The Hangman's Daughter Part 10

The steps became quicker; the man was taking several stairs in one stride. Clara rushed out of the room, her doll pressed closely against her. On the threshold she glanced up the stairs. A black shadow seemed to fall over her, a bearded man in a cloak, his right hand stretched out toward her. It was the devil, and he had a white hand of bones.

Clara slammed the door of her room shut and bolted it. From outside something hit the door, and she could hear a voice cursing quietly. Then the man threw himself with his full force against the door, so that the frame shook. Once, twice...Clara ran to the window, which was still open. She wanted to call for help, but she was choked with fear. Only a hoa.r.s.e croaking came out. Beneath her the street was still empty of people. A long way away she saw the crowds pressing through the Lech Gate back into town. She wanted to wave, but she realized that it would be useless. Probably the people would just wave back cheerfully.

Behind her, wood splintered. Clara turned and saw the point of a saber making its way through an ever-widening split in the middle of the door. She looked down again at the street in front of the house. Her room was on the second floor, about ten feet from the ground. Just next to the entrance of the house a peasant had left a cart with winter straw.

Without pausing to think Clara stuffed her doll down between her breast and nightgown and climbed over the sill. Then she slid down until she was hanging by both hands from the sill. Behind her the splintering was louder, a bolt was pushed aside. With a little cry Clara let go and fell straight into the hay wagon. She felt pain in her right shoulder as she sc.r.a.ped against the wooden frame. Without paying any attention to it, she scrambled over the side and slid to the ground. With straw in her hair and in her nightgown she fled along the street. She turned around once and saw the devil standing at the window, gesturing with his bone hand. He seemed to be calling something to her.

Farewell! We'll meet again soon...

Clara heard voices in her feverish head. Everything swam before her eyes; her legs kept running as if by themselves. The rattling in her chest continued to throb while she staggered through the empty alleys. The devil was at her heels, and there was n.o.body who could help her.

When Simon and Magdalena finally reached the raft landing, most of the Schongauers had already returned to town. Fire-fighters were busy pus.h.i.+ng down the smoking beams and pouring water on the remaining embers. Otherwise only a few onlookers were watching. At least the danger of the fire reaching the watchmen's houses and the wooden pier had been averted.

Simon asked some of the men what had happened. Finally he noticed the hangman sitting on one of the wooden piles in the background smoking his pipe and thoughtfully contemplating the remains of the Stadel. As Simon and Magdalena approached him, he looked up.

"Well? Have you had a pleasant day?"

Simon felt the blood mounting to his face. Magdalena very sensibly looked in the other direction.

"I...we...I was helping Magdalena to gather wild garlic, and then we saw the smoke," the physician stammered. He looked at the ruins and shook his head. "This is terrible. It will cost the town a fortune!"

The hangman shrugged.

"If it was anyone from the town...Our raftsmen say the Augsburgers set fire to the Stadel after taking their own goods out."

Simon looked over his shoulder. There were indeed cases, bales, and sacks piled up at a safe distance from the smoking ruin. A few Augsburg raftsmen, casting black glances all around, stood near them and were obviously on guard.

"Well?" he asked the hangman. "What do you think?"

Jakob Kuisl took another drag on his pipe.

"Anyway, they put their goods in a safe place while we were fighting with them." He stood up and stretched his legs.

Finally he muttered: "One thing is clear. The fire was set deliberately by someone. I've lit a few fires myself, for executions. It takes a bit of work to get it to burn well. You can't just throw a torch on it."

"Arson?" inquired Simon.

"You can bet your life on that."

"But why?"

"Don't know. But we'll find out sooner or later."

The hangman started walking toward the bridge. As he pa.s.sed them he shook his head.

"In any case, there's one good thing about the fire," he said.

Simon walked after him.

"What is it?"

"If they question the Augsburgers and Schongauers about it, then we get a reprieve for the Stechlin woman. At any rate, she's safe for today."

Jakob Kuisl trudged over the wooden bridge. Suddenly he turned around again.

"Oh, I almost forgot. You should just stop by at young Schreevogl's house. He asked me to tell you that his Clara is ill. And you send Magdalena home, understand?"

Simon turned to the hangman's daughter. She smiled.

"Father likes you."

Simon frowned. "You really think so?"

"Sure. Otherwise he'd have cut off your family jewels long ago and thrown you in the Lech. You can't imagine how fast."

The physician grinned. Then he considered what it must be like to have the hangman for an enemy. He hoped that Magdalena was right.

