The Play of Death

  PRAISE FOR THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER SERIES

  “Swift and sure, compelling as any conspiracy theory, persuasive as any spasm of paranoia, The Dark Monk grips you at the base of your skull and doesn’t let go.”

  —Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Out of Oz

  “Oliver Pötzsch has brought to life the heady smells and tastes, the true reality of an era we’ve never seen quite like this before. The hangman Jakob and his feisty daughter Magdalena are characters we will want to root for in many books to come.”

  —Katherine Neville, bestselling author of The Eight and The Magic Circle

  “I loved every page, character, and plot twist of The Hangman’s Daughter, an inventive historical novel about a seventeenth-century hangman’s quest to save a witch—from himself.”

  —Scott Turow

  “Oliver Pötzsch takes readers on a darkly atmospheric visit to seventeenth-century Bavaria in his latest adventure. With enough mystery and intrigue to satisfy those who like gritty historical fiction, The Dark Monk has convincing characters, rip-roaring action, and finely drawn settings.”

  —Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches and the forthcoming Shadow of Night

  “In this subtle, meticulously crafted story, every word is a possible clue, and the characters are so engaging that it’s impossible not to get involved in trying to help them figure the riddle out.”

  —Oprah.com

  “Pötzsch effectively conjures up an atmosphere of claustrophobia and paranoia in seventeenth-century Germany in his fifth whodunit featuring the Kuisl family . . . The tension, as the Kuisl family finds itself in the midst of the hunt, is palpable, leading to a cleverly clued solution.”

  —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

  “The setup is delicious . . . Good fun overall.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “. . . an intoxicating mix with frenetic pacing, strong doses of adventure and wit, and 17th-century historical detail. The hefty length doesn’t detract from vivid storytelling along the lines of Katherine Neville and William Dietrich.”

  —Library Journal

  Also by Oliver Pötzsch

  IN THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER SERIES

  The Hangman’s Daughter

  The Dark Monk

  The Beggar King

  The Poisoned Pilgrim

  The Werewolf of Bamberg

  ______________________

  Castle of Kings

  The Ludwig Conspiracy

  FOR YOUNG READERS

  Book of the Night (The Black Musketeers)

  Knight Kyle and the Magic Silver Lance (Adventures Beyond Dragon Mountain)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 Oliver Pötzsch

  Translation copyright © 2017 Lee Chadeayne

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Die Henkerstochter und das Spiel des Todes by Ullstein Buchverlag in Germany in 2016. Translated from German by Lee Chadeayne. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2017.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  eISBN: 9781477820605

  Cover design by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  In memory of my grandmother Hermelinde Werner, who told me for the first time about our ancestors, the Kuisls, and now rests with them. Her long life was more exciting than any novel.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  MAP

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  The bi-ba-boogeyman, the boogeyman is back . . .

  He picks up little boys and girls and throws them in his sack.

  —An old German nursery rhyme originally describing a demon or dwarflike monster

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE KUISL FAMILY, SCHONGAU

  JAKOB KUISL, Schongau hangman and executioner

  MAGDALENA FRONWIESER (NEÉ KUISL), Jakob’s elder daughter

  BARBARA KUISL, Jakob’s younger daughter

  SIMON FRONWIESER, Schongau bathhouse keeper, Magdalena’s husband

  PETER AND PAUL Fronwieser, sons of Magdalena and Simon

  GEORG KUISL, Jakob’s son, currently in Bamberg

  OTHER SCHONGAUERS

  JOHANN LECHNER, secretary

  MELCHIOR RANSMAYER, town physician

  MATTHÄUS BUCHNER, first burgomaster

  JAKOB SCHREEVOGL, member of town council and second burgomaster

  MARTHA STECHLIN, midwife

  LUKAS BAUMGARTNER, wagon driver

  OBERAMMERGAUERS

  KONRAD FAISTENMANTEL, merchant and chairman of Oberammergau Town Council

  DOMINIK, KASPAR, and Sebastian Faistenmantel, his sons

  JOHANNES RIEGER, Ammergau judge

  TOBIAS HERELE, priest

  GEORG KAISER, schoolmaster and scriptwriter of the Passion play

  ADAM GÖBL, painter of religious figurines and member of the Council of Six

  HANS, PETER, and JAKOBUS GÖBL, his sons

  URBAN GABLER, wagon driver and member of the Council of Six

  FRANZ WÜRMSEER, leader of the Oberammergau wagon drivers, member of the Council of Six, and vice chairman of the town council

  SEBASTIAN SAILER, manager of the Ballenhaus (town office building and storage facility) and member of the Council of Six

  AUGUSTIN SPRENGER, miller and member of the Council of Six

  XAVER EYRL, also called Red Xaver, carver of religious figurines

  BENEDIKT ECKART, abbot of Ettal Monastery

  ALOIS MAYER, forester in the Laine Valley

  KASPAR LANDES, recently deceased bathhouse keeper

  HANNES, called Poxhannes, teacher’s assistant

  NEPOMUK, MARTL, and WASTL, Oberammergau schoolchildren

  JOSSI and MAXL, children of immigrant workers, friends of Peter Fronwieser

  PROLOGUE

  OBERAMMERGAU, JUST BEFORE DAWN, MAY 4, AD 1670

  JESUS WAS NAILED TO A cross and died, but this time there would be no resurrection.

