heading for Regensburg, his face deeply pitted and scarred.
It took Kuisl a while to realize that one of the scars was in fact his grinning mouth.
Simon struggled to breathe. The dirty rag Silvio Contarini had stuffed in his mouth stank of mold and mouse droppings, and his nose was congested with flour, causing him to sneeze over and over. Only with great effort was he able to turn his head enough to see what was happening around him.
Beside him lay Magdalena, also bound and gagged. A ways off, through clouds of chaff and flour, he saw the Venetian’s five helpers loading sacks onto a wagon parked in front of the mill. They’d spent the past few hours grinding the rest of the ergot to destroy all the evidence. Now, in the early afternoon, it was an oven inside the mill and the men’s shirts were soaked through with sweat. Clean and sharp in his red doublet, jacket, and hat, only Silvio seemed not to be sweating. He sat on a millstone biting his lip, looking increasingly nervous.
“I’m starting to think you’re right, Fronwieser,” Silvio said as he chewed thoughtfully on a piece of straw. “Even a clever little quack such as yourself couldn’t possibly have divined my plans, certainly not in so much detail. Gessner
All of a sudden the damp flour blocked Simon’s nostrils. Struggling for air, he drew frantic shallow breaths. He twitched and floundered until a sack of flour fell to the ground beside him. Surprised by the noise, Silvio glanced over at him but didn’t seem in any hurry to remove the gag. Instead, he sat still, observing Simon’s struggle with interest.
“How long can a man get by without air? What do you think, hmm? I should just let you suffocate here like a fish on dry land. Ever since you and
Simon couldn’t get any air at all now-the flour had completely plugged his nose. His eyes bulging, he started to turn blue while the Venetian stared off into the distance, seeming to have forgotten all about his prisoner for the moment.
“Gessner’s greatest achievement was talking that bathhouse owner, Hofmann, into joining in our cause,” he muttered. “A brilliant alchemist! He’d been studying poisonous plants for years, and without him we never could have produced such pure ergot!” The ambassador was almost gushing now. “Somehow that modest little bathhouse owner managed to get the fungus to coat almost the entire head of each plant. It was fantastic! But Hofmann’s conscience suddenly got the better of him, and he was about to spill the whole story to the city council.” Silvio took the straw from his mouth and ripped it into pieces. “We should have just slaughtered him like a dog in an alley! Quick and painless. A robbery that turned into a murder-no one would ever have suspected anything! But no, it had to be something elaborate…”
The medicus felt himself slowly losing consciousness as iridescent vapors swirled through his head. He could comprehend only fragments of the Venetian’s speech now.
“Gessner only learned by chance that Hofmann’s wife was the sister of his archenemy,” Silvio continued. “After that it was like he became a different person. He insisted that we write a letter to lure Kuisl to Regensburg, that we forge a will and pin the murder on him. God knows what the Schongau hangman did to Gessner during the war, but it was certainly enough to have turned him into a raging angel of vengeance all these years later. He talked me into it, spoke of his ingenious plan, but then the two of you showed up and-oh, is something wrong?”
“Mmmmmmmhhhhhh…”
As his consciousness faded, Simon tipped over onto a pile of flour alongside him, enveloping himself and Magdalena in plumes of dust that rose toward the ceiling. Silvio, irritated at first, stood up, sighing, and walked over to his captives.
“What do you think?” he said, turning to the hangman’s daughter, who stared up at him, her eyes wide with fear. “Shall we rid the world of this green-eyed little smart aleck? Or shall we allow him to pester us a bit longer?”
Magdalena writhed wildly. Gagged as she was, she seemed to be cursing fiercely.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Silvio said, gingerly removing the cloth from Simon’s mouth. Immediately the medicus gasped like a man saved from drowning, inhaling huge quantities of air. As the color slowly returned to his face, he lay on the floor, wheezing and unable to speak a word.
“Don’t think for a minute that you’ve thwarted my plans, Fronwieser!” the Venetian snarled. “A man like Silvio Contarini always has another card up his sleeve. Now I’ll just have to go back to my original plan. I didn’t care for it so much at first because it seemed it would call for many more lives to be lost, but now, unfortunately, I see no other choice.” He pointed to the five raftsmen, who had now loaded almost all the sacks onto the wagon. “At least Gessner left his men for me. We’ll take the ergot to a safe place until we can find a way to use it. And we’ll take
He clapped his hands and turned to his helpers. “Hurry, before the guards show up! Aren’t you finished yet?”
The men nodded respectfully. Evidently the ignorant raftsmen were still convinced by Silvio’s plan. Simon assumed the Venetian had promised each a seat on the city council and at least his weight in gold.
“Now let’s bring this show to a close,
Gesturing dramatically, Silvio approached a large wooden box attached to the wall at eye level and filled with flour. He slid open the bottom panel, emptying flour onto the floor and sending up an enormous cloud of dust that soon engulfed the entire mill. Simon could see only the Venetian’s shadowy outline next to the box, like a ghost enshrouded in fog. Two raftsmen grabbed Magdalena’s flailing form and carried her outside.
“Flour is wonderful stuff,” Silvio gushed. “You can bake bread with it, poison people, and even turn it into a bomb. The tiniest spark will cause this dust to explode. What you see here should be enough to blow up half the island. But, little bookworm that you are, you surely already knew that, didn’t you?”
Through the cloud of dust Simon watched the Venetian fetch a small trunk from behind a millstone. After opening it, he pulled out what at first glance looked like a long rope, but only after Silvio unrolled it did Simon realize what it really was.
A fuse.
“I found this thing right here, a while back,” Silvio said as he slowly laid the cord out along the floor and backed toward the door. “Along with a whole trunk of gunpowder and a dozen muskets. I assume soldiers must have left them here during the Great War. How nice that I’ve finally found a good use for them.”
From the doorway the Venetian looked back at his prisoner a last time.
Simon, meanwhile, had regained his speech. “Where-where are you taking Magdalena?” he gasped. “Where are you… taking all those sacks?”
Silvio smiled. “Well, man lives not by bread alone, isn’t that so? But I’m afraid you have other more pressing concerns at the moment.”
He fetched a box of matches from his pocket and shook it gently.
“At least you won’t suffer,” he said. “I can promise you that. The instant the spark touches this dust, the whole place will go up with a bang. And with all the gunpowder, it should put on a fireworks show for all of Regensburg.” He bowed slightly. “Enjoy your flight.”
Stepping outside, he gave the raftsmen the order to depart. The wagon groaned under its weight as it began to move forward. And as the sound of the wagon faded away, a softer sound reached Simon’s ears.
The hiss of the burning fuse.
14
REGENSBURG
NOON, AUGUST 26, 1662 AD
