she listed them. “Hellebore, mandrake, thorn apple, henbane, hemlock, belladonna…The old woman showed me a number of herbs in the forest. We even found a baneberry plant once.”
Jakob Kuisl looked at her incredulously.
“A baneberry plant? Are you sure? I haven’t seen one in my entire life.”
“By the Holy Virgin, it’s true! Believe me, Father, I know all the herbs around here. You’ve taught me a lot, and Goodwife Daubenberger showed me the rest.”
Jakob Kuisl eyed her skeptically. Then he asked her the names of several herbs. She knew them all. When she had answered all of his questions satisfactorily, he asked for a certain plant and whether she knew where it could be found. Magdalena thought briefly, and then she nodded.
“Take me there,” said the hangman. “If it’s true I’ll tell you what I’m planning.”
After a good half hour’s walk they had reached their destination: a shady clearing in the forest, surrounded by rushes. Before them lay a dried-up pond dotted with grassy islets. Behind that was a swampy meadow in which something purple was somewhat visible. There was the scent of a bog and peat in the air. Jakob Kuisl closed his eyes and breathed in the aroma of the forest. Among the resinous pine needles and the damp smell of moss he could distinguish the gentle fragrance of something else.
She was right.
Simon Fronwieser’s anger had cooled a little. After the quarrel with his father he had hurried to the market square with a red face and eaten a small breakfast of dried apple rings and a piece of bread at one of the many stalls there. As he was chewing on the tough, sweet rings his anger subsided. There simply was no point in getting angry with his father. They were far too different. It was much more important to keep a cool head. Time was pressing. Simon frowned.
The patrician Jakob Schreevogl had told him that the Elector’s secretary would arrive in Schongau in a few days’ time to pronounce his sentence. Before then a culprit had to be found, as the aldermen had neither the inclination nor the means to feed the prince’s representative and his entourage longer than necessary. Furthermore, court clerk Lechner needed peace and quiet in his town. Unless order was restored by the time His Excellency Wolf Dietrich von Sandizell appeared, the clerk’s authority in Schongau would be seriously jeopardized. Therefore, they had three days left, perhaps four at the most. It would take the entourage of soldiers and servants that long to make their way to Schongau from the distant country residence at Thierhaupten. Once the secretary was in town, neither Simon nor the hangman nor the Almighty could save Martha Stechlin from the flames.
Simon stuffed the last apple ring into his mouth and crossed the crowded market square. Time and again he had to step out of the way of maids and farmers’ wives at the farmstands quarreling over meat, eggs, and carrots. One or the other gave him a longing glance. Without paying any attention to it, he turned into the Hennengasse, where Sophie’s foster parents lived.
The red-haired girl had been continually on his mind. He was certain she knew more than she let on. Somehow she was the key to the mystery, even if he wasn’t sure what exactly her role in it was. Yet as he reached the small house wedged in between two larger half-timbered houses in need of a fresh coat of paint, a bitter disappointment awaited him. Sophie hadn’t come home for two days. Her foster parents had no idea where she was.
“That brat will do whatever she likes,” grumbled Andreas Dangler, the linen weaver, who had taken care of the child since her parents’ death. “When she’s here she eats us out of house and home, and when she’s supposed to be working she’ll just hang around in town. I just wish I’d never agreed to the whole business.”
Simon wanted to remind him that the town paid him a handsome compensation for taking care of Sophie, but he contented himself with a nod.
Andreas Dangler continued to fume: “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was hand in glove with that witch,” he said, spitting on the ground. “Her mother, the wife of Hans Hormann, the tanner, was just the same. She cast a spell on her husband, driving him to an early grave, and then she died of consumption herself. The girl was always stubborn, thought herself to be something superior to everyone else and wouldn’t sit at a table with us weavers. Now she has what she deserves!”
He was leaning against the door frame, chewing on a chip of pinewood. “If I had my way, there’d be no need for her ever to return here. She has probably run off before the same thing happened to her as did to the Stechlin woman.”
As the linen weaver continued his complaints, Simon sat down on a dung cart next to the house and took a deep breath. He had the feeling he wasn’t going anywhere like this. He’d have loved to smack the nagging Dangler right in the face. Instead, he only interrupted his grumbling. “Did you notice anything about Sophie lately? Has she been acting differently?”
Andreas Dangler looked him up and down. Simon was fully aware that he must look like a perfect dandy to the linen weaver. With his high leather boots, his green velvet overcoat, and his fashionable Vandyke he would appear to the simple tradesman like an effeminate city dweller from Augsburg, the distant metropolis. His father was right. He wasn’t a local, and there was no point in pretending he was.
“What’s that got to do with you, you quack doctor?” asked Dangler.
“I’m the physician in charge of the Stechlin woman’s torturing,” Simon exaggerated. “Therefore, I should like to gain an impression of the woman, so that I know what powers of witchcraft she may possess. Now, has Sophie ever spoken of the Stechlin woman?” The linen weaver shrugged. “She did say once that she’d like to become a midwife herself. And when my wife was sick she had the necessary medicine right on hand. I suppose she got those from the Stechlin woman.”
“Anything else?”
Andreas Dangler hesitated, then he seemed to recollect something. He grinned. “I saw her once as she was drawing that sign in the sand back there in the courtyard. When I saw her she wiped it away at once.”
Simon pricked up his ears.
“What kind of a sign?”
The linen weaver thought for a moment, then he took the pinewood chip from his mouth, bent down, and drew something in the dust.
“It looked something like that,” he finally said.
Simon tried to recognize anything in the blurry drawing. It resembled a triangle with a squiggle at the bottom.
It reminded him of something, but every time he thought something was coming back to him, the memory faded away. Again he looked at the drawing in the dirt, then he wiped it away with his foot and walked off toward the river. There was one other thing to do today.
“Hey!” Dangler called after him. “Now what does the sign mean? Is she a witch?”
Simon walked faster. The noise of the fully awake town had soon drowned out the shouts of the linen weaver. From afar, he could hear the blacksmith’s hammer; children were driving a flock of cackling geese past him.
After a few minutes the physician had reached the Hof Gate, which was located right next to the Elector’s residence. Here the houses looked sturdier and were built exclusively of stone. And there was less garbage lying around in the streets. The Hof Gate quarter was the neighborhood where the respected tradesmen and raftsmen lived. Those who had acquired some wealth moved to this part of town, away from the smelly tanners’ quarter down by the river or the butchers’ quarter, which lay a little to the east, with its common tailors and carpenters. Simon briefly greeted the sentry at the gate and walked on to Altenstadt, which was only about a mile away from Schongau to the northwest.
The sun shone rather gently, as it was still early on an April morning, but it nevertheless stung the physician’s eyes. His head ached, as well, and his mouth felt dry. His hangover from the previous night’s binge with Jakob Schreevogl was coming back. He knelt to have a drink from a brook near the side of the road. When a horse- drawn wagon piled high with wine barrels rumbled past him, he had enough presence of mind to jump on the back and crawl forward to the barrels that were lashed down. The wagon driver took no notice, and shortly afterward he arrived in Altenstadt.
Simon’s destination was Strasser’s inn, which was in the middle of the village. Before he had gone to the Schreevogls’ last night, the hangman had given him five names—the names of the children who had routinely visited Martha Stechlin’s house: Grimmer, Kratz, Schreevogl, Dangler, and Strasser. Two were dead, two were missing. There remained the last ward, that of Strasser, the innkeeper in Altenstadt.
