The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, 15 March 1642 – Anna and the Boys

 The morning was still cold, the air grey and dull as lead, when Anna woke me — not gently, but sharply, in a tone I hear only when something is wrong. I sat upright at once, heart pounding, feet on the cold floor. She stood at the door, her face pale, her hair loose beneath her white night-cloth.

“The boys,” she said. “They’re in the yard. With a knife.”

I knew immediately what she meant.

I walked out barefoot, through the kitchen where the fire had not yet been lit and the smell of ash and cold soup lingered. Outside, among the frost on the paving stones and the wet chicken dung, stood Hans Caspar and Wilhelm, bent over one of the hens. The animal lay on its side, paralysed with fear, and from its neck protruded the rusty kitchen knife they had taken from the cupboard.

They had not used one of my knives. Not a sword. But the gesture was the same.

They looked up as I approached. Their hands were red with blood and grime, their eyes wide — not with remorse, but with tension. Boys’ eyes waiting for approval or punishment. Hans Caspar had a feather on his cheek, Wilhelm a cut on his finger. The hen gasped once more, then fell silent.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice calm.

“We’re practicing,” said Hans Caspar. “We want to learn.”

Behind me stood Anna, arms crossed, her face tight as frozen linen.

I knelt, bringing my face level with theirs. The smell of iron, mud, and chicken filth hung between us. My hands rested on my thighs. Not on their shoulders.

“The sword,” I said, “is not a toy.”

They were silent.

“When you cut, you always cut through something that cannot be restored. Flesh. Breath. Name.”

I pointed at the hen.

“She doesn’t live anymore.”

They nodded. Slowly. But I could see it in their eyes: the fire was not extinguished. Only covered, for a moment.

Later, inside, Anna made warm porridge with milk and cinnamon. She said little, but her hands kept the rhythm of care. When the boys ate, she wiped their mouths with a mother’s gentleness — and the heaviness of a woman who knows what might await them.

“They say they want to be like their father,” she said later, when the children were playing upstairs.

I stood by the window, looking out. The yard was quiet now. The other hens had retreated beneath the boards of the coop.

“They’re boys,” I said. “They don’t know what they’re saying.”

“But you do,” she replied. “And you know what it does to them.”

I could not contradict her.

That night I stayed awake. I had cleaned the knife, buried the carcass at the edge of the garden. But the image remained: two young bodies bent over a dying creature, with the seriousness of those who wish to become something — without knowing what it costs.

The seed is sown. Not only by their hands.
Also by my silence. My presence. My office.

I wondered whether I too had slaughtered chickens as a boy.
Whether my father had said anything then.

I could not remember.
Only his hands.
And the smell of blood.