“Hey, Thea, more wine! This cheeky tart here drank it all up herself. I’ll wring her neck for that.”
The door upstairs slammed shut again, and Kuisl held still with his right foot on the doorsill.
It was that voice again, the voice from his nightmares.
As if compelled by a mysterious force, he closed the door and tiptoed up the stairs. He had to see him; he had to look this man in the eye, if only for a moment, or the ghosts of the past would never release him.
After two dozen steps the spiral stone staircase ended in a white plastered foyer illuminated by a single torch. Four doors opened onto the foyer, and behind each one giggles, shouts, and soft moans could be heard. Another stairway led up to the third floor, where some raucous celebration was taking place.
Kuisl hesitated. The voice had definitely come from the second floor. The man he was looking for was behind one of these four doors.
Evidently Fat Thea hadn’t heard the stranger’s call, as neither she nor any of her girls had brought a fresh pitcher of wine. Carefully Kuisl put his ear to the first door. He could hear labored breathing and short, shrill cries, but no one was speaking.
He turned to the next room and put his ear again to the thin wooden door. He couldn’t quite make out what was being said—a lovers’ oath, perhaps? This couldn’t be the man he was after, could it?
As Kuisl tried to catch a glimpse through the keyhole, the door swung open and smacked him right in the nose. Reeling, the hangman fell backward.
“Who the hell…?” The young man stood over him with his pants around his ankles and his shirt open so that his pale, hairless potbelly jiggled above Kuisl’s head. The man’s thinning ashblond hair tumbled down over his face, and he gasped for air like a big fat fish out of water.
“I must have the wrong door,” the hangman mumbled, straightening up. “No offense intended.”
Kuisl realized he didn’t exactly look like a drunken alderman—drunk perhaps, but by no means a smug, well-fed patrician about to have an orgasm. But perhaps this client was tipsy enough himself not to notice that.
The man closed his mouth and stared back in fear at the man in front of him. His pale face was an expression of pure terror.
“You—you—are Kuisl, aren’t you?” he whispered.
Blood dripping from his nose, the hangman grew silent. This much was certain: this character before him wasn’t the third inquisitor; his voice was different. In fact, he might have been a rather decent fellow, unlike the man Kuisl was seeking. Still, there was something familiar about him. It was finally his Bavarian accent that gave him away.
It was Joachim Kerscher, one of the two other inquisitors.
“Oh, for the love of the Virgin Mother, please don’t hurt me,” Kerscher stuttered, awkwardly trying to hide behind the thin wooden door. “I’m just an ordinary councilman. I didn’t approve of the torture, believe me. Why did you flee…? We were going to—”
“Who was the third man?” the hangman snarled menacingly.
“The third?” Kerscher had retreated almost completely behind the door now, and only his pallid face peered out through the crack. “I don’t understand—”
“The third inquisitor, jackass!” Kuisl whispered through clenched teeth, holding his bloody nose. “Who was it?”
The hangman took a deep breath. The pain in his shoulder, the burning in his arms and legs, the shooting pains in his back—this all came back now like a hammer blow. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach.
Kerscher nodded obsequiously. “The third inquisitor, of course. Such a bastard. I can understand why you’d want to get back at him. It was—”
At that moment a piercing scream came from the floor above.
Kuisl turned to find Fat Thea coming down the stairs with a pitcher of wine, which slipped from her grasp and shattered on the floor.
Suddenly it felt to Kuisl as if the entire house were beginning to sway beneath him. Everything seemed to happen at once—the pitcher breaking, the commotion on the floor above, the doors opening all around him like portals to hell. Men stared at him, but their faces were strangely blurred, and they all seemed to be shouting at him at once. Was he shouting, too? Kuisl couldn’t say. Everything around him had become a muffled roar.
He shook his head to clear his mind a bit. Someone approached and tried to grab him, but Kuisl flung the figure aside like a rag doll and stumbled toward the stairs. Out! He had to get out, he had to get away from here before he collapsed once and for all. Again he felt someone grab him by his injured shoulder. The hangman crouched, rolling the man over his back and sending him tumbling down the stairs, screaming.
