The Council of Twelve

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “You’re right, it was foolish of me to take her seriously,” Simon said sheepishly. “She just sounded so . . . so normal. If you hadn’t given her the treasurer’s wife’s—”

  “The treasurer’s wife!” Malachias Geiger slapped his forehead. “In all the excitement, I completely forgot that I was supposed to visit the Pfundners at nine o’clock. Please excuse me.” With a curt nod, he turned to leave.

  “But . . . ,” Simon started.

  “We can continue our conversation next week, dear colleague,” Geiger called out as he hurried toward the exit. “And thanks again for your help.”

  “You’re . . . you’re welcome,” Simon stammered.

  He felt like kicking himself. For the second time he’d missed his chance to talk about his treatise. And now Geiger thought he believed the words of an old lunatic. He’d made such a fool of himself.

  And yet, Simon couldn’t stop thinking about old Traudel’s words.

  I know who killed them . . . the girls . . . It’s your fault . . . Yours, yours, yours . . .

  Who in God’s name was she talking about?

  Simon sighed and suddenly felt the urgent need to leave this godforsaken place. Behind him, several of the deplorable lunatics banged their heads against the iron bars. Most likely, Traudel’s ranting had been nothing but a product of her insane imagination.

  “Damn it to hell, has everyone in this town gone mad?” Bartholomäus jumped to his feet and pounded the table so hard the pewter mugs clattered. “In good old Bamberg, folks still appreciate a hangman and don’t chop off his hands and feet.”

  “In good old Bamberg, folks were hunting for a werewolf only a few years ago,” Kuisl said, sitting next to his brother in the back room of the Radl Inn. “Remember? When people are afraid, they turn nasty like wasps at the end of summer. Everywhere. Now sit back down so we can talk calmly.”

  Reluctantly, Bartholomäus sat down again, cursing under his breath. The other executioners were visibly upset, too, swearing and interrupting one another. Michael Deibler had asked them to another meeting at the Au tavern that morning, but just like in the last session, they were discussing not wages and electoral mandates but the latest gruesome discovery in the city. A discovery that shook the hangmen to their cores.

  The death of Master Hans, the twelfth member of their council.

  “Quiet!” shouted Deibler into the smoky room. The journeymen and apprentices had once again taken their seats along the side. “Jakob is right. We must talk calmly about how to proceed from here.”

  “How to proceed?” the Nuremberg executioner, Johann Widmann, jeered. “I can tell you how we’re going to proceed, Deibler. We’re going to dissolve this council, pack our bags, and get the hell out of here before the next one of us gets lynched.” Several other hangmen nodded their agreement.

  “But it’s not even certain that Hans was killed by an angry mob,” Philipp Teuber interjected. Kuisl had always known the Regensburg hangman as a quiet man, and now he seemed composed, too. “If I understand Deibler and Jakob correctly, they reckon it was the same serial killer who’s been murdering girls in Munich.”

  “And why should he kill Hans?” replied Jörg Defner from Nördlingen, an old, experienced executioner with an eye patch, who generally held back with his opinions. “So far, he’s only been after young, attractive women. And Hans was neither.”

  Jakob Kuisl took his pipe from his mouth and cleared his throat. He knew it was crucial to convince the others now. “I believe Hans knew something,” he said firmly. “He probably knew the murderer. I don’t know why, but he dropped some hints. It appears he came to Munich a couple of days before the rest of us and made some inquiries. Fux will confirm that.”

  Matthäus Fux, the Memmingen executioner, nodded. “I saw him with my own eyes. Hans was looking for a red-haired girl—the same girl that was found dead in the Au creek the next day.”

  “And he was rambling on about some kind of secret at the Holy Cross Cemetery,” Kuisl said. “He must have been looking for something there. Evidence, most likely. Something that would pin down the murderer.” He didn’t mention that he himself had returned to the cemetery in the hope of finding something. Kuisl still couldn’t figure out what Hans had been doing at Elfi’s grave and who the mysterious figure fleeing from him had been. “I think Hans wanted to blackmail the murderer,” he continued reflectively. “But it backfired on him.”

