The Beggar King hd-3

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “Damn it!” Kuisl kicked the brew kettle so hard that brown liquid splashed over the side. “If only I had something to smoke, I’m sure I’d remember where I know that name.”

  He searched frantically in his linen shirt and pants pockets for a few buds of tobacco. Then he froze, pulling out a little roll of paper tucked in his breast pocket. He apprehensively unrolled the soiled scrap of paper and had to squint to read the words.

  In the next moment he turned as white as a sheet.

  “Father, what’s wrong?” Magdalena asked anxiously. “What’s on the paper?”

  Slowly, as if in a trance, Kuisl shook his head.

  “It’s nothing.” He crumpled the paper and returned it to his breast pocket. “Just a scrap of paper, nothing more.”

  His daughter gave him skeptical look. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, for God’s sake!” he snapped. “Don’t give me any backtalk. I’m still your father.”

  Magdalena raised her hands in appeasement. “Of course. Everyone has his secrets. I only wonder-”

  “Let’s deal with that later,” Simon interjected. “First we have to dispose of the dead monk. If the guards find him, they’re going to blame us.”

  Kuisl nodded, though his expression had since turned stony. He absent-mindedly stroked his breast pocket. “Very well,” he announced. “Let’s get to it.”

  Together they lifted the fat monk’s corpse, carried it back to the beer kettle, and watched as his body sank, gurgling, into the brown brew. But his head kept bobbing to the surface, dotted with hops catkins. Only after Kuisl dumped a few bags of grain on top of him did the monk disappear in the brew.

  Satisfied, Kuisl used his trousers to dry his hands, which were by now so bloodstained and dirty it looked as though he’d just dragged a dead cow to the knacker. Simon shuddered. He kept forgetting his future father-in-law was a master of killing. As a hangman, Kuisl had probably seen more corpses than there were apples on any given apple tree. And the vacant look in Kuisl’s eyes continued to trouble Simon. Just what was written on that piece of paper he’d so hurriedly hidden away in his pocket?

  The medicus suddenly recalled why they were awake at this hour of the night in the first place.

  “We have to get away from here as quickly as possible,” he whispered. “At once, if we can. I suggest we leave the bishop’s palace and find a place to hide in the ruins in the west of the city; they look as if they’ve been abandoned since the Great War. When things have calmed down, we’ll try to get out of town.”

  “The bishop’s guards will hardly see us off with a party,” Kuisl mused. His face was still pale and his mind in some faraway place.

  Simon grinned. “Well, I do have some good news, for a change. Magdalena and I spent the past day exploring the bishop’s palace in search of escape routes. In the back of the brew house we came upon a walled-up door that evidently dates from Roman times.” He pointed to the rear of the vault, where beer kegs were stacked almost to the ceiling. “The door directly borders the main road north of the bishop’s palace. We removed a few of the stones and felt a draft come through. It looks as if this door just may lead out of the compound.”

  “Show me,” Kuisl said.

  Magdalena and Simon led him into a corner of the brew house behind a stack of barrels, where they saw the outline of a doorway barely wide enough for a man to pass through. Some stones had been removed, and through the tiny opening a faint stench of garbage and excrement wafted in. Never in his life would Simon have imagined he’d find such a stink so pleasant.

  The smell of the city.

  “Get your things together,” Kuisl said. “Meanwhile, I’ll remove these stones, one at a time so nobody will hear a thing.”

  “Will that be too much of a strain, Father?” Magdalena asked anxiously. “Simon thinks you should take care of yourself and-”

  “When I need a nursemaid, I’ll let you know,” the hangman groused. “As long as I’m able to break a man’s bones, I can break down a little wall.”

  Magdalena grinned. Her father was clearly well on his way to recovery.

  “I was just asking,” she said. “We’ll be right back. Don’t be too hard on the stones, all right?”

