The Hangman's Daughter

In the kitchen, he searched the cupboards for something to drink. When he found nothing there, he went to his apothecary cabinet in the room next door. On the top left shelf of the six-foot cupboard he discovered a vial that held a shining, bilious green liquid. Kuisl grinned. He knew that for the most part his cough syrup consisted of alcohol. The added herbs could only help him in his present state. The opium poppy in particular would have a soothing effect. The hangman tipped his head backward and let the liquid drip onto his tongue. He wanted to taste every drop of the potent brew.

When he heard the creaking of the kitchen door, he froze. His wife was standing there, sleepily rubbing her eyes.

“Drinking again?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you rather stop now—”

“Leave me alone, woman. I’ll need it.”

He lifted the little bottle again and emptied it in one swig.

Then he wiped his mouth and stepped out into the kitchen. He reached for the heel of bread on the table. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday noon.

“You have to go to see the Stechlin woman?” asked Anna Maria, who was well aware of the hard task that her husband faced.

The hangman shook his head. “Not yet,” he said with his mouth full. “Not before noon. First the bigwigs have to discuss what to do on account of what happened to the Stadel. You see, there are others to be interrogated now too.”

“And those you’re also going to have to—”

He laughed dryly. “I don’t really think they’ll put the branding iron to one of the Fugger wagoners. And as for Georg Riegg—everyone knows him here, and he has his cronies.”

Anna Maria sighed. “Yes, it’s always the poor people who suffer.”

Angrily, the hangman slammed his fist on the table, so that the beer tankards and the wineglasses tottered dangerously. “It’s the wrong people that suffer, not the poor. The wrong ones!”

His wife stepped behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. “You can’t change it, Jakob. Just let it be,” she said.

He pushed Anna Maria’s arms off and began to pace back and forth in the narrow room. He had been racking his brains all night about how he might avoid the inevitable. But nothing had occurred to him. The alcohol had made his thoughts slow and clumsy. There was no way out; after the twelve o’clock bell he’d have to start torturing Martha Stechlin. If he didn’t go, he would be relieved of his office and banned from the town along with his family. He’d have to earn his living as an itinerant barber, or a beggar.

On the other hand…Martha Stechlin had brought his children into the world, and he was convinced that she was innocent. How could he torture this woman?

He finally stopped pacing in front of his apothecary’s cupboard. The chest next to it, where he kept his most valuable books, was open. On the very top there lay a yellowed, worn copy of the book about herbs by the Greek physician Dioscorides, an ancient work, which, however, was still useful. On a sudden impulse, he reached for the book and began leafing through it. As so often, he felt admiration for the exact drawings and precise descriptions of many hundreds of plants. Each leaf and stem was perfectly described.

Suddenly, as his fingers scanned a few lines, he stopped, mumbled to himself, then finally a grin passed over his face. Grabbing his overcoat, hat, and knapsack, he hurried out.

“Where are you going?” his wife called as he left. “At least take a piece of bread with you!”

“I can’t right now,” he called back from the yard. “Time is pressing! Stoke the fire; I’ll be back soon.”

“But Jakob…”

Yet her husband didn’t seem to hear her. At this very moment Magdalena was coming down the stairs with the twins. Barbara and Georg were yawning. Their father’s shouting and banging about had awakened them and now they were hungry.

“Where is Father going?” Magdalena asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

Anna Maria Kuisl shook her head. “I don’t know. I really don’t know,” she said, pouring milk for the small children into a saucepan on the fire. “He was looking through his book on herbs, and then he ran off like he’d been stung by a bee. It’s got to have something to do with the Stechlin woman.”

“With the Stechlin woman?” Suddenly Magdalena was wide awake. She watched as her father disappeared behind the willows down by the pond, then snatched the last heel of bread from the table and ran after him.

“Magdalena, stay here!” her mother called. But when she saw her daughter running full speed toward the pond, she just shook her head and went back in, to the children.

“Just like her father,” she mumbled. “I hope it won’t all end in disaster…”

Simon was awakened by a knock at his bedroom door. Something had been bothering him all night and now, opening his eyes, he realized that it was no dream, but reality. He turned to the window and could see that outside dawn was breaking. Drowsily, he rubbed his eyes. Usually he slept at least until the eight o’clock bell and wasn’t used to being awakened that early.

“What’s the matter?” he grumbled, turning to the door.