concern from the start. He is so full of hate; I knew one day it would be his undoing. I never should have involved the hangman in this matter,” he said, angrily kicking a bag of grain. “A single, swift blow in some dark alley would have been the end of the bathhouse owner! But
The ambassador stood up and began to pace silently among the sacks of grain. Then, in a flash, he turned to gaze thoughtfully at Magdalena. His voice, muted now, was laced with fear.
“By all the saints in heaven, Karl Gessner is a real devil. Sometimes I wish your father had sent that man straight back to the hell he arose from all those years ago.”
From up in the Weidenfeld church belfry, raftmaster Karl Gessner looked down scornfully on the two hangmen below. His jet-black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he wore the colorful, loose-fitting costume of a foot soldier and an old, threadbare coat over that. Behind one shoulder rose the glittering pommel of a shortsword strapped to his back by its scabbard. Only his red bandanna signaled this was the same man responsible for the daily shipments of goods moving through the Regensburg raft landing. The Gessner so well liked by about everyone had changed almost overnight into a deadly warrior eerily risen from the past.
After Gessner’s shrill laughter had died away, he wiped his eyes as one might after a particularly funny joke.
“Jakob, Jakob,” he said, as if addressing an old friend. “Who would ever have thought we’d meet again in this miserable little town? It’s a pity you didn’t come alone. I’m afraid our history will only bore the Regensburg executioner.”
He gestured at Teuber, who stood beside Kuisl with his rapier drawn, looking upward with fury. “Seems age has made a coward of you,” he continued. “Oh, well, we all get older, and weaker.”
“You can be sure this concerns only the two of us,” Kuisl said. “I packed you off to hell once before, and I’ll do it again.”
Gessner closed his eyes as if lost in a dream. “Do you know what I’ve enjoyed most? Watching you writhe on the rack like a blathering cripple, your despair at not knowing who brought this misery upon you. I’m almost offended you didn’t recognize my voice, seeing how we’ve been through so much together.” He clicked his tongue. “It’s a shame you’re always running from me, first in the torture chamber, then in the bordello. We should have split the girl between us. Just as in the old days.”
“
Gessner nodded, dangling his legs from the window ledge. “Wasn’t all that easy. Those fat patricians will defend their privileges tooth and nail, but they did relent at last. I do have some influence with those simple people, after all.”
“I might have figured as much when Simon told me about the freemen-and that you, of all people, are their leader,” Kuisl replied. “Stirring people up has always been your forte. And then this story about the philosopher’s stone. Only you would come up with such nonsense!”
Gessner shrugged. “I had to do something to distract that conniving little medicus, or he would have figured out what our special powder really was. He fell for my little ruse, and now he’ll come running to me with everything he learns.” He smiled. “The little quack isn’t quite as clever as he’d like to think.”
“What do you have to do with this powder?” Kuisl asked.
“Nothing that concerns the two of us, Jakob.”
All of a sudden Gessner leaped from the window opening, landing on a burial mound thickly overgrown with ivy. His sinewy body tensed up like a cat as he bent his knees to absorb the impact. With powerful strides he approached the two hangmen, who watched him warily.
“But since you asked, I just happen to have an answer,” he continued. “The powder is poison. Poison enough for an entire city.”
Kuisl kept his eye on the pommel of the sword that jostled at Gessner’s shoulder with every movement. It was a last-resort kind of weapon, a
Gessner reached over his shoulder, unsheathed the katzbalger, and regarded his reflection in the polished iron blade.
“An influential man was in need of my help,” he said softly. “I met him in the course of smuggling goods down the Danube. He was very pleased to learn that I, as a leader of the freemen, command a small secret army.” Gessner smiled, running his thumb along the katzbalger’s blade. “For years I’ve been trying to figure out how to break the backs of those fat patricians and smug noblemen. Now, the struggle that began with the great Peasants’ Wars over a hundred years ago will finally come to a close. A new age is dawning! Once this is over, I’ll be richer and more powerful than the entire Regensburg city council.”
Gessner swung his katzbalger through the air. Though he was approaching fifty, he was as agile as a man thirty years his junior. His eyes flashed blue, and his teeth were a dazzling white.
“Philipp Lettner!” the hangman whispered. “Years ago I strung you up from an old gnarled oak right here in Weidenfeld. You can’t be alive. Who-what are you? A ghost?”
The man who was once Philipp Lettner grinned. “You’re right, Jakob. Lettner is dead. But on that very day twenty-five years ago Karl Gessner was born. Karl, just like my little brother whom you strung up beside me. Gessner, a fat, rich riverman whose raft I stole a few days later after I’d slit his throat. I took his raft and his wares and came to Regensburg.”
He ripped the bandanna from his neck, where a red scar seemed to have eaten a ring into the skin all around his neck.
“Take a close look! This here is the beginning of my new life,” Gessner yelled. “I should actually thank you for all that happened back then. Karl Gessner is much richer, much more powerful and evil, than Philipp Lettner ever could have been. From a mangy mercenary to a respected raftmaster! I’ve come a long way, Jakob.”
As the raftmaster drew menacingly closer, Kuisl’s world became a blur and he cursed softly, realizing he was starting to sway. The fever had returned, not strong, but enough to bring cold sweat to his forehead in spite of the stifling heat.
“You botched the job back then, hangman,” Lettner whispered. “You should have waited just a bit longer until our bodies had quit twitching in the branches. But you were in such a hurry to make off with your sweetheart. It was too late for Karl, but not for me. I was still breathing; I was still salvageable.”
Gradually Kuisl felt a chill settling in.
The warped old houses seemed to straighten up again before his eyes. In the center, around a well, was the hard-packed dirt of the village square. The rooftops on fire, the crackling of the flames, the cries of the women and children.
And in the middle of it all, Lettner, his second in command. The bloodsucker. The bane of his existence.
Everything around him began to spin. Kuisl closed his eyes as the images came pelting down around him like a heavy rain.
The screams…
