With a shout, Philipp Lettner lunged, his katzbalger cutting through the air toward Kuisl’s head. The hangman ducked this blow only to be faced with yet another.
“For Karl!”
Again Kuisl stepped aside just in time, but his movements were slower now and he was tiring. The fever came and went in waves-the ground beneath his feet as soft as butter-and he sensed he might not be able to fend off the next blow. Then his legs gave out beneath him, and he fell to his knees. Raising his head with great effort, he found Lettner standing over him, gloating, his sword held high in both hands. Lettner drew his hands back and to the right to get a good angle on Jakob’s neck. Spellbound, the hangman stared back at his enemy; Lettner was about to do to Kuisl what Kuisl had been perfecting his whole life.
A clean decapitation.
“You don’t really deserve such a merciful death, Kuisl,” Philipp Lettner growled. “I’m doing this only for old times’ sake. Well, that and-” He bared his fanglike teeth. “How many people can say they’ve beheaded an honest- to-God executioner? I’m sure the devil himself would have a laugh at this. So off to hell with you!”
Kuisl lowered his head, closed his eyes, and waited for the blow that would end it all.
It didn’t come.
Instead, an almost ethereal silence prevailed, one interrupted only by a loud metallic whir. When Kuisl looked up, he was astonished to find Philipp Lettner standing before him, wide-eyed and dazed. The katzbalger lay on the church floor. Lettner clutched desperately at a charred, splintered beam that protruded from his stomach, staring down in disbelief, as if he just couldn’t comprehend he might really be dying-as if, up until this moment, he’d never imagined his own death could be part of some divine plan.
He slowly toppled over and didn’t stir again. Once the light left his eyes, they stared blankly at the collapsed roof of the church, where two swallows chirped furiously at each other, then flew off.
Behind Lettner stood Philipp Teuber. Although the Regensburg executioner swayed, he was still standing. He wiped his hands on his bloodstained jacket with care, hands that had wielded the charred wooden cross only moments ago.
“Let’s hope that old thing was consecrated,” he said, tapping his foot against the raftmaster, who lay impaled on the floor in front of him. Teuber had gored Lettner using the tip of the crucifix like a spear. “Perhaps that will drive the evil out of him,” he said.
“For a bastard like that, you’d have to douse him in holy water, then dunk him in the baptismal font-and even that might not do any good,” Kuisl answered hoarsely.
Still swaying, the Regensburg executioner smiled. With a stony gaze he regarded the bolt in his chest.
“I… don’t… feel… very well,” he spluttered. “The bolt…”
Kuisl pointed at Friedrich Lettner’s corpse where a few hornets still circled about. “At least there won’t be another bolt,” he said. “Every villain has his weakness, and for this one it wasn’t the big arrow but countless little stings. I hope the poison doesn’t-”
He broke off as Teuber crashed to the ground like a tower collapsing. He didn’t move again.
“My God, Teuber!” Kuisl shouted as he ran over to kneel down alongside his friend. Kuisl tried to concentrate despite his fever. “Don’t do this to me! Not now, not after it’s all over! What will I tell your wife?” He shook the executioner, but there was no response. “She’s going to kill me if I carry you back home like this!”
Teuber opened his eyes once more, and a faint smile crossed his lips. “Not like you… deserve… anything better… you old dog…” he managed. Then his head sank, and his breath became a shallow rattle.
“Hey! Wake up, you slacker! Don’t go to sleep now, damn you!”
Kuisl leaped up and grabbed Teuber’s shirt. At once blood flowed in dark rivulets over his hands. The bolt was as firmly embedded in Teuber’s chest as a carpenter’s nail. For a moment Kuisl was almost paralyzed; then it seemed he’d decided what to do.
“Hold off a bit on the dying. I’m coming right back!”
Without another thought about his own wounds or the hornet stings, the hangman ran into the blazing midday heat. A gentle wind moaned through a window opening and echoed through the forest like the cry of a little child. But Kuisl paid no heed to anyone or anything. Frantically he searched the bushes, birches, and willows surrounding the ruined village.
