“That… seems possible,” Simon replied. “Or perhaps not. One would have to speak with these freemen first.”
Nathan laughed. “Speak with the freemen? Who do you think they are? Washerwomen? They’ll be strung up on the gallows should anyone discover who they are. Nobody can find them.”
“Not even you?”
The beggar king thought for a moment. “Perhaps. But what will that accomplish? Perhaps they’ll decide you are the real murderer. Believe me, the order to kill Hofmann came from high up in the city council. It’s better for you and your girl to go back to your little Schongau. You are too young to die.”
Of course. And I leave my future father-in-law to rot and die in Regensburg, Simon thought. Magdalena would never forgive me for that.
“I want to speak with one of these freemen,” he said finally. “Make that happen, and I’ll get to work right away on my patients.”
The beggar king nodded. “As you like. I’ll see what I can do. By tonight we’ll know more.” He snapped his fingers, and Reiser approached with two other beggars. “I’ll have your things and your girl brought here, too. It’s best if you stay with us for a while, not just because of the matter of the fire, but whores have been disappearing from the streets without a trace as of late.” His golden incisors gleamed again as he began to laugh. “Consider yourselves my guests of honor for the time being.”
Simon got up and went over to a corner of the hall for a better look at his patients. Fat blowflies swarmed around him as if to welcome their new guest.
What Jakob Kuisl missed most was not the sunlight and fresh air but his beloved tobacco. The guards had confiscated his pack, which held his tin of the sweet-smelling weed.
The hangman sighed and wet his parched lips with his tongue. He’d paid a sinful price for the tobacco he ordered specially from Augsburg, and he needed it the way others needed drink-especially when he had to think. He missed his beloved pipe now more than ever, as he lay on the cold floor of his cell, hands tucked behind his head, staring out into the darkness and thinking back on the trial that morning, which had made him realize just how hopeless his situation really was.
They had hauled him up to the office, where they read the short indictment to him. The president of the council and the three lay assessors were convinced of his guilt from the outset: his presence at the crime scene and the will spoke volumes. Only Kuisl’s confession was needed to settle the matter. But the Schongau hangman insisted on his innocence and, in the end, even grew combative. Finally it took four bailiffs to bind his hands and feet and drag him back to his cell.
Ever since, Kuisl could do nothing but wait to be tortured.
He was certain they’d begin soon. The matter demanded immediate attention-the accusations were too grave. Once the torture began, it all depended on him to determine how long it was before the sentence was pronounced and the execution carried out. The longer he held out, the more time Magdalena and Simon would have to find the real killer.
There is a reaper, Death’s his name…
The hangman slapped his forehead but couldn’t get the accursed song out of his mind. He felt as if he were imprisoned twice over-once in this cell and again in his head. The memories were the prelude to his impending torture.
For the hundredth time his gaze wandered over the cell wall, stopping at a bright, smooth spot in the wood. At Kuisl’s request the Regensburg executioner had left the small hatch in the door open so that the scribbling on the walls was legible in the faint light. Kuisl recognized some old sayings and names, among them a handful of initials. Only a few prisoners were able to write out their whole names, and some signed their confessions with simple crosses or initials. Often their last messages to the world were therefore just a few lines or circles carved laboriously into the wood.
Kuisl read the letters and dates: D. L., January 1617; J. R., May 1653; F. M., March 1650; P.F.K. Weidenfeld, anno domini 1637…
P.F.K. Weidenfeld, anno domini 1637?
Kuisl stopped short. Something clicked in his head, but it remained vague and diaphanous. Was it possible?
P.F.K. Weidenfeld, anno domini 1637…
Kuisl was trying to concentrate when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor. The bolt was pushed aside, and a guard entered.
“Your grub, you dog.” The soldier shoved a wooden dish toward him in which unidentifiable lumps were floating around in a grayish sludge. The man stood, waiting. When Kuisl didn’t react, the bailiff cleared his throat, then dug around in his nostril with his finger, as if a fat worm hid up there.
“The hangman told me I had to bring the bowl back right away,” he said finally. “And the paperwork, too.”
Kuisl nodded. The Regensburg executioner had sent him some paper, ink, and a quill, as promised. Until that moment Kuisl didn’t know what he wanted to say to his daughter. He hoped to give Magdalena some ideas about where to look for clues in the city, but the damned memories of the war kept distracting him. Now, all of a sudden, he had a vague thought, possibly just a whim, but Kuisl felt it worth looking into, since time was so short.
“You’ll have to wait a while,” the hangman said. He took out the pen and ink and hastily scribbled some lines on the paper while the guard drummed his fingers impatiently against the door. Finally Kuisl folded the paper and handed it to the bailiff. “Here. And you can take back the soup, as well, and feed it to the pigs.”
The hangman kicked the steaming bowl, sending it flying into the corridor where it landed with a clatter.
“Later, I promise you, you’ll beg for a bowl of soup half as delicious as that one,” the surprised guard replied. “You’ll whimper and pray when Teuber has at you with the red-hot pincers. You’ll die like a dog, you goddamned Bavarian, and I’ll be standing there, front and center, when he breaks you on the wheel.”
“Yes, yes, very well. Now get moving,” Kuisl snarled.
The guard swallowed his rage and turned to leave. Just as he was about to bolt the door, Kuisl looked up at him.
“Ah, and if you intend not to deliver that letter,” the Schongau hangman said casually, “I’ll see that Teuber breaks your bones, slowly, one after the other. He doesn’t like it, you know, when people try to put one over on him, you understand?”
The door slammed shut and the bailiff withdrew. Once again Kuisl’s thoughts turned back to the war, the murder, the pain. He stared at the initials on the wall and tried to remember.
P.F.K. Weidenfeld, anno domini 1637…
The letters gnawed at his subconscious-eliciting just an inkling, an image from long ago, from another life.
Men’s laughter, the crackling of burning rooftops, a long, excruciating wail, then silence… Jakob Kuisl is holding the sword in his hand like a scythe.
Kuisl knew that if he had just an ounce of tobacco, the pipe would bring the image into focus.
In the corridor the guard squeezed the folded letter in his hands and cursed softly. Who the hell did this damn hangman think he was? The king of France? Never before had a prisoner spoken to him like that. Particularly not one about to face the gallows. Just what was this Bavarian thinking?
The bailiff thought back on Kuisl’s threat. The Regensburg executioner had indeed sent him to the cell to pick up that damned letter. No doubt Philipp Teuber was to pass the paper along to some relative-a last farewell from a condemned man seeking consolation and perhaps even a few sweets to uplift him at the end. That wasn’t uncommon.
But what the executioner didn’t know was that someone else had promised the bailiff a tidy sum for the privilege of having a look at the letter before handing it over to Teuber.
Grimacing, the guard secured the paper in his jacket pocket and strode out into the city hall square, whistling. As arranged, the stranger was waiting for him in Waaggasschen Lane in front of the constabulary. The man was stooped and, despite the summer heat, had turned up his coat collar to obscure his face. No one would be able to say later who he was; even the guard who delivered the letter in exchange for a bag of coins would be unable to describe him afterward. The man’s movements were too fluid; his appearance, nondescript. Everything about the man was calm and collected, except for his eyes.