Executioner Goslar

 Four nights ago it had snowed — not soft, silent snow, but sharp, uneven flakes that gathered between the cobblestones and in the folds of my cloak. The city smelled of wood smoke and ice. People no longer spoke of hunger aloud, but it was felt in everything: in the empty market stalls, the thin winter soups, the red noses of children with worn-out shoes. There was no flour. Barely any beer. Even the rats seemed unwilling to leave their holes. And then they brought Sigebert Meurer . A miller. A strong man, broad-shouldered, with calluses like leather on his palms. His mill stood by the water near the southern rampart, and for months there had been whispers that his sacks were fuller than he admitted. Rumors said he had hidden grain while others buried their children. That he sold flour to soldiers outside the gate. That his wife wore new shoes. I believed nothing without proof. But the Council needed a reason for confiscation. They did not seek vengeance, but possession. Land....

 The snow fell softly that evening — not like a blanket, but like a veil. The windows misted early, and in the street one heard the shuffle of people hurrying to make their last purchases. Inside, the fire burned high, and the scent of cloves, onions, and warm beer drifted like a cloud through the rooms. Anna had been in the kitchen all day. No complaints, no sighs — her movements were fluid, like a ritual she had known all her life. She sang softly as she sliced the blood sausage, stirred the porridge, melted the fat. Her apron was dusted with flour and steam, her cheeks glowing from heat and labor. On the table stood three dishes: Blood sausage with onions — dark and hearty. Barley porridge with bacon fat — salty and heavy. Apple dumplings with cloves — sweet, steaming, spiced like memory. In a stone jug: warm beer with egg. Cloudy, thick, but comforting. We drank it slowly, each sip a step further from the burdens of the year. The children were given honey cookies, homem...

 It was cold on the market this morning, sharp as a blade across the skin. Mist lay like a cloth over the stalls, and the air smelled of soot and old bacon. At the entrance to the meat hall stood a man with a pouch under his arm, clearly returning from an inspection, his head bowed, shoulders hunched. I was expected — not out of courtesy, but out of necessity. The meat-inspectors’ guild had sent a messenger. No official letter, no seal, only a spoken request: “The Master wishes to see you. There is something wrong with the meat from Langelsheim.” The tone was not hostile, but neither was it welcoming. In the guild room sat Guildmaster Cordt Bäumer with two other men, brothers of the craft, grown fat on the meat they judged. They sat by the hearth, steaming mugs before them, their eyes fixed on me as if I were already cutting. “The goods from Langelsheim stink,” Bäumer said curtly. “Too many entrails, too little salt. We want you to tighten inspection on the market.” In his...

  The city shimmered with sound. Along the cobbles of Breite Straße rolled carts with barrels of wine and bundles of linen. The smell of salted fish mingled with that of fresh bread and torch soot. Children darted between stalls, tugging sleeves, laughing, shouting. Everywhere sound: rattles, hoofbeats, the cries of vendors, the song of a blind man with a hurdy-gurdy. I walked at an even pace from the Rosentor toward the market, my leather apron clean, my knife sheathed but visible at my side. As the council required — visible, but unused. My duty today: supervision of order, scales, and sausages. I paused by the fishmonger’s stall near the Rammelsberg lane. The herring was fresh, the barrel heavy. I nodded and moved on. At the cheese stall of widow Hohmann there was a queue. I watched her wipe the knives carefully and fold the linen neatly. A woman with her young son quickly slipped away as I passed. I heard him whisper, “Is that him?” The mother pressed a finger to her lips. ...

 Die Luft roch nach Lauge und Asche. Die Sonne war noch nicht aufgegangen, als ich mich ankleidete: der schwarze Rock, die Lederschürze, der Kragen aus grobem Leinen. Meine Frau Anna sagte nichts. Sie saß am Tisch mit gefalteten Händen, als bete sie. Doch ihre Augen waren trocken. Sie wusste, was heute war. Die Stadt schlief noch. Ich nicht. Die Knechte hatten die Nacht über auf dem Hochgericht gearbeitet, gleich außerhalb des Breiten Tors. Die Galgen waren gereinigt, der Scheiterhaufen aufgeschichtet, das Schwert geschliffen. Es gab zehn Verurteilte. Acht Frauen. Zwei Männer. Ich hatte ihre Stimmen gehört. Ihre Knochen gehalten. Ihre Träume verbrannt. Und nun war der Moment gekommen. I. Die Ankunft Die Glocken läuteten dreimal. Die Menge versammelte sich, gehüllt in Wolle und Schweigen. Kinder saßen auf den Schultern ihrer Väter. Mütter flüsterten Psalmen in die Ohren ihrer Töchter. Es waren Prediger da. Ratsmitglieder. Und stumme Männer mit Feuer in den Augen – kein Ausdruck der ...

