The Dark Monk

by Oliver Pötzsch

  The hangman shook his head. “Now let’s at least give them a decent burial.”

  For the time being, he bound up his left arm with a dirty rag and used his right arm to move aside a few stones lying in a hollow near the cave.

  “What’s the matter?” he growled. “Doesn’t anyone want to help me? After you nearly shot me to death, too?”

  Silently, the Schongauers moved in to help him clear a space for the icy stone graves.

  Jakob Kuisl’s left arm was so painful that he left the men to finish the bloody work on their own. With clenched teeth, he went back into the cave to look around.

  The two robbers lay dead right where he’d left them, but the smoke was still so thick he couldn’t see farther than a few steps. He climbed over rubble, burning tree branches, and blackened logs until he reached the rear of the vault. Strewn about here were the robbers’ few belongings: tattered coats, stained copper plates, a few rusty weapons, even a roughly carved wooden doll.

  Farther back still, directly along the sooty rock wall, the hangman came across a wooden box reinforced with iron bands. Its padlock took only five minutes of the hangman’s time. The lock snapped open, and Jakob Kuisl put his lock pick back in his bag, opening the trunk cautiously, well aware that some boxes like this were booby trapped—poisoned needles and pins could come shooting out. But nothing happened.

  At the bottom of the trunk lay a few shining guilders; a silver pitcher; a corked, unopened bottle of brandy; furs; and a golden brooch that at one time must have belonged to the wife of a rich merchant. There wasn’t much there, but that didn’t surprise the hangman. The robbers had evidently bartered most of their treasure away or hidden it somewhere, which Kuisl doubted. He would certainly discover the truth in the tower dungeon. The hangman hoped that Hans Scheller would be reasonable and spare him having to tie hundredweight stones to his feet, as he had done with the highwayman Georg Brandner two years ago. Kuisl had had to break every bone in Brandner’s body before he finally told him where he had buried the stolen coins.

  Underneath a lice-ridden fur coat and bearskin cap, the hangman finally came upon a laced-up leather bag. He opened it and couldn’t help laughing—it was exactly what he needed now. Evidently, either the robbers had at one time attacked a barber surgeon or one of them had held onto the surgical kit from his military service. In the bag, a needle, thread, and forceps were neatly arranged by size and still relatively free of rust.

  Kuisl uncorked the bottle of brandy with his teeth and took a long swig. Then he rolled up his left shirtsleeve and felt for the wound. The bullet had passed through his coat, leather collar, and shirt and had lodged in his upper arm. Fortunately, the bone appeared uninjured, but Kuisl could feel that the bullet was still lodged in his flesh. He found a piece of leather in the bag, clenched it between his teeth, and groped for the bullet with the forceps.

  The pain was so severe that he felt himself getting sick, so he sat down on the trunk to take a few deep breaths before continuing. Just when he thought he was going to faint, the forceps met a firm object. He carefully drew it out and viewed the small, bent piece of lead. After taking another drink, he poured the rest of the brandy over the wound. Once again, he was almost overcome with pain, but the hangman knew that most soldiers didn’t die from bullets themselves, but from the gangrene that followed a few days later. During the war, he learned that brandy could prevent gangrene. While most barber surgeons recommended cauterizing the wound or pouring hot oil into it, Kuisl preferred this method and had had good experience on some of his patients with it.

  Finally, he wrapped the arm with material he’d ripped from the shirt of a dead robber and listened for voices outside the cave. The men seemed almost finished with their work, so Kuisl would have to remind them soon of the two corpses in the cave. And they would have to take the trunk along, too. The owners of the stolen objects were no doubt rotting away somewhere in the forests around Schongau, but the city could put the money to good use, if only to pay the hangman for the upcoming executions. Kuisl earned one guilder for each robber he hanged, four guilders for each blow to a man on the wheel, and two guilders and thirty kreuzers for torturing prior to the execution. It was quite possible that this was exactly the fate in store for robber chief Scheller.

