The Werewolf of Bamberg (53 page)

Just as the congregation struck up a loud hymn, Jeremias beckoned Jakob to a stairway that seemed to lead down underneath the western altar. Once they reached the bottom, they found themselves standing in front of a locked door.

“And now?” Jakob asked impatiently.

Grinning, Jeremias fetched a rusty key chain from his pocket. “Luckily I kept a few other things along with my executioner’s sword from my former life. Before those bigoted zealots built the House of the Inquisition, many trials took place in the Old Residence. With all the torturing, I was soon one of the most sought-after men in the residence—I was needed and respected—so at some point they gave me this ring of keys, allowing me unrestricted access everywhere.”

Jakob looked at him skeptically. “Including to the crypt in the cathedral?”

Jeremias giggled and jingled the keys. “They needed me, but they also wanted to avoid a fuss—too many patricians had already died at the stake. Every time I walked through the Schöne Pforte and into the residence, everyone in the city knew what was going on, so eventually they came up with the idea of smuggling me in unnoticed—through the cathedral. So come along quickly.”

He opened the door and led Jakob into a square room with stone walls and floor; it appeared to be located directly beneath the western altar. The floor was strewn with rubble, rotted beams, and old sacks of mortar as hard as stone, making their progress difficult.

“Long ago, this was the crypt of an earlier cathedral,” Jeremias explained. “During the construction work it was excavated, but then the part above ground was renovated and what was down here was forgotten. Lucky for us.”

He climbed over the rubble until he finally reached a low archway with blocks of stone and beams of wood piled in front of it. Panting and puffing, the old man started to pull away some of the lighter beams.

“Come on, big fellow, lend a hand,” he said to Jakob. “It’s been more than thirty years since anyone cleaned up down here.”

The hangman moved the heavy stone blocks aside as if they were small chunks of plaster, and before long, the doorway was cleared, revealing a narrow, dark corridor.

“Now comes the unpleasant part of our trip,” Jeremias announced, picking up the candle he’d set down on the rubble. “Just make sure your little light doesn’t go out, or things could become rather nasty.”

Once again he giggled, then climbed over the last few pieces of rubble and entered the narrow passage. Jakob followed, ducking so as not to hit his head.

There was not much to see, since the candles illuminated only a small circle of light around them. The tunnel was straight at first. Dense cobwebs hung from the ceiling and clung to Jakob’s face. Again and again, the tall hangman bumped his head on the ceiling and walls, stirring up clouds of stone dust.

“Please be careful,” Jeremias scolded, pointing at the walls covered with damp mold and saltpeter, “or the crypt will soon have two new inhabitants.”

Jakob looked around carefully. Only now did he notice how brittle and crumbling the walls of the corridor were. He now also noticed niches hidden in the shadows, from which the empty eye sockets of human skulls glared back at him, surrounded by splintered arm and leg bones and a few rib cages covered with moss and mold. As they continued forward, the niches became more numerous, and soon the two intruders were surrounded by crowds of the dead waiting in the stone rooms for life to return. Jakob couldn’t help remembering that today was All Souls’ Day.

It’s been a long time since anyone brought any soul bread down here to these poor wretches. Will they rise up out of purgatory today just the same?

“We’re now in what is probably the oldest section of Bamberg,” Jeremias whispered to him. “There was a castle on this hill long before King Henry II, the last of the Ottos, built the first cathedral here, and no one knows how long these bones have lain here. Perhaps even a few of the first Babenberg counts are among them. They must have been a rather debauched crowd.”

“I don’t give a damn who’s here as long as they don’t get in my way with their bones,” Jakob growled. He pointed ahead, where some of the bones had evidently fallen out of their niches. Skulls and large thighbones were piled up, blocking the tunnel.

“What a hell of a mess,” Jeremias hissed. “As I said, it’s been a long time since anyone cleaned this place up. Evidently, the tunnel has been completely forgotten in the last decades. Well, all the better for us.” He kicked the bones aside, and his feet made a crunching sound as he moved ahead. Suddenly he leaned down and picked up a skull.

