Some of the children looked frightened, but their appetite was stronger. With big eyes they followed all of her movements.

“Magdalena, hangman’s cow, bears the mark upon her brow,” the Berchtholdt boy repeated. But nobody sang along.

“Oh, shut up,” another boy interrupted him. He was missing most of his front teeth. “Your father stinks of brandy every morning when I go to get bread. God knows all the crazy things he thinks up when he’s drunk. Now shove off.”

Crying and hollering, the baker’s son ran off. Some followed him; the others crowded around Magdalena and stared at the candied fruit in her hand as if in a trance.

“Well, then,” she began. “About the murdered boys, Clara, and that Sophie girl. Who knows what they did at the midwife’s? Why didn’t they play with you?”

“They were buggers, real pests,” the boy in front of her said. “Nobody here misses them. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with them.”

“Why would that be?” Magdalena asked.

“’Cause they were bastards, weren’t they? Wards and orphans,” a little blonde girl piped up, as if the hangman’s daughter were a bit slow on the uptake. “And besides, they didn’t want to have anything to do with us. They always hung around with that Sophie. And one time she beat my brother black-and-blue, that witch!”

“But Peter Grimmer wasn’t a ward at all. He still had his father,” Magdalena objected.

“He got bewitched by Sophie,” the boy with the missing teeth whispered. “He was totally different since they met! They kissed and showed each other their bare arses. Once he told us that all the wards had entered a compact together and that they could cast a spell on other children to put warts on their faces and even smallpox, if they wanted to. And just a week later little Matthias died of smallpox!”

“And they learned their witchcraft from the Stechlin woman!” a little boy shouted from farther back in the group.

“They used to sit in her house, and now the devil has taken away his disciples,” another one hissed.

“Amen,” Magdalena murmured. Then she gave the children an enigmatic look.

“I know witchcraft as well,” she murmured. “Do you believe me?” Frightened, her audience backed away a little.

Magdalena put on a conspiratorial face, waving her hands mysteriously. “I can make candied fruit rain from the sky.”

She tossed the sweet candies high up in the air. As the children screamed and scrambled to get the fruit, she disappeared around the nearest corner.

She didn’t notice that a figure was following her at a safe distance.

“I guess today I’ll take a cup of your devil’s brew.” The hangman pointed at the small pouch dangling at Simon’s side. The physician nodded and poured the coffee grounds into the pot of boiling water that was hanging above the fire. A strong, invigorating fragrance filled the air. Jakob Kuisl breathed it in and nodded appreciatively. “Doesn’t smell bad at all. Considering it’s supposed to be the devil’s piss.”

Simon smiled. “And it’ll clear our minds, believe me.”

He filled a pewter mug for the hangman. Then he sipped cautiously at his own mug. Every sip helped dispel the tired feeling in his head.

The two men were sitting across from each other at the large, worn table in the main room of the hangman’s house, brooding over the previous night’s events. Anna Maria, Kuisl’s wife, had sensed that the two needed to be alone, so she went down to the Lech to do her laundry and took the twins with her. Silence engulfed the room.

“I bet my behind that Clara and Sophie are still at that building site,” the hangman growled after a while, drumming his fingers on the table. “There has to be a hideout there, and a good one at that. Otherwise we or the others would have found it long ago.”

Simon winced. He’d scalded his lips with his hot mug.

“That’s certainly possible, but there’s no way of finding that out now,” he said finally, running his tongue over his lips. “At daytime, the workmen are at the site, and at night there are the guards that Lechner dispatched. If they find out anything concerning those children, they’re sure to inform Lechner…”

“And Sophie will end up at the stake together with Martha,” the hangman concluded. “Jesus Christ, there’s a jinx on all of this!”

“Don’t say such a thing,” Simon grinned. Then he turned serious again.

“Let’s recapitulate,” he said. “The children seem to be hiding somewhere at the building site. And there’s something else hidden there as well. Something that a rich man would like to have. That’s why he has hired a handful of soldiers. Resl from Semer’s inn told me that these soldiers were meeting with somebody in the upstairs room last week.”

“That would’ve been the mastermind, the patron.”

The hangman lit his pipe on a chip of pinewood. Like a tent, the tobacco smoke billowed over the two men, mingling with the fragrance of the coffee. Simon had to cough briefly before he went on.

“The soldiers are vandalizing the building site for the leper house, so that they’ll have more time for their search there. That makes sense to me. But why, in the name of God, does one of them slaughter the orphans? There’s no sense in that!”

Thoughtfully, the hangman sucked on his pipe. His eyes were staring at a point in space. Finally, he spoke. “They must have seen something. Something that mustn’t be brought to light under any circumstances.”

Simon slapped his forehead, spilling the remainder of his coffee, which formed a brown puddle that spread across the table. But he didn’t care about that.

“The patron!” he shouted. “They have seen the patron who is behind the destruction?”

Jakob Kuisl nodded.

“That would also explain why the Stadel had to be burned down. The devil had an easy time getting his hands on most of the eyewitnesses. He got Peter out there on the river. Anton and Johannes were unwanted orphans and therefore easy prey. But Clara Schreevogl was well protected as a patrician’s child. The devil must somehow have found out that she was sick and in bed…”

“And then his cronies set fire to the Stadel to distract her family and the servants, so that he could get the child,” Simon groaned. “There was a lot at stake for Schreevogl. He had his stock of merchandise down at the Stadel. Of course he’d rush down to the river.”

The hangman relit his pipe. “Clara was home alone, sick in her bed. But she did get away from him somehow. And so did Sophie—”

Simon jumped to his feet. “We have to find the children at once, before the devil gets them. The building site…”

Jakob Kuisl pulled him back on his chair.

“Calm yourself. Take one thing at a time. We have to save not just the children, but Martha as well. And it is a fact that there was a witches’ mark on each of the dead children. And that all of them had previously been at the midwife’s. It’s possible that the Elector’s secretary will arrive as early as tomorrow, and Lechner wants to have the confession by then. I can actually understand why: if the secretary begins meddling in the matter, then one witch just won’t do. That’s exactly how it was with the last great witch hunt here in Schongau. In the end they burned more than sixty women in these parts.”

The hangman looked deep into Simon’s eyes.

“First we have to find out about these signs. And we have to do so very soon.”

Simon groaned. “Damn these signs. There’s nothing but one riddle after the other here.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Who’s there?” the hangman growled.

“It’s me, Benedict Cost,” came a frightened voice from the other side of the door. “Lechner’s sent me to fetch you. You’re supposed to be attending to the witch. She won’t say a thing, and she’s supposed to confess today. So now you’ve got to heal her again. You’ve got medicines and books that the old physician doesn’t have, Lechner says.”

Jakob Kuisl laughed.

“First I’m supposed to hurt her, then heal her again, and in the end burn her. You’re completely crazy, you lot.”

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