  Though it was pitch-black, Dominik Faistenmantel could see the rough outlines of the gravestones in front of the Oberammergau village church. Now and then he could hear the fluttering of wings and assumed the sound came from ravens sitting on the gravestones, watching him curiously. The huge, intelligent birds were no rarity in the Ammergau Valley. Their nests were high up in the mountains, but they often came down into the valley to hunt and forage for rotting carcasses. Faistenmantel shuddered.

  If help didn’t come soon, he, too, would be a corpse for them to feed on.

  The young woodcarver groaned, and when he tried to raise his head, a searing, almost unearthly pain shot through the tense sinews in his neck. His cry was muffled by the filt
hy rag filling his mouth. He slumped down again, coughed, and gasped for air, but the only sound that came through the gag was a rattling gurgle.

  This is the way our Savior died, he thought. What agony! With the burden of the world on his shoulders. Lord, come and help me!

  But the Lord did not come, no one came, and once again, despite the gag, Dominik tried to shout for help. It was not yet dawn, and most people in the village were sleeping. Wouldn’t the sacristan for early mass be awake? His house stood right next to the cemetery wall, just a few yards away, but no matter how hard Dominik tried, all he could do was groan and whimper. It was so cold, so damned cold. Here, in this Alpine valley, even a night in May felt like the middle of winter. It was a dark and starless night, and he was nailed to a cross dressed only in a loincloth, freezing and trembling from the cold as the ravens stared at him.

  If I fall asleep, they’ll fly over here. Your eyes are the tenderest place, they say. That’s where they’ll start. I . . . mustn’t . . . fall . . . asleep . . .

  While Dominik Faistenmantel struggled to stay awake, little scraps of memory passed through his addled brain, memories of the rehearsal that afternoon. As he’d spoken the final words of the Savior on the cross, a few rotted boards on the stage had caught his eye. He’d asked Hans Göbl, who was about his age and playing the part of the apostle John, to have the boards replaced immediately, before there was an accident. But Göbl had just rolled his eyes and whispered something to the other actors, whereupon they all broke out laughing. Dominik knew that the hot-tempered Göbl couldn’t stand him. Hans wanted more than anything to play the role of Jesus in the Passion play, and he had been generally viewed as the favorite for the part. But the council had given it to Dominik. Should he have turned it down? His father, a powerful merchant in town, had made the final decision, and no one dared to contradict him—not the priest, not the elders on the town council, not even his own son.

  Dominik was just about to emerge from under the shadow of his father, and he had dreamed of going to Venice or perhaps even farther, over the great ocean to the New World, where gold and silver flowed from the mountains like water. If his plan had worked, he could have brushed off his father, whom he hated—and also loved very much—and said farewell forever.

  But his plan had failed horribly.

  Once again, Dominik tried to pull himself up on the cross, and once again he began coughing violently and collapsed. The little wooden step that always had supported his feet in the rehearsals had been removed, and his cramped posture made it harder and harder for him to breathe. He tugged on the heavy ropes binding his arms and legs tightly to the wooden beams, but they held him as firmly as if they were metal wires. In any case, he was too weak to pull himself away.

  His head still hurt from the blow he’d received. He had heard a whoosh of air behind his head, felt a sudden, searing pain, and when he came to, he was tied to the cross, freezing and naked—a living stage prop staring down at the graves still partially covered with snow.

  “Help!” he cried through the gag. “Help . . . me!”

  The muffled sounds were carried away by the cold wind sweeping down from the Ammergau Alps into the valley. The houses remained dark; a few cows mooed, but otherwise there was not a sound. Behind Ederle’s house a small light suddenly appeared. Probably old man Ederle going to the latrine out back, holding a burning pinewood shaving. The house was only a stone’s throw away from the cemetery, but it could just as well have been a hundred miles.

  “Help!” Dominik gasped again.

  Actually, he’d known for a while he was going to die, either by freezing to death or suffocating first. Even now, hanging there, he could barely breathe, and it became harder and harder for him to think. The only thing that kept him going was his certainty about the perpetrator’s identity. He’d underestimated him. Never would he have thought the man capable of such a deed. This was madness, the work of a demon. Someone had to warn the villagers of the devil who was loose in their midst. Dominik had seen the madness flashing in the man’s eyes. He should have known.

  Now it was too late.

  Once again there was a fluttering of wings coming from the direction of the gravestones and, opening his eyes briefly, he saw a few dark shadows flying toward the cross, settling on both sides of the crossbeam.

  There was a cawing that sounded almost like a human voice, and a patter and scratching of feet as the birds moved closer.

  Father, Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? he thought.

  Then the ravens were there.

  1

  SCHONGAU, ON THE AFTERNOON OF MAY 4, AD 1670

  WITH GLASSY EYES, THE SCHONGAU linen weaver Thomas Zeilinger stared at the rusty tongs ominously coming closer and closer to his lips. A thin stream of saliva ran from the corner of his mouth, and his hands trembled as he clung to the arms of the chair. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally shook his head dejectedly.

