The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, October 3, 1632 – Payment

 It was a gray morning, damp and still. Autumn came early that year; the wind chased leaves across the market square by the town hall, as if they were remnants of something not permitted to remain. No bell rang.

In my room at the edge of the Rosenberg I sat at my writing desk when there came a knock at the door.
Three times. Short blows. Not with knuckles, but with the back of the hand.

It was a boy, no older than sixteen. A servant of the city treasurer. He carried a coarse linen cloth in his hand, carefully bound with string. His eyes were lowered. He said nothing. I asked nothing.

He handed me the bundle as though apologizing for existing.
I took it, felt the weight, smelled the bread through the cloth: rye bread, sour, fresh from the same oven that nourishes the city—yet from which I never receive anything without preceding blood.

In the cloth there was also a leather pouch. Inside:
Two talers.
Clear. Heavy. One bearing the imperial crest, the other with a cracked edge.
And a stray breadcrumb, as if the money had joined the bread.

I signed the receipt with a steady hand:
“Caspar Kruse, Executioner of the City of Goslar. Payment received for the judgment upon Heinrich Henning, October 3, 1632.”

When I gave back the parchment, he would not take it at first. His fingers trembled.
Our hands did not touch.

No one spoke of Heinrich Henning. Not anymore.
He had been a servant—suspected of theft, later of cursing, and finally of conspiracy. One word from the council was enough. The executioner was summoned. The sword sharpened.
I had done what had to be done.
His head fell like the wood he once split.

There was no weeping. No prayer spoken.
And yet… the payment was brought in a cloth, as though it were stained.
As if my hands carried something further, that still clung.
As if the money itself bore death within it.

The boy left without greeting.
I stood for a while longer, the cloth in my hand.
I placed the bread on the board.
My name stood on the parchment.
But no one looked me in the eye.
Even the money seemed to look away.




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