peace to the town. The Stechlin woman would have to confess. At the stake all the problems would go up in smoke. Tomorrow he would continue with the questioning, even if it was illegal without approval from Munich.
Perhaps, too, the questioning of the combative Schongauer Georg Riegg and that insolent Augsburger would somehow resolve itself. One of the Fuggers’ raftsmen! As if anything like that would impress him, Lechner! And just for his arrogant behavior alone he would keep him under arrest for a few days in the Ballenhaus.
There was a knock at the door, and a servant entered with another steaming bucket. Lechner nodded his thanks, and a deluge of hot water poured over the court clerk’s tense back. When the servant left, Lechner reached for the scrub brush. There was a second knock. Irritated, he let the brush sink.
“What is it?” he growled toward the door.
The servant’s voice sounded nervous. “Sir, excuse the disturbance…”
“Just tell me what the matter is!”
“Something else has happened. They say that…the devil has flown away with little Clara Schreevogl, and now the people are running to the keep and want to see the Stechlin woman burned at the stake. They have pikes and lances and torches…”
Cursing, the clerk threw the brush into the water and reached for a dry towel. For a moment he considered letting things simply take their course. The sooner the Stechlin woman was put to the stake, the better. But then it occurred to him that he still represented the law in Schongau.
Hastily he pulled his shirt on. The Stechlin woman would burn all right. But only when he ordered it.
When the hangman saw the mob he knew at once where they wanted to go. He turned and ran the few yards back to the keep and stood resolutely at the front entrance. The huge tower had only one way in. Anyone wanting to get to the Stechlin woman would have to get past him. With a determined gaze and folded arms he waited for the group, which had now grown to two dozen men. In the light of the torches Kuisl recognized the usual troublemakers. The baker Michael Berchtholdt was marching at the head of the group. But some of the aldermen’s sons were there also. He could recognize the youngest offspring of Semer, the burgomaster. Many in the mob were armed with pikes and scythe blades. When they saw the hangman, they stopped and started to murmur. Then Berchtholdt, eager to please the crowd, addressed him with a broad grin.
“We’ve come for the witch!” he shouted. “Hand over the key, Kuisl, or there’ll be trouble.”
Shouts of support were heard from the mob, and out of the darkness a stone was thrown at him, which bounced off his chest. The hangman didn’t yield an inch but looked at Berchtholdt with a cold stare.
“Is this the elected witness to this morning’s inquisition speaking, or a rabble-rouser whom I shall have to string up on the nearest tree this very night?”
The grin on the master baker’s face disappeared. Then he regained his composure.
“You must not have heard what’s happened, Kuisl,” he said. “The Stechlin woman called upon the devil, and he’s flown away with the little Schreevogl girl.”
He looked around at a few of his companions. “If we don’t hurry, he’ll fly away with the witch too. Perhaps she’s gone already.”
The mob growled and pushed nearer to the heavy iron door, which the hangman defended with his broad shoulders.
“I know only this: that the law still applies here,” said Jakob Kuisl, “and not a few stupid peasants running through the town with scythes and threshing flails to frighten peaceful burghers.”
“You watch it, Kuisl,” Stecher chimed in. “There are many of us, and you don’t even have a cudgel. We’ll kill you before you know it, and then we’ll burn you and the witch together!”
The hangman smiled and raised his right arm. “This is my cudgel,” he said. “Would anyone like to feel it on his back? Nobody?”
The crowd fell silent. Jakob Kuisl was famous for his strength, and anyone who had ever seen how he hauled up a thief with the noose around his neck or raised the six-foot execution sword to strike a blow at his hapless victim certainly had no wish to start a quarrel with him. Fifteen years earlier he had taken over his father’s office, and before that he had been in the Great War. They said that back then he had killed more people than would fit in the old Schongau cemetery.
The mob moved back several feet. There was silence. The hangman stood there rooted to the spot.
Suddenly Anton Stecher charged forward. He had a flail in his hand, which he brandished at Kuisl.
“Down with the witch!” he shouted.
The hangman turned away, avoiding the flail, seized it by the handle and pulled Stecher toward him. Then he punched him in the nose and tossed him effortlessly back into the crowd. The men withdrew, and Stecher fell to the ground, a stream of blood pouring onto the cobblestones.
The peasant, whimpering, crept back out of sight.
“Anyone else?” asked Kuisl.
The men looked at one another uncertainly, whispering nervously. Everything had happened so quickly. At the back of the group some started to put out their lanterns and scurry home.
Suddenly a rhythmic tread could be heard in the distance. Jakob Kuisl pricked up his ears. Marching feet were approaching from the castle. At last, followed by a squad of soldiers, Lechner and the presiding burgomaster appeared.
At the same moment Simon and Jakob Schreevogl arrived from the market square. When the young alderman saw the court clerk, he put his sword back in its sheath. “Thank God,” he panted. “It isn’t too late. They can say what they like about Lechner, but he has the town under control.”
Simon watched the soldiers approach the mob with their lances poised. In just a few seconds the rioters had thrown down their weapons and were looking about fearfully.
“It’s all over!” Lechner cried out. “Go home! Nothing will happen to anyone who goes now.”
One after the other they disappeared into the narrow alleys of the town. Young Semer ran to his father, who gave him a rap on the head and sent him home. Simon shook his head. The boy had almost committed a murder, and the presiding burgomaster sent him home to have supper…Martha Stechlin’s life was not worth a penny.
Only now did burgomaster Semer see the hangman, who was still on guard by the door of the keep. “You did well!” he called to him. “After all, the council rules here and not the man on the street.” He turned to the court clerk and continued. “Although one can understand the people. Two dead children and a girl kidnapped…Most of us have families ourselves. It’s time to put a stop to all this.”
The clerk nodded. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow we shall know more.”
The devil limped through the streets and held his nose into the wind, as if he could smell his victim. He paused at dark corners and listened carefully; he looked under every oxcart, he poked at every dung heap. She couldn’t be far away. It was impossible that she had escaped him.
He heard a noise, and above him someone opened a window. The devil pressed against the wall of the house. In his black coat he was almost invisible in the night. A stream of urine poured into the street close by, then the window shut again. The devil pulled his coat closer around him and continued his search.
In the distance shouts could be heard, but they did not concern him. They were all about the woman they had put in prison. He heard they believed that the woman had summoned him. He couldn’t help smiling. What a thing to imagine. What did the witch look like? Well, he’d get to see her soon, no doubt. First he had to make sure that he got his money. He was hoping that the others had been doing good work out there while he was tidying up here. He spat. Again they had left the dirty work to him. Or had he wished for it himself? Shadows appeared in his field of vision, bloody shapes, terrible images…Screaming women with gaping holes where breasts should have been, babies dashed to pieces like toys on the burnt remains of walls, headless priests in bloodstained cassocks.
He brushed away the images with his hand and put his cool bony fingers on his brow. That did him good. The images vanished. The devil marched on.
Up on top of the Kuh Gate he saw the guard dozing. He was leaning on his lance and staring out into the night. He could hear a soft, snoring sound.
Then he saw the neglected garden near the Kuh Gate. The fence had collapsed, the building behind was a ruin left over from the last days of the war. In the garden ivy and knotweed crept up the town wall. There, almost hidden by the leaves, a ladder was leaning. The devil jumped over the remains of the fence and looked at the ground beneath the wall. It was just past the full moon and there was sufficient light to see prints in the damp earth. Children’s footprints. The devil bent down and inhaled the scent of the earth.
