The Werewolf of Bamberg (47 page)

Meanwhile, Georg was dreaming of dark malt beer flowing slowly from a giant barrel and spreading across his head. All he had to do was open his mouth and the delectable fluid would completely fill his body.

But then the color of the beer suddenly changed—instead of brown, it was now red, and Georg could taste blood. He was in danger of choking to death on the huge stream of blood, and now through the deluge of red he heard cries, someone seemed to be calling to him. Then he felt someone shaking him roughly, the blood disappeared, and all he felt was a pounding in his head. “Hey!” he heard a voice saying. “Wake up, we’re closing, let’s go, you drunk.”

Georg opened one eye and stared into the pasty face of the tavern keeper, who suddenly looked as old and fat as he remembered her from earlier that night.

“Get out, boy!” she yelled. “Get out of here before people start wondering what happened to you. All hell has broken loose outside.”

“Hell . . . ,” he mumbled, nodding slightly. Like hell—that’s how he felt at the moment.

“They caught a couple of werewolves in the city,” the woman continued. “One of them, they say, is the suffragan bishop himself. The whole city’s gone crazy. So move along.” She gave him a shove, and he almost fell off the bench. “I want to close before one of these self-appointed guards shows up and starts wrecking my place.”

“Werewolves . . . Suffragan bishop? I don’t understand . . .” Georg struggled to get up from the table and staggered toward the door. The tavern was deserted, and only a few puddles of beer were there as a reminder of the earlier crowd of partiers. Georg almost fell over once, but the tavern keeper caught him and helped him get his balance.

“You’d better stay on the main streets,” she told him, “or find a few other late-night revelers to take you home. It’s a strange night. God knows who or what is lurking around out there.” She crossed herself and closed the door behind him, and Georg found himself alone on the street.

He took a few deep breaths and rubbed his tired eyes. The cool night air helped him sober up a little. There was a small fountain at the next corner, and he staggered toward it. First he just splashed a little cold water on his face, then he stuck his head all the way in, like an ox at a trough.

The stinging cold water brought him more or less back to his senses. He shook the water from his hair, then cautiously looked around the deserted streets. The only light he could see came from the second floor of the tavern. Everything else lay in darkness.

Georg frowned. The bar woman had said something about captured werewolves. Maybe one of them was the wolf’s carcass that his father, Uncle Bartholomäus, and Magdalena had left behind for the guards up in the old castle. So it seemed Matheo was able to escape. But what about the other werewolves, and what did that all have to do with the suffragan bishop?

He heard loud voices in the distance, perhaps night watchmen calling to one another. Georg shook his head, still clouded by alcohol. It would be best for him to pick up the children and get home as fast as possible, and . . .

Georg’s heart skipped a beat as he remembered how he’d gotten to the Blue Lion. He’d left the boys with Jeremias. That was hours ago. Unless he was really lucky, Magdalena had long since come back home and would be sick with worry. She’d scratch his eyes out if he told her what happened. There was nothing he could do about that—it was the price he’d have to pay for getting drunk. At least the children were in good hands with Jeremias.

Jeremias.

Georg was about to continue on his way toward the City Hall Bridge when he stopped again. The name of the old custodian started him thinking. One thought that had been stirring in his alcohol-befuddled brain suddenly popped out. Standing there at that moment, in the cold autumn night, with freezing hands and water streaming from his hair, it all became clear.

He had seen something.

Something very suspicious that now, after the fact, brought all the pieces of the mosaic together to form a clear picture.

Jeremias . . . the children . . . the sword . . .

Georg began to run.

In her cold, dark prison, Adelheid, the apothecary’s wife, made preparations for her imminent death.

She knew her death would come, sooner or later, in the form of that man whose hood she had ripped off the day before in her escape attempt. She just didn’t know the exact hour.

Or how she would die.

Her heart raced as she thought of all the instruments she’d seen in the torture chamber that had brought death to so many others before her. The rack, the sharp-pointed cone, glowing hot tongs, bronze boots, arm and leg screws . . . Which one would the man use first? Which one last?

