The Hangman's Daughter Part 31

Simon hugged the little body and stroked it.

"All will be well. Now all we have to do is..."

He could hear a sc.r.a.ping sound behind him. Something was slowly pus.h.i.+ng through the opening into the chamber.

"Simon!" Sophie cried out. "Something is there! I can see it. Oh, G.o.d, I can see it!"

Simon turned around. At a spot not far from them, the blackness was darker than the rest. And this darkness was coming closer.

"Do you have any light down here?" screamed Simon. "A candle? Anything?"

"I have tinder and flint. It must be here somewhere...for heaven's sakes, Simon! What...what is it?"

"Sophie, where is the tinder? Answer me!"

Sophie started to scream. Simon slapped her face.

"Where is the tinder?" he cried once more into the blackness.

The slap helped. Sophie quieted down instantly. She felt around briefly, then handed him a fibrous piece of sponge and a cool piece of flint. Simon pulled the stiletto from his belt and struck the stone in wild blows against the cold steel. Sparks flew, the tinder started to glow, and a tiny flame flared up in his hand. But just as he was about to light the lantern with the glowing fibers, he felt a draft from behind. The shadow fell over them.

Before the lantern went out a second time, Simon saw a hand swoop down in the fading light. Then darkness overcame him.

In the meantime the hangman had gone through two more chambers without finding any trace of the children. The room he had reached with the ladder had been empty. Shards of an old pitcher and a few rotten barrel staves littered the floor. In the corner alcoves there were recessed stone seats. They were scrubbed smooth and looked as if hundreds of frightened people had squatted in them over the years. Two tunnels led from this chamber into the darkness as well.

Jakob Kuisl cursed. This dwarf's hole was indeed a d.a.m.n maze! It quite possibly extended underground all the way to the church walls. Perhaps the priest had been right after all with his ghost stories. What secret rites could have taken place down here? How many hordes of barbarians and soldiers had already pa.s.sed above, while deep down in the earth, men, women, and children listened fearfully to the conquerors' steps and voices? n.o.body would ever know.

Above the entrance to the tunnel at the left were a few marks that Jakob Kuisl could not figure out. Scratches, arching lines, and crosses that could be of human or natural origin. Here, too, the pa.s.sage was so narrow that one had to practically push one's self through. Could there be some truth to the stories that an old midwife had told him almost thirty years earlier? That the pa.s.sages were built so narrow on purpose so that a body would surrender all that was bad, all sickness, all bad thoughts to Mother Earth?

He forced himself through the narrow hole and found himself in the next chamber. It was the largest so far, a good four paces to the other end, and the hangman was able to stand up straight in it. From there, a narrow pa.s.sage went on in a straight line. There was another hole directly above Jakob Kuisl. Pale yellow roots, finger thick, were growing out of the narrow shaft, down to him, brus.h.i.+ng over his face. Far above, the hangman thought he could see a tiny ray of light. Was it the moon? Or was it only an optical illusion, his eyes longing for the light? He tried to figure out how far he had moved away from the well in the meantime. It was quite possible he was standing directly beneath the linden tree, in the middle of the clearing. Since olden times, the linden tree had been considered a holy tree. The mighty specimen at the building site was certainly a few hundred years old. Had at one time a shaft led down from the trunk of the linden tree to this resting place of souls?

Jakob Kuisl tested the roots by pulling on them; they seemed to be tough and capable of supporting some weight. He briefly thought of pulling himself up on them to check whether they actually belonged to the linden tree. But then he decided after all to take the horizontal tunnel. If he found nothing on the other side he would turn back. Mentally he had continued to count. Soon he reached five hundred, the number he and Simon had agreed on.

He bent down and crawled into the narrow tunnel. This was the narrowest pa.s.sage so far. Clay and stones sc.r.a.ped his shoulders. His mouth was dry, and he tasted dust and dirt. He had the impression that the tunnel was beginning to taper down like a funnel. A dead end? He was about to crawl back when he saw in the light of the lantern that the pa.s.sage widened again after a few more feet. With difficulty he pushed forward through the last part of the tunnel. Like a cork being pulled from its bottle he finally landed in yet another chamber.

