It took Simon a while to notice what was strange about the figure.
While all the other proportions were correct, the arrow was much too long and too thick, looking more like a spear or a silver tube. Bending down to examine the arrow in the candlelight, Simon noticed the arrow wasn’t firmly attached to the hand, and in the top third there was a groove, as if the spear consisted of two parts screwed together.
Simon turned to Magdalena. “The scraping sound!” he exclaimed. “I think I now know what-”
Once again a small strip of light shone through the crack at the main portal, and shortly after, they could hear the door close softly. Magdalena pulled Simon away from the altar and behind a column.
“It looks like Mamminger’s come back,” she whispered excitedly. “Do you think he forgot something?”
Simon shook his head. “I think someone is coming to pick up the message.”
“The message?” Magdalena asked. “What message?”
Simon put his finger to his lips, silencing her as they observed a dark figure tiptoe down the center aisle and approach the niche. When the stranger reached the altar, Magdalena had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. It was the man who had tried to kill her! At his side he still carried the deadly rapier, but now that he’d taken off his hood, she was able to see his face-narrow and ferret-like with tiny eyes that nervously darted back and forth and just faint thin lines for eyebrows. His head was like an enormous balloon, its size emphasized by his baldness and disproportionate atop an otherwise small frame. He was dressed inconspicuously in knee breeches, leather boots, and a short coat over a mouse-gray shirt. He looked around in every direction, his gaze passing over the very column behind which Magdalena and Simon were hiding. The hangman’s daughter quickly drew back, hoping the man hadn’t seen her.
When they heard the scraping sound again, Magdalena looked out from behind the column to witness the stranger unscrewing the little silver arrow. He removed a thin, rolled-up document, smiling briefly as he unfolded the letter and began to read.
She remembered how indignant the treasurer had been when the stranger had asked to speak with him in Silvio’s garden. What had Mamminger said to him then?
And presumably the stranger would now place his response to Mamminger in the tube. Then she and Simon could quite easily-
Something startled her out of her thoughts. At first she couldn’t figure out what, but then she was conscious of a soft sound-more the hint of a sound than anything. The stranger seemed to notice it as well. Again he turned his monstrous, hairless head in all directions like some kind of snake, but when he detected nothing suspicious, he held the note over an altar candle, and a blue flame shot up, reducing the secret message to ashes.
Suddenly Simon seized Magdalena by the shoulder. She turned around, terrified, while the medicus pointed frantically at a shadow cast against the cathedral wall. Enlarged to gigantic proportions, the form scurried from column to column, but as it moved farther from the altar and out of range of the candlelight, the shadow disappeared as quickly as it had come. It was a while before Simon and Magdalena noticed the man just a few steps away, lurking behind the pews with a drawn dagger. He was far smaller than the shadow suggested. It was Silvio Contarini.
The trip in the knacker’s cart through the city’s back streets seemed endless. The Regensburg executioner kept stopping to shovel more feces, dead rats, and garbage onto his cart. Even though it was against the law to be out on the street in Regensburg after dark, an exception was clearly made for the hangman. The few night watchmen they encountered looked aside and made the sign of the cross once the wagon had rumbled by. It brought misfortune to look a hangman in the eye, especially at night when people said the souls of the damned he’d executed accompanied him through the streets.
When they finally reached their destination, Kuisl struggled to raise his head. Before them stood a fortress- like building consisting of three towers and a courtyard at the center. In contrast to the surrounding houses, light still burned in the windows of the tower to the right, and Kuisl could hear the distant laughter of women.
“Peter’s Tower,” Teuber whispered. “The city guard has a garrison of a dozen soldiers billeted here.” He winked at the hangman. “If you want to hide someone, the best place is where the enemy least expects. That’s an old mercenary saying. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Kuisl watched Teuber approach the tower on the right and pound on the door. The Schongau hangman was seized by momentary panic. Did Teuber intend to hand him over to the soldiers? Didn’t he just say a garrison was billeted here? And now this idiot was knocking at the door of the lion’s den!
Then he noticed a woman in a bright dress in the open doorway. On her head was a red and yellow cap just like those the mercenaries’ whores used to wear. He estimated she was about fifty years old, even though her broad hips and full breasts made her look considerably younger. Though she was overweight and her hair graying, she was strangely attractive, and Kuisl supposed she must have been stunning in her day.
The woman spoke briefly with the Regensburg executioner; she then cast a glance at Kuisl, who tried to sit up a bit amid the piles of rags and manure. Only now did he notice she wore a patch over one eye. With the other eye she squinted at him suspiciously.
“A stinking excuse for a man you’re bringing me,” she said loud enough for Kuisl to hear. Her voice had something sharp to it, like that of one accustomed to giving orders. “Not worth much more than the carcasses lying next to him in the cart. You know that if the bailiffs catch me with this monster, they’ll put the shrew’s fiddle on me and chase me out of town-but only if I’m
“I… can walk… by myself,” Kuisl grunted. “I… can do it.”
He slid off the cart and staggered toward the doorway. Kuisl hated it when women caught him in weak moments. And this woman didn’t look as if she’d have much sympathy for whiners.
When he arrived at the door, the woman looked up at him disdainfully. Kuisl was almost three heads taller than she.
“So this is the devil of Regensburg?” she said. “If you ask me, he looks more like an abused circus bear who’s had his claws ripped out. How tall are you anyway, eh? Six feet?” she asked in a snide tone and laughed. “Be careful you don’t bash your forehead when you enter my modest home. By the looks of you, a whore’s fart would blow you over right now.”
“It wasn’t him, Dorothea,” Teuber replied. “I had to torture him until the blood came out of his ears. I swear by God he’s not the one.”
“Leave God out of this”-Dorothea had already turned to go back inside-“or lightning will strike the tower.”
They entered a low, dark anteroom illuminated by a single torch. A winding staircase led down to a cellar and up to the floors above. From here Kuisl heard laughter and voices and, now and then, a sharp cry followed by a deep masculine groan.
“You see, my honorable guests are enjoying themselves splendidly tonight,” Dorothea said to the Regensburg executioner as they walked down the spiral stone staircase together. “I wouldn’t want to disturb them, above all because among them are a few aldermen who really mustn’t know about our surly murderer here. I have a nice hiding place down in the basement storage room, and he can stay there for the time being.”
“That’s fine, Dorothea,” Teuber replied. “We won’t bother you anymore, I promise.”
After a few more steps they reached the cellar, where sacks and crates were scattered around several large wine barrels. Dorothea hurried over to a barrel in the middle.
“Push that out of the way, Teuber,” she said, “or is that too much for you? You look a bit worn out. Won’t your wife let you into bed anymore?”
Silently the executioner placed his arms around the wine barrel and, straining, moved it a bit to the left. Behind it a low doorway led into another dank storage room not much bigger than the cell where Kuisl had spent
