Oliver Potzsch: The Beggar King

Long after the little group cast off from the Regensburg raft landing, Nathan and his men stood on the pier waving farewell. Cold November rain lashed the faces of the passengers, and the horses made slow progress along the muddy towpath as they pulled the raft against the current. And in the days that followed, the weather didn’t improve. Wrapped tightly in their cloaks, hoods pulled far down over their faces, Simon and Magdalena stood in the bow, staring into a fog that hung low over the forests and fallow fields. Smoke rose from fires in the fields and wafted westward, homeward. Magdalena had written her mother a letter weeks back announcing they’d be returning, and now homesickness was consuming her with a yearning stronger than anything she’d ever felt.

After two endless weeks of travel, they came to the broad Lech River, and here at last, through the fog, the familiar church towers and gabled roofs appeared atop a hill.

“Schongau,” Magdalena said in a muted voice. “I thought we’d never get back.”

“Are you sure you really want to go back?” asked Simon, pulling her close.

As the cold rain whipped her face, Magdalena grew silent. Finally, through clenched teeth, she whispered an answer. “Do we have a choice?”

As soon as they left the Schongau raft landing and started up toward the Tanners’ Quarter, they noticed something was wrong. It was almost noon, but there was no one in the streets. Many doors had been bolted shut and the windows nailed closed with thick boards. A few stray dogs and cats scurried through the muddy streets, but it was otherwise as quiet as a cemetery.

“Somehow I pictured our homecoming differently,” the hangman said. “Where is everyone? At mass? Or have the Swedes attacked again?”

Simon shook his head. “It looks to me like people are afraid of something.” Little bouquets of St. John’s Wort hung from doors, and some windows were marked with pentagrams and crosses drawn in chalk. “For heaven’s sake,” he muttered. “What happened here?”

Walking faster, they finally arrived at the hangman’s house at the far end of the Tanners’ Quarter. Unlike the other buildings, the door here stood open, and as they arrived, a figure that Magdalena didn’t recognize at first emerged from the house into the gloomy daylight.

My God, Mother…

With a pail of garbage in her hand, Anna-Maria Kuisl shuffled into the yard. Stooped, she looked smaller and more fragile than Magdalena remembered. The hangman’s daughter also thought she noticed a few new white strands in her mother’s black hair.

She’s gotten old, Magdalena thought, old and sad.

When Anna-Maria lifted her head and saw her daughter and the others before her, she dropped the bucket and uttered a loud cry. “Thanks be to all the saints! You’re back! You’re really back!”

She ran toward her husband and daughter and, embracing them, began to sob. For a long time they stood there in the rain, a little bundle of humanity lost in their love for one another. Off to one side Simon could only shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

Finally Kuisl straightened up, wiped his eyes, and began to speak.

“What’s happened here?” he asked, gesturing at the surrounding houses. “Speak up, wife; what pestilence did the Lord God send this time to test us?”

“The Plague,” his wife whispered, making the sign of the cross. “The Plague. It’s already claimed more than two hundred people, and every day there are more, and…”

In a flash all the color drained from Kuisl’s face. He took his wife firmly in his arms. “The children! What’s happened to the children?” he gasped.

Anna-Maria smiled weakly. “They’re well, but for how long I don’t know. I made them a potion of toads and vinegar according to a recipe from the hangman Seitz in Kaufbeuren, but Georg won’t drink it.”

“Nonsense!” Kuisl snapped. “Toads and vinegar! Woman, who talked you into this nonsense? It’s high time I put things in order around here. Let’s go inside. I’ll make the children a cup of angelica powder and-”

The sound of footsteps cut him short. Turning, he saw Johann Lechner in the yard behind him. The Schongau secretary wore a long brown fur coat over his nondescript official garb. He looked as if he’d stepped out for a short walk and just happened to drop by the Tanners’ Quarter. To his left and right stood two nervous guards with cloths tied over their mouths, looking for all the world as if they wanted nothing more than to get out of here at once.

“How nice you’re back,” Lechner began softly, a sardonic smile on his lips. “You can see we’ve removed the garbage from town ourselves while you were away. Actually, that’s the hangman’s job, but when he’s nowhere to be found…” He paused briefly, menacingly. “Believe me, Kuisl, there will be consequences.”

“I had my reasons,” the executioner said tersely.

“Of course, of course.” Lechner nodded almost sympathetically. “We all have our reasons. But more than a few people believe the terrible odors and fumes from the trash brought the Plague to Schongau. And that the hangman is therefore to blame for all our misfortune. What do you have to say to this theory, huh?”

Kuisl remained defiantly silent.

Finally the secretary continued, drawing patterns in the mud with his walking stick as he spoke. “I’ll admit that when I heard you were coming back, my first thought was to have you dragged out of town in an animal hide and pushed into the nearest manure pit,” he said casually. “But then it occurred to me what an outrageous waste that would be.” Lechner looked the hangman in the eye. “I’m going to take pity on you one more time, Kuisl. The city needs you-and not just to haul the garbage away. People are talking about the wonder of your healing practices, and it just so happens that we could stand a few miracles right now, especially since we don’t have a medicus at the moment…” Lechner’s words hovered in the air like the Sword of Damocles. He turned his gaze to Simon, waiting for a reaction.

“What… what do you mean by that?” Simon felt as if the ground were slipping from under him, and his throat was suddenly parched. “My father… is he…?”

Lechner nodded. “He’s dead, Simon. Your father didn’t hide from this terrible sickness; he visited the sick in their homes. You can be proud.”

“My God,” Simon whispered. “Why him?”

“Only the dear Lord can say. It’s often the bravest doctors who leave us first.”

Simon was overwhelmed now by countless images and thoughts. He’d left his father angry, and now he’d never see him again. Simon remembered when, as a little boy, he accompanied his father and the camp followers in the war. He remembered the years he’d looked up to his father. Bonifaz Fronwieser had been a respected army surgeon at the time, a good doctor and healer, not the drunken, hot-tempered quack he later became in Schongau. Simon hoped he could remember his father as he used to be. Indeed, it seemed he’d regained some of his earlier dignity just before the end.

For a long time no one spoke. Finally Lechner cleared his throat. “We’ll need a new doctor in town,” he said. “I know, Simon, you never completed your university studies, but no one has to know that.”

Simon gave a start. In spite of his grief, hope sparked within him. Had he heard correctly? Had Lechner just proposed he take over as town doctor? He felt Magdalena squeeze his hand, and right then he knew what to do.

He embraced the hangman’s daughter and held her close. “Thank you for your offer, Your Excellency,” he whispered. “But I’ll accept only on the condition that you also welcome the new doctor’s future wife. Magdalena knows more about herbs than anyone. She’ll be an invaluable help to me.”