The Werewolf of Bamberg (29 page)

His hood lay beside him on the floor, and he was crying like a small child.

Then Adelheid finally collapsed.

Simon rushed as fast as possible from the cathedral mount to the new part of town. He absolutely had to speak with Magdalena again about the postponement of the wedding. After the meeting in the council chambers, he’d had a brief conversation with Samuel, who agreed he shouldn’t leave his bathhouse in Schongau closed much longer. Samuel himself had patients to see all day, so their discussions about the werewolf had to be put off to the next day.

When Simon finally arrived at the executioner’s house, the only one there was Jakob Kuisl, who was sitting at the table smoking and brooding. Before him lay a small, tattered book that he quickly shut when he saw Simon coming.

“Where are the others?” Simon asked in surprise, looking around the empty room.

Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “Bartholomäus and Georg have some stuff to do over at the council chamber. I’m sure you know that last night an old aristocrat’s widow died under mysterious circumstances. Now the noble gentlemen have announced the hunt, a number of arrests are expected, and the city dungeon is being readied for them. I can’t tell you where Magdalena and the two children are.”

He opened the book again and began to read, as if Simon were not even there. The bathhouse owner was familiar with that sort of behavior from his father-in-law and took no offense. It meant only that Jakob Kuisl was deep in thought, and for that he needed tobacco and complete silence.

Simon sat down silently on the bench next to the hangman. While pouring himself a cup of watered-down wine, he glanced over curiously at the dog-eared book. He recognized it at once: Lonitzer’s
Herb and Plant Almanac
, an illustrated work found in every hangman’s personal library. Apparently the little book came from Bartholomäus’s collection in the adjoining room. The book was opened to a marked article with notes in the margin, but Jakob’s hand was on top of the book and Simon couldn’t see anything else.

After a while, the hangman put the book aside angrily and glared at Simon. “How in the world am I going to concentrate when someone is staring at me the whole time?” he growled. “So what is it? If you have something to say, then say it, and don’t squirm around here as if you’d crapped in your pants.”

Simon smiled. Sarcastic grumbling from Jakob Kuisl was his way of extending an invitation to talk.

“I was only wondering why you were suddenly so interested in plants,” he replied. “Does that, by chance, have anything to do with this mysterious werewolf? Are you perhaps looking for an herb that will protect you from such creatures?”

“Bah, humbug! Wolfsbane or Saint John’s wort can give you confidence, perhaps, but can they really protect you? No.” Kuisl frowned. “The only thing that can help you is your reason, and that’s just what’s missing here in Bamberg.”

“Then you don’t believe in the werewolf? Earlier you weren’t so sure.”

Jakob Kuisl rolled his eyes impatiently, then turned to look Simon directly in the face. “I believe my own eyes and my common sense,” he said in a firm voice. “In this city, someone is abducting and killing people in a very cruel manner. Some people claim to have seen a furry creature—some in the city, others out in the forest—and someone bought a whole bunch of wolf skins from the furrier . . .”

“Wolf skins found among the possessions of the unfortunate Matheo,” Simon continued, absorbed in his thoughts. “Magdalena thinks that anyone could have put them there. Perhaps it was someone from that other group of actors.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps someone who was beginning to feel the heat and needed a scapegoat to deflect the suspicions.”

Simon frowned. “What do you mean?”

Kuisl slowly expelled the smoke from his pipe and held three chubby fingers up to Simon’s face. “There are three possibilities. First, there really is a mad beast out there. Second, there’s a madman out there, also a sort of beast. Or . . .” He paused and leaned back in his chair. “Or there’s somebody smart out there following a plan. I’m sitting here with my pipe, thinking, and asking myself what kind of plan that could be.”

Simon nodded. “My friend Samuel has some interesting ideas about that. What do you think of this?” He told Kuisl briefly about the meeting that morning and Samuel’s assumptions about the council members. “Perhaps there really is a struggle for power among the patricians,” the bathhouse owner concluded. “Someone is trying to do away with his enemies and is ready to accept the deaths of other completely innocent people. Perhaps the suffragan bishop, perhaps the chancellor, or one of the noblemen on the council?”

“And to do that he kills the wife of an ordinary miller and a prostitute to cover his tracks?” Kuisl spat into the reeds on the floor. “A daring plan. But there’s something wrong with that picture. Only two of the six missing or dead people were actually council members; the rest of them don’t fit in that category.”

Simon sighed. “Samuel said that, too. But do you have a better idea?”

“Perhaps I would have come up with something a lot sooner if you didn’t always interrupt me.” Growling, Kuisl picked up the little book again. “But, yes, I have an idea. There’s something I can’t get out of my mind . . .” He squinted. “The dead prostitute had a . . . strange odor, like the smell of a beast of prey . . .”

Simon felt the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. “A beast of prey?” he repeated anxiously. “And you’re only mentioning that now?”

“Because I refuse to believe in a werewolf. But, yes, it was the stench of wet fur,” Kuisl said. “It took a few days to figure out where I’ve smelled that before.”

“But if the prostitute smelled like a beast, that would mean that perhaps, after all, a werewolf—”

Jakob cut him off with an angry gesture. “For God’s sake, just forget the werewolf. You’re driving me crazy with your superstitious drivel.” The hangman pointed at the underlined section of the book in front of him. “There is only one herb that smells just like a beast of prey. Because of all this nonsense about the werewolf, I’ve overlooked the most obvious thing. But when you think about it . . .” Kuisl grinned as he always did when he was about to spring a surprise.

