located there, too, along with the homes of well-to-do tradesmen. What could Koppmeyer’s murderer be looking for there?
On each side of the gate, two of the bishop’s watchmen dressed in elegant uniforms leaned on their halberds. As the monk walked by, they saluted briefly, then went back to dreaming of mulled wine and warm gingerbread cookies. Magdalena paused for a moment. The man had entered the Domburg without being stopped! Had the watchmen recognized him?
She had no time to think about this. If she didn’t want to lose sight of the stranger, she would have to walk past the guards. Closing her eyes and crossing herself, she approached the gate, smiling broadly. The two bailiffs looked at her suspiciously.
“Stop! Where are you going?” one of them demanded. It didn’t really sound as if he was interested in knowing but was just doing his duty in asking the question. Magdalena smiled and showed the guard the bag of herbs she was holding under her coat. She also noted, with some satisfaction, the little leather bag of guilders from the Augsburg hangman still hanging at her side. Even if she lost track of the strange monk now, she still had done well in her business dealings. That little gnome of a pharmacist had it coming to him! Why was he selling poison to a murderer?
“Herbs from pharmacist Biermann,” she said, addressing the watchmen and pouting. “Sage and chamomile. The prior has a terrible cough.”
The soldier glanced briefly into the bag, then let her pass with a nod. Only after Magdalena had passed through did he stop to think.
“Strange,” he remarked to his colleague. “The prior looked the picture of health this morning. He was well enough to give his usual fire-and-brimstone sermon. Hey, girl!” But the hangman’s daughter had already disappeared around the corner.
Magdalena had trouble finding the stranger again. The little streets, lined with the homes of goldsmiths, silversmiths, engravers, and clothiers, were narrower and more winding than in the lower part of Augsburg. On a hunch, she turned right, only to wind up at a dead end. She spun around, ran this time in the other direction, and found herself suddenly right in front of the cathedral, a structure at least three times higher than the church in Schongau. Bells echoed through the cathedral courtyard as pilgrims and others who’d come to pray streamed out through the mighty portal, making way for those entering. On the steps, tattered beggars held out their hands, pleading with passersby. A mass must have just finished. Magdalena had to hold her breath-how many people could fit inside this enormous dome? She looked around hastily but saw only a sea of unfamiliar forms and faces.
The stranger had disappeared.
She was about to give up when she saw something glitter among the churchgoers and beggars on the wide steps leading up to the portal. She ran up the steps and was just able to catch a glimpse of the man as he disappeared inside the cathedral. The golden cross on his chain sparkled briefly once more in the sun, and then he was swallowed up inside the enormous building. Magdalena ran after him at a brisk pace.
Entering the cathedral, she couldn’t help pausing a moment. It seemed as if she were in another world; she had never before seen such an imposing building. As she continued to move forward, she looked up at the towering columns, the balcony, and the bright, colorful stained-glass windows with the morning sun streaming in. On all sides, angels and saints stared down from richly decorated walls.
The monk strode through the cathedral and finally turned left toward the end of a side aisle. Here, he knelt down in front of a sarcophagus and bowed his head in prayer.
Magdalena hid behind a column, where she finally had a chance to catch her breath.
A murderer who prays…
Had he come, perhaps, to confess his sins? Magdalena considered this for a moment before rejecting it. After all, the stranger had just purchased more poison. A penitent sinner wouldn’t do that.
She wanted to get a look at his face, but the haggard monk still hadn’t removed his cowl, and the only thing visible was his protruding, pointed nose. The bag with the poison was still dangling from his wrist, and the cross hung down from his broad shoulders like a heavy padlock.
Magdalena couldn’t see whose coffin the man kneeled at. Concealed behind the column, she watched him impatiently. When she realized the prayer might take a while, she looked up once more to admire the size of the cathedral. She studied the columns and side altars, the many niches, and the stairways that led up and down. On the left, a well-worn stone staircase led down into a crypt, and farther back, a small walkway branched off. On her right, above the stone altar where the stranger was praying, a row of paintings depicted some old men wearing mitres and capes. Each held a shepherd’s crook in his hand and looked down benevolently on his followers. Magdalena noticed that the paintings on top left were old and faded, and their subjects had a strange gray hue, like messengers from a distant era. Farther down to the right, the paintings seemed newer and more colorful. Each painting was dated, and Magdalena realized these were portraits of all the Augsburg bishops. In the last painting on the bottom row, an astonishingly young man was depicted with thinning black hair, a hooked nose, and a strange penetrating gaze. Magdalena read the name beneath it.
Bishop Sigismund Franz. Appointed 1646.
The bishop up there seemed to be staring directly into her soul with his unpleasant piercing eyes.
She hesitated.
Something about the painting irritated her. Was it the black, almost impoverished look of the cloak? The cold gaze? The surprising youth amid all these old men? As she looked closer, she realized what it was, but it took a while to accept it.
Around the bishop’s neck hung a golden chain with a cross-with two crossbeams.
Just like the one the monk wore!
Magdalena almost cried out loud. Thoughts raced through her head, but she had no time to organize them- the monk had finished praying. He stood up, crossed himself, and bowed now. Finally, he headed for the cloister and disappeared through an ancient stone doorway. He hadn’t once turned around. Casting a final glance at the young bishop above her, Magdalena took off after the stranger. She felt as if Bishop Sigismund Franz’s eyes were boring right through her from behind.
Just after the first cockcrow, there was such a loud pounding at Jakob Kuisl’s door that it sounded as if he himself were being summoned for execution. Outside, it was still the dead of night. Kuisl lay in bed alongside the soft, warm body of his wife, who turned, blinking and groggy, to her husband after the visitor had pounded on the door a third time.
“It doesn’t matter who it is…Wring his neck,” she mumbled and buried her head under a down pillow.
“You can bet on it,” the hangman groaned, swinging his legs out of bed, almost falling down the stairs when the knocking began again a fourth time. In the next room, the twins woke up and began to cry.
“All right, all right,” the hangman growled, “I’m coming!”
As he stumbled down the ice-cold stairs barefoot and dressed only in his nightshirt, he swore to himself he would, at the least, apply thumbscrews to this disturber of the peace. He would probably also shove burning matches under his fingernails.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
Jakob Kuisl had had a strenuous night. The little ones had a terrible cough and couldn’t be calmed down, even with hot milk and honey. Once Georg and Barbara had finally drifted off to sleep, Kuisl rolled around in bed for hours thinking about the second gang of robbers. He was brooding about the mysterious fourth man when he’d finally fallen asleep.
Only to be awakened what seemed like five minutes later by this fool trying to break down his door.
Furious, Jakob Kuisl ran down the steps, threw aside the bolt, tore open the door, and shouted at his visitor so loudly that the guest almost fell over into a large snowdrift behind him.
“What is God’s name do you think you’re doing, you stupid clod, coming here in the middle of the night…” Too late, he noticed it was Burgomaster Karl Semer standing there. “Confound it…” the hangman muttered.
The hangman stood a full head taller than the burgomaster, and the patrician looked up at Kuisl in terror. There were dark circles under Semer’s eyes, he was pale, and his left cheek was badly swollen.
“Excuse my bothering you at such an early hour, Kuisl,” he whispered, pointing at his cheek. “But I just couldn’t stand it…the pain…”
The hangman frowned, then opened the door. “Come in.”
Leading the burgomaster into the main room, he relit the fire in the hearth with a few pieces of kindling he