Teuber’s blood wasn’t foamy and bright, so the lungs had likely been spared. If Kuisl could find the right herbs, there might still be hope. The most important thing was to stanch the bleeding and prevent infection.
It took the hangman a while to find what he needed in the shadow of an oak, an unremarkable little plant, which he carefully plucked. Shepherd’s purse was held to be a true miracle worker, integral to every executioner’s pharmacy as far back as anyone knew. With little purse-shaped pods, the plant relieved fever and gout, helped induce labor, and was especially useful in treating open bleeding wounds. When Kuisl had collected enough, he began to tear moss and bark from surrounding trees. He shoved them all, along with a handful of other plants, into his open shirt and ran back to the church where Teuber still lay motionless. When he bent down, Kuisl was relieved to find Teuber still breathing.
“I’m going to pull the bolt out now,” he whispered into Teuber’s ear. “So clench your teeth and try not to yelp like a washerwoman. Are you ready?”
Teuber nodded almost imperceptibly. “Just my luck that I wind up in the hands of a quack like you…”
Kuisl grinned. “This is my revenge for your rancid ointment.” Then his face turned serious again. “I can’t stop the bleeding completely. For the rest we’ll have to go back to Regensburg.”
“But… they’ll lock you up again… the torture chamber…” Teuber stammered, apparently suffering fever dreams already.
“Don’t worry about me. The most important thing now is that you get better.”
As Kuisl tore out the bolt and pressed moss and yarrow to the open wound, his lips formed a silent prayer.
“There are four of them,” Simon whispered, pointing to the raftsmen crouched lazily among waist-high stalks of rye, listlessly carving willow branches. “Do you think we can take them on?”
Nathan cast a disparaging glance at the thickset, already intoxicated men. “Those fellows? As you know, we fight dirty and mean. They’ll think the sky is falling down around them.”
“Very well.” Simon nodded. “Magdalena is probably down below with Silvio and the fifth raftsman. When I give the command, I suggest you attack the men up here while Hans, Brother Paulus, and I storm the well chamber and take care of the rest. Is that all right?”
Nathan grinned, showing off his crooked gold tooth. “A brilliant plan-one I might have thought up myself. No tricks, no finesse, just bust right in shouting and start thrashing away.”
“You idiot!” Simon snapped. “Then tell me what you can come up with offhand.”
“Calm down. Everything will work out.” The beggar king tapped the medicus reassuringly on the shoulder, then whispered to his men to spread out over the area.
In the course of their long march down the broad highway and then along the small path across the field, the beggars had armed themselves with sticks and branches. To their arsenal they now added pebbles and heavy rocks from the surrounding fields. Then, concealed behind stalks of wheat, broom, and poppies, they approached the raftsmen who were passing the time drinking, chatting, and whittling.
Upon a signal from Nathan, Lame Hannes reached under his tattered shirt for a leather strap with a broad, spoonlike depression in its middle. He laid a flat stone in it, swung the strap in circles overhead, and finally sent the stone soaring toward the raftsmen.
The stone flew through the air like an arrow, striking the forehead of one of the men, who collapsed without a sound. Moments later more stones rained down on the raftsmen. The beggars shouted and ran out from hiding, slashing away at their astonished opponents as Lame Hannes fired more stones with his leather slingshot.
“Now!” Simon ran toward the stairs, followed closely by Hans and Brother Paulus. The medicus stumbled down the steps, coming at last to a heavy arched iron door. Struggling for air, he threw himself against it, only to realize it was already ajar. As the door swung open, he tumbled into a dark torch-lit room that ended in a large basin filled with rushing water. Behind it he saw dim light emerge from a small archway and heard panting and the muffled, high-pitched cries of a woman who sounded as if she’d already gone mad.
It was Magdalena’s voice.
