“Ask the Venetian,” the landlady replied. “He comes here for the books-and for the wine and women, of course.”
Simon took a closer look at the man passed out on the bench. He didn’t look like a penniless drunk. On the contrary, the unconscious man looked well-to-do, right down to his cleanly clipped goatee. His black hair fell in curls across his shoulders, his fingernails were manicured, and his cheeks had a soft pink hue. Just as Simon was about to turn away, the Venetian opened his eyes. They were dark, almost sad, as if they’d read more than their fair share of tragedies.
“Ah, ma che bella signorina! Sono lietissimo! Che piacere!” he said, still a bit woozy, then sat up, smoothing the wrinkles out of his jacket. Simon was just about to bow when he realized that the man was addressing not him but Magdalena. He stood up from his seat by the stove, took Magdalena’s hand, and brushed it with his lips. Magdalena couldn’t suppress a giggle. She never would have thought it possible, but the Venetian man was even shorter than Simon. Just the same, all of the Venetian’s nearly five feet positively pulsed with pride and nobility.
“May I introduce myself?” he asked in almost perfect, unaccented German. “Silvio Contarini from the beautiful city of Venice. I must have dozed off.” He bowed slightly, and Magdalena noticed with astonishment that his hair slipped forward as he did so. Evidently he was wearing a wig.
“Gambling and whoring till the wee hours of the morning,” the tavern keeper complained from behind the bar. “You and your cronies guzzled two gallons of my best muscatel last night.”
“Perdonate. Is this enough?” The Venetian slid a few shiny coins across the bar, which the old woman quickly pocketed. Magdalena was aghast. The man had just paid as much for wine as her family spent in a whole week.
“Do you like books?” he asked Magdalena, pointing at the shelves behind him. “Do you perhaps know Shakespeare?”
“Actually,” Simon now chimed in, “we’re more interested in medical texts.”
Silvio turned around in surprise, only just now noticing there was another person in the room. “I beg your pardon?”
“You know, Scultetus, Pare, Paracelsus, and so forth. You’ve probably never heard of them.” Simon reached for his bag and turned to the innkeeper. “May we see the room now?”
Without waiting for Magdalena, he stomped up the narrow stairway. Silvio looked at the hangman’s daughter in astonishment. “Is your friend always so… surly? These bruises all over his face! He must get into a lot of scrapes, yes?”
The hangman’s daughter laughed. “Actually no. He loves books, just as you do. He’s had a bit of a rough day is all. We’ve had a long journey, you should know.”
The Venetian smiled. “Yet not so long as mine! Ma che ci vuoi fare! What brings you to Regensburg?”
“My… father.” Magdalena hesitated. “We come from Schongau. My aunt lives here, or rather, she lived here… and we wanted to pay her a visit, but…” She waved her hand. “It’s too complicated to explain in a few words.”
Silvio nodded. “Then perhaps another time, over a glass of wine.” Reaching abruptly into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a little book, which he handed to Magdalena.
“If you like, read this, poems by a certain William Shakespeare. I translated them into German myself. Tell me frankly what you think of them.”
Magdalena graciously accepted the little leather-bound book. “But how can you be so sure we’ll meet again?”
Silvio smiled. “I’m sure we shall. I come here often. Arrivederci.” He bowed politely and pranced out of the room.
Puzzled, Magdalena gazed after him for a while before climbing the narrow stairway up to the room where Simon was already lying on one of the flea-infested beds, staring up at the ceiling.
The hangman’s daughter grinned. “Is it possible you’re the tiniest bit jealous?”
Simon snorted. “Jealous? Of the dwarf?”
“Right. He’s the same height as you, you know.”
“Very funny,” Simon snapped. “In case you didn’t notice, the man was made-up like a woman. And he was wearing a wig.”
Magdalena shrugged. “Perhaps. I’ve heard that in France, at court, all the men wear wigs now. Doesn’t look half bad.”
Sitting up, the medicus looked at Magdalena as if she were a naughty child. “Magdalena, believe me, I know people like him. It’s all a facade-fine clothes, witty repartee, but nothing at all behind it!”
With a sigh, she lay down next to Simon and pulled him to her with both arms.
“Strange. That sounds somehow rather familiar.”
Late in the evening the gatekeeper Johannes Buchner strolled through the narrow city streets enjoying the mild summer air. Periodically he tossed a leather purse full of guilders in the air so the coins jingled like castanets. The lieutenant had been saving up for the coming Sunday, when he and a few friends had a game of dice planned for the back room of the Black Elephant. High stakes, big payoff-that was the way Buchner liked it.
Even as darkness fell, he had no fear for his safety. He was, after all, the head watchman at Jakob’s Gate, and the riffraff knew him well. Beggars, thieves, and whores knew better than to trifle with him. Unlike many of the other guards for whom duty at the gate was just another annoying civic responsibility to be performed as a matter of course, Buchner was a trained soldier paid by the city. Besides, anyone who dared assault a city guard risked meeting his end on gallows hill with his guts spilling out. But not before Buchner’s colleagues worked him over; by the time they were through with him, the poor bastard would wish he were dead already.
The lieutenant’s route took him from the city hall square all the way to the wine market near the Danube. Buchner mulled over the exciting events of the past week. The trap set for that Bavarian had worked perfectly! When the man first approached him at Jakob’s Gate, Buchner knew at once that this would be a profitable venture, even though he was surprised that such an influential person would want anything to do with someone as vile as an executioner. But that wasn’t really Buchner’s concern; the payoff was decent enough, and the man had made clear he wouldn’t tolerate any questions.
Even though the man hadn’t given his name, it was of course clear to Buchner who stood before him. As a longtime commander of the city guards, he knew who wielded power in this city. The man had promised him a whole purse of guilders just for seizing the Schongau hangman at Jakob’s Gate and releasing him at the agreed-upon time the following day. An armed contingent was to follow the stranger in secret, and a surprise would be waiting for them all at the bathhouse. When the guard finally saw what the surprise was, he had to hand it to his client. You really had to be careful not to make an enemy of a man like him.
Buchner whistled as he turned into the narrow Wiedfanggasschen Street, driving off a handful of whimpering strays with a few well-aimed kicks. A prostitute, cheaply made-up and haggard, winked at him from a street corner. For a moment the lieutenant considered spending the money he’d come by so easily not on wine but on women-then he thought better of it. In the last few weeks prostitutes had been disappearing left and right in Regensburg; the only ones who still dared to venture out into the streets were almost all old shrews.
“Get out of here before I put your bony frame in the pillory,” Buchner said in a threatening voice, spitting at her.
With a suppressed giggle, the prostitute sauntered off, but not without first offering him a view of her bare, boil-scarred backside. Soon enough Buchner was alone again in the narrow street, and though he’d served as night watchman in this city for thousands of hours, the sudden silence gave him an eerie feeling.
You’re getting old, Buchner, he thought. Letting yourself get spooked by a whore? It’s time for a mug of wine, or-