tell me where we’re going.”

Kuisl smiled wanly, then with a single powerful movement, pulled her out of the mud and hurried on in silence.

Magdalena followed, grumbling. Her father could be so stubborn! Ever since he’d made that curious remark on gallows hill about the “underworld,” they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. First they ran to the knacker’s house, but Simon wasn’t there, and Graetz didn’t know what had become of the medicus. After a long conversation with the knacker in the next room, Kuisl finally decided to go looking for the children without Simon.

At first he wanted to go alone, but Magdalena quickly made clear she’d never forsake her children, so the father and daughter ran through the forest together looking for the madman who had kidnapped the boys. Magdalena was also worried about Simon. Was he lying injured in the forest somewhere? Had the guards picked him up and taken him to Weilheim to be tortured into telling them where the wanted hangman of Schongau was hiding out?

Several times a dreadful thought passed through her mind, as painful as a poison arrow boring slowly but inexorably into her subconscious:
Suppose the children are no longer alive? Suppose the sorcerer has already killed them?

As she choked up, she ran faster and faster, trying to drive away her terrible premonition.

Suddenly her father stopped, put his finger to his lips, and pointed to a tall rock standing in the trees a stone’s throw away.

“We’re here,” he whispered. “This is the rock I’ve been looking for. I asked Graetz about it. Since ancient time, the natives have referred to it as Devil’s Rock.”

Magdalena turned and looked at him, confused. “Devil’s Rock? But…”

“Porta ad loca inferna,”
he whispered. “The door to hell. Don’t you understand? This is the place where Satan enters and leaves. It wasn’t the name that made me think of it, but something else.” Kuisl lowered his voice even more and Magdalena almost thought she detected a trace of fear in him. “I was here once,” the hangman said.

“Here?” Magdalena looked around. Suddenly the area looked strangely familiar—the trees, the rocks, and farther off, a few large boulders arranged in a circle. She knew this place as well. But in her fear, she’d paid no attention to it.

The remains of a ring of boulders
…

“Of course,” she exclaimed. “The ring of boulders where the children were playing a few days ago. I saw the tall boulder from there.”

Kuisl seemed not to have heard her. He looked up toward the top of the steep rock, lost in thought. “I was here with the children when we came to Andechs,” he continued softly. “I took a shortcut, and suddenly we were standing in front of this huge rock. There was a cave with an old woman sitting in front, spouting all sorts of gibberish…”

Magdalena felt her mouth go dry. “The hermit woman,” she exclaimed. “I met her, too, as did Matthias and the children. She was crazy, talking some nonsense about how my children were in danger, and saying this was…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered the old woman’s words.

I’m guarding the entrance to hell
…

“My God,” she gasped. “The door to the underworld. She talked about it and even warned the children to stay away. But I didn’t take her seriously.”

The hangman paused for a moment, then nodded. “She told me about the entrance to hell, as well. Like you, I dismissed it as the babbling of an old fool and finally forgot it—until today, up on gallows hill.”

He laughed briefly, then picked up the bundle he’d brought
along and pulled out a hunting knife more than a foot long. With a practiced eye, he looked around in the underbrush for a suitable branch and began to carve one into a club.

“No doubt the locals knew about this entrance long ago,” he ruminated as he shaved the wood. “Later, long after the destruction of the castle, its actual purpose was forgotten and all that remained were the names—Devil’s Rock, Door to Hell, names that can now be found only on faded maps…”

He spat angrily onto the ground, weighing the finished cudgel in his hands. “That’s the way people are: what they don’t understand is the work of the devil.”

Once more his gaze wandered up to the tip of the strange rock. Suddenly he sniffed, and his huge nostrils flared. “Can you smell that?” he asked softly. “There’s a fire burning somewhere. Let’s be careful—who knows whether the old woman is making her porridge right now and will scream so loud that half the Kien Valley will know we’re here.”

Magdalena took one last deep breath, then darted toward the rock through the dry underbrush and across a small open area. Finally, she and her father moved cautiously along the cold rock face until they could see the entrance.

