The Beggar King hd-3

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Where am I? What does he intend to do with me?

  Once again Katharina felt a tingle creep across her back. She turned around and looked directly into the eye.

  It was studying her. Something scraped along the outside of the door.

  It was time for the next course.

  Avoiding the main streets, Magdalena and Simon made their way through a labyrinth of narrow lanes and shadowy back courtyards piled high with rubbish and excrement. The squalid children and hapless, wounded veterans of the Great War who occupied these places stared out at them as they passed. Old soldiers leaning on crutches, some with horrible scars and burns on their faces, held out their hands as the two strangers hurried by in silence. Everywhere, mangy, scraggy dogs roamed the streets, snarling at them in packs. This was the other face of Regensburg, the dirty underside that had nothing whatsoever in common with the clean paved streets, the stately parliament building, the cathedral, and the towering houses where the patricians lived. This was a place of poverty and disease, where the daily battle for survival was waged.

  More than once Simon thought he saw a figure peering at them from around a corner, someone pursuing them, lying in wait for just the right moment to plunge a dagger into their ribs or snatch their few belongings. But oddly enough the beggars and the wounded left them alone. Simon was sure this had less to do with him than it did with Magdalena, whose steady gait and fierce gaze showed possible thieves and muggers she wasn’t an easy target. They could sense that the hangman’s daughter was one of their own.

  “If this tavern doesn’t materialize soon, I’m going to die of thirst right here in the middle of the street,” Simon lamented, wiping the sweat from his brow. Again he cursed himself for having eaten that salty, greasy sausage down by the river.

  The heat continued to build palpably in the narrow lanes. Several times already they’d asked halfway reputable-looking passersby for directions to the Whale. Each time they’d been sent off in a different direction, and now they found themselves somewhere behind the cathedral, supposedly just a stone’s throw from the elusive tavern.

  “Surely it can’t be much farther,” Magdalena said, pointing ahead to a broad boulevard spanned by tall stone arches. “Those must be the arches they told us about. We just need to turn right here, and we’ll be there.”

  As they walked, the hangman’s daughter briefly recounted what had happened to her father. A few words were enough to give the medicus cause to worry. Was it really possible someone had framed the hangman? And if so, why? Simon wasn’t especially enthused about Kuisl’s idea to go looking for clues at Hofmann’s house. He dreaded the thought of breaking into the bathhouse that night. What if someone caught them? No doubt they would be deemed the hangman’s accomplices, thrown into the very next cell, then led to the gallows alongside him. But the medicus knew he wouldn’t be able talk Magdalena out of it. Once the hangman’s daughter had set her mind to something, there was no turning back.

  At last they emerged from the labyrinth of narrow lanes and turned right, into a wide paved boulevard with huge stone arches overhead. Nestled discreetly between two warehouses stood a lopsided, two-story gabled house that looked as though it had been standing there since time immemorial. Above the entrance dangled a rusty metal sign depicting a whale and a man leaping from its mouth.

  “Jonah and the whale,” Simon said, nodding. “This must be it.”

  Magdalena tried to get a look inside, through a sooty bull’s-eye windowpane, but even though it was the middle of the day, it was as dark as the grave inside. “It doesn’t exactly look inviting,” she ventured.

  “It doesn’t matter,” replied Simon, reaching for a small bronze fish that served as a door knocker. “The raftmaster seems to know his way about town, and his word clearly carries some weight. I think we ought to try it. We do need a cheap place to stay, since my savings can’t last us much longer than a few more days.” He pounded vigorously on the door.

  For a long time they heard nothing. Just as Simon was about to suggest they look for somewhere else to stay, the door opened a crack and a long pointed nose appeared, attached to a haggard old woman with stringy hair and remarkably bad breath.

  “What? What do you want?”

  “We’re… looking for lodging for the next few weeks,” Simon replied hesitantly. “Karl Gessner sent us, the Regensburg raftmaster.”