The s.p.a.ce was so low that he had to stoop. It ended just two steps further on, at a moist clay wall. There was no other pa.s.sage. This was clearly the end of the maze. He would have to turn back.

As he turned again toward the narrow hole he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

On the left side of the chamber, something had been scratched into the clay at chest level. This time they weren't simple scratches or scribbles as before above the arch. This was an inscription, and it looked as if it had been made pretty recently.

F.S. hic erat XII. Octobris, MDCXLVI.

Jakob Kuisl caught his breath.

F.S....that had to be the abbreviation for Ferdinand Schreevogl! He had been here on the twelfth of October, 1646, and he had obviously wished for posterity to know about it.

The hangman quickly calculated back: 1646, that was the year the Swedes had occupied Schongau. The burghers had been able to prevent the burning of their town only by paying a high ransom. In spite of this, all the outer boroughs of Schongau, that is to say Altenstadt, Niederhofen, Soyen, and even Hohenfurch, fell prey to the flames in the following two years. Kuisl tried to remember. Schongau, as far as he knew, had been surrendered to the Swedes in November of 1646. That meant that if the old Schreevogl was down here already in October of the same year, it could only have been for one reason.

He had hidden his fortune here in the maze.

Jakob Kuisl's thoughts were racing. The old man had probably always known of the tunnels, an old family secret that he had finally taken to the grave. When the Swedes came, he buried the major portion of his money down here. Jakob Schreevogl had told Simon that hardly any money was mentioned in his father's will. Now the hangman knew why.

The old man had left the treasure down here all that time, probably expecting hard times to come! And when he had a falling-out with his son he had decided to bequeath the land together with the treasure to the churchbut without telling the church anything about it. There had been some hint, however. What was it that Schreevogl had once told the priest?

You would yet be able to do much good with that parcel of land...

Who knows-perhaps he wanted to tell the priest all about it and then died quite suddenly. Perhaps he wanted to take his secret to the grave. After all, Ferdinand Schreevogl had always been known to be an eccentric old bird. But someone must have known about the secret, and that someone had done everything to find it. The construction of a leper house had at first upset those plans. But then he had hired the soldiers to vandalize the building site so that he would have sufficient time to search without being observed.

Nor had that unknown person stopped at three murders. The murders of children...

Jakob Kuisl mulled it over. The children must have seen something, something that could have given the man away. Or did they actually know about the treasure, and had he tried to squeeze the secret out of them?

The hangman let the light from the lantern wander over the muddy ground. Rubble covered it, and a rusty shovel was leaning in a corner. Kuisl rummaged through the rubble with his hands. When he found nothing that way he took the shovel and started to dig. Briefly he thought he could hear a faint sound far away, like a voice calling softly. He stopped. When he heard nothing more, he dug deeper. The chamber was filled with the clanging of the shovel and his labored breathing. He dug and dug, and finally he hit hard rock. Nothing, no treasure. No shards, no empty box, nothing. Had the children been here earlier and taken the treasure?

Once more his gaze pa.s.sed over the inscription on the wall. F.S. hic erat XII. Octobris, MDCXLVI... F.S. hic erat XII. Octobris, MDCXLVI...

He stopped and moved closer to the wall. The area around the inscription looked lighter than the remainder of the wall. A rectangle, about three feet long, had been lightly covered with clay so as to obscure the difference with the rest of the wall.

The hangman seized the shovel and struck it with all of his strength against the inscription. The clay crumbled and behind it red bricks appeared. He struck one more time and the bricks split open. Behind them a hole appeared. It was only as large as a fist, but when the hangman struck three more blows, it widened and revealed an alcove behind it that had been walled up.

On the alcove's seat stood an earthenware jug whose opening had been sealed with wax. The hangman struck it with the shovel. The jug burst open and a stream of gold and silver coins spilled all over the alcove. The coins shone in the lantern's light as if they had been polished only yesterday.

