The Council of Twelve

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Barbara was about to make a retort, but Magdalena squeezed her hand. “All right, Father,” she said. “Now go.”

  “It’s only for the best, Barbara, believe me,” Kuisl said quietly without looking at his daughter. “Only for the best. You’ll thank me one day.” He turned around and trudged back toward the River Lech.

  Magdalena waited a little while, then she stroked Barbara’s hair. “Maybe going to Munich isn’t the worst idea,” she started softly. “Why not take a look at those fellows? And if you don’t like any of them, at least you’ll have seen Munich. I heard there’s a real theater—not just in a tavern, but in its own house of stone. And they say that since the elector’s Italian wife lives in town, everyone who’s anyone comes to Munich. It’s full of music, dances, gardens, and—”

  “You don’t understand!” Barbara burst out. “I can’t!” Crying, she collapsed, her whole body racked by sobs.

  Magdalena took her sister’s face between her hands and gave her a determined look. “Barbara, talk to me. What’s the matter? You’ve been acting strange for weeks. Talk to me now.”

  Barbara’s sobs turned into hysterical laughter. She pushed Magdalena away. “You don’t see it, do you?” she shouted. “You’re a midwife, you’ve given birth several times, but you don’t see it. And why should you? I’m just the baby sister who cleans up after Father. Why the hell didn’t I get rid of it like Father’s trash? Why? Now it’s too late.”

  Magdalena knew then that her hunch was right.

  It’s true. I should have noticed much sooner. Why couldn’t we talk about it?

  “Dear God,” she breathed. “You’re . . . you’re pregnant.”

  Barbara had cried herself out of tears, but the silence that followed said more than a thousand words. For a long time, the only sound was the wind in the willows along the shore.

  “Whose is it?” Magdalena asked eventually.

  Barbara sniffled. “Remember the traveling jugglers that passed through Schongau early in the winter? The good-looking blond one, who was throwing the balls so cleverly at the parish fair?” She laughed desperately. “I always fall for the same clowns.”

  “But you didn’t have to—” Magdalena began.

  “I told him I didn’t want to,” Barbara said, cutting her off. “In the hay barn, I kept telling him no. It was nice at first, but then . . . then he wouldn’t stop. I tried to fight him off, but he pinned me down, held my mouth shut, and took me like . . . like a dog. I couldn’t do anything. He laughed when he left and said I’d wanted it, too. It was the first time, since . . . since . . .” She broke off, overcome by dry sobs. After a while, she continued.

  “I only realized well after the jugglers had left. I . . . I was numb. I cried for days, secretly, in bed, in the woods, so none of you would notice. The shame . . .” Barbara wiped the tears from her eyes. “Then I wanted to get rid of it. But it was the middle of winter, no herbs anywhere. And to whom could I have gone for a brew of savin or some dried hellebore? Old Stechlin, who’s constantly on my back about my supposed wantonness? Or maybe Father?” She gave another desperate laugh. “He’d never have believed that I hadn’t done it willingly. No one would have.”

  “You could have come to me,” Magdalena said softly. “I would have helped you.”

  Magdalena used to work for Martha Stechlin, the Schongau midwife, and people still sought her out when they needed herbs or advice on feminine issues.

  Only my sister didn’t come to me for help . . .

  “Believe me, I . . . I wanted to,” Barbara replied haltingly. “I don’t know how many times I stood outside your door, but something always happened. Simon would be there and look at me strangely, or the boys wanted to play, or Sophia would cry . . . I kept putting it off, kept hoping it would go away by itself, but now it’s too late, I fear.” Barbara hung her head. “I haven’t bled for three months.”

  Magdalena groaned. Too late, she thought. Much too late.

  An abortion induced by herbs and plants like savin, hellebore, or mugwort was only safe in the first few weeks. If women were caught during that time, they could expect fines, the stocks, or banishment. But the longer they waited, the more dangerous the consumption of such remedies became—not only because they could die of the poison, but because they might also be sentenced to death. And the midwife or wisewoman who had given the plants could also be hanged or drowned in the sack. Many desperate young women killed their newborns shortly after birth, smothered and buried them, hoping no one had noticed the pregnancies. Others stuck needles in their lower abdomens, and often the mother died along with the child. Jakob Kuisl once told Magdalena that more women were convicted as child murderesses than as witches.