  Together she and Simon hurried through the vaulted room and slipped through a small passage into the brewmaster’s kitchen. Outside, the moon shone brightly enough that Magdalena could see a guard leaning wearily on his pike. But the guard was thankfully too far from the kitchen window to recognize her. Smoked sausages and fragrant legs of pork hung from the ceiling on hooks, and baskets of fresh fruit and bread lined the windowsills alongside handwritten cookbooks and an old book on herbs.

  “The fat brewmaster must have been a gourmand; he really seems to have known his way around a kitchen.” Magdalena nodded approvingly as she plucked a few sausages from a hook. “I’m really sorry about what happened to him; I’m sure he was a really decent fellow.”

  Simon sighed. “He was. I regret having gotten him mired in this. I should never have-”

  “We haven’t got time for regrets right now,” Magdalena interrupted in a whisper. “Save your prayers until we get to Saint Michael’s Basilica in Altenstadt, or light a votive at church back in Schongau, if you prefer. Right now, though, this is a matter of life and death for us and for my father, and that’s my first concern.”

  “You’re right.” Simon filled a wineskin with dark Malvasian wine from a little keg next to the hearth. “Right now what worries me most is your father. What in the world was on that piece of paper? When he read it, it was as if someone had whitewashed his whole face.”

  “Who can tell what’s going on with my father?” Magdalena replied softly. “Sometimes I think not even Mother knows all his secrets. He’s never once spoken of his experiences in the war, even though that’s when the two met.”

  “Wait, your mother isn’t from Schongau?” asked Simon, astonished. “I always thought-”

  Magdalena shook her head. “She comes from around here. But whenever I’ve asked about my grandparents, or the time before I was born, she just falls silent.”

  “Do you think that damn Weidenfeld fellow dates back to that time, too?”

  “Maybe, but that’s just a hunch.” Magdalena shouldered her bundle. “We’ll probably never know for sure. You’re right, you know. We’ve got to get out of this loathsome city as fast as we can. My mother even said that Regensburg is cursed. Let’s forget about all these secrets and just get back home to Schongau.”

  Without another word, she hurried out into the brew house. Simon packed one more wedge of cheese in his bundle and followed. As he left, he took a last look into the kettle, but Brother Hubertus hadn’t resurfaced; his body was still drifting somewhere down below in the cloudy brew.

  Drowned in his drink, Simon thought. A fitting grave for a brewmaster.

  When the medicus arrived back at the walled-up doorway, he stopped short. Magdalena, too, stood there looking around helplessly.

  A good portion of the stones had been cleared away and stacked neatly along the wall, leaving a dark hole just large enough for a man to pass through.

  There was no trace of Jakob Kuisl.

  For several minutes neither of them budged. Then Magdalena started running among the barrels, calling out her father’s name in a tense, frantic voice. But there was no response.

  “Forget it!” Simon whispered. “He’s gone; he’s taken off-can’t you see that?”

  “Yes, but to where?” Magdalena asked in despair. “Why did he leave us behind?”

  The medicus knit his brow. “It must have something to do with that paper in his pocket. After reading it, he was like a different person.”

  “That may very well be,” Magdalena said, “but that’s no cause for him to abandon us. What are we supposed to do now?”

  “We’ll just leave without him,” Simon suggested. “It’s possible he didn’t want to put us in danger unnecessarily. For the guards we’re small fry. He�
�s the one they’re really after.”

  “But if that was the case, he would have told us.” Magdalena stared vacantly into the darkness. “To just up and disappear like that is not his way.”

  “Be that as it may, we’ve still got to get out of here ourselves. It’ll be morning soon, and the guards will be making their rounds.” Simon began removing more stones from the entry. “Come on, help me!” When no answer came, he turned around angrily.

  Magdalena just stood there, her arms folded and her lips clenched in defiance. “My father’s in trouble, and all you’re concerned with is saving your own hide!” she scolded. “You’re nothing but a coward!”

  “But Magdalena, that’s not the least bit true!” Irritated, Simon put down a stone and straightened up. “Your father clearly didn’t want our help. Believe me-he’ll make out just fine by himself. And what we have to do now is get out of here as fast as we can. If you have something else in mind, please tell me.”

