I have to make it… Oh, stubborn, irascible God, please, for Magdalena’s sake…
The wagon squeezed through the exit and rolled out into the Pfaffengasse. Kuisl gave the cart a final shove so that it veered to the left, crashing into a doorway, where it exploded. Burning hay and glowing splinters rained down as the flames began to spread.
Wheezing from the smoke, the hangman ran down the Pfaffengasse, looking back one last time. By now the fire had spread to the building’s ground floor and the shop window on the floor above. Everywhere citizens were shouting and running to the public well with buckets to get water. In spite of his pain, Kuisl couldn’t suppress a grin. This would keep the guards occupied for a while at least.
The hangman ran on a few yards, finally turning into a little side street, where he found a pair of old splintered barrels. One of them lay on its side, and with the last of his strength Kuisl folded up his legs and squeezed himself in so that he was no longer visible from the outside. Numbed by his fever and the wine fumes inside, he felt half dead as the shouts of the crowd gradually moved away. He closed his eyes and resisted the urge to fall asleep. He had to get out of here, at once. Where was Teuber? Where was his house, the safe house of the executioner, his friend…?
When Kuisl heard singing, he thought he was dreaming at first. The song was definitely not of this world, but from a time long ago.
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home…
He listened in astonishment. The singing wasn’t coming from just anywhere, but from the street to the immediate left of where he was hiding. And it was no figment of his imagination but reality, pure and simple.
Your house is on fire, your children will burn…
Now the voice was right beside him, both off-key and very familiar.
“Do you really think we’re going to find your father this way?” Simon complained. “So far we’ve only managed to avoid being hit by a chamber pot-twice. And frankly, your singing leaves something to be desired.”
“It’s not about how well I sing, just that I’m singing,” Magdalena snapped. “The main thing is it’s loud enough for Father to hear me.”
Simon laughed. “Well, loud you are, all right. You’re even drowning out the alarm bells.”
They were moving slowly south from Neupfarr Church Square, winding through little side streets. Three times already they’d encountered bands of armed city guards, who on any other ordinary night and without a second thought would have thrown Magdalena and Simon into the House of Fools for disturbing the peace. But the pale, anxious guards were otherwise occupied now and simply peered intently at the strange couple before setting off again. Simon and Magdalena could hear the shouts of guards from every direction and then a far-off but very loud explosion.
“Let me think,” Magdalena whispered, already going hoarse from singing Hans, Hans, has fancy pants… The night of winter’s over… “I’m running out of songs. Can you think of another one?”
As a child, the hangman’s daughter often sang with her father. Now she hoped he might recognize her voice and the songs she chose. In this way, at least, she looked a lot less suspicious than if she were running around calling out his name. For the watchmen, as well as the curious onlookers who stared out at them from behind shutters, she looked like just another drunken prostitute staggering through the streets with a client.
Magdalena was struggling to think of another song when her face brightened in a flash.
“I have one more,” she said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner!”
She started singing a lullaby her father always hummed to her just before bed. And as she did so, memories of her father passed through her mind in fragments.
The scent of sweat and tobacco as he bends down to me. Piggybacking on the shoulders of a giant who protects me from an evil world-strong, invincible, the god of my childhood…
Tears ran down her cheeks, but still she kept on singing.
“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home…”
Suddenly a ghost emerged from a rotten wine barrel in the gutter and staggered to its feet. The enormous figure wore tattered trousers and a bloodstained linen shirt, its arms and legs covered with bandages and its face dusted with cinders. Magdalena knew at once who stood before her.
“Father, my God, Father!” she screamed, nearly hysterical, not giving a single thought to whether guards might be nearby. Quickly she covered her mouth with her hand and whispered, “Holy Saint Anthony, we’ve really found you. You’re alive!”
“Not for much longer if you keep on singing like that,” Kuisl replied as he staggered toward his daughter. Only now did Magdalena realize how severely wounded he was.
“We have to… get away… from here,” he stammered. “They’re… on our… trail. The third inquisitor…”
Magdalena frowned. “The third inquisitor? What are you talking about, Father?”
“I thought he’d caught you,” he said in a low voice. “He knows you and the name of your mother. The devil is out for revenge.”
“It’s got to be a fever,” Simon said. “Hallucinations that-”
“Weidenfeld!” Kuisl shouted through his pain. “He’s out for revenge!”
“My God!” Magdalena put her hand over her mouth again. “There’s that name again. Who’s this damned Weidenfeld?”
The alarm bells were still ringing, and over them the guards’ voices sounded suddenly much closer than before, only a few streets away now. A window opened directly above the little group, and a toothless old man in a nightcap glared down at them suspiciously.
“Quiet, goddamn it! You good-for-nothing drunks! If you want to have a good time, take your woman somewhere else!”
Simon grabbed the nearly unconscious hangman by the shoulder and led him quickly behind the barrels.
“The bishop’s palace,” he whispered to Magdalena, who knelt down next to him. “We have to go there and ask the church for asylum. That’s our only chance! We certainly won’t make it out of town tonight.”
“And do you really think the bishop will grant asylum to a suspected murderer?” Magdalena asked skeptically.
Simon nodded enthusiastically. “Asylum in the church has been sacred since time immemorial! Only the bishop has the power to make and enforce laws on lands belonging to the church, so once your father makes it there, the city guards are powerless.”
“Isn’t that just wonderful!” Magdalena rolled her eyes. “The bishop himself, rather than the city, will have the personal privilege of breaking my father on the wheel. What a relief!”
“At least we’ll gain some time,” Simon replied. “I’m sure once we know what your uncle’s alchemical experiments were all about, we’ll get a better handle on what the big secret is. Then maybe we can start to prove your father’s innocence.”
“And if not, then all this will have been for naught!” Magdalena shook her head. “Out of the question! My father’s free now. Why would I put him right back in danger again?”
“Just look at him!” Simon pointed at Kuisl, who crouched behind a wine barrel, his head hanging down to his chest, breathing heavily. “We’ll be lucky if we can even make it to the bishop’s palace. But if we do, at least your father will get the care he obviously needs.”
All of a sudden the voices of the guards sounded very close, their footsteps pounding on the hard-packed clay soil. Magdalena watched as two of them charged around the corner and into the narrow lane. She held her breath; she could feel her exhausted father leaning hard against the barrel, and the barrel itself was now threatening to topple under his weight. Mustering all her might, she hugged her father close, hoping to keep both him and the barrel upright. The bailiffs raced past and soon disappeared in the darkness.
“Very well,” Magdalena whispered. “We’ll do as you say. But if they harm so much as a single hair on my father’s head, you’ll be sleeping alone for many years to come!”