The Werewolf of Bamberg (66 page)

Jakob hesitated. “I think I would, yes,” he finally said. “Every crime must someday be atoned for.”

Jeremias let go of him and closed his eyes. “You’re . . . a . . . good . . . man, Kuisl,” he whispered. Then his head fell to one side.

Jakob listened to his heart, then took his own singed coat and laid it over the old man, as if he were just sleeping. There was still a smile playing over the man’s lips.

He looked as if he was at peace.

With a sigh, Jakob turned to the others. Barbara was in a deep sleep, but her breath was now more even. Simon had washed her, so her skin no longer looked as black and burned. Alongside her, Georg groaned loudly in pain, but the wolf trap at least had not severed a tendon, and he was able to hobble around. Jakob himself still felt dizzy from the smoke and the blows to his head, but he’d gotten far worse beatings before in barroom brawls.

Just the same, this monster nearly killed me,
he thought.
By God, I’m really getting too old . . .

Simon knelt down beside the corpse of the dead dog, examining it with Bartholomäus. The medicus looked like he was thinking it all over, trying to find some idea lurking in his mind.

“I think Brutus was rabid,” he told Bartholomäus, who appeared to be recovering from the worst of his sorrow at the loss of his pet. “All the foam around its mouth, that sudden attack, the rage, the trembling legs . . . And Salter’s prisoner, the apothecary’s wife, just told me the poor animal had been prowling around the house for a long time, rooting around and digging.”

“When I went looking for him around here with Aloysius, he must have been very close by.” Bartholomäus paused to think, then stood up and washed his bloody hands carefully in a puddle nearby. “God knows where he picked up that infection, but if Brutus had rabies, that would explain his random, savage killing of animals in the forest and why he attacked Salter in such a rage.” He winked at Jakob. “But maybe the dog mixed the two of us up and thought his master was being attacked.”

“I always knew dogs were stupid,” Jakob answered dryly. “Who could have mixed the two of us up?”

“You’re more alike than you want to admit. When will you two squabblers finally realize that?” It was Magdalena. With a broad smile, she returned from the other side of the burning house holding her scarf, knotted together and full of leaves and herbs. “Here’s good news for a change,” she said, holding up the scarf triumphantly. “I found not just elderberry shrubs in the wild garden but also an old overgrown patch of herbs. Now, in late autumn, there wasn’t much there, but the flames from the house were so bright I was able to find some dried shepherd’s purse and buckhorn.” She gazed over at the hunting lodge, where the upper story had collapsed. Black smoke rose up into the night sky like a giant, admonishing finger. Magdalena suddenly pursed her lips.

“But even these herbs weren’t able to save Hieronymus Hauser,” she said darkly. “Katharina’s father burned to death in there. What a terrible end for the old man.” She handed the folded scarf full of herbs to Simon, helping him and her father as they crushed them in their hands and laid them on Barbara’s and Georg’s wounds. They tore Bartholomäus’s coat into long strips to serve as bandages.

“I don’t think the old scribe suffered for very long,” Adelheid Rinswieser replied after a while. She had been given Magdalena’s woolen coat and stood off to one side shivering, still looking dazed. “He was already unconscious when Salter dragged me out of the room. He must have suffocated without ever regaining consciousness.”

“A merciful death for someone who bought his fortune with the blood of others,” Bartholomäus growled, staring wistfully into the burning house. “As the scribe for the Witches Commission, Hieronymus made a lot of money during the trials. I see now how he could afford that beautiful house by the Sand Gate. I never really liked him—he was a very calculating person.”

“But he did agree to his daughter’s engagement to the executioner,” Jakob reminded him.

Bartholomäus gestured dismissively. “If Katharina will even take me anymore,” he said sadly. “After everything that’s happened in the last few days, I’m not so sure.”

Suddenly a hunting horn sounded in the distance. Jakob looked around in astonishment.

“Who is that? At this time of day it’s certainly not the bishop out hunting. Perhaps good old Answin?”

