Just after the first cockcrow, there was such a loud pounding at Jakob Kuisl’s door that it sounded as if he himself were being summoned for execution. Outside, it was still the dead of night. Kuisl lay in bed alongside the soft, warm body of his wife, who turned, blinking and groggy, to her husband after the visitor had pounded on the door a third time.
“It doesn’t matter who it is…Wring his neck,” she mumbled and buried her head under a down pillow.
“You can bet on it,” the hangman groaned, swinging his legs out of bed, almost falling down the stairs when the knocking began again a fourth time. In the next room, the twins woke up and began to cry.
“All right, all right,” the hangman growled, “I’m coming!”
As he stumbled down the ice-cold stairs barefoot and dressed only in his nightshirt, he swore to himself he would, at the least, apply thumbscrews to this disturber of the peace. He would probably also shove burning matches under his fingernails.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
Jakob Kuisl had had a strenuous night. The little ones had a terrible cough and couldn’t be calmed down, even with hot milk and honey. Once Georg and Barbara had finally drifted off to sleep, Kuisl rolled around in bed for hours thinking about the second gang of robbers. He was brooding about the mysterious fourth man when he’d finally fallen asleep.
Only to be awakened what seemed like five minutes later by this fool trying to break down his door.
Furious, Jakob Kuisl ran down the steps, threw aside the bolt, tore open the door, and shouted at his visitor so loudly that the guest almost fell over into a large snowdrift behind him.
“What is God’s name do you think you’re doing, you stupid clod, coming here in the middle of the night…” Too late, he noticed it was Burgomaster Karl Semer standing there. “Confound it…” the hangman muttered.
The hangman stood a full head taller than the burgomaster, and the patrician looked up at Kuisl in terror. There were dark circles under Semer’s eyes, he was pale, and his left cheek was badly swollen.
“Excuse my bothering you at such an early hour, Kuisl,” he whispered, pointing at his cheek. “But I just couldn’t stand it…the pain…”
The hangman frowned, then opened the door. “Come in.”
Leading the burgomaster into the main room, he relit the fire in the hearth with a few pieces of kindling he kept in holders on the table.
In the faint light, Karl Semer looked around the hangman’s quarters-the executioner’s sword next to the devotional corner, the rough-hewn stool, the huge well-worn table, the gallows ladder in the corner. A few books lay open on the table.
“You’re reading…?” the burgomaster asked.
The hangman nodded. “Dioscorides’s work. An old tome, but there’s nothing better for learning about herbs. And this one here,” he continued, holding up a newer book, “Athanasius Kircher, a damned Jesuit, but what he writes about the plague is first rate. Do you know his work?”
The burgomaster shrugged. “Well, to tell the truth…I read mostly balance sheets.”
Lighting his pipe from a piece of kindling, the hangman continued. “Kircher thinks the plague is transmitted by tiny, winged creatures that he has seen with a so-called ‘microscope.’ He says nothing about vapors emanating from the earth, or God knows what else the quack doctors go on and on about, but creatures so small they’re invisible to the naked eye, that jump from one person to another-” Kuisl’s enthusiastic remarks were interrupted by his children’s crying. His wife, too, could be heard complaining loudly up in the bedroom.
“What in God’s name is going on down there?” she cursed. “If you want to go out and drink, go to Semer’s tavern and let the children sleep in peace!”
“Anna,” Jakob Kuisl hissed, “Semer is standing right down here.”
“What?”
“The burgomaster is down here with a toothache.”
“Toothache or not, please keep the noise down, for God’s sake!”
A door slammed.
The hangman looked at Karl Semer and rolled his eyes. “Women,” he whispered, but softly enough that his wife couldn’t hear. Finally, he turned serious again. “So what brings you to me?”
“My wife thinks you’re the only one who can help me,” the burgomaster said, pointing to his swollen cheek. “I’ve had this toothache for weeks, but tonight…” He closed his eyes. “Make it go away. I’ll pay whatever you ask.”
“Well then, let’s have a look.” Jakob Kuisl guided the burgomaster to one of the stools. “Open your mouth.”
He held up a small piece of burning wood to see into the burgomaster’s mouth. “Ah, I can see it, the son of a bitch,” he mumbled. “Does this hurt?” He tapped a finger on a black stump of a tooth far back in the burgomaster’s mouth. The burgomaster jumped and let out a scream.
“Shh,” Kuisl said. “Remember my wife. She doesn’t have much understanding for these things.”
He left for the adjoining room and returned shortly with a little bottle.
“What is that?” the burgomaster grumbled, half dazed with pain.
“Clove oil. It will ease the pain.” The hangman put a few drops on a cloth and dabbed it on the tooth.
Karl Semer groaned with relief. “Indeed, the pain is better. What a miracle!”
Jakob Kuisl grinned. “I can inflict pain, and I can take it away. Everything at a price. Here, take it!” He handed the burgomaster the little bottle. “I’ll give you the tincture for a guilder.”
Kuisl poured the burgomaster a cup of brandy. He drank it in one gulp and gratefully took another cupful.
The two men sat across from each other for a while in silence. Curious, Semer looked around the room again, his eyes coming to rest on the gallows ladder.
“Scheller’s trial will probably be tomorrow,” the burgomaster said, pointing to the ladder. Relieved of pain, he now looked remarkably relaxed, even in the hangman’s house. “Then, in three days, you can go to work.”
But then he became angry. “This damned second band of robbers!” He pounded the table with his fist so hard that the brandy splashed out of the glass. “If it weren’t for them, I could sell my muscatel easily in Landsberg and beyond. The Swabians love their wine, and I can’t deliver it!”
“But perhaps you can.” The hangman poured himself a big glass of liquor this time.
Karl Semer looked up at him in amazement. “What do you mean by that? Don’t talk nonsense. As long as we don’t know who’s leaking information about our secret routes, it’s extremely dangerous out there. Shall I let the same thing happen to me as Holzhofer and the others?”
Jakob Kuisl grinned. “I know roads that even the highway robbers don’t. It would be easy to get through with a horse and sled. And besides, you could get an escort for the first few miles. With my men, I’ll be out there chasing the thieves down the next few days, anyway.”
“An escort, huh?” The burgomaster furrowed his brow. “And what will that cost me?”
Jakob Kuisl emptied the liquor in one gulp like a glass of milk. “Almost nothing,” he said. “Just a little information.” He leaned over the table. “All I’d like you to do on your way to Swabia is to ask around a bit for me. For a man like you, what I want to know should be easy to get.” He explained to the burgomaster what he wanted.
Semer listened attentively and nodded. “I don’t really know what good that will do, but if that’s all there is to it, sure…And we could leave as early as tomorrow?”
The hangman nodded. “As soon as the snowstorm lets up. But until then…” He pointed to the burgomaster’s cheek. “With a tooth like that, I wouldn’t take any big trips, anyway.”
The burgomaster blanched. “But the pain has stopped, and I have the clove oil…”