  “If Gessner sent you, you must be all right,” the old woman mumbled as she shuffled back inside, leaving the door wide open behind her.

  Simon cast a cautious glance inside the taproom. Hanging from the wood-paneled ceiling was a giant stuffed catfish that stared back at him with mean eyes. Despite the summer heat, a tile stove with a bench built around it rumbled away in a far corner. The chairs and tables in the room were old and scuffed, and except for Simon and Magdalena, not another living soul seemed to be staying there. What fascinated Simon most, however, was the shelf that lined the opposite wall, holding objects he never would have expected to find in such a place: books.

  Not two, or three, but dozens of them, all bound in leather and apparently in mint condition.

  He entered the tavern alongside Magdalena and walked directly to the books. He knew at once he’d feel at home here.

  “Where-where did you get all these?” he asked the old woman, who had disappeared behind the bar again and was polishing glasses with a dirty rag.

  “My dead husband. Before he married into my family, dear old Jonas worked as a scribe down at the ferry landing, drafting documents for the rivermen. He could never get enough books.” She looked at Simon suspiciously. “I’ll bet you’re a bookworm, too. I could use someone like you at the present.”

  “I-don’t understand,” Simon stuttered.

  The tavern keeper’s widow gave a condescending nod toward the bench by the stove. Only now did Simon and Magdalena notice someone lying there, snoring loudly. The stranger wore wide baggy trousers, a frilled white shirt whose lace collar was spattered with red wine, and a tightly fitted purple jacket whose silver buttons gleamed brightly in the dark room. The man’s legs, stretched out on the table, were shod in freshly polished leather boots whose bucket tops reached almost down to the sole.

  Damn! That outfit must have cost a fortune, Simon thought. I always wanted boots like that!

  “Ask the Venetian,” the landlady replied. “He comes here for the books-and for the wine and women, of course.”

  Simon took a closer look at the man passed out on the bench. He didn’t look like a penniless drunk. On the contrary, the unconscious man looked well-to-do, right down to his cleanly clipped goatee. His black hair fell in curls across his shoulders, his fingernails were manicured, and his cheeks had a soft pink hue. Just as Simon was about to turn away, the Venetian opened his eyes. They were dark, almost sad, as if they’d read more than their fair share of tragedies.

  “Ah, ma che bella signorina! Sono lietissimo! Che piacere!” he said, still a bit woozy, then sat up, smoothing the wrinkles out of his jacket. Simon was just about to bow when he realized that the man was addressing not him but Magdalena. He stood up from his seat by the stove, took Magdalena’s hand, and brushed it with his lips. Magdalena couldn’t suppress a giggle. She never would have thought it possible, but the Venetian man was even shorter than Simon. Just the same, all of the Venetian’s nearly five feet positively pulsed with pride and nobility.

  “May I introduce myself?” he asked in almost perfect, unaccented German. “Silvio Contarini from the beautiful city of Venice. I must have dozed off.” He bowed slightly, and Magdalena noticed with astonishment that his hair slipped forward as he did so. Evidently he was wearing a wig.

  “Gambling and whoring till the wee hours of the morning,” the tavern keeper complained from behind the bar. “You and your cronies guzzled two gallons of my best muscatel last night.”

  “Perdonate. Is this enough?” The Venetian slid a few shiny coins across the bar, which the old woman quickly pocketed. Magdalena was a
ghast. The man had just paid as much for wine as her family spent in a whole week.

  “Do you like books?” he asked Magdalena, pointing at the shelves behind him. “Do you perhaps know Shakespeare?”

  “Actually,” Simon now chimed in, “we’re more interested in medical texts.”

  Silvio turned around in surprise, only just now noticing there was another person in the room. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know, Scultetus, Pare, Paracelsus, and so forth. You’ve probably never heard of them.” Simon reached for his bag and turned to the innkeeper. “May we see the room now?”