  “Nothing but guesswork,” Johann Widmann replied with a shake of his head. “To me, the case is crystal clear. The people of Munich wanted to blame us executioners for the murders from the start. Now they caught the first one of us they could find and lynched him.”

  “Arms and legs cleanly taken off, the head sitting on a pillar—someone had plenty of time.” Kuisl leaned back with his arms folded, staring at Widmann defiantly. “I say this was no mob. This was a solitary murderer who relished this execution like a feast.”

  “I’ve heard something else entirely,” Passau hangman Kaspar Hörmann chimed in. He seemed relatively sober compared to the previous days, though his bulbous red nose glowed with excitement. He turned to Kuisl with a malicious grin. “Let’s not beat around the bush. You hated Hans. They say he’d always had a thing for your daughter. Here in Munich, too. Perhaps you had enough one day, huh? So you decided to shut him up for good.”

  “Kaspar, please!” Deibler called out. “You can’t accuse Jakob of murdering someone just because his daughter doesn’t want to marry your son.”

  “Why not?” Johann Widmann came to Hörmann’s aid. “Jakob is well known for his temper. And he’s had it out for Hans before. Maybe he’s just trying to divert suspicion from himself with his absurd theories.”

  A commotion broke out at Widmann’s words; several of the men jumped up, ready to fight one another. Kaspar Hörmann was clearly on Widmann’s side, along with the hangmen from Ingolstadt and Ansbach. Kuisl hadn’t made many friends with his grouchy, forbidding manner in recent years. Of all the men present, he could only truly rely on Philipp Teuber and Michael Deibler, and probably his brother.

  And indeed, Bartholomäus sprang to his feet angrily. “If you insult my brother, you insult me!” he yelled, and Philipp Teuber struggled to stop him from attacking Widmann and Hörmann. The only hangman not joining in the argument was Conrad Näher from Kaufbeuren. He sat in silence at the far end of the table, watching his colleagues shout at one another. Kuisl still hadn’t figured out what sort of a person Näher was. And there was a good chance this man, who was roughly the same age as himself, would soon become his son-in-law.

  “Quiet, God damn it!” shouted Michael Deibler against the noise. “I said, quiet! In the name of the council!” When no one listened, he picked up his pewter mug and threw it against the wall. The ensuing clash shut the hangmen up for a moment.

  Deibler took a deep breath. “I didn’t call a meeting so we can bash each other’s brains in,” he said eventually. “Although I must admit that a normal meeting isn’t possible in these circumstances.” He lowered his head. “Unfortunately, I have to agree with my cousin from Nuremberg. Dissolving the council is probably for the best.”

  “Told you.” Widmann smiled triumphantly. “I’ll immediately advise the servants to pack my—”

  “If we leave now, none of us is safe.”

  “Huh?” Widmann’s head spun to the right, where Conrad Näher was sitting. It was the first time the Kaufbeuren hangman had spoken that day.

  “What do you mean?” Widmann asked his colleague.

  “Hans was on his own outside the city, and someone killed him,” Näher replied. “Who’s to say it won’t happen to us? It doesn’t matter if it’s just a solitary lunatic or an angry mob, we’re weak on our own. They’ll think we’ve got something to hide and are running away. I say we should stay together until all this is over.”

  “And what if it’s never over?” Philipp Teuber asked. “What then?”

  “I suggest we stay in Munich for two more
days,” Näher replied. “Two days, no more, no less. Let Jakob try to find out what really happened to Hans in that time. I think we owe as much to our cousin.”

  The noise level around the table rose again. Kuisl couldn’t suppress a thin smile. Näher was absolutely right, but he suspected the Kaufbeuren executioner was after something else entirely: he wanted to woo Barbara for a while longer. If the council was dissolved now, the Kuisl family would go home—and their youngest daughter hadn’t yet made up her mind whom to marry. After all the fighting of the last few days, Kuisl wasn’t so sure he even wanted Barbara to marry an executioner.

  We’re outcasts, every last one of us, he thought. Loneliness has turned us into angry, hateful beasts.

