“His left shoulder seems to be dislocated,” he said finally, “but the right one still looks in good shape.”
“Respiration?”
Elsperger nodded. “He’s still breathing. This man is as strong as an ox, if I may say so. I’ve never seen-”
“Nobody asked for your opinion,” Rheiner said. “Esteemed colleagues, may I suggest the left arm be untied and we continue with the right? And as far as I’m concerned, we might as well get started with the hot poker. I’m certain we’ll have our confession soon. Teuber, take down the left arm, and we’ll continue with the right. For God’s sake, Teuber, what’s the matter with you?”
The Regensburg executioner wiped the sweat from his brow as his gaze went blank. “Pardon, once more,” he stammered. “But I believe the man has had enough for today.”
“Another person determined to have his say!” the older councilman groused. “Where are we? In a ship of fools? Now hurry up and do as we’ve ordered, or I’ll cancel the two guilders you’re to be paid for the day’s work.”
When Teuber loosened the shackles, Kuisl’s arm collapsed like an empty wineskin. Then the executioner reached again for the crank.
“Good Lord, confess, will you!” Teuber whispered in Kuisl’s ear. “Confess, and it will be over!”
“My dear, sweet twins…” Kuisl whispered, on the verge of passing out. “Lisl, my Lisl, come and I’ll sing you to sleep…”
“Teuber, crank the damned roller at once,” the third man snarled. “Or must I come out and do it myself?”
With a clenched jaw, the Regensburg executioner once again began turning the crank, as Kuisl continued singing the nursery rhyme over and over.
The melody would echo in Teuber’s mind the entire night.
Simon and the beggar carried Crazy Johannes through the dark, deserted streets toward Neupfarr Church Square while Magdalena scouted ahead to make sure their strange ensemble didn’t encounter any watchmen who might have some unpleasant questions to ask. Having finally arrived back in the catacombs, they bedded the injured man down in the niche they were using as a sick bay.
Just as the medicus had assumed, the blow hadn’t pierced the lungs. And though the blade had passed straight through his shoulder, the wound was clean. After Simon applied some moss to stanch the bleeding, he treated it with an ointment of arnica and chamomile.
“You’ll have to dispense with your crazy Saint Vitus’ dances for a while,” he told Johannes as he tentatively pressed the edge of the wound, whereupon the beggar let out a shout of pain. “How about trying to earn some honest money the next few weeks?” Simon continued. “Just lie down by the cathedral and hold out your hand.”
“That’s not half as much fun,” Johannes said, trying to grin despite the pain.
In the meantime Magdalena handed Simon clean water, cloths, and bandages, always keeping an eye on the ragged bunch crowded behind the dirty sick-bay curtain. By now she’d come to know some of the beggars: the crippled and sick, the disbanded mercenaries, stranded pilgrims, cast-off wives, prostitutes, and abandoned orphans-a motley mix of outcasts just like Magdalena. Looking over their faces, she felt a strange bond with them all.
I’m one of them, she thought. A city within a city, and I’m part of it.
The previous night she and Simon had gone for a walk through the winding subterranean passageways, counting almost forty cellars all connected to one another. Many were empty, but the beggars had stashed food and furnishings in some. Musty drapes and trunks, even a child’s toy here and there, all suggested whole families called these damp, dark vaults home. Beneath some of the cellars Simon and Magdalena came upon even deeper cellars by way of staircases or narrow, winding corridors. Here they found Latin inscriptions on the walls, and tucked away in one corner they even discovered a small bronze pagan statue. Were these the remains of an even older Roman settlement predating the Jewish ghetto above?
Here, deep in the bowels of the city, far from the beggars, they found themselves alone together for the first time in a long while. They made love in the dim, sooty glow of a lantern and promised each other not to give up. Magdalena still believed they could save her father. What might come next, though, she refused to consider now. Would she return with Simon to Schongau, where she could expect nothing but mockery and shame? Where Alderman Berchtholdt and his cronies would make their life hell? And where they could never expect to build a life together?
In spite of it all, Magdalena missed her mother and the twins desperately. Perhaps the little ones were ill or her mother was spending sleepless nights worrying over the disappearance not only of her husband but of her eldest daughter as well. Wasn’t it Magdalena’s duty to return to report her father’s fate?
A sharp cry brought her back to the present, where Simon had just finished sewing up Johannes’s wound and given the beggar a friendly slap.
“That’s it!” he said, helping the beggar back to his feet. “As I said, no tricks for the next few weeks. And lots of wine; you’ve got to get your strength back.”
Despite his pain, Johannes forced a smile. “Now that’s a medicine to my liking. Is there an illness for which peach brandy is the cure?”
Smiling, Magdalena packed the bandages and salves into a leather bag. She found it hard to imagine she’d ever feared the beggars. For a while now they’d felt to her like one big family.
At that moment she remembered the letter from her father that the hangman’s son had given her. She hadn’t even gotten around to opening it! So once she’d helped Simon wipe the bloodstains from the sickbed, she retired to a quieter niche and with trembling fingers unfolded the crumpled piece of paper. What did her father have to tell her? Had he found a way to escape?
Looking down at the letter, she stopped short. The faded note consisted of a single line:
GREETINGS FROM WEIDENFELD…
Magdalena held the paper close enough to the candle that its edges slowly started to curl, but there was nothing else legible in the note.
GREETINGS FROM WEIDENFELD…
Was her father trying to tell her something that no one else was supposed to know? Was this a secret clue, something only she was meant to understand?
Then Magdalena realized this letter couldn’t possibly be from her father.
It was in someone else’s handwriting.
The boy had told her the letter came from her father, so someone was lying. Deep in thought, Magdalena folded it up and returned it to her skirt pocket.
“What’s wrong?” Simon, who had returned to her side, looked at her with surprise.
“The letter from my father…” she began hesitantly. “Someone else wrote it.” She told Simon about the mysterious text.
“Well?” Simon asked. “Do you know anyone by that name?”
Magdalena shook her head. “Unfortunately no.” She bit her lip, thinking. “This letter must have come from the man who’s out to get my father. I’m pretty sure there’s more behind this than the patricians retaliating against the freemen.” Magdalena collapsed onto the straw, rubbing her temples. “Someone has it in for my father-maybe someone he crossed a long time ago, someone who is sparing no pains to pay him back now.”
“Does your father have lots of enemies?” Simon asked hesitantly.
Magdalena laughed. “Enemies? My father is the hangman. He has more enemies than the kaiser has soldiers.”
“So the murderer could be a relative of someone he once executed?” the medicus persisted.
Magdalena shrugged. “Or someone he broke on the rack until he got the truth out of him, or someone he whipped or whose ear he cut off, or someone he put in the stocks or banished from town… Just forget about that! It won’t lead anywhere.”
“What bad luck that the bathhouse ruins collapsed!” Simon said. “Now we’ll probably never learn what was going on in that secret alchemist’s workshop.”
“But the stranger who’s apparently on our trail won’t learn anything, either,” Magdalena replied. “And don’t forget, we have an advantage: we know what was down there.”