  Just as Kuisl was about to stand up, he caught sight of a large, glossy leather bag behind the trunk. It was made of the finest calfskin, and the front was embossed with a seal that the hangman didn’t recognize. Was it possible, after all, that the robbers had other treasures stashed away? He set the bag in front of him and looked inside. What he saw puzzled him.

  What in the world?

  Lost in thought, he stuffed the bag into his sack and headed toward the cave entrance.

  He would have some questions to ask Hans Scheller. For both their sakes, Kuisl hoped the robber chief would answer them quickly and honestly.

  Night was falling on the Tanners’ Quarter just outside the town walls when Simon knocked on the door to the hangman’s house.

  He’d spent the last hour stomping back to Schongau through a light snowfall. The businesswoman had proceeded directly to Semer’s inn. Simon assumed she had to make preparations for her brother’s funeral the following day, but she also seemed exhausted. The medicus, too, was tired and freezing after the long search. Despite the cold and approaching nightfall, however, he wanted to talk with Jakob Kuisl about what they had found in the castle ruins. He was also curious about how things had gone in the hunt for the highwaymen. His hands and feet felt like blocks of ice, so he was more than happy when Anna Maria Kuisl finally came to the door.

  “Simon, what in the world has happened to you?” she asked in astonishment, looking at his snow-covered overcoat and stiff, frozen trousers. She seemed to have already forgiven him for the disturbance late the previous night, when Simon had been calling loudly for Magdalena. The hangman’s wife shook her head sympathetically. “You look like the snowman that the kids built in the backyard.”

  “Is your husband here?” Simon’s voice trembled. His whole body was frigid now.

  Anna Maria shook her head. “He’s out hunting for the robbers. I hope he comes home soon. But come in now; you look like you’re freezing,” she said as she led Simon into the warm room.

  She poured some hot apple cider for Simon and handed him the cup. The room was filled with the aroma of steaming onions and melted butter.

  “Here, this will be good for you.” She smiled cheerfully at him as he sipped on the cider sweetened with honey.

  “I’m sorry I can’t offer you coffee, but perhaps you’d like to wait for my husband in the other room. I’ve got to go back upstairs and have another look at the children.” They could hear a dry cough and the cries of little Barbara upstairs.

  “Georg has it in his chest,” she said anxiously. “Let’s hope it’s not this fever that’s going around.” She’d climbed the steep flight of stairs before Simon could ask if Magdalena was home.

  She was probably still feeling hurt. Well, he had learned that women needed time. She’d be back, and then he would have a chance to say he was sorry.

  Fortified by the sweet apple cider, Simon entered the adjacent room. In the course of the last year, he had become accustomed to visiting the hangman’s library at least once a week, and Jakob Kuisl allowed him to browse through the old folios and leather-bound books in his absence. In the process, Simon had often stumbled upon things that were interesting for his work as a doctor. For example, the hangman had the complete works of the English doctor Thomas Sydenham, in which every known illness was listed and described in detail—a compendium not even found in the library in Ingolstadt!

  The book he held in his hand at the moment, however, didn’t have the slightest thing to do with medicine. Titled Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches’ Hammer), it was written by two Dominicans—Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger. Some pages were soiled and worn, and some had a brownish sheen that looked like dried blood. Simon had frequently b
rowsed through the so-called Witches’ Hammer. On the page he had open at the moment, the authors tried to prove that the Latin word femina (woman) came from fides minus, meaning “of less faith.” Another chapter described what witches looked like, the type of magic they used, and how one could protect himself from them. Then, Simon became engrossed in a detailed passage that described how to make the male organ disappear by magic.

  “A bad book,” a voice behind him said. “It would be better for you to put it away.”

  Simon turned around. In the doorway, the hangman stood wearing a bandage over his left arm, while snow melted from his fur trousers and formed a puddle at his feet. He tossed his musket in a corner and took the volume from Simon’s hands.

  “This book belonged to my grandfather,” he said as he placed it back on one of the tall shelves along with the other books, parchment rolls, notes, and farmers’ almanacs. “He used it in interrogations back in the days when more than sixty women were burned at the stake in Schongau. You can make anyone out to be a witch if you just badger them long enough.”