  “I do in fact have something in mind,” she replied stubbornly. “We’ll hide out at Silvio’s place.”

  Simon’s face fell. “At the house of the Venetian dwarf? Why there, for heaven’s sake?”

  “He likes me, and he has influence. We can hide there until the coast is clear. We’ll be better off there than in some stinking barn or pigsty,” she added smugly, “and from there we can keep up our search for my father.”

  “And who’s to guarantee your beloved Silvio won’t immediately turn us over to the city guards, huh?” Wiping the dust from his hands with his jacket, he narrowed his eyes. “Has the smart mademoiselle considered that possibility?”

  “Silvio would never do that. He’s Venetian. City affairs don’t concern him. Anyway, he fancies me.”

  “Aha, so that’s how the wind is blowing!” Simon was annoyed. “You’re flattered by the attention.”

  “He’s a gentleman. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well, if that’s how you feel, let your gentleman go out and buy you a new wardrobe.” Exasperated now, Simon struggled to control his voice. “Should the opportunity arise, you two might take a nice coach ride to the Piazza San Marco in Venice, or maybe even to Paris. Just don’t expect me to play the part of your footman!”

  “Don’t get yourself all worked up, you old goat. Remind me, way back when, who was it who fell all over that Benedikta woman? You bowed and scraped so foolishly you were an embarrassment to behold!”

  Simon rolled his eyes. “That was almost two years ago, and I don’t know how many times I’ve apologized for that-”

  “Forget it,” Magdalena interrupted gruffly. “Your brilliant rescue plan is dead in the water, or shall we say dead in the beer tub? Your brewmaster is dead, so let’s give my Venetian a try. It’s as simple as that.”

  “‘My Venetian’?” said Simon mimicking her. “Do you think I don’t notice that dwarf fawning over you? You women are all the same-give a woman a new dress and she can’t tell up from down anymore.”

  Her palm met his face so hard the slap echoed through the domed vault.

  “Do as you please, you wretch,” Magdalena shouted. “Go sleep in a pigsty or boil yourself in beer suds, for all I care. I, for my part, am going to Silvio’s. He at least has manners and can probably help my father somehow.” She cast him an angry glance. “More than you, at any rate.”

  Without another word, she pushed her bundle through the hole in the wall, heaved herself through it, and, within moments, disappeared into the darkness.

  The dark space behind the door smelled of mildew and damp wood. Under her breath Magdalena cursed herself for not bringing a torch, but she could hardly turn back now. How would that look to Simon? Just thinking of him made her blood boil. What a jealous, self-absorbed little toad! Why couldn’t he see that her plan was better, plain and simple? At Silvio’s house they’d be safe, at least for the time being, and they might even be able to keep an eye out for her father. Magdalena sensed he was in danger. Never in her life had she seen her father turn so pale and shaken as just a short while ago. He needed her help, even if he’d never admit it.

  Sometimes Simon got so jealous he couldn’t see, let alone think straight. Doubtless once he cooled down, he’d see the error of his ways and catch up with her. Perhaps she ought to wait here in the dark for him and scare the dickens out of him when he came after her. The bastard deserved that, at least!

  She was so lost in thought she didn’t notice the wooden wall until her head slammed into it. Her face contorted in pain, she placed her hand on her throbbing forehead. Blindly she reached out in front of her and discovered this wasn’t a wall at all, but a huge fermenting vat as tall as a man. To the right and left of it stood other enormous wooden containers. Desperately she tried to push the vat aside, and just seconds later her hands broke through the rotted barrel staves. Tumbling forward, she tried to catch herself on a rusty barrel ring but fell instead into a dusty storage cellar located behind it. Ahead she could make out a slim ray of moonlight through a crack in the wall. Junk of all sorts lay scattered across the hard-packed dirt floor-broken wagon wheels, millstones, old crates and barrels, which had probably been moldering away down here for years. Ages ago someone must have walled up the entrance to the bishop’s palace, and as the years progressed, the storage room behind it had been forgotten.

