Oliver Potzsch - The Beggar King

The baker struggled for words but gave in at last. He slumped over, sighing, and ran his hand through his hair, which was thinning and matted with flour. “Well, yes, then, I–I gave it to her,” he stammered. “I–I told her to take it all at once just to make sure it worked.”

“All at once?” Magdalena looked at him in horror. “And how much was that?”

Berchtholdt shrugged. “A little bag, perhaps as large as my fist.”

Simon gripped his forehead and groaned. “Then there’s no way we can save her. All we can do is try to relieve her pain.” With clenched fists he advanced toward Michael Berchtholdt. “Who in God’s name gave you so much ergot?” he shouted. “Who, damn it! What quack?”

The baker retreated toward the doorway and finally mumbled something so softly that Simon couldn’t understand him at first. “It was your father.”

The young medicus stood there dumbfounded. “My father?”

Berchtholdt nodded. “The stuff cost me two guilders, but your father said it was the surest way.”

Simon had trouble speaking. “Did my father at least tell you how much to give her?”

“Actually he didn’t.” The baker shrugged. “He just said it would be better to take too much than too little, just to make sure it worked. So I just gave her all of it.”

Simon was tempted to seize the baker by the throat, but at that moment the maid began to scream again-this time longer and higher pitched than before. Resl reared up so far it seemed her spine would break. Her pale thighs were spread far apart, and the white sheets between them were stained with blood. The next moment the maid slumped down, and a bloody little body the size of a cat fell from the bench onto the floor.

A stillbirth.

Simon rushed over to the maid and felt her neck for a pulse. Her face was now relaxed and peaceful, and her dead eyes appeared to stare down at the bloody straw spread out on the floor. The medicus closed her eyes and laid her out gently on the bench.

“She’s in a better place now,” he mused, making the sign of the cross. “With no more pain, or demons, or people who would do her harm.”

For a moment all was silent, except for the whimpering of the baker’s wife. Finally Michael Berchtholdt came to his senses. He walked over to the fetus still lying on the floor next to the stove, picked it up gingerly, and walked out through the back door into the garden. When he returned a while later, he wiped his muddy hands on his trousers and attempted a slight smile that froze midway in a grimace.

“Resl is dead, and that’s a shame,” he said in a soft voice. “I’ll see to it that she gets a decent burial in Saint Sebastian’s Cemetery with a priest, funeral meal, and all the trappings. I’ll also see that her parents are taken care of financially. As for everything else-” He gave an embarrassed smile. “-we don’t want word to get around that the devil possessed our maid. That could end badly. And as the young physician here can certainly attest, Resl had a high fever-that can lead to bad dreams, can’t it?” The baker looked at Simon expectantly.

“You don’t seriously believe that-” the medicus began, but Berchtholdt raised his hand, interrupting him.

“I know your house calls are expensive. How much? Tell me-five guilders? Ten? How much do you ask?” He pulled a trunk out from behind the table and began to rummage through it.

“Just keep your money and choke on it!” Magdalena shouted, slamming the lid closed on Berchtholdt’s fingers. He pulled them out, whining and clenching his teeth. His wife looked back and forth from one to the other as if they were ghosts. Simon assumed the shock was too much for her. Maria Berchtholdt had decided to withdraw into her own world.

“I’m going to tell everyone-everyone! — that you jumped on your maid like a randy old goat and let her die of ergot poisoning,” the hangman’s daughter whispered. “It’s always we women who are expected to pay for men’s lechery. Well, not this time!”

The baker’s little weasel eyes took on a glassy sheen. “Aha, and who is going to believe you?” he asked. “A hangman’s daughter and the horny son of an army doctor. What a pair! Go on, go and tell the people, and I promise I’ll make your life hell!”

“My life is hell already.” Magdalena turned to go and beckoned Simon to follow.

With a facetious bow the medicus took leave of the alderman and master baker Michael Berchtholdt. “If the hemorrhoids in your ass itch or your bowels get plugged up,” Simon said in a cloying tone, “you know where you can find me.”

They walked out together and were met by a group of curious onlookers. Behind them they could still hear Michael Berchtholdt’s muffled cries and shrill curses. Magdalena stopped for a moment and looked into the faces of the bystanders, who were staring back at them with expressions of disapproval and disgust.

A hangman’s daughter and the horny son of an army doctor. What a pair…

Magdalena was no longer certain anyone would believe them. The farmers and workers moved aside to make way for them, as if they had some infectious disease.

As Magdalena and Simon headed down toward the Lech Gate, they could feel the looks directed at their backs for a long time.

SCHONGAU

AUGUST 13–14, 1662 AD

Late in the night Simon was awakened by noises outside the Fronwieser home. He reached for a stiletto he always kept in the trunk next to his bed. But judging from the pounding on the door and the crude cursing that followed, it could only be his father, who, no doubt, was staggering home from some tavern out behind the Ballenhaus.

Simon rubbed his eyes and stretched. Ever since that afternoon he had wanted to speak with his father about the ergot, but Bonifaz Fronwieser had disappeared without a trace. That was no cause for concern, as in recent months the old man had often vanished for days, boozing his way through the taverns of Schongau, Altenstadt, and Peiting. Once he finally ran out of money, he’d find a barn, sleep it off, and return home the next day, disheveled and hung-over. After a few weeks’ respite, he would start up all over again. Simon guessed that at the local taverns his father had already freely distributed the two guilders he’d fetched for the ergot.

The young medicus sighed and reached for a cold cup of coffee on the trunk next to his bed. The bitter brew helped him to bear his father’s increasingly erratic moods. In recent years their quarreling had escalated. Bonifaz Fronwieser had been an army surgeon before he found a position as doctor in Schongau. Simon’s mother had died long ago, and his father wanted nothing more than to see his son better off in this life than he’d been. So, he’d sent Simon to the university in Ingolstadt, where the latter spent less energy on his studies than he did money on clothes, card games, and pretty women. Around the time Simon returned from Ingolstadt without a diploma, his father started drinking.

His father’s loud singing interrupted Simon’s thoughts. The young medicus listened as his father threw his boots in the corner, then promptly collapsed. With a loud crash, a few dishes fell to the floor and shattered. Blinking, Simon noticed the first light of day filtering through the shutters. He got up and started to dress. It was probably pointless to speak with his father now, but anger was rising in Simon, and he couldn’t go back to sleep.

As he started down the steep staircase, he could see his father sitting on a bench downstairs. With a vacant look, old Fronwieser pushed a few rusty coins across the table, apparently all that remained from his drinking spree. Alongside him was a cup half full of brandy. Without saying a word, Simon picked it up and poured the contents onto the floor. It was only then that his father seemed to notice him.