“Uncle Simon, did you bring me something from the marketplace?” she asked. “Prunes or honey cakes? Please say you did!”
The medicus laughed and put the girl down. Whenever he went to browse through Jakob Schreevogl’s library, he paid a visit to Clara as well. Usually, he had a little present for her: a top, a carved wooden doll, or a candied fruit with honey.
“You’re like a leech, do you know that? And one with a sweet tooth, too!” He stroked her hair gently. “This time I haven’t come with anything. Look in the kitchen and see if the cook has a few dried apples for you.”
Clara walked away, pouting. Footsteps now could be heard on the wide spiral staircase that led to the upper floors. Jakob Schreevogl approached Simon in his bathrobe and slippers. The alderman had wrapped a scarf around his neck. He was pale and had a light cough, but his face brightened when he caught sight of Simon.
“Simon! What a pleasure to see you!” he called from the stairway, spreading his arms out. “In this beastly cold, anyone who will pay a visit inside these four walls and help to pass the time is welcome.”
“It looks like what you need is rest and a good doctor,” Simon replied with some concern. “As luck would have it, there happens to be one present. Shall I perhaps…” He reached for his doctor’s bag, which he had been dragging around with him since the morning, but Schreevogl waved him off.
“Oh, come now! It’s just a simple cold. Half the town is sicker than I am. Let’s hope at least that the good Lord will spare our children.” He winked at the medicus. “In any case, I don’t think you’re here for a boring house call. But do come with me to the library. There’s a nice warm fire in the stove, and if you are lucky, there will be some of this black devil’s brew left.”
Simon followed him upstairs, animated by the prospect of a cup of hot coffee. He had introduced Jakob Schreevogl to the pleasure of this trendy new beverage. Two years ago, the young medicus had first purchased the brown beans from an Arabian street vendor and since then had become addicted. And now he had apparently hooked the patrician Schreevogl on it as well. Together, they had enjoyed veritable coffee orgies in the library. After the third pot, even tedious theologians like Johann Damascenes or Petrus Lombardus began to make sense.
Simon entered the library and looked around. A little cast-iron stove was glowing in one corner of the wood-paneled room, and book after book lined the walls on gleaming cherrywood shelves. Jakob Schreevogl was well-to-do. His father had taken a small stove-fitting business and grown it into the leading one in the area. Since the death of his father, young Schreevogl had invested a considerable portion of his money in his book collection, a passion he shared with Simon.
The patrician offered him a chair and poured him a steaming cup of coffee. Jakob Schreevogl was a big man and, like all Schreevogls, had a pointed, slightly hooked nose that nearly hung down into his coffee. As the young alderman slurped the hot brew, Simon inquired about the aldermen’s meeting that had taken place that morning. He knew that important topics had been on the agenda.
“So, did the city council make any decision on how to proceed with these gangs of murderers?”
Jakob Schreevogl nodded earnestly. “We’ll no doubt send out a patrol to search for the robbers.”
“But you’ve done that once before!” Simon interjected.
“I know, I know,” Schreevogl sighed. “But this time it has to be well thought out and needs a competent leader. We’re still considering who might be the right person for that.”
Simon nodded. The matter was too serious to be entrusted to a few drunken village constables. For weeks, a band of robbers had been ravaging the countryside. A merchant and two farmers had been attacked. The highwaymen had slain the merchant, and the two farmers had just managed to escape. There were at least a dozen men, they reported, some with crossbows and a few with muskets, even. In other words, a real danger, if not for the city, then at least for the surrounding area.
“If the aldermen can’t get their hands on these scoundrels soon, we’ll have to ask Munich to send soldiers.” Jakob Schreevogl cursed under his breath and blew into his hot cup of coffee. “But the council wants to avoid that at all costs. Soldiers cost money, as you know. But forget about politics,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “It bores me. You have certainly come for a different reason.”
“Indeed,” Simon replied. “I’m looking for a book—or rather, for a quotation in a book that I think I’ve read here.”
