The Dark Monk

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “You’re reading…?” the burgomaster asked.

  The hangman nodded. “Dioscorides’s work. An old tome, but there’s nothing better for learning about herbs. And this one here,” he continued, holding up a newer book, “Athanasius Kircher, a damned Jesuit, but what he writes about the plague is first rate. Do you know his work?”

  The burgomaster shrugged. “Well, to tell the truth…I read mostly balance sheets.”

  Lighting his pipe from a piece of kindling, the hangman continued. “Kircher thinks the plague is transmitted by tiny, winged creatures that he has seen with a so-called ‘microscope.’ He says nothing about vapors emanating from the earth, or God knows what else the quack doctors go on and on about, but creatures so small they’re invisible to the naked eye, that jump from one person to another—” Kuisl’s enthusiastic remarks were interrupted by his children’s crying. His wife, too, could be heard complaining loudly up in the bedroom.

  “What in God’s name is going on down there?” she cursed. “If you want to go out and drink, go to Semer’s tavern and let the children sleep in peace!”

  “Anna,” Jakob Kuisl hissed, “Semer is standing right down here.”

  “What?”

  “The burgomaster is down here with a toothache.”

  “Toothache or not, please keep the noise down, for God’s sake!”

  A door slammed.

  The hangman looked at Karl Semer and rolled his eyes. “Women,” he whispered, but softly enough that his wife couldn’t hear. Finally, he turned serious again. “So what brings you to me?”

  “My wife thinks you’re the only one who can help me,” the burgomaster said, pointing to his swollen cheek. “I’ve had this toothache for weeks, but tonight…” He closed his eyes. “Make it go away. I’ll pay whatever you ask.”

  “Well then, let’s have a look.” Jakob Kuisl guided the burgomaster to one of the stools. “Open your mouth.”

  He held up a small piece of burning wood to see into the burgomaster’s mouth. “Ah, I can see it, the son of a bitch,” he mumbled. “Does this hurt?” He tapped a finger on a black stump of a tooth far back in the burgomaster’s mouth. The burgomaster jumped and let out a scream.

  “Shh,” Kuisl said. “Remember my wife. She doesn’t have much understanding for these things.”

  He left for the adjoining room and returned shortly with a little bottle.

  “What is that?” the burgomaster grumbled, half dazed with pain.

  “Clove oil. It will ease the pain.” The hangman put a few drops on a cloth and dabbed it on the tooth.

  Karl Semer groaned with relief. “Indeed, the pain is better. What a miracle!”

  Jakob Kuisl grinned. “I can inflict pain, and I can take it away. Everything at a price. Here, take it!” He handed the burgomaster the little bottle. “I’ll give you the tincture for a guilder.”

  Kuisl poured the burgomaster a cup of brandy. He drank it in one gulp and gratefully took another cupful.

  The two men sat across from each other for a while in silence. Curious, Semer looked around the room again, his eyes coming to rest on the gallows ladder.

  “Scheller’s trial will probably be tomorrow,” the burgomaster said, pointing to the ladder. Relieved of pain, he now looked remarkably relaxed, even in the hangman’s house. “Then, in three days, you can go to work.”

  But then he became angry. “This damned second band of robbers!” He pounded the table with his fist so hard that the brandy splashed out of the glass. “If it weren’t for them, I could sell my muscatel easily in Landsberg and beyond. The Swabians love their wine, and I can’t deliver it!”

  “But perhaps you can.” The hangman poured himself a big glass of liquor this time.

  Karl Semer looked up at him in amazement. “What do you mean by that? Don’t talk nonsense. As long as we don’t know who’s leaking information about our secret routes, it’s extremely dangerous out there. Shall I let the same thing happen to me as Holzhofer and the others?”

  Jakob Kuisl grinned. “I know roads that even the highway robbers don’t. It would be easy to get through with a horse and sled. And besides, you could get an escort for the first few miles. With my men, I’ll be out there chasing the thieves down the next few days, anyway.”

