from the wagon. Then father and son stepped through the stone gateway into the cool darkness of the tower. A narrow, worn flight of stairs led down into the dungeon. Here they found themselves in a gloomy corridor lined on both sides with heavy, iron-studded doors with tiny barred openings at eye level. Childlike whimpering and a priest’s whisper emerged from a peephole on the right, and Jakob heard fragments of Latin words.
The bailiff opened the door and immediately the air was filled with the stench of urine, excrement, and sweat. The hangman’s son involuntarily held his breath.
Inside, the woman’s whimpering ceased momentarily, then turned into a hollow, high-pitched wailing. The child murderess knew that the end was at hand. The priest’s litany, too, became louder, and prayer and screaming merged into one infernal din.
Other bailiffs approached to help drag the human bundle out into the daylight.
At one time Elisabeth Clement had been a beautiful woman with blonde shoulder-length hair, smiling eyes, and a puckered mouth that seemed to be pursed in a perpetual, slightly sardonic smile. Jakob had often seen her with other girls washing linen down at the Lech River. Now the bailiffs had shorn her hair; her face was pale and her cheeks hollow. She was wearing a sinner’s shift, a simple gray shirt covered with stains. Her shoulder blades seemed to pierce the skin and the shirt. She was so gaunt that it seemed she had hardly touched the hangman’s feast, the generous last meal that a condemned person was entitled to for three whole days and was traditionally provided by Semer’s inn.
Elisabeth Clement had been a maid at Rosselbauer’s farm. She was beautiful and therefore popular with the farmhands. They’d been attracted to her like moths to a flame; they’d given her small gifts and picked her up at the door. True, Rosselbauer did scold her for it, but it didn’t do any good. They said that one lad or the other had taken a roll in the hay with her.
It was another maid who had found the dead baby behind the barn in a pit, the soil covering it still fresh. Elisabeth broke down under torture right away. She couldn’t say, or didn’t want to say, whose baby it was. Womenfolk in town gossiped. It was Elisabeth’s beauty that had been her downfall, and that was enough to restore peace of mind to many an ugly burgher’s wife. The world was no longer out of joint.
Now Elisabeth was screaming with fear, struggling and kicking as the three bailiffs tried to drag her from the hole. They tried to tie her up, but again and again she slid away like a slippery fish.
Then something remarkable happened. The hangman moved forward and placed both hands on her shoulders. Almost tenderly, the huge man bent down to the slight girl and whispered something in her ear. Jakob alone was close enough to understand his words.
“It won’t hurt, Lisl. I promise. It won’t hurt.”
The girl stopped screaming. She was still trembling all over, but she allowed herself to be tied up now. The bailiffs eyed the hangman with a mix of awe and fear. It had seemed to them that Johannes Kuisl had whispered an incantation in the girl’s ear.
Finally they stepped out into the open, where a throng of Schongauers was already waiting for the poor sinner. Whispers and murmurs filled the air; some crossed themselves, others mumbled a brief prayer. High up in the belfry a bell began to ring: a high-pitched shrill note that the wind picked up and carried across the town. Now the jeering stopped and the bell was the only sound that broke the silence. Elisabeth Clement had been one of them. Now the crowd gazed at her—a wild, captured beast.
Johannes Kuisl lifted the trembling girl onto the wagon. Again, he whispered something in her ear. Then he handed her a vial. When Elisabeth hesitated, he suddenly seized her head, pulled it back and dripped the liquid into her mouth. It all happened so quickly that only a few bystanders realized what was going on. Elisabeth’s eyes glazed over. She crawled into a corner of the wagon and curled up. She was now breathing more quietly and was no longer trembling. Schongauers knew about Kuisl’s potion. It was a kindness, however, that he didn’t extend to all those who were condemned. Peter Hausmeir, a murderer who had also robbed the church offertory box, had felt every single blow when Kuisl smashed his bones ten years ago. He had been broken on the wheel, and he screamed the whole time, until the executioner finally shattered his cervical vertebrae.
