They had settled down high up under the roof, from where a ladder descended to the barn floor. Carefully, the physician peered around a bale of straw and far down to the barn floor. He saw that the door was open a crack and the first light of dawn was shining through. He was sure that he had closed the door the evening before, if only to keep out the cold. Silently he slipped on his trousers and cast a last glance at Magdalena, who was still asleep. Directly below him, hidden by the wooden floor of the loft, he could hear shuffling steps approaching the ladder. Simon felt around in the straw for his knife, a perfectly honed stiletto he had already used for dissecting corpses and amputating the limbs of wounded men. With his right hand, he firmly gripped the handle, and with his left hand he pushed an especially large bale of straw directly to the edge of the loft.
Below him a figure appeared. He waited for a moment, then gave the bale a last shove so that it fell directly onto the figure. With a piercing cry Simon jumped after it with the intention of pulling the stranger to the floor and, if necessary, stabbing him in the back.
The man ducked to the side without even looking up and the bale hit the floor next to him, bursting into a cloud of dust and straw. At the same time the man raised his arms and warded off Simon’s attack. The physician felt strong fingers grabbing his wrists in a viselike grip. Groaning with pain, he released the stiletto. Then the figure rammed a knee into his abdomen so that he sank forward to the floor. All went dark before his eyes.
Blind with pain he crawled around on the floor, desperately feeling for his knife. A boot came down on his right hand, softly at first, then harder and harder. Simon gasped for air as something started to crack inside his wrist. Suddenly the pain eased. The figure, which he was able to see only as through a fog, had removed the foot from his hand.
“If you seduce my daughter again I’ll break both your hands and lay you out on the rack, understand?”
Simon held his abdomen and crawled some distance away.
“I didn’t…didn’t touch her,” he groaned. “Not like you think. But we…we love each other.”
The response was a dry, suppressed laugh.
“I don’t give a damn! She’s a hangman’s daughter, have you forgotten that? She is dishonorable! Do you want to expose her to even more ridicule, just because you can’t control yourself?” Jakob Kuisl was now standing directly over Simon and rolled him over on his back with his foot so that he was able to look directly into his eyes.
“Be glad I didn’t castrate you on the spot,” he said. “It would’ve saved you and some girls in town a whole lot of trouble!”
“Leave him alone, Father.” Magdalena’s voice came from the loft above. She had been awakened by the noise of the fight and was looking down, still sleepy-eyed and with straw in her hair. “If anything, I seduced Simon and not the other way around. And besides, if I am dishonorable anyway, then what does a little more matter?”
The hangman shook his fist at her. “I didn’t teach you reading and curing the sick so that you could get yourself knocked up and shamed and chased out of town. Can you imagine me having to place the mask of shame on my own daughter!”
“I…I can provide for Magdalena.” Simon, still rubbing his groin, replied again. “We could go to another town, and there we could…”
Another blow hit him on his unprotected side, in his kidneys, so that he doubled up again, gasping.
“What could you do? Nothing. Do you want to go begging or what? Magdalena is going to marry my cousin in Steingaden, that’s been agreed. And now come down here!”
Jakob Kuisl shook the ladder. Magdalena’s face had become white.
“
“Hans Kuisl of Steingaden, an excellent match,” growled the hangman. “I talked to him about it just a few weeks ago.”
“And this is the way you’re telling me, here to my face?”
“One way or the other, I would have told you sooner or later.”
Another bale of straw hit the hangman’s head, nearly knocking him down. This time he hadn’t expected it. Simon couldn’t help grinning in spite of his pain. Magdalena had inherited her father’s quick reactions.
“I’m not going to marry anybody,” she screamed down. “Especially not fat Hans from Steingaden. His breath stinks, and he no longer has any teeth! I’m staying with Simon, just so you know!”
“Stubborn wench,” growled the hangman. But at least he seemed to have given up the idea of dragging his daughter home. He headed for the exit, opened the door, and the morning sun flooded the barn. Briefly he stopped in the light.
“By the way,” he muttered as he walked, “they found Johannes Strasser dead in a barn, in Altenstadt. He, too, had the mark on him. I heard it from the servant girl at Strasser’s inn. I’m going to have a look at that boy. If you want to, you can come along, Simon.”
Then he stepped out into the cool morning. Simon hesitated briefly. He glanced up at Magdalena, but she had buried herself in the straw and was sobbing.
He looked up at her and whispered, “We…we’ll talk later.” Then he followed the hangman out, limping.
For a long time they walked along in silence. They passed the raft landing, where the first rafts were already tying up at this early hour, then turned to the left on the Natternsteig to reach the road to Altenstadt. They deliberately avoided going straight through town, as they wanted to be alone. Here on the narrow footpath winding its way below the town wall, not a soul could be seen.
Finally, Simon spoke up. He had been thinking it over for a long time and was choosing his words carefully.
“I…I’m sorry,” he began haltingly. “But it is true, I love your daughter. And I can provide for her. I have attended the university, even though I didn’t finish. I ran out of money. But I have enough to hold my head above water as an itinerant surgeon. That, together with all that your daughter knows…”
The hangman stopped and looked down from the rise into the valley below, where the forest extended all the way to the horizon.
He interrupted Simon without turning his eyes from the scene in front of him. “Do you have any idea what it means to earn your daily bread out there?”
“I’ve already traveled around with my father,” replied Simon.
“He cared for you, and for that you should be forever thankful,” said the hangman. “But this time you would be alone. You would have to take care of your wife and your children. You would have to go from one country fair to another, a quack advertising his cheap tinctures like sour beer, getting rotten cabbage thrown at him and being mocked by peasants who know nothing about your healing arts. The learned physicians would make sure that you get thrown out as soon as you set foot in their town. Your children would die of hunger. Is that what you want?”
“But my father and I, we always had an income…”
The hangman spat on the ground. “That was during the war,” he continued. “When there is war, there’s always something one can do. Sawing off limbs, cleaning out wounds with oil, dragging off the dead, and covering them with lime. Now the war is over. There are no more armies to follow. And I thank God for that!”
The hangman started walking again and Simon followed a few steps behind him.
After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Master, may I ask you a question?” Jakob Kuisl continued walking and spoke without turning around.
“What do you want?”
“I heard you haven’t always been in Schongau. You left this town when you were about my age. Why? And why did you return?”
The hangman stopped again. They had almost circled the entire town. Before them, on the right, the road to Altenstadt appeared. An oxcart trundled slowly along the road. Beyond, the forest stretched all the way to the horizon. Jakob Kuisl remained silent for such a long time that Simon began to think he would never receive an answer. Finally the hangman spoke.
“I didn’t want a trade that forced me to kill,” he said.
“And what did you do instead?”
Jakob Kuisl laughed softly.
“I killed all the more. Indiscriminately. Aimlessly. In a frenzy. Men, women, children.”
“You were a…soldier?” asked Simon carefully.
The hangman was again silent for quite some time before answering.
