Closing his eyes, Simon turned his face toward the ceiling. Bonifaz’s jealousy had been a thorn in his side for years, a thorn tipped in poison. Many Schongauers preferred to take their sicknesses and little aches and pains secretly to the hangman rather than to the town doctor. This was, of course, far cheaper, and moreover executioners were considered better not only at treating the broken bones and external injuries they had often themselves inflicted but also at healing internal diseases. By virtue of their experience with torture and executions, they had a more thorough understanding of the human body than any doctor with a university diploma.
What angered old Fronwieser most, however, was that his son was a good friend of the executioner. The young medicus had learned more from Kuisl than from his own father and the entire faculty of Ingolstadt University put together. The hangman owned books on medicine that couldn’t even be found in most libraries. He knew every poison and medicinal herb and had studied writings that traditional scholars considered the work of the devil. Simon idolized the hangman and was in love with his daughter-two things that got under Bonifaz’s skin and made him seethe with rage.
As the old man continued his rant about the hangman and the hangman’s family, Simon walked over to a pot of hot water that had been standing on the hearth all night. He knew he would need some coffee if he hoped to withstand the next few minutes.
“I’m not going to be scolded by the likes of someone who’d go to bed with the hangman’s daughter.” His father’s tirade was approaching its climax. “It’s a wonder, in any case, that you’re at home and not out with that little harlot of yours.”
Simon’s hands curled around the hot rim of the pot. “Father… I beg you!”
“Ha! You’re begging me!” his father said, mocking him. “How often have I begged you-how often? — to put an end to this shameful affair, to help me here in my work, and to marry Weinberger’s daughter or even Hardenberg’s niece, who at least does decent work at the hospital. But no, my son carries on with the hangman’s daughter, and the whole town gossips!”
“Father, stop it! At once!”
But by now Bonifaz had worked himself into a frenzy. “If only your dear mother knew!” he scoffed. “It’s just as well the reaper carried her off so long ago-it would have broken her heart. For years we tramped along behind the military, serving them as field surgeons, saving every last kreuzer I could so that our son might attend the university and have a better life someday. And what did you do? You squandered the money in Ingolstadt and wasted your time loafing around with riffraff.”
Simon was still clutching the pot by its rim. Although it had become painfully hot from the fire, he seemed barely to notice the heat, and his knuckles turned white with the force of his grip.
“Magdalena is not riffraff,” he said slowly. “Nor is her father.”
“He’s a damned quack and a murderer, and his daughter is a whore.”
Without a second thought, Simon flung the pot against the wall. With a loud hiss, the near-boiling water splashed over the shelves, table, and chairs, filling the room with a cloud of steam. Dumbfounded, Bonifaz looked back at his son. The pot had just barely missed his face.
“How dare you…” he began.
But Simon was not listening anymore. He dashed out the door into the early-morning light with tears streaming down his face. What had gotten into him? He’d almost killed his own father!
Distraught, Simon tried to pull his thoughts together. He had to get out of here, away from this stifling town that was making a recreant of him, a town that forbade him to marry the woman he loved, a town that tried to prescribe everything he did or thought.
He stepped out into the narrow street where foul-smelling garbage was pushed into huge piles. All of Schongau smelled that way-like muck, feces, and urine. Simon staggered through the empty streets, past the closed shop doors and bolted shutters. Another sweltering day had dawned in town.
The mouse was close to Jakob Kuisl’s ear. He could feel it brush past his hair, its tiny nose grazing his cheek. The hangman tried to breathe as softly as possible so as not to frighten the little creature. It sniffed his beard where tiny bits of yesterday’s stew still clung.
In a single, rapid motion, the hangman reached up and nabbed the rodent by the tail. The mouse dangled in front of his face, squeaking and flailing its legs in the air as Kuisl calmly examined it.
Trapped, just like me. Thrashing around and getting nowhere…
He’d spent the night locked in this hole in the Jakob’s Gate Tower in Regensburg: a little room in the cellar that was apparently most often used for storage. Surrounded by rusty cannons and disassembled matchlock guns, the hangman awaited his fate.
Could he just be imagining it, or was somebody really out to get him? Some of the guards had whispered among themselves when they took him into custody, pointing at him as if they somehow already knew who he was. Kuisl thought about the leering grimace of the raftsman who’d watched him for days. And what about the farmer he’d met while waiting outside the city gate? Had he been trying to pump him for information, too? Was it possible they’d each played a part in some conspiracy against him?
Is it possible I’m just losing my mind?
Again he tried to remember where he had seen the raftsman before. It must have been long ago. In battle? A tavern brawl? Or could he be one of the many whom, in the course of his life, Kuisl had put in the stocks, beaten with whips, or tortured? Kuisl nodded. That seemed most likely. Some minor offender who had recognized the Schongau executioner. The guards had him arrested because he’d assaulted one of their colleagues. And the curious farmer-well, he’d been just a curious farmer.
So there was no conspiracy, just a series of coincidences.
Kuisl set the mouse down carefully on the ground and let go of its tail. The animal scampered off toward a hole in the wall and disappeared. And just a few moments after that, the hangman was startled by a noise. The door to his cell opened with a creak and a narrow gap appeared, letting in the dazzling morning light.
“You are free to go, Bavarian.” It was the captain of the guards at Jakob’s Gate, with his twirled mustache and gleaming cuirass. He held the door open wide, gesturing for the hangman to leave. “You’ve had enough lolling around on your ass at the city’s expense.”
“I’m free?” Kuisl asked with surprise, getting up from his bedraggled sheets.
The captain nodded impatiently, and in his eyes Kuisl noticed a peculiar nervous flicker that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“I hope you’ve cooled down a bit. Let it be a lesson to you not to tangle with the Regensburg city guards.”
With a face as impassive as a rock, Kuisl pushed past the captain, headed up the stairway, and stepped outside. It was early morning, but another long line of people had already formed in front of Jakob’s Gate, and merchants and farmers were streaming into the city with their full packs and carts.
I wonder if the scar-faced raftsman is among them, the hangman thought, casually observing the faces. But he couldn’t see anything that looked suspicious.
Stop thinking about it and concern yourself with your little sister!
Looking straight ahead, Kuisl left the dungeon and started out through the city. From the few letters he had had from her, he knew that Lisbeth, along with her husband, ran a bathing establishment near the Danube, right alongside the city wall. As the hangman plodded along the broad paved avenue that led away from the gate, he was now no longer certain his directions would suffice, and amid the bustling crowd he soon lost his way. Houses four stories high rose up along both sides of the road, casting their shadows on the narrow, winding streets that branched off the main road at regular intervals. Sometimes the buildings stood so close together there was barely a patch of sky visible between them. From far off Kuisl could hear bells tolling in innumerable church spires. It was only six o’clock in the morning, yet there were more people out and about on the main road than on a Saturday afternoon in Schongau. Kuisl saw many richly clothed citizens but also countless poor, among them beggars and wounded veterans of the war, holding out their hands for alms at every other street corner. Barking dogs tore past his legs and down the street, as did two little piglets, squealing loudly. Towering up into the sky to his right was an enormous church whose stone portal, adorned with columns, arches, and statues, looked as if it were the entrance to a castle. Day laborers and derelicts loitered or lay dozing on the broad stone steps. Kuisl decided to ask one of them for directions.