“Aha, a book!” Jakob Schreevogl smiled. “I’m pleased that you enjoy my library so much. So tell me, how does the quote go?”
“Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam,” Simon repeated from memory.
The patrician stopped to think. “Where did you read this?”
“In the little church of Saint Lawrence in Altenstadt.”
“Not to us, o Lord, not to us, but to Thy name be the honor,” Jakob Schreevogl mumbled, furrowing his brow. “Strange. I believe that’s the motto of the Knights Templar.”
Simon had to cough when his coffee went down the wrong way. “The Templars?” he asked finally.
Schreevogl nodded. “It was their battle cry.”
Suddenly, the alderman’s brow furrowed again—he seemed to remember something. Quickly, he stood up and walked over to a shelf near the stove. “Now I know the book you mean!” he said. After a few minutes of searching, he took out a little leather-bound book no larger than the palm of a hand. “Here!” he exclaimed, handing it to Simon. “It’s in this treatise by Wilhelm von Selling. Ordinis Templorum Historia. An ancient, strange book. Selling was an Englishman, a Benedictine monk who, in contrast to the church, tried to keep the memory of the Templars alive. He wrote this book more than two hundred years ago, but even at that time, the Templars had been confined to history for a century.
Simon nodded as he leafed through the well-worn tome. Some pages apparently had been ripped out, moisture had curled others, and some were scorched. The book was written in Latin with embellished initials and was not printed, but handwritten. It looked like the book had been through a lot in its long life.
“At that time, I just skimmed the book,” Simon said, “but I remember the words. Tell me more about these…Templars.”
Jakob Schreevogl sat down again and sipped his coffee. It was a while before he began to speak. Outside an ice storm beat against the windowpanes.
“Their full name is a bit longer—The Poor Knights of Christ and of Solomon’s Temple. Much that we know of them is, perhaps, only a legend.” The patrician settled back in his chair as he continued speaking. “One thing is certain, however. The Templars were the most powerful and richest organization that the world has ever known. They started out as a small order of knights during the Crusades whose actual purpose was to protect pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Until then, the order was a unique mix of knights and ascetic monks. But through clever tactics and the right support, the group spread across all of Europe in a few decades. Branches were everywhere. If a person wanted, he could purchase a bill of exchange in Cologne and redeem it in Jerusalem or Byzantium. The order answered only to the Pope and was thus, in fact, sacrosanct. Through clever financial policies, the Templars gradually became richer than kings or emperors, and that would finally be their undoing…”
“What happened?” Simon asked curiously, pouring himself another cup of coffee.
“Well, it happened as it so often does.” Jakob Schreevogl shrugged almost apologetically. “The French King Philip IV had designs on their fortune. In the dead of night, he was able to arrest every Templar in all of France. He accused them of engaging in sodomy and satanic rites, bought witnesses, and extracted the necessary confessions through torture. Finally, even the church dissociated itself from the Templars. The pope could no longer support them and, in the end, let them fall. Their last Grand Master, to the best of my knowledge, was burned at the stake in Paris, and within a few years, the mightiest lords and masters of Eu
rope became powerless victims. The Templars who were unable to go into hiding in time were pursued and killed. And all that after they had helped to shape the destiny of Europe for nearly two hundred years!”
“And what happened to their money?” Simon asked. “The French king no doubt grabbed that, didn’t he?”
The patrician grinned. “Only a small portion. The rest disappeared and has never been found—gold, jewels, religious relics…It is said that the Templars hid it somewhere. Some people think they took it to the New World; others say the Holy Land or the British Isles. Whoever finds it can no doubt buy himself any throne in the world.”
Simon whistled through his teeth. “Why have I never heard anything about this?”
Schreevogl was shaken by another fit of coughing. After a moment, he continued. “Because the church didn’t want its complicity in the matter exposed. The noblemen, too, politely stayed silent and confiscated the Templars’ territories. Only a few people, like Wilhelm von Selling, broke their silence.”
