sniffed the cup and shrugged. “We expect the Reichstag to last a few weeks, and that should give us enough time. For you that means, unfortunately, the experiment may be a bit prolonged, but your hallucinations promise to be quite interesting in such an environment. May I?” Silvio set the cup down, pulled out a dagger, and with a flourish cut the ropes binding Magdalena’s feet. “Since you’ll be here a few weeks, you ought to be allowed to move about freely at least. You simply must have a look around your new home. It’s really… well, come see for yourself.”
Silvio climbed over the edge of the basin and waded toward the dark vault in the back.
Magdalena decided to keep quiet and followed the Venetian and his stocky companion into the vault in back. She ducked under the low archway, then took an involuntary step backward.
The room was gigantic.
Torches illuminated a narrow corridor at regular intervals until, past where the eye could see, the light was swallowed in darkness. The vault had to be over a half-mile long. Water shimmered across the floor, but she couldn’t tell how deep it might be. Even more water streamed into the basin from holes and pipes in the wall-some small, some large-and the sound of splashing filled the room, echoing from the walls and ceiling. To either side, more than two dozen flour sacks were lined neatly along narrow elevated ledges.
“Welcome to your new home,” Silvio shouted over the roar. “The entire world drinks from this spring!”
He ordered Jeremias to hand him the tin cup, then pointed at the sacks. “We’ll store the ergot here until the Reichstag begins, and then we’ll slowly start dissolving the thirty one-hundred-pound bags in the water. You needn’t be afraid that anyone will find you down here, since I’m the only one with a key. And now…” With a solemn gesture Silvio held the cup under a small stream. Carefully he swirled the water to dissolve the ergot, then put the cup to Magdalena’s lips. “It’s time for our experiment. One cup a day. Be good now, and drink up.”
With her hands still bound, Magdalena turned her head from side to side. Nevertheless, Jeremias held her in his viselike grip while Silvio maneuvered the cup.
“Oh, by the way…” Silvio was speaking almost directly into her ear now. “I do hope very much that your visions are not all gloomy and gruesome. I’ve heard ergot can stimulate physical desire. If that’s the case, do let me know. I’d be glad to share a few dreams with you.”
The cup had reached Magdalena’s lips.
Screaming, Friedrich Lettner writhed on the floor of the ruined church as hornets swarmed over his face and upper body. He thrashed about as if possessed, crushing dozens of the insects in his swollen hands, even as new ones kept coming.
Meanwhile Kuisl sought shelter behind the altar, out of sight of the angry hornets. Leaning against the huge stone slab, he peered out to observe an utterly bewildered Philipp Lettner. Only after a few moments did the raftmaster run toward Friedrich and attempt to swat the hornets away from his brother’s shirt collar. But in doing so he was stung several times himself.
“Damn you, Kuisl!” Philipp Lettner shouted, waving his katzbalger through the air as if warding off invisible ghosts. “Damn you and your whole clan! Damn you forever!”
Kuisl had no time to waste now. Sword raised, he ran toward his opponent, who was still preoccupied with the hornets circling around him while trying to help his brother. The raftmaster cast an irritated sidelong glance at Kuisl, then, with a growl, left Friedrich to his own devices as he prepared himself for battle. A cloud of hornets circled his head and clouded his vision.
“You damned son of a whore!” Lettner shouted, brushing away a few angry buzzing insects with his left hand. “For this, Jakob, I’ll slit your belly open and hang your entrails from the church steeple.”
“Spare the talk and fight, will you?”
Without another word, Kuisl lunged at his enemy. He felt the hornets sting his arms, face, and back, but the pain was eclipsed by his fever and the excitement of battle. The hangman was horrified to realize that the clanging swords aroused something like lust in him.
He could see Philipp Lettner clearly in front of him now, but the former mercenary’s movements seemed strangely slow. Kuisl lunged with his sword, flailing away at his opponent, who continued to retreat, for the first time with fear in his eyes. Finally Lettner’s back was to the wall, and the two warriors stood face-to-face, less than an inch apart, with crossed swords.
“The letter in the bishop’s palace,” Kuisl gasped. “What was that sentence supposed to mean? Did you really think I would believe such utter nonsense?”
Philipp Lettner’s eyes lit up as he flashed his wolfish grin again.
“It’s the truth, just as sure as I’m standing here before you!” With great effort the raftmaster forced Kuisl’s sword a hand’s width to the side. “I had to make only a few quick calculations. I learned from the Venetian how old your daughter is-twenty-four! Barely a year before that, late in the fall, we were here in Weidenfeld. Your Anna had screamed at the time, but believe me, Jakob, they were screams of desire.”
“You dirty lying bastard!” Anger blinded Kuisl like a corrosive poison. Over and over a line flashed through his mind, a line from the letter slipped into his pocket just the night before in the bishop’s palace… That one line hurt more than all the torture he’d experienced in the Regensburg dungeon.
“Bastard!”
Kuisl shoved Lettner so hard he cried out in surprise as he staggered back to the wall. This put the raftmaster just beyond Kuisl’s reach, so Lettner took a deep breath, planted his feet firmly, and braced himself for the next attack. Scornfully he spat on the ground and swung the katzbalger through the air while his brother still rolled around on the ground, howling.
“I may be a dirty bastard,” Philipp Lettner whispered, “but I’m not a liar. I took Anna-Maria like a steer takes a cow. And what do I learn all these years later? That shortly after our rendezvous pretty little Anna was pregnant. What a coincidence!” He licked his lips and giggled. “Take another look at your daughter, Jakob! How could she not be mine? Her soft eyes; her matted, always-snarled hair; her full lips. She doesn’t take after you at all, does she?”
“She takes after her mother,” Kuisl said between clenched teeth as doubts started to grow in his mind. Anna-Maria never told him the name of the village she came from, and that was likely why he’d forgotten the name Weidenfeld completely. He knew she’d experienced horrible things there, but just what and
Blood-red spots appeared before Kuisl’s eyes and his head began to spin.
“She’s my daughter,” the hangman replied flatly. “My daughter, my-”
“Maybe you’re right,” Lettner interrupted. “Perhaps she isn’t mine after all. Or maybe she is.” He chuckled. “You know something funny? A while ago, in the bathhouse, I very nearly burned her alive, along with that little quack. I was there just to cover my own tracks. When someone came in, I hid up in the attic but later ran down to smoke the intruders out of the cellar. By God, I didn’t know it was Magdalena at the time, but when the Venetian told me about it the next morning, I really did feel bad.” The raftmaster laughed loudly. “Whether you believe me or not, I like the girl; I feel close to her. I could have killed her a dozen times, but I didn’t. And do you know why? Because I know I’m her father.”
“Never!” the hangman yelled. “You-you damned liar!”
Philipp Lettner sighed theatrically. “Oh, Jakob, why must you be so pigheaded? Let’s agree that Magdalena