 The air smelled of wet leaves and rust. Autumn had settled deep into the cobblestones of Goslar. In the town, mist drifted between the timbered houses, but in my workshop at the edge of the Rosenberg it was dry. I had stoked the fire and laid out the tools. Today was a day of maintenance. No summons, no orders, no calls from the Council — only me, the silence, and my instruments. First, the long sword. It lay on its plank, wrapped in oil-soaked linen. I unwrapped it and took it in both hands. It felt familiar, as a carpenter knows his hammer. The balance was still good. The edge gleamed, but I knew there is always room for improvement. With the whetstone I worked slowly, patiently, in long strokes. The sword is for the merciful death — the clean beheading, when the law commands it. No swing, no disorder. One stroke. One silence. Then the wheel blade. Short, curved, made to strike tendons, split knees, break bones — for those who end upon the wheel. Chalk clung to it from its la...

 The sky above Goslar shimmered with dryness. It was early May, yet the wind carried dust and smoke. No rain had fallen in weeks, and the town was as parched as parchment. The streets echoed hollow beneath my boots, as if even the stones wished to flee from what was to come. Gese Schraders. A woman of forty. Daughter of a weaver, widow of a brewer. She lived by the Gose, near the bridge, in a house that smelled of herbs and yeast. Her name had long drifted through the whispers of the town. They said cows went lame when she looked at them, that children took fevers when she anointed their heads, that she spoke with cats by night. I had seen her once or twice at the market, bent forward, a basket of linen on her arm. Not a woman who joined in talk. Not a woman who smiled. Her arrest was no surprise. I had heard her name whispered in the pews since Candlemas. When the child of Councillor Witte died of convulsions, all glances soon turned one way. And the Council... the Council was...

 She spat on the ground before I had spoken a word. Talke Rode, tavern maid, twenty-three, red hair, teeth like pearls — but her soul, they said, black as coal. She worked at Zur goldenen Kanne — where men drank, danced, and slept with whoever smiled at them. And Talke smiled often. They said her skin was “too warm.” That flesh shrank when she touched it. That men who spent a night with her dreamed — and woke weeks later covered in sores. On her left hip — a scar, circular, with lines like branches. According to her: a burn from oil. According to the preacher: a witch’s mark. She was brought into the Ulrich Chapel with the look of someone who already knew the end. I asked: “Why did you hide the mark?” She said: “Because you don’t want to hear — only to scream.” I had the iron made ready. First, the thumb screws — a short introduction. She closed her eyes but did not scream. “Is that all, Master?” Then the shin straps. At the second turn: “You call me sinful. But wh...

 She had lain for three days in the cell beneath the Rathaus. She spoke to the wall. She bit into her own arm. And when the gaoler brought her food, she smeared her face with the porridge. No one knew where she came from. Her name — Ficke Steinhauer — appeared only in the register of the poor, marked as a “pitiful case” under the supervision of the city pastor. They found her at the end of Mauerstraße, screaming at a tree. She had blood in her hair. Whose, no one knew. She wore a rabbit’s foot on a string around her neck, and in her pockets were eggshells, bone meal, and ash. The pastor said: “She is a vessel of demonry. The Devil seeks weak vessels.” The council said: “If even her madness is full of horror, that is enough.” I fetched her from the cell myself. She laughed when she saw me. “You have eyes of iron,” she said. “They will burn, you know that?” I led her to the Ulrich Chapel. She walked skipping, like a child. I laid her on the bench. She did not struggle. S...

