The Hangman's Daughter

The hangman pulled on one end of the rope, so that the ground slipped from under the midwife’s feet. Her body bent forward a little and began to bob up and down. Something cracked. She moaned quietly. The court clerk recommenced his questions.

“Martha Stechlin, I ask you once more. Do you confess to having taken the poor lad Peter Grimmer and…”

At this moment a shudder went through the midwife’s body. She began to twitch and to shake her head wildly back and forward. Saliva flowed from her mouth; her face was turning blue.

“My God, look,” cried baker Berchtholdt. “The devil’s in her! He wants to get out!”

All the witnesses, even the clerk, had jumped up to see the spectacle close up. The hangman had lowered the woman to the ground again, where she writhed in cramps. She reared up one more time, then she collapsed completely, her head turned to one side at an odd angle.

For a moment nobody said anything.

At last young Augustin spoke. “Is she dead?” he asked, intrigued.

Jakob Kuisl bent over her and put his ear to her breast. He shook his head.

“Her heart’s still beating.”

“Then wake her up again, so that we can continue,” said Johannn Lechner.

Jakob Schreevogl was very near to hitting him in the face.

“How dare you!” he cried. “This woman is ill, can’t you see that? She needs help!”

“Nonsense! The devil has gone out of her, that’s all!” said baker Berchtholdt and fell to his knees. “He’s surely still here in this room somewhere. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”

“Executioner! You will wake this woman up again! Do you understand?” The clerk’s voice had taken on a rather shrill tone. “And you…” He turned to the frightened bailiffs behind him. “You fetch me a physician, and quickly!” The bailiffs ran upstairs, relieved to be able to escape from this hellish place.

Jakob Kuisl took a bucket of water that was standing in the corner and dashed it in the midwife’s face. There was no movement. Then he began to massage her chest and pat her cheeks. When all this proved of no avail, he reached into the chest behind him and brought out a bottle of brandy, some of which he forced her to swallow. The rest he poured on her chest and began to knead it.

Only minutes later steps were heard on the stairs. The bailiffs were returning with Simon Fronwieser, whom they had met outside on the street.

Standing alongside the hangman, he bent down to the midwife and pinched her on the upper arm. Then he took out a needle and thrust it deep into her flesh. When she still didn’t move, he held a small mirror to her nose. The glass clouded over.

“She’s alive,” he told Johann Lechner. “But she’s in a deep swoon, and heaven alone knows when she’ll wake up from it.”

The court clerk let himself fall back in his chair and rubbed his graying temples. Finally he shrugged. “Then we can’t examine her further. We’ll have to wait.”

Georg Augustin looked at him in amazement. “But the Elector’s secretary…He’ll be here in a couple of days and we have to present him with a culprit!”

Michael Berchtholdt, too, was pleading with the clerk: “Don’t you know what’s going on out there? The devil is about. We’ve seen it for ourselves. People want us to finish…”

“Damn it!” Johann Lechner pounded the table with his hand. “I know that myself! But at the moment we just can’t continue with the questioning. Not even the devil will get a word out of her! Do you expect an unconscious woman to confess? We’ll have to wait. And now everybody, up and out, all of you!”

Simon and Jakob Kuisl carried the unconscious midwife back to her cell and covered her up. Her face was no longer blue but chalk-white, her eyelids fluttered, and her breath came steadily. Simon looked at the hangman from one side.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You gave her something to stop the torture and to give us more time. And then you told your wife to ask me to wait outside after midday so that the bailiffs would fetch me and not my father, who perhaps might have noticed something…”

The hangman smiled. “A few plants, a few berries…She knew them all, she knew what she was letting herself in for. It could have gone wrong.”

Simon looked at the pallid face of the midwife. “You mean?”

Jakob Kuisl nodded. “Mandrake roots, there’s nothing better. I…we found some, luckily. They are very rare. You don’t feel pain, the body relaxes, and the sufferings of this world are only shadowy figures on a distant shore. My father used to give this drink to poor sinners. However…”

He rubbed his dark beard thoughtfully.

“I put in perhaps almost too much monkshood this time. I wanted it to look real, right to the end. Just a bit more of it and the Lord God would have taken her. Now, good. We have at least gained a little time.”

“How long?”

The hangman shrugged. “After one or two days, the paralysis will disappear and she can open her eyes again. And then…” He stroked the face of the sleeping Martha Stechlin once more before leaving the keep.