  But Magdalena also knew that Barbara would never be capable of killing a child. Especially not now that little Sophia reminded her aunt every day how dainty and fragile such a little person was.

  “What will be will be,” Magdalena said after a while. Her expression hardened. “The child’s in your belly now, and, God willing, you’ll give birth in half a year’s time.” She hesitated just for a moment, then nodded decisively. “At least we’re traveling to Munich next week. We’re going to find you a husband.”

  Barbara stared at her, dumbfounded. “But . . . but . . . how? I’m pregnant . . .”

  “You’re only in the third month. If you marry now, no one’s going to care where the child came from. Not if you get married in Munich. Father can’t find out yet, nor Simon. It’s going to stay our secret.” Magdalena took Barbara’s hands in hers and squeezed them tightly. “I promise to make sure you won’t get an ogre for a husband. I give you my word as your big sister.”

  “Damn you, I’m not going to marry any of those accursed hangmen!” Barbara yelled. “How many times do I have to tell you? No way! Father, you, and even old Stechlin always try to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “So you’re just going back to doing nothing, like you’ve done for the last few weeks?” Magdalena continued mercilessly. “Are you going to wait until the child is born? A dishonorable hangman’s daughter with a bastard? They’ll chase you out of town like a mangy dog, like they do with all unwed mothers. And that’s not all. Have you considered the consequences for our family? For Father, especially?”

  “What kind of a family is this, anyway?” Barbara hissed. “A family of dishonorables, hated like the Plague.”

  “But it’s your family,” Magdalena replied quietly. “You only have the one.”

  Suddenly they heard a faint crying. Magdalena turned around and saw Peter trudging through the snow toward them, carrying Sophia.

  “I swear I haven’t done anything!” he exclaimed. “But she just won’t stop crying. I even tried to read to her.”

  “Silly.” Magdalena smiled despite herself. “When a little thing like that one cries, it’s either hungry or needs a fresh diaper. I fed her not long ago.” She took Sophia from her son and wrinkled her nose. “So I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.”

  Gently, she laid Sophia on the pier and unwrapped the furs Peter had put her in. As expected, the cloth around the little bottom was wet and soiled. Magdalena didn’t have a spare diaper with her, however.

  “Take this.” Barbara had stopped crying and was holding out a cloth. “My handkerchief. We can wash it later.”

  Magdalena gratefully accepted the cloth and wrapped it around Sophia, who was much happier already and tried to grab her mother’s hand.

  “She’s so beautiful,” Barbara whispered from behind Magdalena. The grief had left her voice. Sophia and her aunt had shared a special connection since the day she was born, when Barbara had helped Martha Stechlin, the midwife.

  “Even though she’ll probably never dance at her wedding,” Magdalena remarked bitterly. “Not with her foot.”

  “Then she just won’t marry, like her aunt,” Barbara said with a thin smile. “They’ll call her the devil’s wench, too.” She gave a dry la
ugh and wiped her tears away. “Barbara and Sophia, the two devil’s wenches. How does that sound? Let the men go to hell!”

  Barbara leaned down to Sophia and stroked her soft cheek. “Don’t ever let a man near you,” she whispered. “They bring nothing but tears and misery.”

  Outside the doctor’s door stood two men and a young woman. A cold breeze drove snowflakes into the hallway as Simon scrutinized the group.

  The older of the two men wore a bearskin coat and a hat made from squirrel pelts, while the younger man wore red and yellow woolen garments. Between them, they held the woman, who was clearly very weak and struggled to stand. Her face was ghostly pale, her eyes closed, and sweat ran down her face despite the icy wind. Like the men, she was dressed in costly garments. Behind them in the twilight, Simon made out a carriage with two white horses.

  “We were told the town physician lives here,” the older man said gravely. He spoke with a strange accent, and Simon guessed he came from south of the Alps. The man cast a searching glance down the hallway, as if hoping to find someone else.

