Magdalena nodded silently. When the Venetian untied the knot behind her head and pulled the gag out of her mouth, she spat in his face.
“Murderer, damn you! You’ve killed Simon! For that you’ll roast a thousand years in hell. I’ll rip your puny balls right off, I’ll-mmmmhhhh!”
Silvio forced the gag back into her mouth. “That wasn’t our agreement,” he whispered. “So once again, will you keep silent?”
Tears of anger welled up in Magdalena’s eyes, but she nodded a second time. When Silvio removed the dirty rag again, she kept quiet.
“Take this stubborn woman down below!” Silvio ordered. One of the raftsmen tossed Magdalena over his shoulder like just another sack of flour and climbed down from the wagon, panting.
Though she was upside down now, the hangman’s daughter could see that the wagon had come to rest on a wide road that wound through fields and meadows. The city wall lay less than a half-mile behind them. Nearby, on a hill that rose over rolling meadows, stood a strange, three-legged structure. Lifeless bodies hung from it, swaying in the gentle summer breeze. Despite the midsummer heat, Magdalena shivered.
My God, the Regensburg gallows hill! What do these insane men intend to do with me?
But the raftsman headed off in another direction entirely, along a little path where bushes, red poppies, and yellow broom grew wild, toward a stone staircase that led underground. Silvio, who was already waiting at the bottom of the stairs, opened a heavy iron door and bowed slightly as Magdalena entered a dark room on the raftsman’s back.
“After you, bella donna,” he purred. “Welcome to your new home. You’ll be spending the next several days and weeks here. It may be a bit damp, but we all must make some sacrifices in the name of science, mustn’t we?”
They were standing in a subterranean room built of huge stone blocks and filled with the sound of splashing water. The broad-shouldered raftsman set Magdalena down roughly on a stone bench and lit a torch. Only now could she see that the splashing came from a small waterfall that cascaded down the wall and emptied into a shallow basin at the back of the room. Stone tablets were mounted on the walls, but it was too dark to read the inscriptions. Behind the basin an arched passageway led to another vaulted area from which a loud rushing sound emanated.
Working silently, the five raftsmen carried the bags of flour past her and Silvio, through the knee-deep basin and into the rear vault. When they finished, the Venetian signaled to them.
“Stand guard up above. Only Jeremias will stay with us.” He pointed at a hefty raftsman to their left, who nodded politely and planted himself next to Magdalena with arms crossed. “Just in case you should refuse to take your water cure,” he reassured the hangman’s daughter. “As you know, patients can be a bit uncooperative at times.”
With a creak, the iron door swung closed.
“Don’t worry.” The Venetian fetched a tin cup from his pocket. “You won’t have to eat any flour. You’ll drink the ergot diluted with water. Sadly, I can’t offer you wine, as that would distort the effect.” Silvio took out a silver teaspoon, scooped some flour from an open sack, and stirred the pale blue powder into the cup.
“We still don’t know exactly how strong the poison is in humans,” he declared, “and above all, how fast it acts. If we dilute the ergot with well water rather than baking it into bread, it will presumably take effect later.” He sniffed the cup and shrugged. “We expect the Reichstag to last a few weeks, and that should give us enough time. For you that means, unfortunately, the experiment may be a bit prolonged, but your hallucinations promise to be quite interesting in such an environment. May I?” Silvio set the cup down, pulled out a dagger, and with a flourish cut the ropes binding Magdalena’s feet. “Since you’ll be here a few weeks, you ought to be allowed to move about freely at least. You simply must have a look around your new home. It’s really… well, come see for yourself.”
Silvio climbed over the edge of the basin and waded toward the dark vault in the back.
He really intends to lock me in this place for the next few weeks and force me to drink cup after cup of this damned ergot! Magdalena thought. She closed her eyes, hoping to suppress her growing panic. The noise of rushing water was already getting on her nerves, and the echo in the underground vault intensified the volume until it sounded like a single towering waterfall.
How long will it take the nightmares to overwhelm me? And what will they be like down here, in this pit?
Magdalena decided to keep quiet and followed the Venetian and his stocky companion into the vault in back. She ducked under the low archway, then took an involuntary step backward.
The room was gigantic.
Torches illuminated a narrow corridor at regular intervals until, past where the eye could see, the light was swallowed in darkness. The vault had to be over a half-mile long. Water shimmered across the floor, but she couldn’t tell how deep it might be. Even more water streamed into the basin from holes and pipes in the wall-some small, some large-and the sound of splashing filled the room, echoing from the walls and ceiling. To either side, more than two dozen flour sacks were lined neatly along narrow elevated ledges.
“Welcome to your new home,” Silvio shouted over the roar. “The entire world drinks from this spring!”
He ordered Jeremias to hand him the tin cup, then pointed at the sacks. “We’ll store the ergot here until the Reichstag begins, and then we’ll slowly start dissolving the thirty one-hundred-pound bags in the water. You needn’t be afraid that anyone will find you down here, since I’m the only one with a key. And now…” With a solemn gesture Silvio held the cup under a small stream. Carefully he swirled the water to dissolve the ergot, then put the cup to Magdalena’s lips. “It’s time for our experiment. One cup a day. Be good now, and drink up.”
With her hands still bound, Magdalena turned her head from side to side. Nevertheless, Jeremias held her in his viselike grip while Silvio maneuvered the cup.
“Oh, by the way…” Silvio was speaking almost directly into her ear now. “I do hope very much that your visions are not all gloomy and gruesome. I’ve heard ergot can stimulate physical desire. If that’s the case, do let me know. I’d be glad to share a few dreams with you.”
The cup had reached Magdalena’s lips.
Screaming, Friedrich Lettner writhed on the floor of the ruined church as hornets swarmed over his face and upper body. He thrashed about as if possessed, crushing dozens of the insects in his swollen hands, even as new ones kept coming.
Meanwhile Kuisl sought shelter behind the altar, out of sight of the angry hornets. Leaning against the huge stone slab, he peered out to observe an utterly bewildered Philipp Lettner. Only after a few moments did the raftmaster run toward Friedrich and attempt to swat the hornets away from his brother’s shirt collar. But in doing so he was stung several times himself.
“Damn you, Kuisl!” Philipp Lettner shouted, waving his katzbalger through the air as if warding off invisible ghosts. “Damn you and your whole clan! Damn you forever!”
Kuisl had no time to waste now. Sword raised, he ran toward his opponent, who was still preoccupied with the hornets circling around him while trying to help his brother. The raftmaster cast an irritated sidelong glance at Kuisl, then, with a growl, left Friedrich to his own devices as he prepared himself for battle. A cloud of hornets circled his head and clouded his vision.
“You damned son of a whore!” Lettner shouted, brushing away a few angry buzzing insects with his left hand. “For this, Jakob, I’ll slit your belly open and hang your entrails from the church steeple.”