The Hangman's Daughter

by Oliver Pötzsch

“The pit by the brick kiln just behind the tanners’ quarter! Where all the clay tiles come from! Then…then is the children’s hiding place there, perhaps?”

  Jakob Kuisl puffed on his pipe and blew the smoke directly into Simon’s face, so that Simon had to cough. But at least the smoke covered the smell of the corpses.

  “Smart quack,” said Kuisl and slapped the coughing Simon on the shoulder.

  “And that is exactly where we’re going now, to pay the kids a visit.”

  Hastily the hangman filled the grave in again. Then he seized the spade and the lantern and ran to the wall of the cemetery. He was just about to heave his heavy body up the stone wall, when a figure appeared on top of the wall. It stuck out its tongue at him.

  “Ha, caught you at grave robbing! You look like the Grim Reaper in person, only a bit fatter.”

  “Magdalena, damn it, I—”

  Jakob Kuisl snatched at his daughter’s leg, intending to pull her down to him, but with a quick movement she jumped to one side and strutted along the wall. Disdainfully, she looked down on the two grave robbers.

  “I figured you would go to the cemetery. Nobody puts one over on me! Well, Father? Did you find the same dirt under the boys’ fingernails as with Johannes?”

  The hangman looked angrily across to Simon. “Did you tell?”

  The physician held up his hands trying to calm him down. “I never! I only told her about poor Johannes…and that you had examined the fingernails very closely.”

  “You idiot! You must not tell women anything, above all my daughter. She’s too good at reading between the lines and figuring things out.”

  Jakob Kuisl tried once more to grab Magdalena’s leg, but she was already a few steps farther on, balancing on the wall toward the church. The hangman hurried after her.

  “Come down from there at once! You’ll wake up the whole neighborhood, and then all hell will break loose!” he whispered hoarsely.

  Magdalena grinned down at her father. “I’ll come down, but only if you tell me what you’ve found out up to now. I’m not stupid, you know that, Father. I can help you.”

  “Yes, but come down first,” growled Jakob Kuisl.

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, damn it.”

  “Do you swear by the Blessed Virgin?”

  “By all the saints and devils, if I must!”

  Magdalena jumped down from the wall and landed directly in front of Simon. The hangman raised his hand threateningly, but then let it drop with a sigh.

  “And one more thing,” Magdalena whispered. “The next time you are standing in front of a locked gate, just look round a bit. Sometimes you can find things.” She held a big shiny key in her hand.

  “Where did you get that?” Simon asked.

  “Out of a little hole in the archway. Mother always hides her key in the wall too.”

  Deftly, she put the key in the keyhole, turned it once, and with a little squeak the iron gate opened. Without speaking, the hangman pushed past his daughter and hurried in the direction of the Lech Gate.

  “Come on!” he hissed. “There isn’t much time!”

  Simon had to grin. Then he took Magdalena’s hand and hurried after him.

  Sophie held her breath as once again steps passed quite close to her hiding place. She could hear the voices from where she was hiding with Clara, who in the meantime was sleeping peacefully. Since her last attack of fever at noon, Clara’s breathing had steadily become more regular, and it seemed she was on the way to recovery. Sophie envied Clara for sleeping. She herself had hardly been able to close her eyes for four nights. She was tortured by the fear of discovery, and now once more she could hear footsteps and voices. Men were walking overhead and appeared to be looking for something. But they were not the same men as last time.

  “There’s no point in doing this, Braunschweiger! We can keep on digging until hell freezes over. The field is much too big!”

  “Shut your mouth and keep on looking. There’s a lot of money somewhere around here and I’m not going to let it rot.”

  The voices were now directly above her. Sophie held her breath, surprised. She knew one of them. Fear crept slowly from her stomach to her throat, and she was only barely able to keep from screaming.