The candle had gone out hours ago, and since then the man hadn’t brought a new one. Darkness enveloped her like wet, black soil, and she felt as if she’d been buried alive. By now, she was sure her prison had to be somewhere in the forest. From time to time, as if through a heavy woolen blanket, she could hear the muffled chirping of birds and, when the wind was blowing especially hard outside, the cracking of branches. Since her eyes could see virtually nothing, her other senses had become all the more intense. She could smell the hard dirt floor, the mold on the walls, the tiny feces that the mice left in their nests and passageways. Sometimes she even thought she could hear the sound of roots growing all around her—a constant cracking and crunching—but that was probably her imagination.

Then there was the cold. In their house in Bamberg, the Rinswiesers had a cellar where they stored beer and other perishables. In the winter, Adelheid’s husband cut blocks of ice from the frozen Regnitz, which he stored deep under the house to keep things cool. Adelheid called this the
ice hole
, and it was as cold there in the middle of summer as in mid-February. She never stayed longer there than absolutely necessary.

And now she’d been lying here for many days in just such an ice hole. And it would probably be her grave.

She was surprised that the man hadn’t returned. There was still a tiny spark of hope in her. She couldn’t stop thinking how the man had cried the day before—an almost childlike sobbing. Or was that already the day before yesterday? It seemed he’d intended to take her to the horrible torture chamber, but then he’d changed his mind. When she recovered consciousness, she found herself tied to the bed like an animal awaiting slaughter. Her throat was sore from the leather noose he’d used when he almost strangled her, and it was hard for her to swallow. The clay cup next to the bed had fallen to the floor, so she was tormented with a terrible thirst that got worse by the hour. But until now, he had spared her.
Why?

Suddenly the thought came to her that perhaps the man hadn’t spared her at all, but had chosen the worst of all tortures for her.

He’d just let her rot away down here, in this icy hole.

In her dark, cold grave.

“Help! Help!” she screamed. “Is anyone there? Anyone at all?”

But her throat was so sore and dry that her cries turned into a muffled rattle. She coughed and vomited sharp, acidic mucus.

I’ll slowly freeze here, dying of hunger and thirst. How long will it take? Two days? Three? Longer?

She struggled to sit up, but the leather straps were tied so tightly over her chest they took her breath away every time she moved.

Adelheid closed her eyes and tried to stay calm. She wasn’t dead yet, and she would fight to the end. There was still hope. If the man left her down here to die like a wounded animal, it would be the end for her, but if he came back, she would appeal for his sympathy. He had cried. She didn’t know why, but he had feelings. Since she’d seen his face, he was no longer a monster, but a person. Perhaps at that moment he’d viewed himself again as a person. Did he perhaps regret what he had done?

On the other hand, Adelheid also knew he couldn’t really allow her to live now. She had seen his face, she would recognize him.

If only for that reason, she had to die.

“Help!” she cried again but stopped when the pain in her throat became too severe. She broke out sobbing, though she knew that the tears were draining the last bit of fluid from her body.

How long would it still be? How long? How—

Suddenly, through her crying and wailing, she heard a soft sound. Adelheid froze in shock. Yes, something was there. Definitely. A scraping and scratching, and it came from somewhere above her.

“Is someone there?” she asked excitedly.

The scratching continued. Now she realized it came not from the ceiling, but from near the top of the wall. Was someone digging down to her? Had they finally found her?

“Here!” she cried out in a hoarse voice. “Here I am! Here—”

What happened then made her fall silent for a moment.

Something up there was growling loudly and deeply. There was an ugly rattling and a deep rumble, as if the mythical Cerberus, the hound of hell himself, had awakened from a long sleep.

My God, the monster! It’s outside. It’s digging down to me.

Adelheid held her breath. The scratching and scraping, which until just a moment ago had sounded so promising, suddenly had become an evil sound from the bowels of the earth.

Then she noticed a slight brightening in the room. It took some time for her to realize that a tiny ray of moonlight was coming from the same corner as the sounds, through a slit in the wall. Evidently there was a window up there that had been covered by soil, and now someone or something was digging its way down to the window.

Again she heard the terrifying growl.

She cringed. If it was an animal, it had to be very, very large, and it was trying to dig its way down to her.

