The Beggar King: A Hangman's Daughter Tale

by Oliver Pötzsch

  That was the last straw. “Tarting?” she snapped. “You’re one to talk, you dandy!” Her voice cracked with emotion. “And just what do you mean by girl? Not once have I heard a proposal from you. Only excuses, excuses! When have you ever given me a dress, or even a lousy engagement ribbon, huh? I’d let that pass, but now, you little overeducated wimp, you want to tell me—me—how to live my life! Get away, you wretch!”

  Her final words echoed through the cathedral, then faded into an awkward silence.

  Simon bowed stiffly. “I understand. I wish you both a pleasant good evening.” He turned on his heels and headed toward the main portal, where the priest had just arrived to prepare for morning prayers. Leaving the cathedral with his head held high, Simon stumbled on the door frame and had to grab the astonished priest to keep from falling.

  “Someone back there is in need of confession, Father,” the medicus said. “Pride and wrath, two mortal sins. Don’t let the lady go until she recites the Lord’s Prayer a hundred times.”

  Before the startled priest could reply, Simon disappeared into the foggy night.

  Back in the niche, Silvio sighed and looked up to the ceiling. “O Invidia!” he lamented. “Your amico is jealous. That’s not what I intended.”

  “Oh, don’t worry; he’ll come back down from his high horse,” Magdalena said, but there was a twinge of doubt in her voice. Perhaps she’d gone a bit too far. She knew that Simon suffered from not being able to offer her the life they both longed for.

  “He’s probably waiting for us right outside the door,” she said, trying to console herself. “Why don’t you tell me what in the world you came looking for here in the church? You haven’t been stalking me, have you?”

  Silvio shook his head in horror. “Madonna! Never would I do anything like that! I was following that man! I was coming home from the Whale when I saw him sneak across the square in front of the cathedral—the same man who ambushed us before! So I followed him and—well, you know the rest.” He smiled. “You see, it’s really up to you to explain what you’re doing here. By the way, it was disgraceful how you abandoned me at that boring soirée. In return you should at least offer me another invitation.” His eyes started to glaze over and he reached for his left arm. Only now did Magdalena notice that Silvio’s shirt was drenched in blood.

  “Oh, God, with all this fuss, I completely forgot you’re injured!” she exclaimed. “Quick, I’ll take you to Simon. He’ll—”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Silvio lamented as he leaned against a column for support. His face was as pale as a ghost. “No doubt your amico would let enough blood from me to paint the whole cathedral.”

  Magdalena smiled. “You might be right about that. Well, then, I’ll have to see to your wounds myself. Let’s go—fortunately your house is just across the way.”

  She supported Silvio under his arms as they left.

  “What a wonderful feeling to be carried by you,” the little Venetian rejoiced. “I hope to require your help a long time.”

  “Stop talking such nonsense,” Magdalena replied sharply. “A few bandages and herbs from the market to stanch the bleeding, and you’ll be your old self again. The wounds aren’t as bad as I thought. Now quit making such a fuss and try walking a bit. You men are all such sissies!”

  Cursing under his breath, Simon stomped across the cathedral square, nearly swallowed up in the fog that had descended over the city in the last hour. In vain he looked for Nathan, who was supposed to have been waiting there for them. Had the beggar king secretly run off?

  Simon didn’t dare call out, so he just quietly looked about the square, then slipped away into the first small street he came to. He had to clear his head! Just what was the matter with him? He’d lost control of himself, and now Magdalena really believed he was jealous.

  And worse: this Venetian fool thought so as well.

  With a deep sigh, Simon had to admit that his jealousy was not entirely imagined. Contarini had more possessions than Simon could ever dream of as a poor medicus—money, fine clothes, influence, power… things Simon would never be able to offer Magdalena. Without a single certificate from a recognized university, he was just an insignificant quack. And now that he’d fled Schongau, he’d lost whatever respectability he had left!

  Simon looked down at himself. His jacket and shirt were mud-stained and torn; he had no money and was sleeping in dank basements with beggars; and his girl was spending her time in the dressing rooms of foreign men to whom he’d never be able to hold a candle.