Ferdinand Schreevogl's treasure...and Jakob Kuisl had found it.

As far as the hangman could see, these were silver pennies and golden guilders from the Rhineland, all in perfect condition and of impeccable weight. There were too many of them to count. Kuisl estimated that there were more than one hundred coins. With this kind of money one could build a new patrician home or buy a stable with the finest horses. Never before in his life had the hangman seen so much money at one time.

With trembling fingers he collected the coins and let them trickle into his bag. They jingled and the bag got markedly heavier. With the bag in his teeth, he finally struggled to push his way back into the adjoining chamber.

There he stood up, bathed in perspiration, knocked the clay dust from his garment, and started out for the first chamber. He grinned. Young Simon had probably long arrived there and was fearfully awaiting his return in the dark. Or he had already found the children. Didn't he hear someone calling softly a while ago? Either way, he would have a nice surprise to offer the young fellow...

The hangman smiled a grim smile and walked past the roots dangling from the hole above him.

He stopped short.

Why were they moving?

Quite some time had gone by since he had last gone through this chamber and brushed against the roots. Yet they were still swaying softly back and forth. There was no wind down here. This meant that either someone had walked across the clearing directly above him, causing the roots to sway or else...

Someone must have touched them from below.

Had someone else come this way? But who? And to go where? The chamber had only two exits. He had come out of one of them just before and the other was a dead end.

Not counting the shaft above him, of course.

The hangman carefully approached the lower end of the hole and looked up. The pale yellow roots brushed like fingers across his face.

At that instant something huge and black, like an enormous bat, came flying down on him from the shaft. Instinctively Kuisl threw himself to one side and landed painfully on his shoulder in the wet clay. He nevertheless succeeded in holding on to the burning lantern. Frantically he fumbled at his belt for the larchwood club. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure deftly rolling away on the floor and getting back on his legs. He was wearing a bloodred doublet, but his hat with the rooster's feathers had slipped off when he jumped. His right hand was holding a torch, and his bony hand was glimmering white in the light of the lantern. In his left hand he was clutching a saber.

The devil smiled.

"A good leap, hangman. But do you really believe you can escape me?"

He pointed at the club in Kuisl's hand. In the meantime the hangman had gotten on his feet and was balancing his ma.s.sive torso back and forth in expectation of the a.s.sault. The club in his right hand really looked like a toy.

"For you I don't need more than that," he said. "When I'm through with you, not even your mother will recognize you. If indeed you ever had one."

He continued smiling, but inside Jakob Kuisl was cursing. What an ox he had been! He had shown the soldier the way to the children! Hadn't it been obvious that the devil would follow him? Like perfect fools, they had fallen into his trap!

From the corner of his eye, he tried to make out the tunnel behind him. The devil was right. He wouldn't have a chance against a man with a saber, if only because of the greater reach. Besides, the man in front of him was an experienced fighter. From his movements alone and the manner in which he swung his saber in a circle, Jakob Kuisl could see that he was facing at least an equal adversary. The soldier's slight limp did not seem to affect him in any way. The disability probably only became a nuisance on longer marches. In any case the man in front of him was dangerous and itching for a fight.

Jakob Kuisl thought over all the possibilities left him. Retreat was out of the question. He could not flee through the narrow tunnel toward the well without being first cut to pieces by the devil. The only hope left was if Simon became aware of the fight soon enough and came to his aid. Until then he had to stall for time.

"Well, come on, or are you only brave against women and children?" Jakob Kuisl shouted, loud enough so that he could a.s.sume that Simon would hear him. Once more he glanced toward the way out.

The devil grimaced, feigning pity.

"Oh, you are hoping that help will come?" he asked. "Believe me, these pa.s.sages branch out in so many directions and are so deep that your shouting only reaches as far as the nearest wall. I know burrows like these. I smoked out a number of them during the war. When the peasants came staggering out of them half choked to death, I was able to kill them off without any trouble. And as far as the physician is concerned..."