  Another man called out to the first two from a bit farther away. “Have you looked in the chapel? It must be here somewhere! Look for some way in, a hole, a loose flagstone perhaps…”

  “We’ll do that in a minute!” said the voice above her. Then it suddenly became quieter. The man seemed to be speaking to the one standing near him. “That lazy dog Moneybags! Sits there under the linden tree and thinks he has to play the supervisor. But just wait. As soon as we’ve found the treasure, I’ll cut his throat myself and sprinkle the blood all around the chapel!”

  Sophie pressed her hands to her mouth. She had almost cried out loud. She also recognized the second, more distant voice, the man under the linden. She would never forget either of them.

  She remembered.

  “Little brat, why was he eavesdropping on us? Now the fish are drinking his blood. Let’s look for the others…”

  “Holy Mother of God, did you have to do that? Did you really have to do that? Look at the bloody mess! They’ll be looking for the boy!”

  “Oh, nonsense. The river’ll wash that away. We’d better catch the others. They mustn’t escape us.”

  “But…they’re only children!”

  “Children can tell stories. Do you want them to give you away? Is that what you want?”

  “No…of course not.”

  “Then don’t make such a fuss. Miserable Moneybags, earning your money with blood but unable to look at it. That’s going to cost you something!”

  Miserable Moneybags… Sophie breathed more rapidly. The devil was there, right above them. He had caught three of them, and only she and Clara were left. And now he would catch them.

  There was no escape. Surely he could smell them.

  “Wait a minute—I have an idea where the treasure could be,” called the voice. “How would it be if…”

  At this moment there was a scream outside, and farther away someone groaned in pain.

  A little later all hell broke loose. Sophie put her hands to her ears and hoped it was all just a bad dream.

  Simon cursed as he slipped once more on the boggy ground of the clay pit and fell into the red mud. His hose was smeared all over with clay and his boots got stuck in it so firmly that he had trouble extricating himself. The hangman and his daughter stood at the edge of the pit and looked questioningly down at him.

  “Well?” Jakob Kuisl called down into the pit. His face was lit by a torch so that it glowed as a point of light in the otherwise complete darkness. “Any hollows or niches?”

  Simon managed to shake the largest clumps of dirt from his doublet. “Nothing! Not even a mouse hole.” Once again he held up the torch and looked around the pit. The torch let him see just a few yards. All else was swallowed up in darkness. “Children, can you hear me?” he shouted once again. “If you are here any where, let us know! It’s all right. We are on your side!”

  Only the noise of a thin stream of water could be heard, otherwise there was silence.

  “Damn it!” grumbled Simon. “What a stupid idea, to go looking for the children in the clay pit in the middle of the night! My boots are two slimy clods of dirt, and I might as well throw my doublet away!”

  Jakob Kuisl grinned as he heard the young physician cursing.

  “Don’t make such a fuss. You know very well that time is short. Let’s have a look in the tile kiln.”

  He held the ladder steady while Simon clambered up over the slippery rungs. When he reached the top, Magdalena’s face appeared in front of him. She held the torch so that it shone right in his eyes.

  “You do look rather…beaten up,” she giggled. “Why did you keep falling over on your nose?”

  With the corner of her apron she wiped the clay from Simon’s forehead. I
t was useless. The colored soil stuck to his face like paint. Magdalena smiled.

  “Perhaps I’ll let you keep a bit of the dirt on your face. You’re a bit too pale around the nose anyway.”

  “You be quiet. Otherwise I’ll start asking myself why it was me who had to climb down into this damned pit.”

  “Because you are young, and a few tumbles in the mud won’t hurt you,” came the hangman’s voice. “Anyway, you would hardly expect a young, delicate girl to climb down into such a filthy hole.”

  Jakob Kuisl had already strolled over to the kiln. The building stood at the edge of a clearing with the forest directly behind it. Kindling wood was piled up in six-foot stacks all over the clearing. The building itself was constructed of solid stone, and a tall chimney came out of the center of the roof. The kiln was situated between the forest and the river and was a good two furlongs from the tanners’ quarter. To the west Simon could now and then see lights from lanterns or torches in the town. Otherwise the darkness around them was complete.