“Well, look at this,” he said, turning to Jakob and pointing to a fist-sized hole in the back. “What’s your professional opinion, my dear cousin and colleague? Was it a club, a morningstar, or—”

“Didn’t you say we only had an hour?” Jakob interrupted. “Quit fooling around and keep moving, or you can lie down and join them.”

With a sigh, Jeremias dropped the skull and moved ahead. Twice again they had to climb over mounds of bones, then they came to a winding staircase with worn steps that led upward. Finally they found themselves before a weathered wooden door covered in cobwebs.

“Thank God, the door is still here,” Jeremias exclaimed with relief. “Now I can tell you. I was afraid they’d walled it up in the meantime.”

He took out a ring of keys and grunted as he struggled to open the lock.

“I’ll bet no one has oiled this in a long time. I don’t know if I—”

“Get out of my way,” said Jakob, pushing Jeremias aside. He turned the key, the lock creaked and finally gave way, and then he pushed against the door. It opened with a hideous squeal.

“Jesus, not so loud,” Jeremias moaned. “I hope they’re all up there at the mass, but you never know if these pale, work-addicted archivists ever take a break.”

They entered a paneled corridor that branched off in two directions. When Jakob turned around, he could see that the door they’d closed behind them was almost invisible between the individual wooden panels, with only the door lock to indicate a hidden passage.

“The corridor to the right goes to the council room,” Jeremias whispered, “and the one on the left to the bishop’s archive. Keep moving, now, we don’t have much more time.”

He hurried ahead, and soon they were standing in a wide hallway with boxes and shelves full of parchment rolls, notebooks, and tattered documents on both sides. By the dim light of the candles, the corridor looked endless.

“Damn it! How are we going to find an individual document here?” Jakob cursed. “This is worse than a needle in a haystack.”

“Not really,” Jeremias replied. “The inquisitors in those days were perhaps cruel, but also extremely conscientious. Several times, I had to deliver the minutes of individual sessions here. They’re arranged by year. See for yourself.”

The old man had been shuffling along past the shelves and boxes, but then he stopped and pointed at a tiny brass plaque affixed to the side of one shelf and bearing the number 1625.

“At best, we have only until the cathedral bells ring again,” Jeremias warned him. “Then we’ll have to go back. So let’s get started. What do you think—in what year might the trial have taken place?”

“How should I know?” Kuisl replied. “For God’s sake, you were the hangman then.”

“Calm down, you’re right.” Jeremias raised his hand apologetically, then put it to his scarred nose. “So, let me think. The first great wave of persecutions was, I think, in 1612, but at that time I was just a young boy, and my father was the executioner here. So it must have been later, when the current victims or their relatives were already on the Witches Commission. Do you have the list with you?”

Jakob nodded and pulled out a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. Just that morning he’d made a list of all the victims of the supposed Bamberg werewolf. There were six names on the list.

Klaus Schwarzkontz

Thadäus Vasold

Agnes Gotzendörfer

Barbara Leupnitz

Johanna Steinhofer

Adelheid Rinswieser

“Let’s have a look,” Jeremias murmured. “The first two victims were, in fact, commission members at the time, I’m sure of that, and so was Egidius Gotzendörfer, the late husband of Agnrd Gotzendörfer. Barbara Leupnitz was the daughter of Johannes Schramb, one of the scribes at the time—”

“We know all that already,” Jakob interrupted impatiently, tapping his gnarled finger on the two remaining names. “What about Johanna Steinhofer and Adelheid Rinswieser? Could you find out anything about them?”

“Well, guess what?” said Jeremias with a grin. “I asked Berthold Lamprecht, the tavern keeper of the Wild Man, as I told you I would, pretending I felt bad about the two young women and asking about their parents. And lo and behold, Johanna Steinhofer also comes from a good family. She’s the granddaughter of Julius Herrenberger, a very influential patrician at the time who died some years ago. I remember that he, too, was on some of the Witches Commissions.”

“And how about the last one?” Jakob asked. “This Rinswieser?”