The medicus nodded. “But that still doesn’t explain what this Templar battle cry is doing in the Saint Lawrence Church.”
Schreevogl hesitated. “I once heard that the Saint Lawrence Church used to be a Templar church,” he said finally.
“A Templar church? In Altenstadt?” Simon almost choked again.
“Yes, why not?” the patrician said, shrugging. “The Templars had branches everywhere. And isn’t there even a Templar Lane in Altenstadt?”
“You’re right!” Simon cried. “The narrow little Templar Lane just before the bridge over the Schönach. It’s strange, but I’ve never wondered about that street’s name…”
“You see? But certainly the priest of the basilica in Altenstadt can tell you more. There have to be records from the little church next door. If they’re not in the Saint Lawrence Church itself, then they’d be in Saint Michael’s Basilica. Would you care for some more coffee?”
Simon stood up and grabbed Jakob Schreevogl’s hand. “Thank you, but I think I have to go and see my father. There are a few tedious treatments to perform—coughs, fevers, bloodletting, just the usual. But you have helped me a great deal.” He hesitated for a moment. “Could I ask for one more favor?”
The patrician nodded. “Yes, what is it?”
Simon pointed to the little leather-bound book on the side table. “This book about the Templars. Could I borrow it?”
“Of course. But be careful, it’s very valuable.”
Simon took the book and hastened toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped again briefly and turned around. “There’s another quote I can’t make sense of. It concerns two witnesses and a beast that does battle with them and finally kills them. Have you by chance ever heard of that?”
The patrician thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It rings a bell somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it is. I’m sorry. Perhaps I’ll think of it later.” He looked at the medicus skeptically. “Simon, you’re not rushing headlong into another adventure with the hangman, are you? For heaven’s sake, be careful!”
Simon grinned. “I’ll try. But do let me know if you remember.”
He bowed briefly, then ran down the staircase with the book in hand. The patrician stood at the window upstairs and watched Simon vanish into the snowstorm swirling through the market square of Schongau.
The stonemason Peter Baumgartner was standing half naked, his muscular body stripped to the waist, in the middle of the hangman’s living room. He was so terrified that he almost pissed in his pants. Despite the icy wind that whistled around the pig bladders stretched out and nailed over the windows, sweat was running down his face. He kept asking himself whether he shouldn’t have forked out a few kreuzers more and gone to the medicus rather than the hangman. Or perhaps he shouldn’t have gone to either. Yes, that was it exactly; instead, he should have stayed at home, washed the pain down with an Ave Maria and a glass of brandy, and then hoped that, with God’s help, his shoulder would heal by itself. But now it was too late.
All sorts of tools lay on the table in front of him, and he couldn’t say if they were intended as instruments of torture or medical devices: long pincers, presumably for prying out teeth; sharp, brightly polished knives in all sizes and shapes; and a small handsaw with a few rust-colored spots—spots of dried blood, no doubt, Peter Baumgartner thought.
What terrified Baumgartner most, however, was the gigantic figure of the Schongau hangman standing directly before him. His huge hands were immersed in a pot of white, greasy paste, which he was smearing slowly and methodically over him.
“Is that…human fat?” the mason gasped. Even though Baumgartner tried hard to hide his fear, he couldn’t prevent his voice from trembling slightly. He knew that the Schongau executioner neatly flayed the corpses of the people he executed and scratched the fat off their skin. From that he made a paste that was supposed to work wonders. Baumgartner wanted very much to believe in miracles, but the thought of being rubbed down with the slimy remains of a criminal made him nauseous.
“You stupid bastard, do you think I’d waste my good human fat on somebody like you?” Kuisl grumbled, without looking up. “This is bear fat mixed with arnica, chamomile, and a few herbs you’ve never heard of. And now come here, it’s going to hurt a bit.”
“Kuisl, stop…I think I’d rather go to old Fronwieser…” the mason mumbled when he saw two huge dinner-plate sized hands in front of him dripping with fat.
“And let him charge you two guilders so that you’ll never be able to move your arm again. Don’t put up such a fuss, just come here.”
