The Beggar King

Magdalena hesitated. “You… you really meant what you said before? You want me to come to this ball with you?”

“Mama mia! Why should I be joking? A beautiful woman such as yourself is an honor to any house!”

The hangman’s daughter had to laugh. Almost all the parties she’d ever been to were held in the market square or empty barns. There were sausages, sauerkraut, and beer, and maybe a few musicians to strike up a dance tune with a fiddle and castanets. The prospect of attending a ball was about as foreign to her as an invitation to paradise.

“I’m-I’m afraid I’ll make a terrible fool of myself,” she stammered. “I wouldn’t have the first clue what to say-or do…”

“Your smile says more than a thousand words. Now, say you’ll come!”

The chivalrous Venetian took Magdalena by the arm and led her through the streets of Regensburg as if she were the elegant wife of some wealthy patrician.

A few moments later the hangman’s daughter stood with Silvio before a massive building on the bustling cathedral square. Above an entrance as wide as a barn door two stories rose up, each with a row of shimmering glass windows. The bays, pointed arches, and dormer windows gave the building the appearance of a noble country estate, while its size almost reminded Magdalena of the Regensburg city hall.

“This mansion belongs to you?” Her jaw dropped.

“No, no!” Silvio demurred. “I only rent quarters here. A patrician was kind enough to make some rooms available to me. Come along. I’ll give you a tour. There’s a room in here I know is certain to be to your liking.”

The Venetian led Magdalena through the entryway into a shadowy courtyard. Fragrant flowers and plants sprouted from marble tubs and buckets along the gravel walkway, and wild ivy grew along the stone walls. Gaily colored birds chirped from a silver cage hanging from one of the rafters. Magdalena felt as if she had entered the Garden of Eden. She timidly fingered some kind of bright yellow fruit that dangled from the sun-dappled branches of a tiny tree in a corner.

“Those are lemons,” Silvio explained. “In my homeland they grow in every garden. I’m trying to grow them here, but the German winter will kill most of them.” He sighed. “When it’s cold, I grow especially homesick for my beloved Venice.”

“Do all the houses in Venice look like this?” Magdalena asked cautiously.

Silvio smiled. “I have friends there who decorate their villas in gold and travel in silver gondolas. I myself consider that pretentious, but if you live in the richest city in the world, it’s tempting to begin to think you’re better than others. Follow me, please.”

They ascended a broad staircase flanked by banisters and marble statues. In contrast with the stench of the city, the air here was redolent of fruit and mint and filled with the soothing sounds of a harp nearby. Curious, Magdalena stopped in front of a small sculpture of a handsome young man smiling down at a girl holding an apple out to him. Inside his marble back, rats, snakes, and toads scurried about.

“What is that?” she asked the Venetian.

Silvio shrugged. “A gruesome statue. I should have it removed-it doesn’t fit in very well among the beautiful figures here. But come now. I’ll take you to my dressing room. It would be preposterous if we couldn’t find something suitable there for la bella signorina.”

At that moment a maid approached them with a neat bundle of fresh laundry. She curtsied and lowered her gaze, and though Silvio seemed not to have even seen her, Magdalena could feel the maid assessing her out of the corner of her eye. Her mouth pinched, she turned up her nose in disgust. Apparently she considered Magdalena just another of the loose women whom the master of the house liked to bring up to his room-nothing more than a cheap streetwalker.

I can’t really blame her, Magdalena thought, hurrying past the girl as quickly as possible.

They passed through an ivy-covered gallery, coming at last to a chamber with high, almost church-like windows. At first Magdalena was blinded by the light streaming through them, but once her eyes adjusted to the brightness, a small miracle appeared before her eyes.

Am I dreaming? How is this possible?

It seemed there were at least a dozen other women standing beside her, all around the room, all with the same dirty linen dress and the same disheveled black hair. Dumbstruck, Magdalena realized she was in fact staring at herself. The walls were covered by six-foot mirrors, which reflected her image over and over. Between the mirrors enormous, ceiling-high wardrobes were flung open, full of frilled garments, velvet gowns, and other splendid clothing. Some clothes had been carelessly tossed off and draped across a round table in the center of the room and over the chairs and gleaming inlaid wooden floor. Each piece must have been worth more than Magdalena’s father earned in an entire year.

“I beg your pardon,” Silvio said. “I wasn’t sure yesterday what they-that is, what I should wear, so I made a bit of a mess. My servants were supposed to have cleaned this up.”

Magdalena didn’t even seem to hear him. She stepped into the middle of the room and began to spin around, faster and faster. Around her, dozens of Magdalenas danced, an entire dancehall full of her, which seemed to go on and on, a dancehall where she alone was the centerpiece.

The only mirror the hangman’s daughter had ever seen was the small, cloudy pocket mirror her father had given her mother when they were first married. The old thing was cracked, and it distorted Magdalena’s face so much that she’d put it aside in disgust more than once. Until today all she’d ever seen of her own face and body was what she’d been able to make out in her quivering image in the waters of the Lech. Now she could see for the first time what others saw when they looked at her. Awestruck, she passed her fingers through her black hair, tracing the lines of her eyebrows, nose, and lips.

Am I beautiful?

The hall of mirrors in the Venetian’s house was the most impressive thing she’d ever seen.

“I ordered these mirrors specially from Venice,” Silvio explained, dreamily passing his hand over a smooth silvery surface near the door. “Nowhere else on earth can you find such quality. I’m happy you like it,” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “But now we must find something for la bella donna to wear.”

The Venetian strode confidently toward one of the wardrobes. As he opened it, Magdalena, who was having difficulty tearing her eyes away from her reflection, saw countless women’s dresses hanging in neat rows, as if they’d never been worn before-broadly tailored skirts, narrow bodices with puffy sleeves, dainty pointed bonnets, cloaks lined in ermine, and velvet jackets with fur collars.

“I have lady visitors on occasion,” Silvio admitted. “And I’ve ordered some clothing so that the signorine can feel at home here with me. Take your time to look around, and perhaps you’ll find something that suits you.”

It was clear to Magdalena who the ladies were who visited this house, and she was tempted to turn back right then and there and return to the Whale. Simon would certainly be waiting for her, and this farce would finally come to an end.

On the other hand…

Magdalena’s gaze wandered back to the mirrors and to the magnificent colorful clothing. Never in her life had she seen such skirts, much less worn anything so splendid. Perhaps she and Silvio could just send a message to Simon, telling him that all was in order and she would be back at the Whale that evening-or first thing in the morning at the latest. Why shouldn’t she browse around here a while and enjoy herself?

But then her conscience intruded on the fantasy. What about her father then? He was languishing in his prison cell while, like a cheap streetwalker, she let herself be tempted by the prospect of a night of dancing in the arms of Regensburg’s rich and powerful men. How could she possibly…?

Powerful men?

Magdalena turned to the Venetian ambassador.

“Tell me, Silvio. At the ball tonight,” she asked casually, “just who will be in attendance?”

The Venetian grimaced. “Ah, the usual. Some ambassadors; some merchants with their overweight, garishly made-up wives; some important patricians from the city council. If the city treasurer shows up, I’ll probably have to waste some time discussing Regensburg’s ridiculous mountain of debt. Madonna, it’s