“Here’s to fat Jonas and the kid, freezing their asses off out at the gate,” said red-haired Josef with a grin, lifting his mug. Earlier, he’d been able to get hold of a keg of strong, malt-flavored Märzen beer. “Brrr, on a night like this I’m glad at least I didn’t pull guard duty down in the cathedral square.”
“Do you think there’s really a werewolf prowling around out there?” asked the second guard, a pale, pasty-faced fellow whose eyes kept flitting anxiously back and forth.
“Hah, I’ll bet you’re shitting in your pants, Eberhard.” With a loud laugh, Josef wiped the beer foam from his lips. “Haven’t you heard? We have the werewolf in custody, and he won’t attack anyone now.” He lowered his voice. “But just between us, if you ask me, this fellow in St. Thomas’s is no werewolf. Just look at him-such a wimp, crying his eyes out and praying to all the saints. And you think that’s a werewolf? I’ll eat my dick if-”
He stopped short on hearing a sharp knock at the door.
“I hope to hell that isn’t the captain checking things out,” grumbled Manfred, who, as the eldest, was in charge. A former mercenary in the Great War, Manfred had known some tough taskmasters, and Captain Martin Lebrecht, though considered very cordial, was known to be a snoop. He had this special unit you could be assigned to at any time. .
“Quick, hide the dice and the keg,” he ordered in a whisper. Then he went to the door, slid back the bolt, and carefully pressed the door handle. A cold blast of air ripped the door open, but there was no one there.
“Is someone there?” Manfred called out into the darkness. When there was no answer, he turned back to his buddies with a grin. “It’s probably just fat Jonas trying to play a trick on us. Just wait, I’m going out to whip his fat ass. I’ll be right back.”
He stomped out and was soon swallowed up in the darkness. For a while, the two others heard his footsteps; then there was a thud, and something fell clattering to the ground.
“What. . what was that?” Eberhard asked anxiously.
“Aw, probably just the wind,” Josef replied. “What else could it be?” But his voice sounded far less confident than before. “Manfred?” he called loudly. “Manfred? Hey, damn it, where are you?”
With a groan, Josef stood up, straightened his armor, and staggered to the door, muttering a stream of dark threats. “I’m telling you, if you guys down at the gate are messing around with us, you’ve got something coming to you. I’ll stick my halberd into you where the sun don’t shine, and then-”
He’d just reached the open door when a huge, black shadow swooped down like a bird, pulled him to one side, and disappeared with him into the night. Moments later there was a muffled cry, followed by a gurgling sound, and then silence. Everything happened so fast that Eberhard only now comprehended what he’d just seen. He held his hand to his mouth, trembling.
Good Lord in heaven, the shadow had a fur pelt. A wolf’s pelt.
Now he heard the sounds of steps approaching the door.
“Oh, my God!”
Eberhard dug his fingers into the top of the table as an enormous beast entered the room. It was so large it had to stoop to get through the door. All the light in the room came from a single flickering candle, and Eberhard could only guess at the size of the monster, but he saw claws, he saw the fur, and he saw the head of a wolf.
“The werewolf,” he moaned. “He. . he. . escaped.”
“And now he has come to get you and take you with him to hell,” the monster growled.
Then it roared and attacked the screaming guard.
Jakob removed the bitter-smelling cloth from the mouth of the unconscious night watchman and stowed it away carefully in the bundle he’d brought along. They mustn’t leave anything behind that would give them away.
“What do you think? How much time do we have?” asked Magdalena, entering the guardhouse and looking around carefully.
Jakob shrugged. “No idea. Perhaps until the next hour strikes, or less. It’s hard to measure out an exact dose, and the guards at the gate outside will naturally wake up sooner.”
“Time is short.” Magdalena tugged at her father’s pelt and ran out into the courtyard with him. “So let’s hurry over to St. Thomas’s.”
Outside, the two other guards lay on the ground not far from a fountain. Magdalena was relieved she didn’t have to press a cloth over anyone’s mouth. The men would probably have put up a fight, and the anesthesia wouldn’t have been as effective-but Uncle Bartholomäus and her father had done their work with the same calm, quick, and almost-painless perfection they employed as executioners beheading criminals.
“You could have left out the last part,” Magdalena whispered as they ran along.
Her father looked at her, perplexed. “Which part?”
“Well, that bit about hell. Who told you werewolves can talk?”
“Who told you they can’t, hm?” he replied with a grin. “You told us yourself to play our roles to the hilt, and I like to play the role of the bad boy.”
In the meanwhile they’d reached the tower of the old cathedral of St. Thomas, a tall structure with a wooden stairway leading to the upper floors. Bartholomäus waited impatiently with his lantern in front of the solid doorway on the first floor.
“There you are,” he snapped. “I was beginning to wonder if you were having a beer with the guard.”
“Believe me, when this is all over I’m going to have more than one,” Jakob replied. “Now open up.”
Bartholomäus pulled a key ring from his pocket and unlocked the iron bars reinforcing the solid oak door. They were confronted with the nauseating stench of feces, mold, and rotten food. Magdalena turned up her nose and followed Bartholomäus, who held up the lantern to show them the way. Behind them, Jakob ducked and entered the room.
“This used to be a chapel,” Bartholomäus whispered, “but for many decades it’s been used as a dungeon while the bishop prefers to come to St. Catharine’s Chapel on the floor above to pray. Sometimes he must hear the cries of the prisoners from up there, but that doesn’t seem to upset His Excellency.” He looked around the dark vault, and then in a slightly louder voice said, “Matheo? Can you hear me? Where are you?”
“Here. . here I am,” came a weak voice from a corner in back. Bartholomäus raised the lantern, and now Magdalena got a better look. It was a low, vaulted stone room with soot-smudged walls covered with messages from innumerable prisoners. In the filthy straw covering the floors, rats squeaked and fled into the dark corners. There were massive, chest-high wooden stocks with two holes on the top and two on the bottom-and in the last stocks, just beyond the light from the lantern, something was moving.
“They locked the fellow in the stocks,” Jakob growled. “They must be pretty damn afraid of him-though from what I’ve heard, he’s just a little squirt.”
As they approached the last stocks, Magdalena could finally make out Matheo. He was even thinner than she remembered-his shirt and trousers were ripped, there were bloody welts all over his body, and his right eye was swollen shut. His hands and feet had been placed in the holes in the wooden block and chained together, so that the boy could scarcely move and his back was twisted into an unnatural position. A chill went down Magdalena’s spine. How long had Matheo been in the stocks? A day? Two? He had to be suffering great pain.
“Have you come. . to get me, . Hangman?” he asked in a broken voice. The block was positioned in such a way that he couldn’t see who had just entered the dungeon.
“Yes, I’m coming to get you,” Bartholomäus replied, “but not for the gallows. This is your lucky day, young fellow. See for yourself.”
“What. . what do you mean?” Matheo gasped.
Bartholomäus stepped forward, and only now could the boy see the Bamberg executioner. The young man uttered a faint cry.