Simon followed her with a sigh as the haven of the bishop’s residence disappeared behind them in the darkness. They turned into Judengasse Street, which ended in Neupfarr Church Square with its austere Protestant church. Just as they were about to step out into the open square, they noticed a group of perhaps thirty city bailiffs at its center, gesticulating wildly toward the south. The shrill alarm bells were still ringing, and many citizens had by now opened their shutters to gape at the spectacle below from the safety of their balconies.
“I have to know what the guards are up to,” Magdalena whispered. “Let’s creep up a little closer.”
Simon knew his friend well enough now to sense it was pointless to argue. She had a wrinkle in her brow that meant there was just no stopping her. So he knelt down beside her on the dirty cobblestones spattered with horse manure, knowing it would ruin his last decent pair of trousers. Under the cover of darkness they crept toward the light of the torches.
The men in front of them were not trained soldiers but common citizens, some still in nightshirts and bathrobes beneath hastily donned cuirasses. Their hair was disheveled, their faces pale and frightened. In their hands they held rusty pikes, daggers, and crossbows that seemed like survivors from an earlier century. They were bakers, carpenters, butchers, and simple linen weavers, and to judge by their appearance, the last thing in the world they wanted to do was stand here in the middle of the night, listening to a speech by the captain of the guards.
“Citizens, listen up!” a bearded, elderly man exhorted them. In contrast to the others, he looked at least halfway battle-tested. In his right hand he clutched a halberd over ten feet long with a point that glittered menacingly in the torchlight. “As many of you perhaps already know, the Schongau monster, the throat slitter and bloodsucker, broke out of his cell last night. But that’s not all. Yesterday, the murderer strangled Master Baker Haberger and gruesomely slaughtered Marie Deisch in her own bathhouse-”
An anxious whisper spread among the men, and the commander of the guards raised his hand for silence.
“Fortunately the man has been found. He’s lurking somewhere down by Peter’s Gate, and with your help we’ll send him back to hell today once and for all! Three cheers for our strong and mighty city!”
The old officer had evidently expected some enthusiasm-or at least a response-but the men in the crowd before him remained strangely silent and whispered among themselves.
Then a young boy in a stained old mercenary helmet raised his hand hesitantly. “Is it true that the monster bites his victims’ necks and drinks their blood?”
The old officer, who hadn’t expected that question, stood still for a moment with his mouth open. “Ah… as far as I know, he used a knife, but-”
“They say this Kuisl is a werewolf, that he turns into a beast at night and eats little children,” someone else added. “He’s already ripped apart five prostitutes and drunk their blood. How are we going to hunt a demon like that with our rusty old swords and crossbows? He’ll probably just take wing and fly away!”
Those standing around him clamored in agreement. At the crowd’s edge a few anxious men seemed about to turn around and go home.
“Nonsense!” The captain pounded his halberd on the ground as a call to order. “This Kuisl is a man like any other, but he’s a murderer. And for that reason we’ll capture him today and bring him to justice. Do you understand? It’s your goddamned duty as citizens!” His threatening eyes wandered over the assembled company of pale, unshaven men. “You can, of course, buy your way out of this obligation, but believe me, I’ll check with the president of the council to see that you pay dearly.”
The citizens didn’t seem convinced, but they permitted the captain to divide them up into groups.
“Turmeier and Schwendner, you’ll go over to the Ostner Quarter,” he began in a voice accustomed to giving orders. “Poeverlein and Bergmuller, you’ll take the Wittwanger Quarter. The rest of you…”
Magdalena stopped paying attention now and turned to Simon, who had listened to the captain’s speech with his mouth as wide open as hers.
“Thanks be to the saints above! Father actually managed to escape!” the hangman’s daughter whispered. “But now they want to charge him with two more murders!”
Simon frowned. “And if he really…? I mean maybe this master baker got in his way, or-”
“And he slaughtered the bathhouse mistress for good measure?” Magdalena snorted. “Sometimes I believe you really think my father is some kind of monster. I don’t believe a single word of what that pompous guard said! As long as my father’s here in this city, they’ll accuse him of practically anything!” Lowering her voice, she added, “He’s probably hiding in a shed or a vacant lot somewhere. It’s very likely he’s injured. We’ve got to help him at once!”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Simon replied quietly. “We don’t know where he’s hiding any more than the guards do. Do you plan to run around calling for him by name?”
Magdalena thought for a moment; then her face lit up with a smile.
“That’s not such a bad idea,” she said. “Listen, this is how we’ll do it.” In a hasty whisper she explained her plan.
Jakob Kuisl sat against the low, crumbling wall, trying to fight off an impending blackout. The fresh air had revived him, but he’d reached the end of his strength. His escape from Peter’s Gate had required every last ounce of it, but he’d shaken his pursuers, at least for the moment. The men had run right past him. Among their voices he heard that of the third inquisitor and for a brief moment considered jumping up and strangling him with the one good hand he had left. Thank God he was too weak to try.
Now he was crouched in an overgrown lot somewhere in Regensburg, trying to pull himself together. All was not lost. He could still go to Teuber’s house if only this damned dizziness would pass!
When the alarm bells sounded, Kuisl knew at once they were for him. Bailiffs in every quarter would be alerted and in no time would be after him like dogs after a young fox. He tried to stand up but collapsed again immediately. On the third try he finally managed to pull himself halfway upright and set off, carefully placing one foot in front of the other.
Kuisl climbed over the lowlying wall overgrown with rosebushes and tried to orient himself. He knew that Peter’s Gate, which rose into view over the rooftops, was in the southern part of the city, and that Teuber’s house therefore had to be to the north, in the Henkersgasschen, or Hangman’s Lane. Beyond this he knew nothing. Until now he hadn’t given a single thought to how he might find the hangman’s house. He could hardly ask someone for directions, and there were no street signs in this damned city. The only option he had was to wander the streets in the hope that his nose would lead him there.
Kuisl cursed his own stupidity. Why hadn’t he questioned Teuber more closely about the location of his house? All Kuisl could do was hope he might run into a shady character like himself in the middle of the night who might take pity on him and help him out.
Hunched over and peering in every direction as he went, the hangman slunk through the part of town neighboring Peter’s Gate. The houses here were small and low, the gardens untended, and he came upon house after house that had been reduced to ashes-evidence of the Great War and the last Plague, a few years ago. When the inhabitants went off to the former-or succumbed to the latter-their homes had fallen to ruin. From where he was he could hear the alarm bells still ringing and far-off shouts that signaled pursuit.
They were hot on his trail; he didn’t have much time left.
Just as Kuisl was seeking a hiding place next to a nearby house, two guards turned a corner and headed toward him. The men, armed with halberds, seemed just as surprised by him as he was by them. The younger of the two was so taken aback that his helmet fell off; the other reached nervously for an ancient wheel-lock pistol with a patina of verdigris that hung from his belt. Kuisl could only hope the weapon wasn’t loaded.
“Over here! Over here!” the younger one shouted, “We got him! The monster is right here!”
The older man fumbled with his pistol, which had snagged on his belt. When a shot rang out, the man shouted and fell to the ground, clutching his right boot and wailing. He’d shot himself in the foot.
Kuisl took advantage of the general confusion to run back out into the street, but he didn’t get very far before two more bailiffs appeared from the other direction. One shouldered a crossbow at eye level. A moment later a bolt whizzed by, just a hair’s breadth from Kuisl’s right ear.
The hangman decided to risk it all: shouting at the top of his lungs, he ran toward the two newly arrived guards in the blind hope that the second man had neither a loaded crossbow nor a pistol. The bailiffs awaited him