  “An escort, huh?” The burgomaster furrowed his brow. “And what will that cost me?”

  Jakob Kuisl emptied the liquor in one gulp like a glass of milk. “Almost nothing,” he said. “Just a little information.” He leaned over the table. “All I’d like you to do on your way to Swabia is to ask around a bit for me. For a man like you, what I want to know should be easy to get.” He explained to the burgomaster what he wanted.

  Semer listened attentively and nodded. “I don’t really know what good that will do, but if that’s all there is to it, sure…And we could leave as early as tomorrow?”

  The hangman nodded. “As soon as the snowstorm lets up. But until then…” He pointed to the burgomaster’s cheek. “With a tooth like that, I wouldn’t take any big trips, anyway.”

  The burgomaster blanched. “But the pain has stopped, and I have the clove oil…”

  “That will work for a while, but believe me, the pain will return, worse than before, and eventually, even the cloves won’t help anymore.”

  “Oh, God, what shall I do?” Karl Semer, seized by panic, held his cheek and gave the hangman a pleading look. “What shall I do?”

  Jakob Kuisl went to the chest in the next room and brought back a pair of pincers as long as his arm, a tool he usually used only for torturing prisoners. “We’ll probably have to pull it,” he said.

  Karl Semer looked close to passing out. “Right away?”

  The hangman gave the burgomaster a stein full of liquor. “Why not? My wife has to get up, anyway.”

  The scream that followed awoke not only Anna Maria and the twins, but the entire Tanners’ Quarter as well.

  Magdalena followed the dark monk through the Augsburg Cathedral, seeking cover behind columns along the way. He disappeared into a cloister directly in front of her. The hangman’s daughter then followed him through a portal leading to the atrium, just in time to see him walk past a wooden door and disappear around another corner. Two acolytes were walking toward her, giving her curious looks. She slowed her pace and smiled as she passed by them, swinging the bag of herbs as casually as possible. The pimply young men stared at her low neckline as if they’d never seen a woman before. They probably don’t see a low neckline in the cloister too often, Magdalena thought, smiling stoically. Finally passing the acolytes, she picked up her pace, rounded the next corner…

  And no one was there.

  Magdalena uttered a curse she’d learned from her father. The damned monk had gotten away again!

  She hurried on, circling the atrium until she was back again at the door leading into the cathedral. How was that possible? How had the man disappeared through the portal again? She would have to have seen him! Standing in the cloister, she looked around an inner courtyard surrounded by columns. There was not a soul to be seen here in the little herb garden or amid the low bushes, which lay dormant under a cover of snow. It seemed as if the stranger had simply vanished into thin air. Once more, she made the rounds of the cloister. Maybe she had overlooked a door somewhere, an opening, a hidden niche?

  Until now, Magdalena hadn’t had time to look around more carefully. The walls on one side were covered with memorial plaques from many historical periods. Knights in old-fashioned armor, grinning skeletons, and hook-nosed bishops stared out at her. But there was no door to be seen.

  She had completely lost track of the man.

  Exhausted, she leaned against one of the slabs and took a deep breath. At least she knew now that Koppmeyer’s murderer was somehow connected with this cathedral. The watchmen at the gate had greeted him, he obviously knew his way around the cathedral, and he was wearing the same cross as the young bishop pictured over in the side aisle. A cross with two crossbeams.<
br />
  The same cross…The thought that suddenly dawned on her was so dreadful and absurd that she didn’t want to accept it at first.

  Could it be that this monk and the bishop were one and the same?

  Before she could think through the implications of this ghastly idea, the slab behind her began to speak.

  Magdalena jumped away, dropping the purse and the herbs. She stared at the man engraved on the stone slab—a knight in armor with an open helmet, a broadsword at his side, and two dogs playing at his feet. He glared back at her with vacant eyes.

  Magdalena held her breath and listened. From the knight’s mouth, open in a mute cry, Magdalena thought she could make out an almost inaudible murmuring and hissing.

