Magdalena could feel her body going stiff. When numbness reached her legs, she slid down the gravestone behind her and came to rest on the floor, her eyes wide in fear. From far off, she could hear an organ.
Maria zu lieben ist allzeit mein Sinn, in Freuden und Leiden ihr Diener ich bin…My heart is devoted to Mary, my queen, in joy and in sorrow to serve her I mean…
In the cathedral above, just a few yards away, mass had begun.
10
EARLY THE NEXT morning, Simon and Benedikta set out for Wessobrunn on horseback. They avoided major roads leading north along the Lech River that might be under the robbers’ surveillance. Instead, they crossed the bridge over the Lech to Peiting and, from there, headed directly toward Mount Hoher Peißenberg, which towered like a giant above the villages and little towns in the otherwise flat countryside. The blizzard of the last two days had passed, and the air was clear and pure. The sun shone so brightly in the blue sky that Simon had to close his eyes whenever he looked too long at the snowy fields and trees.
In the last hour, Simon had often glanced back. Whenever he and Benedikta left a clearing and entered the endless forests around the mountain, the feeling came over him that he was being watched. It felt like an itch between his shoulders, and Simon expected any moment to hear the twang of a bowstring or the rattle of a saber. Whenever he turned around, though, all he saw was an impenetrable thicket of pines. Occasionally, a startled bird flew away, squawking, or snow trickled softly down from branches. Otherwise, silence prevailed.
In many places, the blizzard had bent the trees down like reeds, and from atop his horse, Simon looked down on wide swaths of downed trees in the forest. At least the farmers wouldn’t complain this winter about a lack of firewood.
“Don’t look so cross!” Benedikta called to him. “It doesn’t go well with your beautiful eyes. The robbers are on the Lech, not here. What is there of any value here?”
In contrast to Simon, the businesswoman seemed carefree, humming a French tune and spurring her horse on across the wide clearings. Simon had trouble keeping up with her. He’d borrowed the hangman’s old mare again for their ride to Wessobrunn. Walli seemed to have gotten somewhat used to him, but she stopped from time to time whenever something green poked its head out of the snow cover. Then even kicking her wouldn’t get her to move. Occasionally, she snapped at Simon or tried to throw him off, but the medicus was determined to teach the beast some manners. The horse came to a dead stop again and tugged calmly at a weed poking its head up out of the snow. Simon tugged desperately on the reins and dug his heels into Walli’s scrawny body, but he might as well have been sitting on a rock.
Benedikta watched him struggle, grinned, then put two fingers to her mouth and whistled.
“Allez hop, viens par ici! Giddyap, this way!”
As if the horse had just been waiting for Benedikta’s command, it started to move again.
“Just where have you learned to deal with horses like that?” Simon asked, patting Walli on the rump and trying to catch up.
“My mother comes from a family of Huguenots who fled from the French Catholics.” Benedikta brought her horse into a faster trot. “A respected family from the area around Paris with an estate and property. She learned to ride as a child and no doubt passed this love along to me. Je suis un enfant de France!” She laughed, racing off.
Simon dug his heels into Walli’s sides, trying to keep up with Benedikta, and for a brief while they rode side by side.
“France must be gorgeous!” he cried to her. “Paris! Notre Dame! Fashion! Is it true that the city blazes with the light of a thousand lanterns at night?”
“In your Schongau, I’d be pleased to see even a dozen lanterns. And people smell better in Paris.” She gave her horse a slap. “But now, enough of this foolishness. The last one to reach the edge of the clearing pays for the first round of muscatel in Wessobrunn! Allez, hue, Aramis!”
Her sorrel leapt forward and raced to the edge of the clearing, while Walli plodded along listlessly, clearly in the hope of finding a few tasty blades of grass at the forest edge.
As they approached Peißenberg, they turned left, heading north, and, two hours later crossed through a dense forest of firs interspersed with dark-green yews.
“Keep an eye on your horse. The trees are very poisonous, so make sure she doesn’t eat the leaves or the hangman will wring your neck,” Benedikta warned.
Simon nodded. He didn’t want to think what Jakob Kuisl would do to him if he had to flay his own horse. Probably, he’d stick Simon up to his neck in a vat of tannic acid. The medicus was still lost in thought, pondering how indebted he really was to the hangman, when he suddenly felt the urgent call of nature.
“Benedikta, excuse me, but I…” He smiled with embarrassment and pointed to the yews on the left. “It will take only a moment.”
“If you’ve got to go…” she said, winking. “But don’t let the bad fellows catch you with your pants down.”
Entering a thicket of yews, Simon squeezed past sharp branches and opened the buttons of his coat and trousers. When he was finished, he paused to enjoy a moment of peace and tranquility in the forest.
At this moment, Simon had the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching.
It was a warm, tickling sensation on his back; he was petrified when, a moment later, he heard a crackle behind him. Slowly, he buttoned up his trousers and moved farther back into the thicket. Instead of going back to the road, he turned left, jumped down into a ditch in front of him and crawled along on the ground parallel to the road. For protection, he picked up a branch about the length of a club, which had broken off in the blizzard. Finally, he crossed through another thicket and, in a wide circle, returned to where he’d started. Holding the club tightly, he moved forward, trying not to make a sound. Just behind a large fallen tree he came to a stop.