  Magdalena looked around, blinking. By now her eyes had grown somewhat accustomed to the dark. Carefully, silently, she climbed over broken boards and bricks until she stood before a wooden shed. Some of the siding appeared to have been removed very recently, revealing a well-worn staircase that led up to a wide road.

  Magdalena recognized three covered arches that spanned the street ahead: she’d surfaced in a part of town just north of the bishop’s palace. These “flying bridges” arched over the street and ended at the bishop’s warehouses along the river. Not a single guard was to be seen, even though Magdalena could only imagine how eagerly the city bailiffs were waiting and watching, ready to pounce the moment any one of their three faces peeked out of the bishop’s palace. Apparently, though, the guards had reckoned only with an escape through the main entrance or the cathedral.

  Magdalena looked behind her into the darkness. Where was Simon? She was convinced he’d follow her, fuming and fussing, but at least halfway cooled down, having realized the sense of her plan. The medicus, who knew all about her occasional temper tantrums, was never angry with her for long, nor she with him. Should she turn back to look for him? Again she scanned the still-deserted lane. How long had her father been gone? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Perhaps he was hiding just a few yards away, in some yard. Magdalena could feel her breath quicken. The longer she waited here, the farther away her father would be.

  Simon or her father?

  She looked back again, but there was no sign of the medicus, and time was running out. She made up her mind at last: Simon knew where she planned to go, and he could just as well find her at the house of the Venetian ambassador. Her father, on the other hand, she now risked losing forever.

  Cursing softly, Magdalena squeezed through the crack in the boards, tiptoed to the street, and disappeared into the night.

  Without a single thought as to whether someone might hear him, the medicus hurled a sack of grain hard against the wall. The sack split open on impact and the grain burst out, falling to the ground like a sudden heavy rain shower.

  Simon raged. What was that impertinent wench thinking, talking down to him like that? He knew his plan to flee the city with the help of the bishop’s brewmaster had failed. But was that his fault? Was he somehow responsible for the fact that Brother Hubertus had wound up bobbing up and down like an overgrown apple in a vat of beer? The very thought of asking the arrogant Venetian for help was absurd! Well, maybe not completely absurd… Silvio probably had influence and could offer them a place to stay, but for Simon it was out of the question. How did Magdalena imagine it would play out? Would Simon stand calmly by as this dwarf made advances to her? Even if Silvio d
id manage to smuggle them both out of the city, did she think Simon would play the willing cuckold?

  As he got ready to toss the next sack of grain against the wall, Simon had to acknowledge he was in fact jealous.

  Magdalena was probably right; Silvio was their last hope. With a sigh he lowered the sack to the ground and sat on a pile of stones next to the secret doorway. From the room behind he heard a splintering sound and assumed Magdalena had knocked something over. He considered calling to her but decided against it. He’d give the girl a chance to figure things out for herself, for once. If she needed help, she could always come back.

  Simon picked up a handful of grain from the ground and sifted it through his fingers. The last half-hour had rattled him. Just when all three of them had managed to reunite after such a long struggle and to plan their escape at last, they were all running off on their own again. It was enough to drive a man out of his skin! The kernels passed through his fingers, one by one, slowly at first, then faster and faster.

  Like sand through an hourglass, he thought, time goes by. If I don’t hurry, I may never catch up with Magdalena again.

  But something held him back, a sudden premonition he couldn’t quite place. He contemplated the rye in his palm: yellow and firm, the little pearls popped open if you squeezed them long enough between your fingers, revealing a damp white flour inside.

  But some of the grains were different-they had a bluish sheen-and when Simon rubbed them, they gave off a musty, sickly sweet odor.

  He knew this odor.

  The medicus held his breath. This was the odor he first detected in the bathhouse storage room and, later, in the underground alchemist’s workshop, where he and Magdalena had come upon the burned powder. Several hundred pounds of the stuff must have been stored down there.

  The powder! My God…!

  What had Brother Hubertus said shortly before his death?

  This secret could drive us all out of our minds…