Oliver Potzsch - The Dark Monk

Shortly thereafter, she arrived, freezing and hungry. The Red Gate would be closing punctually when the six o’clock bell rang, and merchants dressed in furs, as well as ragged day laborers and wagon drivers, were crowding into the city. Magdalena jumped aside to let a horse-drawn coach pass, and promptly tripped over a street vendor behind her, holding a sales tray around his neck.

“Can’t you watch where you’re going?” the man snapped at her as he picked his tinderbox, shears, and whetstone up off the street.

“I’m…I’m dreadfully sorry,” Magdalena stuttered. Feeling something tug at her, she turned around just in time to see a boy, about ten years old, trying to cut off the strap to her purse with a little knife.

Magdalena slapped him so hard that he fell back into filthy slush.

“You’d better not try that again!” she growled at him, grabbing the purse even tighter, and hurrying through the slowly closing gate. When Magdalena turned around again to look at the boy, she was shocked to see the two men from the landing just a few steps away, carefully observing her.

“What’s the rush, dear?” one of them growled. He was wearing a tattered overcoat and a patch over one eye. “Let’s look for a place to stay together tonight. We’d be warmer together.” A gust of wind blew his coat open a bit, revealing a heavy dagger about a foot long. The other man, who was as fat as a wine barrel, was swinging a big polished stick.

Without waiting to hear what the other might have to say, Magdalena raced off. She slipped into the crowd, then gradually worked her way through it. Behind her, she could hear suppressed cursing. The crowd in front of her was so dense that it was hard to make progress. She knocked down a few day laborers, bumped into some peddlers, and tipped over a basket of firewood.

Finally, she had worked her way through most of the crowd, and the street grew markedly quieter. Just as she was about to breathe a sigh of relief, she heard the hurried footfalls of someone behind her. She looked back as she ran and caught a glimpse of her pursuers, who had been able to slip through the crowd as well. The fat man waved his cudgel in the air and panted. The man with a patch over one eye was faster, and gaining ground. Magdalena looked around, desperate for help. Why hadn’t she stayed hidden in the crowd? The men would never have dared to attack her in public. But here? Night had fallen and the houses and streets were just barely visible. There were hardly any people in this part of town, and the few who saw the men pursuing Magdalena ducked into entryways or anxiously peered out at the pursuers from behind tiny recessed windows.

Thinking fast, Magdalena turned into a narrow side street. Perhaps she could shake off her pursuers in a labyrinth of little lanes. She ran past clattering millwheels, over rickety bridges, and through tiny cobblestone squares, but the two men were right on her heels. She was a good runner and, in the forest or fields, probably could have shaken off the two easily, but here, in the streets and alleys, the men had an advantage. They knew the location of every stairway, every row of parked wagons that she would have to run around.

Coming around the next corner, she was suddenly confronted with a wall. Frost-covered ivy spiraled down from the top of the ten-foot-high wall, and a pile of fetid garbage lay in one corner. Bare walls rose up to the left and right. Seized with panic, Magdalena looked for a way out.

She had run into a cul-de-sac.

Her two pursuers caught up with her. She felt like a trapped animal as the men slowly approached her, smiling.

“You see, you little tart, now we’ve found a place all to ourselves,” the man with the eye patch said. He looked around as if he were inspecting a room at an inn. “Maybe it’s not so comfy, but I do like it. How about you?”

The fat man with the cudgel now approached from the left. “Don’t make it harder than necessary,” he growled. “If you scratch and bite, it’s just going to hurt more.”

“Oh, let her go ahead,” the other said. “I like it when they scratch and bite.” He swung his saber through the air. “Hainmiller gave us a tidy sum so you wouldn’t forget him so soon. Just what did you do to his face, girl? Did you give him a bad shave? Well, in any case, we’re going to shave you now.”

The fat man looked at her almost sympathetically. “It’s really too bad; you have such pretty lips. But what can we do? Let’s get it over with.” He moved closer.

Magdalena scrutinized the men, considering her options. She was alone, and this didn’t look like the kind of area where anyone would come running out to help if she shouted. On the contrary, people would probably close their shutters and hope to steer clear of trouble themselves. Both thugs were powerfully built and looked like seasoned street fighters. It was clear that she had no chance for a fair fight.

But perhaps there was a way to trick them.

She dropped her arms, lowering her head meekly as if resigned to her fate, just waiting for the men to attack her. “Please don’t hurt me…” she whimpered.

“You should have thought about that before, slut,” said the man with the eye patch as he approached her with his sword raised. “Now it’s a little too-”

With a sweeping gesture, Magdalena took aim at the thug, flinging a handful of the quicklime at him that she had been keeping in her jacket pocket. The powder formed a cloud in front of the man’s eyes. He screamed and rubbed his face, trying to wipe away the lime with the arm he was using to hold the sword, but managed only to rub it deeper into his eyes. Shrieking loudly, he fell to the ground.

“You damned whore! I’ll make you pay for that!”

He crawled toward her on his knees, swinging the sword wildly through the air, while the fat man with the cudgel approached. Magdalena reached into her jacket pocket again. Even though she knew it was empty now, she held her arm up again as if about to throw the next handful at the fat man’s face.

“What do you say, fatso?” she snarled. “Do you want to go blind like your friend?”

The fat man stopped and looked down at his comrade moaning on the ground.

At that moment, Magdalena pretended to fling the powder in his face. The man ducked, and the hangman’s daughter ran toward the pile of garbage.

Her feet sank into the slimy half-frozen garbage and feces, but she was able to jump up and get a handhold on the top of the wall. Her fingers dug into the ice and snow as she pulled herself up.

She had almost reached the top when she felt something pulling her back down again. The fat man was tugging on her shoulder bag, and the strap was tightening like a noose around her neck, cutting off her breath. She had just two choices: surrender and fall back down or be choked to death.

Of course, there was a third option-to let go of the bag-but she didn’t even want to think about that.

As the strap tightened around her neck, Magdalena couldn’t help but think of the people sentenced to die on the gallows. Is this how it felt when one was hanged? Dark clouds passed before her eyes, and she began to lose consciousness.

The third possibility…

She ducked suddenly, slipping the strap over her head, and the fat man fell back with a groan into the pile of garbage. She was free!

Ignoring the curses and cries of pain behind her, she jumped down the other side of the wall and ran along the street ahead, struggling to catch her breath. She ran through icy alleys and over slippery bridges, fell once or twice in muddy slush, and finally, gasping for air, came to a stop at a street corner.

She leaned against the wall of a house, sobbing, then collapsed on the cold ground. She had lost everything. Twenty guilders! Money that Stechlin and her father had entrusted to her, money only borrowed by the midwife from a patrician woman! She could never return to Schongau-the shame was too great-and she didn’t even have a few coins for shelter that night. She was completely alone.