The beast. God in heaven, protect me. Holy Saint Georg, protect me.

13

B
AMBERG
, TEN O’CLOCK AT NIGHT
, N
OVEMBER
1, 1668 AD

W
ITHOUT STOPPING TO CHECK IF
anyone was following him, Georg ran through the dark streets of Bamberg. A horrible thought had seized him with such force that at first he rejected it.

You’re just imagining things. Stay calm. Try to think things through, like Barbara or Magdalena would.

But the more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. The very possibility that his assumptions might be correct made him run faster and faster. He needed certainty. Perhaps it would have been better to ask his father for advice first, but now there was no time for that. Besides, who was to say he was right? It was quite possible he was just imagining things and would make a fool of himself in front of his father and the others. It was better, then, for him to check out his conclusions by himself. At least his fear had sobered him up somewhat.

Gasping for air, Georg ran through the deserted fish market toward the wedding house; the outer gate was still open. Normally, two guards were stationed here, but evidently they had more important things to do tonight. No doubt they were off somewhere hunting werewolves. Georg wished he could learn more about it, but first he had to make sure the children were safe.

He entered the dark interior court and turned right, toward the door to Jeremias’s room. He took a deep breath and listened, but couldn’t hear a sound—no voices, no cries of children. He knocked timidly.

“Who’s there?” came a voice from inside after a while. Georg thought it sounded nervous and tense.

“It’s me, Georg,” he whispered. “I’m sorry it got so late.”

A bolt was pushed aside and Jeremias’s scarred face appeared in the opening. He was smiling broadly.

“Ah, it’s only you,” he said with relief. “I thought something had happened to you. The guards have been reporting the most horrible things about what’s going on in the city.” He winked. “But looking at you, it seems you’ve been quenching your thirst a bit too much. Your first time getting really drunk, eh? Well, that can be terrifying.” He opened the door. “Come on in, I’ll help you get yourself together again.”

Georg entered the room and looked around. There was only a single candle burning on the table beside a board with chess pieces on it. The draft coming through the open door made the cage with the sleeping birds swing back and forth gently, and a mangy cat was dozing on the bed. He didn’t see the children anywhere.

“Where are the boys?” Georg asked anxiously.

Jeremias pointed toward a small door on the left next to the bookshelves. “I took them over to the bench by the stove in the tavern. It’s nice and warm there, and since the guards came and threw everyone out, it’s quiet and empty. Biff is watching them, so you don’t have to worry.” He pointed toward the bed with the straw mattress. “It would be better for you to spend the night here with the children. No doubt you’ve heard what’s going on out there tonight.”

Georg nodded absentmindedly. He sat down on a stool by the table while Jeremias busied himself at a little tile stove in one corner. Finally, the crippled old custodian turned around and handed Georg a steaming cup.

“Here, drink this,” he said. “It’s hot small beer mixed with honey and a few strong herbs—the best cure for the aftereffects of the accursed devil’s brew.”

“Bless you.” Georg gratefully took a sip. It tasted sweet and at the same time bitter, and in fact it did clear his head a bit.

“Do you play chess?” Georg asked after a while, pointing to the chessboard on the table. “Who with?”

Jeremias laughed. “Not with Peter yet, though the little fellow has a really good head on his shoulders. No, I play against myself.” He winked at Georg. “Believe me, I’m a merciless opponent.”

Georg gave a wan smile, and his gaze wandered over the medical books on the shelves, then farther across the floor to the chest, with whose contents the boys had been playing so enthusiastically that afternoon.

I was right,
he thought, his heart pounding.
At least regarding the medical books, my memory wasn’t deceiving me. And for the rest . . . well, we’ll see.

“This is really an impressive library,” Georg began hesitantly. “I just realized my father has most of the same books.”

“Really?” Jeremias raised his eyebrows. “Well, there aren’t a lot of really good books about medicine. I’m sure you know that—”

“Lonitzer’s almanac of herbs and plants, for example,” Georg interrupted, pointing to a rather thin, dog-eared book whose title was easy to recognize on the book’s spine. “Uncle Bartholomäus has one of those, too. It’s a book consulted often by hangmen, because it contains many recipes on how to dispatch the condemned man quickly and, above all, painlessly into the hereafter. At least that’s what my uncle told me.” Georg hesitated for a moment. “There are also some instructions on what to do to a condemned man to break his resistance.”