  They took her while she was at work, by the river south of the city. Her arms were covered in suds, her apron soaked through, her hair twisted into a wet knot on her head. She did not protest — she only looked at the foam, as if it trusted her more than the men who surrounded her. Else Branning, eighteen years old. Daughter of a carpenter, orphaned since the age of twelve. Worked for the innkeeper of Zum Goldenen Adler . Lived with her aunt, who said: “She talks to herself. And sometimes to the wind.” People said her hands were never clean, not even after hours of washing. That she laughed in her sleep. That she knew things before they happened. The preacher said: “She has the gift of knowing. And whoever knows without Scripture speaks with the Devil.” She was brought into the Ulrich Chapel, still dripping. She trembled not from cold, but from shame. Her eyes were large, with lashes like combs. She looked at me as though she knew who I was — inside. I asked: “Have you ma...

 The sky above Goslar was leaden gray, heavy and oppressive. No rain, but the promise of thunder. The streets smelled of dung, stale beer, and the smoke from the tannery on Marktstraße. Margarete Wende was the oldest of them all. Sixty-two, widow of a mercenary who had vanished in Bohemia twenty years before. Since then she had lived alone in a crooked little house at the end of Köppelsbleekweg. She was seldom seen on Sundays, and even less on feast days. She baked her own bread, grew her own onions, and spoke to no one. Until a girl cried out: “The old Wende whispers to bones!” And the carpenter found a sack of burnt teeth near her shed. She said they were pig’s teeth. The pastor said, “There were children’s teeth among them.” The Council needed to hear no more. She was brought into the chapel, bent but unbroken. Her hair like cobwebs beneath her hood. Her eyes small, sharp. Her mouth like a closed wound. I asked her: “What did you do with the teeth?” She was silent. ...

 He came with mud on his boots, even after four days in the cellar. Hans Schermer, stable hand at the inn Zur wilden Ente , twenty-six years old. Broad-shouldered, with hands like hammers and a gaze that would not bend. They found him asleep in the hay beside a dead mare. His master claimed he had poisoned her. The pastor said he had struck the church door with his fists and “muttered spells in his sleep.” I knew his kind: too strong to be weak, too proud to bow. But everything breaks, in the end. When he stood before me in the Ulrich Chapel, he said: “You have an iron wheel, don’t you? Then bring it.” I replied: “Not for those who ask for it themselves.” But I brought it all the same. We began with the hand screw. His fingers bent slowly. First he bit his teeth together. Then his tongue. Then he began to curse. Not at God. Not at me. At the horse. “The beast looked at me as if it knew me! As if it were my father!” I turned further. The skin beneath his thumbs split ope...

  She trembled as she was brought in. Not from cold — the morning was mild — but from within, like a branch under strain. Her name had been on the list for three days, and today was her turn. Catrin Meyers, twenty years old, a weaver’s daughter, no husband, no children. She lived with her mother on the edge of the district near the Zwinger. A girl who liked to sing. Who dried herbs at the window. Who petted the neighbor’s cat and sometimes stole flowers from the graveyard. One of the children had seen her at dusk near the parsonage. She had sung beside a stone. That was all. The council said, “Disturbing.” The preacher said, “A seducer of young minds.” I said, “Bring her.” She could hardly stand. Her ankles gave way as she entered the Ulrich Chapel. Her hands trembled. Her eyes were red. I asked her: “Did you know what people say about you?” She nodded. “My mother cries. But she knows I never did anything.” I asked: “Did you sing at the graveyard?” “Yes. But not for a...

 The night before, I had dreamed of water. Not a brook or a puddle — but a whirlpool, deep and dark, from which voices rose like bubbles. It was no dream of death. But of something still moving beneath the skin. When I woke, I knew it was her day. Catrin Baumanns, seamstress, daughter of a tanner, unmarried. She lived in a small room above the stables of the Klosterviertel. Someone had said she threw herbs into wine. Another that her eyes did not blink when the Lord’s Prayer was spoken. Her niece had said: “She washes her hair at full moon.” And that was enough. The Council ordered an interrogation by water. She stood upright when we fetched her. Not upright in body — her shoulder had sunk — but upright in spirit. I saw it at once. She looked at me as I shackled her. “I will say nothing.” I asked, “Why not?” “Because you have already decided.” The Kahnteich lay beneath a grey sky. No wind. Only the ripples of ducks, and the creak of the rope in my hands. Catrin was b...