Baumgartner sighed. He had fallen from the scaffolding in the St. Lawrence Church a week ago, and since then his shoulder had been discolored with bruises. The pain throbbed all the way down to his right hand so that he could no longer even hold a spoon. He had hesitated for a long time before going to the hangman, but in the meantime, he worried that he might never be able to use his right arm again. So he had scraped together some money he had saved and set out at noon for Schongau. Jakob Kuisl was famous far and wide as a healer. Like all executioners, Kuisl earned his money less through executions and tortures, of which there were just a handful at most during the year, than through healing and the sale of salves, pills, and ointments. He would also sell you a piece of the hangman’s rope or a thief’s thumb. A mummified finger in your money pouch was supposed to protect you from thieves, but naturally only when you sprinkled the purse with holy water every day and firmly believed in it. Jakob Kuisl didn’t believe in it, but he earned good money from it anyway.
Like many other patients before him in the hangman’s house, Peter Baumgartner was torn between fear and hope. It was generally known that most people left Kuisl’s house no worse off than before, at least, and in many cases even better—something you couldn’t always say of doctors with university training. On the other hand, Jakob Kuisl was the Schongau hangman. A mere glance from him brought misfortune, and speaking with him was a sin. If Baumgartner confessed to this visit the next time he went to church, he would surely have to say a hundred Lord’s Prayers as penance.
“Come here, damn it, or I’ll dislocate your other shoulder, too.”
Jakob Kuisl, his hands smeared with fat, was still standing in front of the burly mason. Baumgartner nodded in resignation, made the sign of the cross, and then stepped forward. The hangman turned him around, carefully palpated the swollen shoulder, then suddenly seized Baumgartner’s right arm and yanked it back and down. There was a loud cracking sound.
The scream could be heard all the way up in the marketplace.
Baumgartner collapsed onto the stool by the table and nearly passed out. He was about to throw up and let out a stream of curses when he cast a glance down at his right hand.
He could move it again!
The pain in his shoulder seemed better, too. Jakob Kuisl handed him a wooden box.
“Tell your wife to massage your shoulder with this three time
s a day for a week. In two weeks you’ll be able to go back to work again. You owe me a guilder.”
Baumgartner’s joy at being relieved of his pain was short-lived.
“A guilder?” he gasped. “Damn, not even old Fronwieser asks that much. And he has studied at the university.”
“No, he’ll bleed you, send you home, and three weeks later, saw off your whole arm for three guilders. That’s what he studied.”
Baumgartner wrung his hands, thinking it over. He really did seem cured. Just the same, he began to haggle.
“A guilder, eh? That’s more than a miller earns in a whole day. How about half and we’ll call it a deal?”
“Let’s say a whole one, and I won’t dislocate your other shoulder.”
Baumgartner gave up with a sigh. He rummaged about in his purse and counted out the coins neatly on the table. The hangman picked up half of them and pushed the other half back across the table to Baumgartner. “I’ve given it some more thought,” he said. “Half a guilder if you can tell me something in return.”
Baumgartner looked at him in astonishment but then hurriedly put the coins back in his purse.
“What do you want to know?”
“You’re the mason up the Saint Lawrence Church, aren’t you?”
“Indeed,” Baumgartner replied. “That’s where I took a fall from that damned scaffolding.”
Jakob Kuisl pulled out his tobacco pouch and began slowly and carefully to fill his pipe.
“What are they building up there?” he asked.
“Well…Actually, they aren’t building anything,” Baumgartner said with hesitation. He watched the hangman with fascination as he filled his pipe. Pipe-smoking was a completely new fashion. The mason had never met anyone except Kuisl who did anything like it. To be on the safe side, the Schongau priest had declared it a vice in one of his last homilies.
“We’re just renovating the church,” Baumgartner continued finally. “Both on the outside and on the inside—the whole balcony. It was close to collapsing. The church is said to be a good five hundred years old.”
The Dark Monk Page 5