Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

Where am I? How did I get here?

The cell she was in was square and stuffy, and it smelled of sour wine and the feces of rats, which scampered now and then across the dirt floor, squeaking. Most of the time there was a leaden silence, as if she’d been buried somewhere in the bowels of the earth. Now and then Adelheid heard the screams of the other woman, and then she knew it was starting again.

When is it my turn? Oh, God, when?

Adelheid had long ago given up calling for help, and now the only sound coming from her mouth was an occasional whimper. She had no idea how long she’d been lying down here. The last thing she could remember was that crackling sound when the creature had thrown itself upon her in the forest-that, and the odor of wet fur. Then she had awakened in this cell with a headache as if she’d drunk a bottle of brandy. On one side of her head, above the temple, a large bump was throbbing.

Since then, the dreary hours dragged on. There was no window, not even a crack where light might penetrate into the damp chamber; the only light came from a tallow candle that cast dancing shadows on the walls. The only sounds she could hear were the occasional shrill screams of the other woman. Adelheid had never seen the poor woman but assumed she was in a room at the other end of the hall. Adelheid feared this room more than anything else.

The torture chamber.

Shortly after she had regained consciousness, a man wearing a hangman’s hood had led her there in chains. Even now, she shuddered when she thought of all the strange instruments she’d seen there. Though Adelheid didn’t know what most of them were, she suspected they all served the same purpose: to inflict as much pain as possible on a human being. Her suspicions were confirmed by hastily sketched drawings on the walls of the chamber. They were drawn on strips of cloth that hung down from the ceiling like the flags of an evil kingdom, and they showed images so horrible that even hours later she was still gagging with fear.

Adelheid remembered the image of a man riding astride a sharp wooden cone, his mouth opened wide in agony, and the face of a woman whose jaw was propped open by an iron clamp while her tongue was cut out with a knife. A third image showed a naked, red-haired girl lying on the rack while a masked hangman poured water into her mouth through a funnel. Other torture victims wore bronze boots full of pitch, were hung from the ceiling like slaughtered animals, or were driven with pitchforks into the rushing, dark waters of a river. The images in the chamber showed a more horrible vision of hell than anything she’d seen in the Bamberg Cathedral. And Adelheid still had no idea what her offense had been.

What agony is in store for me? Oh, God, let me lose my mind first, so I no longer can feel the pain. Or am I perhaps already mad? Is this hell?

The man had not removed his hangman’s hood and at first spoke not a word, not breaking his silence until they were in the torture chamber. His voice was firm and matter-of-fact, and he kept asking the same questions.

Confess, witch! Who taught you your magic?

Who are your brothers and sisters?

Where do you meet? In the forest? In the cemetery? Up in the old castle?

Where do you meet on the witches’ Sabbath?

How do you brew the drink that makes you fly?

Confess, witch, confess, confess, confess. .

There was nothing Adelheid could tell him-she just shook her head and pleaded for her life. But he had continued asking the same questions, his voice an unending torrent of words.

Confess, witch, confess, confess, confess. .

Then he took her back to her cell and whispered in her ear one final, strange sentence.

This is the first degree.

Adelheid knew from stories she’d heard that suspects were always first shown the instruments of torture. Often that, by itself, was enough, and they confessed out of sheer terror. But the apothecary’s wife had no idea what to confess to, and the man had brought her back without saying a word, tied her to the bench again, and left her alone.

What the second, third, or fourth degree might be, she could now hear in the next room.

From deep within the walls she heard another high-pitched scream, and she groaned softly. There was no doubt that the torture was continuing in the chamber. The screams of the other prisoner faded in and out, but somehow Adelheid knew the man would not inflict pain on her until the other woman was dead.

Hang on, whoever you are. Hang on as long as possible.

A while ago Adelheid had made out some bits of words amid all the screams-shrill calls for help, pleading, praying-but since then, the words had begun to sound like the whimpers of a mad person.

And they grew weaker and weaker.

Hang on.

Adelheid closed her eyes and mumbled a quiet prayer as the screams seemed to pierce her like needles.

Hang on!

“Damn, this is tobacco the way I love it. Black as the devil’s hair and sweet as the ass of a young whore.”

His eyes closed, Jakob Kuisl sat in the Bamberg hangman’s dining room, puffing on his pipe as dark clouds of smoke rose to the ceiling. The foul-smelling tobacco seemed to transform the hangman into a more peaceful, sociable creature. The others present rubbed their stinging eyes and occasionally coughed, but accepted that as the price they had to pay.

The fading light of autumn had turned to night several hours earlier, and the Kuisls were sitting together around the huge oaken table while Katharina cleared away the bowls, plates, and tableware. From the ingredients Magdalena and Barbara had brought back to her from the Bamberg markets, Bartholomäus’s fiancée had conjured up the most delicious meal Magdalena had eaten in months. Now she sat across the table from her father, feeling full, relaxed, and tired, watching as he blew smoke rings of various sizes across the room. The boys, Peter and Paul, were already asleep after Barbara had told them a long bedtime story.

Outside, the autumn rain beat against the shutters and the wind howled like a wild beast. With dread, Magdalena thought about the previous night and the terrible events her father and Uncle Bartholomäus had just related to them.

“And someone really slit open this poor girl’s chest in order to take out her heart?” she asked in the ensuing silence. “For heaven’s sake, who would do such a thing?”

“What rubbish,” growled Bartholomäus, who was sitting at the table off to one side, whittling a piece of pinewood. “Your father just made that up. The perpetrator probably just took a swing at the poor child to keep her quiet.”

“And what about the toenails that were ripped out on the leg the captain showed us?” Jakob said. “Did the perpetrator just take a wild swing there, too? This is one too many coincidences for me.”

“Well, even if that’s the case,” Bartholomäus said, casting a dark glance at his brother, “I really can’t understand why you have to tell us all about it here, Jakob. The head of the city guards expressly-”

“What I tell my family is none of your damned business,” Kuisl interrupted, nodding toward Georg and Simon. “Georg already knows about it, and he’ll take it to his grave with him-and my son-in-law may be just a bathhouse owner, but he knows a thing or two about medicine. So why shouldn’t I ask them for their advice?”

Magdalena couldn’t help laughing. “Good God, wonders never cease! This would be the first time you asked my husband for advice,” she said, turning to Simon. “Right?”

Simon just shrugged. He was warming his hands on a cup of hot coffee-his favorite brew, Magdalena knew, for stimulating his thinking. “In any case, I don’t believe this crime can be kept secret very long,” he finally said. “By now, half the city already knows about the hairy monster.”