The man had not removed his hangman’s hood and at first spoke not a word, not breaking his silence until they were in the torture chamber. His voice was firm and matter-of-fact, and he kept asking the same questions.
Confess, witch! Who taught you your magic?
Who are your brothers and sisters?
Where do you meet? In the forest? In the cemetery? Up in the old castle?
Where do you meet on the witches’ Sabbath?
How do you brew the drink that makes you fly?
Confess, witch, confess, confess, confess. .
There was nothing Adelheid could tell him-she just shook her head and pleaded for her life. But he had continued asking the same questions, his voice an unending torrent of words.
Confess, witch, confess, confess, confess. .
Then he took her back to her cell and whispered in her ear one final, strange sentence.
This is the first degree.
Adelheid knew from stories she’d heard that suspects were always first shown the instruments of torture. Often that, by itself, was enough, and they confessed out of sheer terror. But the apothecary’s wife had no idea what to confess to, and the man had brought her back without saying a word, tied her to the bench again, and left her alone.
What the second, third, or fourth degree might be, she could now hear in the next room.
From deep within the walls she heard another high-pitched scream, and she groaned softly. There was no doubt that the torture was continuing in the chamber. The screams of the other prisoner faded in and out, but somehow Adelheid knew the man would not inflict pain on her until the other woman was dead.
Hang on, whoever you are. Hang on as long as possible.
A while ago Adelheid had made out some bits of words amid all the screams-shrill calls for help, pleading, praying-but since then, the words had begun to sound like the whimpers of a mad person.
And they grew weaker and weaker.
Hang on.
Adelheid closed her eyes and mumbled a quiet prayer as the screams seemed to pierce her like needles.
Hang on!
“Damn, this is tobacco the way I love it. Black as the devil’s hair and sweet as the ass of a young whore.”
His eyes closed, Jakob Kuisl sat in the Bamberg hangman’s dining room, puffing on his pipe as dark clouds of smoke rose to the ceiling. The foul-smelling tobacco seemed to transform the hangman into a more peaceful, sociable creature. The others present rubbed their stinging eyes and occasionally coughed, but accepted that as the price they had to pay.
The fading light of autumn had turned to night several hours earlier, and the Kuisls were sitting together around the huge oaken table while Katharina cleared away the bowls, plates, and tableware. From the ingredients Magdalena and Barbara had brought back to her from the Bamberg markets, Bartholomäus’s fiancée had conjured up the most delicious meal Magdalena had eaten in months. Now she sat across the table from her father, feeling full, relaxed, and tired, watching as he blew smoke rings of various sizes across the room. The boys, Peter and Paul, were already asleep after Barbara had told them a long bedtime story.
Outside, the autumn rain beat against the shutters and the wind howled like a wild beast. With dread, Magdalena thought about the previous night and the terrible events her father and Uncle Bartholomäus had just related to them.
“And someone really slit open this poor girl’s chest in order to take out her heart?” she asked in the ensuing silence. “For heaven’s sake, who would do such a thing?”
“What rubbish,” growled Bartholomäus, who was sitting at the table off to one side, whittling a piece of pinewood. “Your father just made that up. The perpetrator probably just took a swing at the poor child to keep her quiet.”
“And what about the toenails that were ripped out on the leg the captain showed us?” Jakob said. “Did the perpetrator just take a wild swing there, too? This is one too many coincidences for me.”
“Well, even if that’s the case,” Bartholomäus said, casting a dark glance at his brother, “I really can’t understand why you have to tell us all about it here, Jakob. The head of the city guards expressly-”
“What I tell my family is none of your damned business,” Kuisl interrupted, nodding toward Georg and Simon. “Georg already knows about it, and he’ll take it to his grave with him-and my son-in-law may be just a bathhouse owner, but he knows a thing or two about medicine. So why shouldn’t I ask them for their advice?”
Magdalena couldn’t help laughing. “Good God, wonders never cease! This would be the first time you asked my husband for advice,” she said, turning to Simon. “Right?”
Simon just shrugged. He was warming his hands on a cup of hot coffee-his favorite brew, Magdalena knew, for stimulating his thinking. “In any case, I don’t believe this crime can be kept secret very long,” he finally said. “By now, half the city already knows about the hairy monster.”
“You’re right.” said Georg, stretching. The long, strenuous day had clearly tired him out, as well. “I was in the Bamberg Forest today, and later I went over to St. Gangolf to pick up a few dead sheep. Even there, people are talking about this beast, and they think it can only be a werewolf.” He shook his head. “If the prince-bishop learns about this. .”
“Unfortunately, he already has,” Simon interrupted with a sigh, “from his own suffragan bishop, Sebastian Harsee. Do you know him? He’s really a disagreeable fellow.”
He briefly told about his meeting with Master Samuel and the dark suspicions expressed by the suffragan bishop.
“They want to put together a council to consider if it’s really a werewolf,” Simon concluded, “even though this Harsee bastard has already made up his mind. Thank God Samuel will also be on the commission-at least one enlightened voice in this crowd of superstitious and bigoted agitators.”
“But suppose it really is a werewolf?” Barbara asked anxiously. After helping Katharina clear the table, she sat down beside her brother Georg and looked around at everyone. “I mean, people have disappeared, severed body parts have been found, and then this furry creature. .”
“And don’t forget the horribly mangled stag carcass that Simon told us about yesterday, and things you hear from people who have traveled through the forest,” Magdalena added, turning to her father. “There may be nothing to it, but isn’t it possible that some beast is really lurking around Bamberg and causing this trouble? It doesn’t have to be a werewolf. Maybe it’s just a large wolf, or-”
“Good God, just stop this!” Bartholomäus shouted, stabbing his knife into the table. “I don’t want to hear anything more about this in my house. Werewolf? Bah! These are horror stories that only sow hatred and discord, as if we didn’t already have enough of that in Bamberg.” He stood up and stomped off to the downstairs bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
“What’s the matter with him?” Simon asked. “You might almost think tobacco doesn’t agree with him.”
“You’ll have to excuse him.” With a sigh, Katharina took off her apron and sat down in her fiancé’s empty chair. She stared disapprovingly at the knife in front of her, jammed into the top of the table, still quivering. “You’re not Bambergers,” she said softly, “and you don’t know what this city went through back then, when they burned hundreds of accused wizards and witches here. Bartholomäus just doesn’t want to go through all that again.”
“Even though, as the Bamberg hangman, it would bring him a lot of business,” Jakob replied sullenly. Then he started counting on his fingers. “Let’s see: if Bartholomäus receives two guilders each time he tortures a person and ten more for every witch put to the stake and burned, that would amount to-”