sweethearts? I could sing a verse about every last one of you. Listen up, Berchtholdt…” She paused for a moment to concentrate before hurling her curse at the mob’s leader.
“The wife of Berchtholdt has gone dry. The baker’s got a wandering eye… He mounts his maid, the lewd old steed, and poisons her to hide the deed!”
“Lies, lies! I’ll put a gag in your damned mouth, Kuisl girl!” Michael Berchtholdt ran to the door of the hangman’s house and, finding it locked, kicked at it like a madman. When the heavy oak boards wouldn’t budge, he swung his lantern in a wide arc up onto the roof.
“Burn down the hangman’s house!” he screamed. “Go to it, friends! We won’t take that kind of talk from a whore!”
Hesitantly at first, but then faster and faster, the young men rushed forward to toss their torches against the walls and onto the roof. Soon some of the shingles caught fire, and a thin column of smoke began to rise up into the sky like a slight, black finger. The roof smoked and the shingles crackled as the first flames licked at the timbers, rising ever higher until finally engulfing the entire roof.
“Get out of here, fast!” Anna-Maria shouted, pulling the tearful children away from the window, “before we’re burned alive!”
She ran down the stairway with the children and out the door, where a hail of stones, rotten vegetables, and stinking dung awaited them. Magdalena followed close behind. Defiantly, she stood in the doorway a moment and allowed herself to be pummeled with filth and malice.
A stone struck her forehead, and she staggered backward as a thin trickle of blood ran down her right temple, dripping onto her bodice. For a moment it seemed she was preparing to fight off the entire mob of farm boys and journeymen by herself. She clutched the door frame with both hands, cursing softly. But reason soon prevailed, and she ran off after her mother and the twins, who had sought refuge behind a woodpile.
The flames rose toward the ridge of the roof, and at first Simon just stood there in his hiding place behind the cart, immobilized with terror, but as the fire started to consume the house, he couldn’t stand by any longer. Without a further thought, he ran out from behind the cart directly into the mob.
“You dogs!” he roared. “Setting fire to a house with a mother and her children inside! Is that all you know how to do?” The young men turned around, astonished. When they saw Simon, hatred flared in their eyes. At once three rushed the medicus, who tried to hold them off with his knife. The razor-sharp blade whistled through the air in a semicircle as the men stepped back.
“Not one step closer,” Simon snarled. “This stiletto’s done the work of an army surgeon; it’s amputated fingers and arms. A few more won’t make any difference!”
He heard the sound of feet running behind him, but before he could turn around, a heavy, powerful body struck him and pinned him to the ground. At once all the other men were on top of him. One of the Berchtholdt boys drew back his arm and laid into Simon’s face with his fist, over and over, as if he were nothing more than a bag of flour. The medicus could taste his own blood, and after the fourth blow the world went black. The shouts and noise of the brawl sounded strangely distant, and acrid black smoke wafted across his face.
As if in a dream, he heard a sudden clap of thunder, then felt something cold drip onto his upturned face. It took him a few moments to realize they were raindrops-thick, heavy drops falling harder and harder. Then a proper downpour was pelting him and his enemies, turning the ground beneath them into a muddy morass.
“Stop! In the name of His Majesty the Prince, I order you to stop at once!”
The voice boomed so loud that even in the torrential rain the command was clear. Turning his battered head from where he lay on the ground, Simon could make out in a haze a figure astride a horse. The medicus blinked several times before realizing through a veil of blood that it was the secretary, Johann Lechner. The rain streamed down his black coat, his hair clung to his forehead, and yet despite the storm the Elector’s representative looked like an enraged and awesome deity. As the supreme authority in Schongau, he commanded a dozen city watchmen, who stood beside him now, their loaded muskets pointed at the mob. Their expressions made plain their displeasure at being awakened in the middle of the night only to stand here in the rain. And the secretary, too, was clearly annoyed he’d been called from his ducal residence, where he represented the electoral prince in matters of government.
