“Master Schreevogl,” he said, turning to the councilor. “Could you do me a favor?”
“And what would that be?”
Quietly, so as not to waken the patients and start a panic, Simon told him.
Schreevogl nodded, moved toward the door, then turned again to address the medicus. “If you’re really right,” he said softly, but with a dark undertone, “then at least one head will roll here, and this time it won’t be the poor apothecary’s.”
Nepomuk Volkmar cowered in the pitch black of his cell, staring at his bloody fingers. Some were missing their nails, and the bloody stumps throbbed with a hellish pain.
In theory, the apothecary was happy he was unable to see anything in the darkness-at least that relieved him of the torture of seeing his battered body. But new waves of pain kept coursing through him, and he knew that such agony would be his constant companion from then on.
Master Hans had done a thorough job the day before. After he showed his victim the instruments of torture, as prescribed by law, he put Nepomuk in what they called the interrogation seat, a chair covered with spikes. His arms and legs were secured by iron clasps lined with spikes; even his feet were placed on a board of spikes. As the seated prisoner felt the spikes slowly cutting into his flesh, the pain followed quickly.
After two hours of torture in the interrogation chair, Nepomuk still hadn’t confessed to any witchcraft, so Master Hans started pulling out the apothecary’s fingernails with a set of long tongs.
It was then that Nepomuk’s screams were audible even in the square in front of the dungeon.
But despite all the pain, the monk had remained strong, closing his eyes, praying, declaring his innocence, and thinking about the words of his friend Jakob Kuisl.
No matter what happens, don’t confess. If you confess, it’s all over.
How could anyone not confess, knowing this was only the beginning? That far worse torture would follow until he finally collapsed, wailing, and confessed to witchcraft? Nepomuk had watched some tortures at his father’s side-his father, the executioner of Reutling-and knew that victims yearned for death at some point. When they were finally dragged to the scaffold like animals to slaughter, there was often not much left of them but broken bones.
Would he be able to keep silent after he, too, had been reduced to a whimpering bundle of flesh, yearning for his own death? How long would it take?
Finally after hours of torture, he’d been dragged back to his cell. When the trapdoor slammed shut over him, he could only wait in the darkness for the next horror. Sleep was out of the question, so as the hours dragged by, Nepomuk tried to console himself with memories of better days. The melody of a fiddle; the rhythmic beat of drums before battle; the wild parties with the other mercenaries; the many practice battles with his only real friend, Jakob Kuisl; their conversations on long winter nights in burned-out barns or in the protection of storm-buffeted, half-ruined castles…
“Where is your God, anyway?” Jakob asks as Nepomuk rubs the dirty rosary between his fingers. “Is he dead? I can’t see him; I can’t hear him.”
“You can only believe in him,” Nepomuk answers.
Jakob laughs softly, turning a sizzling rabbit on the spit as fat hisses and drips into the flames.
“I believe in hard iron,” he says finally. “In laws, and in death.”
“God is stronger than death, Jakob.”
The son of the Schongau executioner watches his friend for a long time, then stomps off silently into the night.
The next day they string up a half dozen outlaws together. As the bandits writhe about in the trees above, Jakob suddenly looks over to his friend as if still expecting an answer from him.
Nepomuk remains silent.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”
Sitting in his cell, mumbling softly, Nepomuk recited the eternal words of the rosary, hoping to rekindle an old faith that seemed to be slowly escaping through tiny cracks in the walls.
“Blessed are thou amongst women, and blessed is…”
A creak of the trapdoor above him caused Nepomuk’s heart to race. He knew they were coming to fetch him for another session. His tongue became as dry as a bone, and he suddenly felt himself start to shake.
In fact it wasn’t long before the ladder was lowered down again. Since he was too weak to climb unassisted, one of the watchmen descended and tied a rope around his waist. Then the men overhead all pulled together, hauling him up like a fish wiggling on a hook.
“Save your strength,” a familiar voice said. “You’ll need it.” It was Master Hans, standing next to the trapdoor above with his arms crossed, looking like a white-haired avenging angel. With bloodshot eyes, the Weilheim executioner examined his victim, then checked him all over for broken bones. Nepomuk knew that Master Hans, like so many other executioners, was also considered an excellent healer. It was his job to ensure the prisoner was fit for further torture.
“Listen up,” Master Hans began, almost sounding compassionate as he probed Nepomuk like a piece of raw meat. “You know I make good money every day I torture you, so I should really be happy you held up so well yesterday. On the other hand…” He studied Nepomuk’s swollen, bloody fingers, as if checking over his own work once more. “On the other hand, it’s my duty to tell you that your denials are pointless. Believe me, you’ll confess eventually-any other outcome would damage my reputation. So don’t make it so hard on yourself.” He brought his lips right up to Nepomuk’s ear. “You said that you yourself come from a hangman’s family, so you must know all this better than I, dear cousin.”
Laughing, the executioner gave Nepomuk a friendly pat on the shoulder. Then he closed the spiked iron clamp around the monk’s neck, and the guards pushed him through a hallway illuminated by torches.
“Today, you’ll have a special guest,” Master Hans said as he led the contingent down the passageway with a lantern. “Count von Casana und Colle is tired of leading the questioning and would prefer to go hunting. So would I, if I had the time and money.” The Weilheim executioner shook his head scornfully. “The noble gentleman looked pale as a ghost yesterday when I pulled out your fingernails.” Softly he added, “This is nothing for such a spoiled man accustomed to white bread. He was that way the last time, too. The only blood the count can bear to look at is deer’s blood.”
“Who’s coming in his place?” Nepomuk gasped as the iron spikes dug into his neck. He had the quiet hope a more moderate jurist from Munich might be more interested in truth than in magic. The two witnesses were obsequious Weilheim aldermen who would do anything the count asked. Perhaps they could be swayed for the better by a scholar from the city.
“You know him,” Master Hans responded after a while. “The count himself chose him for this job, to give him a chance to earn his stripes, so to speak.”
In the meantime, they’d reached the entrance to the torture chamber. The executioner opened the door, and the bailiffs pulled Nepomuk into a dark room illuminated only by a crackling fire in an iron bowl. Just as in his cell before, the apothecary was overcome by uncontrollable shaking. His eyes wandered over the interrogation chair, still bloody from the day before, the rack, and the winch with which Master Hans would no doubt be hoisting him up until his tendons snapped like dry ropes.
On the right side of the room was a wide table with an inkpot, some rolls of paper, and a heavy book on top. Three men sat behind the table, two of them the portly Weilheim aldermen whom Nepomuk had met the day before. The two chubby men, wrapped in expensive clothing, glared at him with a mixture of disgust, fear, and curiosity-almost as if they expected the sorcerer to fly away.