Oliver Potzsch - The Hangman’s Daughter

He clapped his hands and looked up at the stage.

“Play up, musicians!”

The minstrels strummed nervously at a country dance. At first hesitantly, but then more confidently, the first pairs stepped out to dance. The celebrations began. Witches, witchcraft, and murder were temporarily forgotten. But Johann Lechner knew that all this would drive the town to its ruin before many days had passed.

The hangman knelt down before Martha Stechlin and changed the bandage on her forehead. The swelling had gone down. Where Georg Riegg’s stone had struck her, there was an ugly black-and-blue bruise. And the fever seemed to have gone down. Jakob Kuisl nodded, satisfied. The brew of linden flowers, juniper, and elderberries that he had given her that morning seemed to help.

“Martha, can you hear me?” he whispered and patted her cheek. She opened her eyes and looked at him vacantly. Her hands and feet were swollen like balloons from the torture. Everywhere dried blood covered her body, which was only barely concealed by a dirty woolen blanket.

“The children are…innocent,” she croaked. “I know now how it was. They…”

“ Shhh, ” said the hangman, laying a finger on her dry lips. “You shouldn’t talk so much, Martha. We know it too.”

The midwife looked astonished.

“You know that they had looked at the sign at my house?”

Jakob Kuisl grunted in agreement. The midwife raised herself from her reclining position.

“Sophie and Peter were always interested in my herbs. Especially the magic ones. They wanted to know everything. I showed the mandrake to Sophie once, but that’s as far as it went! I swear it to God! I know what can happen. How quickly the gossip spreads. But Sophie wouldn’t leave me alone, and then she must have had a closer look at the signs on the jars…”

“The bloodstone. I know,” the hangman interrupted her.

“But that is really quite harmless,” the midwife began to sob. “I give the red powder to women when they bleed down there, infused in wine, nothing evil in it, by God…”

“I know, Martha, I know.”

“The children drew the sign on their own bodies! And as to the murders, by the Holy Virgin Mary, I have nothing to do with them!”

Her body shook as she broke into a fit of sobbing.

“Martha,” Jakob Kuisl said, trying to calm her down. “Just listen. We know who killed the children. We do not know who gave the murderer his orders, but I’m going to find him, and then I’ll come and fetch you out of here.”

“But the pain, the fear, I can’t stand it anymore,” she sobbed. “You’ll have to hurt me again!”

The hangman shook his head.

“The Landgrave has just arrived,” he said. “He wants to wait for approval from Munich before they question you any further. That’ll take time. Till then you are safe.”

“And then?” asked Martha Stechlin.

The hangman remained silent. Almost helplessly he patted her shoulder before going out. He knew that unless a miracle occurred, the death sentence was now only a formality. Even if the mastermind could be discovered, the fate of the midwife was sealed. Martha Stechlin would burn in a few weeks at the latest, and it was he, Jakob Kuisl, who would have to lead her to the stake.

When Simon arrived at the market square, the feast was already in full swing. He had been resting at home for a few hours, and now he wanted to see Magdalena again. He gazed over the square looking for her.

Couples were dancing arm in arm around the maypole. Wine and beer were flowing from well-filled jugs. Some drunken soldiers were already staggering around the edge of the fires or chasing screaming maidens. The Landgrave was sitting at the aldermen’s table, obviously in high spirits. Johann Lechner must have just told him a funny story. The clerk knew how to keep the bigwigs in a good mood. They were all having a grand time. Even the parish priest, sitting a little to one side, sipped calmly on a half pint of red wine.

Simon looked over at the stage. The minstrels were playing a country dance that became faster and faster until the first dancers, laughing, fell to the ground. The squealing of women and the deep laughter of the men mixed with the music and the clinking of mugs to form one single sound ascending into the starry night sky.

That morning, when Simon, at the end of a long night, had climbed out of the tunnels, he had believed that nothing could ever be the same as it had been before. But he had been wrong. Life was going on, at least for a little while longer.

Jakob Schreevogl had taken Clara and also, for the time being, Sophie under his care. The council had decided not to interrogate the children until the following morning. By then Simon, in consultation with the young patrician, would have to consider what to tell the aldermen. The truth? But would that not deliver the children to a terrible fate? Children who played at witchcraft could end up at the stake as well as adults. Simon knew this from earlier trials he had heard of. Probably the Landgrave would question the children until they named the midwife as a witch. And then a lot of other witches would be added too…

“Hello, what’s going on? Would you like to dance?”

Simon wheeled around, startled out of his gloomy thoughts. Before him stood Magdalena, laughing. She had a bandage around her head but otherwise looked well. The physician couldn’t help smiling. It was only this morning that the hangman’s daughter had fled from two soldiers. Two nights of horror and unconsciousness lay behind her, and nevertheless she was inviting him to dance. She seemed to be indestructible. Just like her father, thought Simon.

“Magdalena, you should go and rest,” he began. “In any case, the people…” He pointed to the tables, where the first maidservants were beginning to whisper and point at them.

“Oh, the people,” Magdalena interrupted him. “What do I care about them?”

She took him by the arm and drew him onto the dance floor, which was built out in front of the stage. Closely embracing, they danced to the music of a slow folk dance. Simon felt the other pairs draw away from them, but he didn’t care. He looked into Magdalena’s dark eyes and felt himself sinking into them. Everything around merged into a sea of lights with them in the very middle. Worries and dark thoughts were far away. He could only see her smiling eyes, and slowly his lips approached hers.

Suddenly a shape appeared in the corner of his eye. It was his father hurrying toward him. Bonifaz Fronwieser gripped his son hard by the shoulder and turned him around to face him.

“How dare you?” he hissed. “Can’t you see how the people are beginning to talk? The physician with the hangman’s wench! What a joke!”

Simon tore himself free.

“Father, I must ask you…” he tried to calm him down.

“No!” snapped his father and pulled him a little away from the dance floor, without even casting a single glance at Magdalena. “I order you…”

Suddenly Simon felt himself engulfed in a black cloud. The severe trials of the past few days, the deadly fear, the worry for Magdalena. He pushed his father violently away from him, causing the astonished man to gasp. At this very moment the music stopped, so that his words were clearly audible to all the bystanders.

“You’ve no right to give me orders! Not you!” he panted, still out of breath from dancing. “What are you anyway? A dubious little field surgeon, an opportunistic yes-man! Purging and piss smelling, that’s all you can do!”

The slap hit him hard on his cheek. His father stood before him, white as a sheet, his hand still raised. Simon felt that he had gone too far. But before he could apologize, Bonifaz Fronwieser had turned away and disappeared into the darkness.