Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

Suddenly, small details came to mind: Salter’s constant fatigue, his dark gaze, the wolf pelts in Matheo’s chest, and Salter’s sudden decision to take her out of Bamberg just after she’d told him she was the niece of the Bamberg hangman.

Now she remembered how surprised, almost horrified, he’d acted when she told him.

After lying there in silence for a while, listening to the rain outside pouring down harder and harder on the roof, she asked, “What is he going to do with us? Is he going to kill us, like all the rest?”

“When he’s finished with us here he’ll take us over to another room,” Adelheid replied darkly. “I’ve seen it. It’s. . horrible, like something out of your worst nightmares.” She looked at Barbara gloomily. “But listen, I’ve still not given up. Now there are two of us, and soon perhaps three if that scribe is still alive and comes to join us. Perhaps then we’ll have a chance. Perhaps-”

She hesitated on hearing a bolt being slid back above them on the ground floor. There were heavy footsteps and something came bumping down the stairs, one at a time. Barbara assumed that Salter was dragging the heavyset Hieronymus Hauser down to the cellar. But strangely, the steps were not heading toward their cell, but in the opposite direction. She heard another door squeaking as it opened.

“Oh, God,” Adelheid gasped. “He’s taking him to the torture chamber and starting with him right away.” Her eyes flickered in the dim light. “I don’t know if I can stand that again.”

Tensely, the women listened for sounds at the other end of the hall. Apparently Salter had left the door to the hall open. The women could hear groans, then a rasping and clicking sound, and then the steps once again.

This time the steps were approaching.

THE RIGHT BRANCH OF THE REGNITZ, EVENING, NOVEMBER 2, 1668 AD

Night was falling as the small group approached the wooden bridge that separated the city from the gardens around St. Gangolf to the north. Earlier, the Kuisls had paid a visit to Aloysius’s house and armed themselves. Jakob and Bartholomäus had picked out some heavy cudgels made of ash wood, Georg and Magdalena each carried long hunting knives that Aloysius had given them, and Simon took Bartholomäus’s old wheel-lock pistol that was so rusted it could probably only be used as a club. Only Jeremias remained without a weapon.

“My appearance is all the weapon I need,” he said with a grin as they walked along the pier in the rain. “Wait and see-when that fellow spots me in the dark, he’ll take off like a shot.”

“Maybe we should have brought along Bartholomäus’s execution sword,” Magdalena said, taking a dubious look at her rusty hunting knife. “It looked sharper than this old bread cutter.”

“To do what? Chop wood?” her father said with a smirk. “Only a woman would make a suggestion like that. Out on the battlefield, a large two-hander like that might be useful-I had one once myself-but not in this dense forest and swamp. If we’re going to storm the house, I’d rather have a cudgel.”

He swung his club around menacingly, and Magdalena instinctively stepped back. She hated it when men showed off with their weapons. On the other hand, she did feel a bit safer with the hunting knife in her hand. She couldn’t help thinking how this nice fellow Markus Salter had probably killed seven people.

And soon, perhaps, two more.

Earlier, when Magdalena had said good-bye to her two boys, she’d wondered briefly if she really should go along. It would be dangerous, and as a woman she wasn’t much use in a fight. But then she thought of Barbara, and her mind was made up. She could never sit idly at home while her sister was in mortal danger.

So she gave each of the boys a kiss and told them she had to go along with Father and Grandfather to look for Aunt Barbara. The children had looked at her with serious expressions, as if they understood how important and dangerous this mission was.

“Then will Barbara come back again?” Peter had asked in a soft voice.

Magdalena had nodded and held her boys closely so they would not see the tears in her eyes. “Of course,” she whispered. “You’ll see-by tonight she’ll be lying in bed beside you again and singing you a song. Now be kind to Aunt Katharina and help her bake cookies. That will surely make Barbara happy when she comes home.”

She’d wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, then followed the others out into the damp and gloomy streets.

In the last light of day, Magdalena caught sight of the massive wooden pilings that supported the magnificent Sees Bridge. The posts stood on islands of gravel surrounded by dark, swirling water. At the first piling they came to, there was a long rowboat rocking in the gurgling stream with someone standing in the boat, waving for them to get in.

“It’s lucky for us that Answin is out on the north branch of the river today,” Bartholomäus said, waving to the old ragpicker. “I told Aloysius to let him know we needed his boat.”

“Answin?” Simon asked hesitantly. “Isn’t he that corpse collector you were talking about?”

Bartholomäus nodded. “Exactly. But I can put your mind to rest-there are no other passengers in the boat at the moment-at least no dead ones, if that’s what you were thinking.”

Answin threw them a rope from the boat, and Jakob and Bartholomäus pulled it ashore. One by one they stepped over the side and took their seats in the boat.

“What a lovely bunch you’ve put together, Bartholomäus,” said Answin, smirking at his new passengers. “A cripple, a giant, a dwarf, a wench, and a scaredy-cat. Are you going to the circus?”

“Who’s the dwarf?” Simon whispered in Magdalena’s ear. “Does he mean-” But Bartholomäus quickly replied, cutting him off.

“You can’t always pick your comrades-in-arms,” the executioner replied with a grin. “Anyway, each one of them is better than a drunken city guard.” Then he continued in a serious tone. “We’re looking for my future father-in-law and my niece. If you can help me today, I’ll be indebted to you.”

Answin waved him off. “Just invite me to your wedding, that will be enough. And when you have time, tell me what the hell is going on here.”

“We’ll have plenty of time for that as we head upriver,” Bartholomäus replied. “Now cast off-we’re on our way to Wunderburg.”

They had to row against the current, but in November it was not very strong. Besides, Jakob, Bartholomäus, and the bull-necked Answin were all strong rowers, moving them along with vigorous strokes toward their destination.

Bartholomäus briefly told Answin, in words interrupted by vigorous tugs on the oars, where they were going and what they planned to do. Magdalena looked out at the rain-soaked countryside slowly disappearing in the fading light of day. As soon as they passed the city walls, the area turned swampy, traversed by many little canals, pools, and streams through the peat bogs. The fog-enshrouded Bamberg Forest extended down to the river, with willows and misshapen birches reaching out greedily toward the water. From far off came the mournful howl of a lone wolf, and instinctively Magdalena cringed.

On their way to the Sees Bridge, Magdalena and Bartholomäus had told the others about their discovery of the baboon that had broken out of its pen. They felt reassured now that there was no actual werewolf prowling around, but that didn’t make the locale any less sinister.

And the most evil animal is still man, Magdalena thought.

After a while, they turned into a small tributary almost completely concealed in the reeds. Low-hanging branches brushed against Magdalena’s face. Now it was so dark that even the trees on the nearby shore were visible only as dark outlines. Just the same, Answin seemed to know exactly where he was headed.