Simon drummed his fingers nervously on the table. He hated it when his father-in-law tortured him like this. “Just get to the point,” he pleaded. “Why do we always need to beg you to tell us what’s on your mind? What kind of herb is it?”

“Well, as a bathhouse owner you really should know that. It’s henbane, also known as stinking nightshade or dog’s-piss root,” Kuisl elaborated with obvious satisfaction. “It’s found in many witch’s brews because it’s said to have magical power, but primarily it’s used as a strong anesthetic. Along with opium, mandrake, and hemlock, it is often used in sleeping sponges—things you no doubt have heard of.”

“Sleeping sponges?” Simon asked, perplexed. In fact, he did use such sponges himself occasionally. Soaked in narcotics, these sponges were placed over a patient’s face during operations to calm them down or, if necessary, make them unconscious. It was extremely hard to adjust the dosage—a bit too much of the liquid, and the patient would never wake up.

“Do you think someone drugged the prostitute first and then killed her?” he asked breathlessly.

Kuisl nodded. “Probably not just the prostitute. It had to be someone who knew a lot about medicine. The right quantity to use on a sleeping sponge is something known only to members of four guilds, in my opinion.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Doctors, bathhouse owners, midwives, and—”

“Hangmen,” Simon gasped.

“Indeed. I’ve used sleep sponges a few times myself to relieve a condemned man’s pain. It’s a drug preferred by hangmen and their journeymen. Anyone who understands suffering and death must also know about healing.”

Simon stared at the underlined paragraph describing the recipe for preparing such a sleep sponge. “I’m assuming
you
aren’t the person who underlined this paragraph and entered the notes in the margin?” he whispered.

Kuisl shook his head. “That was Bartholomäus, I know his handwriting.” The hangman knocked the dead ashes out of his pipe, stretched, and slowly rose to his feet like a giant who’d been sleeping for a long time in his cave.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask my brother and his servant Aloysius a few very unpleasant questions.”

“Morning is breaking, the sun will soon . . . uh . . . will soon . . . set.”

“
Rise.
The sun will soon
rise
! Damn it, is it so hard to read from a script?”

Sir Malcolm tore at his hair, staring at Barbara, who was standing along with four other actors on a sort of balcony above the stage. Barbara could feel a knot in her stomach, and blood rushed to her head. They’d been rehearsing all morning, and by now she’d begun to doubt she really had that wonderful
talent
that both she and Malcolm thought she had. Her role was actually not that large. At first, Barbara had felt disappointed to discover she had so few lines to speak.

By now, even those few lines seemed too much for her.

“Daylight is breaking, the sun will soon rise,” she declaimed loudly this time, looking up at the ceiling as if morning had indeed arrived.

Sir Malcolm nodded contentedly, then turned to Markus Salter, who was standing in a threadbare red cape next to Barbara.

“Ah, behold and be appalled. Speak of the wolf, and he will come. What will . . . what will . . .” Now Salter also stumbled in the text, and Sir Malcolm rolled his eyes angrily as if he were a wolf himself.

“Good Lord, Markus,” he fumed. “How many times have we performed this play? Five? Ten?”

“It seems like a hundred,” Salter groaned.

“Then I really don’t understand why you’re so distracted. As the king, you have fewer lines than any of us. Just what’s wrong with you lately? Always tired, apathetic, late for rehearsals . . .”

“I have to rush to get all the costumes and props,” Markus replied in a soft voice. “And then at night I have to retranslate Shakespeare’s
Titus Andronicus
and this complicated
Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find the right rhymes?”

“No, I don’t. But I do know something else. None of you have understood yet that this is the most important damned performance of the entire year.” Malcolm glared at each of the actors, one by one. “If we mess up this time we’ll be spending the winter in some barn with the oxen and asses. Is that clear to all of you?”

Apologetic murmurs came from the actors before they continued, with Sir Malcolm interrupting frequently to correct something or roll his eyes theatrically when someone forgot a line.

Barbara took a deep breath, concentrating fully on her next lines. They were performing
Peter Squenz
, a comedy by a certain Andreas Gryphius. She’d scarcely had time to sit down and read the play through. It was about a group of simpleminded workers who performed a play for the king and his court, and failed in a comical fashion. Barbara’s role was that of Princess Violandra, and she had little more to do than to flutter her eyelashes, look pretty, and occasionally say something funny. Sir Malcolm took the main role, that of the shoemaker Peter Squenz. Barbara observed with amazement how he could turn himself into a simpleminded clown using just a few gestures, making it look so natural and easy. It seemed he could assume the part of almost any character at will. Stuttering like a toothless old farmer, he had just bowed submissively to the king in the balcony.

“Herr . . . Herr King! There are lots of f-f-f-fools at your court.”

The more Barbara thought about their performance the next morning at Geyerswörth, the queasier her stomach felt. Malcolm had promised her a splendid costume that would be made especially for her that evening. The old one was in the actors’ wardrobe wagon, which had been in an accident just outside Bamberg and fallen into the river. For the rehearsal she wore her simple gray dress with a soiled bodice. Her legs were trembling, and she didn’t feel at all like a princess but more like a housemaid who didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing.