“It’s great that you came so soon, Jakob,” Simon said through clenched teeth, “but we thought it might be without the children-”
“Wouldn’t that suit you just fine,” Kuisl interrupted gruffly. “Leave the sick grandmother with two screaming youngsters and enjoy your vacation. Nothing doing-Magdalena can just take care of her own little rascals.”
“Mother is sick?” Magdalena approached her father anxiously with her two children in her arms. “But why did you then-”
“What am I to do? Abandon my friend?” Kuisl said crossly. “Anyway, I don’t think it’s anything serious, just a stupid cough like so many in Schongau have nowadays. I wanted to stay, but…” He stopped short, then continued gruffly. “Your mother is a tough woman. She practically threw me out of the house when she heard about Nepomuk.”
“Nepomuk? Your friend?” Jakob Schreevogl, who had been standing quietly alongside them until then, gave the hangman a bewildered look. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. And just what are you doing in Andechs, Kuisl? Has the executioner come on a pilgrimage?”
“Ah… I’m afraid that’s a long story, my dear councilor,” Magdalena interrupted. “I’ll tell you about it another time, but for now we have a favor to ask.”
“And what would that be?”
Magdalena pointed at the coughing and wailing patients all around them. “Could you watch Simon’s patients for about an hour? The Kuisl family has a few things to discuss.”
The patrician was dumbfounded. “Me? But I have no idea how-”
“It’s very simple.” Magdalena handed Schreevogl a rag and a bucket of fresh water. “Wash the sweat from their brows, change the dressings now and then, and try to look serious and competent. Believe me, that’s all most doctors do.”
She took her two children by the hand and left the stinking infirmary with Simon and the hangman as the astonished patrician gazed after her.
Together the family climbed the steep lane up to the monastery church to find a quiet place to talk, but they soon found that wouldn’t be easy: The noon mass had just concluded, and crowds of attendees came streaming toward them. Magdalena noticed the number of pilgrims was significantly larger than the day before. There were still five days left before the Festival of the Three Hosts, but already the streets around the monastery were as crowded as at a church fair.
The pilgrims seemed to come from everywhere. Magdalena heard many strange German dialects-of which she knew only Swabian and Frankish-and saw that many pilgrims from individual villages stayed together in tight groups. There were poorly dressed day laborers, solid middle-class workers, and fat patricians who stepped delicately over steaming piles of horse manure, looking disgusted and holding up their trousers. Often someone would start singing a hymn, and the others would join in.
“Come sinners, come now, see the true son of God…”
Simon and the hangman took the kids on their backs to make their way through the crowds more easily. The air smelled of incense, fried fish, and dust from the road, and somewhere a boy was crying for his mother. Still, all the singing and praying made Magdalena feel peaceful.
“How did you ever find us in this crowd, Father?” Magdalena asked as they walked through the mass of people up to the church.
“I went down to see cousin Graetz,” the hangman grumbled. “At first there was just a dumb, red-headed farm boy there who didn’t want to let me in, but then Michael came along with his knacker’s wagon and told me my good son-in-law was caring for the sick even here in Andechs.”
“Does Graetz know why you’re here?” Simon asked anxiously. “Perhaps for the time being it’s better-”
“How dumb do you think I am? As far as Graetz knows, I’m here on a pilgrimage. That made a lot of sense to him-he said I needed it.” Kuisl clapped his hands impatiently. “But now enough of this chitchat. Tell me what happened to ugly old Nepomuk and what-for heaven’s sake-you have to do with all of it.” He looked around angrily. “Damn crowds. I know why I never go on pilgrimages.”
“I think I know a place where we’ll be undisturbed,” Magdalena replied with a grin, thinking about how much her father hated big crowds. That’s why the hangman always dreaded a public execution. “Follow me,” she called to the others, “there’s something I wanted to show you, in any case.”
Crossing the crowded church square, with its piles of stones and sacks of mortar, she headed toward the little gate she’d discovered the previous night. Followed by the others, she took the narrow path on the other side of the monastery wall, which led shortly to a chapel in the forest. The noise of the crowd receded; they met no one but a grim-looking woodcutter; then finally they were alone. The children crawled happily around the remains of a stone wall, and Simon gave them some pine cones and beechnuts to play with.
“This is where I heard the music yesterday,” Magdalena said softly.
“What damned music?” Kuisl growled. “Speak up, girl, before I have to put the thumb screws on you.”
Magdalena sat down on a fallen tree trunk not far from the chapel and started to recount what she and Simon had learned in the last three days. She told her father about the two dead men, the bloodbath in the watchmaker’s workshop, and the automaton that had vanished along with its master. Then she told him about the two attempts on her life.
“Someone by the wall here took a shot at me,” she said finally. “The strange thing is that I didn’t hear a shot, just a hissing sound.”
“A hissing? Maybe it was a bolt from a crossbow…” Her father scrutinized the trees around them, stopping suddenly in front of a beech where he scratched a bullet out of the bark with his finger. He frowned and held it up for them to see. “This is fresh,” he grumbled, “a rather high caliber. Are you really sure, girl, you didn’t hear a shot?”
“Father, I may be stubborn, but I’m not deaf.”
“Strange.” Kuisl rubbed the heavy, misshapen piece of lead in his callused fingers. “There’s actually only one weapon this could come from, and it’s very rare and valuable. I saw it only once, in the war.”
“So it was Nepomuk,” Simon interrupted excitedly. “After all, he was a mercenary and-”
“Nonsense.” The hangman spat on the ground in disgust. “When this happened, Nepomuk had already been in the dungeon a long time; you told me that yourself. So stick to the facts. These little monks are dubious characters, and if they themselves aren’t involved, they’re just trying to find someone to blame.”
“Just the same,” Simon objected, “your friend Nepomuk is keeping something from us. Evidently he was carrying out some experiments with Virgilius before the watchmaker disappeared.”
Kuisl rubbed the side of his huge nose, thinking. “Then I should no doubt have a serious talk with Nepomuk.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” asked Magdalena. “Are you going to just knock on the dungeon door, say you’re the Schongau hangman, and ask whether you can torture the prisoner just a bit to hear what he has to say? Andechs is under the jurisdiction of the court in Weilheim, don’t forget. If the governor learns you’re snooping around his district, you’ll quickly wind up on the rack yourself.”
“Give me a moment. I’ll come up with something,” Kuisl grumbled. “I always think of something. Now let’s go visit my cousin Michael,” he said, turning toward the gate. “The children are hungry, and so am I. You’ll see, it’s a lot easier to think with a full stomach and a good pipe to smoke.”
They walked out onto the church square still teeming with pilgrims. The workmen had now roped off an area near the south wing in order to continue the construction work without interruption. Many pilgrims were looking up anxiously at the holes in the charred roof; some of them grumbling because the main door to the church had been blocked briefly. Simon watched a group of angry pilgrims gather around the entrance.
“It’s taken me a week to walk here from Augsburg,” an old man complained. “A whole damned week. And now they won’t even let me into the church. This is a disgrace.”