Jeremias groaned and raised his hands in defeat. “Very well, it’s possible I could find the list in the archives-but as I said, we’ll never get in there. Never. You can forget about it.” Then he hesitated. “Unless. .” A grin spread across his face.
“Unless what?” Magdalena and Georg asked at the same time.
“Well, perhaps there is a chance,” Jeremias replied, enjoying the moment as the others looked at him expectantly. “It’s really a dreadful thing, and if we decide to do it, we’ll need nerves of steel.”
The hangman nodded. “Don’t think twice about that. My nerves are as strong as a seaman’s rope.”
For a long time, Barbara and Markus Salter remained silent, cowering on the floor of the little room that smelled of mold and decay. The crates and chests all around them were covered in dust and had evidently been standing there for years. On the opposite side of the room, next to the archway that led down into the sandy tunnel, there was another door, which appeared much newer.
“Where are we?” Barbara asked as she felt her strength coming back and the trembling gradually subsiding.
“Probably in the Carmelite monastery on Kaulberg Hill,” Markus replied. He indicated the brown monk’s robe he was wearing. “I found this here in one of the trunks, along with a few old crucifixes and altar cloths. Most of the things have seen better days.”
Now Barbara noticed that there was a dark spot on the side of Salter’s robe, and she assumed it was blood. Evidently his injuries were worse than she’d thought.
“What happened?” she whispered. “The last time I saw you, you were outside in the courtyard just after everyone had fled the room.”
“They chased us like animals,” Salter responded in a monotone. “They caught fat Matthäus first, out in the courtyard. Karl and skinny Josef made it out to the street. I tried to help them, but it was hopeless.” Salter sniffled as he wiped the blood from his nose. “Finally, I ran up Kaulberg Hill and crawled into this wretched hole.” He pointed to the low archway and the rubble-strewn staircase. “I looked around a bit. The entire hill is like a piece of cheese-the Bambergers are digging up the sand here for all their new building sites. You can be glad that none of the tunnels have collapsed, or the monastery overhead.”
Apprehensively, Barbara looked up at the damp ceiling and the water dripping down from it.
“Did you say,” she asked, “we’re probably the only actors to have escaped this madness? What happened to Sir Malcolm? Did he perhaps also-”
Markus Salter sneered. “Don’t worry about him. He always saves his own skin. Malcolm has played so many roles in his life that he can easily play the part of the curious onlooker, a member of the angry mob, or God knows what-anything that crosses his mind. You don’t have to worry about him.”
“I’m much more worried about you,” Barbara said, pointing hesitantly at the dark spot on his robe. “It seems you had a hard time saving yourself.”
Salter waved dismissively. “Oh. . that will get better. I’m glad I was able to at least save my skin. You should put on a monk’s robe like this, too. It scratches like hell, but it’s warm. It looks like we’ll be spending a while in here. No doubt the devil is at work down in the city.”
“Or, rather, the werewolf,” Barbara replied bitterly. Anxiously, she glanced at Salter. “Did the suffragan bishop really turn into a werewolf during our performance? He looked so horrible.” She shuddered. “How can something like that happen? Perhaps these incidents do have something to do with the actors. First the pelts in Matheo’s room, and now this.”
“Well, I’m reluctant to say so, but I’ve had my suspicions for a long time,” Salter replied. “I had to wonder when I first saw the wolf pelts in Matheo’s luggage, but now. .”
“What are you saying?” Barbara asked.
He hesitated but finally replied. “I’ve got to say, it’s not the first time we’ve encountered a werewolf.” He wrapped his arms tightly around his chest. He clearly was freezing, despite the heavy robe he was wearing.
“There were a few strange incidents after our performances in Cologne and Frankfurt as well,” he continued gloomily. “Peaceful citizens suddenly attacked others in the street for no apparent reason, a vagrant is said to have stolen an infant from its cradle and eaten it, a few young girls disappeared without a trace. . I’ve had my suspicions for a long time, and then three days ago in the wagon I caught him red-handed.”
“By all the saints, who?” Barbara whispered.
“Sir Malcolm.” Markus took a deep breath. “I just wanted to ask him which costumes still needed mending. There was a strange, sulfurous odor in the wagon, and when I addressed him, he quickly stashed something away in a chest. He seemed very annoyed. Later, I went back to the wagon and looked inside the chest. .” Salter hesitated and then, after a while, continued in a strained voice. “Inside there was a silver pentagram, a candelabra with black candles, and a skull so small, it could only have been that of a child.”
“My God,” Barbara gasped. “Is Sir Malcolm a warlock?”
Markus Salter shrugged. “Later, he even showed us the candelabra and the pentagram, saying he needed them for our performance of Faustus. The whole time he was looking at me so strangely, and he didn’t say anything about the child’s skull. Naturally, I can’t prove anything-all I can say is that whenever Sir Malcolm and our troupe stayed very long in a city, strange things started happening.”
“How long have you known him?” Barbara asked anxiously.
“About ten years. Back then I was a student in Cologne, and I was broke. I was as fascinated by the theater as you are now.” Markus smiled, then he winced and pressed his hand against the wound in his side.
Barbara pointed to the bloodstained robe. “Can I have a look? I know a bit about treating wounds.”
Salter looked at her suspiciously. “Barbara, you are no doubt an excellent actress, but at your age, I can’t see you in the role of a doctor.”
“Believe me, I know a thing or two about it,” she answered a bit snippily. “My father, as you know, is an executioner, and we Kuisls know a lot about healing.”
Salter winced again, and this time she wasn’t sure it was because of the pain. “I’d completely forgotten that,” he said. “Your uncle is the Bamberg hangman, isn’t he?”
Barbara nodded sadly. “Almost our whole family is engaged in this horrible profession, and has been for ages-Father, my uncle, my brother-in-law, my grandfather. We’re scattered all over the Reich and all related to each other in some way. That’s why executioners all greet each other as cousins.” She sighed. “My great-grandfather was the famous-or infamous-Jörg Abriel, who tortured and killed hundreds of people. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”
Salter shook his head, looking a little paler now. “No, my dear, I. .” He seemed to be struggling to say something, but once again he was overcome with pain.
“Don’t be that way. Show me your wound,” Barbara said.
With a determined face, she ripped the robe off. There was blood on the side of Salter’s chest, and in one place it was still seeping out. Carefully, she examined the area.
“Someone obviously stabbed you there with a dagger,” she said in a professional tone of voice. “Thank God the wound isn’t very deep, but it must be cleaned at once, or it will become infected.”
She ripped off a piece of her wet dress, then looked around the room. In one corner she found a small keg of communion wine.
“I don’t know if the wine here still tastes very good,” she said, opening the stopper and soaking the cloth in it, “but for cleaning out a wound it’s a lot better than the filthy water.”
Carefully she wiped away the blood, and after the wound was clean, she made a temporary bandage from a long piece of cloth ripped from one of the robes. Markus Salter remained quiet except for a few soft moans.