The Hangman's Daughter

by Oliver Pötzsch

  While he was still speaking, the other man left, shutting the heavy oaken door behind him, which made the shouted threats hardly audible anymore.

  “In five days you’ll be dead,” he mumbled, knowing well that the older man inside couldn’t hear him. “And if the devil doesn’t take you, I’ll send you to hell myself.”

  As he walked across the balcony with its elaborately decorated balustrade, his gaze wandered over the roofs toward the black, silent forest that stood just beyond the gates of the town. He felt a short thrill of fear. The man out there was unpredictable. What would happen when the children were out of the way?

  Would he ever stop? Would he himself be next?

  They came punctually with the midday pealing of the bells. An escort of four town bailiffs led the way, with the court clerk and the three witnesses following. Jakob Schreevogl’s face was pale; he had slept badly. His wife kept waking up with nightmares and calling for Clara. Furthermore, he was still suffering from a hangover from drinking with the physician. He could no longer remember exactly what he had said to young Fronwieser. But he had the feeling he had been a better talker than listener.

  In front of him walked Michael Berchtholdt. The baker had a bunch of herbs with mugwort hanging at his belt, which was supposed to protect him from witchcraft. He was softly reciting his prayers and fingering a rosary. When he entered the prison, he crossed himself. Jakob Schreevogl shook his head. No doubt the baker had blamed Martha Stechlin for all the times he had burned the bread and for the hordes of mice in his bakery. After the Stechlin woman was reduced to ashes and the bread was still burned, he would presumably seek a new witch, thought Schreevogl, and he wrinkled his nose in disdain. The sharp smell of mugwort wafted over to him.

  Immediately behind him, Georg Augustin entered the prison. The son of the powerful wagon drivers’ family reminded Schreevogl a bit of the young physician. Like him, the young patrician liked to dress in the latest French fashions. His beard was freshly trimmed, his long black hair carefully combed, the calf-long trunk hose perfectly tailored. His ice-blue eyes took in the prison with disgust. The son of a powerful wagon drivers’ family was not used to such surroundings.

  When the two Schongau prisoners noticed the arrival of the distinguished visitors, they began to rattle the bars of their cell. Georg Riegg still looked pale; he no longer felt like scolding.

  “Your Excellency,” cried the wagon driver as he turned toward the court clerk. “May I just have a word with you…”

  “What’s up, Riegg? Have you a declaration to make?”

  “Let us out, please. My wife has to look after the cattle by herself, and the children—”

  “You’ll stay in here until your case comes up,” Lechner interrupted him without looking at him. “And that goes for your comrade here, too, and the Augsburg wagon driver over there in the Ballenhaus. One law for everyone.”

  “But, Your Excellency…”

  Johann Lechner was already descending the stairs. In the torture chamber it was warm, almost hot. In the corner, red-hot charcoal glowed in a brazier standing on a tripod. In contrast to the last time, the chamber had been tidied up. Everything was ready: a new rope dangled from the ceiling, and the thumbscrews and pincers lay, sorted and oiled, on the chest. On a stool in the middle of the room sat Goodwife Stechlin, shaved bald, in a torn dress, her head bowed. The hangman positioned himself behind her, his arms crossed.

  “Ah, I see, Kuisl, all is prepared. Good, very good,” said Lechner, rubbing his hands together as he sat down at the writing desk. The witnesses took their places on his right. “Then we can begin.” He turned to the midwife, who up to now had taken no notice of her visitors. “Can you hear me, Stechlin?”

  The midwife’s head remained bowed.

  “Can you hear me? I want to know.”

  There was still no reaction from Martha Stechlin. Lechner went over to her, raised her face with two fingers under her chin, and gave her a box on the ear. Now at last she opened her eyes.

  “Martha Stechlin, do you know why you are here?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. I’ll explain it to you again anyway. You are suspected of having caused the death of the children Peter Grimmer and Anton Kratz in a most disgraceful way. In addition, of having abducted, with the assistance of the devil, Clara Schreevogl and at the same time of having set fire to the Stadel.”

