The Dark Monk (60 page)

Magdalena pushed her way past the gossiping women and tried not to take what they were saying too seriously. As the hangman’s daughter, she was accustomed to people thinking of her as the spawn of Satan, and ever since she started working for the midwife, her reputation had grown even worse. Mostly it was the men who were convinced the hangman’s daughter prepared magic elixirs and love potions, and in fact, a few of the aldermen had already obtained such preparations from her father. Up to now, however, Magdalena had always refused to swindle people with such nonsense, primarily to avoid arousing even more suspicions about her being the devil’s consort. But to no avail, she had to admit to herself with a sigh.

As the crowd continued whispering and gossiping, she entered the bakery with Simon, where they were received by Michael Berchtholdt, who looked as white as a sheet. As so often, the scrawny little man smelled of brandy, and his eyes were ringed in red circles as if he’d passed a sleepless night. He was rubbing a dry bouquet of mugwort between his fingers to ward off evil spirits. His wife, who was just as skinny, knelt before a crucifix in a corner of the room, murmuring prayers which were, however, drowned out by the screams of the maid.

Resl Kirchlechner lay by the fire on a bench covered with dirty straw. She writhed in pain as if a fire were burning inside. Her face, hands, and legs were covered with red pustules, and the tips of her fingers had turned a shiny black. Her belly was distended into a little round ball and almost looked like a foreign object on her otherwise spindly body. Magdalena presumed that, until now, the maid had wrapped her dress tightly around her to conceal the pregnancy.

At just that moment, the young woman sat up suddenly as if someone had rammed a broomstick up her back. Her eyes were vacant and her dry lips opened as she let out a long drawn-out scream.

“He’s in me!” she gasped. “My God, he’s eating through my body and tearing out my soul!” A loud moan followed. “Oh…I can feel his teeth. I can hear the smacking of his lips as he gnaws through my belly! I want to spit him out like a rotten piece of fruit!” She made a retching sound as if preparing to regurgitate something large and undigested.

“My God, what is that?” Simon asked in horror as he stood in the doorway.

“Can’t you see? The devil is in her!” Maria Berchtholdt moaned from the corner of the room, rocking back and forth on her knees and tearing at her hair. “He’s eating her alive from the inside out. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…”

Her prayers turned into a wailing monotone as Michael Berchtholdt stared silently at his maid thrashing around in spasms.

“It looks like Resl took something to abort the child,” Magdalena whispered to Simon so the others couldn’t hear. “Perhaps castoreum, or rue.” Suddenly she frowned. “Wait
—
she didn’t…”

Magdalena cautiously approached Resl Kirchlechner and felt the pustules on her arm. When the maid started thrashing around again, the hangman’s daughter jumped back. “I think I know what it is now,” she whispered. “It must be St. Anthony’s Fire. Resl probably took ergot to abort the child.”

Simon nodded. “I don’t know much about it, but I think you’re right. The pustules…the black fingertips…and then the feverish dreams. Everything points to that. My God, the poor girl…”

Magdalena squeezed his hand and then uttered a curse under her breath. As a midwife she knew about ergot, a fungus that grew on rye and other kinds of grain and was used now and then to abort a pregnancy. But the ergot could be taken only in small doses or it would cause cramps and horrible visions in which the victims encountered witches, devils, and demons. Their fingers and toes turned black and finally fell off, and because they felt like they were being burned by fire inside, the sickness was called St. Anthony’s Fire.

Simon turned to Michael Berchtholdt. “This girl isn’t possessed by the devil,” he snarled, pointing to the girl’s swollen belly. “Resl took ergot, and I wonder who might have given it to her.”

“I—I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the master baker stuttered. “It may be that Resl has been fooling around with some young fellow and—”

“No, with Satan!” his wife interrupted. “She’s been carrying on with Satan!”

“Nonsense!” Magdalena whispered softly enough so Berchtholdt couldn’t hear it. She dabbed the face of the screaming maid with a damp cloth and tried to comfort her. But suddenly Magdalena couldn’t control herself any longer. Her eyes flashed as she turned around and glared furiously at the baker.

“Like hell it’s Satan!” she snarled. “Everybody in town knows that you’ve been running after Resl! Everybody!”

