The Council of Twelve

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “There must be a hole somewhere. We searched for hours, honestly!”

  They couldn’t talk for a while as drums and trumpets accompanied the singers. Max soon appeared to forget his grief about his pet dog. He groaned when a man onstage rammed a dagger into his heart, singing all the while. “Kerll really writes the most boring operas,” he complained. “You should see one of my father’s tournaments, they’re much more exciting. Or my mother’s masquerades, they’re funny. There’s going to be one at Nymphenburg Palace soon. You should come. It’s quite an event.”

  “I don’t mind the swords,” Peter said, still thinking about the lost dog. “And the low drum. But—”

  “Kerll only uses it so the spectators don’t fall asleep.” Max giggled and pointed at the dying actor twitching on the stage. “Now he’s singing about how he’s soon going to be dead for ages, you’ll see.”

  “Do you speak Italian?” Peter asked, surprised.

  “Do I speak Italian?” Max gave him a puzzled look. “Of course. I speak nothing but Italian with my mother. Or French. I only speak German with Father. Mother says it’s a language for uneducated barbarians.” He grinned. “For people like you.”

  Embarrassed, Peter lowered his eyes. He had thought he and Max were friends. But deep down he knew that was impossible. One small phrase had been enough to destroy that illusion.

  People like you . . .

  Max was a prince, and Peter was just the son of a simple Schongau physician. And he didn’t even want to know what Max would say if he knew that Peter’s grandfather was a hangman. He’d probably laugh at him, or spit at him, like many children in Schongau did.

  Max didn’t seem to notice Peter’s embarrassment. He pointed downstairs, where the music was reaching a climax. Only then did Peter notice that stretched across the stage was a wire holding up a strange, dragon-shaped contraption. Now it moved toward the actors. Peter held his breath with excitement.

  “The flying machine,” Max whispered. “Mother promised me Kerll would use it. Finally things are getting interesting.”

  “That thing really looks like a dragon,” Peter said, awestruck. “Just like the monster Saint George fought.” He forgot all about his gloomy thoughts.

  Spellbound, the children watched the flying object spitting and hissing its way along the wire in front of the painted sky. Max squeezed Peter’s hand when the machine wobbled menacingly.

  “Later on, the dragon will disappear in hell,” the prince said quietly. “You won’t believe your eyes, my friend.”

  Peter smiled.

  In that moment, the two of them were nothing but a pair of curious boys united in their love for a flapping, fire-spitting automaton.

  About two miles away, the lights of the Neuhausen village tavern glowed warm and cozy into the winter night. Fresh snow covered the tavern’s roof like a blanket. The muted sound of a lonesome fiddle could be heard from inside, playing the last song of the evening.

  Only a handful of patrons sat at the crude tables, sipping their beer. Most of them were travelers who hadn’t made it to the city before the gates closed and had to wait until tomorrow to enter town. Two drunk old farmers leaned on their walking sticks, humming to the music, while the tavern keeper washed beer mugs, waiting for everyone to go to bed.

  In the farthest corner, Master Hans sat and waited.

  He’d been here for over two hours now, but the person he was waiting for hadn’t shown up. Hans had been thinking hard and had become increasingly angry. So far, everything had gone according to plan, but now it suddenly looked like he wasn’t going to emerge as the winner in the end, but a great loser. But he’d turn the tables again—oh, yes, he would.

  It had probably been a mistake to seek out the executioner’s house and then attack Barbara at the cemetery. But by God, the girl drove him crazy. Always had, even as a child. How many times had he dreamed of her as his wife, submitting to him—she, the untamable wild child. Unbreakable by any man.

  But deep down you like it, too, Barbara. You want it, don’t you? You’re calling for me . . .

  How he would have loved to cut her white skin two years ago in the Schongau dungeon, but then her father, that unbearable wiseacre, had spoiled everything. And now Hans didn’t know how close Jakob Kuisl was to solving the mystery. Had he already figured it out? Did he have an inkling?