“Bull’s-eye.” Jeremiah nodded his confirmation. “Adelheid Rinswieser is the youngest daughter of Paulus Braun—now deceased, but at one time a social climber who, despite his youth, managed to get a position in the city council with trickery, money, and cunning. I assume he also sat on one of the commissions, though I honestly can’t remember him. Oh, and by the way, Johanna Steinhofer’s fiancé and Adelheid Rinswieser’s husband are now on the current council.” Jeremias grinned and rubbed his thumb and index finger together. “Money is attracted to money.”

Jakob frowned without commenting on Jeremias’s last words. Looking around, he discovered a small desk in a niche with a quill and ink pot. He quickly unfolded the note, crossed out some names, and wrote some new ones alongside.

Klaus Schwarzkontz

Thadäus Vasold

Agnes Gotzendörfer
Egidius Gotzendörfer

Barbara Leupnitz
Johannes Schramb

Johanna Steinhofer
Julius Herrenberger

Adelheid Rinswieser
Paulus Braun

“This is the group we’re looking for,” he said finally, handing the sheet of paper to Jeremias. “Can you make anything out of that?”

“I think so.” Jeremias considered for a moment and nodded. “That must have been during the last wave of persecutions, or the name of young Paulus Braun wouldn’t have been there. Let’s have a look.”

He walked along the shelves until he reached the number 1627. “I think we need to begin here. That was the year they built the last Inquisition House. I remember it well.”

“It’s more important for you to remember who was on the commissions at that time,” Jakob insisted as he himself began searching the individual drawers and pigeonholes on the shelves. Dust swirled up as he leafed quickly through the documents. The hangman found an almost endless number of lists and trial transcripts, each one documenting the cruelty. In the dark dungeons of the Inquisition, suspects were set down on chairs heated until they were glowing; given a mash of salted herring and pepper that made their thirst almost unbearable; immersed in a bath of lye that stung their eyes; or locked into tiny enclosures of sharp, wooden pyramids until, screaming and wailing, they confessed to the most outlandish crimes.

Jakob Kuisl found yellowed transcripts and sentences so horrifying that they even made the hangman’s hair stand on end. On some pages, rust-brown specks of blood were still visible.

The woman was beaten with switches, then put again on the rack, and the entire day she lay there, confessing nothing . . .

The arm and leg screws were tightened, but she still screams she knows nothing . . .

She is put again on the rack and whipped, but still confesses nothing . . .

. . . continues to show no remorse . . .

In carcere mortua.

“Died in the dungeon.” Jakob translated the final Latin words. He shook his head in disgust, then turned to examine another dusty record.

It is thus duly noted that the woman has given herself heart and soul to the Evil One, and will therefore be tortured with red-hot pincers applied to her breasts, and since she has repeatedly dishonored the sacred host, her right hand will be cut off, whereupon with the other women she will be burned alive at the stake.

Jakob cast a surreptitious glance at Jeremias, who was also rummaging through the files. Jakob wondered what the former Bamberg executioner could be thinking as he read about his own deeds many years ago—but Jeremias remained remarkably calm, attentive, and focused, outwardly untroubled by anything he saw.

Would I be like that if I’d broken, beheaded, and burned hundreds of people? Or am I perhaps already a bit like Jeremias? What is it that makes monsters of us?

But the strange thing was that Jeremias wasn’t a monster at all. He was a kind old cripple, a lover of animals, and a learned man who had relieved others of having to do this filthy work and was now peacefully living out the last years of his life. He didn’t even seem much concerned about having murdered the young prostitute. Jakob frowned. Perhaps Jeremias was so hardened by the sorrow at the death of his fiancée, back then, that he could no longer feel anything.

In his position, would I have done the same?

Inwardly Jakob had just answered his own question when Jeremias, standing nearby, suddenly let out a cry.

“Here,” he said, holding up a thick dossier. “I think I have it. It was right up on the top shelf. Here are the names we’re looking for. And now it all comes back to me.” He shook his head in disbelief. “How could I ever have forgotten this trial? I’m clearly getting along in years.”

“What do you mean?” Jakob asked, still lost in his gloomy reveries. “What was special about that trial?”

Jeremias grinned. “Hah! What was special? It was perhaps the most sensational trial that Bamberg had ever seen, and our current candidates were all, in fact, part of it. Here, see for yourself.”