  As his eyes scanned the round of executioners, Jakob Kuisl thought that perhaps the people of Munich were right, after all. Maybe the murderer really was one of the Council of Twelve? Kuisl had suspected Master Hans, partly because he’d arrived earlier than the others. But who was to say none of the others had traveled to Munich sooner? And that one of their own hadn’t visited the capital repeatedly in the past?

  Or that murders like these didn’t occur elsewhere in Bavaria?

  Hangmen traveled a lot. Not every town could afford its own executioner, it might bring in a hangman from another city. When possible, such towns employed not just any old butcher, but one of the best—one of the Council of Twelve.

  Kuisl winced.

  A traveling hangman . . . The perfect murderer . . .

  Was that what Master Hans found out and had to die for?

  Suddenly, Jakob Kuisl saw the loudly arguing cousins with different eyes, and a chill ran down his back.

  Angry, hateful beasts . . .

  “We’ll take a vote,” Deibler announced, tearing Kuisl from his thoughts. The Munich hangman rapped his knuckles on the table. “Who’s in favor of Näher’s suggestion to stay put for two more days? In the hope of solving the case? As the chairman, I’m going to abstain, as our rules demand.”

  After some hesitation, six executioners raised their hands. The hands of Johann Widmann, Kaspar Hörmann, and the Ingolstadt and Ansbach executioners stayed down.

  “Six to four,” Michael Deibler declared. “It’s decided. We’re staying until Sunday.” He sighed and folded his hands. “And now let us do what we ought to have done to begin with. Let’s pray for our dead cousin. Oh Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication,” he began, and the others slowly joined in.

  With lowered heads, the hangmen murmured the penitential psalm in honor of Master Hans.

  But from the corner of his eye, Jakob Kuisl saw how they all studied one another suspiciously.

  Peter sat on one of the benches in the court gardens with his eyes closed and enjoyed the sun on his face. His forehead was sweaty, his breathing heavy. He’d been running through the expansive park with Max, playing catch and hide-and-seek. Now they were both out of breath and took a break in the noon sunshine, which had melted the snow as fast as it had fallen the day before.

  When they sat together like this, Peter managed to forget for a moment that he was only the son of a simple doctor and Max a prince. But as soon as he opened his eyes again, he saw all the pomp around him, saw this fairy-tale-like place that was so different from his playgrounds at home, the meadows by the Lech River, the dark forests, and the fields near the Schongau Tanners’ Quarter.

  The court gardens were an elaborately designed park that bordered on the Residenz to the north. There were tall trees, strangely cut hedges, and countless fountains, thin sheets of ice still floating in some of them. Then there were marble statues like the ones Peter had already seen at the Residenz. In the center of the park, where the white, graveled paths met, stood a stone pavilion.

  Peter regretted not having brought his drawing utensils. He would have loved to capture this view, and to be able to show his father later. But he didn’t know what Max would think of that. The crown prince had made it very clear that he didn’t think much of Latin and music classes. Perhaps he had his own drawing teacher? Did that even exist?

  From time to time, courtiers strolled past the two boys and bowed at the sight of the prince. Just then, another made-up dandy with a periwig came by, bowing especially low. Max giggled when the man had gone.

  “Sometimes they bow so low that their wig gets dirty,” he said, laughing. “Or it comes off, and you see their bald head.”

  “And if they don’t bow?” Peter asked.

  “Then the hangman chops their head off,” Max replied as casually as if he were talking about the weather. “I’m the son of the Bavarian elector, after all.”

  Peter flinched. Once again he was pleased his new friend didn’t know whose grandson he was.

  “Mother always holds balls in the court gardens,” Max said. “Everyone wears masks, and they play catch just like children. And on Lake Würm, we have a big ship, the Bucentaur, which is like a floating hunting lodge. The best part is the cannons, but other than that it’s pretty boring for children.”

  Peter couldn’t imagine anything boring about a floating hunting lodge. But then again, he was no prince.

  “Tomorrow night, Mother is holding a huge masquerade at Nymphenburg Palace, our new summer residence,” Max said, balancing on the bench seat’s backrest while some of the courtiers watched him shyly. “So far, it’s nothing but a freezing cold box of stone, but Mother loves the place. You must come, or it’s going to be so boring again. Promise you’ll come?”

  “If . . . if my parents let me, sure,” Peter replied. Max waved dismissively.

  “I’m the prince. I order you to come. It’s that easy.”

  Peter looked over to the high wall that separated the gardens from Schwabinger Street. “Commoners aren’t allowed in here, are they?” he asked.

  “Of course not.” Max laughed and jumped off the backrest. “I had to beg and plead so they’d let you in.” His face turned glum. “Only till lunchtime, though, then you have to leave again. I’ve got violin class with Kerll this afternoon. How I hate it!”

  “And if you don’t go? You’re the prince, you can do what you want.”

  “Bah, if only!” Max made a rude noise. “I think I’ve got more chores than a peasant boy. Boring receptions from morning till night, getting dressed alone takes an hour, and then all those classes. Latin, theology, arithmetic, geography, violin, harp, and flute . . .” He groaned. “Most of all, I hate Latin and violin class with Kerll. At least when Arthur was still here, he’d bark and howl during class until Kerll went crazy. But now Arthur’s gone. And God knows if he’ll ever come back to me.” Max quickly wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

  Peter would have loved to tell Max that his father was hot on the dog’s trail, but he seemed to be preoccupied with other things at the moment and appeared to have forgotten all about little Arthur. Peter was increasingly worried his father wouldn’t find Max’s lapdog after all. That would probably mean the end of his friendship with Max—and he wouldn’t be allowed to attend the Jesuit college, either.

  “Arthur is probably playing with a bunch of stray dogs as we speak,” Peter said, trying to reassure his friend. “And when he gets bored of it, he’ll come back.”

  “I think he’s dead,” Max said sadly. “Someone knocked him over the head or drowned him, like they do with strays. The electoral groom told me about it. And he knows lots about animals.”

  Peter looked around the park. Laughing courtiers strolled through the gardens in their open fur coats and wadded vests, enjoying the weak February sun. “This is where Arthur disappeared, right?” he asked. “How exactly did it happen?”

  “I already told you,” Max replied dejectedly. “My nursemaid, Amalie, was walking him on his leash. He must have seen a cat and broke free.”

  Thoughtfully, Peter looked at the high walls. “But how did he get out of the gardens?”

  “There must be a hole somewhere. We searched for him for hours. But no trac
e of him anywhere.” Max wiped another tear from his eye. “Amalie was very upset, but she says it wasn’t her fault. The leash tore at the collar because Arthur pulled too hard.”

  “Tore?” Peter gave Max a look of disbelief. “But Arthur is just a small dog, isn’t he? Not a huge mastiff. Hmm . . .” He touched his nose, like always when he thought hard. Suddenly he had an idea. If his father couldn’t or wouldn’t solve this case, perhaps he might think of something.

  But what?

  “Is the leash still around?” he asked eventually.

  Max shrugged. “Not sure. I think Lohmiller, the head groom, took it. He was going to stitch it up because the collar is very precious. It’s studded with pearls and small diamonds.”

  Peter frowned. “Do you think we could take a look at it?”

  “I have no idea what good that’ll do, but all right. I can show you the electoral stables at the same time.” Max stood up, and Peter followed him down several paths to a more remote part of the park, and from there to the electoral stables, situated behind the Residenz. This part of the complex wasn’t as splendid and ostentatious. The plain houses contained haylofts under the roof, and Peter heard horses whinnying behind large wooden doors. The air smelled of dung and animal sweat. In the center, between the houses, several horses trotted around in a muddy corral under the supervision of servants.

  A man was just coming out of the end of a long building, leading a gray horse that was larger than any Peter had ever seen. It snorted and reared, but the strong, broad-shouldered man held the reins firmly and spoke to the animal in a soothing tone.

  “That’s the head groom I told you about, Lohmiller,” Max said admiringly. “They say he can speak with horses, and he rides like the devil. He always picks out the most beautiful foals for me to break in.”

  As they walked toward Lohmiller, Peter stared, amazed, at all the horses in the stables. There were enough to equip a whole army. He himself had only ridden once in his life, on a skinny old cart horse that belonged to a Schongau wagon driver and had been taken to the knacker soon after. By comparison, the horses here all looked like imperial warhorses.