  Simon felt a chill, and not just because of the unheated room. Like all other Schongauers, he’d heard a lot about the notorious witch trials three generations ago that had made the city a name for itself all over Bavaria. In those days, Jakob Kuisl’s grandfather Jörg Abriel had come into a lot of money and dubious notoriety. With his attendants, he traveled by coach to a number of places where executions were to be held and extracted a confession from every witch.

  “These Dominicans…” Simon asked after a pause. “Aren’t they often inquisitors at witch trials?”

  The hangman nodded. “Domini canes is another name for them—the dogs of the Lord. They are clever and well read and do the dirty work for the Pope.” He spat on the floor, which was covered with fresh reeds. “Let’s hope that no one from this despicable order ever comes to Schongau. Where the Dominicans are, there is fire. And who gets his hands dirty then? Who do you think? Me! That filthy, accursed gang! Unscrupulous smart-asses and bookworms who revel in the suffering of others!”

  Having worked himself into a frenzy, he pulled out the bottle of brandy from under his overcoat and took a deep swig. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took a deep breath. Only slowly did he regain his usual composure.

  “Do you yourself use that…book?” Simon pointed hesitantly to The Witches’ Hammer on the shelf.

  The hangman shook his head and headed toward the heated room. “I have other methods. But tell me now what you found up at the castle.”

  They made themselves comfortable by the stove, where a stew of onions, carrots, and bacon was simmering. Suddenly, Simon realized how hungry he was, so when the hangman filled up two plates, he dug in gratefully.

  After they had eaten in silence for a while, Simon pointed to the hangman’s bandaged arm. “Did that happen while you were chasing the robbers?” he asked.

  Jakob Kuisl nodded, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and pushed the plate aside. Then he started filling his long-stem pipe.

  “We caught them,” he grumbled. “Down in the Ammer Gorge near Schleyer Falls. A good number of them are dead, and the rest are cooling their heels up in the dungeon. So I’ll have plenty to do in the next few days, too, and won’t be able to help you.” He lit his pipe with an ember and eyed Simon sternly. “But stop stalling and tell me now…What happened up on Castle Hill? Or do I have to apply the thumbscrews to you first?”

  Simon grinned inwardly. Even if the hangman was crabby and uncommunicative, he was just as curious as Simon. The physician wished he could get more out of the hangman about the fight with the robbers, but for now, he related what he had found in the crypt under the chapel and everything else he had learned in his search with Benedikta. “The inscription,” he concluded, “must be a riddle. And the word tree is carved in capital letters. But I swear we examined every tree in the whole damned forest up on that mountain and couldn’t find a thing!”

  “An inscription in German…” the hangman murmured. “Strange, you would think the Templars would have written in Latin at that time. At least that’s the way it is in all my old books, only pompous-sounding Latin, no German and certainly not Bavarian German. Well, so be it…” He puffed big black clouds of smoke from his stem pipe, eyeing them intently in the flickering light of the embers. “This damned Templar is sending us on a wild goose chase,” he muttered. “First the crypt in the Saint Lawrence Church, then the basilica in Altenstadt, and now the castle ruin in Peiting, which doesn’t seem to be the last riddle, either. I wonder what else lies in store for us.”

  “I think I know,” Simon said. He explained his suspicion that Temple Master Friedrich Wildgraf had concealed part of the Templar’s treasure here. The hangman listened without saying a word. “This treasure is more than anything we can imagine,” Simon finally concluded in a whisper, as if he feared someone could be listening in on them. “Enough to buy whole cities, I believe, and fund wars. Such a treasure would also explain the murder of Koppmeyer, the presence of these monks in Strasser’s Tavern, and the attempt on your life. Someone is doing everything he can to eliminate anyone else who might know about this.”

  “But what’s the point of all this rubbish with the riddles and the game of hide-and-seek?” grumbled the hangman, drawing on his pipe. “A simple clue in the crypt, a testament would have also sufficed.”

  “Up to now, all the riddles have had something to do with God,” Simon interrupted, struggling not to cough through the clouds of smoke. “The Templars no doubt wanted to make sure only a true believer would find the treasure. The inscription from the castle ruins also seems like a sort of prayer.” He pulled out a parchment roll on which he had noted the lines.