  Without waiting for Magdalena, he stomped up the narrow stairway. Silvio looked at the hangman’s daughter in astonishment. “Is your friend always so… surly? These bruises all over his face! He must get into a lot of scrapes, yes?”

  The hangman’s daughter laughed. “Actually no. He loves books, just as you do. He’s had a bit of a rough day is all. We’ve had a long journey, you should know.”

  The Venetian smiled. “Yet not so long as mine! Ma che ci vuoi fare! What brings you to Regensburg?”

  “My… father.” Magdalena hesitated. “We come from Schongau. My aunt lives here, or rather, she lived here… and we wanted to pay her a visit, but…” She waved her hand. “It’s too complicated to explain in a few words.”

  Silvio nodded. “Then perhaps another time, over a glass of wine.” Reaching abruptly into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a little book, which he handed to Magdalena.

  “If you like, read this, poems by a certain William Shakespeare. I translated them into German myself. Tell me frankly what you think of them.”

  Magdalena graciously accepted the little leather-bound book. “But how can you be so sure we’ll meet again?”

  Silvio smiled. “I’m sure we shall. I come here often. Arrivederci.” He bowed politely and pranced out of the room.

  Puzzled, Magdalena gazed after him for a while before climbing the narrow stairway up to the room where Simon was already lying on one of the flea-infested beds, staring up at the ceiling.

  The hangman’s daughter grinned. “Is it possible you’re the tiniest bit jealous?”

  Simon snorted. “Jealous? Of the dwarf?”

  “Right. He’s the same height as you, you know.”

  “Very funny,” Simon snapped. “In case you didn’t notice, the man was made-up like a woman. And he was wearing a wig.”

  Magdalena shrugged. “Perhaps. I’ve heard that in France, at court, all the men wear wigs now. Doesn’t look half bad.”

  Sitting up, the medicus looked at Magdalena as if she were a naughty child. “Magdalena, believe me, I know people like him. It’s all a facade-fine clothes, witty repartee, but nothing at all behind it!”

  With a sigh, she lay down next to Simon and pulled him to her with both arms.

  “Strange. That sounds somehow rather familiar.”

  Late in the evening the gatekeeper Johannes Buchner strolled through the narrow city streets enjoying the mild summer air. Periodically he tossed a leather purse full of guilders in the air so the coins jingled like castanets. The lieutenant had been saving up for the coming Sunday, when he and a few friends had a game of dice planned for the back room of the Black Elephant. High stakes, big payoff-that was the way Buchner liked it.

  Even as darkness fell, he had no fear for his safety. He was, after all, the head watchman at Jakob’s Gate, and the riffraff knew him well. Beggars, thieves, and whores knew better than to trifle with him. Unlike many of the other guards for whom duty at the gate was just another annoying civic responsibility to be performed as a matter of course, Buchner was a trained soldier paid by the city. Besides, anyone who dared assault a city guard risked meeting his end on gallows hill with his guts spilling out. But not before Buchner’s colleagues worked him over; by the time they were through with him, the poor bastard would wish he were dead already.

  The lieutenant’s route took him from the city hall square all the way to the wine market near the Danube. Buchner mulled over the exciting events of the past week. The trap set for that Bavarian had worked perfectly! When the man first approached him at Jakob’s Gate, Buchner knew at once that this would be a profitable venture, even though he was surprised that such an influential person would want anything to do with someone as vile as an executioner. But that wasn’t really Buchner’s concern; the payoff was decent enough, and the man had made clear he wouldn’t tolerate any questions.

  Even though the man hadn’t given his name, it was of course clear to Buchner who stood before him. As a longtime commander of the city guards, he knew who wielded power in this city. The man had promised him a whole purse of guilders just for seizing the Schongau hangman at Jakob’s Gate and releasing him at the agreed-upon time the following day. An armed contingent was to follow the stranger in secret, and a surprise would be waiting for them all at the bathhouse. When the guard finally saw what the surprise was, he had to hand it to his client. You really had to be careful not to make an enemy of a man like him.

