The Werewolf of Bamberg (63 page)

Jakob Kuisl didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious. For a moment? For hours? When he raised his pounding head, there was nothing around him but heavy smoke and darkness. He coughed and tried to sit up. From his experience with execution fires, he knew the smoke was always the densest and the most deadly at the bottom. “If you want to die fast, keep your head down,” he’d sometimes advised condemned men. “Then it’s almost as if you’re going to sleep.”

But I don’t want to die—not yet. I’m looking for my Barbara.

He staggered to his feet. Every bone in his body hurt, and his head felt like a soaked sponge, but evidently he hadn’t broken anything in falling over the trip wire. Now that he was standing, the smoke was no longer as thick and he could breathe more freely, but he still couldn’t see anything in the darkness. He assumed he was somewhere at the bottom of the cellar steps.

As he was trying to get his bearings in the swirling clouds of smoke, he heard muffled screams off to one side, and shortly thereafter a door swung open with a crash, suddenly revealing a corridor illuminated by the blazing light of a fire. A man came out, dragging a shackled woman behind him. Jakob squinted, but then the door closed again, and once more the corridor lay in darkness. He blinked several times and shook himself, trying to pull himself together. The fall had shaken him more than he’d realized.

“Barbara!” he rasped. “Is that you?”

A woman’s voice cried out but was cut off so suddenly it seemed as if someone had put his hand over her mouth. Still, Jakob was sure it was Barbara. He’d finally found her, and she was still alive.

“Barbara! Here I am!”

The hangman groped blindly toward the place he’d just seen the two people, reaching out into the darkness like a drowning man, when suddenly something bumped into his side, and footsteps scurried past. Then he heard a sound, someone gasping nearby, like a disembodied ghost. He reached out frantically in all directions, but there was nothing there, and a moment later he heard another door squeaking somewhere behind him.

This time Jakob resolved to be absolutely quiet. He wanted to be sure this madman wasn’t lurking for him in some dark corner and wouldn’t find him an easy target. Intuitively he reached for the oaken cudgel on his belt, but it appeared he’d lost it in his fall.

Then I’ve got to go with what I have.

Slowly and ponderously, like a golem that had sprung to life, he moved toward where he’d heard the squeaking door.

His hands stretched out in front of him, he groped his way down the smoke-filled corridor. For a moment, he thought he heard a hoarse voice behind him, but it was probably just his imagination. On his right there was a rough wall, then an opening.

The door. That bastard left the door open. Now I’ll get you.

Blindly, Jakob entered the room and felt a fresh breeze blowing toward him, driving away the clouds of smoke. There had to be a window somewhere. But how was that possible? He was deep down in the cellar. He desperately tried to remember how the house looked from outside. Was there perhaps an escape tunnel? A trapdoor he had overlooked in his haste?

Something hard and cold brushed against his face. He reached for it and could feel a chain with an iron hook on it. There was a second hook within easy reach. He shook the chain, and the links jingled as they swung back and forth. His eyes were full of tears from the smoke, and he still wasn’t able to see anything but dark outlines.

Where am I, for God’s sake?

He strained to concentrate on his other senses: sound, touch, smell. His fine nose detected, amid the clouds of smoke, something else—a fragrance of something that had been there long ago and had eaten its way into the walls. It smelled of blood and salty, smoked meat, haunch and saddle of venison, wild boar’s leg . . . Jakob flinched.

The meat cellar. I’m in the storage area for meat from the hunter’s kill, and there’s a shaft here they used to lower the disemboweled animals. Where—

Suddenly a shadow jumped at him from out of the darkness. The hangman felt a sharp sting as one of the hanging chains hit him on the cheek. He fell to the ground and rolled to one side to escape a possible second blow, but it didn’t come. Instead, he heard fast, shuffling steps disappearing into the darkness.

A moment later he heard the muffled voice of a woman, a bolt was pushed aside at the top of the shaft, and a trapdoor opened up.

Jakob shook off the pain, looked up, and saw moonlight streaming into the room through an opening. After all this time in darkness, the faint light seemed almost as bright as the light of day. The wide shaft ended up above at the trapdoor, which now stood open. A narrow stairway no more than a foot wide led up the side of the shaft, and two figures were standing just below the trapdoor. One wore a dress that fluttered in the wind. Before Jakob could see anything else, the trapdoor slammed shut and the two figures had disappeared.

“Barbara!” the hangman shouted up the shaft. “Barbara!”

He raised his fist threateningly and sent a curse up into the night sky. “I’ll get you, you bastard, even if you run to the ends of the earth, and then not even God will be able to save you! No one kidnaps my daughter—no one!”

Jakob struggled to his feet and hobbled, groaning, toward the stairway, which was now once more enveloped in darkness. He thought he heard a soft, hoarse cry coming from far down the corridor behind him, but it was too faint to tell exactly where it came from.

Once again, and not for the first time that day, the hangman felt he was far too old for such adventures.

Coughing and with tear-filled eyes, Barbara tugged on the leather strap that bound her like a dog to the ring on the wall. The smoke was now so thick she could hardly see anything in the room anymore. The rack had to be on her right where old Hieronymus Hauser was lying, not making a sound. Perhaps he’d already suffocated from the smoke.

“Help!” Barbara cried. “Help, Father! I’m here!” But there was no answer.

