The Hangman's Daughter

“And then you heard the men.”

Sophie nodded.

“The magic didn’t work. The men saw us, and we didn’t help one another. We ran away, and they clubbed Peter to death like a dog…”

She began to cry again. Simon caressed her until she calmed down, and her crying became just an occasional sob.

At her side, Clara was groaning in her sleep. Simon felt her forehead. It was still burning hot. The physician wasn’t sure if Clara would survive long down here. What the girl needed was a warm bed, cold compresses, and linden blossom tea to reduce the fever. Besides, her leg wound required attention.

Simon called for help, cautiously at first, but then louder and louder.

When nobody answered his repeated calls, he gave up, sitting down again on the rocky, damp ground. Where were the sentries? Still lying on the ground, bound and gagged? Had they been able to free themselves, and were they perhaps already on their way to the town to report the attack? But what if the devil had killed them? It was the first of May today. There was dancing and carousing up there in the town, and it was quite possible that it would be tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow before someone would come by. By then, Clara would have died of fever.

To drive away the dark thoughts the physician kept asking Sophie for more details. He kept thinking of new things that he or the hangman had discovered and that suddenly made sense now.

“The sulfur we found in Peter’s pocket—that’s part of your hocus-pocus as well?”

Sophie nodded.

“We got it from one of Martha’s jars. We thought if witches used sulfur for casting their spells, it would probably work for us as well. Peter stuffed his pockets with it. He said it would make such a nice stink…”

“You stole the mandrake from the midwife, didn’t you?” Simon continued. “Because you needed it for your magic games.”

“I found it at Martha’s,” Sophie admitted. “She once told me about the miraculous power of the mandrake root, and I believed if I soaked it in milk for three days it would turn into a little man who’d protect us…But it just stank, nothing more. I used the rest to make a potion for Clara down here.”

The physician glanced at the unconscious girl. It was almost a miracle that she had survived that drastic cure. But perhaps the mandrake root had done some good as well. After all, Clara had been asleep for days now, and that had given her body enough time to regenerate.

He turned back to Sophie.

“And that’s why you didn’t go to the court clerk or one of the aldermen to report what you saw,” he observed. “Because you thought they’d suspect you of witchcraft on account of the mark.”

Sophie nodded.

“When that thing with Peter happened, we were going to,” she said. “So help me God, we wanted to go to Lechner right after the ten o’clock bell to confess the whole matter. But then you men found Peter down at the Lech and saw the witches’ mark. And then there was all that turmoil and everybody talked of witchcraft…”

She looked at Simon in despair.

“We thought nobody was going to believe us then. They’d take us to be witches and put us to the stake along with Martha. We were so scared!”

Simon stroked her dirty hair.

“It’s all right, Sophie. It’s all right…”

He looked at the little tallow candle flickering by his side. In no more than half an hour it would burn down. Then the only light they’d have would be a tiny ray through the cracks of the flagstone. He considered making a cold compress for Clara’s swollen ankle with a rag torn from his cloak but decided against it. The water that had gathered in little puddles down here was way too dirty. Presumably such a compress would make the girl even sicker. Unlike most physicians of his time, Simon was convinced that dirt caused infection. He had seen too many wounded men with soiled bandages perish miserably.

Suddenly something made him stop and listen. He could hear voices from far off. They came from above. Simon jumped to his feet. There had to be people at the building site! Sophie had stopped crying too. Together they tried to figure out whose voices they were. But they were too soft.

Briefly Simon considered the risk. It was quite possible that the people above them were soldiers or perhaps even the devil himself…That lunatic might have killed the hangman and climbed up through the well. On the other hand, Clara was certainly going to die if nobody got her out of there. He hesitated briefly, then he cupped his hands and shouted up the shaft in a hoarse voice.

“Help! We’re down here! Can anyone hear us?”

The voices overhead fell silent. Had the men walked away? Simon kept shouting. Sophie was now helping him.

“Help! Can’t anyone hear us?” both of them shouted.