The Hangman's Daughter

by Oliver Pötzsch

  It took him a while to discover a narrow shaft that led vertically upward.

  About fifteen feet above them, daylight was falling in through narrow cracks. Up above, well beyond their reach, was a flagstone. Even if Simon had taken Sophie on his shoulders she couldn’t have reached the heavy slab of stone. And she certainly wouldn’t have been able to lift it.

  They were trapped.

  Gently, Simon let the unconscious Clara slide to the ground and sat down beside her. This wasn’t the first time today that he felt the urge to cry, or at least to shout at the top of his lungs.

  “Sophie, I think we can’t get out of here…”

  Sophie snuggled up and put her head in his lap. Her hands clung to his legs. She was trembling.

  Suddenly Simon remembered the mark. He tugged at Sophie’s dress to reveal her shoulder.

  On her right shoulder blade was the witches’ mark.

  He fell silent for a long time.

  “You children painted these marks yourselves, didn’t you?” he finally asked. “Hematite, a simple powder…You must have seen the symbol somewhere at Goodwife Stechlin’s, and then you scratched it into your skin with elderberry juice. It was just a game…”

  Sophie nodded, pressing her head into Simon’s lap.

  “Elderberry juice!” Simon continued. “How in the world could we have been so stupid! What kind of a devil would use a children’s beverage to write his marks? But why, Sophie? Why?”

  Sophie’s body trembled. She was weeping into Simon’s lap. After a while she spoke without raising her head.

  “They beat us, they kicked us, they bit us…Wherever they saw us they spat on us and made fun of us.”

  “Who?” Simon asked, irritation in his voice.

  “The other children! Because we’re orphans, because we have no families! So anyone can walk all over us.”

  “But why the mark?”

  For the first time Sophie looked up.

  “We saw it on a shelf at Martha’s place. On a jar. It looked a bit like…witchcraft. We thought if we had the mark on us it would protect us like magic. Nobody’d be able to hurt us then.”

  “Magic to protect you…a charm,” Simon mumbled. “A silly children’s prank, nothing more…”

  “Martha told us about that kind of protective magic,” Sophie continued. “She said there are spells to ward off death, illness, or hailstorms. But she didn’t tell us about any of these. People would say she’s a witch…”

  “Oh my God,” Simon whispered. “And that’s exactly what happened.”

  “So we came down here to our hiding place, at the full moon, to make sure the magic would work. We scratched the mark into one another’s skins and swore we’d stick together forever. That we’d always help one another and spit on and detest the others…”

  “And then you heard the men.”

  Sophie nodded.

  “The magic didn’t work. The men saw us, and we didn’t help one another. We ran away, and they clubbed Peter to death like a dog…”

  She began to cry again. Simon caressed her until she calmed down, and her crying became just an occasional sob.

  At her side, Clara was groaning in her sleep. Simon felt her forehead. It was still burning hot. The physician wasn’t sure if Clara would survive long down here. What the girl needed was a warm bed, cold compresses, and linden blossom tea to reduce the fever. Besides, her leg wound required attention.

  Simon called for help, cautiously at first, but then louder and louder.

  When nobody answered his repeated calls, he gave up, sitting down again on the rocky, damp ground. Where were the sentries? Still lying on the ground, bound and gagged? Had they been able to free themselves, and were they perhaps already on their way to the town to report the attack? But what if the devil had killed them? It was the first of May today. There was dancing and carousing up there in the town, and it was quite possible that it would be tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow before someone would come by. By then, Clara would have died of fever.

  To drive away the dark thoughts the physician kept asking Sophie for more details. He kept thinking of new things that he or the hangman had discovered and that suddenly made sense now.

  “The sulfur we found in Peter’s pocket—that’s part of your hocus-pocus as well?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “We got it from one of Martha’s jars. We thought if witches used sulfur for casting their spells, it would probably work for us as well. Peter stuffed his pockets with it. He said it would make such a nice stink…”

  “You stole the mandrake from the midwife, didn’t you?” Simon continued. “Because you needed it for your magic games.”

