“What do you think of this?”
The wagon driver looked straight in the eyes of the hangman, who had been standing alongside him the whole time.
Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “It’s a birthmark. What am I supposed to think?”
Augustin wouldn’t give up. Kuisl had the feeling that there was a slight smirk on his lips. “Didn’t the two dead children bear this kind of mark on their shoulders as well?”
The clerk and the baker sprang to their feet, and even young Schreevogl came closer, curious to inspect the mark.
Jakob Kuisl blinked and looked more closely. The brown spot was indeed larger than the other birthmarks and tapered to a fine line at the bottom. A few black hairs grew out of it.
The men stood in a circle around Martha Stechlin. The midwife seemed to have given in to her fate and allowed herself to be inspected like a calf at the slaughterhouse. A few times she whimpered softly.
“So they did,” whispered the clerk as he stooped over the mark. “It does resemble the devil’s sign…” The baker Berchtholdt nodded eagerly and crossed himself. Only Jakob Schreevogl shook his head.
“If this is a witches’ mark, you have to burn me along with her.”
The young patrician had unbuttoned his shirt and pointed to a brown spot on his chest, which was covered with downy hair. Indeed this birthmark too was shaped rather strangely. “I’ve had this thing since the day I was born, and nobody has yet called me a sorcerer.”
The clerk shook his head and turned away from the midwife. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Kuisl, show her the instruments. And explain what we’re going to do if she doesn’t tell us the truth.”
Jakob Kuisl looked deep into Martha Stechlin’s eyes. Then he took the pincers from the brazier and approached her. The miracle had not occurred, and he would have to begin the torturing.
At this very moment, the great bell in the tower started ringing the alarm.
CHAPTER
6
THURSDAY
APRIL 26, A.D. 1659
FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
SIMON TOOK A DEEP BREATH OF SPRING AIR. FOR the first time in days, he felt fully free. At a distance he could hear the rushing of the river, and the fields were lovely in their rich green. Snowdrops shone between the birches and beeches, which had already started to blossom. Only in the shady patches between the trees could traces of snow still be seen.
He was strolling with Magdalena through the meadows above the Lech, on a footpath so narrow that he and Magdalena touched each other from time to time as if by chance. Twice she had nearly fallen, and each time she had held on to him for support. Longer than was in fact necessary.
After the conversation in the Stern, Simon had hurried down to the river. He needed a quiet moment to think things over and fresh air to breathe. He should have been mixing tinctures for his father, but that could very well wait until tomorrow. In any case Simon preferred to keep out of his father’s way now. Even at the deathbed of the poor Kratz boy they had not spoken. The old man had still not forgiven him for leaving the house to visit the executioner. Sometime, as Simon knew, his anger would blow over, but until then it would be better not to get in his way too often. Simon sighed. His father came from a different world, a world in which the dissection of corpses was considered blasphemous and the treatment of the sick consisted exclusively of purges, cuppings, and the administration of evil-smelling pills. He remembered something his father had said at the burial of a plague victim: “God decides when we shall die. We should not meddle in His handiwork.”
Simon wanted to do things quite differently. He wanted to meddle in the Lord God’s handiwork.
Down by the Lech Gate he met Magdalena, whose mother had sent her to gather wild garlic in the wetlands. She smiled at him in that way again, and he simply followed her. A few washerwomen were standing on the Lech Bridge; he could feel how they were staring at him, but that didn’t bother him.
All afternoon they rambled through the forest down by the river. When her hand brushed against his again, he suddenly felt hot. His scalp began to tingle. What was it about this girl that disturbed him so? Was it perhaps the charm of what was forbidden? He knew that he and Magdalena could never become a couple. Not in Schongau, not in this stuffy hole, where only a small suspicion was enough to send a woman to the stake. Simon frowned. Dark thoughts arose like thunderclouds.
“Is there something wrong?” Magdalena stopped and looked at him. She sensed that something was troubling him.
“It is…oh, nothing.”
“Tell me, or we’ll go back at once, and I’ll never see you again.”
Simon had to smile. “A terrible threat. Even if I believe you would never do it.”
“You wait and see. Well, then, what is it?”
“It’s…about the boys.”
Magdalena sighed. “I thought as much.” Near the footpath was a tree trunk, blown down in a spring storm. She pushed him toward it and sat down alongside. Her eyes looked into the distance. After a while she began to speak again.
“A terrible thing. I can’t get the boys out of my head either, Peter and Anton. I used to see them in the market square, especially Anton. He didn’t have anybody. As an orphan, you’re worth about as much as a hangman’s child. Nothing at all.”
Magdalena pressed her full lips together until they only formed a thin red line. Simon put his hand on her shoulder, and for a long time they said nothing.
“Did you know that all the orphans used to meet at Stechlin’s?” he finally asked.
Magdalena shook her head.
“Something happened there.” Simon looked out across the forest. A long way away the town walls of Schongau were visible.
After a while he spoke again. “Sophie said that they were all at Stechlin’s the evening before the murder. Then they all went home, except Peter. He went down to the river to meet someone else. Who could that have been? His murderer? Or is Sophie lying?”
“And what about Anton Kratz? Was he with the Stechlin woman too?” Magdalena was leaning against his shoulder now, her hand resting gently on his thigh. But Simon’s thoughts were elsewhere.
“Yes, indeed, Anton too,” he said. “And both of them had this strange sign on their shoulders, scratched into the skin with elderberry juice. On Anton it was a bit faded, as if someone had tried to wash it away.”
“He himself?” Magdalena’s head nestled against his.
Simon continued to gaze into the distance. “Your father found sulfur in Peter’s pocket,” he murmured. “And a mandrake is missing from the midwife’s house.”
Magdalena, surprised, sat up suddenly. As the hangman’s daughter she was well informed about magical ingredients.
“A mandrake? Are you sure?” she asked, obviously alarmed.
Simon jumped up from the tree trunk.
“Witches’ marks, sulfur, a mandrake…It all fits together, don’t you think? As if someone would like us to believe in all this spooky stuff.”
“Or if all this spooky stuff is in fact true,” whispered Magdalena. A cloud had passed over the warm spring