  Buchner whistled as he turned into the narrow Wiedfanggasschen Street, driving off a handful of whimpering strays with a few well-aimed kicks. A prostitute, cheaply made-up and haggard, winked at him from a street corner. For a moment the lieutenant considered spending the money he’d come by so easily not on wine but on women-then he thought better of it. In the last few weeks prostitutes had been disappearing left and right in Regensburg; the only ones who still dared to venture out into the streets were almost all old shrews.

  “Get out of here before I put your bony frame in the pillory,” Buchner said in a threatening voice, spitting at her.

  With a suppressed giggle, the prostitute sauntered off, but not without first offering him a view of her bare, boil-scarred backside. Soon enough Buchner was alone again in the narrow street, and though he’d served as night watchman in this city for thousands of hours, the sudden silence gave him an eerie feeling.

  You’re getting old, Buchner, he thought. Letting yourself get spooked by a whore? It’s time for a mug of wine, or-

  Thinking he caught sight of something moving out of the corner of his eye, he made an abrupt about-face, prepared to show a purse snatcher just what he was up against. No doubt the robber would turn on the spot and flee.

  “Who dares approach the city guard-”

  The knife plunged into the small gap between his cuirass and armpit and cut straight through to his heart. As blood spurted from his mouth, he stared back at his attacker in disbelief.

  “But… why…?”

  His knees buckled and he sank to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. One final twitch, and he was still. The coin purse slipped from his limp fingers.

  The murderer bent down to feel for the gatekeeper’s pulse, then for good measure slit his throat. At the latest, his colleagues would discover their commander’s stiff corpse the next morning, another tragic victim in a growing wave of crime in Regensburg. His attacker wiped the hunting knife on Buchner’s cloak and, contented, sauntered off with the purse of guilders, humming softly to himself. It was simply not worth the risk of having some garrulous bailiff foil his plan, especially now that this girl had appeared on the scene. No one suspected she’d show up in Regensburg looking for her father. Now what was he going to do about her?

  The man decided the matter could wait a while. The hangman’s daughter wasn’t going anywhere, and the more pressing matter now was to dispose of some of the evidence. All would be taken care of, all in good time…

  Smiling, he fingered a matchbox in his coat pocket. Soon enough all his worries would vanish like a puff of smoke.

  Simon and Magdalena waited until the night was as black as the bottom of the Danube before heading downstairs to the tavern of the Whale. With considerable reluctance, the medicus had finally agreed to Magdalena’s plan to search the bathhouse for some clue that might exonerate Jakob Kuisl.

  As he descended the creaking stairs, Simon noticed with asto
nishment that the tavern, empty just a few hours before, was now at full capacity. Every table was occupied with weatherworn raftsmen and craftsmen smoking their pipes, but more well-to-do citizens were there, too, with their lace collars and sparkling buttons. Laughing loudly and gossiping, they rolled dice as wine flowed so freely that the scrawny server could barely keep their steins full. A dark cloud of tobacco smoke enveloped the men, many of whom held women in their laps: garishly made-up and giggling, groping their patrons’ crotches as they licked their dark, wine-stained lips.

  At his usual spot in back by the stove, the Venetian reclined, staring dreamily at the chaotic scene around him and sipping his wine now and then. He was the only one in the room with a leadcrystal glass in front of him.

  “Ah, la bella signorina and her brave protector!” he exclaimed in greeting as Magdalena and Simon entered. “Have you abandoned your love nest in order to devote yourselves to the joys of the night? Sit with me, signorina, and tell me whether you’ve read my little book yet! I’m-come si dice-dying to know what you think of it.”

  Simon shook his head coldly. “Sorry, we have other plans for tonight.”

  Silvio Contarini winked at them. “For that you could have just stayed upstairs, no?”

  Magdalena smiled and pulled away. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to stick your nose into other people’s business? Enjoy your wine, and we’ll see you later.”

  “But what about my book?” he called after them. “The poems? Via piacciono questi versi?”