The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, November 8, 1640 – Before a Pyre

 The morning had a gray skin. Mist rose from the Gose and drifted like a ghostly veil through Rosenberg Street, as if the dead themselves were still breathing over the city. I was up early; the fire had to be ready before noon — the Council had ordered it so. The woman – Grietke Klenze – was still locked in the Ulrich Chapel, chained to the iron ring. She had not spoken since yesterday, nor screamed. Only her eyes still moved, tightening at every footstep on the stairs like a rope stretched to the point of breaking.

I bore the task in silence, as always. For the people, the fire is purification, justice. For me, it is work — arithmetic.

The carpenter brought the wood: dry fir from near the Zwinger, together with a bundle of twigs and a few blocks of beech. I paid him one thaler and spoke no words. He did not look up, nor did I. It was work, nothing more. We both knew this wood would not serve for warmth, but for consumption — of flesh, hair, and prayer.

My oldest servant, crooked Hans with his bent back and blunted fingers, stacked the wood at the Brandplatz before the High Court. He worked slowly but carefully, as he always did when it came to fire. “The sparks respect him,” my father once said. I gave him eight groschen, and he nodded, as if I had honored him. Perhaps I had. He knew better than I how quickly flame takes hold of a human body — and how slowly the heart burns.

By noon, all was ready. The chains lay in place, the ladder was hooked, the torches lay in a leather sack beneath a plank of the cart. Soon the town would gather, as if a fair or sermon had been proclaimed. Children would sit on their fathers’ shoulders, women whisper under their shawls, men spit on the ground at the name “Klenze.” But now, at this hour, there was still silence. Only the bells of Saint Stephen’s Church called the time to order: it was nearly the hour.

I went home to fetch my coat — the black one with the red cross — and found Anna in the kitchen, bent over the counter. She was sifting flour, her movements short and quick. She did not turn when I entered. Only her voice broke the stillness:
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Three thalers,” I said. “One for the carpenter, eight groschen for Hinrich. The rest…”
I took out my purse and placed what remained — about one and a half thalers — on the shelf beside the millstone. She didn’t look at it.
“For flour and wine,” I added.
Then she turned. In her hands, the sieve frame; white dust on her apron. Her face was pale, but not weak. She looked at me as though weighing something I could not grasp. Then she spoke softly, without reproach:
“Death feeds the living.”

I didn’t know what to say. Perhaps there was nothing. I took the jug, poured myself wine, and drank. Without answer.

The afternoon unfolded as afternoons do when fire is expected. The woman was led by two city guards, iron tongs clamped to her chains. She stumbled, but did not fall. Her feet were bare, smeared with straw and blood; her hair clung in strands to her cheeks.

No relatives came. No plea for mercy. Only a preacher, reading from Scripture about the false prophetess Jezebel, how she was thrown from the window and devoured by dogs. I barely listened. I looked at the wood, the ropes, the nails Hans had driven so precisely.

When she looked at me — and she did, at the moment I fastened her to the cross — I saw something I have seen before and never understood: resignation, but not remorse. As if she were preparing for a journey that had nothing to do with guilt.

I did my work. I gave the signal. Hans lit the torch. The crowd swayed like grain in the wind, and somewhere, a child cried.

Of the three thalers, nothing remained. Only the smell of burnt hair, clinging to my coat like a sin.
Of Anna’s words, more remained than I wished to admit.
Death feeds the living.
But I no longer know who still eats.




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