“What are you trying to say?” Michael Berchtholdt asked softly. His facial features looked even sharper than usual. “Are you saying that maybe I—”

“You knocked up your maid!” Magdalena blurted out. “And so that nobody would find out, you gave her the ergot. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

Berchtholdt’s face turned beet-red. “How dare you talk about me like that, you fresh little hangman’s girl?” he gasped finally. “You’re forgetting that I sit on the city council and all I have to do is to give the word and you Kuisls can pack your things and leave. All it takes is one word from me!”

“Ha! And who will give your wife her little sleeping potion then?” Magdalena jumped up and pointed at the praying Maria Berchtholdt. “How often has she come to my father for a little potion to calm down her husband at home so he will nod off after drinking his wine?”

The baker glared in disbelief at his wife, who looked down at the ground, embarrassed, her hands folded. “Maria, is that right?”

“Quiet!” Simon said. “It’s disgraceful to quarrel like this while the poor girl is probably dying. If we are to help, we at least have to know how much ergot it was and who gave it to her.” He looked at Michael Berchtholdt in desperation. “For God’s sake, say something! Did you give the medication to the girl?”

The master baker remained defiantly silent, but suddenly his wife spoke up in a soft voice. “It’s true,” she whispered. “It would be a lie to say anything else. God help you, Michael! You, and all of us!”

The baker struggled for words but gave in at last. He slumped over, sighing, and ran his hand through his hair, which was thinning and matted with flour. “Well yes, then, I—I gave it to her,” he stammered. “I—I told her to take it all at once just to make sure it worked.”

“All at once?” Magdalena looked at him in horror. “And how much was that?”

Berchtholdt shrugged. “A little bag, perhaps as large as my fist.”

Simon gripped his forehead, groaning. “Then there’s no way we can save her. All we can do is try to relieve her pain.” With clenched fists he advanced toward Michael Berchtholdt. “Who in God’s name gave you so much ergot?” he snarled. “Who, damn it! What quack?”

The baker retreated toward the doorway and finally murmured something so softly that Simon couldn’t understand him at first. “It was your father.”

The young medicus stood there dumbfounded. “My father?”

Berchtholdt nodded. “The stuff cost me two guilders, but your father said it was the surest way.”

Simon had trouble speaking. “Did my father at least tell you how much to give her?”

“Actually, he didn’t.” The baker shrugged. “He just said it would be better to take too much than too little, just to make sure it worked. So I just gave her all of it.”

Simon was tempted to seize the baker by the throat, but at that moment the maid began to scream again—this time longer and higher-pitched than before. Resl Kirchlechner reared up so far it seemed her spine would break. Her pale thighs were spread far apart, and the white sheets between them were stained with blood. Suddenly the maid slumped down, and a bloody little body the size of a cat fell from the bench onto the floor.

It was a stillbirth.

Simon rushed over to the maid and felt her neck for a pulse. Her face was now relaxed and peaceful, and her dead eyes appeared to stare down at the bloody straw spread out on the floor.

The physician closed her eyes and laid her out gently on the bench. “She’s in a better place now,” he mumbled, making the sign of the cross. “with no more pain, or demons, or people who would do her harm.”

For a moment all was silent, except for the whimpering of the baker’s wife. Finally Michael Berchtholdt came to his senses. He walked over to the fetus still lying on the floor next to the stove, picked it up gingerly, and walked out through the back door into the garden. When he returned a while later, he wiped his muddy hands on his trousers and attempted a slight smile that froze midway into a grimace.

“Resl is dead, and that’s a shame,” he said in a soft voice. “I’ll see to it that she gets a decent burial in St. Sebastian’s Cemetery with a priest, funeral meal, and all the trappings. I’ll also see that her parents are taken care of financially. As for everything else”—he gave an embarrassed smile—“we don’t want word to get around that the devil had possessed our maid. That could end badly. And as the young physician here can certainly attest, Resl had a high fever—that can lead to bad dreams, can’t it?” The baker looked at Simon expectantly.

“You don’t seriously believe that—” the physician started to say, but Berchtholdt raised his hand, interrupting him.

“I know your house calls are expensive. How much? Tell me—five guilders? Ten? How much do you ask?” He pulled a trunk out from behind the table and began to rummage through it.