  Hans had lost control at the cemetery because of Barbara. And now he was up against not only Kuisl, but the entire Council of Twelve. Just because of this one stupid mistake. He’d had to hide like a thief. But enough was enough. He’d make his final, devastating move, and then he would be the one laughing triumphantly. And the others would come crawling. He was so close.

  Hans had been surprised at first when he received the message via his cousin in Haidhausen. It sounded like his adversary was handing him an olive branch. He probably couldn’t see another way, because the noose was tightening. Hans had pretended to accept the offer and agreed to meet him here at the Neuhausen tavern. And now he’d been sitting here for hours, and the enemy wouldn’t show up. Was he trying to make a fool of him?

  At first, Hans had continually looked about him with suspicion, thinking the meeting had been arranged only to arrest him. After all, he’d assaulted a young woman at a Munich graveyard. But no guards turned up. And so he had sullenly emptied one mug of beer after the other, so that now—although not dead drunk—he was feeling a little woozy.

  The last song finished, and Hans decided it was time to leave. He threw a few coins on the table and left the tavern without a word of goodbye, much to the relief of the keeper, who had found the stranger with the white hair and red eyes more than a bit creepy.

  Outside, the moon shone brightly onto the fresh snow, which was already collapsing again. Hans could smell thaw in the air. He plodded through the mud and soon passed the last houses of the small village. In front of him, Munich was merely a few arrow shots away. He nodded grimly. Tomorrow he would deal his final blow. He didn’t have as much proof as he would have liked; he’d been looking for further evidence and witnesses at the Holy Cross Cemetery. But at least he knew what had happened to Anni and Elfi—and what would soon also be the fate of the third girl, Eva, unless a miracle happened. Together with what he’d found out earlier, it would have to suffice.

  And if the confession didn’t come right away, he’d know what to do.

  Hans wouldn’t mind applying the thumbscrews. He loved it when the suspects screamed and writhed while he himself didn’t bat an eyelid. He didn’t want people to see how much he loved his job. How much he had always loved it, ever since he was a child and skinned his first cat alive.

  Some people are born to inflict pain on others. Because they don’t feel any pain or pity themselves. The perfect executioners. And I am the master of my trade . . .

  Old linden trees lined the road to Munich, which was empty at this time of night. As Hans walked along, he realized that the three steins of beer were affecting him more than he’d thought. This Munich beer was bloody strong. He wiped sweat from his forehead and walked faster. He thought it was likely that his enemies were watching his cousin’s inn, so he’d sneak in through the backyard, invisible like smoke in the night. And first thing tomorrow he’d find Captain Loibl. Not to turn himself in, but to light the fuse on the powder keg. What a triumph it was going to be.

  Hans stopped to catch his breath. He felt a little nauseated. Perhaps it wasn’t the beer at all, but the cold roast meat he’d eaten at the tavern. He had smothered it in mustard to cover the slightly rotten smell. Well, nothing a glass of brandy at the inn wouldn’t fix.

  When Hans stretched to shake off the nausea, he spotted between the trees the Munich execution site—which, unlike Gallows Hill, was near the city, by Neuhausen Gate. It was a stone platform about six feet high with a pillar on top, gleaming black in the moonlight. This was where decapitations were carried out, usually in front of a large audience. Unlike in Weilheim, an execution in Munich was alway
s a huge public spectacle with the hangman and the poor sinner at the forefront. Master Hans had always envied Michael Deibler the large audience.

  Hans blinked. Hadn’t he just seen someone behind the pillar? There! The figure stepped out from behind the column and waved at him. In its hand, it held something like a scythe.

  Death was waving at him.

  “What the devil . . . ,” Hans growled. He closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again, but the figure was still there. His imagination was playing tricks on him. Or was it the alcohol?

  He swore and took a step toward the execution site, feeling dizzy. He staggered through the snow and held on to the trunk of a linden tree when he suddenly felt weak at the knees. Weak as melting snow.

  Hans slid down the tree trunk until he sat on the ground. He struggled to keep his eyes open, cold sweat running down his forehead. His heart raced, the muscles in his face twitching. Slowly it dawned on him that this wasn’t a normal sickness. And he hadn’t drunk too much, either. Hans realized what had happened to him.

  He was going to die like a poisoned rat.

