The Hangman's Daughter

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Simon sighed and turned on his heels.

  “Stop right there!”

  The voice had come from somewhere out in the depths of the forest. Simon stopped and looked back over his shoulder. A stone hit him in the side.

  “Ouch! Damn it, Sophie…”

  “Don’t turn round,” came Sophie’s voice again. “You needn’t see where I am.”

  Simon obeyed, shrugging his shoulders. The place where the pebble had struck him was terribly painful. He had no desire to be injured by another stone.

  “The boy tattled, is that right?” asked Sophie. “He told you that I sent him.”

  Simon nodded. “Don’t be angry with him,” he said. “I would have guessed it anyway.”

  He focused his eyes on a point somewhere in the dense undergrowth in front of him. This helped him to speak to the invisible girl.

  “Where is Clara, Sophie?”

  “She’s safe. I can’t tell you anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re looking for us. Clara and I are in danger, even in the town. They already got Peter and Anton. You must keep an eye on Johannes Strasser, at the innkeeper’s in Altenstadt—”

  “He’s gone missing,” Simon interrupted the girl.

  She was silent for a long time. Simon thought he heard her sob quietly.

  “Sophie, what happened that night? You were all together, weren’t you? Peter, you, Clara, the other orphans…what happened?”

  “I…I can’t tell you.” Sophie’s voice trembled. “It will all come out. We’ll be burned—all of us!”

  “Sophie, I swear I will stand up for you,” he said, trying to calm her down. “Nobody’s going to get hurt. Nobody…”

  He heard a branch break. The sound came not from behind, where he supposed Sophie was standing or sitting, but from the front. On the left, twenty paces in front of Simon, there was a stack of sticks.

  Something was moving behind the pile.

  Simon heard a thump behind him and steps hurrying away. Sophie was escaping.

  Just a moment later a figure dashed out from behind the pile. The person was wearing a coat and a broad-brimmed hat. At first Simon thought it was the hangman, but then the figure drew a saber from under his coat. For one short moment the sun shone through the thick branches of the forest, and the saber glittered in the light. As the figure rushed toward him, Simon noticed something clutching the saber, something white.

  It was the hand of the devil, a hand of bone.

  Simon suddenly felt as if time had arrested. Every gesture and detail burned itself into his brain. His feet seemed glued to the earth, as if stuck in a swamp. Not until the devil was ten strides from him could he move again. Terrified, he turned and ran to the edge of the forest. Behind him he heard the steps of the devil, a rhythmic crunching of gravel and earth. Soon he could hear the breath of his pursuer drawing closer.

  Simon dared not turn around for fear this would slow him down. He ran and ran, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, and he knew that he would not be able to maintain this pace much longer. The man behind him was used to running, his breath was regular and even, very soon he would catch up. And the edge of the forest was still not in sight. All he could see was dense woods and shadows.

  The sound of breathing came even closer. Simon cursed himself for his idea of going into the forest alone. The devil had seen him and the hangman at the building site. They had pursued him, and they had provoked him, and now the devil was at his heels. Simon had no illusions. When the man caught up with him he would kill him, as quickly and casually as one would kill a bothersome fly.

  At last the forest seemed to brighten in front of him. Simon’s heart raced. That must be the edge of the forest! The path went down into a hollow before it finally left the forest and led down to the river. Light broke through the treetops, the shadows retreated. Simon staggered on a few yards, then dazzling sunlight surrounded him. He had reached the end of the forest. He staggered over a bank and saw the raft landing beneath him. People were standing on the riverbank, and oxen were drawing a wagon up the hill toward the forest. Only now did he dare to look around. The figure behind him had vanished. The edge of the forest appeared to be nothing more than a black ribbon in the midday sun.

  But he still felt he was in danger. After taking a few deep breaths, he ran on unsteadily toward the raft landing, looking behind him all the way. As he turned his head once again toward the forest, he collided with someone in front of him.

  “Simon?”

  It was Magdalena. She had a basket in her hand filled with wild herbs. She looked at him, in astonishment.

  “What’s happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Simon pushed her down the few remaining yards to the raft landing and collapsed onto a stack of beams. Not until he was here amid the busy activity of the raftsmen and wagon drivers did he really feel safe.

  “He…was after me,” he stammered at last, when his breathing was more or less regular again.

  “Who was?” Magdalena asked anxiously and sat down beside him.

  “The devil.”

  Magdalena laughed, but her laughter did not sound genuine. “Simon, don’t talk nonsense,” she said finally. “You’ve been tippling, in the midday sun!”

  Simon shook his head. Then he told her everything that had happened since the morning: the destruction at the building site, the pursuit with her father in the woods, the conversations with the parish priest, Schreevogl, and Sophie, and finally his flight down to the raft landing. When he had finished, Magdalena looked at him with worried eyes.

  “But why did the devil pick on you?” she asked. “You don’t have anything to do with it, do you?”

  Simon shrugged. “Probably because we are on his heels and because we almost got him.” He looked at Magdalena very earnestly. “Your father is in danger too.”

  Magdalena grinned. “I’d like to see the devil try to punch my father. My father’s the hangman, don’t forget that.”