  This was the end.

  Simon was so distressed he didn’t notice the two guards armed with spears until he literally stumbled into them.

  “Well, well, who do we have here?” one guard sneered, grabbing Simon by the scruff of the neck like a naughty child. “A night owl, eh? Don’t you know it’s forbidden to go out in the streets at night? And right now I think it’s about…” He and his colleague pretended to look up in the sky for the moon. “Well, let’s just say it’s not a good time for you to be out here, eh?”

  Simon nodded respectfully, trying desperately to think of a way out of this situation. He had to assume all the guards had received descriptions of the alleged arsonists. And though this pair hadn’t recognized him yet, that could change at any moment.

  “Went down by the river for a drink,” he slurred, in the hope the two guards would be fooled by his affectation. “It jush got a lil bit late…”

  “Speak up,” the second night watchman said threateningly as he held a lantern in his face and sized him up distrustfully. “For people like you we have a nice little pub room. A bit drafty, but it’ll clear your head fast.”

  He gave Simon a shove, and they all set out toward city hall square, the medicus attempting to stumble along appropriately. After a short while they arrived in the square, which looked quite different in the early-morning hours than during the typical daytime hustle and bustle.

  The fatter of the two men pointed his spear at a rusty cage sitting on the ground and chained to the wall of city hall. It looked like a gigantic birdcage.

  “The House of Fools,” the night watchman said. “You’ll stay here for the next few hours. You should have lots of fine company.”

  “But everyone will see me in there!” Simon croaked, temporarily forgetting his role as a drunk and falling out of character.

  The tall, thin night watchman holding the lantern nodded. “Correct. The people need something to gawk at. Everyone we pick up at night winds up in the House of Fools—drunks and drifters, but also honorable citizens and men of the church. Once we even locked up an alderman, since the fine gentleman couldn’t pull together the money to buy himself out. Oh, and don’t you try to hide in a corner or we’ll chain you to the bars up front where it’s hard to dodge the rotten vegetables that’ll come flying at you.”

  Simon’s heart began to race.

  When morning comes, all of Regensburg will see me in there. If even one person takes a close look, I’ll be keeping Kuisl company on the scaffold, as an arsonist.

  “Can’t we perhaps… come to some other arrangement?” Simon simpered.

  The fat night watchman nodded, thinking. “Do you have money?”

  The medicus shook his head silently.

  “Then I have good news for you,” the bailiff responded. “Food and lodging are free at the House of Fools.”

  He poked Simon in the back with the point of his spear and pushed him along toward city hall.

  10

  REGENSBURG

  EARLY MORNING, AUGUST 24, 1662 AD

  SIMON BUTTONED UP his tattered jacket to ward off the cool night air that was worst now as dawn was breaking. He closed his eyes, then opened them again, but the scene around him remained bleak as before.

  A trio of drinking buddies next to him were snoring so loudly it sounded as if they were trying to saw through the bars of their drafty dungeon. Two of them were presumably traveling journeymen who’d sp
ent far more than they could afford that night making the rounds of the city taverns. They wore ragged trousers and linen shirts but had apparently forgotten their hats at the last tavern. Purses fastened to their belts hung down weightless and empty. Simon guessed that after a lash or two of the whip, the two day laborers would be banished from the city in the morning, but that would be all. These traveling journeymen offered very little to interest the crowds that would start arriving at city hall square before long. The city guards rounded up such specimens every night of the week.

  The third reveler was a different story. To all outward appearances he looked like a Franciscan monk whose brown frock was pulled tightly across a remarkably fat belly. Innumerable blowflies flitted about his fresh tonsure and greasy, flushed cheeks, feeding on sweat that streamed down his face despite the cool morning air. In his pudgy hands he held a dirty linen sack that he pressed to his chest from time to time like a nursing infant, murmuring something incomprehensible in his sleep. Each time he was about to belt out another snore, his whole body quivered as if he were in the throes of death. Then, at other moments, he stopped breathing altogether, only to start in again all the more violently minutes later.