  He was not from Goslar. He came from outside, and that was enough. Losie Slingsman, tinker and peddler, with a mouth like a knife. No one knew his origin. He slept in the hunter’s barn near the Zwinger and spoke with a northern accent — Holstein, perhaps, or worse. They said he laughed with women, kicked cats, and heard singing where there was none. They found on him: – a knife with strange markings – a small leather pouch of hair – a tiny bone wrapped in linen The pastor said: “Clearly. A servant of the Devil.” And the Council said: “He will speak.” When he was brought in, he spat on the floor. “Which of you is the hangman?” I stepped forward. “I am the Scharfrichter.” He laughed — an ugly laugh. “Good. Then we can speak man to man.” I bound him to the breaking wheel. He cursed in three tongues. He sang an obscenity about the Holy Virgin. I gave the signal. First the thumbs. The screws turned slowly. His fingertips turned purple, then black. He screamed. ...

 The morning began in silence. No bell rang, no market voices echoed between the walls. Only the caw of a raven above the Rosenberg valley, and the ticking of raindrops on the stones before the Ulrich Chapel. It was as if the city held its breath for what was to come. Cathrin Hasenbein, wife of Jacob Hasenbein, town servant of the southern guardhouse, was brought in just after morning prayer. Two attendants carried her by the forearms — she had refused food during the night. She was old, yet unbroken, deep lines carved around her mouth, like cuts made by something that had worked its way inward. Her hair was grey, loose. Her apron was stained with dried blood — whose, I did not know. Perhaps her own. The accusations: “Mocked the Holy Supper.” “Muttered strange words during the procession.” “Her husband found a cat’s tail beneath the bed.” The pastor had been clear: “She does not look at the cross. She looks through it.” When I showed her the rack, she said only: “Jaco...

 The rain beat relentlessly against the windows of the Ulrich Chapel. The sky above Goslar had that pale hue you only see when spring refuses to arrive. My hands were dry from the ashes I had taken from the forge earlier that morning. The furnace for the iron had burned for hours — the sentence was already written, long before the pain began. Anna Middendorf, widow of Thomas Schrader, was brought in first. She stumbled down the stairs, held by two guards. Her left hand was bandaged — a wound from earlier interrogations. She had been imprisoned since March. The air around her smelled of mold, urine, and iron. Her eyes were dull. Not broken, but far away. The accusation: “Child maimed at birth.” “Seen in the mist with a dead hen.” “Wife of a man who once dealt with a witch.” The pastor had called her the mother of devils. The neighbor said Anna had always been too quiet. Her niece had refused her at table. The council had heard enough. I asked her: “Will you speak before we ...

  Today we lost our son. Anna carried him with great hardship, for nine long months. It was a pregnancy filled with feverish days and broken nights. Her appetite failed her often; many times she lay exhausted on the resting bed beneath the window, her hand upon her belly, her breath heavy. The midwife came more often than usual, bringing her tea of fennel and chamomile, but nothing could relieve my wife’s body of the torment it bore. We had given him his name even before birth: Hans Christoph. Hans, after an uncle, and Christoph, after my brother-in-law. A strong name. A name to build upon. Even the children – Hans Caspar, Wilhelm, and little Anna Maria – spoke already of their new brother. They laid linen in the chest, traced shapes on the cloth with their fingers, sang songs by the hearth of cradles and lullabies. There was hope in the house, and expectation. But when the day of birth came, there was only pain. In the early morning of 4 April, Anna began to cry out. Not a qu...

 She was condemned on a Monday. Rain fell straight from a hopeless sky, as if the city itself could no longer breathe. The Small Council met in the chamber above the Marktstraße. The windows were fogged, the candles burned sluggishly. I was not summoned — they rarely do — but the rumor had already spread through the corridors of the Rathaus before the seal was pressed. “Anna Ilsabe Flörke, found guilty of dealings with the devil, blasphemous dreams, the use of poisonous herbs, and the seduction of innocents, shall be executed by the sword, and her body burned at the Hochgericht.” The judgment came swiftly. She had named names — enough to keep the wheels turning. The pastor had declared that she was “in the grip of darkness,” yet that her suffering had shown true willingness. I knew what he meant. Her silence had not been defiance but surrender. Yet no one saw it as repentance. They sought not remorse — they sought purification. The execution was set for Thursday, 12 October. The...