The Beggar King

in the hangman’s house long enough to assure himself of Magdalena’s safety.

Kuisl tried rotating his newly adjusted shoulder and stretched his back. He still felt as if he’d fallen from the roof of a house, but thanks to Teuber’s bandages and the ointment, the pain wasn’t so bad. If he didn’t run too quickly, if he paced himself along the way and hid in doorways and niches to rest, he’d make it to Teuber’s house all right. Fortunately the executioner had mentioned the name of his street in the course of one of their conversations. He’d even boasted about his pretty house, his wife, and his five darling children. Now Kuisl would have a chance to meet them.

Carefully placing one foot in front of the other, the hangman groped his way up the stairs until he was standing at the heavy front door. Softly he pushed back the bolt and looked out into the cloudy night. Despite the pleasant cool temperature, the air still reeked of garbage and sewage, but the scents of wheat, meadows, marshland, and forests were here as well. Soon he’d be out in them again.

He was just about to step out into the street when he heard a door slam upstairs.

“Hey, Thea, more wine! This cheeky tart here drank it all up herself. I’ll wring her neck for that.”

The door upstairs slammed shut again, and Kuisl held still with his right foot on the doorsill.

It was that voice again, the voice from his nightmares.

As if compelled by a mysterious force, he closed the door and tiptoed up the stairs. He had to see him; he had to look this man in the eye, if only for a moment, or the ghosts of the past would never release him.

After two dozen steps the spiral stone staircase ended in a white plastered foyer illuminated by a single torch. Four doors opened onto the foyer, and behind each one giggles, shouts, and soft moans could be heard. Another stairway led up to the third floor, where some raucous celebration was taking place.

Kuisl hesitated. The voice had definitely come from the second floor. The man he was looking for was behind one of these four doors.

Evidently Fat Thea hadn’t heard the stranger’s call, as neither she nor any of her girls had brought a fresh pitcher of wine. Carefully Kuisl put his ear to the first door. He could hear labored breathing and short, shrill cries, but no one was speaking.

He turned to the next room and put his ear again to the thin wooden door. He couldn’t quite make out what was being said-a lovers’ oath, perhaps? This couldn’t be the man he was after, could it?

As Kuisl tried to catch a glimpse through the keyhole, the door swung open and smacked him right in the nose. Reeling, the hangman fell backward.

“Who the hell…?” The young man stood over him with his pants around his ankles and his shirt open so that his pale, hairless potbelly jiggled above Kuisl’s head. The man’s thinning ashblond hair tumbled down over his face, and he gasped for air like a big fat fish out of water.

“I must have the wrong door,” the hangman mumbled, straightening up. “No offense intended.”

Kuisl realized he didn’t exactly look like a drunken alderman-drunk perhaps, but by no means a smug, well-fed patrician about to have an orgasm. But perhaps this client was tipsy enough himself not to notice that.

The man closed his mouth and stared back in fear at the man in front of him. His pale face was an expression of pure terror.

“You-you-are Kuisl, aren’t you?” he whispered.

Blood dripping from his nose, the hangman grew silent. This much was certain: this character before him wasn’t the third inquisitor; his voice was different. In fact, he might have been a rather decent fellow, unlike the man Kuisl was seeking. Still, there was something familiar about him. It was finally his Bavarian accent that gave him away.

It was Joachim Kerscher, one of the two other inquisitors.

“Oh, for the love of the Virgin Mother, please don’t hurt me,” Kerscher stuttered, awkwardly trying to hide behind the thin wooden door. “I’m just an ordinary councilman. I didn’t approve of the torture, believe me. Why did you flee…? We were going to-”

“Who was the third man?” the hangman snarled menacingly.

“The third?” Kerscher had retreated almost completely behind the door now, and only his pallid face peered out through the crack. “I don’t understand-”

“The third inquisitor, jackass!” Kuisl whispered through clenched teeth, holding his bloody nose. “Who was it?”

The hangman took a deep breath. The pain in his shoulder, the burning in his arms and legs, the shooting pains in his back-this all came back now like a hammer blow. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach.

Kerscher nodded obsequiously. “The third inquisitor, of course. Such a bastard. I can understand why you’d want to get back at him. It was-”

At that moment a piercing scream came from the floor above.

Kuisl turned to find Fat Thea coming down the stairs with a pitcher of wine, which slipped from her grasp and shattered on the floor.

Suddenly it felt to Kuisl as if the entire house were beginning to sway beneath him. Everything seemed to happen at once-the pitcher breaking, the commotion on the floor above, the doors opening all around him like portals to hell. Men stared at him, but their faces were strangely blurred, and they all seemed to be shouting at him at once. Was he shouting, too? Kuisl couldn’t say. Everything around him had become a muffled roar.

He shook his head to clear his mind a bit. Someone approached and tried to grab him, but Kuisl flung the figure aside like a rag doll and stumbled toward the stairs. Out! He had to get out, he had to get away from here before he collapsed once and for all. Again he felt someone grab him by his injured shoulder. The hangman crouched, rolling the man over his back and sending him tumbling down the stairs, screaming.

Kuisl could hear himself scream, too; he raged like a wounded bear backed into a corner by a pack of hunting dogs. Again he reached out with his good right arm and pulled one of the men close, smashing the man’s nose against his forehead. Kuisl felt the man’s warm blood on his face and heard him howl as he tossed him aside like a straw puppet. His pain and fear lent him one last burst of energy before unconsciousness threatened to overcome him.

Half crazed, he staggered down the steps, kicked the front door open, and dashed out into the fresh air. He inhaled deeply, and immediately his mind began to clear. Holding his throbbing shoulder, he hobbled toward a low wall and climbed over. On the other side he collapsed in a garden overgrown with thorny blackberries and wild rosebushes.

Kuisl was finished. Leaning against the crumbling wall, pricked on all sides by thorns, and raging with pain, he waited for his pursuers to find him and drag him back to his cell.

He closed his eyes and listened as the sound of excited voices approached.

Among them he heard the voice of his most hated enemy.

Simon and Magdalena heard the shouts just as they were sneaking across the cathedral square.

Catching their breath, they pressed their backs against the front of a patrician house and watched as a dozen city guards rushed past, heading south toward Neupfarr Church Square. Only a few minutes had passed since they fled the catacombs. Could Nathan already have betrayed them to Mamminger? Was the city treasurer’s power so great he could summon the entire city guard in an instant, just to pursue them?

Simon heard alarm bells begin to ring all over town, as if all of Regensburg were being called to Easter mass. The beggars had told him that each quarter of the city kept its own company of guards-a civilian militia called upon only in times of war or fire or other grave catastrophe. The militias were summoned to duty by the ringing of church bells. When another dozen soldiers came running from the old grain market through the cathedral square, the medicus feared the worst.

“Where could they all be headed?” Magdalena whispered, pressing herself even closer to the wall as the bailiffs marched south, just a few yards away. “They can’t all be looking for us, can they?”

Simon shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I also don’t see any signs of fire, and it’s unlikely war’s broken out. Perhaps they’re going to smoke out the beggars’ hideaway. That’s more or less the direction they’re headed.”

“Something’s fishy here,” Magdalena muttered, taking Simon’s hand and leading him out onto the now- deserted cathedral square. “Come on; let’s follow them and see.”

“That’s much too dangerous!” Simon said. “Believe me, the bishop’s palace is the only safe place for us right now. We’ve got to find the fastest way-”

“Oh, come now,” Magdalena interrupted. “Life’s dangerous. Let’s go.”