flour.
The footprints came to an abrupt halt in front of the wall. One of them-
All of a sudden he was startled by a rumbling from the room directly above them. The medicus ran to the hole where they’d entered the room and looked up. The darkness at the mouth of the well looked blacker to him now than before. He heard a splash, as if someone was filling one of the large kettles with water.
“What’s going on up there?” Magdalena whispered, letting the apples fall to the ground.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Simon replied, scrambling up the rungs of the ladder.
When his head struck something hard above him, his worst suspicions were confirmed. Someone had covered the mouth of the well with one of the large kettles from the boiler chamber and was now filling it with water.
Desperately Simon pushed against the copper base, but the kettle was already so full that it wouldn’t budge, and they could hear the sound of ever more water pouring into the massive container. The sound of water pouring finally stopped, only to be followed by a crackling and wisps of smoke that penetrated the gaps between the kettle and the walls of the well.
“Fire!” Simon cried. “Someone pushed the boiler over the hole and lit the wood! Help! Somebody help us!” He pounded desperately against the bottom of the kettle, though he knew no one could hear them up above.
In the meantime the first tendril of smoke had grown to a dense and acrid cloud that was filling the entire shaft of the well. Coughing, Simon applied his shoulder to the kettle with all his might, but in vain. He couldn’t get a good foothold on the slippery rungs. He nearly plunged headlong down the well and threatened to take Magdalena with him, who by this time had clambered up the rungs behind him.
“Damn it!” she shouted. “This is pointless! We can’t both push against the kettle at the same time. Let’s go back down and see if there’s a way to escape through the water. Perhaps it connects with the well in the yard!”
“And if it doesn’t?” Simon wheezed. He was hardly visible through the thick smoke above her. “Then we’ll both drown like rats in the canal! No, there has to be another way!”
He pushed once more against the base of the copper kettle, but it was like trying to move the wall of a house. If only the kettle hadn’t been filled with all that water!
Then an idea came to him. He drew his stiletto and jammed it repeatedly, in short, sharps jabs, at the bottom of the kettle. The metal was very hard, but after a while he managed to poke a tiny hole in it so a thin stream of water trickled down. Simon kept jabbing at it, and the stream became broader until a flood of warm water soon poured down over him and Magdalena. Once more he pressed his shoulder against the kettle, and now, finally, it budged! He continued pressing until the veins on his temples stood out and the smoke made him gag. With a crash, the heavy vessel finally tipped, and heavy smoke poured into the well.
“Let’s get out of here!” Simon shouted as he climbed up the last few rungs. Coughing and struggling for breath, Magdalena followed. The boiler room was already filled with thick, caustic smoke, and Simon kept bumping into walls like a blind man until he finally stumbled on the door to the bath chamber. The medicus screamed as he touched the glowing-hot door handle; tiny shreds of his flesh stuck to the metal, hissing. In desperation Simon kicked down the door and stumbled into the large room where the bathtubs and wooden partitions were already ablaze. Someone had knocked over the oil containers, and waist-high flames rose from glistening puddles around the room. Simon was about to run toward the main entrance, but Magdalena grabbed his shoulder and held him back.
“That door is most certainly locked,” she gasped. “And anyway, the guard is probably still there. We have to get out through the back again!”
With burning eyes and lungs practically bursting with pain, they staggered toward the rear window, which fortunately was still open. Simon pushed his way through the opening and landed hard on a pile of rubbish. Pain shot through his right ankle. Beside him he could hear Magdalena groaning loudly. She struggled to her feet and ran through the inner courtyard and down the narrow lane. All she wanted was to get away from this inferno. Simon could hardly stand now-on top of everything else, he’d sprained his ankle. When he turned around again, he could see the fire had already spread to the attic, and the roof timbers had started crashing down behind him. The flames licked at the neighboring houses like the tongues of malevolent spirits.
Somewhere nearby an alarm started to ring.
The old night watchman Sebastian Demmler smelled the fire before he saw it-a faint odor in his nose at first, then stronger, more biting, coating his palate with an acrid taste and awakening his worst fears. Demmler had lived through the great fire during the war and remembered the conflagration quite vividly from his childhood. Two entire city neighborhoods had been reduced to ashes back then, and the cathedral had just barely been spared. He would never forget how the townsfolk screamed as they leaped from their burning homes.
Demmler had been a night watchman for decades, and when he smelled this fire, his infallible instinct told him that such a time had come again. He took one step around the next corner to see the home of the murdered bathhouse owner blazing now like a gigantic torch. Three other buildings had already caught fire. This close, everything was lit up as brightly as on Easter night when they set bonfires to drive away the evil winter spirits. Demmler could feel the heat singeing the hair on his bare arms. Stepping back a few paces, he sounded the alarm with his little bell.
“Fire!” he shouted. “Fire in Wei?gerbergraben! Help! Help!”
By now alarm bells in the nearby Scottish church were also ringing, and screams came from all sides. Demmler watched people run out of their front doors toward the burning bathhouse with buckets, tubs, and even entire barrels of water. In front of the house lay a watchman’s lifeless body, buried slowly in the burning timbers crashing down. Residents of the neighboring buildings sought to save their homes from the fire by splashing buckets of water at the walls, but in vain, as the liquid vaporized on contact.
Demmler continued to sound his alarm, holding the stained sleeve of his coarsely woven coat over his mouth so as not to breathe in too much smoke. Where were the guards from the Westner Quarter? It was high time for them to show up in their new fire wagon with its hoses. For at least five of the buildings, however, it was already too late. This far into the summer, a single bolt of lightning could set an entire village on fire, and when a thatched roof started to burn, the fire could eat its way to the ground floor in no time at all. The old night watchman had seen too many buildings go up in flames like funeral pyres.
Only now did it occur to Demmler that there hadn’t been any thunderstorms in the last few hours. He was by nature a bit slow-witted, but he nevertheless mulled this over as he continued ringing his bell and watching the other citizens attempt to extinguish the fire. Had someone once again failed to properly bank their fire for the night? But it was past midnight now, and who would be cooking at this hour? What else might have caused the fire?
As he pondered that question, Demmler noticed a figure dashing out of the little alley alongside the bathhouse. The figure was dressed in black, so all Demmler could make out was a dark shadow disappearing around the corner. Two other figures-a man and a woman-came staggering out of the same alley a short time later, and this time Demmler got a better look. The man was short, with delicate features, and wearing broad trousers and a tailored jacket like the ones young dandies wore. In the light of the flames Demmler could see a black Vandyke beard and a black head of hair to match. When he caught sight of the woman, he nearly gasped-she was clearly a beautiful woman, but in her simple gray dress, her bodice stained, and her face blackened with soot, she truly looked like the bride of Satan.
Demmler wasn’t an especially superstitious man, but the raging fire, the flickering shadows, and this soot- covered witch awakened terrible fantasies in him. Besides, wasn’t Satan said to be petite and vain, with a weakness for the fair sex? Trembling, Demmler leaned back against the wall as the two figures turned into a side street just a few steps from where he stood. He tried to get a better look at their faces, but the only thing he was able to remark before they disappeared in the darkness was that the young man was limping.
The night watchman crossed himself and swore he would say a hundred rosaries if Satan didn’t drag him away first. He heard a final rasp and cough; then they were gone. His heart pounding, Demmler resolved to report everything to the head of the guards the next day. He would tell him exactly what the devil and his woman looked like, even if Demmler doubted such a description would be useful.