Jeremias suddenly pricked up his ears. “Ah, indeed?” he said with surprise. “What, for example?”

“Well, it just happens my father told me of one method just recently,” Georg replied, his voice trembling a bit. His head felt dull and heavy, but he kept a careful eye on Jeremias. “There’s the so-called sleep sponge. It’s often used in surgical operations, as well, to sedate patients. My father thinks the victims of this werewolf were drugged first, to make them easier to take away and kill. Are you familiar with this sleep sponge?”

“The werewolf sedates streetwalkers and then rips open their rib cages? Is that what you’re thinking? Very original. Your father must be a very imaginative hangman.” Jeremias chortled, and the scars on his face seemed to spring strangely to life. Then he shrugged. “To answer your question, perhaps I have indeed heard about this sleep sponge. But unfortunately I don’t know anything more about it.”

“Really? That surprises me. After all, its main ingredients are standing right there on your bookshelf.” Georg pointed at the crucibles and vials. “
Hyoscyamus niger, Papaver somniferum
, and
Conium maculatum.
The first time I was here, I couldn’t make any sense of the Latin names, but later, in the tavern, they occurred to me: henbane, opium, and spotted hemlock.” He smiled between clenched lips. “I may not be as smart as Barbara, but sometimes I remember the seemingly most insignificant things. It must be true that alcohol doesn’t always make you dumber. Sometimes it helps you to figure things out.”

For a long while the only sound was the soft chirping of the birds in the cage. Some had been awakened by the conversation and were flapping their wings excitedly.

The crippled custodian with the scarred face continued looking at him cordially, but Georg thought he noticed an anxious flicker in the man’s eyes.

“I’ve always recommended alcohol as a means of healing,” Jeremias said finally. “It can be amazingly effective, especially if the patient is unaccustomed to it. The same is probably true for the sleep sponge.” He folded his arms and leaned back on the bed. “I have a hunch that alcohol has provided you with additional insights. Is that so?”

Georg nodded. “Indeed.” He took another sip of the stimulating drink before continuing. His voice sounded more confident now. “I told you before that my Latin was not so good. I always hated it when Father pestered me about it. But there’s no getting around the fact that hangmen have to learn Latin. Most of the books on healing are written in it, and that’s the way we earn most of our money—with healing, much more than killing. So every day I had to translate Latin with my father, and I’ve even remembered some of it. Barbara was always better, of course.” He looked at Jeremias approvingly. “Your Latin, by the way, is excellent, as far as I can tell. Recently you’ve spoken Latin with me several times.
Homo homini lupus
—man is a wolf to man. Do you remember? Those were your words.”

Jeremias smiled and raised his hands disarmingly. “Very well, I’ll admit I speak a respectable Latin, and I have a few herbs that I probably shouldn’t have, but so far your reflections have led you to no conclusions, and that surprises me. What else do you have, detective?” he asked, playfully shaking his scarred head.

Georg sipped his drink and thought some more before continuing, slowly, as if he was groping forward word by word.

“My father always told me, when we were learning Latin, that when you get lost, sit back and look at the whole sentence, not just the individual parts. They only make sense when you take them all together. With you, too, I’ve been looking at the whole thing, and there was a part I just couldn’t fit in anywhere—at first.”

“And what would that be?”

“A sword.”

Jeremias looked at him, astonished. “A sword? I don’t understand. For the first time, you’re actually making me curious.”

Georg pointed at the old, battered trunk in the corner. “Well, when I brought the children to you, they went to play back there by the trunk. Paul was crazy about a short sword he found there. It was actually just the handle and the lower part of a blade that had broken off, dull and scratched. At first I didn’t pay any attention to it, but then I remembered what Paul had said to me when we were out by the river. He was very keen on going to see you.
He has a sword just like Uncle Bartholomäus, only smaller.
Those were his exact words, and at first I didn’t know what he meant by that. But now I do.”

