Oliver Potzsch - The Beggar King

Prepared for a fight, he pulled out his knife and was about to jump out from behind the cart when the shutters on the second floor of the hangman’s house flew open with a bang. There stood Magdalena in a white linen nightdress, her hair disheveled, her teeth clenched, her eyes ablaze. Simon shuddered. For a moment he believed the vision standing before him was not his beloved Magdalena but an avenging angel straight out of the Old Testament. The boisterous men below were also apparently so astonished by her appearance that absolute silence prevailed for a moment.

“Lies!” she shouted out into the night. “Filthy, cowardly lies! You all know what happened! Each and every one of you! And still you stand there like asses playing along with Berchtholdt and his ridiculous masquerade!”

She pointed at the master baker, who raised his right hand in a sign meant to ward off the devil. “ You, Berchtholdt, got your maid pregnant and administered the poison yourself, not I! I’m going to Secretary Lechner, and I’ll tell him everything. When my father, the hangman, is through with you, you’ll want to hide your face behind that mask. He’ll cut your nose off and throw it to the dogs!”

“Hold your tongue, hangman’s girl!” Michael Berchtholdt’s voice trembled with hatred and anger. “It’s about time someone muzzled that impertinent mouth of yours. You’ve been whoring around this town far too long. And as for your father…” He looked around, waiting for signs of approval. “Court Clerk Lechner will see to it that Kuisl is forced to chase his own daughter through the streets with a whip. Lewd woman! Isn’t it so, my friends?”

“’Tis true!” The voices were not as loud as the last time, but the young fellows seemed to have regained their confidence.

Simon, still standing behind the cart, noticed Anna-Maria now, standing a ways back from the window alongside the frightened twins, who had apparently been awakened by the noise. The mother turned to her daughter, trying to coax her away from the window, but Magdalena remained adamant.

“Lewd woman?” she shouted over the din of the mob and pointed at their leader. “Who is lewd here, Berchtholdt? Didn’t my father brew you a potion just last year to keep your rod nice and stiff? You dirty, lying sack of shit! And haven’t you all come by at least once seeking ivy and stoneseed for your barnyard liaisons with your sweethearts? I could sing a verse about every last one of you. Listen up, Berchtholdt…” She paused for a moment to concentrate before hurling her curse at the mob’s leader.

“The wife of Berchtholdt has gone dry. The baker’s got a wandering eye… He mounts his maid, the lewd old steed, and poisons her to hide the deed!”

“Lies, lies! I’ll put a gag in your damned mouth, Kuisl girl!” Michael Berchtholdt ran to the door of the hangman’s house and, finding it locked, kicked at it like a madman. When the heavy oak boards wouldn’t budge, he swung his lantern in a wide arc up onto the roof.

“Burn down the hangman’s house!” he screamed. “Go to it, friends! We won’t take that kind of talk from a whore!”

Hesitantly at first, but then faster and faster, the young men rushed forward to toss their torches against the walls and onto the roof. Soon some of the shingles caught fire, and a thin column of smoke began to rise up into the sky like a slight, black finger. The roof smoked and the shingles crackled as the first flames licked at the timbers, rising ever higher until finally engulfing the entire roof.

“Get out of here, fast!” Anna-Maria shouted, pulling the tearful children away from the window, “before we’re burned alive!”

She ran down the stairway with the children and out the door, where a hail of stones, rotten vegetables, and stinking dung awaited them. Magdalena followed close behind. Defiantly, she stood in the doorway a moment and allowed herself to be pummeled with filth and malice.

A stone struck her forehead, and she staggered backward as a thin trickle of blood ran down her right temple, dripping onto her bodice. For a moment it seemed she was preparing to fight off the entire mob of farm boys and journeymen by herself. She clutched the door frame with both hands, cursing softly. But reason soon prevailed, and she ran off after her mother and the twins, who had sought refuge behind a woodpile.

The flames rose toward the ridge of the roof, and at first Simon just stood there in his hiding place behind the cart, immobilized with terror, but as the fire started to consume the house, he couldn’t stand by any longer. Without a further thought, he ran out from behind the cart directly into the mob.

“You dogs!” he roared. “Setting fire to a house with a mother and her children inside! Is that all you know how to do?” The young men turned around, astonished. When they saw Simon, hatred flared in their eyes. At once three rushed the medicus, who tried to hold them off with his knife. The razor-sharp blade whistled through the air in a semicircle as the men stepped back.

“Not one step closer,” Simon snarled. “This stiletto’s done the work of an army surgeon; it’s amputated fingers and arms. A few more won’t make any difference!”

He heard the sound of feet running behind him, but before he could turn around, a heavy, powerful body struck him and pinned him to the ground. At once all the other men were on top of him. One of the Berchtholdt boys drew back his arm and laid into Simon’s face with his fist, over and over, as if he were nothing more than a bag of flour. The medicus could taste his own blood, and after the fourth blow the world went black. The shouts and noise of the brawl sounded strangely distant, and acrid black smoke wafted across his face.

They’re beating me to death. Like a rabid dog, they’re beating me to death! If this is the end…

As if in a dream, he heard a sudden clap of thunder, then felt something cold drip onto his upturned face. It took him a few moments to realize they were raindrops-thick, heavy drops falling harder and harder. Then a proper downpour was pelting him and his enemies, turning the ground beneath them into a muddy morass.

“Stop! In the name of His Majesty the Prince, I order you to stop at once!”

The voice boomed so loud that even in the torrential rain the command was clear. Turning his battered head from where he lay on the ground, Simon could make out in a haze a figure astride a horse. The medicus blinked several times before realizing through a veil of blood that it was the secretary, Johann Lechner. The rain streamed down his black coat, his hair clung to his forehead, and yet despite the storm the Elector’s representative looked like an enraged and awesome deity. As the supreme authority in Schongau, he commanded a dozen city watchmen, who stood beside him now, their loaded muskets pointed at the mob. Their expressions made plain their displeasure at being awakened in the middle of the night only to stand here in the rain. And the secretary, too, was clearly annoyed he’d been called from his ducal residence, where he represented the electoral prince in matters of government.

“I shall give you exactly one minute to clear out of here,” Lechner said in a soft voice. “After that I will give the order to shoot. Is that clear?”

Simon could hear whispering and the patter of running feet as cloaked figures fled into the darkness. In a matter of moments the area in front of the hangman’s house was empty, except for a handful of cast-off flour sacks and extinguished torches that bore witness to the nightmare-these and a devil’s mask that leered up at Simon maliciously from a puddle of mud and horse piss. A few flames still spluttered on the roof, but otherwise the heavy downpour had quenched the fire.