Ten paces in front of him, a man was leaning against a tree.
He was wearing the red Turkish trousers of a mercenary foot soldier and a gray jacket from which a sword and powder horn hung. In his right hand he held a musket like a walking stick. He was looking out at the road, where Benedikta was waiting. Suddenly, the man put his hand to his mouth and let out a very realistic-sounding caw like that of a jay. Another caw answered, then a third. The man nodded with calm satisfaction, pulled a dagger from his waistband, and began cleaning his fingernails, all the while keeping a close eye on the road.
Simon clutched the cudgel so tightly that his knuckles turned white and he had trouble swallowing. An ambush! Judging from the signals, there had to be at least three men. The physician looked around at the bushes and yews but couldn’t see any other men. They were probably hiding on the other side of the road. Simon rose cautiously, trying to formulate a plan. He had to warn Benedikta and then ride away as soon as possible! He could only hope the highwaymen didn’t have horses.
As quietly as possible, Simon crept back through the thicket of yews. The crackle of even a tiny branch sounded to him like a peal of thunder, but finally he reached the road. When he emerged from the ditch with twigs in his hair and trousers wet from the snow, Benedikta looked down at him in amusement.
“Did you find a badger hole to do your business? As far as I’m concerned, you could have just gone in the ditch.” Then she noticed the anxious expression on his face and turned serious. “What happened?”
Simon mouthed his next words. “Robbers. On both sides of the street. We have to get out of here.”
Again, one jay call followed another.
Benedikta hesitated briefly. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “As long as we’re on our horses and keep moving, they can’t catch us.” She grinned and pointed to her skirt pocket. “Don’t forget, I’m not completely defenseless. Allez!”
Her horse bounded forward and galloped away, and to Simon’s great relief, Walli promptly followed. The medicus thought he saw something move behind the trees. He expected to hear the crack of a shot, the whistl
e of a bullet, or the pain of one impacting his shoulder—but nothing happened.
Clearly, they had shaken off the robbers.
But how? Had he been mistaken? He’d expected that, at the very least, the men would shoot at them with their muskets or crossbows as he and Benedikta rode away. But there was no time to think. The horses raced off, and Benedikta was already entering another part of the forest far ahead. Her laughter dispelled his dark thoughts. Perhaps the highwaymen had simply decided to wait for a more promising victim.
Soon they left the yew forest and a large clearing opened up in front of them. The road climbed steeply, lined by houses on both sides. Simon breathed a deep sigh of relief. They’d reached the village of Gaispoint, and high above them, on a hill, was the Wessobrunn Monastery.
As the medicus looked around, it struck him how well maintained the houses looked. Many of them were built of stone and had obviously survived the war with little damage. Many stucco workers had settled in Gaispoint to take advantage of the booming construction business in the surrounding churches and monasteries. The physician had heard that the Gaispoint stucco workers were well known and highly regarded in Venice and as far away as Florence and Rome. At present, the stucco workers were engaged principally in restoring the neighboring Benedictine monastery to its former glory. Even though the Swedes had left the village largely untouched, they had plundered and set fire to the monastery itself.
Simon and Benedikta rode over a narrow bridge toward the rectory. The grounds seemed gloomy in the light of the setting sun. Parts of the encircling wall had collapsed, and many of the outer buildings had been burned down by the marauding soldiers. Loose stucco was crumbling from the church walls, and all that remained of the well house roof was the timber frame. Crows rose up from a heavy layer of ice covering the fountain and flew off. Only the squat bell tower standing off behind the parish church seemed to have weathered the tumultuous times.
Benedikta knocked on the heavy door of the main house, but it took a while before someone answered. A bald monk peered out at them suspiciously through a narrow crack in the door.
“Yes?”
Benedikta put on her sweetest smile. “We’ve ridden a long way to see this famous monastery. It would be a great honor for us if the abbot—”
“Abbot Bernhard is not available now. Go over to the tavern next door, and perhaps tomorrow—”
Sticking his foot in the crack, Simon pushed the door open a bit. The monk stepped back, startled.
“My companion has come all the way from Paris to view the famous Wessobrunn Prayer,” the medicus said in a commanding tone. “Madame Lefèvre is not accustomed to waiting, especially as she is considering a substantial donation to the monastery.”
Benedikta looked at him for a moment in astonishment, then joined in the game. “C’est vrai,” she mumbled. “Je suis très fatiguée…”
For a moment, the monk looked confused, then finally ushered them into the vestibule.
“Wait a moment,” he said, disappearing through a doorway.
“A substantial donation?” Benedikta whispered. “What were you thinking? I don’t have anything substantial to give.”
Simon grinned. “It won’t necessarily get to that point, Madame Lefèvre. All we want is to see this prayer. I do believe we shall have to leave tomorrow in a great hurry. Compris?”
