“Ah, yes, the children,” he said sadly. “Hm, what shall we do with the children? I am an old, hunchbacked man and I’m sure you understand I can’t carry the two of them through the passageways. But perhaps one of them?” He smiled slyly. “You tell me-which of the boys shall I take with me? The little one or the big one?”
Once again Simon tried to reply in a croaking voice, but Virgilius interrupted him with an angry wave of his hand. “I have no more time for your babble. I’ll take the little one along; he’s lighter. The older one can accompany his father on his last voyage.”
The monk pulled a cookie out of his robe and beckoned to Paul. Trustingly the two-year-old crawled to Virgilius, reached for the cookie, and let the hunchbacked old man pick him up. “Very well,” Virgilius purred, stroking Paul’s tousled hair as the child stuffed the treat in his mouth. “I’ve got even more sweets where that came from. Shall we have the woman sing again?”
Simon watched in horror as Virgilius rocked the boy in his arms. The child was delighted by the singing automaton, which the watchmaker had just wound up again. After a while, heavy steps could be heard approaching in the corridor.
“Ah, my servant,” Virgilius said with relief, pulling a lever on the back of the automaton that made it suddenly fall silent. “Enough dancing. I thought we’d never leave.” Abruptly he raised his finger, then turned to Peter. “You’ll be good and stay with your father, won’t you? He needs you now. Do you understand? You won’t leave.”
The three-year-old boy nodded earnestly as he held his father’s wet, cold fingers firmly in his little hand
“Wonderful. Then let’s go now, but first my helper and I have to do just a few things.”
Virgilius turned toward the exit where a figure drenched from the heavy rain had just appeared. His clothing was steaming in the warmth of the cave, and with the back of his broad, hairy hands he wiped the rain from his face. When Simon finally recognized him, he quivered like a fish out of water, but he could only watch helplessly as his sons opened their arms to the new arrival, greeting him with shrieks of delight.
“See, I always knew my servant had a heart of gold,” Virgilius said. “Sometimes it’s even an advantage to lack a tongue, to not be able to talk back.”
Gasping, Simon stretched out his hand toward the man, but his arm fell limply to the ground.
Standing in the darkness of the cave was the mute Matthias.
Cautiously, Magdalena slipped into the dark hole while the two guards followed, grumbling softly.
It was clear the men could think of better things to do than to descend into the utter darkness beneath the former Andechs castle. Cursing under their breath, they jumped down onto the stones the hangman had piled up there just half an hour before. They lit up the end of the tunnel with their torches and stared anxiously into the darkness in front of them.
“We have to go back quite a way,” Magdalena said, brushing the dirt from her hair. “Farther ahead, another corridor branches off that I haven’t explored yet. Quickly now; we have no time to lose.”
“I can’t believe we’re taking orders from a dishonorable hangman’s daughter,” the older soldier complained. He appeared to be sweating profusely under a beaten helmet and an equally battered cuirass.
“You’re right, Hans,” the other agreed. “How did it ever come to this, crawling around down here like rats in this filth? Did you raise your skirt for the count?”
“Should I repeat that to His Excellency, or would you rather tell him yourself?” Magdalena responded coolly.
“God forbid. I… I…” the guard stammered.
“Good. Then we can get moving.” Magdalena took the torch from the hands of the astonished soldier and trudged on ahead. Cursing softly, the two guards followed while the hangman’s daughter tried to hold back her tears and her anger.
It was hard for Magdalena to rein in her emotions. Her heart pounded as she thought about what this sorcerer might have done to her children and her husband, but she had learned from her father that it was sometimes necessary to control one’s feelings to reach a desired goal. If she cried and complained now, the men wouldn’t follow her. They might take a few steps into the passageway, so as not to disobey their superior’s orders, but then quickly return to the surface. So whether she wanted to or not, she would have to keep control of herself.
After they had groped through the darkness for several minutes, the odor of rot and urine grew stronger. The older guard turned up his nose in disgust.
“It stinks here like the devil’s latrine,” one of them growled. “Good God, what is that?”
“It is the devil’s latrine,” Magdalena said. “But we mustn’t worry about that. All we have to do is-”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” The young guard stopped suddenly, his mouth open wide as he pointed at the light green glimmer in front of them. “Look for yourself. Ghosts! They’re luring us to our doom. By all the saints, let’s turn around at once.”
Angry at herself for having forgotten the shining phosphorus in the old latrine, Magdalena closed her eyes. She should have prepared the men for this. Now they seemed ready to dash off frantically.
“Ah, that’s a little hard to explain,” she began. “But they aren’t ghosts, they’re only…”
“The dead-who find no rest,” Hans wailed, crossing himself and pounding loudly on his cuirass. “What sort of hellish place have you lured us into, hangman’s daughter?”
“Damn! Listen to me. My father explained it all to me. It’s a powder that…”
“Look over there! It’s coming from that room,” the young guard wailed, pointing at the passage leading to the latrine. “And do you hear that? That music? By God, the dead are having a dance.”
In fact, the automaton’s familiar melody could be heard far off. Magdalena’s heart beat faster. Evidently Virgilius was still down here with his automaton. Were her children and husband down here with him? Listening closely, she tried to make out where the music was coming from-it seemed not to be coming from the adjacent latrine, but from somewhere in front of them, from another passage. She thought she could hear another soft noise now, as well.
The wailing of children.
With a trembling voice, she turned to the guards. “Do you hear that? We’re getting closer. Let’s move along as fast as we can…”
But the passage behind her was empty. The guards had already turned around and were running back toward the keep. All she could hear now was the sound of their running feet echoing through the darkness.
“I’ll tell the count about this, you superstitious cowards,” she cried after them. “My father will whip you for this until you see stars of every color. He’ll…”
With a sigh she fell silent and continued trudging through the passageway alone, always listening for the barely audible music and the whimpering children. More than once she cursed the two guards who had abandoned her so shamefully. It looked now as if she was on her own, and the very thought of that made her shudder. She could probably handle Virgilius by herself, but how about the helper the crazy woman had spoken of? Was he down here somewhere, as well?
Magdalena wrapped her shawl around her neck and tried not to tremble. At least she still had one of the soldiers’ torches, which would give her about another half-hour of light. She didn’t want to think what would happen after that. Only fear for her children and her husband drove her on.
She stopped for a moment and listened intently. Had she just imagined the crying? She picked up her pace, stumbled several times, got up again, gasping, and groped her way down the corridor littered with stones, beams, and scattered bones.
After a while, it seemed that a green glow was coming from the floor of the tunnel, as well. Traces of the white powder that she and her father had seen only in the former latrine appeared here, as well, though she couldn’t remember seeing it in the passageway before. Still, she was in too much of a hurry to attach any great significance to this discovery.