Kerscher nodded obsequiously. “The third inquisitor, of course. Such a bastard. I can understand why you’d want to get back at him. It was-”
At that moment a piercing scream came from the floor above.
Kuisl turned to find Fat Thea coming down the stairs with a pitcher of wine, which slipped from her grasp and shattered on the floor.
Suddenly it felt to Kuisl as if the entire house were beginning to sway beneath him. Everything seemed to happen at once-the pitcher breaking, the commotion on the floor above, the doors opening all around him like portals to hell. Men stared at him, but their faces were strangely blurred, and they all seemed to be shouting at him at once. Was he shouting, too? Kuisl couldn’t say. Everything around him had become a muffled roar.
He shook his head to clear his mind a bit. Someone approached and tried to grab him, but Kuisl flung the figure aside like a rag doll and stumbled toward the stairs. Out! He had to get out, he had to get away from here before he collapsed once and for all. Again he felt someone grab him by his injured shoulder. The hangman crouched, rolling the man over his back and sending him tumbling down the stairs, screaming.
Kuisl could hear himself scream, too; he raged like a wounded bear backed into a corner by a pack of hunting dogs. Again he reached out with his good right arm and pulled one of the men close, smashing the man’s nose against his forehead. Kuisl felt the man’s warm blood on his face and heard him howl as he tossed him aside like a straw puppet. His pain and fear lent him one last burst of energy before unconsciousness threatened to overcome him.
Half crazed, he staggered down the steps, kicked the front door open, and dashed out into the fresh air. He inhaled deeply, and immediately his mind began to clear. Holding his throbbing shoulder, he hobbled toward a low wall and climbed over. On the other side he collapsed in a garden overgrown with thorny blackberries and wild rosebushes.
Kuisl was finished. Leaning against the crumbling wall, pricked on all sides by thorns, and raging with pain, he waited for his pursuers to find him and drag him back to his cell.
He closed his eyes and listened as the sound of excited voices approached.
Among them he heard the voice of his most hated enemy.
Simon and Magdalena heard the shouts just as they were sneaking across the cathedral square.
Catching their breath, they pressed their backs against the front of a patrician house and watched as a dozen city guards rushed past, heading south toward Neupfarr Church Square. Only a few minutes had passed since they fled the catacombs. Could Nathan already have betrayed them to Mamminger? Was the city treasurer’s power so great he could summon the entire city guard in an instant, just to pursue them?
Simon heard alarm bells begin to ring all over town, as if all of Regensburg were being called to Easter mass. The beggars had told him that each quarter of the city kept its own company of guards-a civilian militia called upon only in times of war or fire or other grave catastrophe. The militias were summoned to duty by the ringing of church bells. When another dozen soldiers came running from the old grain market through the cathedral square, the medicus feared the worst.
“Where could they all be headed?” Magdalena whispered, pressing herself even closer to the wall as the bailiffs marched south, just a few yards away. “They can’t all be looking for us, can they?”
Simon shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I also don’t see any signs of fire, and it’s unlikely war’s broken out. Perhaps they’re going to smoke out the beggars’ hideaway. That’s more or less the direction they’re headed.”
“Something’s fishy here,” Magdalena muttered, taking Simon’s hand and leading him out onto the now-deserted cathedral square. “Come on; let’s follow them and see.”
“That’s much too dangerous!” Simon said. “Believe me, the bishop’s palace is the only safe place for us right now. We’ve got to find the fastest way-”
“Oh, come now,” Magdalena interrupted. “Life’s dangerous. Let’s go.”
Simon followed her with a sigh as the haven of the bishop’s residence disappeared behind them in the darkness. They turned into Judengasse Street, which ended in Neupfarr Church Square with its austere Protestant church. Just as they were about to step out into the open square, they noticed a group of perhaps thirty city bailiffs at its center, gesticulating wildly toward the south. The shrill alarm bells were still ringing, and many citizens had by now opened their shutters to gape at the spectacle below from the safety of their balconies.
“I have to know what the guards are up to,” Magdalena whispered. “Let’s creep up a little closer.”
Simon knew his friend well enough now to sense it was pointless to argue. She had a wrinkle in her brow that meant there was just no stopping her. So he knelt down beside her on the dirty cobblestones spattered with horse manure, knowing it would ruin his last decent pair of trousers. Under the cover of darkness they crept toward the light of the torches.
The men in front of them were not trained soldiers but common citizens, some still in nightshirts and bathrobes beneath hastily donned cuirasses. Their hair was disheveled, their faces pale and frightened. In their hands they held rusty pikes, daggers, and crossbows that seemed like survivors from an earlier century. They were bakers, carpenters, butchers, and simple linen weavers, and to judge by their appearance, the last thing in the world they wanted to do was stand here in the middle of the night, listening to a speech by the captain of the guards.
“Citizens, listen up!” a bearded, elderly man exhorted them. In contrast to the others, he looked at least halfway battle-tested. In his right hand he clutched a halberd over ten feet long with a point that glittered menacingly in the torchlight. “As many of you perhaps already know, the Schongau monster, the throat slitter and bloodsucker, broke out of his cell last night. But that’s not all. Yesterday, the murderer strangled Master Baker Haberger and gruesomely slaughtered Marie Deisch in her own bathhouse-”
An anxious whisper spread among the men, and the commander of the guards raised his hand for silence.
“Fortunately the man has been found. He’s lurking somewhere down by Peter’s Gate, and with your help we’ll send him back to hell today once and for all! Three cheers for our strong and mighty city!”
The old officer had evidently expected some enthusiasm-or at least a response-but the men in the crowd before him remained strangely silent and whispered among themselves.
Then a young boy in a stained old mercenary helmet raised his hand hesitantly. “Is it true that the monster bites his victims’ necks and drinks their blood?”
The old officer, who hadn’t expected that question, stood still for a moment with his mouth open. “Ah… as far as I know, he used a knife, but-”
“They say this Kuisl is a werewolf, that he turns into a beast at night and eats little children,” someone else added. “He’s already ripped apart five prostitutes and drunk their blood. How are we going to hunt a demon like that with our rusty old swords and crossbows? He’ll probably just take wing and fly away!”
Those standing around him clamored in agreement. At the crowd’s edge a few anxious men seemed about to turn around and go home.
“Nonsense!” The captain pounded his halberd on the ground as a call to order. “This Kuisl is a man like any other, but he’s a murderer. And for that reason we’ll capture him today and bring him to justice. Do you understand? It’s your goddamned duty as citizens!” His threatening eyes wandered over the assembled company of pale, unshaven men. “You can, of course, buy your way out of this obligation, but believe me, I’ll check with the president of the council to see that you pay dearly.”