  “I found it at Martha’s,” Sophie admitted. “She once told me about the miraculous power of the mandrake root, and I believed if I soaked it in milk for three days it would turn into a little man who’d protect us…But it just stank, nothing more. I used the rest to make a potion for Clara down here.”

  The physician glanced at the unconscious girl. It was almost a miracle that she had survived that drastic cure. But perhaps the mandrake root had done some good as well. After all, Clara had been asleep for days now, and that had given her body enough time to regenerate.

  He turned back to Sophie.

  “And that’s why you didn’t go to the court clerk or one of the aldermen to report what you saw,” he observed. “Because you thought they’d suspect you of witchcraft on account of the mark.”

  Sophie nodded.

  “When that thing with Peter happened, we were going to,” she said. “So help me God, we wanted to go to Lechner right after the ten o’clock bell to confess the whole matter. But then you men found Peter down at the Lech and saw the witches’ mark. And then there was all that turmoil and everybody talked of witchcraft…”

  She looked at Simon in despair.

  “We thought nobody was going to believe us then. They’d take us to be witches and put us to the stake along with Martha. We were so scared!”

  Simon stroked her dirty hair.

  “It’s all right, Sophie. It’s all right…”

  He looked at the little tallow candle flickering by his side. In no more than half an hour it would burn down. Then the only light they’d have would be a tiny ray through the cracks of the flagstone. He considered making a cold compress for Clara’s swollen ankle with a rag torn from his cloak but decided against it. The water that had gathered in little puddles down here was way too dirty. Presumably such a compress would make the girl even sicker. Unlike most physicians of his time, Simon was convinced that dirt caused infection. He had seen too many wounded men with soiled bandages perish miserably.

  Suddenly something made him stop and listen. He could hear voices from far off. They came from above. Simon jumped to his feet. There had to be people at the building site! Sophie had stopped crying too. Together they tried to figure out whose voices they were. But they were too soft.

  Briefly Simon considered the risk. It was quite possible that the people above them were soldiers or perhaps even the devil himself…That lunatic might have killed the hangman and climbed up through the well. On the other hand, Clara was certainly going to die if nobody got her out of there. He hesitated briefly, then he cupped his hands and shouted up the shaft in a hoarse voice.

  “Help! We’re down here! Can anyone hear us?”

  The voices overhead fell silent. Had the men walked away? Simon kept shouting. Sophie was now helping him.

  “Help! Can’t anyone hear us?” both of them shouted.

  Suddenly they heard muffled sounds and heavy footsteps. Several people were talking directly above them. Then there was a scraping sound as the flagstone was pushed to the side, and a beam of light fell on their faces. A head appeared in the opening. The sunlight was almost blinding after so many hours of darkness, and Simon had to blink. Finally he recognized the man.

  It was the patrician Jakob Schreevogl.

  When the alderman recognized
his daughter down there he began to shout. His voice sounded broken.

  “My God, Clara, you’re alive! Praise the Blessed Virgin Mary!”

  He turned around.

  “Quick, a rope! We’ve got to get them out of there!”

  A short time later, a rope appeared in the opening and was quickly let down the shaft. Simon tied it into a loop, put it around Clara’s waist, and signaled the men to pull her up. Then it was Sophie’s turn. He was hoisted up last.

  Once he’d arrived aboveground, Simon looked around. It took him some time to get oriented. Around him he saw the walls of the new chapel. The shaft was underneath a weathered flagstone right at the center of the building. The masons seemed to have used an ancient foundation for the floor. The physician looked down once more. It was quite possible that at the spot there had already stood a church or another sacred building long ago that had been connected to the underworld by a tunnel. The workman presently employed at the current construction had obviously not noticed the flagstone.

  The physician shuddered. An ancient tunnel straight down to hell…And below the devil himself was waiting for the poor sinners.