  The tile kiln was one of Schongau’s most important buildings. After a few devastating fires in the past, the burghers were now required by law to build their houses with stone and roof them with tile rather than straw. Also, the craftsmen of the stovemakers’ guild fetched their raw materials from here for the manufacture of earthenware products and stoves. During the day, thick smoke almost continually covered the clearing. There was a constant coming and going, with oxcarts transporting the tiles to Altenstadt, Peiting, or Rottenbuch. But now, at night, there was not a soul about. The heavy door leading to the interior of the kiln was shut. Jakob Kuisl walked along the front of the building until he found a window whose shutters hung crooked on their hinges. With a determined tug he ripped off the right-hand shutter and held the torch in to illuminate the interior.

  “Children, don’t be afraid!” he called into the dark room. “It’s me, Kuisl from the tanners’ quarter. I know you had nothing to do with the murders.”

  “You really think they’ll come out when the hangman calls them?” hissed Magdalena. “Let me in. They’ll not be afraid of me.”

  She tucked up her skirt and climbed into the building over the low windowsill.

  “A torch,” she whispered.

  Without a word Simon passed her his torch. Then she disappeared into the darkness. From listening to her steps the two men could hear how she tiptoed from room to room. At last they could hear the creaking of boards. Magdalena was walking up the stairs.

  “The devil’s in that girl,” growled the hangman, sucking his cold pipe. “She’s like her mother, just as stubborn and cheeky. Time she got married and had somebody to keep her mouth shut.”

  The physician wanted to reply, but at that moment a crash and a scream were heard above.

  “Magdalena!” cried Simon and clambered into the interior, where he landed painfully on the stone floor.

  He arose at once, took the torch in his hand, and ran in the direction of the stairs. The hangman followed him. They crossed the room with the kiln and rushed up the stairs to the attic. It smelled of smoke and ashes.

  When they arrived upstairs, the air was full of red dust, so that in spite of the torch they could hardly see anything. From the corner on the right they could hear someone groaning quietly. As the dust was slowly settling, Simon could see broken tiles heaped and scattered all over the floor. Along the walls more tiles were piled up to the ceiling. In one place there was a gap. Several hundredweight of burnt clay must have fallen to the floor there. Under a particularly large heap something moved.

  “Magdalena!” cried Simon. “Are you all right?”

  Magdalena stood up, a red ghost, covered from tip to toe with fine tile dust.

  “I think…I’m all right now,” she coughed. “I wanted to push some tiles away. I thought there might be a hiding place behind here.” She had to cough again. Simon and the hangman were now covered with the fine red dust too.

  Jakob Kuisl shook his head. “Something’s not right,” he grumbled. “I’ve missed something. The red dirt…it was under their fingernails all right! But the children are not here. Where are they then?”

  “Where do they take the tiles to?” asked Magdalena, who meanwhile had brushed herself off as well as she could and was sitting on a pile of broken tiles. “Perhaps the children are there?”

  The hangman shook his head again. “That wasn’t brick dust under their fingernails. That was red clay, damp clay. They must have dug in it. Where else is there so much clay?”

  Suddenly a thought flashed through Simon’s mind.

  “The building site!” he cried. “At the building site!”

  The hangman looked up, startled. “What did you say?”

  “The leper house, the building site!” repeated Simon. “There were big heaps of clay there. They used it to plaster the walls!”

  “Simon’s right!” Magdalena cried and jumped up from the heap of tiles. “I myself have seen the workers with their carts taking clay there. The leper house is the only large building site in Schongau at the moment!”

  The hangman kicked a tile against the wall, where it broke into small pieces.

  “My God, you’re right! How could I be so stupid as to forget the building site? We were there ourselves and saw the clay!”

  He hurried down the stairs. “To the leper house, quickly!” he called as he was running. “Pray God that it isn’t too late!”

