Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

The victim’s voice sounded a bit higher now, and Adelheid felt she was about to vomit. Her fear felt like a little rodent gnawing its way through her bowels.

When is it my turn?

Curiously, the stranger had spared her until now. He’d come into her cell twice more, but he hadn’t taken her back to the horrible torture chamber, just brought her a new candle and stared at her silently through his hangman’s mask. Adelheid thought she could see his body trembling softly. Then he’d dashed out again, almost like a man possessed, and had bolted the door behind him.

A few hours ago, the stranger had turned his attention to the male prisoner, and Adelheid was shocked to realize it had brought her relief. Relief, and at the same time guilt.

I’m happy that it’s someone else. Oh, God, forgive my sin!

She tugged at the chain that tethered her to the wall of the cell. Recently, the stranger hadn’t bothered to attach the leather straps, so now she could at least sit up and even walk around a bit. The pain in her arms and legs had eased off some, so she could shake her limbs and massage them to get the blood flowing again. How long had she been in this cell? Day and night merged into one thick clump, but despite everything, she’d not given up. In the endless hours between the stranger’s visits, she constantly thought of how she might escape. She’d turned over all the possibilities in her mind and finally come to a conclusion.

Perhaps there was a way, but to do it, she’d have to wait until the man came back again and took off the chains to lead her to the torture chamber.

It would, no doubt, be her last chance.

Adelheid Rinswieser took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried to retreat into herself, to a place where she could escape the screams and the fear.

“The tanners are invited to the wedding, and so are a few of the Bamberg fishermen, and a whole family of weavers distantly related to Katharina, and-you’ll hardly believe this-even Aloysius, that stubborn hangman’s servant in the Bamberg Forest. Hah! That would never happen in Schongau. But the tavern keeper at the Wild Man, a fellow by the name of Berthold Lamprecht, doesn’t give a damn about what people say and is going to let Uncle Bartholomäus have the party-though not in the main hall, but in the little room off to one side. The city councilors have more to worry about this year than making a fuss about that. ”

Jakob Kuisl was silent while his daughter Magdalena babbled on. Late in the day, the hangman, his daughter, and his grandchildren took a Sunday-afternoon stroll. They were walking behind a wagon slowly making its way toward the city across the wide, wooden Sees Bridge, whirling up clouds of dust as it went. They’d spent the last few hours in Theuerstadt, a part of town northeast of the city where many farmers grew onions and licorice. The area was well known for both products-not only in Bamberg, but in the areas around the city as well, earning the locals the sobriquet of “onion heads.” Out there in the country, around the monastery of St. Gangolf, the streets became wider, the houses smaller, and the people friendlier and, above all, cleaner. There were vegetable farms and many fruit trees and different kinds of flowers, though most of them had already withered at the end of autumn.

Katharina had asked Magdalena to find flowers to decorate the tables at the wedding, but it seemed to Jakob that the conversation with the old, toothless flower woman would go on forever. After that, the hangman had let Magdalena wheedle him into looking around in Theuerstadt for asters, stonecrop, and autumn crocuses, and ordering the flowers from the gardener for the coming Sunday-a decision Jakob now regretted. He took consolation in the fact that here in Bamberg no one knew him. In Schongau, an executioner who showed more interest in the fragrances of violets and pansies than the security of the noose on the gallows would surely have been laughed out of town.

But it wasn’t just his visit to Theuerstadt that was a total disaster, it was the entire trip. He’d come here for only one reason, to finally see his son Georg again after two years-only to find that his uncle had completely spoiled him. Georg had become rebellious and impudent, and even worse, he stood up to his own father and defended his uncle. The fight in the street the day before had brought them somewhat closer together, but Georg’s attitude revealed that Bartholomäus had told him more than Jakob wished.

“I don’t know what all this fuss is about for the wedding,” Jakob grumbled, struggling to make his way across the wooden bridge behind the agonizingly slow carts, holding both boys by the hands. Below them, the right branch of the Regnitz flowed along lazily. “Your mother and I didn’t need to have any big party back then. There wasn’t any money for it, anyway. We invited the midwife Stechlin, the knacker and his servant, and the night watchman-that was it, and we all had a good time just the same, without all these so-called friends, cousins, aunts, and uncles, who just want to hang around all day eating the free food.”

Magdalena scowled at her father. “Didn’t you want to have your sister and brother there for the celebration?”

“Hah! Ask Bartl. He never would have come to my wedding.”

“But why?” Magdalena took her father by the arm and stopped for a moment. “Something happened between you two. Don’t you want to tell me?”

“Maybe some other time. I’m tired now, and if I’m not mistaken, we still have one more thing to get for my future sister-in-law. So come along.”

Jakob pulled himself away and stomped ahead, through the Bamberg Gate and down the little lane leading to the Fishermen’s Quarter north of the city hall on the left branch of the Regnitz. Magdalena and the children followed at a distance.

They had promised Katharina to ask the furrier about finding them a piece of fox fur for the hem of her wedding dress. Jakob’s sister-in-law had given them precise directions, but it was difficult to find the right house in the labyrinth of tiny, winding streets, many of which ended at the water’s edge. Water rushed past the dilapidated piers, where the boats bobbed up and down in the stream. Many of the half-timbered buildings had boat sheds opening onto the river, and the air was heavy with the smells of rotting fish and moldy nets spread out to dry between wooden poles on the docks and balconies.

Several of the fishermen eyed Jakob Kuisl cautiously as he stepped out of an alley leading straight to the piers. In front of a small half-timbered house on the left, a number of leather hides fluttered in the wind, slapping noisily against the wall of the building, where a bloody deer hide had been hung on a wooden frame to dry. Jakob turned around to Magdalena.

“This is probably the house,” he said. “It would be best for you to stay outside on the pier with the children, so they don’t fall in and drown. I’ll be right back.”

He knocked, and a small old man immediately opened the door. He had a wrinkled, unshaven face that was barely visible under his bearskin cap, and he gave off a moldy smell more familiar to Jakob than that of violets and pansies.

“What do you want?” growled the old man. “Did Johannes the leatherworker send you? Tell that greedy bastard I’m not finished with the tanning, but just the same I’m not going down one kreuzer on the price.”

“Katharina, the fiancée of the Bamberg executioner, has sent me,” Kuisl responded. “She needs a nice fox fur for her wedding.”

“Ah, the wedding of the executioner.” The man grinned, revealing his three remaining teeth. “There’s a lot of tongues wagging because the innkeeper of the Wild Man is letting the hangman celebrate in his place. But we all stink the same when the devil takes us away to the dance.” He giggled. “I would know-I’m the furrier, after all. Come in, big fellow.”