  Simon got up from the pile of wood. “Magdalena, this is no joke,” he cried. “This man, or whatever he is, has presumably murdered a few children! He wanted to kill me, and perhaps he’s observing us at this very minute.”

  Magdalena looked around. Right in front of them, wagon drivers were loading two rafts with cases and barrels and lashing them into place. Further on, a few men were clearing away the charred remains of the Zimmerstadel, and elsewhere new beams were already being put up. One of the men occasionally turned to look at them and then whispered to his neighbor.

  Simon could well imagine what they were whispering: the hangman’s whore and her lover boy…the physician’s son, who goes to bed with the hangman’s wench and doesn’t believe that the devil is making his rounds in Schongau, or that the midwife must be burned.

  Simon sighed. Magdalena’s reputation was ruined anyway, and by now, his as well. He put his hand against her cheek and looked deep into her eyes.

  “Your father told me that you found a mandrake in the forest,” he said. “You probably saved Martha Stechlin’s life with it.”

  Magdalena grinned.

  “That’s a fair exchange. After all, she gave me my life. I was a real pain when I was born, my mother says. I was the wrong way around and didn’t want to come out. If it hadn’t been for Martha Stechlin, I wouldn’t be here. Now I can pay her back.”

  Then she became serious again.

  “We must go to my father and warn him,” she whispered. “Perhaps he’ll think of some way that we can catch the devil.”

  Simon shook his head. “Above all we must find out who took part in the meeting with this so-called devil and the other soldiers at Semer’s inn. I’m sure this person is the key to everything else.”

  Both fell silent in thought.

  “Why did the devil come back?”

  “What?” Simon was startled out of his thoughts.

  “Why did he come back to the building site?” Magdalena asked once more
. “If he and his men were really responsible for the destruction there, why did he go there once again? They had already done everything they wanted to.”

  Simon frowned. “Perhaps because he’d lost something, perhaps the tobacco pouch that your father found. He didn’t want people to discover that and draw conclusions.”

  Magdalena shook her head.

  “I don’t believe that. There was no monogram on the pouch, nothing that might have given him away. It must have been something else…”

  “Perhaps he was looking for something,” Simon suggested. “Something that he didn’t find the first time.”

  Magdalena was deep in thought.

  “Something draws him to the building site,” she said. “Goodwife Daubenberger told me that witches used to dance there, and soon it will be Walpurgis Night again…Perhaps he really is the devil.”

  Both fell silent again. The sun was almost too hot for April. It warmed the stack of beams they were sitting on. From a distance they heard the voices of the raftsmen as they drifted down the river toward Augsburg. The water glittered like liquid gold. Suddenly it was all too much for Simon—the flight, all the questions, the brooding, the fear…

  He jumped up, took Magdalena’s basket, and ran upriver.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “To look for herbs, with you. Come on, the sun is shining, and I know a nice cozy place.”

  “And what about my father?”

  He swung her basket and smiled at her.

  “He can wait a bit. You said yourself that he fears neither death nor the devil.”

  Under the disapproving looks of the wagon drivers she ran after him.

  Dusk stretched out its fingers from the west and settled on the woods around Schongau. The Hohenfurch Road lay in complete darkness, and so the man who now approached from the west could scarcely be discerned among the bushes at the edge of the clearing. He had decided against taking the road and had gone through the high thickets parallel to it. It took almost twice as long that way, but he could be sure that nobody would see him. The gates of the town had been closed half an hour ago and the probability that he would meet anyone out here was extremely small. But the man did not want to run any risk.

  His shoulders ached from carrying the shovel. Sweat streamed over his forehead; thorns and thistles clung to his coat and left small tears in many places. The man cursed. What drove him on was the certainty that all this would soon be over. Then he could come and go as he pleased and there would be nobody to tell him what to do. Sometime in a distant future he would tell his grandchildren about it, and they would understand. They would realize that it was for their sake that he had done all this, for the survival of their family, their dynasty. That it was he who had saved the family. But then it occurred to him that he had already gone too far. He couldn’t tell anyone about it anymore. Too much had already happened, too much that was dirty and bloody. He would have to take the secret with him to the grave.

  A twig cracked in the darkness, a flapping noise could be heard. The man stopped and held his breath. Carefully he pulled out the small lantern that he had concealed under his coat until then and pointed it in the direction of the sound. Not far from him, an owl flew up into the air and across the clearing. He smiled. Fear had almost made a fool of him.

  He looked around on all sides for the last time, then he entered the building site and hurried to the construction in the middle.

  Where should he begin? He walked round the foundation walls that had been destroyed and looked for a clue. When he found nothing, he climbed over a heap of stones into the interior and struck a flagstone on the ground with his shovel. The metallic noise seemed to go right through him. He had a feeling they could hear it all the way to Schongau, and he stopped at once.

  Finally he climbed a small wall adjacent to the main building and gazed over the clearing. The leper house, the chapel, heaps of beams, a well, sacks of lime, a few upset buckets…

  His eye fell on an old linden tree in the middle of the clearing. Its branches reached almost down to the ground. For some reason the builders had left it standing. Perhaps the church did not want to chop it down, thinking of a future use as shade for the invalids.