  “I think . . . I think I need another swallow, Frau Fronwieser,” he stammered. “Can I . . . have another little swallow?”

  With a sigh, Magdalena put down the tongs and reached for the little glass vial standing on the table in the barber-surgeon’s workroom. Carefully she poured a precisely measured dose onto a wooden spoon.

  “Now this really is enough,” she scolded. “Ordinarily I don’t give even a horse this much theriaca.”

  Zeilinger grinned, and the blackened stump of a tooth that was giving him so much trouble became clearly visible. Magdalena breathed in the stench of cheap liquor that mixed with smoke from the poorly vented fireplace in the barber-surgeon’s room. A worn, wobbly stool served as the treatment chair, and alongside it was a cracked bowl used as a spittoon for the blood. On the scratched table were all sorts of crucibles and glasses, including the one with the home-brewed theriaca, by far the most precious of the medicines. The afternoon sun fell through the small open window, causing dust particles to dance in the light.

  “I’ll pay more than a horse, I promise,” the linen weaver babbled. It was clear he’d tossed down a good dose of courage on his way to the Tanners’ Quarter.

  “It won’t do me any good if you die on me now,” Magdalena replied, putting the spoon in his mouth. “There’s so much mandrake and opium in my potion that before long you’ll hear the angels singing. What shall I tell Secretary Lechner, eh? That the biggest coward in Schongau would rather die in my office than have a bad tooth pulled? They’ll charge me with murder and drown me in the town moat.”

  “But it hurts so much,” Zeilinger wailed.

  “I’ll go and get my father, the hangman. He’ll show you something that really hurts,” Magdalena shot back. “Now just hold still. Martha, are you ready?”

  The last words were directed at the midwife Martha Stechlin, standing behind the whimpering Zeilinger, holding his head firmly as Magdalena grabbed the bad molar with her tongs. Cursing softly, she pulled on the black stump. Did this jackass Zeilinger have any idea how much theriaca cost? This miracle drug often used as an anesthetic contained more than three dozen ingredients. Well, the bill would be high enough that the linen weaver would no doubt pull the next tooth himself.

  Once again, Thomas Zeilinger flinched and shook his head so hard that Magdalena had to take the tongs out of his mouth. Standing behind him, Martha rolled her eyes.

  “Maybe we should wait for your husband, the bathhouse keeper, to come home?” Zeilinger suggested anxiously.

  “Simon won’t be back for a couple of days,” Magdalena replied, growing impatient. “I told you that before. Do you really want to wait that long?”

  “I could, uh, go to the doctor in town,” said Zeilinger, trying again.

  “You want to go to that quack?” Martha retorted, butting in. Her hair had turned gray and her face more and more wrinkled in recent years, looking somewhat like an apple that had been in storage too long. “This so-called doctor Ransmayer has studied medicine but can’t tell the difference between Liebtreu and forget-me
-not,” she hissed. She glared angrily at the trembling linen weaver. “But go right ahead, do whatever you want. I’ve also heard that the venerable councilman Stangassinger went to him to have a tooth pulled and two weeks later he was found in his bed, cold and dead.”

  These words struck home, and Zeilinger finally resigned himself to his fate. He opened his mouth and Magdalena once again grabbed hold of the tooth, which was already loose. There was a loud crack and she held the rotten, stinking stump up in the air triumphantly.

  “A wonderful specimen,” she exulted, turning to her ashen-faced patient. “If you like, you can now rinse out with some brandy.”

  This was a suggestion that Zeilinger was only too glad to follow, and he took another deep swallow from the jug he’d brought along. Suddenly his eyes turned up toward the ceiling, his head fell to one side, and he began to snore blissfully, as the jug, almost empty, rolled across the floor.

  “At least now he’ll keep his mouth shut,” Martha said with a grin.

  “I couldn’t have put up with his moaning and complaining much longer. I’m feeling dizzy again.” With an ashen face and a sigh, Magdalena sank into a chair and wiped the sweat from her brow. Martha Stechlin was the only one so far to know that Magdalena was expecting another child. She hadn’t even told her younger sister, Barbara, yet.

  “If Zeilinger had waited any longer, I would probably have thrown up in front of him,” Magdalena said weakly. Gratefully she stepped to the open window and took a breath of the cool fresh air.

  “You really should tell Simon that you’re pregnant,” Martha scolded her. “In any case, it’s a complete mystery to me why he hasn’t noticed anything yet. His own wife! Your belly is getting larger every day, and your appetite for sour pickles . . .”

  “I’ll tell him when he gets back from Oberammergau, I promise. I just don’t want to get his hopes up too soon.” She hesitated. “Not a second time. It . . . it would break his heart.”

  Magdalena had known Martha for many years. Magdalena’s father, the Schongau executioner, had once saved the midwife from being put to the stake when she was accused of witchcraft and infanticide. Ever since then, Stechlin had felt a close bond of loyalty and friendship with the Kuisls—even if her constant chattering sometimes tested Magdalena’s patience.