The Hangman's Daughter

“He cared for you, and for that you should be forever thankful,” said the hangman. “But this time you would be alone. You would have to take care of your wife and your children. You would have to go from one country fair to another, a quack advertising his cheap tinctures like sour beer, getting rotten cabbage thrown at him and being mocked by peasants who know nothing about your healing arts. The learned physicians would make sure that you get thrown out as soon as you set foot in their town. Your children would die of hunger. Is that what you want?”

“But my father and I, we always had an income…”

The hangman spat on the ground. “That was during the war,” he continued. “When there is war, there’s always something one can do. Sawing off limbs, cleaning out wounds with oil, dragging off the dead, and covering them with lime. Now the war is over. There are no more armies to follow. And I thank God for that!”

The hangman started walking again and Simon followed a few steps behind him.

After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Master, may I ask you a question?” Jakob Kuisl continued walking and spoke without turning around.

“What do you want?”

“I heard you haven’t always been in Schongau. You left this town when you were about my age. Why? And why did you return?”

The hangman stopped again. They had almost circled the entire town. Before them, on the right, the road to Altenstadt appeared. An oxcart trundled slowly along the road. Beyond, the forest stretched all the way to the horizon. Jakob Kuisl remained silent for such a long time that Simon began to think he would never receive an answer. Finally the hangman spoke.

“I didn’t want a trade that forced me to kill,” he said.

“And what did you do instead?”

Jakob Kuisl laughed softly.

“I killed all the more. Indiscriminately. Aimlessly. In a frenzy. Men, women, children.”

“You were a…soldier?” asked Simon carefully.

The hangman was again silent for quite some time before answering.

“I joined Tilly’s army. Scoundrels, highwaymen, but also honest men and adventurers, like myself…”

“You told me once that you were in Magdeburg…” Simon asked again.

A brief shudder went through the hangman’s body. Even here in Schongau, people had heard the horror stories about the fall of the town in the far north. The Catholic troops under General Tilly had practically leveled the place, and only very few inhabitants had survived the massacre. Simon had heard that the soldiers had slaughtered children like lambs, had raped women, and after that had nailed them to the doors of their homes like our crucified Savior. Even if only half the stories were true, it was enough to make Schongauers utter prayers of thanks for having been spared such a bloodbath.

Jakob Kuisl marched on. Walking briskly, Simon caught up with him on the road to Altenstadt. He sensed that he had said too much.

“Why did you come back?” he asked after a while.

“Because a hangman is necessary,” mumbled Jakob Kuisl. “Otherwise everything goes to the dogs. If there has to be killing, then at least it should be the right kind, according to the law. And so I came home to Schongau so that things would be in order. And now be quiet. I have to think.”

Simon tried one last time: “Will you think it over again, about Magdalena?”

The hangman gave him an angry look from the side. Then he walked on at such speed that Simon had trouble keeping up with him.

They had been walking side by side for a good half hour when the first houses of Altenstadt appeared. From the few sentences Kuisl had uttered during that time, Simon was able to gather that Johannes Strasser had been found dead very early that morning in his foster father’s stable. Josepha, one of the servant girls at the inn, had discovered him among the bales of straw. After telling the innkeeper, she ran over to the hangman’s house in Schongau to get some Saint-John’s-wort. When woven into a wreath it was supposed to help ward off evil powers. The servant girl was convinced that the devil had taken the boy. The hangman gave Josepha the herb and listened to her story. He left shortly thereafter, stopping only to give his daughter’s lover a good thrashing before continuing on his way. In the gray morning light he had simply followed their tracks and had easily found the barn.

Now they were both standing in front of the inn at Altenstadt, which Simon had visited only a few days earlier. They were not alone. Local peasants and wagon drivers were crowded in the square around a makeshift bier nailed together from a few boards. They were whispering—some of the women held rosaries in their hands and two servant girls knelt at the head of the bier and prayed, their bodies swaying back and forth. Simon also recognized the village priest of Altenstadt in the crowd and heard mumbled verses in Latin. When the people in Altenstadt noticed that the hangman was approaching, some of them made the sign of the cross. The priest interrupted his litany and stared at the two, his eyes flashing with hostility.