“Ah, not exactly,” said Simon as he cleared his throat and applied the last bandage. “I must confess I told Captain Lebrecht before we left. Aloysius was kind enough to tip off the city guards, and now it seems we can put them to good use here,” he said, pointing at Barbara and Georg, “if only to transport the injured and put out the fire before it spreads to the forest.” He rubbed his nose in embarrassment, then grinned. “They could also help us with a plan I’ve been thinking about for a long time that might end this miserable werewolf story once and for all.”

“A plan? Hah! I thought you were just scared,” Jakob replied with a smile. “I thought I’d always have to have a pussyfooter as a son-in-law.” He chuckled. “But then you went and killed a real live werewolf. What silly old bathhouse medicus can say that of himself?”

A few minutes later, the guards arrived. There were almost a dozen of them, led by the Bamberg captain Martin Lebrecht. Meanwhile, Simon had been trying to figure out how to win over the captain. The plan he’d thought up while studying Brutus’s carcass was quite risky, and it all depended on Lebrecht going along with it.

Him—and the apothecary’s wife.

The captain nodded when he saw the burning building. “Maybe it’s better that this building is finally going up in flames,” he said, mostly to himself. “There was always something evil about it. I’ve heard that all sorts of riffraff and strange people hung out here. I should have had it torn down long ago.”

He gave a sign to the guards, and they fanned out to extinguish some small fires smoldering in the woods despite the recent heavy rain. Only then did he turn to the small group of wretched-looking people in front of him. Simon had quickly covered Salter’s corpse and the dog’s cadaver with brush in order to avoid premature questions. Jeremias’s body, however, still lay there, covered only with Jakob’s coat, next to Barbara, who had passed out again, and Georg, who propped himself up on a makeshift crutch, pale and with clenched teeth.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the captain burst out. “What the hell happened here? And whose corpse is that lying there?” He leaned down, holding his torch.

“Well, ah . . . It’s a long story,” Simon replied. “Perhaps it would be better if we talk about it in private first.”

“When you first called for us, I wasn’t sure if we should even come, but now . . .” Lebrecht frowned and looked at the victims as if trying to make sense of it all. “Sure, why not? My men are occupied over there, anyway. Tell me what happened.”

Simon took a deep breath. Now he’d see if his plan would work.

“We caught the werewolf,” he began in a firm voice. “Actually, two of them—one an animal and one human. Come and see for yourself.” He took Lebrecht off to the side, where Markus Salter’s corpse and Brutus’s carcass lay underneath a brush pile. Simon pulled the branches aside, and the captain blanched.

“My God,” he gasped. “
This
is the werewolf? And the man here is one of those actors. Did that monster mangle him? And what brave fellow finally killed the beast?”

Simon blushed. “Ah . . . that was me. But allow me to start at the beginning.”

He tried to explain as briefly as possible—the witch trial of Chancellor Haan and his family, Salter’s former life as Wolf Christoph Haan, and his plans for revenge that cost the life of the suffragan bishop. In conclusion, he explained how the trail had led to the old hunting lodge where there was a life-and-death battle.

“Salter often dressed up as a werewolf to spread fear in the city. First he observed his many victims, then he abducted them, and finally he tortured and killed them in this abandoned hunting lodge,” Simon explained. The captain listened in astonishment, his mouth agape. “As a former law student, he had precise knowledge of the different degrees of torture, just as they are described in the Bamberg
Constitutio Criminalis
, the criminal code. Salter punished his prisoners in exactly the same ways the members of his own family had been tortured, tit for tat.”

He pointed at the pale Adelheid Rinswieser, who up to then had been standing in the background. “The honorable wife of apothecary Rinswieser and my young sister-in-law are the only survivors; they can confirm all this for you. There was no real werewolf, only a man in search of revenge. Markus Salter, alias Wolf Christoph Haan, wanted to incite a panic in the city just like the one back then during the witch trials, when everyone in the city would point a finger at their neighbors. You must admit he succeeded.”

Lebrecht looked around suspiciously. “Do you mean to say this Haan fellow duped my men up in the old castle by presenting them with a dead wolf and putting on a show of hocus-pocus?”