Usually those condemned to death had to walk to the site of their execution, or they were wrapped in an animal skin and dragged behind a horse. But the hangman knew from experience that a condemned child murderess would not ordinarily be able to walk there by herself. These women would receive three liters of wine on their last day to calm them, and his potion did the rest. Most of the time, the girls were half-conscious lambs who had to be almost carried to the slaughter. That’s why Johannes Kuisl preferred using the wagon. Also, its tailboard prevented certain folk from dealing the poor sinner an extra blow on her way to eternity.
Now the hangman himself was holding the reins, and his son Jakob was walking alongside. The gaping crowd thronged around the vehicle so that they could barely move forward. Meanwhile, a Franciscan friar had climbed up next to the condemned woman and said the rosary at her side. Slowly the wagon passed the Ballenhaus and creaked to a halt north of the building. Jakob recognized the blacksmith from the Hennengasse who was already waiting with his brazier. He pumped the bellows with his sinewy, callused hands to blow air into the coals, and the pincers glowed as red as fresh blood.
The two bailiffs pulled Elisabeth up. She was as limp as a puppet, and her eyes stared into space. When the hangman pinched the girl’s right upper arm with the pincers, she screamed, shrilly and sharply, then seemed to drop off into another world. There was smoke and a hissing noise and Jakob smelled the odor of burned flesh. His father had told him what the procedure was, yet he had to fight an urge to vomit.
Three more times, at each corner of the Ballenhaus, the wagon stopped and the procedure was repeated. Elisabeth’s left arm was pinched, then her left breast, and then her right breast. Owing to the potion, however, the pain was bearable.
Elisabeth began to hum a nursery rhyme and smiled as she stroked her belly. “Sleep, baby, sleep…”
They left Schongau through the Hof Gate and followed the Altenstadt Road. Soon the execution site appeared in the distance. It was a grassy field with patches of bare soil situated between farmland and the edge of the forest. The whole of Schongau and the neighboring villages, it seemed, was assembled here with benches and chairs brought in for the aldermen. The commoners were standing in the back, passing the time gossiping and snacking. The execution site was in the middle of the field: a masonry structure seven feet tall with wooden stairs leading to the top.
As the wagon approached the site, the crowd parted and everyone tried to catch a glimpse of the child murderess curled up on the bed of the wagon.
“Make her get up! Up! Up with her! Hey, hangman, show her to us!”
The crowd was obviously annoyed. Many had been waiting since the morning, and now they didn’t even get to see the criminal. Some of the onlookers began hurling rocks and rotten fruit. A Franciscan ducked to protect his brown habit, but several apples hit him in the back. The bailiffs tried to push back the people who were crowding in on the wagon from all sides, as if to swallow it up along with its passengers.
Calmly Johannes Kuisl steered the wagon to the platform. There the aldermen were waiting together with Michael Hirschmann, the Elector’s secretary. He was the representative of the Prince-Elector, and as such he had pronounced the death sentence over the girl two weeks ago. Now he looked deep into her eyes once more. The old man had known Elisabeth since she was a child.
“My, my, Lisl, what
“Nothin’. I’ve done nothin’, Your Excellency.” Elisabeth looked at the bailiff from eyes that were already dead and kept stroking her belly.
“Our good Lord alone knows that,” murmured Hirschmann.
The bailiff nodded and then the executioner led the murderess up the eight steps to the scaffold. Jakob followed. Twice Elisabeth tripped, then she took her last step. Another Franciscan friar and the town crier were waiting on the platform. Jakob surveyed the meadow below and saw hundreds of curious faces; their mouths and eyes were wide open. The aldermen had taken their seats and in the town the bell was pealing the death knell. The air was filled with the tension of expectation.
Gently, the hangman pushed Elisabeth Clement down on her knees. Then he blindfolded her with one of the linen cloths he had brought. She shivered slightly and murmured a prayer.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women…”
The town crier cleared his throat, then he proclaimed the death sentence one more time. Jakob perceived his
