“It’s not yet too late to return to God’s just way,” Hauser gasped. “If you release me now, I promise you-”
“You disgust me with your begging,” Salter interrupted. “I’m certain that my grandfather, my father, my mother, and all the other Haans died with far more dignity than you will. Let’s end this pathetic farce.”
He was just turning to the brazier in the corner, where a tong was already glowing red-hot, when they heard a loud hammering overhead. Then Barbara heard a deep, muffled voice, coming most likely from up on the first floor, though all she could understand were random words. But she did recognize her father’s voice.
Barbara!
Her heart leaped for joy. It was her father calling. He’d found her!
When Markus Salter heard the noise from the floor above, he flinched. Then he suddenly stopped and stood still, like a fox in an open field, and shook his head in disbelief.
“This. . this is impossible,” he stammered. “This can’t happen now. The play isn’t over yet, or. .” Suddenly a smirk passed over his face. He reached for the tongs and walked toward Barbara.
“It’s your uncle, isn’t it?” he said. “Or your father. In any case, someone from your accursed clan of hangmen. Well, whoever it is, he will soon get a big surprise. The audience likes that, doesn’t it? Surprises.” He listened intently as if waiting for what would come next, but when he didn’t hear anything else, he turned back to Barbara and Adelheid with a shrug. “Your family has destroyed mine, and now they’ll have to watch how I deal with their relatives. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a-”
There was a metallic crash, and from the corner of her eye Barbara could see that the heavy brazier had tipped over and the glowing pieces of coal were rolling like stones across the floor. Adelheid, who had been crouching along the wall directly next to the brazier and until then had remained silent, had given it a violent kick with her shackled feet. The room immediately filled with an acrid odor, and some of the pieces of coal rolled into the bales of straw, which immediately began to smoke. Flames rose up along the hanging paintings to the wooden ceiling. Stunned, Salter stumbled back a few steps.
“What. . what are you doing?” he stammered. “Why-”
“Here we are!” Adelheid yelled. “Down here in the cellar! Help us, whoever you are!”
Again there was a crash outside. Evidently something heavy had fallen down the stairs. Barbara was still paralyzed with fear.
What’s going on outside, for heaven’s sake? Where is Father? He should have gotten down here already. Is it possible he didn’t hear us?
She looked back at her torturer. The overturned brazier had given them no more than a brief respite. Salter seemed to have already gained control of himself.
“If that’s what you want, then burn!” he bellowed. “Burn just like my parents and grandparents. Burn, all of you!”
Red and blue flames rose from the bales of straw. One bale stood close to the rack, and flames reached out eagerly to devour the dry wood. Hauser gasped and writhed on the rack, whimpering softly, then turned his eyes away and lost consciousness again.
Markus was about to run to the door when he stopped and turned back to Adelheid with a look of determination.
“You’re coming with me,” he said. He rushed over to her, pulling her up by the hair so hard that she screamed. “The hangman’s girl and the scribe can burn, but I still need you. Who knows what’s waiting for me outside? You’re my hostage.” He stared into her emaciated, ashen face. “You were always my favorite, Adelheid-so strong, so full of the will to live. I almost let you go, but it can’t end like this. Not yet.”
As he spoke, he removed the leather strap around Adelheid’s neck, loosened the shackles on her feet, and dragged her to the doorway. The apothecary’s young wife cast a last, desperate glance at Barbara, then disappeared with him in the corridor, and the door closed with a loud bang.
Smoke crept like a bitter potion down into Barbara’s throat.
“Father,” she gasped, trying to crawl across the floor toward the door with her shackled feet, but the leather strap around her neck held her back, and every time she moved, the noose closed tighter. “Father. Here. . I. . am. .”
Then the clouds of smoke finally blocked her sight.
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.