Oliver Potzsch - The Beggar King

After a while Magdalena spoke up. “My father will probably be away for a while.”

The medicus nodded and gazed out at two ducks flapping their wings as they rose from the water. Magdalena had already told him about her father’s trip to visit his ill sister. “What did Lechner have to say about that?” he finally asked. “As the court clerk, he could have simply ordered your father not to leave town-now of all times, in summer when the garbage stinks to high heaven.”

Magdalena laughed. “What was he to do? Father just got up and left. Lechner cursed and swore he’d have him hanged when he came back. It was only then that it occurred to him that my father would have trouble hanging himself.” She sighed. “There will probably be a big fine to pay, and until he comes back, Mother and I will just have to work twice as hard.”

Her eyes took on a dreamy look. “How far away is Regensburg, anyway?” she asked.

“Very far.” Simon grinned as he playfully drew his finger around her belly button. Magdalena was still naked, and droplets of water sparkled on her skin, tanned from her daily trips into the forest to collect herbs.

“Far enough at least that he can’t torment us with his lectures,” the medicus said finally, with a big yawn.

Magdalena flared up. “If there’s a problem, it’s your father who’s always hounding us. Anyway, the purpose for my father’s trip was serious-so stop your silly grinning.”

The hangman’s daughter thought now about the letter from Regensburg that had troubled her father so much. She knew her father had a younger sister in Regensburg, but she never realized how close the two of them had been. Magdalena was only two years old when her aunt fled to Regensburg with a bathhouse owner. They left because of the Great Plague but also because of the daily taunts and hostilities in town. Magdalena had always admired her for her courage.

Silently she threw some pebbles, which skipped a few times before finally being swallowed by the rippling water.

“It’s a mystery to me who’s going to clean up all the garbage in town for the next few weeks in all this hot weather,” she said, more to herself than to Simon. “If the aldermen think I’m going to do it, they have another thing coming. I’d rather spend the rest of the summer in a hole in the ground.”

Simon clapped his hands. “What a great idea! Or we can just stay here in this cove!” He started kissing her cheeks, and Magdalena resisted, though only halfheartedly.

“Stop, Simon! If anyone sees us…”

“Who’s going to see us?” he replied, passing his hand through her wet black hair. “The willows certainly won’t tell on us.”

Magdalena laughed. These few hours spent down at the river or in nearby barns were all they had to show for their love. They’d always dreamed of getting married, but strict town statutes wouldn’t permit that. They’d been courting for years, and their relationship was like a desperate game of hide-and-seek. As the daughter of the hangman, Magdalena wasn’t allowed to associate with the higher classes. Executioners were dishonorable, just like gravediggers, bathhouse owners, barbers, and magicians. Accordingly, marriage to a physician was out of the question, but that didn’t keep the couple from clandestine meetings in the fields and barns around town. In the springtime two years ago, they’d even made a pilgrimage together to Altotting, basically the only longer time they’d been together. In the meantime the affair between the medicus and the hangman’s daughter had become a hot topic of conversation in the Schongau marketplace and taverns. Moreover, Simon’s father, old Bonifaz Fronwieser, was urging his son with increasing insistence to finally settle down with a middle-class girl. That was actually essential in advancing Simon’s career as a doctor, but he kept putting his father off-and meeting secretly with Magdalena.

“Maybe we should go to Regensburg, too,” Simon whispered between kisses. “A serf gains his freedom after living a year and a day in the city. We could start a new life…”

“Oh, come now, Simon.” Magdalena pushed him away. “How often you’ve promised me that! What will become of me, then? Don’t forget I’m dishonorable. I’ll just end up picking up the garbage again, no matter where I am.”

“Nobody knows me there!”

Magdalena shrugged. “And what will I do for work? The cities are full of hungry day laborers and-”

Simon held his finger to her lips. “Just don’t say anything now-let’s forget it all for just a while.” His eyes closed, he bent down and covered her body with kisses.

“Simon… no…” Magdalena whispered, but her resistance was already broken.

At that moment they heard a crackling sound in the willow tree above them.

Magdalena looked up. Something seemed to be moving there in the branches. All of a sudden she felt something warm and slimy hit her and run slowly down her forehead. She put up her hand to feel it and realized it was spit.

She heard giggling and then saw two boys, about twelve years old, quickly climb down the tree. One of them was the youngest son of the alderman and master baker Michael Berchtholdt, with whom Magdalena had often exchanged strong words.

“The doctor is kissing the hangman’s daughter!” the second boy shouted as he ran away. Disgusted, Magdalena wiped the rest of the spit from her forehead. Simon jumped up and shook his fist at the smirking boy.

“You impertinent little brats!” he shouted. “I’m going to break every bone in your bodies!”

“The hangman’s daughter can do that better than you!” cackled the second boy, disappearing into the bush. “Do it on the rack, you scum!”

Then little Berchtholdt stopped short. He turned and looked at Simon defiantly, with clenched teeth, trembling slightly as the medicus charged after him like a madman, his shirt open and his jacket undone.

“It wasn’t me,” he squealed as Simon raised his hand to strike. “It was Benedikt! I swear! Actually, we were just looking for you because-uh-”

Simon had raised his hand to strike the boy when he noticed that young Berchtholdt was staring open-mouthed at the half-naked hangman’s daughter, who was trying to hide as best she could behind a rock while she buttoned up her bodice. The physician gave the boy a gentle poke on the nose strong enough to send the boy reeling backward into the mud.

“Didn’t the priest teach you any sense of decency?” Simon chided. “If you keep staring like that, God will strike you blind. So what are you up to here?”

“My father sent me,” the boy mumbled. “He wants to see the Kuisl girl.”

“Old Berchtholdt?” asked Magdalena, stepping out from behind the rock, now fully dressed. “What could he possibly want from me? Or is he sitting up there somewhere in the tree staring at me, too?”

The Schongau master baker was known around town as a lecherous old philanderer. He’d made a pass at Magdalena some years back and been rebuffed. Since then he’d been spreading gossip that the hangman’s daughter was in league with the devil and had cast a spell on the young medicus. Three years ago the superstitious baker had almost succeeded in having the midwife, Martha Stechlin, burned at the stake for alleged witchcraft-something Magdalena’s father had just barely been able to prevent. Since then Berchtholdt had harbored a deep hatred for the Kuisls and, whenever he could, tried to make life miserable for them.

“It’s on account of his maid, Resl,” the boy said as he continued to stare at Magdalena’s low neckline. “She has a fat stomach and is screaming like crazy.”

“Does she have a child on the way?” Magdalena asked.

Puzzled, the boy just stood there, picking his nose. “No idea. People think the devil has gotten into her. You should have a look, my father says.”