hours before, he had applied burning sulfur.
“What
Kuisl rolled on his side so the Regensburg executioner could treat the wounds on his back. He had to hand it to Teuber-he was a master of his craft. He knew how to harm, but he knew how to heal as well. Years of experience working with burns, dislocated shoulders, and broken bones had made the Regensburg hangman an excellent doctor.
“You know, it’s funny, Teuber,” Kuisl said with his eyes closed. “First we hurt the people, then we nurse them back to health…”
“And in the end we kill them.” Teuber nodded. “I’ve given up thinking about it. I do my work; that’s all there is to it. Now your fingers.”
Kuisl held his swollen blue thumbs out to the Regensburg executioner, who had crushed them only a few hours before. Now the executioner rubbed them with a fragrant yellow ointment that smelled of marigold and arnica. When he finished, he repeated this on Kuisl’s legs, where Spanish boots-with iron uppers and spikes inside- had left colorful, shiny bruises.
“You know that I’m innocent,” Kuisl whispered, clenching his fists to better endure the pain in his legs. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. You also believe that something’s not right with one of the inquisitors. Admit it.”
Pausing, Teuber stared at the man across from him for a long time. “Damn, you’re right,” he said at last. “The one alderman is spewing vitriol the way some people breathe fire and brimstone. Almost as if it was
“For God’s sake, I didn’t…” Kuisl burst out, but he calmed down again, as there was no point in arguing now. The Regensburg executioner was his only ear to the outside world.
After a few deep breaths Kuisl asked, “Do you know the three aldermen?”
Teuber shrugged. “One of them is probably the president of the council, Hieronymus Rheiner. As far as I know, he’s the oldest member of the council. Rheiner is also the president of the court that tried your case.”
“Of course!” Kuisl interrupted. “The president at my trial the day before yesterday. How could I have forgotten?”
“The youngest one I recognized by his voice,” Teuber continued. “That’s Joachim Kerscher from the tax office, a little braggart whose father bought him the position.”
Kuisl nodded. The chief of the tax office was responsible for municipal taxes and thus an extremely powerful man. Of course, the hangman was interested in someone else. “What about the third man?”
There was a long pause.
“Who is the third man?” Kuisl grew impatient.
Teuber shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve heard that voice somewhere before, but I can’t say where.”
“Can you find out for me who he is?”
By now the Regensburg executioner had bandaged Kuisl’s back with clean cloth.
“Not even if I wanted to,” Teuber replied. “The identity of the third inquisitor always remains secret, to ensure impartiality. He won’t be named in any document, or found in any record either. So, that’s the end of that.”
He patted Kuisl lightly on the shoulder and started to pack the clay pots back into his bag.
“We’ll see each other again tomorrow morning when I resume your torture,” he said with a sigh, and turned to leave. “I’ll leave the torch for you, since it’s so gloomy down here.”
“Teuber,” Kuisl whispered. “Damn it, I’ve got to know who the third man is! I’m absolutely certain he has something to do with the murder. If I knew his name, I could send Magdalena to find out more about him, then maybe everything would end well after all. The judgment may not be passed until I confess under torture, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. So don’t let me down!”
“Hang it! I tell you I can’t do it!” Teuber wrung his callused hands, unable to look Kuisl in the eye. “I have five children, and they all need their father. If I start poking around now, I’ll end up on the scaffold right there with you. But in chains and minus my sword. Don’t you get it?”
“I have children, too, Teuber,” the Schongau hangman answered calmly. “Young twins, beautiful children. And my eldest daughter is somewhere out there trying to save my life.”
Standing in the doorway, Teuber pressed his lips tightly together and clutched his linen sack as if trying to wring blood out of it.
“We’ll see each other again in the morning,” he said finally. “Try to get some sleep.”
He slammed the door behind him and slid the bolt closed. Kuisl could hear his rapid footsteps retreat down the passageway. It almost seemed he wanted to run.
Kuisl stared pensively at the grimy cell wall in front of him. The torch Teuber left hanging on a ring was half burned down now, but by its light the Schongau hangman was able to get a clear look around his cell for the first time. The stinking chamber pot, the wedge of wood that served as his pillow, the scribbling on the wall… Kuisl studied the strange script that had troubled him so greatly the day before. It still glared out at him in the very middle of the back wall, directly under the line from the mercenary’s song, which he’d carefully scratched out.
That was a quarter of a century ago. The hangman tried to remember what was going on back then, what the name and date brought to mind. Had he ever known anyone by that name?
Back then Kuisl’s colonel had already promoted him to sergeant, and even though he was only twenty-two years old, he commanded a large number of mercenaries. Many of the older, more seasoned soldiers objected on account of his youth, but after the first battle most didn’t say another word. Kuisl taught them discipline and respect, two virtues the lansquenets knew about only through stories. Kuisl lived with the horror and terror of war, the nightmares of murder, robbery, and rape, all those years, but the memories grew within him like a poisonous mushroom. At least he had done what he could to stanch senseless bloodshed by his own men.
But what bloodshed was sensible?
With torch in hand, Kuisl walked along the wall, trying to decipher the rest of the scribblings.
All of a sudden he noticed something.
The Weidenfeld inscription as well as some of the others were new! They had been carved into the wooden wall with a sharp knife, and they shone in a much lighter color than the older ones-so someone must have carved them just recently.
Just for him.
Softly the hangman began murmuring the names he’d been trying to forget all these years.
Familiar names from the Great War, battlefields where Kuisl served as a mercenary and where he pillaged, blasphemed, whored, and murdered. Images and smells came back to him now like dark storm clouds.
The torch smoked in front of him, and another greater torture began.
This time it penetrated to his innermost being.
“Lord Almighty! Just look at what the fire has done here!” Simon whispered, pointing to what was left of the bathhouse, which had collapsed in a smoldering heap. A thunderstorm overnight had transformed much of the ruin into a muddy mountain of black, splintered beams. The walls had fallen in on three sides. Shattered tiles, scorched window frames, scraps of cloth, and broken pots were scattered all over the street, evidence that scavengers had already helped themselves. Only the chimney still rose up out of the devastation as a reminder that a stately building had once stood on this spot.
The medicus shook his head. “We certainly won’t find anything here. Let’s just go back.”
Magdalena, too, looked sadly at the ruins. While she had to admit she hadn’t expected to find her aunt’s house so completely destroyed, she didn’t want to give up so easily.
“How much time do we have?” she asked Nathan, who stood beside her now, gnawing on an old chicken bone.
The beggar king picked at something stuck between his gold teeth. “My boys will signal me when the guards
