“Spare the talk and fight, will you?”
Without another word, Kuisl lunged at his enemy. He felt the hornets sting his arms, face, and back, but the pain was eclipsed by his fever and the excitement of battle. The hangman was horrified to realize that the clanging swords aroused something like lust in him.
Just as before… the smell of blood, the screams of dying men. It’s like a fog that suddenly engulfs a man-only much clearer…
He could see Philipp Lettner clearly in front of him now, but the former mercenary’s movements seemed strangely slow. Kuisl lunged with his sword, flailing away at his opponent, who continued to retreat, for the first time with fear in his eyes. Finally Lettner’s back was to the wall, and the two warriors stood face-to-face, less than an inch apart, with crossed swords.
“The letter in the bishop’s palace,” Kuisl gasped. “What was that sentence supposed to mean? Did you really think I would believe such utter nonsense?”
Philipp Lettner’s eyes lit up as he flashed his wolfish grin again.
“It’s the truth, just as sure as I’m standing here before you!” With great effort the raftmaster forced Kuisl’s sword a hand’s width to the side. “I had to make only a few quick calculations. I learned from the Venetian how old your daughter is-twenty-four! Barely a year before that, late in the fall, we were here in Weidenfeld. Your Anna had screamed at the time, but believe me, Jakob, they were screams of desire.”
“You dirty lying bastard!” Anger blinded Kuisl like a corrosive poison. Over and over a line flashed through his mind, a line from the letter slipped into his pocket just the night before in the bishop’s palace… That one line hurt more than all the torture he’d experienced in the Regensburg dungeon.
Kiss my daughter Magdalena for me… her mother tasted like a sweet ripe plum…
“Bastard!”
Kuisl shoved Lettner so hard he cried out in surprise as he staggered back to the wall. This put the raftmaster just beyond Kuisl’s reach, so Lettner took a deep breath, planted his feet firmly, and braced himself for the next attack. Scornfully he spat on the ground and swung the katzbalger through the air while his brother still rolled around on the ground, howling.
“I may be a dirty bastard,” Philipp Lettner whispered, “but I’m not a liar. I took Anna-Maria like a steer takes a cow. And what do I learn all these years later? That shortly after our rendezvous pretty little Anna was pregnant. What a coincidence!” He licked his lips and giggled. “Take another look at your daughter, Jakob! How could she not be mine? Her soft eyes; her matted, always-snarled hair; her full lips. She doesn’t take after you at all, does she?”
“She takes after her mother,” Kuisl said between clenched teeth as doubts started to grow in his mind. Anna-Maria never told him the name of the village she came from, and that was likely why he’d forgotten the name Weidenfeld completely. He knew she’d experienced horrible things there, but just what and how horrible these things were she’d never said.
She tasted like a sweet ripe plum…
Blood-red spots appeared before Kuisl’s eyes and his head began to spin.
I can’t let him get to me, he thought. He wants me to lose control… But why else would Anna have never spoken about it? Her sad face, when I took my baby girl in my arms and sang her to sleep… I can’t let him get to me…
“She’s my daughter,” the hangman replied flatly. “My daughter, my-”
“Maybe you’re right,” Lettner interrupted. “Perhaps she isn’t mine after all. Or maybe she is.” He chuckled. “You know something funny? A while ago, in the bathhouse, I very nearly burned her alive, along with that little quack. I was there just to cover my own tracks. When someone came in, I hid up in the attic but later ran down to smoke the intruders out of the cellar. By God, I didn’t know it was Magdalena at the time, but when the Venetian told me about it the next morning, I really did feel bad.” The raftmaster laughed loudly. “Whether you believe me or not, I like the girl; I feel close to her. I could have killed her a dozen times, but I didn’t. And do you know why? Because I know I’m her father.”
“Never!” the hangman yelled. “You-you damned liar!”
Philipp Lettner sighed theatrically. “Oh, Jakob, why must you be so pigheaded? Let’s agree that Magdalena has two fathers. That’s more than fair, isn’t it?” He snickered when he saw Kuisl clutching his sword so hard the blood drained from his fingers.
“I’ve sown doubt in your mind, haven’t I?” the raftmaster said. “I’ve given you a wound that will never heal. From now on, whenever you look at your daughter, you’ll see my face, too. That’s my revenge. Now, fight!” Philipp Lettner rushed the hangman like a man possessed, his teeth bared, holding the katzbalger out in front of him.
Kuisl lowered his sword feebly to the ground and, with a vacant look in his eyes, awaited the final blow.
“How long will it take us to get to this damned wellspring?” Simon asked Nathan, gasping as they hurried along the low corridor. “That madman may already be forcing ergot down Magdalena’s throat!”
Just as they had the last time they visited the Wohrd together, the beggar and the medicus made their way through the underwater tunnel connecting the city with the island. Foul water stood knee-deep in places in the muddy passageway, and falling bits of stone kept reminding Simon that only a thin wall of rock, clay, and dirt separated them from the Danube. And the decrepit bricks and beams of the ceiling weren’t reassuring.
Stooping, the beggar king ran ahead, carrying a lantern that bobbed like a will-o’-the-wisp lighting the way. Nevertheless, Simon managed to stumble several times. At one point his boot stuck on a half-submerged stone, toppling him over into cold brown muck. Grinning, Nathan held the lantern up to the medicus’s mud-splattered face.
“If you keep doing that, we’re never going to get there,” he squawked, his voice still hoarse from all the smoke at the mill. “The wellspring and the new chamber they’ve built around it lie to the south of the city, in the fields near the gallows hill. We still have quite a ways to go.”
“Near the gallows hill?” Simon asked as he stood up again and wiped off his jacket as best he could. “Not exactly the ideal place for a freshwater spring, is it? Are you really certain we’ll find them there?”
Nodding, Nathan marched ahead with the lantern. “Quite sure. The well chamber at Pruller Heights was built only a few years ago. It feeds into the fountain on Haid Square, as well as the bishop’s palace, but most importantly, it feeds into city hall. If someone wishes to poison the Reichstag, that’s where he’ll be. Ouch!” He bumped his head on a jagged rock on the low ceiling. “Moreover, our dear Venetian friend will be absolutely undisturbed there. Except for a fountain guard, no one has access to the chamber. As far as I know, it’s under lock and key. And because it lies deep underground, Silvio can store the stuff there for months and simply pour his poison slowly into the spring.”
“A perfect place to imprison and poison someone with ergot over the coming days and weeks,” Simon mused. “Come, we must hurry!”
“Don’t worry. And if you didn’t have to lie down and take your mud baths all the time, we’d be there faster,” Nathan replied.
Finally they reached the end of the tunnel. As before, they climbed a matted fishnet like a rope ladder to a hole in the ceiling. They emerged at last into the roomy trunk that smelled as badly of fish now as it had a few days ago.
When Nathan opened the lid, fresh air rushed in. Simon eagerly took several deep breaths before he ventured a look outside. Barrels, bales, and crates towered all around them, and in the distance they could hear shouting. Every now and again it sounded as though someone passed close by.
Nathan whistled between his fingers, and shortly thereafter they heard a whistled reply. The beggar king nodded contentedly.