No one was in sight. A thin column of smoke rose over a cold fire, but not a sound came from inside the cave.

Magdalena relaxed and stepped into the clearing in front of the rock. “The coast is clear,” she said, relieved. “So now let’s—”

“Woe to you! Woe!”

The shrill voice came from the bushes on the left. Now the haggard figure of an old woman struggled to her feet in the underbrush—the same old woman Magdalena had met just a few days earlier not far from here. Her tattered dress fluttered like the wings of a moth, and her hands reached threateningly to heaven.

“Satan has risen,” the old woman screeched wildly. “He’s left the underworld, and now along with Beelzebub is searching for
innocent children whose guts he can suck out. Repent, by God, repent!”

For a few moments Magdalena stood there petrified; then she rushed up to the old woman and shook her by the shoulders.

“You’re talking about children,” she shouted. “My children? Tell me, has that madman dragged my children into this cave? Say something!”

The blind old woman looked back at her with milky, empty eyes. “Your children are both good and evil,” she mumbled. “Heaven and hell, Jehovah and Lucifer. Beware, hangman’s daughter.”

“Who… Who told you who I am?” Astonished, she took her hands off the old woman’s shoulders and stepped back a pace. Was the woman really a prophet? People said hermits got their inspiration from God. But what did these words have to do with her children?

Good and evil
…
Your children are both
…

“Speak, you foolish old woman. Who lives here? What do you know about the children?” The hangman had approached now and looked around cautiously to see whether the old woman’s shouts had attracted any attention.

The old woman smiled, her toothless mouth wide open. “Yes, yes, the devil has the children,” she giggled. “His loyal servant Beelzebub took them to him.”

“So there are two?” the hangman asked. Magdalena saw a worried shadow pass across his brow. Perhaps her father was thinking about what chance he would have in a battle against two grown men who had no compunction about murder or abduction.

Suddenly the old woman fell to the ground and began to whimper. “I couldn’t stop him!” she cried. “The Evil One passes through my cave with pounding footsteps. It whispers horrible things in my ear, but my prayers aren’t heard. May God punish me for my fear! I ran away, but I eavesdropped on the Evil One
and saw how he snared the little man. He never came out of the cave.”

“The… the little man?” Magdalena felt her legs starting to give way under her again. It could be just a coincidence, but Simon was indeed one of the smallest men she knew.

“This little man… What did he look like?” she asked excitedly.

The old woman cocked her head to one side like an old owl. “He had succumbed to appearances—fancy clothes, useless decorations. Hah! All that will remain of him is a stinking sack of maggots.”

Simon!
It flashed through Magdalena’s mind.
My God, that must be Simon.

“When was that?” Kuisl asked. He seized the old woman by the collar and pulled her up to look her right in the face. “Tell me right now or prepare to meet your Savior today.”

The old woman broke out in raucous laughter. “Are you threatening me, hangman?” she replied, kicking about as the hangman held her up in the air. “You, who have slaughtered hundreds of people? On Judgment Day their souls will come knocking at your door and demand vengeance. Repent, hangman, repent!”

Kuisl released the old woman as if he’d touched a hot stove, and she collapsed at his feet, writhing about like a worm.

“Not an hour has passed since the little man disappeared in the cave,” she said finally. “God have mercy on his soul. I saw the monk burn, and Satan will lead the little man through the fires of purgatory as well.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Magdalena was surprised to see her father make the sign of the cross. He’d never done that before, or perhaps only on one of his occasional visits to church. Worried, she placed her arm on his shoulders.

“Are you all right?” she asked while the old woman continued to lie on the ground, whimpering and babbling.

Kuisl nodded hesitantly, then brushed her arm aside.

“Come along,” he said. “We’re not getting anywhere standing here, and if we intend to save your children and now your husband, we’ll have to hurry.” He pulled a torch from his bag, lit it over the fire that was still glimmering, and headed toward the cave. Dangling on his belt was the long hunting knife and the freshly carved club.

