“I’m… I’m terribly sorry,” Magdalena whispered. “I’m not quite myself today.”
“I’ve noticed,” the midwife replied. “But there’s nothing you can do for Resl anymore. We can only hope people will come back to us midwives now when they need ergot. Those doctors with their university diplomas don’t know a thing about it.”
Sighing, the hangman’s daughter put the crucibles and glasses back in the drawers. She had gone to Stechlin first thing in the morning to tell her about the baker’s maid who had met such a horrible death the day before. In the last two years a genuine friendship had developed between Magdalena and the midwife, even though Stechlin was older by almost twenty years. Neither was thought of very highly in town, even if people kept calling on them secretly for their aid. The townfolk whispered behind their backs; the men especially gave them a very wide berth, convinced that the women meddled too much in what they believed should be the dear Lord’s work.
Nevertheless, Magdalena took great pleasure in her vocation, probably because, as the daughter of a hangman, she’d been dealing with herbs almost all her life. Magdalena knew that hops dampened sexual desire in men and that lady’s mantle helped during pregnancy. She knew the preparations that made a woman fertile-as well as those that would promptly abort an unwanted fetus. Since the moment she’d learned to walk, her father had been introducing her to medicinal and toxic plants alike, and as time went on, new ones were always being discovered. By now she was almost more of an expert in the subject than the hangman himself. More than once Magdalena had spared a young maid the disgrace of raising a fatherless child by selecting the appropriate herb. The hangman’s daughter had likely saved some of those girls from murdering their own children, and from execution at the hands of Magdalena’s own father.
She’d arrived too late to save Resl Kirchlechner, however.
“The flask, quick!”
Once again Martha’s voice tore Magdalena from her gloomy thoughts. She hurried to the cabinet, found the tall flask, and set it down carefully on the table. The midwife took the pot from the hearth and poured a fine stream of the bubbling green liquid into the flask.
As the hangman’s daughter held the flask upright and watched the green liquid slowly filter to the bottom of the container, she couldn’t help thinking of the master baker’s maid. What cruel injustice that Michael Berchtholdt was still walking around, a free man, while a woman had died by his hand! Women had to bear all the shame while high and mighty, privileged men could do as they pleased! Vividly, Magdalena imagined her father with a switch in his hand, driving Berchtholdt from town. But, of course, this wasn’t realistic. Should she appeal to the town council? Tell court clerk Johann Lechner about it? No doubt she’d be laughed out of town herself. Besides, Michael Berchtholdt was dangerous, and his parting words no idle threat.
Go on, go and tell people, and I promise I’ll make your life hell!
At that moment a fist-size rock, followed by a second and a third, flew in through an open window. The women heard a crash as the flask burst, and hot oil splashed Stechlin in the face. The midwife staggered backward, bumped into the table, and finally collapsed onto the ground, screaming and covering her eyes with her dirty apron. More stones came crashing in, shattering the pots and phials on the shelves where they landed.
Magdalena ran to the window and peered warily over the sill. Outside, in the middle of the lane, stood a group of smirking young men, apprentices and journeymen, none of them older than twenty. The hangman’s daughter immediately recognized three of Michael Berchtholdt’s sons among them.
“Brew your stinking potions down in the Tanners’ Quarter, hangman hussy!” spluttered a lanky, pimply boy making an obscene gesture. Peter Berchtholdt was no more than sixteen years old. “Father says you’re responsible for what happened to our maid! You gave her the draught that turned her into a witch. Now she’s gone, and you’re to blame, you pernicious, murdering witch!”
Magdalena seethed with rage as never before. She burst out the door into the street and, after running up to the group of boys, kicked young Berchtholdt in the groin. He folded up like a jackknife as he fell with a groan to the ground, his face flushed, unable to speak, much less defend himself. Everything happened so fast that none of the other boys had been able to intervene.
Arms akimbo, Magdalena looked down at the master baker’s son. “I’ll tell you who the murderer is,” she shouted, turning her fury to the two other Berchtholdt boys standing uncertainly off to one side. “Your father gave Resl the poison himself because it was he who fathered the child, and now he wants to blame it on me. Believe it or not, your father is a dirty liar and a murderer! Now get out of here, all of you, or I’ll scratch your eyes out before you can say hallelujah.”
She raised her right hand, showing off her long, dirty fingernails. Peter was still lying on the ground in front of her. The boy hesitated-for a brief moment Magdalena thought she recognized something like doubt in his eyes-but then he pulled himself together, struggled to his feet, and staggered back to his brothers.
“You’ll be sorry for what you said about our father,” shouted the eldest Berchtholdt. “I will tell him, and then he’ll see to it that Kuisl has to chase his own daughter with a whip through town and throw her in the stocks.” He spit on the ground and made the sign of the cross with his right hand.
As the boys turned to leave, Magdalena shouted after them. “Wipe your own ass first, mama’s boys! You Berchtholdts are nothing but cowards and loafers!”
She looked up; several windows had opened now and a dozen pairs of eyes stared down at the ruckus.
“And all you up there are not one bit better! Not one bit! To hell with you all!”
Cursing loudly, she stomped back into the midwife’s house, where Stechlin now sat at the large table holding a damp cloth to her scalded face. Magdalena was relieved to see that apart from a few red blotches on her skin, no real damage had been done. The midwife’s eyes had thankfully escaped injury, but the broken glass and the green puddle on the floor showed the stones had shattered more than just a flask and a few phials. Magdalena felt as if a stone had struck her straight in the heart.
Only now did she break down, leaning on the midwife and sobbing, as wave after wave of grief and pain surged through her body. Stechlin whispered softly to her, stroking the young girl’s hair as if she were a child. Finally the midwife whispered, “They will never accept us; it’s like a law of nature, like budding, blooming, and dying. You must try to live with this.”
Magdalena rose. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, but her gaze was firm and unyielding. “To hell with the laws,” she whispered. “I’ll never accept them-never. I’ll do what suits me, now more than ever!”
Stechlin moved away a bit and cast a furtive glance at Magdalena. There was no doubt about it-the girl really was the Schongau hangman’s daughter.
A few hours later Magdalena’s anger had subsided a bit. She and her mother were busy getting the twins ready for bed, a job that always occupied her so completely she had no time left for gloomy thoughts.
“Just one more story, Magda,” little Barbara pleaded. “Just one more! Tell us the one about the queen and the house in the forest! You haven’t told us that one for a long time!”
Magdalena laughed and carried her nine-year-old sister up the narrow stairs to the bedroom. Her back ached under the weight of the squirming child. The twins had grown an astonishing amount in the last year, and soon she wouldn’t be able to lift Barbara anymore. Clearly they took after their father.
“Oh, no, it’s time to go to bed,” Magdalena said with feigned severity as she put her little sister in bed, covered her up, and blew out a smoking pine chip standing on a stool in the corner. “Look, your brother’s eyes are already closed.”