“I shall give you exactly one minute to clear out of here,” Lechner said in a soft voice. “After that I will give the order to shoot. Is that clear?”
Simon could hear whispering and the patter of running feet as cloaked figures fled into the darkness. In a matter of moments the area in front of the hangman’s house was empty, except for a handful of cast-off flour sacks and extinguished torches that bore witness to the nightmare-these and a devil’s mask that leered up at Simon maliciously from a puddle of mud and horse piss. A few flames still spluttered on the roof, but otherwise the heavy downpour had quenched the fire.
“For God’s sake, see to it at once that the fire doesn’t flare up again!” the secretary shouted to the city guards. “Accursed vigilantes! A plague on all those farmers!”
The guards filled buckets with water at a nearby well and ran up into the attic to put out what remained of the fire. Some of the men helped Anna-Maria to let the cows out of the barn, where they’d been lowing anxiously and beating their hooves against the boards of their stalls. Meanwhile, Magdalena contemplated the smoking roof from a safe distance. Speaking softly, she tried to soothe the children, who were weeping and burying their heads in her lap. The face of the hangman’s daughter was vacant.
“They’ll pay for this!” Magdalena seethed at last, rubbing the blood from her forehead. “Father will string them up for this, I swear!”
By now Simon had struggled to his feet and hobbled over to Magdalena. Bending down over the twins, he gave them a quick once-over, especially little Georg, who was having a coughing fit, apparently suffering from a mild case of smoke inhalation.
A few last drops fell from the sky before the rain ceased altogether. The thunder sounded far off now, like the drums of a slowly retreating army.
“Fronwieser, Fronwieser…” With a mixture of amusement and sympathy, Johann Lechner looked down on Simon from atop his horse. “You bring me nothing but grief. And now I’m awakened in the middle of the night to save your miserable life.” He pointed to the smoking roof. “If it hadn’t been for the rain, all of Schongau could have gone up in flames. And all because of a stubborn woman.”
“Your Excellency-” the medicus began, but Lechner waved him off.
“I know what happened, and I know who’s behind it, too.” He leaned down in the saddle and regarded Simon as he might a disobedient child. “But believe me, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Haven’t I told you several times you ought to put an end to your little affair with Kuisl’s daughter? If you don’t, people will never quit hounding you.” Lechner sighed. “This time I came to your aid, Fronwieser, because the city’s welfare was also at stake. But next time you’re on your own. May God have mercy on you then.”
Simon was too weak to reply. Blood had congealed in his mouth, his left eye was already swollen shut, and the right half of his face would probably be shining all shades of the rainbow in the next half-hour. His whole body felt as if it had passed through a grain mill. Shock and fear for Magdalena’s safety had made him forget his pain at first, but now it rolled over him like a surging storm. He searched in vain for a suitable response.
“Is that all?” It was the voice of Magdalena, who had planted herself in front of the secretary’s horse in the meantime. Her face was crimson with anger. “This rabble almost burns our house down, they beat Simon half to death, Berchtholdt poisons his maid, and
Lechner shrugged. “What should I do, lock them all up? Harvest is approaching, and I can’t let the crops wither in the fields with no one to work them. Perhaps I should put Berchtholdt in the stocks… perhaps, yes.” He shook his head, thinking. “But to do that I’ll first have to present some evidence. He was disguised just like the others, and none of those farmers will snitch on the master baker. After all, he’s the man who buys their grain year after year. Believe me, that would be an endless trial that wouldn’t help anyone at all. Besides, the people are right.” He turned his horse around and started back toward town, throwing one last glance behind him and shaking his head almost regretfully. “A medicus and a hangman’s daughter… That won’t do. We have to have rules, after all. Believe me, Magdalena, your father would see things in exactly the same light.”
The secretary disappeared into the night with his guards, leaving the small, sodden group alone in the dark. A
