“Though we can’t make any sense of it.” Sighing, Simon sank down in the straw beside Magdalena and stared off into the gloomy hall. Nathan sat at the massive table amid a number of other beggars and sipped from a mug of watery beer. Though the beggar king seemed to watch them out of the corner of his eye, he made no attempt to approach them.
“Let’s go over what we know again,” Magdalena said, chewing on a piece of straw. “The bathhouse owner, Andreas Hofmann, and his wife, my aunt, were killed. They were members of the freemen, who are rebelling against patrician rule and whose leader is the Regensburg raftmaster, Karl Gessner. Hofmann was Gessner’s second in command, and when his cover got blown, he had to die-the patricians’ act of revenge and a deterrent to the other revolutionaries.”
“Your father was the scapegoat,” Simon added. “He received a forged letter about his oh-so-sick sister, traveled to Regensburg, where he was arrested at the scene of the crime to divert suspicion from the patricians. So far, so good. But in the bathhouse cellar there was a secret alchemist’s workshop, and apparently someone was looking for it-the stranger with the rapier who tried to kill us and who, it seems, is taking orders from none less than the Regensburg city treasurer.”
Magdalena nodded. “Paulus Mamminger. He must be at the center of everything. And he’s the only lead we really have. We’ll have to follow him.”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Simon inquired. “Shadow one of the most powerful patricians in Regensburg around the clock? It won’t be easy. You’d need an army.”
Magdalena grinned. “You forget we have one.” She pointed at the beggars Nathan was now toasting jovially with his mug of beer. “They’re just itching for someone to send them into battle.”
Philipp Teuber shuffled home from the torture chamber as if he were on his way to his own execution. He’d spent the entire morning torturing Jakob Kuisl and in the afternoon was to begin again. Teuber felt as if he’d aged years in a matter of hours, and not even the prospect of a hot dinner at home could change that.
The Regensburg executioner’s house was located on Henkersgasschen, Hangman’s Lane, in a rundown part of town south of the old grain market. Amid muddy roads, crooked, warped roofs, and dilapidated houses the tidy property seemed a bit out of place. It was freshly whitewashed, the well-tended garden behind it was full of fragrant roses and lavender blossoms, and a newly renovated barn next door housed cattle and carts. Teuber wasn’t poor; in a Free Imperial City like Regensburg, the hangman made a decent living. And almost every day people came to him to purchase some medicine or talisman, among them well-to-do citizens who hid their faces as they passed through the rank lanes of this part of town.
The hangman, stooped and pale, opened the door to his home and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of cheerful children. Under normal circumstances he would lift his five little children high into the air one by one and hug them against his broad chest, but today he quietly pushed the rambunctious group aside and sat down at the table, where his wife, Caroline, had already set down a steaming bowl of bone-marrow broth and tripe. As usual, everyone waited for the hard-working father to take the first spoonful; only after he had taken an unenthusiastic taste did the five children pounce on the food like hungry wolves. Lost in thought, Teuber watched his family eat, while he himself could only stir his spoon around in the bowl.
“What’s wrong, Philipp?” his wife asked, holding the bawling youngest child on her lap as she fed him. “If you keep this up, you’ll be nothing more than skin and bones. You haven’t eaten a thing for days. Is it because of this hangman from Schongau?”
Teuber nodded and stared vacantly at the wooden spoon in his bowl, where a gleaming glob of fat floated on the surface. He remained silent.
“Papa, can I have your tripe?” his oldest son asked. It was the redheaded Benjamin who’d taken the letter to Magdalena early that morning. When his father didn’t answer, the boy pointed to the few gray scraps floating in the soup and repeated his question. “Papa, can I-”
“For God’s sake, leave me alone, all of you!”
Teuber pounded the table so hard with his fist that the bowls clattered and the startled youngsters fell silent. “Can’t we just once have peace and quiet in this house!”
He got up from the table and stomped into the main room, slamming the door behind him. Alone at last, Teuber bent over a wash basin and splashed cold water on his face, as if that could wash away his worries. He shook himself off like a dog and slumped onto a rickety stool in a corner. Then, folding his hands across his broad chest, he stared at a long executioner’s sword on the wall in front of him.
Fitted with a leather grip, its blade was nearly as long as a man is tall. Regensburgers had gruesome stories to tell about it. Market women whispered that the sword quivered for three days before every execution and could be appeased only with blood. Others claimed the steel rattled whenever a death sentence was pronounced. Teuber knew all this was nonsense. It was a good sword, passed down through many generations and carefully forged by human hands to bring a quick and painless death. It was solid handiwork; there was nothing magical about it. Engraved on the blade was a saying the Regensburg executioner often repeated quietly to himself:
ABIDE WITH ME, ALMIGHTY GOD
Although this line was intended for the condemned man, Teuber had the feeling it referred to him now, as well.
After a while his wife opened the door cautiously and sat down beside him. Outside, the children could be heard giggling and roughhousing. They seemed to have gotten over the incident.
“Would you like to talk?” Caroline asked after a while. Silence fell over the room, and only the children’s muffled laughter could be heard from outside.
“He’s just like me,” her husband finally said. “He has a wife and a few children, he does his job, he’s a damn good executioner, and he’s innocent.”
Caroline gave him a skeptical sidelong look. Her once-delicate face was gaunt now, fine lines spread from the corners of her eyes and mouth, and her blond hair had turned gray in many places. Together the Teubers had seen their fair share of hard times. Countless sleepless nights before executions, the screams of the tortured, the disapproving looks of narrow-minded citizens in the street-over a lifetime all this had left its mark, not just on the Regensburg executioner but on his wife as well.
“How do you know he’s innocent?” the executioner’s wife asked finally. “Doesn’t every petty thief claim that?”
Teuber shook his head. “He really is innocent. Someone set him up. The third inquisitor…” He hesitated briefly before continuing. “The dirty swine insists I torture Kuisl more mercilessly than I’ve ever done. He seems to know things about Kuisl that he couldn’t reasonably know. The fiend wants him dead, not because Kuisl has broken the law but because of something that happened between them long, long ago. And I’m his instrument.”
His wife smiled. “Aren’t you always? The instrument, I mean?”
Teuber slapped his broad, muscular thigh in frustration. “Don’t you understand? This time is different! By torturing an innocent man, I’m assisting in someone else’s revenge while the real murderer runs around free! And even more men may die because of it!”
Caroline sighed. “What can you do? If you refuse to torture him, they’ll only replace you with another executioner. The knacker’s son has been waiting for his chance a long time now. And they’ll drive us out of town. Is that what you want?”
Teuber shook his head. “God, no! But maybe there’s another way.”
His wife looked at him sharply. “What do you mean? Tell me!” A light flashed in her eyes, even as they narrowed to little slits. “You don’t intend to…?”