  “And the dead sow in my sty? What about my dead sow?” Michael Berchtholdt had jumped up from his seat. “Just yesterday she was rolling about in the mud, and now—”

  “Witness Berchtholdt,” Lechner snapped at him. “You will only speak when you are required to do so. We are now concerned with more than a dead sow; this concerns our dear children!”

  “But…”

  One glance from the court clerk silenced Berchtholdt.

  “Well then, Stechlin,” continued Lechner. “Do you admit having committed the crimes of which you are accused?”

  The midwife shook her head. Her lips were narrowed, tears flowed down her face, and she wept silently.

  Lechner shrugged his shoulders. “Then we must proceed to the interrogation. Executioner, begin with the thumbscrews.”

  Now it was Jakob Schreevogl who couldn’t keep his seat any longer. “But all this is nonsense!” he cried. “Goodwife Stechlin had already been in prison a long time when the little Kratz boy was killed. And it would have been equally impossible for her to have had anything to do with kidnapping my Clara and the fire at the Stadel!”

  “Didn’t people say that the devil himself abducted your Clara?” asked young Augustin, who was seated alongside Schreevogl. His blue eyes looked the merchant’s son up and down, and he almost seemed to be smiling. “Couldn’t it be that the Stechlin woman asked the devil to do all this, after she was locked up here?”

  “Why, then, didn’t she ask him to fetch her out of the prison? That doesn’t make sense!” cried Jakob Schreevogl.

  “The torture will lead us to the truth,” the court clerk resumed. “Executioner, continue.”

  The executioner reached out and took a thumbscrew from the chest. It consisted of an iron clamp, which could be closed with a screw at the front. He took the midwife’s left thumb and introduced it into the clamp. Jakob Schreevogl was surprised at the hangman’s apparent indifference. Only yesterday Jakob Kuisl had spoken out forcefully against the torture, and also the young physician had told him, over a few glasses of schnapps, that the hangman was not at all in agreement with the imprisonment of Martha Stechlin. And now he was applying thumbscrews to her.

  But the midwife, too, seemed to have accepted her fate. She gave her hand to the hangman almost with indifference. Jakob Kuisl turned the screw. Once, twice, three times…A brief shudder ran through her body, nothing more.

  “Martha Stechlin, do you now confess the crimes with which you are charged?” the clerk inquired in a monotone singsong.

  She still shook her head. The hangman turned the screw still tighter. No movement, only her lips became narrower, a pale red streak like a closed door.

  “Damn it, are you screwing it up properly?” Michael Berchtholdt asked the hangman. Jakob Kuisl nodded. As proof, he opened the screw and held the tortured woman’s arm up. Her thumb was one blue bruise, and blood seeped out from under the thumbnail.

  “The devil is helping her,” whispered the baker. “Lord God, protect us…”

  “We shan’t get any further like this.” Johann Lechner shook his head and put the quill, with which he intended to make notes, back on the table. “Bailiffs, bring me the chest.”

  Two of the town watchmen handed the clerk a small chest, which he lifted to the table and opened.

  “Look here, witch,” he said. “All these are things we found in your house. What have you to say about them?”

  To the astonishment of Jakob Schreevogl and the others he produced a small bag out of the chest, poured some dark brown seeds into his hand and showed them to the witnesses. The stovemaker’s
son took a few between his fingers. They smelled slightly of rotting flesh and their shape somewhat resembled caraway seeds.

  “Henbane seeds,” said the court clerk, as if he was delivering a lecture. “An important ingredient of the flying salve that witches spread on their broomsticks.”

  Jakob Schreevogl shrugged. “My father also used it to flavor his beer, and you aren’t going to describe him, God rest his soul, as a sorcerer.”

  “Are you blind?” hissed Lechner. “The proof is clear. Here!” He held up a spiny capsule that looked something like a chestnut. “A thorn apple! Also an ingredient for the witches’ salve, and also found at Stechlin’s house. And here!” He showed them a bunch of small white flowers. “Hellebores! What they call Christmas roses! Freshly gathered. Also a witches’ herb!”

