The Hangman's Daughter

The court clerk was right. The people would keep looking for signs. And even if there were no more deaths, there would be no end to the suspicion. A wildfire that could lay the whole of Schongau in ashes. Unless someone confessed and agreed to take the blame.

Martha Stechlin…

Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “I don’t think the Stechlin woman has anything to do with the murder. Anyone could’ve done it. Perhaps strangers. The boy was floating in the river. The devil knows who stabbed him, perhaps marauding soldiers.”

“And the sign? The boy’s father described the sign to me. Didn’t it look like that?” Johann Lechner handed him a drawing. It showed the circle with the inverted cross. “You know what that is,” hissed the clerk. “Witchcraft.”

The hangman nodded. “But that doesn’t mean that the Stechlin woman…”

“Midwives are expert in such matters!” Lechner had raised his voice more than he usually did. “I have always warned against permitting such women in our town. They are keepers of secret lore, and they ruin our wives and children! There’ve always been children around her lately, haven’t there? Peter among them. And now they find him in the river, dead.”

Jakob Kuisl longed for his pipe. He would have loved to clear the room of evil thoughts with its smoke. He was fully aware of the aldermen’s prejudice against midwives. Martha Stechlin was the first midwife whom the town had officially appointed. These women with their feminine wisdom had always been suspect to men. They knew potions and herbs; they touched women in indecent spots; and they knew how to get rid of the fruit of the womb, that gift of God. Many midwives had been burned as witches by men. Jakob Kuisl, too, knew all about potions and was suspected of sorcery. But he was a man. And he was the executioner.

“I want you to go to the Stechlin woman and make her confess,” Johann Lechner said. He turned to his notes again and was scribbling. The matter was finished for him.

“And if she won’t confess?” asked Kuisl.

“Then you show her your instruments. Once she sees the thumbscrews she’s bound to soften.”

“You need the council’s approval for that,” whispered the hangman. “I can’t do it alone, and neither can you.”

Lechner smiled. “As you know, the council meets today. I’m certain that the burgomaster and the other notables will follow my suggestion.”

Jakob Kuisl reflected. If the council agreed today to begin torture, the trial would proceed like clockwork, and the end would be torture and probably death at the stake. Both were the executioner’s responsibility.

“Tell her that we’ll begin the questioning tomorrow,” said Lechner, as he continued scribbling in one of the files on his desk. “Then she has time to think it over. If she insists on being stubborn, however, well…well, we’ll need your help.”

His pen continued scratching across the paper. In the market square, the church bell struck eight. Johann Lechner looked up.

“That’ll do. You may leave now.”

The hangman rose and turned to the door. As he pushed the handle, he heard once more the clerk’s voice behind him.

“Oh, Kuisl.” He turned around. The clerk spoke without looking up. “I’m aware you know her well. Make her talk. That’ll save her and you unnecessary suffering.”

Jakob Kuisl shook his head. “She didn’t do it. Believe me.”

Now Johann Lechner looked at him again straight in the eye.

“I don’t think that she did it, either, but it’s what’s best for our town, believe me.”

The hangman didn’t reply. He ducked under the low doorway and let the door fall shut behind him.

When the hangman’s footsteps in the street had faded away, the clerk returned to his files. He tried to concentrate on the parchments before him, but that was difficult. Before him lay an official complaint from the city of Augsburg. Thomas Pfanzelt, a Schongau master raftsman, had transported a large pack of wool that belonged to Augsburg merchants together with a heavy grindstone. Owing to its weight the cargo had fallen into the Lech. Now the Augsburgers demanded compensation. Lechner sighed. The everlasting quarrels between the Augsburgers and the Schongauers were getting on his nerves. And especially today he couldn’t be bothered with such petty grievances. His town was on fire! Johann Lechner could almost see how fear and hatred were eating their way from the outskirts to the very center of Schongau. There had been whispering in the inns last night already, both in the Stern and the Sonnenbräu. People were talking about devil worship, witches’ sabbaths, and ritual murder. After all the plagues, wars, and storms, the situation was explosive. The city was a powder keg, and Martha Stechlin could be the fuse. Lechner twisted his quill nervously between his fingers. We have to extinguish the fuse before disaster strikes…