  “Um, that’s me,” Simon replied. “How can I be of help?”

  The old man, a good head taller than him, frowned and looked Simon up and down. Simon’s height had caused him grief since childhood, and he occasionally tried to make up for it by wearing high-heeled boots and fancy hats.

  “You’re very young to be a dottore—” the older one started, but the young man cut him off.

  “My wife needs your help.” He spoke with the same accent. “She gave birth to a healthy son a few days ago.” He motioned at the carriage. “The wet nurse is looking after him. We were in Munich on business and thought we’d be back in Verona for the birth . . .” He shook his head with a sigh. “But the child came in Landsberg, much sooner than expected.”

  “Why didn’t you stay in Landsberg?” Simon asked.

  “We had already wasted enough time,” the old man grumbled. “We have lots of work to do in Verona. I told my daughter-in-law not to come. But she didn’t listen, as always, and wanted to see the Munich court. And now this!” He tapped Simon’s narrow chest. “Can you help us? Yes or no? She has a fever. Give us some medicine so we can leave this dismal place as soon as possible.”

  If it is what I fear, then no medicine is going to help her, Simon thought glumly as he studied the semiconscious woman. But he didn’t say anything. The old man didn’t look as though he would enter into lengthy discussions with a country doctor. Simon guessed the father and son were wealthy foreign merchants, perhaps even lesser noblemen. Simon was in for a world of trouble or even a court case if the woman died in his care. On the other hand, he felt incredibly sorry for her. He tried to imagine what he would feel like if it were Magdalena standing in front of him, or Barbara. It could happen to any woman.

  Any woman who gave birth, anyway.

  “Bring her inside,” Simon said eventually. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The two men carried the woman to the treatment room, where a small, hard bed stood in one corner. The old man glanced disdainfully at the crooked shelves of surgical instruments, scratched phials, and ancient jars of medicine, which had been passed down to Simon by his father, the Schongau bathhouse owner.

  “Perhaps we should have continued on to Füssen,” he growled.

  Simon was about to give a harsh reply, but changed his mind. He leaned over the woman and checked her pulse and reflexes.

  “Who helped with the birth?” he asked and carefully unbuttoned the young mother’s coat.

  “A . . . a midwife from Landsberg,” the young man replied hesitantly as he watched Simon.

  “Maledetto! What are you doing to my daughter-in-law?” The old man flared up when Simon lifted the woman’s skirt. “Are you a medicus or a rascal?”

  “If I’m supposed to find out what’s wrong with her, I have to examine her,” Simon explained.

  The man hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “As long as you don’t use your knives down there,” he grumbled.

  Simon pushed a thin, tattered screen between the patient and the two men, then he began to examine the woman’s abdomen from the outside. In the medical world, there was a strict distinction between learned physicians and the more hands-on barber-surgeons. Only the latter were permitted to conduct surgery, while the learned doctors—the group Simon now belonged to—merely examined the body on the outside. But once Simon had removed the bloody rags tied around the woman’s pelvis, he suspected that not even surgery could help her. A putrid smell spread through the room. Simon heard the old man exhale in disgust behind the screen. He washed his hands and went to the two men.

  “How long did she stay in bed following the birth?” Simon asked.

  The young man shrugged. Simon could tell he had a bad conscience. Fear for his young wife had dug deep grooves in his otherwise youthful face. “About a week,” he said quietly. “My father felt that—”

  “We have good doctors in Verona,” the father interrupted. “Should we have left her in that old Landsberg hag’s stinking hole for longer? We can’t afford to stay away from home this long. I need my son in the office.”

  “This woman should have stayed in bed at least three more weeks,” Simon replied curtly. “Her abdomen became infected following the birth.”

  “Then give her something,” the old man snarled at him. “Are you a doctor or a whining quack?”

  Instead of replying, Simon disappeared behind the screen again and carefully cleaned the young woman’s abdomen with warm water. Even though he had washed his hands first, he had a feeling it was already too late for her. He had seen too many women like her, dying of a strange fever soon after giving birth. His colleagues believed that some yet-undiscovered substances began to fester inside a woman’s body after birthing. Simon, however, was convinced those substances came from the outside; he’d included this theory in his treatise. Unfortunately, he couldn’t prove anything at this stage; he could only presume.