  “Excuse me for interrupting you,” Jakob Schreevogl broke in again. “But isn’t the Christmas rose a plant that is supposed to protect us from evil? Even our reverend parish priest recently praised it in his homily as a sign of new life and resurrection. Not for nothing does it bear the name of our Savior…”

  “What are you, Schreevogl?” Georg Augustin interjected. “A witness or her advocate? This woman was with the children, and the children are dead or have disappeared. In her house we find the most devilish herbs and mixtures. She is scarcely imprisoned when the Stadel burns down and the devil stalks through our town. It all began with her, and with her it will come to an end.”

  “Exactly, you’ll see in a minute,” Berchtholdt scolded. “Turn the screw tighter, then she’ll confess. The devil himself is holding his protecting hand over her. I have an elixir made from Saint-John’s-wort here…” He produced a small bottle containing a bright, blood-red liquid and held it up triumphantly. “This’ll drive the devil out. Just let me pour it down her gullet, the witch!”

  “God Almighty! I don’t know who is the biggest witch here,” cried Jakob Schreevogl. “The midwife or the baker!”

  “Quiet!” thundered the clerk. “It can’t go on like this. Executioner, pull her up on the rope. Let’s see if the devil will help here there too.”

  Martha Stechlin appeared increasingly apathetic. Her head nodded again and again to the front and her eyeballs seemed to be turned strangely inward. Jakob Schreevogl asked himself if she was actually aware of what was happening around her. Without attempting any resistance, she let herself be pulled to her feet by the hangman and dragged to the rope that was dangling from an iron ring in the ceiling further in the rear of the cell. At the end of the rope there was a hook. The hangman attached this to the manacles with which the midwife’s arms were tied behind her back.

  “Shall I tie a stone to her underneath?” Kuisl asked the court clerk. His face was remarkably pale, but otherwise he appeared calm and collected.

  Johann Lechner shook his head. “No, no, we’ll try it as it is at first, then we’ll see later.”

  The hangman pulled on one end of the rope, so that the ground slipped from under the midwife’s feet. Her body bent forward a little and began to bob up and down. Something cracked. She moaned quietly. The court clerk recommenced his questions.

  “Martha Stechlin, I ask you once more. Do you confess to having taken the poor lad Peter Grimmer and…”

  At this moment a shudder went through the midwife’s body. She began to twitch and to shake her head wildly back and forward. Saliva flowed from her mouth; her face was turning blue.

  “My God, look,” cried baker Berchtholdt. “The devil’s in her! He wants to get out!”

  All the witnesses, even the clerk, had jumped up to see the spectacle close up. The hangman had lowered the woman to the ground again, where she writhed in cramps. She reared up one more time, then she collapsed completely, her head turned to one side at an odd angle.

  For a moment nobody said anything.

  At last young Augustin spoke. “Is she dead?” he asked, intrigued.

  Jakob Kuisl bent over her and put his ear to her breast. He shook his head.

  “Her heart’s still beating.”

  “Then wake her up again, so that we can continue,” said Johannn Lechner.

  Jakob Schreevogl was very near to hitting him in the face.

  “How dare you!” he cried. “This woman is ill, can’t you see that? She needs help!”

  “Nonsense! The devil has gone out of her, that’s all!” said baker Berchtholdt and fell to his knees. “He’s surely still here in this room somewhere. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”

  “Executioner! You will wake this woman up again! Do you understand?” The clerk’s voice had taken on a rather shrill tone. “And you…” He turned to the frightened bailiffs behind him. “You fetch me a physician, and quickly!” The bailiffs ran upstairs, relieved to be able to escape from this hellish place.

  Jakob Kuisl took a bucket of water that was standing in the corner and dashed it in the midwife’s face. There was no movement. Then he began to massage her chest and pat her cheeks. When all this proved of no avail, he reached into the chest behind him and brought out a bottle of brandy, some of which he forced her to swallow. The rest he poured on her chest and began to knead it.

  Only minutes later steps were heard on the stairs. The bailiffs were returning with Simon Fronwieser, whom they had met outside on the street.

  Standing alongside the hangman, he bent down to the midwife and pinched her on the upper arm. Then he took out a needle and thrust it deep into her flesh. When she still didn’t move, he held a small mirror to her nose. The glass clouded over.