Kuisl could hear himself scream, too; he raged like a wounded bear backed into a corner by a pack of hunting dogs. Again he reached out with his good right arm and pulled one of the men close, smashing the man’s nose against his forehead. Kuisl felt the man’s warm blood on his face and heard him howl as he tossed him aside like a straw puppet. His pain and fear lent him one last burst of energy before unconsciousness threatened to overcome him.
Half crazed, he staggered down the steps, kicked the front door open, and dashed out into the fresh air. He inhaled deeply, and immediately his mind began to clear. Holding his throbbing shoulder, he hobbled toward a low wall and climbed over. On the other side he collapsed in a garden overgrown with thorny blackberries and wild rosebushes.
Kuisl was finished. Leaning against the crumbling wall, pricked on all sides by thorns, and raging with pain, he waited for his pursuers to find him and drag him back to his cell.
He closed his eyes and listened as the sound of excited voices approached.
Among them he heard the voice of his most hated enemy.
Simon and Magdalena heard the shouts just as they were sneaking across the cathedral square.
Catching their breath, they pressed their backs against the front of a patrician house and watched as a dozen city guards rushed past, heading south toward Neupfarr Church Square. Only a few minutes had passed since they fled the catacombs. Could Nathan already have betrayed them to Mämminger? Was the city treasurer’s power so great he could summon the entire city guard in an instant, just to pursue them?
Simon heard alarm bells begin to ring all over town, as if all of Regensburg were being called to Easter mass. The beggars had told him that each quarter of the city kept its own company of guards—a civilian militia called upon only in times of war or fire or other grave catastrophe. The militias were summoned to duty by the ringing of church bells. When another dozen soldiers came running from the old grain market through the cathedral square, the medicus feared the worst.
“Where could they all be headed?” Magdalena whispered, pressing herself even closer to the wall as the bailiffs marched south, just a few yards away. “They can’t all be looking for us, can they?”
Simon shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I also don’t see any signs of fire, and it’s unlikely war’s broken out. Perhaps they’re going to smoke out the beggars’ hideaway. That’s more or less the direction they’re headed.”
“Something’s fishy here,” Magdalena muttered, taking Simon’s hand and leading him out onto the now-deserted cathedral square. “Come on; let’s follow them and see.”
“That’s much too dangerous!” Simon said. “Believe me, the bishop’s palace is the only safe place for us right now. We’ve got to find the fastest way—”
“Oh, come now,” Magdalena interrupted. “Life’s dangerous. Let’s go.”
Simon followed her with a sigh as the haven of the bishop’s residence disappeared behind them in the darkness. They turned into Judengasse Street, which ended in Neupfarr Church Square with its austere Protestant church. Just as they were about to step out into the open square, they noticed a group of perhaps thirty city bailiffs at its center, gesticulating wildly toward the south. The shrill alarm bells were still ringing, and many citizens had by now opened their shutters to gape at the spectacle below from the safety of their
balconies.
“I have to know what the guards are up to,” Magdalena whispered. “Let’s creep up a little closer.”
Simon knew his friend well enough now to sense it was pointless to argue. She had a wrinkle in her brow that meant there was just no stopping her. So he knelt down beside her on the dirty cobblestones spattered with horse manure, knowing it would ruin his last decent pair of trousers. Under the cover of darkness they crept toward the light of the torches.
The men in front of them were not trained soldiers but common citizens, some still in nightshirts and bathrobes beneath hastily donned cuirasses. Their hair was disheveled, their faces pale and frightened. In their hands they held rusty pikes, daggers, and crossbows that seemed like survivors from an earlier century. They were bakers, carpenters, butchers, and simple linen weavers, and to judge by their appearance, the last thing in the world they wanted to do was stand here in the middle of the night, listening to a speech by the captain of the guards.
