nodded.
“Home. Magdalena has been tidying up a bit at your house, and young Schreevogl has contributed heaps of money. For a new bed, pots and pans, whatever you need. It’ll do for the beginning. Come, I’ll help you up.”
“But why?”
“Don’t ask now. Go home. I’ll tell you about it later.”
He grasped her under the arms and pulled her to her feet, which were still swollen. Martha Stechlin limped along at his side toward the open door. Sunlight flowed in from outside. It was the morning of May fifth, a warm day. The birds were twittering, and from the town they could hear the cries of the maids and housewives haggling in the marketplace. From the fields the scents of summer and flowers wafted over to them, and if you closed your eyes you could even hear the murmuring of the Lech. The midwife stood in the doorway and let the sun shine on her face.
“Home,” she whispered.
Jakob Kuisl wanted to support her by taking her under her arms, but she shook her head and pulled away. Alone she limped along the alley toward her little house. At the next bend in the road, she disappeared.
“The hangman, a friend of humanity—who would have thought it?”
The voice came from another direction. Jakob Kuisl looked around and saw the court clerk strolling toward him. He was wearing his dress coat, the brim of his hat was turned up jauntily, and in his right hand he held a walking stick. The hangman nodded a wordless greeting, then he turned to go on.
“Would you care to come for a little walk, Kuisl?” Johann Lechner asked. “The sun is smiling, and I think we should have a good talk. What’s your yearly salary, actually? Ten gulden? Twelve? I find you are underpaid.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve earned a lot this year,” the hangman growled without looking up. He filled his pipe calmly. The inside of the bowl seemed to him to be of more interest than the man standing in front of him. Johann Lechner remained standing and played with his stick. There was a long silence.
“You knew it, didn’t you?” Jakob Kuisl asked at last. “You knew it all the time “
“I always had to think of the interests of the town,” said Lechner. “Nothing else. That’s all that counts. It seemed to me to be simpler that way.”
“Simpler!”
The court clerk fiddled with his stick. It looked as if he was searching for notches in the handle.
“I knew that old Schreevogl owed a lot of money to Matthias Augustin. And it was clear to me that as a respected businessman he must have had more money than was mentioned in his will,” he said, blinking in the sunlight. “And I knew about the old man’s eccentric sense of humor. So when the sketch of the building site disappeared from the archives, it was clear that someone was very interested in the site. First I suspected young Schreevogl, but he had no access to the archives…Finally I realized that Ferdinand Schreevogl had certainly told his friend Augustin about the hiding place behind the oven tile. From then on it was all clear. Well, I’m pleased that everything has turned out for the best.”
“You’ve covered up for Augustin,” Jakob Kuisl grumbled as he drew on his pipe.
“As I said already, for the good of the town. I couldn’t understand that business with the mark. Anyway…who would have believed me? The Augustins are a powerful family in Schongau. It seemed that the death of the midwife would resolve all the problems at once.”
He smiled at Kuisl.
“Wouldn’t you really like to come for a little walk?”
The hangman shook his head silently.
“Well, then,” said the clerk. “A good day to you, and God’s blessing.”
Swinging his stick he disappeared in the direction of the Lech Gate. Burghers who saw him greeted him courteously, raising their hats. Before he disappeared into a narrow street, Jakob Kuisl thought he saw Lechner raise his stick once again as if he wanted to send him a distant greeting.
The hangman spat. Suddenly his pipe didn’t taste good anymore.
EPILOGUE
ONE SUNDAY MORNING IN JULY 1659, THE HANGMAN and the physician were sitting together on the bench in front of the hangman’s house. The smell of freshly baked bread drifted over to them from the house. Anna Maria Kuisl was preparing the midday meal. There would be hasenpfeffer with barley corn and turnips, her husband’s favorite dish. Out in the garden, the twins Georg and Barbara were playing with Magdalena, their big sister. She had pulled a clean bedsheet over her head and, thus disguised as a frightening river spirit, ran through the flowering meadows. Screaming and laughing the children fled from her, seeking protection from their mother in the house.
Lost in thought, Jakob Kuisl puffed on his pipe and observed this scene. He was enjoying the summer and did only what was necessary. The trash in the streets had to be swept up every week, and now and then a dead horse had to be removed, or someone needed a salve for itching and stings…Over the past two months he had earned enough that he could afford to be a bit lazy. For the execution of the remaining soldier, Christoph Holzapfel, the town had paid him ten whole guilders! The condemned soldier, who had been arrested shortly after the arrival of the Landgrave, had been broken on the wheel to the applause of the watching crowd. Outside the town the hangman had broken his arms and legs with a heavy wagon wheel and braided him on the wheel next to the scaffold. Christoph Holzapfel lived, screaming, for another two days; finally Jakob Kuisl had pity on him and strangled him with a neck iron.
The body of Andre Pirkhofer, killed on the building site, was hung in chains next to his countryman, as was the corpse of Christian Braunschweiger, whom the townspeople, even after his death, referred to as “the devil” while crossing themselves three times. His charred corpse, shrunk to the size of a child, was removed from the tunnels before the entrance was sealed off once and for all. His lips were burned off and his scalp shriveled, so that the teeth stood out, grinning. The bony left hand shone out white among all the black flesh, and people said that even from the gallows it seemed to beckon. Two weeks later, the devil’s entire body was just bone and mummified skin; nevertheless the council let it hang longer as a dreadful warning until the bones fell off one by one.
The fourth soldier, Hans Hohenleitner, was never found. Most likely the Lech had washed him down toward Augsburg, where the fish ate his corpse. But all this was of no more interest to Jakob Kuisl. Altogether the hangman of Schongau had earned more than twenty guilders in the past two months. That should be enough for some time.
Simon sipped his coffee, which Anna Maria Kuisl had kindly brewed for him. It tasted strong and bitter and drove the weariness out of his body. Last night had been strenuous. A feverish infection was going around in Schongau. It was nothing really serious, but people were demanding the new powder from the West Indies, which the young physician had been prescribing since last year. Even his father seemed to be persuaded of its efficacy.
Simon glanced over at the hangman. He had news that he did not wish to keep any longer from his friend and mentor.
“I was at the Augustins this morning,” he said, as casually as possible.
“Well?” inquired Jakob Kuisl. “What’s the young fool doing? I haven’t heard anything from him since his father’s death last month. Seems that he’s devoting himself diligently to the business, so people say.”
“He is…ill.”
“A summer fever? May God see to it that he sweats and shivers for a long time.”
Simon shook his head.
“It’s more serious. I discovered red patches on his skin, which are gradually spreading. In many places he has no feeling anymore. I believe…he has an infection. He must have caught it during his last journey to Venice.”
“Leprosy?”
The hangman was silent for a moment. Then he laughed loudly.
“Augustin a leper! Who would have thought that? Well, then, he’ll be very pleased that the leper’s house is