  Further off Simon saw the two sentries of the previous night sitting on a half-finished wall. One of the two had his forehead in a bandage, rubbing his head and still looking dizzy. The other one looked relatively alert although his right eye was badly bruised. Simon had to grin in spite of himself. The hangman had done a good job without causing permanent damage. He was indeed a master of his craft.

  In the meantime Jakob Schreevogl was attending to his foster daughter, dripping water into her mouth and mopping her forehead. When the young alderman noticed Simon’s expression he began to talk without interrupting what he was doing.

  “After you were at my house yesterday afternoon to ask for the old documents I couldn’t put my mind to rest. I tossed and turned all night. In the morning I went to your place and then to the hangman’s. I met nobody at either, so I came here to the building site.”

  He pointed at the two sentries, still sitting on the wall in a stupor.

  “I found them behind the woodpile, gagged and tied. Simon, can you tell me what exactly happened here?”

  Simon briefly related their discovery in the well, the dwarf’s holes, the hangman’s battle with the soldier, and their escape through the tunnel. He described what the children had seen in that moonlit night a week ago. However, he kept silent about his suspicion that old Schreevogl’s treasure might be down there, and he also didn’t mention that it was Jakob Kuisl who’d knocked out the sentries. The patrician had to assume that the devil had put the bailiffs out of action before he clambered down the well.

  Jakob Schreevogl listened intently, his mouth agape. Occasionally, he interjected a brief question or stooped down to attend to Clara.

  “So the children painted the witches’ marks on each other to protect themselves against the other children,” he finally said.

  He stroked Clara’s burning forehead. She was still asleep and breathing far more regularly now. “My God, Clara, why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you!”

  He shot a glare at Sophie before he spoke again.

  “Little Anton and Johannes Strasser might have been saved, if only you hadn’t been so pigheaded. What in the world were you thinking, you brats? There’s a lunatic at large, and you just keep playing your games.”

  “We shouldn’t scold the children,” said Simon. “They’re young, and they were scared. It’s more important that we get the murderers. Two of them seem to have kidnapped Magdalena! And their chief’s still down there in the tunnels with the hangman!”

  He looked over at the well, where smoke was rising from below. What was going on down there? Was Jakob Kuisl dead? Simon suppressed the thought. Instead, he turned to the patrician again.

  “I wonder who was the mastermind, the patron. Who is so intent on preventing the leper house from being built that he will even kill children for that?”

  Jakob Schreevogl shrugged.

  “Well, until a short while ago you even suspected me…Other than that I can only repeat what I told you. Most patricians in the town council, including the burgomasters, were opposed to the building because they were afraid of financial losses. That’s ridiculous, if you remember that even Augsburg has a leper house like that.”

  He shook his head and then turned contemplative again.

  “But would they destroy the building site and kill witnesses, let alone children? I can’t imagine that in my wildest dreams…”

  They were both startled by the sound of loud coughing and turned around.

  A pitch-black form emerged from the well, pulling itself up on a rope. The bailiffs picked up their weapons and headed for the well, clutching their halberds in fear. The figure that pulled itself over the edge of the well looked like the devil himself. It was black with soot from head to toe, and only the eyes were shining white. His clothes were singed and bloodstained in many places, and between his teeth he was holding a larchwood cudgel, the tip of which was glowing red. Now he threw it out onto the ground.

  “Jesus bloody Christ! Don’t you know your own hangman? Quick, get me some water before I’m completely burned to a crisp.”

  The bailiffs withdrew, frightened, while Simon hurried to the well.

  “Kuisl, you’re alive! I thought the devil…God, I’m so happy!”

  The hangman hoisted himself over the edge of the well.

  “Don’t waste your words. The damned swine is where he should’ve been long ago. But my Magdalena is still in the hands of those cutthroats.”

  He limped to a water trough to wash himself off. It took some time for the hangman’s face to appear beneath thick layers of soot. He cast a glance at Jakob Schreevogl and the children, and nodded approvingly.

