4
Magdalena stomped toward the door to Strasser’s Tavern. She could still feel the effects of the strong mulled wine at the carpenter’s house, but she would need a lot more alcohol to forget seeing Simon and Benedikta together. How could he do something like that to her? A slut from the city! But perhaps she was being unfair to Benedikta; perhaps they had just happened to meet in the basilica and had been heading back to Schongau together and nothing more. But why, then, did Simon place his coat over her shoulders? And the way he laughed…
She opened the door to the tavern and was met by a warm, sticky mass of air. A fiddle was playing and someone was marking time to it with his foot. More than a dozen workmen had already gathered for lunch in the gloomy, low-ceilinged room lit by only a few torches. Some of the masons she had queried just the day before were among them. They looked at Magdalena suspiciously, then returned to their mugs of beer. A young fellow was sitting at a wobbly table in the middle of the room playing a fiddle while a few bystanders stood around clapping and dancing.
The hangman’s daughter smiled. The men had probably already had more to drink than they should have. Work slowed down in the wintertime, and the workers struggled to get by with part-time jobs, squandering their meager earnings on booze and waiting for the arrival of spring. When the merry group of men saw that a woman had entered the tavern, they raised their glasses to her and made a few smutty remarks.
“Girl, come over here! I’ll buy you a beer if I can have a look at your tender breasts!”
A short, stooped carpenter’s journeyman sidled over to her, bowed deeply, and tried to take her by the arm.
“Come dance, hangman’s girl. Make my back straight and my rod bigger with your black magic!”
Magdalena broke free from him, laughing. “I can’t do any magic when there’s nothing to charm. Bug off!”
She sat down at a table in an alcove off to the side. For a while, the men kept leering at her; then they started drinking again and swaying to the beat of the music. It was not customary for women to go to a tavern alone, but as a hangman’s daughter, Magdalena was no ordinary middle-class woman; she was dishonorable, an untouchable.
She had almost forgotten why she was here when suddenly the tavern keeper appeared in front of her holding a foaming mug of beer.
“This is from an anonymous admirer,” he said with a grin, setting the mug down hard on the table. “If I understand him right, he won’t just stop at this one round.”
For a moment, Magdalena considered turning down the beer. The alcohol she drank earlier was still pulsing through her veins, and her pride wouldn’t allow a stranger to treat her to a beer, anyway. But then thirst won out, and she reached across the table and sipped from the mug. It tasted delicious and fresh. She wiped the foam from her lips and turned to the tavern keeper.
“Hemerle told me that, on Sunday, there were three strangers here wearing black cowls. Is that right?”
The tavern keeper nodded. “They must have been monks from somewhere, but not ordinary ones. They arrived on handsome black horses, the kind you rarely see around here, and tied them up outside the tavern. I could see right away that they were rich, educated people.”
“Was there anything else special about them?” Magdalena asked.
Strasser knit his brow. “There was something strange. When I brought their beer, they suddenly all fell silent. But I heard a bit of their conversation anyway, and I think they were speaking in Latin the entire time.”
Magdalena looked at him wide-eyed. “Latin?”
“Yes, just like our priest in the church,” replied Strasser, making the sign of a cross. “God rest his soul. Not that I understood anything, but it sounded like Latin, I swear by the Virgin Mary.”
“Were you able to understand anything at all?”
Strasser stopped to think. “Yes, one phrase, and it came up again and again-
“
Strasser turned to leave. “What do I know? Why don’t you just ask them yourself? One of them is standing back there at the bar, and he was just inquiring about your father.”
Magdalena jumped up from the table. “And you’re only telling me that now?”
Franz Strasser raised his hand apologetically. “He only wanted to know who the big man here in town was who smokes that stinking weed.” He grinned. “No doubt he wanted to buy some from Kuisl. I also told him about you.”
“About me?” The hangman’s daughter almost choked on her beer.
“Well, because you do sell herbs, don’t you? And perhaps this tobacco, or whatever it’s called. Come along,” he said, leading the way. “He seems to have a bit of money to spend. You can see he’s a fine gentleman.”
Magdalena jumped up and followed the tavern keeper through the bar, which was becoming more and more crowded. She looked around in hopes of picking the stranger out from the many people from Altenstadt who were there, but when they got to the bar, they found only familiar faces there. A mason tried to grope her, she gave him a smack in the face, and he walked away, moaning.
“Strange,” Strasser mumbled. “He was here just a moment ago.” He stepped behind the bar. “I’m sure he just went to the place that even the Pope has to go to. Just wait a bit.”
Magdalena returned to her seat and sipped absentmindedly on her beer. Three men in black cowls conversing in Latin…The strangers were surely traveling monks, but why, then, the expensive black horses? And why had one of them inquired about her father?
She took another big gulp. The beer was delicious, perhaps somewhat bitter, but it stimulated the senses. Her head felt light, and thoughts came and went before she could get a grip on them. The music and laughter of the men sitting at the bar blurred into a single pulsing hum. Could that be the effect of the alcohol? She really hadn’t had that much to drink…It didn’t matter; she felt free, and a smile spread across her face. She tapped her feet in rhythm with the fiddle and continued drinking her beer.
The man in the black cowl stood outside and watched her through a small crack in the shutters. He’d have to wait until the henbane began to have an effect. Sooner or later, this woman would have to come out, and she would surely need help then. Who could harbor any suspicions at the sight of a gentleman offering to escort a drunken girl home? What was the name of the girl, again?
His whole body began to tremble, and he couldn’t figure out why.
Jakob Kuisl loved peace and quiet, and nothing was as peaceful as a winter evening after it had snowed all day. It felt as if the snow had swallowed up every sound, leaving emptiness that overcame any thoughts, worries, strivings-leaving only space for quiet meditation. Sometimes Jakob Kuisl wished that eternal winter would come over the world and finally put an end to all its chatter and gossip.
He walked along the snowy road toward Altenstadt. In the distance, he could hear the bells of the basilica sounding. He was looking for his daughter. She had been missing since early that morning, and now it was almost after noon. Magdalena had promised to help her mother mend some old clothes and linens, and Anna Maria Kuisl kept going to the door all morning, looking for her daughter. Her grumbles and complaints gradually turned to anxious silence, and when the hangman finally confessed that he had sent Magdalena to Altenstadt to make some inquiries for him, she threw him out of the house. The words she shouted after him were unmistakable: He couldn’t set foot in the house again unless he came back with Magdalena.
The hangman loved his wife, he respected her, and some people even said he feared her, which was nonsense, of course, because a hangman fears nothing and no one, least of all his wife. But Jakob Kuisl had learned that talking back was pointless and meant only the end of the peace and quiet he longed for so much in his house. And so he left to look for Magdalena.