Jakob Kuisl headed back to the prison. In the meantime it was getting dark in the streets. A single bailiff was standing in front of the keep. They had left him there and ordered him to keep watch while all the others ran down to the raft landing. Since then a few of them had reappeared with Georg Riegg and the watchman at the bridge, had locked up the two of them without further comment, and had returned to the river again.

The young man looked worried. He seemed to be the only person in the town who didn't know what had happened. And now the hangman had come back alone. Where were the others? The court clerk? The witnesses?

"That's enough for today," growled Kuisl and pushed the bailiff aside. "Time to leave. Just have to put the things away. Did you lock up the Stechlin woman again?"

The bailiff nodded. He was barely eighteen years old, his face deeply marked with smallpox. Finally he could no longer restrain his curiosity. "What's been happening down there?" he asked.

"The Stadel burned down," said Kuisl. "Want to go and look?"

The bailiff looked uncertainly behind him into the entrance of the keep. The hangman clapped him on the shoulder.

"The witch won't run away, I'll take care of that. And now off you go."

The youth nodded thankfully, then handed the keys over to Kuisl. A few seconds later he disappeared behind the corner of the house next door.

Jakob Kuisl entered the interior of the keep. Immediately the chill of the stone walls enveloped him. A musty smell of urine and damp straw lay in the air. In the left-hand cell sat Georg Riegg and the bridge watchman. They had locked up the Augsburg wagon driver in the small but more comfortable room in the Ballenhaus, so as not to further provoke the powerful neighboring city.

The Schongauers seemed to have temporarily accepted their situation. Each had withdrawn into a corner of the cell and was dozing. When the raftsman saw the hangman, he jumped up and shook the bars of the grill.

"Kuisl, look here! They've locked us up with the witch. Do something, before she casts a spell on us," he shouted.

"Shut your mouth."

The hangman did not look at him and went on to the neighboring cell.

The bailiff had locked up Martha Stechlin again, but mercifully he returned her clothing to her. She had crept into a corner and covered her shorn head with both hands. As Kuisl approached the bars of the grille, a rat whisked between his feet.

"Martha, this is important," he said. "Look at me."

The midwife blinked at him.

"I need the names of the children," he whispered.

"Which names?"

The hangman put his finger to his lips and nodded toward the other cell. Then he continued whispering.

"The names of the children who were with you the night before the murder. Every single one. If we are going to get you out of here, I must know what happened."

Martha Stechlin told him the names. There were five. All except Peter Grimmer were orphans. Two of them were no longer alive.

Lost in thought, Jakob Kuisl drummed his fingers against the iron bars. These children must have some secret. He kicked out at another rat, slamming it into a corner, where it squealed and died.

"See you tomorrow, Martha," he said, this time aloud. "Tomorrow it may hurt a bit, but you must be strong."

"Ha, she'll scream, the witch! And we'll be right near, all right," Georg Riegg shouted at them. The wagon driver shook the iron bars again. At the same time he kicked the dozing watchman, who sat up suddenly and looked at him, shocked.

"You be quiet, Riegg," the watchman whispered. "Just be happy that they're not going to torture us."

The hangman went out into the night. But at the next corner he stopped and stood as if rooted to the ground.

From the market square a crowd with torches was coming toward him.

When Simon Fronwieser reached the Schreevogls' house to look at the sick child, he saw at once that something was not right. In front of the door a dozen people had a.s.sembled. A few had lit lanterns in the gathering darkness. The flickering light threw unnaturally big shadows on the walls of the houses, and the faces of the curious were bathed in a dull red light. People whispered, again and again fingers were pointed up at the second floor. Simon heard someone say: "He flew out of the window and took her with him. The devil incarnate, as true as I stand here!" Another uttered curses against Martha Stechlin and wanted to see her burn that very day.

Directly above the physician the shutters of a window stood wide open. The right shutter swung crookedly on its lower hinge, as if a heavy man had held fast to it. Splinters of gla.s.s were scattered on the street. From the upper rooms a woman could be heard sobbing. At that moment she uttered such a shrill cry of grief that Simon thought the other gla.s.s panes would be shattered as well.

The physician made his way through the crowd and began to climb the broad, thickly carpeted stairs up to the second floor. The crying came out of the room on the left. A maid and another servant, pale as death, were standing in front of the door. The maid was mumbling prayers and fingering a rosary. Simon examined the damaged door. The thin wood in the middle had been broken out and the splinters lay on the carpet. Through the chest-high hole Simon could see Maria Schreevogl lying on her stomach in the bed, her fingers clutching the comforter, her head buried in the pillows. Jakob Schreevogl sat alongside her on the edge of the bed and stroked his wife's hair, talking softly to her and trying to calm her. Two chairs in the room had been upset; a picture of the Holy Virgin lay on the floor, the frame shattered. Right across her peacefully smiling face was the impression of a boot.