He pointed at the waist-high, narrow exit.

"It would be nice if he came. As soon as he sticks out his head I'll chop it off like that of a chicken."

"Devil, I swear to you, I'll break every one of your bones if you so much as harm one hair on Simon's or my Magdalena's head," whispered the hangman.

"Oh, yes, of course you can do that. After all it's your profession, isn't it?" said the soldier. "But don't worry, I'm saving your daughter for later. Although...I don't know what my friends are doing with her at this very moment. It's been a long time since they had a woman, you know? That renders them a bit...disorderly."

Anger was building in Jakob Kuisl's head. Rage was rising, immense rage.

I must pull myself together. He wants me to lose control.

He took a few deep breaths. The rage ebbed back to his innermost being, but it was not completely extinguished. Carefully the hangman took a few steps back, trying to cover the exit with his body while he continued to speak. If Simon crept out of the tunnel, the devil would have to get past him first. And then? A skinny student and an old man with a club against a well-trained, armed soldier. He needed time to think.

"I...I know you," he said. "We have met once before, that time in Magdeburg."

Brief hesitation flared up in the devil's eyes. His face seemed to become distorted, just as earlier in Jakob Kuisl's garden.

"In Magdeburg? What was your business in Magdeburg?" he finally asked.

The hangman swung his club in a circle.

"I was a soldier...just like you," he said. His voice was getting hoa.r.s.e. "I'll never forget the day. It was on May 20, 1631, that we entered the city with Tilly. The old man had declared early that morning that everyone in Magdeburg was fair game..."

The devil nodded.

"That's right. So you were actually there too. Well, then, we indeed have something in common. How nice. Unfortunately I can't remember you at all."

Then recognition flashed across his face.

"You are...the man on the street! The house at the city wall...Now I remember!"

The hangman closed his eyes for the briefest instant. The memory was there again. That which had only been vague and fragmentary earlier in the garden in front of his home was taking on form now. The images rained down on him like hailstones in a summer thunderstorm.

Cannon fire...A breach in the wall. Screaming women and children running along the street. Some trip. The soldiers quickly grab them and cut everything to pieces with their sabers. Blood is running in streams down the street so that people shriek as they slip and fall. To the left is a patrician house from which crying and shrill screams are rising. The roof and the upper floor are already in flames. A man is standing in the open door, holding an infant head-down by its legs like a little lamb about to be slaughtered. The baby is screaming so loud that his cries rise above the cannon fire, the soldiers' laughter, the crackling of the fire. On the ground, a man lies in his blood. A woman crawls on her knees before the soldier and pulls on his doublet.

"Your money, where's your G.o.dd.a.m.n money, you heretic sow, speak up!"

The woman can only weep and shake her head. The baby screams and screams. And then the man lifts the writhing child higher and flings it against the doorjamb. Once, twice, three times. The screaming stops. A blow of the saber and the woman falls sideways. The soldier looks over to the other side of the street. Madness flickers in his eyes. A mocking light, his mouth twitching, convulsed. He raises his hand and waves. The hand is white, crooked bony fingers inviting others to share in the great blood frenzy. Then the man disappears inside the house.

From above, screams can be heard. You're running after him, jumping over man, woman, and infant, up the burning stairs, it's the room on the left. The soldier is standing before a young girl. She lies on a table among broken dishes and shattered wine carafes, her bloodied dress pulled up to her knees. The soldier smiles at you and makes an inviting gesture. The girl stares up with horror-widened eyes. You reach for your saber and you lunge at the man. But he ducks and runs out on the balcony. As you rush toward him he jumps down the ten feet to the street. He lands the wrong way and rolls over. Then he limps into a side street. Before disappearing he points at you with his bony hand as if he wants to nail you down with his fingers.

A hissing sound.