  Carefully, she approached the stone relief once more. Pressing her ear against the cold plaque, she could hear a hum behind it, a continuous, mournful sound. Magdalena closed her eyes and listened. It was not a single voice, but the muffled choir of many men that came through the stone.

  Was it possible…?

  She pressed both hands against the slab, but it didn’t yield. She looked for a crack along the edges where she might get a handhold; she probed for some hidden mechanism.

  All in vain.

  Finally, she noticed two palm-size basins of holy water attached waist-high to both sides of the slab—two grinning stone skulls, each with a depression in the top serving as a basin. The skulls appeared old and weathered, and the holy water in the basins was frozen. Magdalena examined them more closely.

  The skull on the right was bent at an odd angle and looked up at Magdalena with a teasing grin.

  Like a man on the gallows whose neck my father has broken, she was thinking. She reached out for the skull and tried to turn it straight.

  It moved.

  With a grating sound, the heavy stone slab moved back, revealing a steep, worn stone staircase leading down into the darkness. Magdalena held her breath and listened. From far below, she could hear men singing a mournful chorale in Latin.

  Mors stupebit et natura, cum resurget creatura…Deus lo vult…Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis…Deus lo vult…Deus lo vult. God wills it.

  There they were again, those strange Latin words her father had told her about, the ones used by the Latin-speaking strangers in the Altenstadt tavern and by the murderers in the crypt.

  God wills it…

  It was time to go down and see what this was all about.

  Magdalena stuffed the purse with the herbs back under her dress and started down the steep staircase, one step at a time. The steps spiraled around a weathered column, and the singing grew louder as she drew nearer. She noticed symbols carved into the walls now—engravings of fish here and there, the letters P and X. She passed niches in which there were flickering oil lamps lighting her way. She had the feeling this stairway was much older than the cathedral above.

  She finally reached the bottom. A narrow, domed corridor led toward the singing, and farther ahead she could make out a bright light. As she groped through the dark corridor, her hand felt something smooth and dry that crumbled at her touch. Pulling her hand back, she gazed down on a neatly stacked pile of skulls on the floor next to her. She had stuck her hand straight in the eye socket of one of the skulls. On the opposite wall, bones were stacked up to the ceiling. The singing sounded quite close now.

  Iudex ergo cum sedebit, quidquid latet apparebit…Deus lo vult…

  Magdalena had reached the end of the corridor. Kneeling down, she peered out from behind the little pyramid of skulls.

  What she saw was terrifying. The high-vaulted room was the size of a church and had rough niches carved into the walls all around, reaching up to the ceiling and stacked full of bones. At the front of the room was a stone altar and, beyond that, a weathered cross on the wall. By the light of torches, Magdalena could see a group of at least two dozen men in monks’ cowls and capes gathered around the cross, some kneeling and some standing and singing their chorale. Over their black habits, all of them wore white cloaks adorned with crosses in the same shape and color as the one behind the altar.

  The crosses had two crossbeams, painted blood red.

  Tuba mirum spargens sonum, per sepulcra regionum…Deus lo vult…

  After what seemed like an eternity, the men finished singing. Though Magdalena could feel her feet falling asleep, she remained crouched behind the pyramid of skulls, watching the proceedings. One of the cloaked men stepped up to the altar and raised his hands in blessing. He, too, had a cowl pulled down over his face. He turned around to face the group and spoke in a loud voice that echoed through the vault.

  “Dear brethren,” he began, “honorable citizens, clergy, and simple pastors who have traveled from afar to get to this place. Our brotherhood has always made it our mission to destroy heretics wherever they may be and prevent the spread of the accursed Lutheran heresy!” A murmur of approval rose from beneath the cowls, but the man motioned for his listeners to be silent. “You know that we are also trying to save our Master’s treasures from destruction at the hands of heretics. Much has been returned to the fold of the Holy Catholic Church, the only church!” He paused dramatically before continuing. “I have convened this meeting to proclaim some happy news. We have succeeded in finding the largest treasure in all of Christianity!” Excited whispers coursed through the crowd. Their leader raised his hand again to silence them.

