Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

Bartholomäus mumbled his agreement, and they had the guards lead them to Malcolm’s cell.

It took a while for Magdalena to spy Malcolm’s crumpled figure in the darkened cell. He lay in a corner like a bundle of carelessly discarded rags. Cautiously, Magdalena walked toward him and bent down to speak. His face was turned toward the wall, and he seemed to be sleeping.

Or is he dead already? The thought flashed through Magdalena’s mind. She noticed the bloodstains spattered on Malcolm’s cloak. Evidently some of the citizens had already taken out their anger on him.

“Sir Malcolm,” she whispered. “Can you hear me?”

Malcolm flinched and slowly turned around, and Magdalena stared into his battered face. She put her hand over her mouth in order not to scream in horror. He’d been so badly beaten that his eyes were nothing more than two slits in a pasty mass of black and blue. He looked more like a monster than Jeremias. Nevertheless, he tried to smile cheerfully, which was clearly hard for him to do with his several missing teeth.

“Ah, the beautiful sister of our most talented actress,” he murmured as if in a dream. “So my pleas were heard. This captain is not as bad a man as I thought.”

“Lebrecht probably saved your life,” Bartholomäus interjected. “You ought to thank him. From what I heard, he and his men stepped in to save you just as the mob was about to string you up from the tallest willow on the Regnitz.”

“Ah, yes, the fate of a great artist,” Malcolm said softly, managing, despite his injuries, to inject a note of pathos into his voice. “Beloved, celebrated, and then cast out just the same.”

“Lebrecht said you wanted to see me,” said Magdalena. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Malcolm placed his trembling hand on her skirt, to quiet her. “I’m afraid no one can help me now,” he whispered. “I’m dying, like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in the third act-slowly, but with style. But my men have not deserved such an exit from the stage.” He coughed. “They’re innocent.”

“Does that mean you are guilty?” Bartholomäus asked. “Speak up, fellow! What do you have to do with all this hocus-pocus? Are you the werewolf?”

Sir Malcolm let out a dry laugh, which quickly turned into a painful coughing fit, and he spat out another tooth. “I’d be a pretty pathetic little wolf,” he croaked, “if I let myself be whipped like that by a few thugs. You can bet on it, hangman-if I’d played the part, I would have been the greatest werewolf of all time, fearsome and powerful, with a voice rumbling like an approaching tornado, and-”

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid we don’t have much time,” Magdalena interrupted. “The guards are telling us to be quick. So is there something you wanted to tell me?”

Malcolm nodded. “You’re right, I should shorten the monologue, that’s what people keep telling me. Very well.” He took a deep breath, then continued in a whisper. “They say they found objects of mine that I used for incantations and magic, but I swear I’ve never seen those things before. After all, I know how dangerous such props can be in a Catholic bishopric. I’m asking you: a child’s skull?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Things like that are found only in tawdry farces. At first I thought Guiscard had planted these knickknacks on me-”

“Unlike your troupe, he and his men were able to get out of town in time,” Bartholomäus interrupted. “Lebrecht told me that earlier. Apparently Guiscard bribed one of the guards at the gate.”

Malcolm flashed him a toothless grin. “Hah! That rabble packed up their things while we were still on stage. I saw it with my own eyes. Guiscard knew he’d lost. What an ingenious move of mine to convince him to play that boring Papinian while we performed Peter Squenz. I upstaged them all, and Barbara played her role splendidly. We’re the clear winners.”

“Guiscard would probably see it differently,” Magdalena replied. “In any case, he’s free, and you’re lying here in the dungeon. But you were going to tell us who planted these magical things on you, I think.”

“Well, I assume it’s the same person responsible for all the murders in Bamberg,” Malcolm said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial hush. “I had lots of time last night to think about that, and I have a suspicion who it might be. And finally, I put two and two together. .”

Malcolm started talking, and as he did, Magdalena felt a chill running up her spine.

It looked like they’d finally found their werewolf.

A rowboat was making its way slowly downstream on the Regnitz. Two people sat inside, one pulling hard on the oars and steering the boat past the many islands of mud, gravel, and flot-sam. Here in the southeastern part of Bamberg, the forest extended down to the shore, where many brooks and tributaries carrying leaves and branches emptied into the wide river.

Exhausted, Barbara snuggled up in the woolen blanket that Markus Salter had given her before they’d left. She sat on a wooden box in the stern of the boat, looking out at the marshland with its willows, birches, and little ponds as they drifted past. A light but constant drizzle had set in, gradually soaking them to the skin.

“Is it much farther?” she asked, her arms covered with goose bumps.

Markus Salter shook his head. He briefly stopped rowing and pointed toward a hill about half a mile away, with a few houses on top. “Up ahead of us is the little town of Wunderburg,” he said, turning more cheerful. “In the Great War, the Swedes destroyed much of the town, but the bishop’s stud farm is still there, so there are a lot of warm stables where we can hide. We can stay there for a while, and when things have calmed down a bit, I’ll go back to the city and tell your father you’re all right. I promise.”

He winked at her, and Barbara nodded gratefully. She was extremely happy to have Markus Salter by her side. For half the night, he’d consoled her when she kept waking up with a start from bad dreams. With soothing words he’d urged her to persevere, promising that this nightmare would soon end, and he’d even gotten her to laugh a few times with poems and lines from comedies. Without him, she would have no doubt left the crypt too soon and fallen into the hands of the marauding gangs still wandering through the streets of Bamberg in search of witches and werewolves.

They had stayed down there until morning while Markus told her about his adventurous life as an actor and playwright. He came from a well-to-do family, and his father had been a cloth merchant in Cologne. Markus had studied law, but then he’d seen Sir Malcolm and his actors at Neumarkt Square in Cologne and immediately fallen under their spell. On the spur of the moment he left his family, and since then was completely engrossed in the world of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Gryphius.

Although Markus Salter had clearly led an exciting life, Barbara was slowly coming to the realization that she herself was not suited for such an existence. Just the last few days without her family had been painful enough, and the thought of always being alone on the road, without a home, without a family-even a family as querulous and stubborn as the Kuisls-was too much for her. She wanted to get back to her grumpy father, to her sister with the two boys, and to her twin brother, Georg, whom she hadn’t seen for so long.

She wanted to go home.

Markus had convinced her to wait until early the next morning, when most of the rowdy bands had finally dispersed and the good citizens were in the All Souls’ mass. Around nine o’clock, disguised as Carmelite monks, they’d snuck through the streets down toward the mills near the castle. There Markus soon found an abandoned boat, in which he planned to take her to a hiding place he’d learned about during an earlier visit to Bamberg.