grieving.
The hangman turned the Strasser boy’s body gently on its side. Below the shoulder blade was the purple mark, blurred but still quite visible, a circle with a cross extending beneath it.
“The devil’s mark,” whispered the priest, crossing himself. Then he intoned the Lord’s Prayer.
“
“Where did you find him?” asked Jakob Kuisl without taking his eyes from the corpse.
“In the stable, all the way in back, hidden under some bales of straw.”
Simon looked around. It was Franz Strasser who had spoken. Full of hatred, the innkeeper looked down on what had once been his ward.
“He must have been lying there all the time. Josepha went to look this morning because of the smell. She thought it was some dead animal. But then it turned out to be Johannes,” he mumbled.
Simon shivered. It was the same kind of cut that little Anton Kratz had a few days ago.
The hangman stooped down and began to examine the corpse. He brushed his fingers across the wound, looking for other injuries. When he did not find anything he sniffed at the body.
“Three days, no more,” he said. “Whoever killed him knew his business. A clean cut through the throat.”
The priest eyed him angrily from the side. “That’s enough now, Kuisl,” he barked. “You can go. This is the church’s business. You look after that witch in your own town, that Stechlin woman! She’s responsible for everything here, after all!”
Strasser, standing next to him, nodded. “Johannes was often at her place. Together with the other wards and with that redhead Sophie. She bewitched him, and now the devil is coming for the souls of the little children!”
Many people could be heard murmuring and praying in the crowd. Strasser felt encouraged.
“Tell those big shots in town,” he shouted at the hangman, his face red with wrath, “that if they don’t clean up that brood of witches soon, we’ll come and get them ourselves!”
Some of the peasants agreed loudly as he continued his harangue. “We’ll hang them on the highest gable and light a fire underneath. Then we’ll see who else is in bed with them!”
The priest nodded deliberately. “There’s truth to that,” he said. “We cannot just look on as our children fall victim to the devil, one by one, without stopping him. The witches must burn.”
“The witches?” asked Simon.
The priest shrugged. “It is obvious that this cannot be the work of one single witch. The devil is in league with many of them. And furthermore…” He lifted his index finger as if to provide the final proof in a logical chain of arguments. “The Stechlin woman is in jail, isn’t she? Then it must be someone else! Walpurgis Night is coming very soon! Most likely Satan’s lovers are already dancing with the Evil One in the forest at night and kissing his anus. Then they swarm into town, naked and besotted, to drink the blood of innocent little children.”
“Come on, you don’t believe that, do you?” interjected Simon, his voice somewhat uncertain. “These are just horror stories, nothing more!”
“The Stechlin woman had flying salves and witch hazel in her house,” cried one of the peasants farther back in the crowd. “Berchtholdt told me so. He was there during the torture. Now she cast a spell to make herself unconscious so as not to betray her playmates! And on Walpurgis Night they’ll come and get more children!”
Franz Strasser nodded in agreement. “Johannes was in the forest a lot. They probably lured him there. He always babbled something about some kind of a hiding place.”
“A hiding place?” asked Jakob Kuisl.
For the past few minutes the hangman had been examining the corpse in silence, even taking a close look at the blood-smeared hair and fingernails. He had also inspected the sign once more. Only now did he seem to take an interest in the conversation again.
“What kind of hiding place?”
Franz Strasser shrugged.
“I already told the physician,” he mumbled. “Somewhere in the forest. Must be some kind of cave. He was always covered with dirt when he returned.”
One more time the hangman contemplated the boy’s fingers, now rigid in death.
“What do you mean by ‘covered with dirt’?” he asked.
“Well, full of clay, you see. It looked as if he had been crawling around somewhere.”
Jakob Kuisl closed his eyes. “Damn it all! I’m a complete idiot,” he mumbled. “It’s so clear, and I didn’t see it!”
“What…what is it?” whispered Simon, who was standing next to him and had been the only one to hear the hangman’s words. “What didn’t you see?”
Jakob Kuisl grabbed the physician by the arm and pulled him away from the crowd. “I…I’m not entirely sure yet,” he said. “But I believe I know now where the children’s hiding place is.”
“Where?” Simon’s heartbeat quickened.
“There is something else we must check out first,” the hangman whispered, swiftly taking off down the road in the direction of Schongau. “But for that we’ll have to wait until it’s dark.”
“Tell the highborn gentlemen we are not going to just stand by and wait much longer! The witch must burn!” Franz Strasser called after them. “And that redheaded Sophie, we’re going to look for her ourselves in the forest. With God’s help we shall find that hiding place, and then we shall smoke out that witches’ nest!”
Hooting and cheering broke out, and through it all the priest’s high voice could be heard intoning a Latin hymn, though they could make out only a few words.
“
Simon bit his lip. The day of wrath was indeed close at hand.
Court clerk Johann Lechner blew sand over what he had just written and then rolled up the parchment. With a nod he enjoined the bailiff to open the door to the small chamber. As he rose, he turned once more toward the Augsburg wagon driver.
“If you told the truth, you have nothing to fear. The brawl is of no interest to us…at least not yet,” he added. “We only wish to know who set fire to the Stadel.”
Martin Hueber nodded without looking up. His head was hanging over the table, and his skin was pale and sallow. Just one night in the detention room and the anticipation of possible torture had been sufficient to transform the formerly arrogant wagon driver into a bundle of misery.
Johann Lechner smiled. If the Fuggers’ delegates were really going to come in the next few days and insist indignantly that their wagon driver be handed over to them, they would find a repentant sinner. Lechner would then generously order his release. It was quite possible that Martin Hueber would still have to sit in jail in distant Augsburg, if only to atone for his superiors’ embarrassment…Lechner felt certain that next time the Augsburg merchants would be much more deferential.
On the whole, Martin Hueber had confessed to what he had already hinted yesterday. Less than two weeks ago, some of his men were involved in a brawl at the Stern, on which occasion Josef Grimmer had thrashed one of them so soundly that he had to be taken to the infirmary. Together with a gang of cronies they had then sneaked down to the raft landing on Tuesday night in order to teach the Schongau guards a lesson they wouldn’t forget. But by the time they reached the Stadel, it was already burning. Martin Hueber did see a few figures looking like soldiers running away from there, but he had been too far away to make out more than that. A brawl occurred afterward nevertheless, but only because the Schongau men had suspected them of arson.
“And who do you think set fire to the Stadel?” Lechner asked just before leaving, as he was already standing in the door.
Martin Hueber shrugged. “Those were foreign soldiers, not from around here. That much is certain.”
“It’s just strange that no Schongau guard had noticed them, only you fellows from Augsburg,” Lechner added.
The wagon driver resumed his lament. “By the Holy Virgin Mary, I told you already! Because the Schongauers were so busy putting out the fire! And besides, it was difficult to make out anything with all that smoke!”
Johann Lechner gave him a piercing look. “May our Savior keep you from lying,” he murmured. “Otherwise you’ll hang, and I won’t give a hoot that you are a wagon driver for the Fuggers or, for all I care, the emperor
