Oliver Potzsch: The Beggar King

“So it’s true,” Simon whispered.

But the treasurer seemed not to have heard him. “I just didn’t know what role you were playing in all this,” Mamminger continued. Removing his official red hat, he passed a hand over his sweaty forehead. “So I had Nathan keep an eye on you. When it became clear you had nothing to do with the powder, it was unfortunately too late. You had sought amnesty in the bishop’s palace, and as long as you were there, there was nothing I could do to help you.”

“You knew about the powder?” asked Magdalena, her clothes and hair dripping in the bright light. She eyed the treasurer suspiciously. “Then why didn’t you just put a stop to Silvio Contarini and his game?”

Paulus Mamminger shook his head slowly, deep in thought. “We only suspected the freemen were planning something for the coming Reichstag, but we had no real evidence. When we heard that Hofmann was experimenting somehow with alchemy, I asked Heinrich von Butten to find out more.”

“The kaiser’s agent,” Simon added softly. “We thought for a long time he was trying to kill us.”

Mamminger shook his head. “His job was only to learn more about you two. Later, he wanted to warn you about Contarini, but the Venetian somehow always managed to distract you.” Mamminger removed his sweaty pince-nez to clean them. “Heinrich von Butten was the kaiser’s best agent,” he continued. “A brilliant swordsman-inconspicuous, intelligent, and incorruptible. Leopold I wanted him to serve as a spy at the Regensburg Reichstag. His Excellency won’t be happy to hear he’s dead.” Mamminger sighed. “Von Butten had long suspected that Contarini was working for the Grand Vizier. When he saw the Venetian in the company of a beautiful woman, a stranger, we started to snoop around. And lo and behold…!” He smiled at Magdalena. “It just so happened that beautiful stranger was the niece of the bathhouse owner under suspicion of plotting against the kaiser. Naturally, this gave us more than a moment’s pause, especially when it turned out her father was said to have killed the very same bathhouse owner.”

“Did you really think my father killed his sister and brother-in-law?” asked Magdalena, tying her wet hair into a bun. “Even a blind man could have figured out he walked right into a trap!”

The treasurer frowned. “Don’t judge too quickly, young lady. Your father was the brother-in-law of a leading freeman-an insurgent. For that reason alone he came under suspicion. We had to subject him to some pretty severe interrogation just to find out whether he knew anything about this powder.” He shrugged. “Your father is a tough nut to crack. We aldermen therefore reached the decision, after long discussions in my house, to suspend the torture for the time being. The following night I left a note in the cathedral for Heinrich von Butten, telling him to see whether he could find some connection between Contarini and the freemen-and exonerate your father.” Mamminger put his pince-nez back in place. “Unfortunately Kuisl fled the very same night, thus renewing suspicions. It’s too bad; we very much wanted him to identify the true leader of the free-men for us.”

“I think we can help you in that regard,” Simon said. “It’s the raftmaster, Karl Gessner. He also set the trap for Jakob Kuisl.”

The treasurer’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Gessner? But why…?”

“Revenge,” Magdalena chimed in. “Gessner and my father knew each other from the war. But that the raftmaster was the leader of the freemen you could have also learned from this gentleman.”

She pointed at Nathan, who only smiled back innocently and continued counting coins into a pouch. Mamminger raised his eyebrows and scowled at the beggar king, who had turned to pick his nose.

“I really don’t know what the two of you are talking about,” Nathan replied. “I would never-”

“What’s going to happen with Contarini now?” Simon asked. “Has he escaped?”

The treasurer squinted, irritated, and turned back to the medicus. “To date no one has ever explored all the caves the water carved through the rock down there,” he explained earnestly. “It’s a wet, dark labyrinth, and no one can really say how far down it goes. Maybe the Venetian will find the entrance to hell down there, but he might also get lost or eventually return to the well chamber. Just in case, we sealed the exit. No one can get out. And now-”

Just then they heard the sound of someone approaching through the field. A watchman, drenched with sweat, came running up to Mamminger. He whispered something in Mamminger’s ear, and the treasurer frowned, placing his official red hat back on his head, hurrying down the path, and beckoning to the others to follow.

“We hope your father will soon be able to answer all the outstanding questions in person,” he said as he hastened toward the city with the watchmen and the beggars. “They caught him down at the raft landing, and if we don’t hurry, there won’t be much of him left.”

Jakob Kuisl barely felt the cabbage stalks, stones, and rotten fish that hailed down on his body and face. The shouts of the crowd, too, echoed strangely, as if they came from the end of a long tunnel. Straining to turn his head, he saw Philipp Teuber next to him, his consciousness quickly fading again and, like himself, with a noose around his neck. The Regensburgers had finished erecting a gallows on the harbor crane high above the raft landing now, and both hangmen stood on crates piled high to form a makeshift scaffold. Leering and smirking at the hangmen, a few carpenters waited beside a crank that would eventually hoist the ropes and, with them, the men high in the air. Kuisl let his gaze wander along the rotten wooden structure that rose at least twenty feet above them.

Must at least be a great view of Regensburg from up there, he thought.

Kuisl’s fever had returned now in full force, and despite the midsummer temperatures, Kuisl was freezing. Even if he weren’t in pain and dizzy, though, there was no possibility of escape now. He was shackled, and when he looked out over the crowd, he saw several hundred pairs of angry eyes, all eager for a summary execution. A few guards were scattered among them, but they’d abandoned their official duty now to join the onlookers. After a brief and futile resistance, most bailiffs had withdrawn and given the two prisoners over to the screaming mob. Kuisl counted himself lucky that the Regensburgers hadn’t stoned him to death yet.

Another clod of dirt hit Kuisl on the head so hard his gaze went black. Still, he was able to remain upright. Next to him, however, Philipp Teuber was close to losing consciousness again, and, because he was no longer able to support himself, his body weight tightened the noose around his neck like a garrote cutting off his air supply. Teuber’s eyes were closed, his face chalky except where blood vessels had burst, and his mouth open like a carp gasping for air.

“Monster! Monster!”

All around him Kuisl heard the roar of the crowd as if through a wall, a seething mass of high-pitched screams and shrill laughter rising and falling. Blood dripping from his forehead, he blinked, blinded by the sun; still, he had the impression he could clearly see each individual in the crowd below-bull-necked raftsmen and carpenters, snotty-nosed children and journeymen bare to the waist, but also fishwives. Even a few fine ladies looked on from the rear with their finely powdered male companions, whispering and pointing at the two figures on the makeshift gallows. For all these people the two hangmen were a marvelous spectacle, an experience they could share with their children and grandchildren. Unleashed, the people’s anger demanded a blood sacrifice.