“Ah, well . . .” For a brief moment Simon seemed uncertain, but Magdalena came to his aid.

“Evidently he wanted to free his friend Matheo, because he knew he was innocent and the wolf pelts actually belonged to Salter,” she suggested with a straight face. “The dead wolf was only a distraction, and your night watchmen promptly fell for it. They’d perhaps had a bit too much to drink.” She winked at the captain. “They say people who make their own schnapps at home sometimes meet the devil in person.”

“Hm . . .” The captain scratched his unshaved chin. “That’s possible. In fact, I found an empty bottle in the guardhouse, and the horror stories the fellows came up with made it seem like they were covering something up. I thought—”

“That it was the bishop’s baboon you’d been looking for for so long?” Magdalena interrupted. “Well, the baboon could hardly have killed the wolf.”

Lebrecht looked at her severely. “Didn’t I tell you not to reveal a word about that in public?”

Simon raised his hands apologetically. “Trust us, we’ll be sure to keep this little secret, as I’m embarrassed I didn’t realize earlier what was going on. I visited the bishop’s menagerie along with Master Samuel, and I saw the empty monkey cage there. But at the time I was too occupied with other things.”

“That damned monkey has been driving me crazy,” said Lebrecht. “I’d like to put a stone around his neck and throw him in the Regnitz—but then the prince-bishop would probably throw me in after him,” he sighed. “Oh, well, now the beast is back in its cage.” He shook his head in amazement. “And His Excellency Sebastian Harsee was infected with rabies, you say? Damn, and I thought he’d been bitten by a real werewolf.” He gazed across the clearing, now illuminated by torches, where the guards were still on the lookout for smoldering fires and pulling apart some of the burning timbers. “Actually, the bishop’s master of the hunt told me just last week there had been an increase in rabies cases in Bamberg Forest. He had to put down a few foxes and wolves.”

Lebrecht hesitated, then pointed at the huge dog carcass. “That brings me to the matter of this creature. You said there was no werewolf. So what is that? And what’s a beast like this doing here in the forest so close to the city?”

“That’s something you should hear about from someone else.”

Simon stared at Bartholomäus, waiting for him to speak up, but the Bamberg executioner just stood there defiantly, his arms crossed. After a while, Jakob gave his brother a kick in the shins. Bartholomäus glared at him briefly, then hesitantly started talking.

“The dog is an alaunt, an ancient race that I have reintroduced,” he said. “It escaped from the knacker’s house and somehow got infected with rabies, the poor animal.”

“Poor animal?”
Lebrecht scoffed. “It’s a damned monster, Master Bartholomäus. Do you have permission from the bishop to keep this animal?”

Bartholomäus lowered his eyes. “No, I don’t. No one except us knows it even exists.”

“You see, that’s just what I was getting around to.” Simon beamed, as he always did when he had what he thought was a brilliant plan. He turned to the Bamberg executioner. “So nobody knows about this dog?”

“That’s right,” said Bartholomäus, folding his arms. “Didn’t I just say that?”

“Well, then I’d like to introduce you all to the real werewolf.” With a dramatic gesture he pointed at Brutus—with his huge body, muscular chest, and long teeth, still looking very dangerous, even in death. “Here it is.”

Martin Lebrecht looked at him, confused. “Now I don’t understand a word. You just said there was no werewolf.”

“Correct, there is no such thing, but we still need a beast for the people—because until they see it lying dead in front of them, they’ll keep looking for it. That would mean more suspects, more trials, and more innocent people thrown into prison, tortured, or even burned at the stake.”

Simon leaned down to the dead Brutus, grabbing him by the neck and struggling to lift him up, so that the dog’s eyes seemed to glare diabolically at the group.

“The people need evil. It must lie dead in front of them, or they will never believe it has been vanquished,” he continued. “Brutus is our werewolf. He’s big, looks strange and dangerous, and, above all, has already been captured and is dead. We’ll never find a better scapegoat.”