“Has he disappeared?”
Franz Strasser heaved a sigh and settled into a chair next to the physician. “He did, yesterday at noon. He was to look after the horses in the stable, but he didn’t return. I guess he’s run off, the little bastard.”
Simon blinked. The inn was only dimly lit, and the drawn shutters allowed very little light to enter. On the windowsill, a pinewood chip was glowing faintly.
“How long has Johannes been your apprentice?” he asked the landlord.
Franz Strasser thought. “Over three years,” he said after a while. “His parents were both from here, from Altenstadt. Good people, but weak chested. She died in childbirth, and the father followed her to the grave just three weeks later. Johannes was the youngest. I took him in, and he has always been well cared for here, so help me God.”
Simon sipped at his mug. The beer was watery and flat.
“I hear he was over in Schongau a lot,” he asked.
Strasser nodded. “Right. Every hour he could spare. The devil knows what he did over there.”
“And you had no idea where he might have gone?”
The landlord shrugged. “His hideout, perhaps.”
“Hideout?”
“He spent a few nights there,” said Strasser. “Every time I gave him a whipping for doing mischief, he went off to his hideout. I tried to ask him about it once, but he said nobody would ever find it and he’d be safe there even from the devil.”
Lost in thought, Simon sipped his beer. Suddenly, he didn’t care about the taste anymore.
“Were there others who knew it too…this hideout?” he asked cautiously.
Franz Strasser frowned. “Could be,” he said. “He did play with other kids, he did. Once they smashed an entire shelf of beer mugs here. They went into the lounge, snatched a loaf of bread, and knocked over the mugs as they ran away, the little bastards.”
“What did the children look like?”
Strasser had worked himself up into a rage.
“Nothing but bastards, the whole lot! Only mischief on their minds, all those orphans from the town. Ungrateful riffraff. They should be humble and glad that someone’s taking care of them, and instead they just get fresh.”
Simon took a deep breath. His headache was coming back.
“What they looked like is what interests me,” he whispered.
The innkeeper stared, thinking it over. “There was a redheaded girl with them. Witches’ hair…I tell you, they’re good for nothing.”
“And you really have no idea where that hideout could be?”
Franz Strasser looked irritated.
“Why are you so interested in that boy?” he asked. “Has he done anything to make you look for him so urgently?”
Simon shook his head.
“It’s not important.” He put down a copper penny for the beer and left the gloomy room. Franz Strasser watched as he left, shaking his head.
“Damned bastards!” he called after the physician. “If you see him, give him a few behind the ears. He deserves it!”
CHAPTER 8
FRIDAY APRIL 27, A.D. 1659 TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
The court clerk sat at the big council table in the town hall drumming his fingers to the rhythm of some military march whose melody kept going through his mind. His gaze passed over the pudgy faces of the men sitting in front of him. Red, sagging cheeks, watery eyes, thinning hair…Even the modish cut of the coats and the carefully starched lace neckerchiefs could not disguise the fact that these men had passed their prime. They clung to their power and their money because, in Lechner’s opinion, nothing else was left for them. In their eyes was a helplessness that made him almost pity them. In their small, beautiful town the devil was loose, and they could do nothing about it. The Stadel had burned down, some of them had lost a lot of money, and something out there was taking their children from them. The servant girls and laborers, the peasants and the simple people, expected that they, the masters of the town, would do something about it. But they were all at a loss, and so they looked at Lechner as if he could do away with the disaster with a snap of his fingers or a scratch from his quill pen. Lechner despised them, even if he would never let it show.
He rang his handbell and opened the meeting.
“Many thanks for having come on such short notice and interrupting your business, which is doubtlessly important, to attend this shortly convened meeting of the inner council,” he began. “But I believe it is necessary.”
The six aldermen nodded eagerly. Burgomaster Karl Semer passed his lace kerchief over his sweaty forehead. The deputy burgomaster Johann Puchner wrung his hands and muttered agreement. Otherwise there was silence. Only Wilhelm Hardenberg, the old superintendent of the almshouse, pursed his lips and uttered a curse toward the ceiling. He had just been calculating how much the fire at the Stadel would cost him. Cinnamon, sweetmeats, bales of high-quality cloth, all reduced to ashes.
“God in heaven, someone will have to pay for it!” he whined. “Someone must pay!”
The blind Matthias Augustin struck his stick impatiently on the oaken floor. “Cursing won’t get us anywhere,” he said. “Let Master Lechner tell us what the questioning of the wagon drivers has revealed.”
The court clerk looked at him thankfully. At least there was one beside himself who was keeping a clear head. Then he continued. “As you all know, yesterday evening little Clara Schreevogl was abducted by an unknown person. Like the other two dead children, she used to visit the Stechlin woman. People maintain they’ve seen the devil on the street.”
A whispering and murmuring went through the council chamber, and many crossed themselves. Johann Lechner held up his hands to calm them. “People see a lot, even things which don’t exist,” he said. “I hope that we will be able to say more after the examination of the Stechlin woman this afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you put the witch on the rack long ago?” grumbled old Augustin. “There was time enough all night.”
Lechner nodded. “If it were up to me, we would be further along,” he said. “But the witness Schreevogl asked for a postponement. His wife is not well. Anyway, first we wanted to ask the wagon drivers about the fire.”
“Well then?” Almshouse superintendent Hardenberg looked up, his eyes flashing with anger. “Who was it? Who is the swine? He should be dancing at a rope’s end by the end of the day!”
The court clerk shrugged. “We don’t know yet. The watchman from the bridge and Georg Riegg both said the fire spread very quickly. Someone did more than just set the fire, but nobody saw any of the Augsburgers. They came later to rescue their goods.”
“They came very quickly,” said third burgomaster Matthias Holzhofer, a corpulent bald-headed man, who had made a fortune with gingerbread and sweets. “They got all their bales out and lost hardly anything. They did it all right.”
Burgomaster Semer tugged at his thinning hair. “Would it have been possible for the Augsburgers to start the fire and then rush all their goods to safety?” he asked. “If they really want to set up a new trade route, they have to make sure that people can no longer store their goods here with us. And they have succeeded.”
Puchner, the second burgomaster, shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “All it would have taken would be the wind coming from the wrong direction, or a burning beam, and they’d have lost their goods just as we did.”
“What if they did?” said Karl Semer. “What are a few bales and barrels for the Augsburgers? If they get their