  “The wretched Templars have hidden it in a place not far from here. But in his infinite mercy, God has sent us a sign that this treasure will soon be ours and we will soon be able to embark on our Holy War! We must not allow this Lutheran rabble to again sully the name of our Savior. It was here, in this city, that the heresy began to spread through German lands, and here it will end! I am certain that, with the help of this treasure, the Great War can begin again! Down with the heretics! Victory is ours!”

  “Deus lo vult! Deus lo vult!” cried a number of the monks. Others fell on their knees and began to pray or flagellate themselves with their belts.

  Again, their leader demanded silence.

  “Most of you already know about the treasure, but now Brother Jakobus, a true servant of our brotherhood, will give you further details. I don’t need to stress how important it is to maintain strict secrecy about everything he tells us. Traitors will meet a fiery death.”

  “Death to traitors!” someone shouted. “Death to the heretics and Lutherans!” Others joined in the shouting.

  Magdalena gulped, crouching even lower behind the skulls.

  Now a man dressed in a cowl and cloak stepped forward. As he started to speak, a chill ran up and down Magdalena’s spine. It was the stranger from the apothecary! Somewhere down below here in the vault, he must have donned the white coat with the strange cross. But it was his voice she recognized.

  “My brethren! He speaks the truth. Victory is close at hand!” Though he had a slight lisp, Magdalena understood every word. “It’s a miracle, believe me! Many years ago, but just a few miles from here, the accursed Templars buried the greatest treasure in all Christendom. These heretics made up a few childish riddles to keep the secret from us, but just recently—”

  Much too late, Magdalena noticed that she had leaned too far over the pile of skulls. She bumped one with her right elbow. Falling from the pyramid, it rolled noisily across the floor toward the vault.

  Brother Jakobus paused and looked suspiciously in Magdalena’s direction. He was about to resume speaking when the other skulls started tumbling forward as well. Frantic, Magdalena tried to stop them, but it was too late.

  A centuries-old equilibrium disturbed, the skulls now started falling on all sides with a clattering and banging. Soon Magdalena found herself standing in the corridor in plain view. For a moment, time seemed to stand still.

  “Seize her!” the leader shouted to his comrades-in-arms, who were just as shocked as Magdalena. The man’s cowl slipped off the back of his head and Magdalena found herself staring into a spiteful fa
ce—the same face she had seen in the portrait up in the cathedral.

  The bishop.

  In a fraction of a second, Magdalena realized what this meant. The Augsburg dignitary was not the murderer of Andreas Koppmeyer. No, he was the leader of this insane group—a group presumably capable of far worse crimes, one that, barring a miracle, would torture her as a witch, strangle her, and commit her body to the fire. If she were lucky, they would tear her into pieces first.

  Brother Jakobus was the first to get over his shock and run toward the hangman’s daughter, who was rushing down the corridor, stumbling over bones, getting back on her feet again, and racing up the stairs. Behind her she could hear the monk’s footfalls. She ran and ran, spiraling up the staircase as if trapped on a nightmarish merry-go-round, until she finally reached the door.

  It was then she realized the door had no handle on the inside.

  Gasping for breath, she threw herself against the stone, but this was like hitting her head against a wall. The door would not yield a bit.

  She pounded and kicked the stone slab.

  “Help!” she cried. “Doesn’t anyone hear me out there? Help me!”

  Smiling broadly, Brother Jakobus moved toward her, his hands raised as if in benediction. Only at the last minute did she see the curved dagger in his right hand.

  “I’ll give you just a little cut, I promise,” he whispered. “Just like your father. You’ll sleep like the stone knight behind you.” He feigned a blow from above, then thrust the knife at her from below. Magdalena reached for his hand, but the man was quicker. The blade came down, and even though she ducked to one side, it cut her upper arm, which she had raised to fend off her attacker.

  “Divine providence has led you to us!” Brother Jakobus murmured. “I know your name, Maria Magdalena, the whore of Christ. You are much too precious to commit to the flames. I have great plans for you.”