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her strong body, she fumbled, almost blind with blood and sweat, for the key on the table. At last she had it in her hand and turned it in the keyhole. With a squeaking sound the bolt slid into place.
    The pushing from outside suddenly stopped, only to change after a few seconds into a furious hammering. Obviously the men were swinging a heavy beam against the door. Already the thin wood was splintering. A hairy arm appeared in the opening and felt for her.
    “Stechlin, you witch. Come out, or we’ll set your house on fire!”
    The midwife could see the men outside through the broken door. They were raftsmen and wagon drivers; she knew many of them by name. Most of them were the fathers of children she had brought into the world. Now their eyes had a bestial glare; they sweated and screamed and hammered on the door and the walls. Martha Stechlin looked around like a hunted animal.
    A window shutter splintered, and the massive head of Josef Grimmer, her neighbor, appeared. Martha knew that he had never forgiven her for the death of his wife. Was that the reason for the uproar? Grimmer brandished a piece of the window frame studded with nails.
    “I’m going to kill you, Stechlin! I’ll kill you before they even burn you!”
    Martha ran to the back door. This gave onto a small herbal garden that lay directly behind the city wall. In the garden she realized that she had trapped herself. The houses to the left and right reached right up to the city wall, which was itself a good ten feet up to the parapet walk, too high to reach the top.
    Directly by the wall was a small apple tree. Martha Stechlin hurried to it and climbed into the branches. From its top, she might possibly escape onto the parapet.
    Once more she could hear the sound of breaking glass in her house, and then the garden door was broken open. In the doorway stood Josef Grimmer, panting and still holding the nail-studded lath in his hand. Behind him other wagon drivers pushed their way into the garden.
    Martha Stechlin scrambled up the apple tree like a cat, higher and higher, until the twigs were as thin as children’s fingers. She grabbed the edge of the wall and tried to reach the safety of the battlements.
    The branch broke.
    With bleeding fingertips the midwife slid down the wall and into a wet vegetable patch. Josef Grimmer came up to her and raised the lath for a death-dealing blow.
    “I wouldn’t do that.”
    The wagon driver looked up to see where the voice had come from. On the battlements, directly above him, stood a massive form dressed in a long coat full of holes and a broad-brimmed, soft hat sporting a couple of ragged feathers. The man beneath this hat had black unkempt hair and a full beard that had not been touched by a barber for a long time. The battlements threw a shadow, so that there was little to see of his actual features except a huge hooked nose and a long clay pipe.
    The man had spoken without taking the pipe out of his mouth. Now he held it in his hand and pointed to the midwife, who was crouched and panting by the wall underneath him.
    “Killing Martha isn’t going to bring your wife back. Don’t make yourself miserable.”
    “Shut up, Kuisl! It’s none of your business!”
    Josef Grimmer had himself under control again. Like all the others, he was at first astounded that the man up there had been able to approach without anyone noticing. But the moment of surprise was over. Now he wanted to take his revenge and nobody was going to stop him. With the lath still in his hand, he slowly approached the midwife.
    “That is murder, Grimmer,” said Kuisl. “If you strike now, I’ll be very happy to put the noose round your neck. And I promise you, you’ll die slowly.”
    Josef Grimmer stopped. He turned hesitantly to his companions, who were obviously as uncertain as he was.
    “She’s responsible for my son’s death, Kuisl,” said Grimmer. “Go down to the Lech and see for yourself. She put a spell on him and then stabbed