Simon’s head was reeling. Smoke and fear were suddenly far from his mind. He saw only the sign. Before his mind’s eye he could see all those alchemical symbols that he had gotten to know at the university.
Hematite. Could it be that easy? Had they simply focused on one single idea without taking into consideration other possibilities? Had the whole thing been one big misunderstanding?
There was no time for further thought. Above his head he heard an ominous crunching sound. Sand trickled down on him. Quickly, he grabbed Clara by her shoulders and pulled her all the way through to his side.
“Quick, Sophie!” he shouted through the hole. Clouds of smoke were billowing from the opening and getting thicker by the moment. “The corridor’s falling in!”
A few seconds later Sophie’s head appeared in the opening. Simon was tempted to glance at her shoulder, but he quickly changed his mind when a large rock crashed on the ground right alongside him. He helped Sophie through the hole. Then when the girl was able to scramble to her feet by herself, he flung the unconscious Clara over his shoulder and ran along the corridor, stooped over.
Looking back once more, he saw by the light of his lantern how thick smoke was filling the corridor. Then the roof fell in.
Jakob Kuisl pulled himself into the vertical shaft, fighting against the smoke, keeping his eyes closed. He couldn’t see in the dark in any case, and when his eyes were closed they didn’t sting as much from the smoke. From time to time he opened them just a bit and could see a faint glow at the end of the shaft above him. The smoke left him with hardly any air to breathe. He pushed himself up the steep passageway, struggling forward inch by inch with his powerful arms. Finally he felt the edge of the tunnel opening. Panting and groaning he hoisted himself into the chamber, rolled to the side, and opened his eyes.
When Jakob Kuisl squinted he recognized a knee-high hole to his right and another chest-high passageway leading upward. This was the shaft he had tumbled down after his struggle with the devil. The fire seemed to be coming from up there. But by now dense smoke was filling the chamber as well.
Jakob Kuisl’s eyes filled with tears again. He wiped his face with sooty fingers. Just as he was about to examine the small passage to the right, he heard a sound from above.
A soft scraping.
Something was slowly sliding down the shaft. He thought he could hear hectic breathing.
The hangman positioned himself at the side of the shaft, raising his larchwood cudgel. The scraping sound came closer and closer, the sliding noise increased. By the flickering light of the fire he could see something slipping from the shaft and shooting past him. With a scream Jakob Kuisl assaulted it, swinging his cudgel.
Only too late did he realize that it was nothing more than a fragment of the decaying ladder.
At the same moment he heard a hissing sound behind him. He ducked to the side, but the blade went through his coat sleeve and sliced into his left forearm. He felt a dull, throbbing pain. He dropped to the ground, sensing something like a large bird sailing over him.
When the hangman got to his feet again and opened his eyes, he saw an enormous shadow on the wall across from him. The fire made the devil’s frame appear twice its size, and his torso was spread across the ceiling. With his long fingers he seemed to be reaching for the hangman.
Jakob Kuisl blinked until he could make out the soldier at the center of the shadow. The smoke was so heavy now that he could only see the devil as though through a haze. That was all he could see until the devil raised his torch to his head.
His enemy’s face was red with blood, which was streaming across his brow. His flashing eyes seemed to reflect the light from his torch and his white teeth glistened like those of a beast of prey.
“I’m…still here…hangman,” he whispered. “This is it! You or me…”
Kuisl crouched, ready to pounce, clasping his cudgel. His left arm was in terrible pain, but he didn’t show it.
“Where did you take my daughter?” he growled. “Out with it! Or I’ll kill you like a rabid dog.”
The devil laughed. As he raised his bony hand to a salute, Jakob Kuisl saw that two fingers were missing. Still, though, the torch was attached to the iron ring on the metacarpal bone.
“You’d…like to know…little hangman. A good place…The best place for a hangman’s wench…By now the ravens may be pecking out her eyes…”
The hangman raised the cudgel threateningly before he spoke.
“I’ll crush you like a rat…”
A smile played around the devil’s lips.
“That’s good,” he purred. “You’re like myself…Killing, that’s our business…we’re…more alike than you’d think.”
“Like hell we are,” Jakob Kuisl whispered.
With these words he leaped into the smoke, right at the devil.
Without looking back again, Magdalena raced down the slope. Branches were hitting her face. Her legs kept getting caught in brambles, which tore at her dress. Behind her she could hear the soldiers’ heavy breathing. First the men had called out her name from time to time, but now the race had turned into a wild but silent chase. Like hunting dogs they’d picked up her scent and wouldn’t stop until they had the animal at bay.
Magdalena cast a glance over her shoulder. The men were within twenty paces of her. Here, a quarter of a mile beneath the gallows hill, there wasn’t much vegetation. Instead of undergrowth, brown fields spread before her. There was no chance of hiding anywhere. Her only chance was in the trees on the steep banks of the Lech. If she could reach the firs and birches, there might be a chance of hiding in a grove of trees. But that was still a long way off, and the men seemed to be gaining on her.
As she ran, Magdalena frantically looked left and right to see if any peasants were already in the fields sowing. But at this early hour not a soul was to be seen. There were also no travelers yet on the Hohenfurch Road, which could be seen now and then between the hills on her left. No one to ask for help. And even if there were, so what? A single woman, pursued by two armed men—what peasant or merchant would risk his life for a hangman’s wench? Most likely they would keep staring straight ahead, urging their oxen to move even faster.
Magdalena was used to running. Ever since her childhood she had walked long distances, often barefoot, to call upon the midwives in neighboring villages. Many times she had run along the muddy or dusty roads, just for the joy of it, until her lungs started aching. She had endurance and stamina, and by now she had found her own rhythm. But the men chasing her didn’t seem to be willing to give up. Apparently, they had hunted down people before, and they seemed to enjoy it. Their pace was regular and determined.
Magdalena crossed the road and headed for the forest of firs on the high bank of the Lech. The forest was no more than a thin green line beyond the fields. Magdalena wasn’t sure she’d make it that far. She had a taste of iron and blood in her mouth.
As she ran, thoughts swirled in her mind like so many ghosts. Her memory had come back. Now she knew where she had previously seen the witches’ mark that was depicted on the dead children’s shoulders. When she stepped into the midwife’s house yesterday, she had noticed pottery shards on the floor. Those were the shards of clay jars that had been standing on one of Martha Stechlin’s shelves—jars of those drugs that a midwife needed for her trade: mosses for staunching hemorrhages, herbal painkillers, but also powdered minerals, which she mixed into the infusions she prepared for pregnant and sick women. Engraved on some of the shards were alchemical symbols that the great Paracelsus had used and that midwifes liked to use as well.
On one shard Magdalena had seen the witches’ mark.
At first she’d been stunned. What was this sign doing in the midwife’s house? Was she a witch, after all? But as Magdalena turned the shard back and forth in her hands, she saw the symbol upside down.
And suddenly the witches’ mark had become a harmless alchemical symbol.
It was ground to a powder that was administered to staunch bleeding in childbirth. A harmless little drug, recognized as such also among learned doctors, although Magdalena had her doubts concerning its efficacy.
In spite of her fear she almost had to laugh. The witches’ sign had been nothing but the symbol for hematite turned upside down!
Magdalena remembered how Simon had described to her the mark on the children’s shoulders. Both the physician and her father had always looked at it in such a way that it resembled a witches’ mark. But when looked
