“Have you come to get me again, you wretched swine?” the Schongau hangman rasped. “The sun isn’t even up yet. Decent people are asleep at this hour. Be so good as to come back in an hour or so.”
“Hurry up, you blockhead,” the figure in the door whispered. Only now did Kuisl realize this was no bailiff but Teuber. “We don’t have much time!”
“What in the world…?” Kuisl started to straighten up, but as soon as he got to his feet, he collapsed again like a sack of grain. Pain surged once more through his swollen legs, and despite the cool night air he was feverish and bathed in sweat.
Cursing softly, Teuber bent down to the injured man. He pulled a long set of pliers from his bag and, with one vigorous snap, cut through the rusty chain.
“Keep still now.”
He struggled to pull the Schongau hangman back to his feet again, laid Kuisl’s good arm over his own shoulder, wrapped his own arm tight against Kuisl’s chest, and dragged the heavy body into the hall.
“What-what are you doing?” Kuisl said, shivering. “Where are the damned guards?” He winced as a fresh wave of pain rolled through his body.
“I sent them off to dream for a while,” Teuber whispered. “It took me two days to make the potion, but the virtue of that patience is that they won’t taste it in the wine now, especially with just a few drops in each gallon.” He grinned as he continued to lug Kuisl toward the exit. “And in case you’re wondering about the bailiff in the corridor, he’s shitting and vomiting up everything in his body as we speak. That’s what good old Christmas rose can do. Oh, well, he’ll survive.”
They arrived at the low vaulted room where five soldiers lay snoring among two empty wine jugs. With only a few torches flickering dimly on the walls, the room was blanketed in near total darkness. Along one side cannons and coaches were dimly visible.
“Why… are you… doing this?” Kuisl stammered, clinging tightly to the Regensburg executioner who, despite his powerful arms, struggled to keep Kuisl on his feet. “They’ll… flay you alive when they find out what you’ve done.”
“
“But in case any of them become suspicious, they’re welcome to put me on the rack,” he said softly. “The fine patricians can dirty their own hands for once.”
By this point Kuisl was lying in a cart that smelled of decay and human excrement. Teuber spread a few old rags and a load of damp straw over the Schongau hangman, then took his seat on the coach box and clicked his tongue. His old gray mare set off, pulling the cart into a nearby lane.
“I hope the stench doesn’t kill you before your wounds,” Teuber said. Grinning, he cast a backward glance at his load of animal carcasses, rotten vegetables, and excrement. “But I can carry you safely through town on the knacker’s wagon. I hardly think the city guards are interested in what exactly is rotting under there.”
“Where… are we going?” Kuisl groaned. He saw dark roofs and facades pass by overhead while the wagon rumbled over the cobblestones-a jolting reminder of the innumerable contusions, broken bones, and burned flesh he’d suffered in recent days.
“We can’t go to my house,” Teuber said. “That’s the first place they’d think to look for you. Besides, my wife’s against sheltering a murderer. But I know a good hiding place. You’ll like it there. The proprietress of the inn takes good care of…” He hesitated before going on. “Let’s say she keeps a very close eye on her guests, most of them men.”
Simon and Magdalena slunk from house to house, always keeping their distance from the hooded figure in front of them. Nathan was by their side, as well as Hans Reiser, who had since recovered. The four followed Mamminger’s small lantern through little back alleys until he turned off Scherergasse and headed south. At one point they encountered a foul-smelling cart with a sinister broad-shouldered man sitting on the coach box, but both Mamminger and his pursuers retreated into dark doorways as the phantom passed.
Simon sensed Mamminger intentionally chose a roundabout way to avoid pursuit. Only after a full quarter- hour did the treasurer arrive at the cathedral square. Mamminger’s steps echoed across the pavement as he hurried along the right side of the church, turning at last into a graveyard behind the cathedral. Simon and the others ducked behind a cluster of weathered headstones and watched the patrician make his way cautiously down a row of freshly dug graves, cursing softly whenever his leather boots stuck in mud left by the recent thunderstorm. On a column at the edge of the graveyard a light flickered, and in its faint glow Simon saw Mamminger climb over another burial mound and sneak toward a low back door that led into the rear of the cathedral. Within moments he’d disappeared inside.
“It will attract too much attention if all four of us follow him,” Magdalena whispered from behind one of the gravestones. “I suggest Simon and I go in after him. Hans can wait here while Nathan creeps around to the main portal, in case Mamminger tries to escape that way.”
The beggar king frowned. “Not a bad plan… for a woman. But I’d like very much to know what His Excellency the treasurer expects to find in there. So Simon and I will go and-”
“Oh, no you won’t,” Magdalena interrupted. “It’s
“We’ll tell you all about it later over a nice glass of wine, Nathan. I promise,” Simon added. “Now let’s go, or Mamminger will slip through our fingers.”
Nathan was about to protest, but then he waved his agreement and disappeared among the gravestones. Simon and Magdalena approached the little door and opened it quietly. Inside, under an enormous cupola, a few flickering candles provided as much light as they did shadow, and except for a bit of moonlight falling in through the stained-glass windows, it was almost completely dark inside.
They entered the cathedral from the right of the apse. From there Simon and Magdalena could make out the huge columns of the nave, which rose straight up to disappear in the darkness of the cupola. From altars on all sides saints glowered down at them, and from a stone arch on their left a silver chain dangled over a well. An immense bronze sarcophagus stood in the center of an aisle ahead of them, and a life-size statue of a cardinal knelt before the crucifix on top.
Simon, who noticed that every step they took was echoing from the walls, signaled to Magdalena to stop moving and remain still beside the altar.
Soon, from the south aisle, they heard a soft creaking sound of iron scraping on iron. A moment passed; then they heard the shuffle of leather-soled shoes receding. To the west, where the main portal was located, a small crack appeared and a narrow bar of light shone in, contrasting with the deep darkness of the interior.
“Damn!” Simon whispered. “He’s escaping through the main entrance! He must have a key, and now we can only hope that Nathan’s following him.”
“Shouldn’t we go after him?” Magdalena asked.
Simon shrugged. “I think there’s no point. If we leave through the main portal, he’ll be able to see us from the square or he’ll have disappeared already. What luck!”
He stamped his foot angrily. The sound carried through the vault like a thunderclap, startling the medicus.
“We can at least try to find out what he was doing here,” Magdalena consoled him. “Come, let’s have a look.”
They ran to the south aisle, from where the rasping sound had come, Simon lighting the way with a votive candle he’d taken from a side altar.
“Look!” he whispered after a short while, pointing to muddy footprints on the floor. “This is where Mamminger must have walked. You can still see the tracks!” Unsure what to do next, he scanned the chapel. “But what, for heaven’s sake, was he doing here?”
His glance landed on a small recessed altar displaying a triptych dedicated to Saint Sebastian. A middle panel showed the martyr lashed to a tree and pierced with arrows. And on the altar stood a gilded statuette holding a purse in one hand and an arrow in the other.
