A narrow smile spread across his face. “That’s a shame,” he replied. “A pilgrimage would surely have done the stubborn old fellow some good. It teaches you humility, don’t you think? Everyone needs to know his place in life.”
Without waiting for an answer, the burgomaster disappeared through a small door in the wall, leaving Magdalena seething with rage and her father grinding his teeth so loud it gave Simon goose bumps. Beneath the hood, Kuisl’s face was ashen.
“Damn patricians,” the hangman murmured. “They think we are nothing but dirt. I pray for the day when I get one of them on the rack.”
“You coward,” Magdalena glared at Simon. “Are you my husband, or what? Why did you cave in to that fat old moneybags?”
“Because I was trying to avoid a bloodbath, you silly goose,” Simon whispered. “Can’t you understand that? If a fight had broken out, your father would have killed old Semer in one blow and wound up on the scaffold. Damn! Why do you Kuisls always have to be so stubborn?”
Magdalena fell silent but looked at him defiantly while her father laughed softly. Evidently he’d calmed down a bit.
“You’re right, Simon,” he growled. “You probably just saved Semer’s life-and mine.”
Kuisl strolled toward the exit of the infirmary. “Brother Jakobus,” he laughed. “An itinerant Minorite and healer. Simon, Simon, where did you ever learn to make up stuff like that?” Grinning, he beckoned to the others to follow. “And now your Brother Jakobus will show you how to mix a really good potion for a fever-not the kind of trash a lousy bathhouse surgeon throws together.”
A few hours later Magdalena was frolicking about with her children in one of the many fields of flowers near the monastery. Peter was chasing after a butterfly while his younger brother romped about, pulling up wild flowers and herbs and sticking them in his mouth as his mother watched carefully to make sure none of them was poisonous.
Magdalena breathed in the fragrance of the summer breezes, trying to forget all the worries of the last few days. Simon and her father were still sitting in the knacker’s cottage, brooding over the theft of the three hosts. Her father seemed obsessed with plans to rescue his friend Nepomuk, forgetting everything else, including his two grandsons.
Peter and Paul had been tugging at their grandfather’s jacket for some time, but when he didn’t take them in his lap or toss them in the air, even after they’d pestered him a while, they started in on their mother. Magdalena finally gave up with a sigh and took them outdoors. The walk, she realized, was just what she needed.
Humming softly to herself, she strolled along the forest edge with the children, pointing out a spotted woodpecker and amusing the children by tossing pinecones at a few startled squirrels. The children’s laughter was infectious, and Magdalena felt really happy for the first time in days.
But then she remembered the cutting words of the Schongau burgomaster. “Hush, hangman’s girl.”
Karl Semer had called her a hussy and spoke of a den of vipers. To him she was just an impertinent, dishonorable slut moving in social circles far above her proper place in life. Semer had respect for Magdalena’s father-and probably even some fear-but to him the hangman’s daughter was nothing more than a whore. Full of trepidation, Magdalena thought about what things would be like once her father was gone. Would the Schongauers chase her out of town?
Paul’s cries startled her from her reveries. He had fallen on a slippery, mossy stone and cut his knee. While Magdalena tried to console him, she took him in her arms and looked around for the older boy. Her heart skipped a beat.
Peter had disappeared.
Frantically, Magdalena scanned the meadow and the forest edge, but the boy had vanished.
“Peter!” she shouted, over the wailing of her younger son. “Peter, where are you? Are you hiding?”
Somewhere a jay was calling, bees were humming, and her youngest child was whining, but otherwise there was just silence. Magdalena could feel herself breathing faster.
“Peter!” she shouted again, running into the woods. “This isn’t a game anymore. Are you in here somewhere? Your mom is looking for you.”
Clutching her youngest son in her arms, she staggered over some roots, moving deeper and deeper into trees, swallowed up by the forest as if by a silent army of giants. Suddenly she stopped: directly in front of her was a steep, almost vertical slope leading down into the earth. Below she could see rocks, wilted leaves, and dead branches.
Oh God! the thought flashed through her mind. Don’t let him have fallen down there.
For a brief moment, she thought she saw the body of her son lying like a broken doll among the branches. With relief she realized it was just a rotted branch, but then the anxiety returned. If Peter was not down there, how and why had he disappeared?
Had the golem snatched him?
Magdalena clenched her lips, trying not to scream. Simon, and her father, too, had told her that golems didn’t exist, but so many things had happened in the last few days that she herself would have never thought possible. Her heart was pounding so fast now that even little Paul looked at her anxiously.
“Mama?” he asked cautiously. “Mama is crying?”
Magdalena shook her head. “Peter…” she said as calmly and gently as possible, “he’s gone. We have to look for him. Will you help me look?”
“Peter with the man?” Paul asked. His mother looked at him, not understanding. He asked again, “Peter with the big man?”
“With what big man?” For a moment, Magdalena was so horrified she nearly dropped the boy. “Tell me, Paul, what man are you talking about?”
“The nice man. He has sweet berries.”
“Oh, God.” Magdalena’s voice turned shrill. “Dammit, Paul! Who was the man who gave you the berries?”
“There, the man there.” He pointed to the bottom of the slope where a rock stood almost as tall as a man. Behind it, the laughter of a child could be heard, and in the next moment, Peter appeared, beaming with joy, sitting atop someone’s shoulders.
It was the mute Matthias.
Magdalena felt a huge weight fall from her shoulders and relieved tears run down her cheeks as she burst into laughter. How could she ever have imagined a monster had taken off with her son? This monastery was driving her crazy.
“Ah, that man, you mean,” she said, waving to Peter and Matthias. Peter’s trousers were dirty and covered with wet leaves and his shirt had a rip in it, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. Cheerily he waved back.
“Mama!” he cried out. “Here I am, Mama. I fell down, but the man helped me.”
“You… you little brat.” Magdalena exploded. She was trying to sound strict despite her relief. “Haven’t I told you a hundred times not to run away from me? Just look at you.”
“The man helped me,” Peter replied calmly, and Matthias let out a loud grunt in greeting. Once again, as Magdalena looked down at the silent knacker’s helper, she was impressed at how handsome he was. With his strawberry blond hair and wide chest, he looked almost like Saint Christopher carrying the baby Jesus on his shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter who it is,” Magdalena chided as she looked for a safe place to climb down the slope with Paul in her arms. “Tonight you’re going to bed without your sweet porridge, do you hear?”
Finally she arrived at a somewhat flatter spot, where she could slowly slide down the gentle slope on slippery leaves. When she got to the bottom, she found Matthias grinning. He bowed slightly so she could take her oldest child in her arms.
“You’re never going to run away from me again, do you hear?” she scolded, holding him close to her bosom. “Never again.”
Silent Matthias was still grinning at her. Then he reached down into his trouser pocket and fetched out a prune, which he held under her nose. Only now did Magdalena notice that the mouth of her oldest child was smeared with prune juice.