  “. . . tricked . . . me . . . ,” he gasped. He tried to stick his fingers down his throat to make himself vomit, but he could no longer lift his hands. Like the muscles in his face, they started to twitch wildly. His stomach was burning as if he’d swallowed thousands of ants.

  Through the cold sweat running into his eyes, he vaguely discerned the figure slowly walking toward him from the platform.

  It was in no hurry.

  “Go . . . to . . . hell . . . ,” Hans croaked.

  Boundless, seething rage gave him the strength to pull himself up a little. But then he collapsed again. Leaning against the linden tree, he glared at the figure in front of him with wild eyes.

  It drew a long, very sharp knife.

  “No coup de grâce,” the hunter murmured. “We start at the bottom.”

  Master Hans couldn’t scream.

  He could only watch as his murderer slowly cut off his feet, then his hands, and finally his head.

  Magdalena stared at the ceiling of the drafty chamber. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness by now, but she still couldn’t make out more than a few black beams above her. The night was pitch black.

  Next to her, she could hear the regular breathing of the other girls and women and occasionally Agnes’s rattling cough. They were lying on straw and threadbare blankets almost directly on the cold floor, somewhere above their workroom in the silk manufactory. The air smelled of sweat and thin cabbage soup, their so-called supper, which Mother Joseffa had served up with a few chunks of stale bread. As promised, Magdalena had given her bread to the two boys. Just half an hour later, the candles had been put out, and Joseffa locked the door with a large key.

  Since then, Magdalena had been lying in the dark with a grumbling stomach, wondering what tomorrow would bring. Agnes hadn’t spoken to her since her last, strange words, and the other women seemed to pull away from her, too—even young Carlotta, whom Magdalena had helped earlier that day. What in God’s name was going on here?

  At first, Magdalena had been reluctant to let herself get locked up at the manufactory overnight. But then her curiosity had won out, and her concern for all the poor young women here. She hadn’t liked her father’s idea to snoop around the place at all, especially since she had promised Barbara to be by her side during the search for a husband. And she hated leaving Sophia behind. But one day at the loom had roused pity in Magdalena, pity for all the poor weavers and Anni and Elfi, and most of all for Eva, who was probably the only one of the three friends still alive. Magdalena simply had to find out what went on here before anyone else died. By now, she had become just as convinced as her father that the key to all the recent murders lay somewhere in this building.

  She’d soon had to abandon her plan of taking another look around the basement that night. The chamber was locked, and evidently those strange Venetians were still at work. Magdalena heard the floorboards creak above her and footsteps on the stairs from time to time. Luckily, she had managed to send one of the boys to the Radl Inn during the evening to let Simon and the others know that she was all right.

  Soft crying startled Magdalena from her thoughts. It came from Carlotta, the fifteen-year-old girl Magdalena had helped that morning. Until then, Carlotta hadn’t made a sound, but now she was crying like a child.

  I guess you still are a child, Magdalena thought. A poor, unhappy child in an unhappy place.

  She stood up slowly, trying not to wake the others, and tiptoed over to Carlotta. She placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Carlotta winced, but then she calmed down a little.

  “I don’t want to,” she whined softly.

  “What don’t you want?” Magdalena asked.

  “What we have to do tomorrow.”

  Magdalena sighed. “Don’t you think it’s time to tell me? I’m supposed to go with you tomorrow, and I’m the only one without any idea what to expect.”

  “Really? You don’t know?” Carlotta stared at her incredulously. “And I . . . I thought you’d done it before. You seem so mature, like you’ve seen it all. And you said you knew Eva. So . . .”

  “What do you mean? Speak up.” Magdalena was growing impatient. She had to be careful not to wake the others with her raised voice. “What am I supposed to have done before?” she asked, strained.

  “Well, you know . . . worked as a prostitute.”

  Now it was out. Magdalena inhaled deeply. Deep down, she’d known already.

  “Uffele always picks out the prettiest girls,” Carlotta continued quietly. “Then he sends them to wealthy homes where we’re supposedly working as maids for a few days. But, of course, we do something else. I’ve never done it before, but Agnes reckons you can earn a heap of money that way.”