“Satan or purgatory—it doesn’t matter,” the hangman growled. “The men who have kidnapped my grandchildren are going to find out what hell is really like.”

Seated in the library in the south wing of the monastery, the prior and the librarian listened to the agitated Schongau burgomaster, whose story was so unbelievable it could almost be true.

“You really believe the Schongau hangman slipped into our monastery disguised as a Franciscan monk?” Prior Jeremias asked with a furrowed brow.

Karl Semer nodded emphatically. “I swear by the bones of Saint Nicolas, it’s the truth, Your Excellency. When I heard you were looking for a large man, more than six feet tall with a hooked nose, I thought of him at once. This slick little bathhouse surgeon and his wife denied it, but at noon my son and I”—he said, pointing to young Sebastian Semer sitting beside him with an arrogant look on his face—“saw the hangman in the church square with our own eyes. He ran away, along with the medicus, and after that, it was almost as if the earth swallowed them up.”

The librarian passed the tip of a finger over his chapped lips. “The hunters did tell us about a huge man who fought like a madman,” he murmured. “He threw one of them into the gorge like a stone. Are you sure that’s your man?”

“Ha! That’s him,” Karl Semer exclaimed. “Kuisl was a ‘double mercenary’ in the Great War: he was one of the best soldiers and received double pay. He’ll pick a fight with a dozen men.” He sighed. “A good hangman, indeed, but unfortunately extremely
stubborn and always causing trouble, especially when you least need it. Kuisl likes to snoop around and stir up trouble when it would be better to just let things be.” He cast an anxious look at his son and patted him on the shoulder. “Naturally we also want to see an end to this unhappy chapter in Andechs, don’t we, Sebastian? To the best of my knowledge the culprit has already been apprehended, and this continuing confusion can only be bad for our, eh…”

“Business,” said Prior Jeremias, smiling and finishing his the sentence. “It’s all right for you to say that. It’s no shame to make money, especially since it’s for the benefit of the church. We, too, would be happy for peace and quiet to return as soon as possible.” He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “But what I don’t understand is why this, uh… Kuisl is snooping around here. After all, he’s a hangman, isn’t he, and not an official of the elector?” He laughed nervously and looked over at Brother Benedikt, who was leafing through some books and making a point of looking disinterested.

“We confess we don’t have any explanation,” Semer said, scratching his bald head. “His daughter and son-in-law came with us on a pilgrimage. At first, Jakob Kuisl wasn’t with us. Why he came later—”

“What is the man’s name again?” the prior interrupted.

“Kuisl. Jakob Kuisl. Why?”

Suddenly Brother Jeremias remembered the rigorous questioning of the apothecary the day before in the Weilheim torture chamber. Brother Johannes kept speaking of a certain Jakob who would come to help him. The prior had assumed Johannes was crying out in his pain to the apostle Jacob, but perhaps he really meant Jakob Kuisl. Why? The talkative Andechs abbot once remarked that Johannes had been a mercenary in the Great War. Did the two perhaps know each other?

Brother Jeremias drummed his fingers nervously on the table. The situation was becoming more and more muddled.

“Is something the matter, Jeremias?” Brother Benedikt asked, looking up suspiciously from his books.

“No, no.” The prior smiled nervously. “I’m just a bit tired. The festival and all the preparations are more stressful than one wants to admit.” He rose to shake hands with the fat Schongau burgomaster and his pale son.

“Thank you for your tip,” he said in an unctuous tone. “It will help us to arrest this false Franciscan monk soon. Who knows—perhaps Kuisl is even collaborating with the sorcerer.” With an impatient wave of his hand, he pointed toward the door. “Now please leave us to ourselves. We all have much work ahead of us.”

“Very well, Your Excellency.” When Semer bowed, the prior was annoyed for a moment that he still didn’t have an abbot’s ring for Semer to kiss.

Suddenly the burgomaster looked up at him again with a shrewd twinkle in his eye. “Your Excellency?”