Jakob Kuisl's remembrances were interrupted suddenly; the devil swung his saber straight down toward the top of his head. At the last moment the hangman was able to jump to one side, but the blow grazed his left shoulder. He felt a dull pain. Jakob Kuisl staggered back against the wall. The devil's face, distorted by hate, glowed in the torch's light. The long scar going from his ear to the corner of his mouth twitched nervously.

"That was you, hangman! You are the one who gave me that crooked leg. It's because of you that I'm limping! I swear to you, your death will be painful. At least as painful as your daughter's!"

The soldier had gone back to where he was at the beginning, standing in the center of the chamber and waiting for his adversary's next opening. Cursing, Jakob Kuisl rubbed the wound on his shoulder. His hand was smeared with blood. He quickly wiped it on his coat and concentrated once more on the soldier. In the light of the lantern he was hard to see. Only his foe's torch gave Kuisl an indication as to where he should strike. He feigned an attack to the right, then whirled to the left, throwing himself against the devil. The soldier took a sudden step to one side and let the hangman stumble past him, over to the wall. At the last moment Kuisl lifted his club. The hard larchwood did not hit his opponent at the back of the head as planned, but at least on the shoulder blade. Crying out in pain, the devil jumped back until he, too, was leaning against the wall. Panting, they were now facing each other, leaning against the wall, looking at each other with icy stares.

"You're not bad, hangman," said the devil between two breaths. "But I knew as much. Even back in Magdeburg I saw an equal opponent in you. Your agony will amuse me. I have heard that in the West Indies the savages eat the brains of their strongest enemies in order to acquire their strength. I think I'll do that with you."

Without any forewarning he jumped directly toward Jakob Kuisl. The saber whirled through the air, aimed directly at his throat. Instinctively the hangman lifted his club, deflecting the blade to one side. The larchwood split, but it did not break.

Jakob Kuisl rammed his elbow into the devil's stomach, causing him to gasp with sudden alarm, then he ran over to the opposite wall. They had changed sides. Shadows were dancing across the walls, lantern and torch bathed the chamber in a reddish, flickering glow.

The soldier moved about, groaning in an almost lascivious way and holding his sword hand across his belly. Nevertheless he never for a second let the hangman out of his sight. Kuisl used the pause to look after his wound. There was a large gash in his doublet near his shoulder and blood was spurting out. Nevertheless the wound did not appear to be deep. Kuisl made a fist and moved his shoulder until he felt a stabbing pain. Pain was good; it meant that his arm was still working.

Only now did Jakob Kuisl have time to get a closer look at the bony hand of his opponent that had once caught his attention in Magdeburg. It actually seemed to consist of individual finger bones connected to one another with copper wire. On the inside was a metal ring. The devil had stuck the burning torch into this ring, where it was now swinging slowly from side to side. The hangman figured that other objects could also be attached to that ring. From the war he was familiar with different prostheses, most of them carved rather roughly out of wood. He had never seen a mechanical bone hand like this one.

The devil appeared to have noticed Kuisl's stare.

"You like my little hand, eh?" he asked swinging the hand and torch back and forth. "I like it too. These are my own bones, you know? A musket ball shattered my left arm. When the wound became gangrenous they had to cut off my hand. I had them make me this pretty souvenir from the bones. As you can see, it perfectly serves its purpose."

He held the hand up so that the light of the torch illuminated his pale face. The hangman remembered how the soldier had hidden earlier in the ceiling of the shaft. Only now did he realize that the man must have pulled himself up with nothing but his one healthy hand! What power lay in that body? Kuisl felt that he did not have the slightest chance. But d.a.m.n it, where was Simon?

To gain time he continued his questioning.

"So you were told to mess up the building site, weren't you? But the children saw you doing it, and that's why they had to die."

The devil shook his head.

"Not quite, hangman. The children had bad luck. They had been hiding down here when we received our instructions and the first portion of our money. Moneybags was afraid they might have recognized him. He gave us the order to make sure they would never talk."

The hangman winced.

So the children had known the devil's employer, the patron! They knew who was behind all of it!