  “This is what I discovered among men as the greatest wonder,” the physician mumbled, “that the earth did not exist, nor the sky above, nor TREE…” He hesitated. “Why in the world is ‘tree’ capitalized? Did we overlook something up there?”

  “Deus lo vult,” the hangman murmured suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Deus lo vult—it’s the will of God. That’s what the man with the dagger said to the fat Swabian down in the crypt. It almost sounded like a battle cry. What the devil does that mean?”

  Simon shrugged. “A man with a strong scent of perfume, another with a curved dagger, a fat Swabian…” The medicus rubbed his tired eyes, which were tearing up from the smoke. “What an odd group! And how did these men ever learn about the Templar’s grave? From the construction workers?”

  The hangman shook his head. “I don’t think so. I actually have another idea, but it’s too early to say yet. Now I’m tired.”

  He rose to accompany the physician to the door. Suddenly, it occurred to Simon that, with all the excitement, he had completely forgotten to ask the hangman about Magdalena.

  “Your daughter…” he began saying at the doorway. “I…I must speak with her. I think I have to apologize. Is she upstairs in the house or still with Stechlin?”

  The hangman shook his head. “Neither. She left for Augsburg this morning on the ferry to get a few supplies for me and the midwife. It’s probably best if you don’t see each other for a while.”

  “But…” Simon suddenly felt forlorn.

  Jakob Kuisl pushed him outside, slowly closing the door behind him. “She’ll come back, don’t worry,” he grumbled. “She’s just a stubborn Kuisl like her mother, and now, good night. I have to go upstairs and have a look at little Georg.”

  With a creak, the door clicked shut on Simon, leaving him alone with the darkness. Snowflakes were falling on his head, and it was as silent as the grave. Carefully, he threaded his way through the fresh snow toward the lights of the town. Slowly, a feeling crept over him that he had made a great mistake.

  The merchant stopped bothering Magdalena for the rest of the way to Augsburg. Once or twice, he cast a glance at her with reddened, spiteful eyes, but otherwise, he was busy washing off the quicklime with icy wat
er from the Lech and rubbing lotion on his burning face. Oozing red pustules were breaking out around the edges of his beard, and he cursed softly as he sipped from a bottle of fruit brandy to calm himself down.

  The six o’clock bells were about to ring when Magdalena spotted a number of sparkling lights in the darkness ahead—just a few at first, but as time passed, more and more appeared until they eventually filled the entire horizon.

  “Augsburg,” she whispered, full of awe.

  Until now, Magdalena had known the city only from what people had told her—that it was a metropolis more lively and colorful than little Schongau. Here Protestants and Catholics lived peacefully side by side in a free city, subject only to the emperor. Its wealth was legendary before the Great War, and even now, the city seemed to have lost little of its former splendor.

  The view helped the hangman’s daughter forget her anger and sadness for the time being. The ferry landing was a short way outside the city, near the Red Gate. Even at this late hour, there was more activity on the pier than Magdalena had ever seen in Schongau. Barrels and sacks were being offloaded by the dozen, and a crowd of dockworkers were bent over as they carried the heavy cargo to storage sheds nearby. The glow of innumerable torches and lanterns made it possible for work to continue even now, after darkness had fallen. Harsh commands, but also crude words and laughter, could be heard all over the landing.

  Fortunately, Magdalena had already paid for her passage in Schongau, so she could disembark without having to deal with the merchant anymore and disappear in the noisy crowd. She kept checking to make sure the little linen bag was still hanging over her shoulder. It contained instructions from Stechlin and her father—but above all, the money the midwife had given her. Twenty guilders! She had never had so much money in her life! Most of it came from the pregnant Frau Holzhofer, who was waiting in Schongau for her bezoar.

  When Magdalena looked around again, she noticed that Oswald Hainmiller, along with two men dressed all in black, had been trailing her. He was whispering to them and pointing at her. His face, disfigured with pustules and a red rash, seemed to flare with hatred.