  “You saved her. Well done,” he growled. “Go back to Schongau now with them and the alderman, and we’ll meet at my house. I’m going to look for my daughter.”

  He picked up his cudgel and headed for the Hohenfurch Road.

  “You know where she is?” Simon called after him.

  The hangman nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “He told me. Toward the end. Eventually you can get anyone to talk…”

  Simon gulped.

  “What about the bailiffs?” he called after Jakob Kuisl, who had already reached the road that led to Hohenfurch. “Won’t you take them to…help you?”

  The last words he said only to himself. The hangman had already disappeared around the corner. He was very, very angry.

  Magdalena was stumbling along the road to Schongau. Her clothes were torn and wet, and she was shaking violently. Her head was still aching, too, and she was tormented by thirst and the fact that she hadn’t slept all night. Again and again she kept looking around to see if the second soldier might be following her after all, but there was no one on the road—not even a peasant who could have given her a ride on his oxcart. Ahead of her, Schongau with its protecting walls sat proudly on its hill. To her right was the gallows hill, now deserted. Soon, very soon, she’d be home.

  Suddenly she saw in front of her a small dot in the distance, a person with a limp hurrying toward her. The form grew larger, and when she blinked she realized that it was her father.

  Jakob Kuisl ran the last few yards, even though it was difficult for him. He had a deep cut in the right side of his chest and one in his left upper arm. He had lost a good deal of blood, and he had twisted his right ankle during the struggle down in the tunnel. But considering all that, he was feeling remarkably well. The hangman had sustained graver injuries during the Great War.

  He wrapped his arms around his daughter and patted her head. She almost disappeared within his broad chest.

  “The things you do, Magdalena!” he whispered almost tenderly. “Getting yourself caught by a dumb soldier…”

  “I won’t do it again, Father,” she answered. “Promise.”

  For a while they held each other in sile
nce. Then she looked him in the eyes.

  “Father?”

  “Yes, Magdalena?”

  “About me marrying Hans Kuisl, the Steingaden hangman, you know…Are you going to think that over again?”

  For a moment Jakob Kuisl was silent, and then he smiled.

  “Yes, I’m going to think that over. But now let’s go home.”

  He wrapped his massive arm around his daughter again, and then side by side they walked toward the town, which was just awakening to a new day as the sun rose above it in the east.

  CHAPTER

  16

  TUESDAY

  MAY 1, A.D. 1659

  SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  FROM A WINDOW IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER THE court clerk Johann Lechner was looking down on the colorful scene in the market place below. He could hear the bells from the town parish church pealing the six o’clock hour. It was already dusk, and small fires were burning in braziers set up on tripods around the sides of the square. Children were dancing around them, and in front of the Ballenhaus the youngsters had erected a maypole, adorned with colored ribbons and a wreath of green boughs. A few minstrels were standing on a newly built pinewood stage still smelling of resin, tuning their fiddles and lutes. There was a whiff in the air of things boiling and frying.

  Lechner’s gaze wandered over the tables that had been put out for the May Day celebration. Burghers in their holiday attire were sitting around and enjoying the bock beer provided free by burgomaster Karl Semer. There was singing and laughter, but in spite of it all, the clerk could feel no holiday mood.

  That damned witch was still unconscious, and the Landgrave was expected this very evening. Johann Lechner was horrified at the thought of what would happen then. Investigations, torturing, spying, suspicions…If only the Stechlin woman had confessed, everything would have been all right. They could have had their trial and sent her to the stake. My God, she was as good as dead anyway! Death at the stake would have been a happy release for her and for the town as well!

  Johann Lechner leafed through the old documents about the witch hunt of two generations ago. He had taken them down again from the archives near the council chamber. Eighty arrests, countless torturings…sixty-three women burned! The great wave of persecution had begun when the district judge had taken the matter into his hands and then finally the Duke himself had spoken. Then there was no more holding back. Lechner knew that witchcraft was a smoldering fire that would eat its way through society if not stopped in time. Now, presumably, it was too late.