“Citizens, listen up!” a bearded, elderly man exhorted them. In contrast to the others, he looked at least halfway battle-tested. In his right hand he clutched a halberd over ten feet long with a point that glittered menacingly in the torchlight. “As many of you perhaps already know, the Schongau monster, the throat slitter and bloodsucker, broke out of his cell last night. But that’s not all. Yesterday, the murderer strangled Master Baker Haberger and gruesomely slaughtered Marie Deisch in her own bathhouse—”
An anxious whisper spread among the men, and the commander of the guards raised his hand for silence.
“Fortunately the man has been found. He’s lurking somewhere down by Peter’s Gate, and with your help we’ll send him back to hell today once and for all! Three cheers for our strong and mighty city!”
The old officer had evidently expected some enthusiasm—or at least a response—but the men in the crowd before him remained strangely silent and whispered among themselves.
Then a young boy in a stained old mercenary helmet raised his hand hesitantly. “Is it true that the monster bites his victims’ necks and drinks their blood?”
The old officer, who hadn’t expected that question, stood still for a moment with his mouth open. “Ah… as far as I know, he used a knife, but—”
“They say this Kuisl is a werewolf, that he turns into a beast at night and eats little children,” someone else added. “He’s already ripped apart five prostitutes and drunk their blood. How are we going to hunt a demon like that with our rusty old swords and crossbows? He’ll probably just take wing and fly away!”
Those standing around him clamored in agreement. At the crowd’s edge a few anxious men seemed about to turn around and go home.
“Nonsense!” The captain pounded his halberd on the ground as a call to order. “This Kuisl is a man like any other, but he’s a murderer. And for that reason we’ll capture him today and bring him to justice. Do you understand? It’s your goddamned duty as citizens!” His threatening eyes wandered over the assembled company of pale, unshaven men. “You can, of course, buy your way out of this obligation, but believe me, I’ll check with the president of the council to see that you pay dearly.”
The citizens didn’t seem convinced, but they permitted the captain to divide them up into groups.
“Turmeier and Schwendner, you’ll go over to the Ostner Quarter,” he began in a voice accustomed to giving orders. “Poeverlein and Bergmüller, you’ll take the Wittwanger Quarter. The rest of you…”
Magdalena stopped paying attention now and turned to Simon, who had listened to the captain’s speech with his mouth as wide open as hers.
“Thanks be to the saints above! Father actually managed to escape!” the hangman’s daughter whispered. “But now they want to charge him with two more murders!”
Simon frowned. “And if he really…? I mean maybe this master baker got in his way, or—”
“And he slaughtered the bathhouse mistress for good measure?” Magdalena snorted. “Sometimes I believe you really think my father is some kind of monster. I don’t believe a single word of what that pompous guard said! As long as my father’s here in this city, they’ll accuse him of practically anything!” Lowering her voice, she added, “He’s probably hiding in a shed or a vacant lot somewhere. It’s very likely he’s injured. We’ve got to help him at once!”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Simon replied quietly. “We don’t know where he’s hiding any more than the guards do. Do you plan to run around calling for him by name?”
Magdalena thought for a moment; then her face lit up with a smile.
“That’s not such a bad idea,” she said. “Listen, this is how we’ll do it.” In a hasty whisper she explained her plan.
Jakob Kuisl sat against the low, crumbling wall, trying to fight off an impending blackout. The fresh air had revived him, but he’d reached the end of his strength. His escape from Peter’s Gate had required every last ounce of it, but he’d shaken his pursuers, at least for the moment. The men had run right past him. Among their voices he heard that of the third inquisitor and for a brief moment considered jumping up and strangling him with the one good hand he had left. Thank God he was too weak to try.
Now he was crouched in an overgrown lot somewhere in Regensburg, trying to pull himself together. All was not lost. He could still go to Teuber’s house if only this damned dizziness would pass!
When the alarm bells sounded, Kuisl knew at once they were for him. Bailiffs in every quarter would be alerted and in no time would be after him like dogs after a young fox. He tried to stand up but collapsed again immediately. On the third try he finally managed to pull himself halfway upright and set off, carefully placing one foot in front of the other.