When Jakob Schreevogl saw the physician standing at the splintered door, he nodded to him and asked him to come in.

"If you've come to see our sick Clara, you've come too late," whispered Schreevogl. Simon saw that he, too, had been weeping. The face of the young alderman was even paler than usual. The arched, rather oversize nose stuck out under eyes red with tears, his otherwise carefully arranged hair looked unkempt and fell over his forehead.

"What's happened?" Simon asked.

Maria Schreevogl began to scream again: "The devil has taken her! He flew into the room and took our little Clara..." The rest was drowned in sobs.

Jakob Schreevogl shook his head.

"We don't know exactly what happened," he said. "Someone must have...kidnapped her. He opened the street door, although it was locked, then he kicked down the upper door, seized our little Clara, and obviously jumped out of the window with her."

"Out of the window?" Simon frowned. He went over to the window and looked down. Directly beneath him stood a hay wagon.

The physician nodded. With a bold jump it would be possible to get down without breaking all one's bones.

"Someone down on the street said that he or it flew away with little Clara," Simon said, looking down at the crowd below. He could hear angry sounds like the buzzing of bees coming from the crowd down below. "Are there any eyewitnesses?"

"Anton Stecher says he saw it with his own eyes," said Schreevogl and again took the hand of his wife, who was sobbing quietly to herself. He shook his head. "Until now I always believed that all this with the children and the murders had a natural explanation, but now..." Schreevogl's voice faltered. He turned to Simon. "What do you think, then?" he asked the physician.

Simon shrugged. "I don't believe anything that I haven't seen for myself. And I see that the house was broken into and that the child has disappeared."

"But the street door was locked."

"An experienced man with a skeleton key, nothing easier than that."

Schreevogl nodded. "I see," he said. "Then Anton Stecher was lying."

"Not necessarily," answered Simon. He pointed to the hay cart under the window. "I think it happened this way. A man got through the front door with a skeleton key. Clara heard him and bolted the door of her room. He broke down this door and there was a struggle. Finally he jumped out of the window with Clara right into the hay wagon. Then he made off with her."

Schreevogl frowned. "But why did he jump out of the window with the child? Couldn't he have just gone out again through the front door?"

Simon could think of no quick answer. Instead he asked: "Clara was an orphan, wasn't she?"

Schreevogl nodded. "Her parents died five years ago. The town a.s.signed her to us as a ward. But we treated her exactly like one of our own children. My wife was particularly fond of her."

Tears came to his eyes. He wiped them away hastily. His wife had turned away from the men and was crying quietly into the pillows.

Meanwhile the crowd under the window had grown larger. A noisy disturbance could be heard. Simon looked out. Newcomers were arriving, bringing torches. Something big seemed to be happening down there.

The physician thought a bit. Anton Kratz had been an orphan too, and Peter Grimmmer had grown up without a mother-and all of them had been at Martha Stechlin's the night before the first murder...

"Did your Clara often visit the midwife Martha Stechlin?" he asked the alderman. Jakob Schreevogl shrugged.

"I don't always know where she went. It's possible..."

"She went to the midwife's quite often," his wife interrupted him. Maria Schreevogl's voice was now firmer. "She told me herself that they met at her house. I thought nothing of it..."

"Two days ago, in the morning, when little Grimmer died," Simon asked, "did you notice anything unusual about Clara?"

Jakob Schreevogl thought for a moment, then he nodded. "She was very pale and wouldn't eat her breakfast. We thought she was beginning to run a fever...Finally, later in the day, she did become ill. When she heard about little Peter, she went up to her room and didn't come down again until the evening. We thought it would be better to leave her alone for a bit. After all, Peter was her playmate."

"She had the mark on her."

"What!" Simon started up from his thoughts.

Maria Schreevogl had raised her head and gazed into the distance. Then she repeated: "She had the sign on her."

Jakob Schreevogl looked incredulously at his wife. "What are you saying?" he whispered.

Maria Schreevogl stared at the wall in front of her as she spoke: "In the evening I gave her a bath in the tub. I thought a hot bath with herbs would drive away the fever. She resisted, but finally I got her undressed. Then she tried to hold her shoulder underwater, but I saw it. It was the same sign they're all talking about, very faded, but still visible."

Simon could scarcely speak. "A circle with a cross under it?" he asked at last.

Maria Schreevogl nodded.