Lechner held up his hands to calm them. “People see a lot, even things which don’t exist,” he said. “I hope that we will be able to say more after the examination of the Stechlin woman this afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you put the witch on the rack long ago?” grumbled old Augustin. “There was time enough all night.”
Lechner nodded. “If it were up to me, we would be further along,” he said. “But the witness Schreevogl asked for a postponement. His wife is not well. Anyway, first we wanted to ask the wagon drivers about the fire.”
“Well then?” Almshouse superintendent Hardenberg looked up, his eyes flashing with anger. “Who was it? Who is the swine? He should be dancing at a rope’s end by the end of the day!”
The court clerk shrugged. “We don’t know yet. The watchman from the bridge and Georg Riegg both said the fire spread very quickly. Someone did more than just set the fire, but nobody saw any of the Augsburgers. They came later to rescue their goods.”
“They came very quickly,” said third burgomaster Matthias Holzhofer, a corpulent bald-headed man, who had made a fortune with gingerbread and sweets. “They got all their bales out and lost hardly anything. They did it all right.”
Burgomaster Semer tugged at his thinning hair. “Would it have been possible for the Augsburgers to start the fire and then rush all their goods to safety?” he asked. “If they really want to set up a new trade route, they have to make sure that people can no longer store their goods here with us. And they have succeeded.”
Puchner, the second burgomaster, shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “All it would have taken would be the wind coming from the wrong direction, or a burning beam, and they’d have lost their goods just as we did.”
“What if they did?” said Karl Semer. “What are a few bales and barrels for the Augsburgers? If they get their trade road, then those are worth their weight in gold. First it’s the leper house in front of the town wall, now it’s the burning of the Stadel. They’re cutting the ground from under our feet!”
“Speaking of the leper house,” the court clerk broke in. “It wasn’t just the Stadel that was destroyed yesterday, but someone also vandalized the site where they are building the leper house. The priest told me that the scaffolding was torn down and parts of the foundation were destroyed. Mortar has been stolen, building wood splintered…and weeks of work gone down the drain.”
Burgomaster Semer nodded thoughtfully. “I have always said that the building of such an establishment for lepers is not welcome here. Quite simply, people here are afraid that traders will stay away if we set up an asylum directly in front of the gates. And who can guarantee that the disease will stop outside the town? Such diseases can spread!”
Wilhelm Hardenberg, the gray-headed almshouse superintendent, agreed with him. “This destruction is certainly reprehensible, but on the other hand…you can understand that people want to protect themselves. Nobody wants this institution, but in spite of that it’s being built. And all because of a mistaken concept of compassion!”
Burgomaster Semer took a big gulp from his lead-crystal glass before speaking. “Compassion has to stop when the interests of the town are endangered, that’s what I think.”
Blind Augustin pounded the table with his stick, so that the expensive port wine in the carafes swished dangerously back and forth.
“Absolute rubbish! Who cares about the leper house at a time like this! We have bigger problems. When the Augsburgers find out we have locked up one of their head wagon drivers, and one of the Fuggers to boot…I tell you, let the wagon drivers go and burn the witch, and then we’ll have peace again in Schongau!”
The second burgomaster Johann Puchner shook his head again. “None of this makes any sense,” he said. “The fire, the murders, the kidnapping, the damage to the leper house…The Stechlin woman has been locked up for quite a time, and it still goes on nevertheless!”
The others, too, began to speak up, talking loudly all at the same time.
Court clerk Johann Lechner had been listening calmly to the dispute, occasionally taking notes. Now he cleared his throat. Immediately the aldermen fell silent and looked at him expectantly. He took his time before answering.
“I am not quite persuaded that the Augsburgers are innocent,” he said finally. “I therefore propose that we have the Stechlin woman tortured today. If she confesses to causing the fire as well as to the murder of the children, we can still release the Augsburger wagon driver. If not, I shall not hesitate to question him as well.”
“And the Fuggers?” asked burgomaster Semer.
Lechner smiled. “The Fuggers were a powerful clan before the war. But now nobody really pays them much attention. If the Augsburg wagon driver really confesses to arson under torture, then that’ll be trouble for the Fuggers.”
He rose and rolled up the handwritten parchment. “And then we have a good case against the Augsburgers, don’t we?”
The aldermen nodded. It was good to have a court clerk. One like Lechner. He gave you the feeling that there was a solution for everything.
The devil’s white bony hand grabbed at the girl’s throat and closed its grasp slowly. Clara felt how he was cutting off her air, her tongue swelled to a fleshy lump, her eyes bulged out of her head, and she looked into a face that she could only see unclearly, as if in a fog. The devil was as hairy as a goat, and out of his forehead grew two twisted horns. His eyes burned like glowing coals and now the appearance of the face started to morph into a distorted mask of the midwife clutching her hands round the girl’s neck, with a gaze that seemed to beg for forgiveness. It seemed that she whispered something, but Clara could not catch the meaning of the words.
Once more the face changed. Her foster father Jakob Schreevogl knelt over her, his mouth twisted into a crooked grin, still pressing harder and harder. Clara felt her life ebbing away; from a distance she heard children’s voices, the voices of boys. With horror she realized that they were the voices of her dead playmates, Peter and Anton, crying for help. The face changed again. It was Sophie, who was shaking her wildly and trying to speak to her. Now she raised her hand and gave Clara a resounding slap.
The slap brought her back to reality.
“Wake up, Clara! Wake up!” Clara shook herself. The world around her came into focus. She saw Sophie bending over her, stroking her burning cheek. The damp rock wall that surrounded them, smeared with ash-colored signs, crosses, and formulas, lent her a feeling of security. It was quiet and cool, and from a distance the rustling of the trees could be heard. Near her lay her wooden doll, dirty and torn but still a reminder of home. Clara leaned back, relieved. Down here the devil would never find her.
“What…what happened?” she whispered.
“What happened?” Sophie could laugh again. “You were dreaming, and you frightened me with your shouting. I was outside and suddenly I heard you scream. I thought they had found us.”
Clara tried to sit up. When she put weight on her right foot, a stab of pain went up her leg to the hip.
Panting, she had to lie down again. The pain went away only slowly. Sophie, worried, looked down.
When Clara looked also, she could see that her right ankle was as big as an apple. The foot was covered with blue spots, and the shin above also seemed swollen. Her shoulder hurt when she turned her body. She was shivering. Her fever had returned.
Suddenly she remembered how she had run from the devil: the jump from the window, the panic-stricken rush through the streets of the town, the second jump from the oak by the city wall into the bushes below. She knew she had landed badly, but fear had driven her on, through the fields and into the woods. Branches slapped like hands across her face, once or twice she fell, but she forced herself to get up again and kept running. At last she reached the hiding place. Like a sack of grain she collapsed on the ground and fell asleep at once. It was not until the next morning that Sophie awakened her.
The red-haired girl had slipped out of the town just as Clara had. Clara was so happy that her friend was with her. Sophie was thirteen years old and seemed almost grown-up. She was like a mother to Clara when they played together out here in their hiding place. In fact, without Sophie their group would not even exist, and she would still be a lonely orphan, teased by her foster brothers and sisters, hit, pinched, and kicked, and the whole time her foster parents noticing nothing.
“Just keep still now.”
Sophie took some oak bark and linden leaves, smeared with an ointment she had brought with her, and
