had spread on his wounds was a blessing but in no way a cure. Now Teuber tied Kuisl’s hands, already bound together behind his back, tightly to an upper rung of the rack. Sharply filed wood pyramids bored into his wounded flesh while the weight of his body pulled him inexorably downward along the rungs, prying his shoulder joints apart as he slid. Still, that wasn’t the worst: Teuber tied a noose around Kuisl’s legs, then attached it to a roller at the bottom of the instrument. When the executioner turned the roller, the victim’s arms would be pulled farther and farther upward, behind his back, until his shoulders would at last rip from their sockets.
“We begin the second interrogation,” the older man intoned from behind the lattice, a voice Kuisl now knew belonged to the president of the council, Hieronymus Rheiner. “Kuisl, you can save yourself a lot of pain if you simply confess that-”
“To hell with you, you dirty bastards!” Kuisl shouted. “Even if you cut me to pieces and throw me into boiling water, it wasn’t me!”
“It’s quite possible we’ll do just that,” the third voice replied sardonically. “But first we’re going to try the rack. Teuber, turn the crank.”
Drops of sweat appeared on Teuber’s brow, and his lips pressed into a thin line. Nevertheless, he moved the roller about a quarter turn, just enough for Kuisl’s bones to crack audibly.
“Don’t make this unnecessarily hard on yourself,” admonished the youngest inquisitor, presumably Joachim Kerscher from the Regensburg tax office. “The evidence is overwhelming. We all know you committed the murder, but by Carolingian Law we need your confession.”
“It wasn’t me,” Kuisl muttered.
“Blast it, we caught you red-handed! Right alongside the two corpses!” Hieronymus Rheiner fumed. “God knows you are guilty! He’s looking down on you now!”
Kuisl laughed softly. “God isn’t here. Only the devil’s present in this room.”
“This isn’t working,” the third man said icily. “Teuber, keep turning. I want to hear his bones break.”
“But Your Honors,” Teuber spoke up cautiously. His face looked pale and bloated in the torchlight. The merry sparkle in his eyes had disappeared, and he seemed to have suddenly aged by years. “Were I to proceed too quickly, Kuisl might pass out, and then-”
“Who asked your opinion, hangman?” the third inquisitor snarled.
Doctor Elsperger, who until that point had been sitting silently on the wooden bench, now stood up and cleared his throat.
“Teuber isn’t entirely mistaken,” he said. “From appearances the accused may indeed become unconscious. Then we’d have to terminate the procedure prematurely.”
“Elsperger, you’re right,” old Rheiner responded from behind the lattice. “We must proceed slowly. Teuber, just a quarter turn again, no more.”
The Regensburg executioner, who was leaning silently against the rack, didn’t seem to hear the inquisitor at first.
“Pardon, Your Honor. A quarter turn, as you command.”
As Teuber cranked the roller, Kuisl could feel his arms about to be wrenched from their sockets. This pain only intensified as the pyramid-shaped wedges dug ever deeper into his back. Kuisl closed his eyes and hummed the old nursery rhyme he’d first heard in an army encampment outside Breitenfeld long ago. Soldiers’ wives hummed it in their children’s ears to soothe them while villages burned on the horizon. Kuisl himself had sung it to send his little sister, as well as his own children, off to the land of dreams.
“Kuisl, stop this foolishness and confess!” young Kerscher warned him. “It’s over for you.”
“Good Lord, confess!” Rheiner shouted.
“Confess!”
Kuisl spat at the lattice. “Go to hell, you potbellied little pricks.”
For a moment everyone fell silent, and the only sound was Kuisl’s labored breathing.
“A lovely song,” the third inquisitor said finally in a malevolent tone. “Unfortunately you’ll never again sing it to your children. You do have children, don’t you? And a beautiful wife, as well. What’s her name? Anna-Maria, I believe.”
He repeated the name, pronouncing each syllable slowly, almost lustfully.
The Schongau hangman struggled to get up, while his bones cracked and his left shoulder snapped out of its socket. This devil knew his wife? And his children, too? What did he have planned for them? Had he already taken out his vengeance on them for some crime their husband and father committed decades ago? Though the pain almost caused Kuisl to faint, he spat a stream of bile in the direction of the wooden lattice.
“You goddamned swine!” he screamed. “Come out here and show me your goddamned face so I can rip the skin off it!”
“You’re a bit confused,” the third man calmly replied. “You’re the one whose face we’re going to tear to shreds in a little while.”
“I implore you to show a bit more respect, colleague,” Rheiner scolded. “This is an interrogation. One might almost think the accused has somehow wronged you personally… Elsperger?”
The gaunt surgeon sprang up from the bench. “Your Honor?”
“Is the subject still fit for interrogation?”
Elsperger approached the Schongau hangman and examined his crippled arm in the dim torchlight.
“His left shoulder seems to be dislocated,” he said finally, “but the right one still looks in good shape.”
“Respiration?”
Elsperger nodded. “He’s still breathing. This man is as strong as an ox, if I may say so. I’ve never seen-”
“Nobody asked for your opinion,” Rheiner said. “Esteemed colleagues, may I suggest the left arm be untied and we continue with the right? And as far as I’m concerned, we might as well get started with the hot poker. I’m certain we’ll have our confession soon. Teuber, take down the left arm, and we’ll continue with the right. For God’s sake, Teuber, what’s the matter with you?”
The Regensburg executioner wiped the sweat from his brow as his gaze went blank. “Pardon, once more,” he stammered. “But I believe the man has had enough for today.”
“Another person determined to have his say!” the older councilman groused. “Where are we? In a ship of fools? Now hurry up and do as we’ve ordered, or I’ll cancel the two guilders you’re to be paid for the day’s work.”
When Teuber loosened the shackles, Kuisl’s arm collapsed like an empty wineskin. Then the executioner reached again for the crank.
“Good Lord, confess, will you!” Teuber whispered in Kuisl’s ear. “Confess, and it will be over!”
“My dear, sweet twins…” Kuisl whispered, on the verge of passing out. “Lisl, my Lisl, come and I’ll sing you to sleep…”
“Teuber, crank the damned roller at once,” the third man snarled. “Or must I come out and do it myself?”
With a clenched jaw, the Regensburg executioner once again began turning the crank, as Kuisl continued singing the nursery rhyme over and over.
The melody would echo in Teuber’s mind the entire night.
Simon and the beggar carried Crazy Johannes through the dark, deserted streets toward Neupfarr Church Square while Magdalena scouted ahead to make sure their strange ensemble didn’t encounter any watchmen who might have some unpleasant questions to ask. Having finally arrived back in the catacombs, they bedded the injured man down in the niche they were using as a sick bay.
Just as the medicus had assumed, the blow hadn’t pierced the lungs. And though the blade had passed straight through his shoulder, the wound was clean. After Simon applied some moss to stanch the bleeding, he treated it with an ointment of arnica and chamomile.
“You’ll have to dispense with your crazy Saint Vitus’ dances for a while,” he told Johannes as he tentatively pressed the edge of the wound, whereupon the beggar let out a shout of pain. “How about trying to earn some honest money the next few weeks?” Simon continued. “Just lie down by the cathedral and hold out your hand.”