  Or perhaps because the old man had willed it so?

  With hasty steps he ran to the linden, ducked under the branches, and began to dig. The earth was as firm as clay. A tough network of roots spread from the linden in all directions. The man cursed as he dug until streams of sweat began to soak through his coat. He gripped the shovel with both hands and drove the blade through roots as thick as arms, until they splintered, only to reveal other roots beneath them. He tried it in another place nearer to the tree, with the same result. He panted and spluttered. He hacked faster and faster on earth and wood, then he stopped, struggling for breath, and leaned on the shovel. It must be the wrong place. Nothing had been buried here.

  With his lantern he examined the linden for possible knot-holes. Beneath the first branch, just high enough to be out of his reach, there was a hole about as big as a man’s fist. He put the lantern down and pulled himself up by the branch. The first time he slipped down because his hands were so wet with perspiration, but at last he managed to hoist his heavy body up. Slowly he moved toward the trunk until he could manage to put his right hand into the knothole. He felt wet straw and then something cold, hard. Obviously metal.

  His heart jumped.

  Suddenly a sharp pain shot through his hand. He pulled it out, and at the same moment he saw something large and black flying away protesting furiously. On the back of his hand there was a cut as long as a finger that began to bleed profusely. Cursing, he threw away the rusty spoon which he had continued to clutch in his hand, and let himself slide to the ground. He licked the blood from the wound, while tears of pain and despair flowed down his cheeks. The scolding of the magpies seemed to be mocking him.

  Everything was in vain.

  He would never find it. The old man had taken his secret to the grave with him. Once more he glanced over the building site. The walls, the foundations of the chapel, the well, stacks of wood, the linden, a few stunted pines at the edge of the clearing. There had to be something that had been there before—something noticeable, something that could be found again. But perhaps the builders, unknowingly, had already removed this landmark.

  He shook his head. The site was too big. He could dig here night after night without finding the slightest thing. But then a defiant spirit welled up within him. He could not give up so easily. Not so soon. Too much depended on it. A new plan, then…He must proceed systematically, divide the site up into smaller parcels and then search it section by section. One thing at least was sure—the thing he was looking for was here. It would take patience, but in the end it would be worth it.

  Not far away, leaning against a tree trunk near the clearing, the devil stood and watched the man digging. He blew a smoke ring into the night sky and watched it climb up toward the moon. He had known that there was something else interesting about the building site. He wouldn’t be lied to. That made him angry. Actually, he would have liked immediately to cut the throat of the man down there between the walls and sprinkle his blood around the clearing. But then he would spoil things in two ways: he would not be paid for further mischief, and he would never find out what the man was so desperately seeking. He would therefore have to be patient. Later, when the man had found it, there would be time enough to punish him for his lies. Just as he would punish the physician and the hangman for pursuing him. This time the quack had managed to get away from him. That would not happen again.

  The devil puffed another cloud into the night sky. Then he made himself comfortable on the soft moss at the foot of a fir tree and carefully observed the man digging. Perhaps, after all, he would find something.

  CHAPTER

  11

  SUNDAY

  APRIL 29, A.D. 1659

  SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  SIMON WAS AW
AKENED BY A CREAKING NOISE, A soft sound that had insinuated itself into his dreams. In a second, he was wide awake. Next to him, Magdalena was still in deep sleep. Her breath was even, and the smile on her lips suggested she was in the midst of a beautiful dream. Simon hoped that she was dreaming of last night.

  He had walked with Magdalena along the river to gather herbs. He had tried not to say a word about the recent events in Schongau. At least for a brief moment he wanted to forget. He didn’t want to think of the man they called the devil, who was intent on murdering him. He didn’t want to think of the midwife in the town jail, who was still unconscious, nor the dead children. Springtime was here, the sun was shining warmly, and the waters of the Lech burbled along softly.

  After a good mile through the meadowland along the riverbank they reached Simon’s favorite spot, a small gravelly cove that could not be seen from the path. A large willow spread its branches over the cove, so that the river behind it sparkled through the leaves. In recent years he had often come to this spot when he wanted to sit and think. Now he was looking out over the river with Magdalena. They talked about the last market day, when they had danced together and people’s tongues were wagging at the tables all around. They told each other about their childhood. Simon spoke of his time as an army surgeon, and Magdalena of the fever that had laid her low for many weeks when she was seven years old. During that time she had also been taught to read by her father, who remained at her bedside day and night. Ever since then she helped him mix his potions and grind his herbs, and she always learned something new when she rummaged through her father’s books.

  To Simon it seemed like a miracle. Magdalena was the first woman he could discuss books with. The first woman to have read Johann Scultetus’s Wundarzneyisches Zeughaus or Surgical Armory, and to know the works of Paracelsus. Only now and then did he feel something like pangs of regret when he remembered that this girl could never become his wife. As the hangman’s daughter she was dishonorable, and the town would never permit their union. They would have to go to some foreign country, a hangman’s wench and a traveling field surgeon, and they would have to live by begging in the streets. But then, why not? His love for this girl was so strong now, at this moment, that he would readily give up everything for her.