When the medicus arrived back at the walled-up doorway, he stopped short. Magdalena, too, stood there looking around helplessly.
A good portion of the stones had been cleared away and stacked neatly along the wall, leaving a dark hole just large enough for a man to pass through.
There was no trace of Jakob Kuisl.
For several minutes neither of them budged. Then Magdalena started running among the barrels, calling out her father’s name in a tense, frantic voice. But there was no response.
“Forget it!” Simon whispered. “He’s gone; he’s taken off-can’t you see that?”
“Yes, but to where?” Magdalena asked in despair. “Why did he leave us behind?”
The medicus knit his brow. “It must have something to do with that paper in his pocket. After reading it, he was like a different person.”
“That may very well be,” Magdalena said, “but that’s no cause for him to abandon us. What are we supposed to do now?”
“We’ll just leave without him,” Simon suggested. “It’s possible he didn’t want to put us in danger unnecessarily. For the guards we’re small fry.
“But if that was the case, he would have told us.” Magdalena stared vacantly into the darkness. “To just up and disappear like that is not his way.”
“Be that as it may, we’ve still got to get out of here ourselves. It’ll be morning soon, and the guards will be making their rounds.” Simon began removing more stones from the entry. “Come on, help me!” When no answer came, he turned around angrily.
Magdalena just stood there, her arms folded and her lips clenched in defiance. “My father’s in trouble, and all you’re concerned with is saving your own hide!” she scolded. “You’re nothing but a coward!”
“But Magdalena, that’s not the least bit true!” Irritated, Simon put down a stone and straightened up. “Your father clearly didn’t want our help. Believe me-he’ll make out just fine by himself. And what we have to do now is get out of here as fast as we can. If you have something else in mind, please tell me.”
“I do in fact have something in mind,” she replied stubbornly. “We’ll hide out at Silvio’s place.”
Simon’s face fell. “At the house of the Venetian dwarf? Why there, for heaven’s sake?”
“He likes me, and he has influence. We can hide there until the coast is clear. We’ll be better off there than in some stinking barn or pigsty,” she added smugly, “and from there we can keep up our search for my father.”
“And who’s to guarantee your beloved Silvio won’t immediately turn us over to the city guards, huh?” Wiping the dust from his hands with his jacket, he narrowed his eyes. “Has the smart
“Silvio would never do that. He’s Venetian. City affairs don’t concern him. Anyway, he fancies me.”
“Aha, so that’s how the wind is blowing!” Simon was annoyed. “You’re flattered by the attention.”
“He’s a gentleman. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, if that’s how you feel, let your gentleman go out and buy you a new wardrobe.” Exasperated now, Simon struggled to control his voice. “Should the opportunity arise, you two might take a nice coach ride to the Piazza San Marco in Venice, or maybe even to Paris. Just don’t expect me to play the part of your footman!”
“Don’t get yourself all worked up, you old goat. Remind me, way back when, who was it who fell all over that Benedikta woman? You bowed and scraped so foolishly you were an embarrassment to behold!”
Simon rolled his eyes. “That was almost two years ago, and I don’t know how many times I’ve apologized for that-”
“Forget it,” Magdalena interrupted gruffly. “Your brilliant rescue plan is dead in the water, or shall we say dead in the beer tub? Your brewmaster is dead, so let’s give my Venetian a try. It’s as simple as that.”
“‘
Her palm met his face so hard the slap echoed through the domed vault.
“Do as you please, you wretch,” Magdalena shouted. “Go sleep in a pigsty or boil yourself in beer suds, for all I care. I, for my part, am going to Silvio’s. He at least has manners and can probably help my father somehow.” She cast him an angry glance. “More than you, at any rate.”
Without another word, she pushed her bundle through the hole in the wall, heaved herself through it, and, within moments, disappeared into the darkness.
The dark space behind the door smelled of mildew and damp wood. Under her breath Magdalena cursed herself for not bringing a torch, but she could hardly turn back now. How would that look to Simon? Just thinking of him made her blood boil. What a jealous, self-absorbed little toad! Why couldn’t he see that her plan was better, plain and simple? At Silvio’s house they’d be safe, at least for the time being, and they might even be able to keep an eye out for her father. Magdalena sensed he was in danger. Never in her life had she seen her father turn so pale and shaken as just a short while ago. He needed her help, even if he’d never admit it.
Sometimes Simon got so jealous he couldn’t see, let alone think straight. Doubtless once he cooled down, he’d see the error of his ways and catch up with her. Perhaps she ought to wait here in the dark for him and scare the dickens out of him when he came after her. The bastard deserved that, at least!
She was so lost in thought she didn’t notice the wooden wall until her head slammed into it. Her face contorted in pain, she placed her hand on her throbbing forehead. Blindly she reached out in front of her and discovered this wasn’t a wall at all, but a huge fermenting vat as tall as a man. To the right and left of it stood other enormous wooden containers. Desperately she tried to push the vat aside, and just seconds later her hands broke through the rotted barrel staves. Tumbling forward, she tried to catch herself on a rusty barrel ring but fell instead into a dusty storage cellar located behind it. Ahead she could make out a slim ray of moonlight through a crack in the wall. Junk of all sorts lay scattered across the hard-packed dirt floor-broken wagon wheels, millstones, old crates and barrels, which had probably been moldering away down here for years. Ages ago someone must have walled up the entrance to the bishop’s palace, and as the years progressed, the storage room behind it had been forgotten.
Magdalena looked around, blinking. By now her eyes had grown somewhat accustomed to the dark. Carefully, silently, she climbed over broken boards and bricks until she stood before a wooden shed. Some of the siding appeared to have been removed very recently, revealing a well-worn staircase that led up to a wide road.
Magdalena recognized three covered arches that spanned the street ahead: she’d surfaced in a part of town just north of the bishop’s palace. These “flying bridges” arched over the street and ended at the bishop’s warehouses along the river. Not a single guard was to be seen, even though Magdalena could only imagine how eagerly the city bailiffs were waiting and watching, ready to pounce the moment any one of their three faces peeked out of the bishop’s palace. Apparently, though, the guards had reckoned only with an escape through the main entrance or the cathedral.
Magdalena looked behind her into the darkness. Where was Simon? She was convinced he’d follow her, fuming and fussing, but at least halfway cooled down, having realized the sense of her plan. The medicus, who knew all about her occasional temper tantrums, was never angry with her for long, nor she with him. Should she turn back to look for him? Again she scanned the still-deserted lane. How long had her father been gone? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Perhaps he was hiding just a few yards away, in some yard. Magdalena could feel her breath quicken. The longer she waited here, the farther away her father would be.
Simon or her father?
She looked back again, but there was no sign of the medicus, and time was running out. She made up her mind at last: Simon knew where she planned to go, and he could just as well find her at the house of the Venetian ambassador. Her father, on the other hand, she now risked losing forever.
Cursing softly, Magdalena squeezed through the crack in the boards, tiptoed to the street, and disappeared into the night.
Without a single thought as to whether someone might hear him, the medicus hurled a sack of grain hard against the wall. The sack split open on impact and the grain burst out, falling to the ground like a sudden heavy rain shower.
Simon raged. What was that impertinent wench thinking, talking down to him like that? He knew his plan to flee the city with the help of the bishop’s brewmaster had failed. But was that his fault? Was he somehow responsible for the fact that Brother Hubertus had wound up bobbing up and down like an overgrown apple in a vat
