Play The Executioner's House

It's barely light. Fog lies on the Wendel, and the bells of St. Mary's and St. Kilian's are ringing six a few seconds apart. Meister Lienhard Kurz hands you a bucket of lime and the short ladder. He takes the long one himself and starts up the Nuremberg road. Outside the gate he puts on his red cloak, because the law says he has to be seen. Two carters coming down with new wine steer their oxen wide. The gallows stands above the road, a ring of stone with three pillars and oak beams between them. A horse thief has been up there since August, and the council wants him down before Rupp Seidel hangs on Saturday. Anna Ammon, the carter's widow, is sitting on the stone step with a basket on her knees, in a black cap that's too big for her. She gets up when she sees the cloak. I've got eleven eggs and a ham that's nearly cured, and I'll do your washing till Easter, she says. The pastor says I'm not to pay for popish things, I know that, I'm not stupid. But tomorrow's his ninth night, Meister, and I lie awake listening for him. Lienhard leans his ladder against a pillar. Let's see, he says. He reaches for the basket and stops, because she won't take anything from his hand. He nods at you instead. Take it from her and count the eggs. Then come and hold the ladder.