  Of these cellmates Simon hated the fat monk the most.

  The medicus had tried again to convince the guards not to lock him up, but they just laughed and wished him a pleasant night’s rest. Now he sat on a hard wooden bench, wedged between the two snoring workmen, and watched night slowly recede from the square. From time to time one of the journeymen’s heads would fall onto Simon’s shoulder and he would smack his lips peacefully, no doubt dreaming of the expensive roast goose he had enjoyed for dinner the night before—probably the last he’d have for a long time, Simon imagined. The medicus couldn’t bring himself to waken the journeyman, so he just pushed the workman’s head back gently.

  Simon closed his eyes again and tried to concentrate—not easy given the loud snoring all around him. In no more than an hour shopkeepers would start opening their doors, maids would stroll across the square, and every person who passed would have a look into the House of Fools. Simon was sure it was only a matter of time before someone recognized him as the bathhouse arsonist. The description of him and Magdalena had been rather precise, and the guards surely possessed a warrant by now. Simon considered cutting his finger with his stiletto and rubbing blood over his face in the hope of passing himself off as the unfortunate victim of a barroom brawl. But he couldn’t change his height or his clothing, and those alone were probably enough to give him away.

  Unless he had something else to wear.

  Simon glanced again at the two workmen and the fat Franciscan, who still clutched his linen sack like a doll.

  The linen sack!

  Simon’s heart began to pound. He could at least turn that into a hood, and—who knows?—perhaps there was more clothing inside it! The medicus rose quietly and stepped toward the monk, who lay like a corpse on a bench across from him. Inch by inch he gingerly reached for the sack in the Franciscan’s arms. Although Simon fumbled with it, he felt the bundle coming free. He’d almost extricated half the sack from the monk’s grip when he heard a deep snarl.

  Simon froze as the monk’s bloodshot right eye opened and glared back at him suspiciously.

  “Are you trying to take my wine away, you damned son of a bitch?” the cleric growled. “That’s wine for mass, the blood of Christ. If you do that, they’ll boil you in oil, you damned heretic…”

  The eye closed and the man resumed snoring loudly. Simon exhaled, waited a while, and then reached out confidently a second time.

  Now the monk’s fingers closed around Simon’s wrist like a vise and pulled him close. The stench of wine on the monk’s breath almost knocked the medicus out.

  “No one steals from Brother Hubertus,” the monk bellowed. “No one, do you hear?”

  Looking for all the world like an overgrown bat, the Franciscan rose up and hit his head on the low top of the cage.

  “Ouch, damn!”

  Only now did the monk seem to comprehend where he was. Looking at his cellmates, then onto the city hall square, he let out an endless stream of curses. “In the name of the unholy trinity, that goddamned band of blockheaded bailiffs has locked me up again! Worthless philistines!” He shook the bars of the cage so hard Simon thought he might actually tear them apart at any moment. “Only because I tried to lead those poor stray virgins back into God’s grace!” he continued.

  “Virgins?” Though he was afraid, Simon couldn’t resist asking.

  The Franciscan, evidently Brother Hubertus, looked back at the medicus with some irritation, as if he’d only just now noticed him. Apparently he’d already forgotten Simon’s botched robbery.

  “Yes, virgins!” he barked. “They hang around the brothel down at Peter’s Gate waiting for someone to come and read the Bible to them.”

  Simon nodded sympathetically. “And you were so selfless as to take on that thankless job.”

  A grin broke across the brother’s face. “What was it Saint Augustine said?” He began in a professorial tone, though his tongue was still too thick to pronounce some of the words. “‘If you suppress prostitution, capricious lusts will overthrow society.’” Hubertus shook his finger. “We cannot therefore hinder the prostitutes, but we can still bring them closer to God.”

  Simon chuckled. “A noble undertaking and a necessary one. I remember Thomas Aquinas saying, ‘Remove prostitutes from the world—’”

  “‘And you will fill the world with sodomy,’” Brother Hubertus interrupted. He nodded his fat head in agreement. “I see you’re a true scholar. Very few know this passage by the great Dominican. May I inquire what brings you to your unfortunate present situation?”