Flames crackled all around her, moving up the hanging tapestries to the wooden ceiling, where they licked at the beams. It got hotter by the second; the only reason Barbara’s clothing hadn’t burst into flame was that she was still wearing the rain-soaked monk’s robe. At the moment, the robe was like a protective shield. Just the same, Barbara knew it was only a matter of minutes until she would die an agonizing death down here in the fire.

If I don’t suffocate first like old Hauser.

Once again she struggled to loosen the knot in the strap with her shackled hands, but it was tied too tightly. She looked around in panic until she noticed the glowing poker lying on the floor not far from her. Could she sever the strap with it?

She stretched her leg out and was just able to reach the glowing poker with her toe. There was a soft hissing sound as the fire ate its way through her shoes. She groaned, clenched her teeth, and tried to ignore the pain. She pulled the poker close enough to reach with her shackled hands. Carefully she picked it up at the far end, which was not as hot, but still the heat was enough that she almost passed out. The poker seemed to practically stick to her skin, but she persisted, pressing the poker against the leather strap she could see only faintly in the billows of smoke, and at the same time tugging at the strap, which gave off a stinging odor.

Finally, when the pain had become almost unbearable, the strap gave way and Barbara fell backward.

She had no time to lose. Gasping, and with her hands and feet still shackled, she crawled through the clouds of smoke toward the place where she assumed the door was. She knew this was her only chance. If her sense of direction failed her, she wouldn’t have a second opportunity to look for the exit on the other side of the room.

Please, please, dear Lord, don’t let me be wrong.

With her shackled hands she felt her way along the stone wall, recoiled from the burning tapestries, and finally felt the hot wood.

The door. She’d actually found it.

With agonizing slowness, on the verge of passing out, she rose to her feet, groped for the door handle, and found it. Barbara was so happy she barely noticed the burn from the poker. She pressed the handle and threw herself against the door, and with a loud crash it flew open. The dark corridor on the other side was also full of smoke, but nowhere near as dense as in the room she’d just left. Nevertheless, it was enough to rob her of her sight and breath.

Father . . . Father,
she wanted to cry, but her throat was so dry that only a soft wheeze came out. Nearly blind, she moved ahead a few steps into the darkness, banged into the opposite wall, and found another door slightly ajar that she pushed open. She entered.

Where . . . where am I?

She turned around, looking for another way out, but there was none. The room was tiny, a storage closet full of old odds and ends. A ray of moonlight fell through a narrow open window far above her, allowing just enough air into the room that she did not suffocate.

Smoke swirled into the room from the corridor, and the crackling flames seemed to be drawing nearer.

Tears ran down her face, where they quickly dried in the soot and ashes.

Her father had not found her.

One floor above, Magdalena, Georg, and Bartholomäus were still groping through the dark rooms as the wind whistled through the cracks in the windows and the rotted roof of the old hunting lodge.

Shadows lurked in the corners, large forms that looked like petrified monsters but which on closer examination were nothing but pieces of furniture covered with dust and cobwebs. They had just walked past a moth-eaten stuffed bear that seemed to glower at Magdalena with an evil eye. Once again they heard muffled cries coming clearly from the cellar beneath them, but they couldn’t locate the stairway going down. The entire house stank of mildew, ancient mold, mouse droppings, and—

Magdalena stopped short.

“Do you smell that, too?” she asked her two companions in a low voice. “It’s smoke. There’s a fire somewhere in here.”

“Damn, you’re right,” Bartholomäus growled. He lifted up his nose and sniffed the air. “Where do you think it’s coming from?”

Magdalena squinted and looked around. How could she find anything in this damned darkness? She couldn’t see a fire anywhere, but the smoke was getting stronger and stronger. Looking down toward the floor, she suddenly thought she saw a gray, undulating cloud, and now she noticed other little clouds of smoke rising toward the ceiling, where they became more visible in the moonlight coming through the cracks in the windows.

“Good God, the whole floor is smoking,” Georg cried out in horror. “There must be a fire down in the cellar.”

In just a few moments, the smoke became so thick that Magdalena started coughing. Earlier, she had at least been able to see dark outlines, but now she could hardly see a thing.

“Let’s get out of here!” Bartholomäus shouted. “Perhaps the smoke isn’t quite so heavy yet in the back of the house.”

Her uncle raced down another corridor, and Magdalena followed close behind. She had no idea where Georg was. Smoke was everywhere now, stinging their eyes and making breathing increasingly difficult.

She heard a metallic click followed by a sudden, anguished cry, this time very nearby. Georg! Bending down, she saw him indistinctly just a few steps away. He was writhing around and seemed to be in great pain.

“What happened?” she asked anxiously.

“Something grabbed me by the leg,” Georg said through gritted teeth. “I think it was another of those damned traps. It . . . hurts . . . so much.”

Magdalena crawled over to her brother, passing her hand down his leg until she felt something metallic and sharp that had clamped down on his right ankle. The fresh blood stuck to her fingers. While she was examining Georg, Bartholomäus crawled over to them. He coughed, rubbed his eyes, and bent down to have a better look.

“By all the saints! That’s a wolf trap,” he gasped. “This madman actually put out wolf traps here.” With his powerful fingers he pulled apart the two jagged jaws that had clamped down on Georg’s ankle. Georg let out a short cry, then just moaned softly. “We’ve got to get Georg out of here as quick as possible and care for the wound,” Bartholomäus said, throwing the trap into a corner with disgust.