  But only a fraction of what Uffele gets, I bet, Magdalena thought.

  “You said you thought I was a prostitute because I knew Eva. Does that mean . . . ?”

  Carlotta nodded. “Eva did it, too. And Anni and Elfi. But they’re dead now. So Uffele needs new girls. Agnes says I should be grateful for the chance to earn money. But . . . but . . .” She broke off and started to cry again.

  Anni, Elfi, and Eva . . .

  “Listen, Carlotta, this is important,” she hissed, shaking the girl gently. “This morning, you told me you knew why Eva was locked up downstairs, and that Uffele and Mother Joseffa were going to kill her because she knew too much. Is that what you meant? That Eva knows about the deal with the whores? That those two slave drivers are afraid she’ll talk?”

  Carlotta didn’t reply, but her eyes said it all. Then she started sobbing again.

  “Do you understand now why I didn’t talk?” she whimpered. “Why none of us does? They kill us. Each girl that talks too much is simply . . . murdered.”

  Magdalena closed her eyes and felt her heart beat wildly.

  Anni, Elfi, Eva. Two dead and one missing. All three worked as prostitutes for Uffele and Mother Joseffa. She was on the right track. But she didn’t quite understand why the girls had been murdered so brutally. Just because they were going to talk?

  She’d have to work as a prostitute herself in order to find out. It was the only way of learning what really happened to the girls. And it was the only way to prevent other girls from losing their lives, too. Would she be able to do it? Magdalena hesitated briefly, then she nodded.

  “It’s going to be fine, Carlotta,” she said and squeezed the trembling girl’s hand. “I’m going to look out for you. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  But no matter what happened, Magdalena knew one thing for certain: Simon could never find out about this part of her investigation.

  8

  THE RADL INN, EARLY MORNING, FEBRUARY 6, AD 1672

  WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD! WAKE UP, or they’ll cut your throat while you’re asleep.”

  Jakob Kuisl blinked when a sinewy, hairy hand shook him rudely. He had just been dreaming about his wife,
Anna-Maria. She had held out her hand to him, smiling, he’d almost smelled her hair—and now he was looking into the bearded face of Michael Deibler, who stank of stale beer and was unmistakably agitated about something. Kuisl sat up.

  “What happened, damn it? Is the city burning down?” With sleepy eyes, the hangman looked out the window of his room on the second floor of the Radl Inn. Dawn had broken. He guessed it was about seven in the morning. Kuisl had sat up late with his old friend Philipp Teuber from Regensburg and his brother, Bartholomäus. The Kuisl brothers weren’t the best of friends, but the exceptional circumstances brought them closer. Over many mugs of beer, the three of them had racked their brains over the murders. Kuisl hadn’t told the others about his trip to the cemetery, however. The events of the previous day seemed foggy in hindsight. He had woken up screaming during the night, tortured by nightmares in which his wife was calling out to him from a grave. He wasn’t even entirely sure the figure at the graveyard hadn’t been a figment of his imagination.

  “The city is burning, all right,” Deibler said, pacing the chamber impatiently. “But not like you think. It’s about Master Hans.”

  Kuisl jumped to his feet. “Has he turned up? Did the boys find him?”

  The previous evening, Kuisl had waited for news from the Munich street children and Paul, who were watching the inn where Hans had been staying. Around nightfall, Barbara had insisted Paul return to the executioner’s house, and Kuisl hadn’t heard anything since.

  “Someone else found Hans,” Michael Deibler said. “And if you don’t hurry, you’ll be the last person in town to see him, God damn it.”

  Kuisl had a bad feeling. He walked to the washbowl, threw a few handfuls of ice-cold water in his face, and followed Deibler down the stairs. Outside, Georg awaited them with a serious expression. Together they hurried through the Anger Quarter and the neighboring Hacken Quarter toward the Neuhausen Gate. Deibler gave them a succinct report on the way.

  “Some travelers found Hans out at the execution site,” he said, puffing. “There’s already a crowd. I only stayed for a moment, because I wanted you to take a look at the body before anyone touches it.”