The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, October 8, 1632 – First Summons

 

 This morning I was summoned to the town hall, at the first toll of the bell, before the mist over the Rosenberg had lifted. A messenger of the council had knocked at the door—with the back of his dagger, it seemed—short and firm. My wife looked at me, yet remained silent. She knows that look in my eyes when the day will not be an ordinary one.

On Breite Street there was only the scraping of my boots on the wet stones. The market lay deserted, the morning light cut slantwise across the façades of the houses. Only the weathercock shrieked metallic in the wind. When I entered the town hall, no one greeted me. I am accustomed to it. The council’s servants stepped aside without a word. My footsteps echoed too loudly upon the marble of the vestibule. All breathed the gravity of what had not yet been spoken.

In the Small Council Chamber there was silence, only the scratching of a quill to be heard. Colonel Bergström sat at the head of the table, his hands folded, as though in prayer. Beside him sat Secretary Kleine, with that eternal parchment before him, his hand already in motion. The other Swedish officials—some I knew by name, but not closely—appeared to gaze indifferently at the map of the Empire upon the wall. Yet I felt their eyes like daggers in my back.

Bergström did not rise, but spoke in a flat voice:
“Are you prepared to carry out the sentence of breaking on the wheel without display?”

A trace of impatience lay in his question, as if I had something to make amends for, or perhaps had proven something that made them uneasy. I wished to fold my hands, but did not. My voice sounded calm, for I had carried the answer within me for days:
“I show nothing. I only execute.”

He nodded. No smile, no softening. Only a slight movement of his chin. Secretary Kleine recorded my words, slowly and carefully. I tried not to look at the parchment. At times it seems that what they write there weighs heavier than what we do in blood and bone.

No one spoke further. The silence pressed against my temples. As if I had delivered something, and must now be led away in quiet.

I turned. Felt their gazes at my neck like a cold hand. Only when I stepped back into the corridor and closed the door behind me did I breathe out.

Outside on the square the sun had scattered the mist. Above the Marktkirche a raven croaked, three times. I looked up, thought of the man whose bones I shall break the day after tomorrow at the Hochgericht. His name is Hans Becker, a carpenter’s servant, condemned for murder and robbery. He will be the first I shall break upon the wheel.

The hammer already lies ready. I rubbed it with oil only yesterday.




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