The Hangman’s Daughter

window and find out.

Then the shouts came nearer. Steps could be heard, people running across the paved market square, past the Stern Inn and into the narrow alley, up to the Kuh Gate. Now Martha Stechlin could hear a name emerging from the confusion of voices.

It was her name.

“Stechlin, you witch! To the stake with you! Burn her! Come out of there, Stechlin!”

The midwife leaned out the ground-floor window to find out exactly what was going on, and a fist-size rock hit her directly on the forehead. Everything went black and she sank to the ground. When she came to herself she saw, through a mist of blood, that the door to her house was being forced open. With great presence of mind, she jumped up and threw herself against it. Several legs were trying to force themselves through the opening. Then the door fell shut. From outside came angry shouts.

Martha searched in her dress for the key. Where could it be? Someone was pushing at the door again. There, on the table next to the apples, there was something shiny. While the midwife held the door shut with her strong body, she fumbled, almost blind with blood and sweat, for the key on the table. At last she had it in her hand and turned it in the keyhole. With a squeaking sound the bolt slid into place.

The pushing from outside suddenly stopped, only to change after a few seconds into a furious hammering. Obviously the men were swinging a heavy beam against the door. Already the thin wood was splintering. A hairy arm appeared in the opening and felt for her.

“Stechlin, you witch. Come out, or we’ll set your house on fire!”

The midwife could see the men outside through the broken door. They were raftsmen and wagon drivers; she knew many of them by name. Most of them were the fathers of children she had brought into the world. Now their eyes had a bestial glare; they sweated and screamed and hammered on the door and the walls. Martha Stechlin looked around like a hunted animal.

A window shutter splintered, and the massive head of Josef Grimmer, her neighbor, appeared. Martha knew that he had never forgiven her for the death of his wife. Was that the reason for the uproar? Grimmer brandished a piece of the window frame studded with nails.

“I’m going to kill you, Stechlin! I’ll kill you before they even burn you!”

Martha ran to the back door. This gave onto a small herbal garden that lay directly behind the city wall. In the garden she realized that she had trapped herself. The houses to the left and right reached right up to the city wall, which was itself a good ten feet up to the parapet walk, too high to reach the top.

Directly by the wall was a small apple tree. Martha Stechlin hurried to it and climbed into the branches. From its top, she might possibly escape onto the parapet.

Once more she could hear the sound of breaking glass in her house, and then the garden door was broken open. In the doorway stood Josef Grimmer, panting and still holding the nail-studded lath in his hand. Behind him other wagon drivers pushed their way into the garden.

Martha Stechlin scrambled up the apple tree like a cat, higher and higher, until the twigs were as thin as children’s fingers. She grabbed the edge of the wall and tried to reach the safety of the battlements.

The branch broke.

With bleeding fingertips the midwife slid down the wall and into a wet vegetable patch. Josef Grimmer came up to her and raised the lath for a death-dealing blow.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

The wagon driver looked up to see where the voice had come from. On the battlements, directly above him, stood a massive form dressed in a long coat full of holes and a broad-brimmed, soft hat sporting a couple of ragged feathers. The man beneath this hat had black unkempt hair and a full beard that had not been touched by a barber for a long time. The battlements threw a shadow, so that there was little to see of his actual features except a huge hooked nose and a long clay pipe.

The man had spoken without taking the pipe out of his mouth. Now he held it in his hand and pointed to the midwife, who was crouched and panting by the wall underneath him.

“Killing Martha isn’t going to bring your wife back. Don’t make yourself miserable.”

“Shut up, Kuisl! It’s none of your business!”

Josef Grimmer had himself under control again. Like all the others, he was at first astounded that the man up there had been able to approach without anyone noticing. But the moment of surprise was over. Now he wanted to take his revenge and nobody was going to stop him. With the lath still in his hand, he slowly approached the midwife.

“That is murder, Grimmer,” said Kuisl. “If you strike now, I’ll be very happy to put the noose round your neck. And I promise you, you’ll die slowly.”

Josef Grimmer stopped. He turned hesitantly to his companions, who were obviously as uncertain as he was.

“She’s responsible for my son’s death, Kuisl,” said Grimmer. “Go down to the Lech and see for yourself. She put a spell on him and then stabbed him. A Satan’s mark she wrote on him.”

“If that’s true, why didn’t you stay with your son and send the bailiff for Martha?”

All of a sudden Josef Grimmer realized that his dead son must still in fact be down by the river. In his hatred he had just left him lying there and had hurried after the others. Tears came to his eyes.

With an agility that nobody would have suspected of him, the man with the pipe in his mouth climbed over the balustrade of the parapet and leaped down into the garden. He was taller by at least a head than all others there. The giant bent down to Martha Stechlin. She could now see his face quite close above her, the hooked nose, the wrinkles like furrows, bushy eyebrows, and deep-set brown eyes. The eyes of the hangman.

“Now you will come with me,” whispered Jakob Kuisl. “We’ll go to the court clerk, and he will lock you up. That’s the safest thing for you at the moment. Do you understand?”

Martha nodded. The hangman’s voice was soft and melodious, and it calmed her.

The midwife knew Jakob Kuisl well. She had brought his children into the world, both the living and the dead…Most often the executioner himself had lent a hand. Occasionally she bought from him potions and poultices to cure interrupted menstruation or unwanted pregnancies. She knew him to be an affectionate father who adored his youngest children, the twins, above all else. She had also seen how he laid the noose round the necks of men and women and pulled away the ladder. And now he’s going to hang me, she thought. But first he saves my life.

Jakob Kuisl helped her up, then looked around at the bystanders expectantly. “I’m taking Martha to the keep now,” he said. “If she really has anything to do with the death of Grimmer’s son, she will receive her just punishment, I can promise you that. But until then, leave her in peace.”

Without another word the hangman seized Martha by the scruff of the neck and pushed her through the middle of the group of silent raftsmen and wagon drivers. The midwife was quite sure he would make good on his threat.

Simon Fronwieser panted and cursed. He felt his back slowly getting damp. It was not sweat that he felt there, but blood, which had soaked through the sheet. He would have to resew his coat; the stains were all too clear on the black fabric. And the bundle across his shoulders was getting heavier with every step.

Simon crossed the Lech Bridge with his awkward burden and turned to the right into the tanners’ quarter. As the physician entered the narrow lanes, he at once smelled the acrid odor of urine and decay, which pervaded everything. He held his breath and trudged past frames as high as a man, between which sheets of leather had been hung out to dry. Half-tanned animal skins even hung from the balcony railings, giving off their penetrating stench. A few apprentices looked down inquisitively at Simon and his bloodstained bundle. It must have looked to them as if he was taking a slaughtered lamb to the hangman.

At last he left the narrow alleys behind him and turned left up the path to the duck pond to the executioner’s house, which stood under two shady oak trees. With a stable, a big garden, and a shed for a wagon, it was quite an impressive property. The physician looked around, not without a feeling of envy. The executioner’s profession might be dishonorable, but still one was able to make a decent living from it.

Simon opened the freshly painted gate and entered the garden. It was April, the first flowers had already appeared, and everywhere aromatic plants were springing up.

Mugwort, mint, lemon balm, stinkwort, wild thyme, sage…the executioner of Schongau was known for the herbal riches of his garden.