Meanwhile, Jeremias had gone over and opened the old trunk. He took out the broken sword and held it reverently in his hand. It was a “great” sword, a two-hander—dull and rusted, and its handle was just as rough and gray as on the day it was forged.

“The handle is of sharkskin,” Georg whispered. “Isn’t that right? A handle only found in Bamberg executioners’ swords. I always admired Uncle Bartholomäus’s sword. Even if you’re anxious and your hand is sweaty, every drop will run off, and your hand won’t slip when you deal the deadly blow. I always wanted to have a sword like that. You have one, or at least a broken part of one. Why?”

“Why don’t you tell me,” Jeremias replied. His eyes had lost their warmth now. He looked sad and very, very tired, almost as if he’d aged years in the last few minutes.

Georg placed the cup down on the table and stared at the cripple for a long time. “I asked my uncle once how he’d become a hangman in Bamberg. After all, he was a stranger here, and the job almost always goes to the firstborn son of the previous hangman. The hangman before my father, however, had no children.”

“No, he didn’t,” Jeremias said in a soft voice.

“After the witch trials, the hangman disappeared without a trace,” Georg continued. “Nobody ever saw him again, though I think people were somewhat relieved. His name was Michael Binder. As the Bamberg executioner, he took upon himself the weight of the city’s guilt. He had tortured and executed almost a thousand people, on the orders of the bishop and a special inquisition committee, and then he simply disappeared. And with him, the guilt.”

“The guilt remains,” Jeremias replied. “It can’t be washed away, not even with caustic lime. The good citizens cannot wash it away, and the hangman certainly cannot, either. He must continue to live with this guilt, especially with the one . . .”

Georg could see tears welling up in the custodian’s face, and suddenly he felt sorry for him. “What kind of guilt do you mean?” he asked hesitantly.

Jeremias smiled sadly. “You’ll be a good hangman someday, Georg. I can tell, believe me. Good hangmen are like sharp swords. They relieve suffering, if possible. Just a whoosh of air and it’s done. Be careful not to think too much about it. With the thinking comes dreams, bad dreams.” Jeremias groaned as he returned and sat down on the bed with the sword handle. “Especially when you’re torturing someone, your mind must be as clear and clean as a freshly forged sword. The screams, the pleading, the wailing must all bounce off you, have no effect. But sometimes you can’t do it. Perhaps you will know some of the victims—not well, but you’ve met them and greeted them on the street. They are neighbors, casual acquaintances, the tavern keeper from where you’ve always ordered your beer, the midwife who helped your wife birth her child. This isn’t a large city, and to some degree everyone knows everybody else. And the day may come when you must torture and execute someone you . . .” He hesitated. “You really love. This guilt stays with you forever.”

“My God.” Georg looked at him, horrified. “You . . . you . . .”

“Carlotta was sixteen,” the old man continued, staring blankly into space while his fingers clutched and kneaded the sword handle. He seemed lost in his own world. “She was the daughter of a well-to-do linen weaver. Our love was clandestine. No one was to learn of it. But we swore we would get married someday. As a sign of my affection, I gave her a dress of pure fustian as soft as goose down. Toward the end of the third wave of persecutions, at the time of the Great Plague, the tavern keeper of the Bear’s Claw claimed he’d seen my Carlotta dancing with the devil in the parish cemetery at the time of the full moon. In those days, lots of people danced with the devil,” Jeremias said with a dry laugh. “The trial didn’t even last half a day, then they handed Carlotta over to me. I can still remember her wide-open eyes. My hands trembled, but I did my job, as always. They asked her about the people she knew, and every time I applied the tongs to her, I thought she would speak my name. But she didn’t. She just looked at me the whole time with her big, brown eyes, like those of a sweet little fawn . . .”

“Did you burn her at the execution site?” Georg finally asked, breaking the silence that followed.

Jeremias shook his head. “She hanged herself in the dungeon with a rope made of the dress I’d once given her. Perhaps she wanted to spare me the sight of the execution.” He laughed bitterly again. “The sinner spares the hangman from having to kill her. What irony. The devil really had a time with us.”

“What happened then?” Georg asked.