  “She’s alive,” he told Johann Lechner. “But she’s in a deep swoon, and heaven alone knows when she’ll wake up from it.”

  The court clerk let himself fall back in his chair and rubbed his graying temples. Finally he shrugged. “Then we can’t examine her further. We’ll have to wait.”

  Georg Augustin looked at him in amazement. “But the Elector’s secretary…He’ll be here in a couple of days and we have to present him with a culprit!”

  Michael Berchtholdt, too, was pleading with the clerk: “Don’t you know what’s going on out there? The devil is about. We’ve seen it for ourselves. People want us to finish…”

  “Damn it!” Johann Lechner pounded the table with his hand. “I know that myself! But at the moment we just can’t continue with the questioning. Not even the devil will get a word out of her! Do you expect an unconscious woman to confess? We’ll have to wait. And now everybody, up and out, all of you!”

  Simon and Jakob Kuisl carried the unconscious midwife back to her cell and covered her up. Her face was no longer blue but chalk-white, her eyelids fluttered, and her breath came steadily. Simon looked at the hangman from one side.

  “That was you, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You gave her something to stop the torture and to give us more time. And then you told your wife to ask me to wait outside after midday so that the bailiffs would fetch me and not my father, who perhaps might have noticed something…”

  The hangman smiled. “A few plants, a few berries…She knew them all, she knew what she was letting herself in for. It could have gone wrong.”

  Simon looked at the pallid face of the midwife. “You mean?”

  Jakob Kuisl nodded. “Mandrake roots, there’s nothing better. I…we found some, luckily. They are very rare. You don’t feel pain, the body relaxes, and the sufferings of this world are only shadowy figures on a distant shore. My father used to give this drink to poor sinners. However…”

  He rubbed his dark beard thoughtfully.

  “I put in perhaps almost too much monkshood this time. I wanted it to look real, right to the end. Just a bit more of it and the Lord God would have taken her. Now, good. We have at least gained a little time.”

  “How long?”

  The hangman shrugged. “After one or two days, the paralysis will disappear and she can open her eyes again. And then…” He stroked the face of the sleeping Martha Stechlin once more before leaving the keep.

  “
And then, I fear, I shall have to hurt her very much,” he said. His broad back filled the entire door frame.

  CHAPTER

  9

  SATURDAY

  APRIL 28, A.D. 1659

  NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  THE NEXT MORNING, THE PHYSICIAN AND THE hangman were sitting together in the Kuisl house over two mugs of weak beer, thinking about everything that had happened in the past few days. Simon had thought all night long about the unconscious midwife, realizing how little time they had left. He silently sipped his beer while next to him Jakob Kuisl chewed on his pipe. Magdalena’s constant comings and goings in the room to fetch water or to feed the chickens under the bench didn’t make thinking any easier. At one point she came and knelt down right in front of Simon and her hand brushed over his thigh as if by chance, causing a shiver to run through his body.

  Jakob Kuisl had told him that his daughter was the one who found the mandrake root in the forest. Ever since then Simon had become even more attracted to her. This girl was not only gorgeous, she was also clever. What a pity that women were barred from entering the university. Simon was sure that Magdalena would have had no trouble holding her own in her studies against all those learned quacks.

  “Would you like another beer?” asked the hangman’s daughter, winking and filling up his tankard without waiting for an answer. Her smile reminded Simon that there was more to this world than missing children and self-appointed inquisitors. He smiled back at her. Then his thoughts returned to gloomier things.

  The night before he had to accompany his father on a house call. Haltenberger’s farmhand had come down with a bad fever. They’d given him cold compresses, and Simon’s father had bled him. Simon was at least able to convince his father to use some of that ominous powder that had previously helped several times with fever and supposedly came from the bark of a rare tree. The patient’s symptoms reminded him of another case in which a wagon driver from Venice had collapsed on the street in their town. A foul odor had come from the man’s mouth, and his entire body was covered with pustules. People spoke of the French disease, and that the devil used it to punish those who indulged in unchaste love.