motion. Behind it Nathan’s grinning face appeared.
“Ah, I thought I heard someone calling for me,” the beggar king said. “May I help you with something?”
Simon groaned softly. Nathan had probably overheard their entire conversation! Simon still wasn’t sure how much he could trust the beggar king.
“I’m sure if we needed help you would have heard about it,” the medicus replied, pointing to his sleeping patient. “In any event, this patient needs his rest, and so do we. We’re nearly dying of hunger.”
Nathan clapped his hands together. “Ah, well, it just so happens that I’ve gotten my hands on some delicious treats for you-under the table, so to speak. It’s not much. The guards in Haid Square were especially vigilant today. But for a little lunch it’ll do nicely.”
He led Simon and Magdalena to the large table in the middle of the hall, where some bowls of bread, cheese, and apples, as well as a magnificent leg of pork, awaited them. Nathan’s helpers had also managed to swipe a mug of foaming brown beer from right under the tavern keeper’s eyes.
“Help yourselves!” the beggar king said. “You’ve really earned it today.”
Simon bit into the pork and washed it down with a gulp of beer. Only now did he realize how hungry he was. Magdalena, too, hadn’t really had much to eat since the night before at the Venetian’s ball. She reached for the apples, which she devoured eagerly one after the other.
Nathan took a seat next to them and watched as they ate. He reminded Simon of a sly old crow patiently waiting for a crumb to fall from the table.
“I did, by the way, accidentally overhear your little discussion,” Nathan said, picking his golden teeth. Then he turned to Simon with a conspiratorial look. “So do you really believe that Mamminger sent a hired assassin after you?”
The medicus just shrugged and continued chewing, but Magdalena nodded. “Everything points in that direction,” she replied, reaching for a mug of beer. “The treasurer seems to think we’ve found proof of his guilt, and now he wants us out of the way.”
Nathan snickered and took a bite of cheese. “Proof?” he finally scoffed. “And what kind of proof would that be? Perhaps Mamminger dropped his signet ring somewhere in the bathhouse? Or you found a bloody silver dagger engraved with initials in his kitchen drawer, or-”
“Nonsense,” Simon mumbled. “It must be something serious, something that has to be kept hidden at all costs… some kind of secret.”
Lost in thought, he ran his fingers across the tabletop, which was dusted in a thin layer of flour from the fresh-baked bread. Still pondering, he rubbed it between his fingers.
Spinning around, Simon took Magdalena by the shoulder so abruptly she choked on her beer.
“The tracks in the cellar!” he exclaimed. “How could I have forgotten?”
“Tracks?” Nathan inquired, puzzled. “In what cellar?”
The medicus held out his right hand and placed his floury finger under the beggar king’s nose. He looked around cautiously and lowered his voice. “There’s a hidden storage room at the bottom of the bathhouse well. We found a few sacks of flour down there, which the rats had been nibbling. I had a closer look at them, and this flour…” Simon paused a moment to think. “There were tracks in it, big footprints, and they stopped directly in front of the wall. One of the tracks was cut off midway as if…”
“As if the trail continued on the other side!” Magdalena finished his sentence excitedly. “Damn! Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“I–I completely forgot,” Simon stammered. “Just as I was going to take a closer look, the place caught fire and we had to run for our lives-or don’t you remember? The tracks in the flour were just about the last thing I was thinking about at the moment.”
Magdalena sighed. “Well, there’s only one way to find out whether you’re right,” she said, standing up from the table.
“And what would that be?”
The hangman’s daughter grinned. “We’ve got to go back to the bathhouse tonight and take a closer look.”
“But the house was completely destroyed in the fire,” Nathan said. “How can you expect to find anything there?”
“I hardly believe the fire made its way into the well,” Magdalena said. “And the fire does give us one advantage. This time we don’t need to worry about being locked inside a burning building. Thanks, by the way, for the meal.”
An apple in hand, she returned to the makeshift ward to treat the next patient.
Jakob Kuisl lay on the wood floor of his cell and tried to forget his pain.
The Schongau hangman had retreated to his innermost being, where a bright sun sent its warming rays into the very tips of his fingers, filling him with pleasant thoughts.
Kuisl knew from his own agonizing interrogations that people could bear a lot of pain if only their beliefs were strong, if they felt close to God, or if, like Kuisl, they were firmly convinced of their own innocence. His father once told him about an elderly woman who was tortured more than sixty times in the notorious Schongau witch trial. The stubborn old God-fearing midwife denied the accusations against her until she was finally released. Jakob Kuisl wondered how many sessions he could endure. Thirty? Forty?
The hangman groaned, trying to find a position that would minimize his pain. It was impossible for him to lie on his back because it was there the spikes had rolled through his flesh on the rack. Gaping black and red burn wounds covered his thighs, and he could scarcely move his arms. For over half an hour Teuber had turned the screws, and his thumbs, index fingers, and both shinbones had turned blue and pulsed in pain as if an iron hammer were pounding them still.
Kuisl knew this was just the first stage of his torture. Early the next morning they would start with stretching by ropes. They would tie his arms behind his back and raise him from the ground this way, attaching weights of as much as a hundred pounds to his legs. The third voice behind the lattice had demanded all through the last session that they start the stretching as soon as possible. Kuisl sensed the two other Regensburg aldermen were rather put off by their colleague’s blatant hatred, but they didn’t interfere as the third man kept issuing increasingly brutal orders.
Kuisl had been racking his brain the last few hours trying to remember where he’d heard that voice before, and though the pain made it almost impossible to concentrate, he continued to rummage through his memory. He recalled the hateful look of the stranger on the raft. Could the third voice belong to him? Something deep inside Kuisl told him he’d known the raftsman long ago. But he couldn’t possibly be an inquisitor. Teuber told Kuisl that those selected to oversee the torture were always rich, respected citizens; this raftsman, on the other hand, was a simple man and probably not even from Regensburg.
Kuisl blinked and tried to guess the time. From far off he could hear cries and laughter, and a dim light fell through the hatch, causing the dust in the air to shimmer. Probably early afternoon.
At that moment he heard footsteps in the corridor outside the cell. The bolt slid aside, and the Regensburg executioner entered. He carried a flickering torch and a linen sack, which he opened now, arranging its contents on the floor. In the dim light Kuisl could make out a few clay vessels, some rags, bouquets of dried herbs, and a large bottle of brandy.
“Kuisl, Kuisl,” Teuber muttered, handing the Schongau hangman the uncorked bottle. “One thing is clear; the Regensburg aldermen tried everything: burning sulfur, the rack, thumb screws, and Spanish boots-all in one day! I’ve never seen anything like that before.” He shook his head. “They want to see you hang, and sooner rather than later.”
Kuisl nodded and took a deep swig of brandy. The alcohol seemed to wash through his entire body, rinsing away the worst of the pain.
“Well? Do you still believe I killed my own sister?” he asked, wiping his bloody, swollen hand across his lips.
Teuber opened one of the pots and spread a cooling ointment over a burn on Kuisl’s thigh where, just a few
