The Hangman's Daughter

“Your father told me that you found a mandrake in the forest,” he said. “You probably saved Martha Stechlin’s life with it.”

Magdalena grinned.

“That’s a fair exchange. After all, she gave me my life. I was a real pain when I was born, my mother says. I was the wrong way around and didn’t want to come out. If it hadn’t been for Martha Stechlin, I wouldn’t be here. Now I can pay her back.”

Then she became serious again.

“We must go to my father and warn him,” she whispered. “Perhaps he’ll think of some way that we can catch the devil.”

Simon shook his head. “Above all we must find out who took part in the meeting with this so-called devil and the other soldiers at Semer’s inn. I’m sure this person is the key to everything else.”

Both fell silent in thought.

“Why did the devil come back?”

“What?” Simon was startled out of his thoughts.

“Why did he come back to the building site?” Magdalena asked once more. “If he and his men were really responsible for the destruction there, why did he go there once again? They had already done everything they wanted to.”

Simon frowned. “Perhaps because he’d lost something, perhaps the tobacco pouch that your father found. He didn’t want people to discover that and draw conclusions.”

Magdalena shook her head.

“I don’t believe that. There was no monogram on the pouch, nothing that might have given him away. It must have been something else…”

“Perhaps he was looking for something,” Simon suggested. “Something that he didn’t find the first time.”

Magdalena was deep in thought.

“Something draws him to the building site,” she said. “Goodwife Daubenberger told me that witches used to dance there, and soon it will be Walpurgis Night again…Perhaps he really is the devil.”

Both fell silent again. The sun was almost too hot for April. It warmed the stack of beams they were sitting on. From a distance they heard the voices of the raftsmen as they drifted down the river toward Augsburg. The water glittered like liquid gold. Suddenly it was all too much for Simon—the flight, all the questions, the brooding, the fear…

He jumped up, took Magdalena’s basket, and ran upriver.

“Where are you going?” she called.

“To look for herbs, with you. Come on, the sun is shining, and I know a nice cozy place.”

“And what about my father?”

He swung her basket and smiled at her.

“He can wait a bit. You said yourself that he fears neither death nor the devil.”

Under the disapproving looks of the wagon drivers she ran after him.

Dusk stretched out its fingers from the west and settled on the woods around Schongau. The Hohenfurch Road lay in complete darkness, and so the man who now approached from the west could scarcely be discerned among the bushes at the edge of the clearing. He had decided against taking the road and had gone through the high thickets parallel to it. It took almost twice as long that way, but he could be sure that nobody would see him. The gates of the town had been closed half an hour ago and the probability that he would meet anyone out here was extremely small. But the man did not want to run any risk.

His shoulders ached from carrying the shovel. Sweat streamed over his forehead; thorns and thistles clung to his coat and left small tears in many places. The man cursed. What drove him on was the certainty that all this would soon be over. Then he could come and go as he pleased and there would be nobody to tell him what to do. Sometime in a distant future he would tell his grandchildren about it, and they would understand. They would realize that it was for their sake that he had done all this, for the survival of their family, their dynasty. That it was he who had saved the family. But then it occurred to him that he had already gone too far. He couldn’t tell anyone about it anymore. Too much had already happened, too much that was dirty and bloody. He would have to take the secret with him to the grave.

A twig cracked in the darkness, a flapping noise could be heard. The man stopped and held his breath. Carefully he pulled out the small lantern that he had concealed under his coat until then and pointed it in the direction of the sound. Not far from him, an owl flew up into the air and across the clearing. He smiled. Fear had almost made a fool of him.

He looked around on all sides for the last time, then he entered the building site and hurried to the construction in the middle.

Where should he begin? He walked round the foundation walls that had been destroyed and looked for a clue. When he found nothing, he climbed over a heap of stones into the interior and struck a flagstone on the ground with his shovel. The metallic noise seemed to go right through him. He had a feeling they could hear it all the way to Schongau, and he stopped at once.

Finally he climbed a small wall adjacent to the main building and gazed over the clearing. The leper house, the chapel, heaps of beams, a well, sacks of lime, a few upset buckets…