“Just keep your money and choke on it!” Magdalena shouted, slamming the lid closed on Berchtholdt’s fingers. He pulled them out, whining and clenching his teeth. His wife looked back and forth from one to the other as if they were ghosts. Simon assumed the shock was too much for her. Maria Berchtholdt had decided to withdraw into her own world.

“I’m going to tell everyone—everyone!—that you jumped on your maid like a randy old goat and let her die of ergot poisoning,” the hangman’s daughter whispered. “It’s always we women who are expected to pay for men’s lechery. Well, not this time!”

The baker’s little weasel eyes took on a glassy sheen. “Aha, and who is going to believe you?” he snarled. “A hangman’s daughter and the horny son of an army doctor. What a pair! Go on, go and tell the people, and I promise I’ll make your life hell!”

“My life is hell already.” Magdalena turned to go and beckoned Simon to follow.

With a facetious bow, the physician took leave of the alderman and master baker Michael Berchtholdt. “If the hemorrhoids in your ass itch or your bowels get plugged up,” Simon said in a cloying tone, “you know where you can find me.”

They walked out together and were met by a group of curious onlookers. Behind them they could still hear Michael Berchtholdt’s muffled cries and shrill curses. Magdalena stopped for a moment and looked into the faces of the bystanders, who were staring at them with expressions of disapproval and disgust.

A hangman’s daughter and the horny son of an army doctor. What a pair…

Magdalena was no longer certain anyone would believe them. The farmers and workers moved aside to make way for them, as if they had some infectious disease.

As Magdalena and Simon headed down toward the Lech Gate, they could feel the looks directed at their backs for a long time.

A few hours later Magdalena’s anger had subsided a bit. She and her mother were busy getting the twins ready for bed, a job that always occupied her so completely she had no time left for gloomy thoughts.

“Just one more story, Magda,” little Barbara pleaded. “Just one more! Tell us the one about the queen and the house in the forest! You haven’t told us that one for a long time!”

Magdalena laughed and carried her nine-year-old sister up the narrow stairs to the bedroom. Her back ached under the weight of the squirming child. The twins had grown an astonishing amount in the last year, and soon she wouldn’t be able to lift Barbara any more. Clearly they took after their father.

“Oh, no, it’s time to go to bed,” Magdalena said with feigned severity as she put her little sister in bed, covered her up, and blew out a smoking pine chip standing on a stool in the corner. “Look, your brother’s eyes are already closed.”

She pointed at Georg, Barbara’s twin brother, who in fact seemed to be asleep in his narrow little bed.

“Then at least sing something for me,” Barbara pleaded, trying hard not to yawn.

With a sigh, Magdalena began to sing a soft lullaby. Her little sister closed her eyes, and soon her breathing was regular and calm and she seemed to drift off to sleep.

The hangman’s daughter looked down at Barbara, stroking her cheek tenderly. She loved her younger brother and sister, even if they sometimes got on her nerves. For Georg and Barbara, their father was a growling bear who fought off bad men but was loving and tender with them, his own children. It almost made Magdalena a bit jealous that the hangman seemed to develop a kindlier attitude as he grew older. When she had misbehaved as a little girl, she had received a good spanking, but with the twins, her father usually just growled his displeasure—which didn’t necessarily achieve the desired effect.

Magdalena was thinking about her father in faraway Regensburg when she suddenly heard footsteps behind her. Her mother smiled as she entered the room.

Anna-Maria Kuisl had the same long black locks as her daughter, the same bushy eyebrows, and the same temper, as well. Jakob Kuisl had often complained he was married to two women, both of whom had a tendency to flare up. When they both were angry with him, he would often withdraw to his room and brood over the medical books that he kept in his pharmaceutical closet.

“Well?” Anna-Maria asked softly. “Are the children finally asleep?”

Magdalena nodded and stood up from the bed, groaning. “A dozen stories and certainly a hundred rounds of bouncing up and down on my knees playing horsie! That should be enough.”

“You spoil them too much.” The hangman’s wife shook her head. “Just like your father. He was like that with his little sister.”

“Lisbeth?” Magdalena asked. “Did you know her well?”

Anna-Maria bit her lip, and Magdalena sensed that her mother really didn’t want to talk about Magdalena’s aunt, certainly not on such a beautiful summer evening. Just the same, she persisted with her question until her mother was finally persuaded to tell the story.