  From the kiln to the Hohenfurch Road it was a good half hour’s brisk walk. The shortest way was through the forest. Jakob Kuisl chose a narrow path, which resembled a track for animals more than anything. The moonbeams broke only occasionally through the dense pine trees, otherwise an almost impenetrable blackness reigned. It was a mystery to Simon how the hangman managed to find the way. Together with Magdalena he stumbled along, guided by the hangman’s torch. Again and again pine branches struck them in the face. Now and then Simon thought he could hear a cracking of branches in the underbrush nearby. But his own breathing was too loud for him to say definitely if it was his imagination or real footsteps. After just a short time he began to breathe heavily. It was like a few days ago, when he was fleeing from the devil, and he noticed how out of condition he was for such running through the forest. He was a physician, damn it—not a huntsman or a soldier! Magdalena ran on, light-footed, alongside him and because of her he tried not to let it show.

  Suddenly they exited the forest and stood out in the open on a field of stubble. The hangman paused to get his bearings, then ran to the left along the edge of the field. “Head east, and then take a sharp right at the oaks!” he called to them. “We’re almost there!” Soon indeed they passed a grove of oak trees and finally stood at the edge of a larger clearing. They could recognize shadowy outlines of buildings. They had arrived at the building site.

  Simon halted, panting. Twigs, burrs, and pine needles clung to his coat. He had lost his hat somewhere in the pine thickets. “Next time you take a run through the forest, let me know ahead of time,” he groaned, “so I put on something suitable. That hat cost half a florin, and my boots—”

  “Shhh.” The hangman held his big hand over Simon’s mouth. “Stop babbling. Look over there.”

  He pointed to the outlines of the building site. Small points of light were moving here and there, and they could hear bits of conversation that drifted over to them.

  “We’re not the only ones,” whispered Jakob Kuisl. “I can count four or five torches. And I’ll bet my backside that our friend is here also.”

  “You mean, the man you ran after last time?” whispered Magdalena.

  The hangman nodded. “The same who almost slit Simon’s throat. The one they call the devil. But this time we’ll get him.” He motioned to the physician to come over. “The torches are spread out all over the site,” he said. “They seem to be looking for something.”

  “But what?” Simon asked.

  The hangman grinned broadly. “We’re soon going to find out.” H
e picked a heavy oak branch up from the ground, broke off the twigs, and cradled it in his hand. “We’ll take them singly, one by one.”

  “We?”

  “Sure.” The hangman nodded. “I can’t do it alone. There are too many. Have you got your knife on you?”

  Simon fumbled at his belt. Then, trembling, he pulled out his stiletto, which flashed in the moonlight.

  “Good,” growled Kuisl. “Magdalena, you run back to the town and wake Lechner at the castle. Tell him that the building site is being destroyed again. We need help, as quickly as possible.”

  “But—” The hangman’s daughter was about to protest.

  “No argument, or you’ll marry the hangman from Steingaden tomorrow morning. And now, run!”

  Magdalena pouted. But then she vanished into the shadows of the forest.

  The hangman gave a signal to Simon and ran, bent over, along the edge of the wood. Simon hurried after him. After about two hundred paces they came across a pile of tree trunks that the workers had deposited near the forest’s edge. The pile reached some distance into the clearing. Using the cover of the trunks, the hangman and the physician crept closer to the half-finished building. Now they could see that there were in fact five men, who appeared to be searching for something with lanterns and torches. One man sat on a boulder near the linden tree in the middle of the clearing, two were leaning by the well, and the other two were in other parts of the site.

  “I’m getting tired of freezing my behind off here in the dark!” shouted one of the men, who was inside a big square of walls. “We’ve been searching here almost all night now. Let’s come back again tomorrow, by daylight!”

  “In the daytime the place is swarming with workers, you idiot,” hissed one of the men by the well. “Why do you think we’re doing all this at night? Why did we knock everything down after sunset? We’ll go on looking, and if Moneybags has lied to us and there’s nothing buried here, then I’ll smash his skull on this well like a raw egg!”