The Hangman's Daughter

That damned witch was still unconscious, and the Landgrave was expected this very evening. Johann Lechner was horrified at the thought of what would happen then. Investigations, torturing, spying, suspicions…If only the Stechlin woman had confessed, everything would have been all right. They could have had their trial and sent her to the stake. My God, she was as good as dead anyway! Death at the stake would have been a happy release for her and for the town as well!

Johann Lechner leafed through the old documents about the witch hunt of two generations ago. He had taken them down again from the archives near the council chamber. Eighty arrests, countless torturings…sixty-three women burned! The great wave of persecution had begun when the district judge had taken the matter into his hands and then finally the Duke himself had spoken. Then there was no more holding back. Lechner knew that witchcraft was a smoldering fire that would eat its way through society if not stopped in time. Now, presumably, it was too late.

The door squeaked on its hinges and he turned around. Jakob Schreevogl, his face red, was standing in the council chamber. He addressed the clerk with a trembling voice.

“Lechner, we must speak. My daughter has been found!”

The court clerk jumped up. “She’s alive?”

Jakob Schreevogl nodded.

“I’m very happy for you. Where was she found?”

“Down at the building site for the leper house,” the alderman said, still gasping for breath. “But that isn’t all…”

Then he told the court clerk what Simon had told him. After hearing just a few words, Johann Lechner had to sit down. The young patrician’s story was simply too unbelievable.

When Schreevogl had finished, Lechner shook his head.

“Even if it’s true, nobody is going to believe us,” he said. “Least of all the Landgrave, the Elector’s representative.”

“If we have the inner council behind us,” the patrician broke in, “and we plead unanimously for the release of the Stechlin woman, then the Landgrave must also agree. He can’t go above our heads. We are free burghers, established by the town laws. And the Landgrave signed the laws himself at the time.”

“But the council will never vote for us,” Johann Lechner reminded him. “Semer, Augustin, Holzhofer—they are all convinced that the midwife is guilty.”

“Unless we present them with the name of the person who really did order the murder of the children.”

The court clerk laughed.

“Forget that! If he really belongs to the inner council of the town, then he is powerful enough to keep his activities secret.”

Jakob Schreevogl buried his face in his hands and rubbed his temples.

“Then I can see no hope any more for the Stechlin woman…”

“Or you sacrifice the children,” the court clerk added, as if in passing. “Tell the Landgrave about the true origin of the witches’ signs, and perhaps he’ll let the midwife go. But the children? They’ve dabbled in witchcraft, and I don’t think the Landgrave will let them off so easily.”

There was silence for a short time.

“The midwife or your daughter. It’s your choice,” Johann Lechner said.

Then he went over to the window. From the north the call of a horn could suddenly be heard. The court clerk stuck his head out in order to hear exactly where it was coming from. He blinked.

“His Excellency, the Landgrave,” he said, turning toward the patrician, who sat as if turned to stone at the council table. “It looks as if you’ll have to make your decision quickly.”

The boys playing down by the Hof Gate were the first to see the Landgrave. The Elector’s deputy arrived by way of the Altenstadt Road traveling in a magnificent coach drawn by four horses. On each side rode six soldiers in full armor, with open helmets, pistols, and swords. The first soldier was carrying a horn, with which he announced the arrival of the Landgrave. Behind the coach came a second carriage, which was used for transporting the servants and the chests with the necessities that His Excellency required for the trip.

The gate had already been closed at this hour, but now it was quickly reopened. The horses’ hooves clattered over the cobblestones, and most of the burghers who had gathered on the market square for the feast now ran down to the gate to see the arrival of the highborn man with a mixture of admiration and skepticism. Only rarely did such distinguished gentlemen come to visit little Schongau. Previously the Landgrave had visited the town more often, but that hadn’t happened for a long time. Nowadays, any aristocrat who visited the town was a welcome spectacle and a change from the daily routine. At the same time the burghers were aware that the Landgrave and his soldiers would eat up their meager provisions. In the Great War, hordes of mercenaries had more than once descended on the town like locusts. But perhaps the Landgrave wouldn’t stay all that long.