Oliver Potzsch - The Hangman’s Daughter

“You yourself stole the sketch of the deed of gift from the town archives,” he cried. “Fool that I was! I thought that only Lechner or one of the four burgomasters would have known about the hiding place behind the tile. But you?”

The old man chuckled.

“Ferdinand had that hiding place made when he built the stove. He told me about it. A tile with a picture of a court clerk with documents coming out of his arse! He was always well-known for his coarse sense of humor.”

“But if you had the sketch-” asked Simon.

“I couldn’t make sense of it,” Augustin interrupted him. “I turned it this way and that, but I couldn’t see anything there about the damned hiding place!”

“So then you had the work on the building site disrupted so that you could have more time to look for it,” reasoned Simon. “And then the children overheard you, and you simply had them killed because of the dangerous knowledge they had. Did you know that they hadn’t recognized the instigator? All these murders were unnecessary.”

Angrily, Matthias Augustin cracked another nut.

“That was Georg, the simpleton. He got his brains from his mother, not from me. He was supposed to give the soldiers money only for the destruction of the building site. But even for that he was too stupid! He was careless and let himself be overheard, then gave the order to kill the children. He didn’t seem to realize the trouble that sort of thing would cause!”

The patrician seemed to have forgotten Simon. He continued his rant, without paying any attention to the physician.

“I told him to stop! He was to tell that devil that it was enough. What great secrets could the children have revealed? And who would have believed them anyway? But the killing went on. And now the children are dead, the Landgrave is sniffing around looking for witches in the town, and in spite of all that we still haven’t got the treasure! An absolute disaster! I should have left Georg in Munich. He has ruined everything!”

“But why do you worry about the treasure?” asked Simon incredulously. “You’re rich enough. Why risk so much for a few coins?”

The old man suddenly pressed his hands to his stomach and bent forward. A wave of pain seemed to pass through him before he could speak further.

“You…don’t understand,” he panted. “My body is a lump of rotten flesh. I’m rotting away while I’m still alive. The worms will be eating me soon. But that…is…not important.”

Once again he had to stop briefly and let the pain pass over him. Then the attack seemed to be over.

“What counts is the family, our reputation,” he said. “The Augsburg wagoners have almost driven me to ruin. Damned pack of Swabians! Before long, our house will go to the dogs. We need this money! My name is still good enough to obtain credit, but soon even that will be of no use. I need…this treasure.”

His voice turned into a soft rattle, while his fingers grasped the edge of the table convulsively. The colic pains returned. With increasing horror, Simon saw the old man twitch, jerk his head back and forth, and roll his blind eyes. Saliva drooled from the corner of his mouth. The pain must have been beyond imagining. Perhaps an obstruction in the gut, the physician thought, perhaps a growth that had spread over the whole abdomen. Matthias Augustin would not live much longer.

At this moment Simon noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. As he started to turn around a mighty blow hit him on the side of the head. He sank to the floor, and as he fell he saw young Georg Augustin standing there, his hand grasping a heavy iron candlestick raised for a second blow.

“No, Georg!” his father gasped from behind. “You’ll only make things much worse!” Then a black wave swept over Simon-he didn’t know if the candlestick had hit him again or if he had lost consciousness from the first blow.

When he came to, he felt a tightness around his chest, hands, and feet. His head throbbed with pain, and he could not open his right eye. Presumably blood had run into it and clotted. He was sitting on the chair where he had been before, but he could no longer move. He looked down and saw that he was tied to it with a curtain cord from top to bottom. Simon wanted to call out, but only succeeded in uttering a choking sound. A gag had been stuffed into his mouth.

In front of him the grinning face of Georg Augustin appeared. With his sword he poked at the physician’s doublet, and some of the copper buttons popped off. Simon cursed inwardly. When he saw that Matthias Augustin had disappeared from the May feast, he had not given a thought to this son of his but hurried directly to the Augustins’ house. The young patrician must have secretly followed him, and now his perfumed and beautifully barbered head of hair was directly in front of Simon’s face, looking him straight in the eye.

“That was a mistake,” he hissed. “A damned bad mistake, you quack! You should have kept your big mouth shut and screwed your hangman’s wench. It’s such a lovely feast out there. But, no, you have to make trouble…”

He stroked Simon’s chin with his sword. In the background the physician could hear old Augustin groaning. When he turned his head in that direction he saw the old man lying on the floor near the table. He dug his fingers into the cherrywood floorboards; his whole body twitched with cramps. Georg gave him only a brief glance before he turned again to Simon.

“My father will not disturb us any further,” he said, casually. “I have gotten to know these fits. The pain increases until it is intolerable, but then it stops. And when it stops, he’s just an empty carcass, much too exhausted to do anything. He’ll fall asleep, and when he wakes up again, there’ll be nothing left of you.”

Once again the patrician moved his sword slowly over Simon’s throat. Simon tried to cry out, but the gag only slipped down farther into his throat. He had a choking fit. Only with much trouble could he calm himself.

“You know,” whispered young Augustin. He bent down to Simon again, so that the smell of his expensive perfume wafted over him. “At first I cursed when I saw you going to see my father. I thought that would be the end. But now, well…other possibilities have arisen.”

He stepped to the fireplace, where a little fire was burning, and reached for the poker. Its tip was glowing red. He held it close to Simon’s cheek so that the physician could feel the heat. Grinning smugly, he continued.

“When we were watching the hangman doing his torturing down there in the keep, I thought I might enjoy this sort of thing. The screams, the smoke rising from human flesh, the pleading looks…Well, the witch wasn’t quite to my liking. You, on the other hand…

With a swift movement he lowered the poker and pressed it firmly to Simon’s breeches. The heat ate its way through the fabric and hissed as it touched his thigh. Simon’s eyes filled with tears. He gave a long howl but the gag wouldn’t let out more than a muffled groan. Helplessly he tossed about on the chair. After a while Augustin removed the poker and looked in his eyes, smiling coldly.

“Your beautiful breeches…Or are these the latest fashion now, these-what do you call them-rhinegraves? It’s a pity. You’re a loudmouth, that’s true, but at least you have a feeling for style. I can’t imagine how a nobody like you, a vagrant field surgeon, would have breeches like these. But all joking aside…”

He took the other armchair and sat astride it, the back facing Simon.

“That just now was only a foretaste of the pain that you are going to feel. Unless…” He pointed the poker at Simon’s breast. “Unless you tell me where the treasure is. Spit it out now. Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me.”