  Simon fashioned a bandage from clean cloths and inserted dried yarrow, arnica, and comfrey to alleviate the infection. Then he dressed the woman, who had started to moan softly.

  “You must change the bandage daily,” he told the anxious husband. “I’m going to give you more herbs. I would advise you to remain in Schongau for a while—I can recommend an inn . . .”

  “We don’t have the time.” The old man shook his head. “And I want my daughter-in-law in good hands. Our physician in Verona swears by cupping, and I’m sure that’ll fix her. Also, the Rottenbuch abbot can offer us better accommodation than this foul-smelling town.”

  “She must not lose any more blood,” Simon warned them. “I truly believe—”

  But the old man cut him off by putting a few coins in his hand. “That should be enough. And now farewell, Herr Medicus.”

  The man had practically spat the last word. Now he put on his hat and coat while the young man helped his wife to her feet. Simon helped to carry the woman out to the carriage, where he caught a brief glimpse of the rotund wet nurse holding a screaming little bundle. The driver cracked his whip, and soon the carriage disappeared in the dusk.

  Godspeed, Simon thought.

  But he didn’t have much hope for the woman. He guessed she would die before they made it to Verona. This fever so many women contracted after giving birth was brief and merciless.

  Deeply saddened, Simon returned to his treatment room. The coins the old man had given him jingled in his pocket—a whole week’s wage—but it didn’t make him feel any better. Simon pulled out the coins and took a closer look. There were five silver thalers, the same kind Schongau cloth merchant Josef Seiler had given him earlier that day. These ones here, however, were brand new, displaying the Wittelsbach lozenges and the year 1672 on the front, and a Madonna on a half moon on the back. Evidently, the Verona merchants had received the coins not long ago in Munich. They were as shiny as if they were fresh out of the mint. Simon let them slide through his fingers and was about to put t
hem away when he noticed something.

  Could it be?

  He studied each coin individually. Then, to confirm his suspicion, he fetched the scales he used for his medicines. He placed the fat cloth merchant’s three coins in one pan, and three of the Veronese coins in the other.

  The scales instantly tilted to the side with Seiler’s coins.

  Simon frowned. His suspicion had been correct: the coins of the Veronese men were not only newer but also lighter. He guessed they were made with some kind of cheaper metal, like copper or tin. The only question was, Had the merchants known, or had they been betrayed?

  Once more Simon studied the beautifully shiny silver coins. There was nothing he could do about it now, anyhow. The men from Verona would have already left Schongau and were on their way to Rottenbuch. Simon absentmindedly let the thalers slide into his purse. He shrugged. Money was nothing more than pressed metal.

  Not even ducats and doubloons of the finest gold could help the young woman now.

  When Magdalena and Simon finally lay in their bed that night, they didn’t speak for a long time. Each listened to the breathing of the other, knowing their spouse couldn’t get to sleep, either. Next to their bed, in a crib made by her grandfather, Sophia slept peacefully. Magdalena reached out and stroked her daughter’s little hand.

  So small and fragile, she thought. And so beautiful. I pray to God that we may keep her.

  As if the Lord had tried to make up for his mistake with Sophia’s foot, he had blessed her with all sorts of positive traits. Sophia was the happiest child imaginable. She laughed a lot, and she was attentive, her curious blue eyes studying everything, and her lips already formed a few first words. Magdalena thought she could tell even now that her daughter would one day be as beautiful as her aunt.

  And just as shunned, she thought with a pang.

  So far, they hadn’t spoken about their argument that afternoon, but Magdalena had told Simon about Kuisl’s plans to find a husband for Barbara in Munich. She hadn’t told him that her sister was pregnant, however. She didn’t think it was a good idea to tell Simon, not yet. He liked to talk, and it was just too risky. Her father couldn’t find out under any circumstances. Not even Magdalena could predict how the Schongau hangman would react if he found out that his youngest daughter was pregnant with an illegitimate child. This was something for the sisters to deal with among themselves.