Kuisl climbed over the lowlying wall overgrown with rosebushes and tried to orient himself. He knew that Peter’s Gate, which rose into view over the rooftops, was in the southern part of the city, and that Teuber’s house therefore had to be to the north, in the Henkersgässchen, or Hangman’s Lane. Beyond this he knew nothing. Until now he hadn’t given a single thought to how he might find the hangman’s house. He could hardly ask someone for directions, and there were no street signs in this damned city. The only option he had was to wander the streets in the hope that his nose would lead him there.
What a bloody ridiculous plan!
Kuisl cursed his own stupidity. Why hadn’t he questioned Teuber more closely about the location of his house? All Kuisl could do was hope he might run into a shady character like himself in the middle of the night who might take pity on him and help him out.
And turn me over to the bailiffs at the first opportunity…
Hunched over and peering in every direction as he went, the hangman slunk through the part of town neighboring Peter’s Gate. The houses here were small and low, the gardens untended, and he came upon house after house that had been reduced to ashes—evidence of the Great War and the last Plague, a few years ago. When the inhabitants went off to the former—or succumbed to the latter—their homes had fallen to ruin. From where he was he could hear the alarm bells still ringing and far-off shouts that signaled pursuit.
They were hot on his trail; he didn’t have much time left.
Just as Kuisl was seeking a hiding place next to a nearby house, two guards turned a corner and headed toward him. The men, armed with halberds, seemed just as surprised by him as he was by them. The younger of the two was so taken aback that his helmet fell off; the other reached nervously for an ancient wheel-lock pistol with a patina of verdigris that hung from his belt. Kuisl could only hope the weapon wasn’t loaded.
“Over here! Over here!” the younger one shouted, “We got him! The monster is right here!”
The older man fumbled with his pistol, which had snagged on his belt. When a shot rang out, the man shouted and fell to the ground, clutching his right boot and wailing. He’d shot himself in the foot.
Kuisl took advantage of the general confusion to run back out into the street
, but he didn’t get very far before two more bailiffs appeared from the other direction. One shouldered a crossbow at eye level. A moment later a bolt whizzed by, just a hair’s breadth from Kuisl’s right ear.
The hangman decided to risk it all: shouting at the top of his lungs, he ran toward the two newly arrived guards in the blind hope that the second man had neither a loaded crossbow nor a pistol. The bailiffs awaited him with their pikes pointed straight ahead, and Kuisl detected a mixture of fear and bloodlust in their eyes.
“Everyone to the Pfaffengasse!” one shouted. “He’s in the Pfaffengasse! Over here! He’s—”
Kuisl gathered all his strength and, with a single leap, soared headlong over the pikes, landing a punch in the face of the screaming guard that knocked the man down like a felled tree. The other dropped his spear and pulled out a large hunting knife. He lunged for the hangman, but Kuisl bucked like a wild horse. With a kick to the gut, the man collapsed, moaning.
The hangman turned to discover more and more guards streaming into the lane. Panicked, he spotted a low archway on his left that seemed to lead off into a narrow path. Without a moment’s hesitation, he fled through the archway and down the path, arriving soon at an interior courtyard surrounded on three sides by tall buildings.
A dead end.
Turning around, Kuisl saw three or four bailiffs approaching through the archway with their halberds raised. Cold smiles played across their lips, and their eyes gleamed. They were clearly now in no hurry. They had cornered their prey at last, and now they’d finish him off.
Someone tossed a torch into the middle of the courtyard, casting a larger-than-life shadow of Kuisl on the wall behind him. In the flickering light the hangman made an easy target.
A crossbow bolt splintered on the plaster wall behind him, then another. Out of the corner of his eye the hangman looked all around for a way out. There wasn’t a single door in sight; the windows were all on the second story and therefore out of reach, with no trellises or trees to climb. In one corner of the yard a two-wheeled oxcart was parked and loaded with hay. The cart had a heavy, waist-high shaft with iron fittings. The hangman hesitated. Then an idea hit him.
The Beggar King: A Hangman's Daughter Tale Page 31
