Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

At first they traveled downstream past the city. Then they floated back up the right branch of the Regnitz toward Bamberg again, looking for a place to land on the eastern shore near the little town of Wunderburg. Over the tops of the trees they could see the walls of the city and the cathedral, but except for the occasional chirping of a blackbird and the distant sound of men chopping wood in the forest, everything around them was quiet and peaceful.

In the meantime, it had started to rain harder, and despite her heavy monk’s robe and the blanket, Barbara felt chilled to the bone.

“Haven’t you ever thought of starting a family?” she asked, her teeth chattering, as Markus guided the boat toward a small, reed-choked estuary. The actor still had a slight pain on his right side, but it seemed Barbara had done a good job of cleaning the wound-when she’d changed the bandage again that morning, she hadn’t noticed any inflammation.

Markus thought for a moment before answering. “I’m afraid I have difficulty committing myself,” he said finally. “I’m too afraid I’m going to lose the person again. People die, and some far before their time-not just the old ones, but beloved wives and even children. The nagging fear of being left alone again would drive me crazy.”

Barbara frowned. “I never looked at it that way before.”

“Ask your father or your uncle. They know how fast we can be overcome by death. After all, they themselves are often the cause.” His face darkened. Dressed in his monk’s robe and with his hood pulled down over his face, the haggard actor looked like a stern, ascetic preacher. “How can anyone ever live with that-all the sorrow and screams a hangman must bear? I couldn’t, at least not for long. It would destroy me.”

“I think my father and my uncle don’t look at themselves at such times as human beings, but as”-Barbara searched for the suitable word-“as tools. They act on behalf of a higher power, the city or the church.”

“Tools of a higher power.” Salter nodded. “I like that. I’ll use it in one of my tragedies, with your permission.” He smiled sadly. “In a very special tragedy, in fact-my best one. All it lacks are a few suitable sentences for a conclusion.”

He thrust the oar down with all his strength, propelling the boat toward the shore, where it ran aground and remained stuck in the mud. A dense growth of reeds grew all around them, and the branches of a weeping willow hung far down into the water, blocking their view of the surroundings.

“We’re stopping here?” Barbara asked with surprise.

Markus jumped into the knee-deep water and waded the last few steps to the shore, where he tied the boat securely to the trunk of the willow tree.

“It’s not far now to Wunderburg,” he replied, “and the boat is well-hidden here.” With a cheerful smile, he reached out to give Barbara a hand. “Come now.”

She got up, shivering, and was about to climb over the side when she lost her balance in the rocking boat, slipped on the bottom, wet from the rain, and fell. She landed painfully on her tailbone and, to make matters worse, also hit her head on the boat box. As she pulled herself up again, cursing, she caught sight of something she hadn’t noticed before in the drizzling rain.

There was blood on the box.

She assumed at first it was fish blood, as this was clearly the boat of a fisherman who probably kept his daily catch in the box. But then she took a closer look. There was too much of it here to be just fish blood-and besides, the stain had an intense reddish-brown color all too familiar to Barbara as a hangman’s daughter.

That wasn’t fish blood, it was human blood.

Her mind racing, she looked at the partially coagulated liquid streaking down the side of the box.

“For heaven’s sake, what. .,” she said instinctively.

The box creaked on its hinges as she slowly opened it. She didn’t know what might be inside, but her heart was pounding wildly. She suspected that whatever it was would shake her already deeply wounded psyche.

The first thing she saw were a few wolf pelts, which appeared to have been tossed carelessly into the box. Then, underneath them, the hide of a stag with its antlers, a wild boar pelt, a badly worn bearskin. .

Carefully, Barbara pushed the stinking pelts aside. When she finally recognized what was underneath, her heart skipped a beat. She wanted to scream, but not a word escaped her lips.

She was staring, horrified, into the blood-covered face of a man. He was gagged, and someone had tied his body up into a net so tightly that it almost looked like a bundle of slimy fish. She thought she recognized the man, even though his face was almost completely mutilated and covered with blood.

“My God,” Barbara gasped in a fading voice, as her strength ebbed from her body.

At that moment she heard a whoosh of air, and something struck her with brutal force on the back of the head. With a groan, she fell forward, and even before she hit the bottom of the boat, a merciful unconsciousness came over her. Markus Salter was standing over her, holding the bloodstained oar in his hand like a hangman with his sword.

“The tool of a higher power,” he whispered, and a grin flickered across his face. He took off his hood as the rain streamed down his face, and he let out a loud howl-the howl of a wolf.

“I like that, Barbara. I’m a tool and nothing more.”

Then he seized the unconscious girl, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her away into the nearby swamp.

Hurried footsteps came up the stairway to Hauser’s study, and then the door opened with a crash. Simon, still standing at the lectern with the open book, jumped. In the doorway stood Magdalena and Bartholomäus.

“Magdalena!” Simon cried out with relief. “You’re back. I was so worried about you-”

“No time for long-winded greetings,” she interrupted as she struggled for breath. “I think we finally know who our werewolf is. Sir Malcolm just told us.”

“Sir Malcolm?” Jakob said, looking at her in astonishment. “But he’s in the city dungeon. What in God’s name were you doing there?”

“We’ll tell you all about it later,” Bartholomäus replied. “Now listen to what your daughter has to say. It’s just the suspicion of a poor gallows bird who’s trying to wriggle his head out of a noose, and perhaps he’s just telling us lies, but what he says actually sounds pretty reasonable.”

By now, the two new arrivals had entered the small room. Magdalena stood in the middle and peered urgently at Simon, Jeremias, and her father.

“Markus Salter is the one we’re looking for,” she declared. “The group’s playwright. Sir Malcolm has been watching him closely for some time, because of all the strange things he’s been doing.”

“And what would those be?” Simon inquired, trying to sound matter-of-fact. He was still so relieved to see Magdalena again that he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her. But at the moment his wife didn’t seem to want that.

“Some time ago,” she answered breathlessly, “Markus Salter wrote a piece that he very much wanted the actors to perform, but it was too bloody and weird for Malcolm’s taste. It was about a child from a powerful family, all of whom were slaughtered in a power struggle between patricians. Later, as a young man, the hero takes out his bloody revenge. Again and again, Salter urged Malcolm to stage this tragedy. He must have been really fanatic about it, though he didn’t want to show anyone the piece in advance, and only dropped veiled hints as to what was in it.”

“And you believe this play describes Salter’s own life?” Kuisl said. “Isn’t that a bit far-fetched?”