  The medicus saw his chance but paused a moment before answering. “I was engaged in a passionate dispute concerning our Savior’s poverty and the trenchant observations of Wilhelm von Ockham when the night watchmen came and rudely interrupted us. My disputatious interlocutor was able to flee, but the bailiffs caught me and locked me in this drafty hole.”

  The monk shook his head in indignation. “And thus scholarship goes to the dogs! We must continue this conversation at my house.”

  Simon eyed him with astonishment. “I beg your pardon?”

  Brother Hubertus was already knocking loudly on a door that led into the city hall. The two workmen continued snoring, unperturbed.

  “Just let me take care of it,” the monk said. “I know these barbarians.”

  After a while a key turned in the squeaky lock and the scrawny night watchman stuck his nose through the doorway.

  “Have you slept it off then, Brother Hubertus?” He grinned.

  “Don’t be fresh, Hannes”—the monk shook his finger—“or there will be consequences, believe me. I’ll talk to the bishop about this.”

  The night watchman sighed. “That’s what you always say, but you know just as well as I do that we have the right to detain even honorable society if they defy the curfew and—”

  “Yes, yes, very well,” replied Brother Hubertus, nudging the bailiff aside and pressing a few coins into his hand. “You don’t have to preach it from the rooftops. And he’s coming with me,” he said, pointing to Simon.

  “Him?” The night watchman gave Brother Hubertus an astonished look. “But he’s nothing more than a lowlife drifter; he’s not even from around here. You can hear it in the way he talks.”

  “And I can hear when someone has nothing inside his head but stinking straw like you. He’s a learned man, but you numbskulls don’t have any understanding of that.”

  “Ah, I see, a scholar.” The night watchman looked skeptically at Simon. “I’ve seen this scholar somewhere before, but I just can’t remember—”

  “Nonsense,” Hubertus interrupted. “The man is coming with me, and that’s that. Here, this is for your expenses.”

  He put two more coins in the bailiff’s coat pocket and led Simon into a guardroom adjacent
to the House of Fools. The scrawny night watchman, grinding his teeth and glaring, wouldn’t take his eyes off the medicus.

  “It’ll come to me,” he mused, then drew close to Simon again. “Don’t show your face around here again, scholar,” he sneered. “Next time you won’t be stuck with a fat monk who believes your blatherings. Then we’ll take our clubs and beat the learning out of you.” He smiled smugly and waved goodbye to the monk, who was already storming through another door and out of the building.

  “Until next time, Brother Hubertus.” The night watchman sighed. “It was nice doing business with you.” With that, he glared at Simon and ran his index finger across his neck in warning.

  The medicus staggered into city hall square where tradesmen were just opening up shop. In the east the sun was rising over the rooftops of Regensburg.

  Magdalena ripped the Venetian’s shirt in two and began washing the blood from his chest. Silvio lay on a four-poster bed that took up half an enormous bedroom on the second floor. Here, as in the dressing room, mirrors were hung throughout the room, as well as paintings of biblical scenes with all sorts of fat little cherubs—all framed in what appeared to be pure gold.

  “Santa Maria, I think I’m in heaven,” the Venetian sighed, closing his eyes. “This must be paradise, and you must be an angel sitting at my side.”

  “Just hold still, damn it!” Magdalena cursed, dabbing the wounds with a wet cloth. “Or you’ll really be seeing angels soon.”

  Silvio was injured below the right nipple. Although a rib had, fortunately, deflected the blade, the wound bled profusely, as did the cut on Silvio’s left upper arm.

  Magdalena went about her work in silence. She found some fine fustian in a bedroom trunk, which she tore into long strips to bandage Silvio’s chest and forearm. To help him recover from his loss of blood, she also heated some water on the hearth in the main room, then added honey and the juice of the little green and yellow fruits she found in Silvio’s garden. She poured the steaming brew in a cup by the bed, but the Venetian just shook his head in disgust when Magdalena handed it to him.