Benedikta smirked. “Simon Fronwieser,” she whispered, “it seems I’ve underestimated you until now.”
At that moment, a side door opened on a tall black-robed monk with penetrating eyes. Breadcrumbs still clung to his mouth, which he wiped with his sleeve. His Excellency had clearly been disturbed at supper.
“I am Abbot Bernhard Gering,” he said. He was at least two heads taller than Simon. Looking down, he asked, “What can I do for you?”
The abbot raised his eyebrows as if he were examining a bug in the monastery kitchen. Obviously, Father Bernhard was hungry and thus rather ill-disposed. His pronounced nose reminded Simon a bit of Jakob Kuisl’s.
“Ah, frère Bernhard,” Benedikta sighed, extending her hand. “Comme c’est agréable de faire la connaissance de l’abbé de Wessobrunn!”
Father Bernhard hesitated, then smiled wanly. “You come from France?” he asked in a much softer voice as he shook her hand.
Benedikta smiled back. “De Paris, pour être précis. Business matters in Augsburg have brought me to your beautiful isolated region.” She pointed to Simon. “My charming guide offered to show me the way to your monastery. In Paris, I heard of your…comment dit-on…Wessobrunn Prayer, and now I am dying to see it.”
Suddenly, the abbot perked up. “Paris, you say? I spent part of my younger years in Paris! What a wonderful city! Parlez-moi de Paris! J’ai appris que le Cardinal Richelieu a fait construire une chapelle à la Sorbonne.”
Simon closed his eyes and said a quick prayer. Hearing Benedikta speak the purest Parisian French with the abbot, he opened his eyes again. Father Bernhard nodded and smiled, and now and then posed an interested question. He suddenly seemed years younger, as if he’d fallen under a spell.
After just a few moments, Bernhard Gering led them to his private quarters, where excellent French wine and tender chicken awaited them. The medicus grinned. It was astonishing how a foreign language could open doors. Then he feasted on the coq au vin.
Outside the monastery gates, two monks huddled in a niche against the biting winter wind. A blizzard was brewing again and tugged at their black cowls. A thin layer of snow had fallen on the backs of the horses standing next to them. These men were not Benedictines like the monks of Wessobrunn, and though they would never admit it, they despised their brothers inside the monastery. The Benedictines prayed, ate well, and drank. They spent their tithes on stucco and gold leaf and honored God by reveling in pomp and splendor. They’d lost sight of what was sometimes necessary—a strong hand to free the rose of God from the rampant weeds.
These two monks belonged to an order that thought of itself as Christendom’s elite. For centuries, these brothers had been on the frontlines of the war against the heretics. Other monks quietly tended their cloister gardens and decorated their churches, but these monks were destined for higher things! Their third man had returned to Augsburg, and now they were waiting here in the cold, as they had promised not to let the two busybodies out of their sight. As God’s watchdogs, they followed their master undeterred through storms and snow.
They didn’t notice that they themselves were being observed.
“Up here?” Simon glanced up a steep staircase leading to the clock tower attic. Wind was whistling through the stairwell and shaking the entire roof truss, so that more than once the physician reached out and frantically grabbed hold of the railing.
“Just a security measure,” the abbot remarked, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. “During the Great War, we took all the monastery’s books up here. It’s the safest place around here. The tower is ancient and as solid as a fortified castle.”
Groaning, he continued upward, followed by Simon and Benedikta. The medicus examined the unplastered walls in the light of their lantern. The walls were several feet thick and interrupted only by the occasional narrow embrasure.
During the meal, Benedikta had repeated her wish to Abbot Bernhard to see the Wessobrunn Prayer. Her father, who came to Paris from Germany, had often told her about the oldest prayer in the German language, with its simple yet stirring words. When she found it necessary to travel to Augsburg on a business matter, she decided to take a detour to Wessobrunn and make a donation to the monastery to support the library. The prospect of a pending windfall made it easy to convince the abbot to show them the prayer that very night.
After a few more turns on the clock tower’s spiral staircase, they finally reached the attic. A trapdoor opened on the area directly under the roof. Simon peered in, moving the lantern around in a circle, and saw mountains of books and boxes scattered amid timber, tr
unks, and moth-eaten bundles of cloth, completely filling the attic.
With a barely suppressed cry of excitement, the medicus rushed to the first pile and began leafing through the books there. The first one was a yellow, faded copy of Seneca’s De vita beata, and next to it lay an illuminated edition of Paracelsus’s Großer Wundarzeney filled with detailed engravings and brilliant initials. Simon examined the books. Digging through the pile, he found a huge illustrated Bible and, right after that, the collected works of Aristotle, something he hadn’t held in his hands since his days as a student in Ingolstadt. This was no cheap printed copy, however, but handwritten, with marginalia in an elegant script. When he took it in hand and opened the ribbon, a cloud of dust swirled up. He had to sneeze, and the light from the lantern flickered.
“Careful with the fire,” murmured the abbot, who had disappeared behind some tall crates in a corner. “One false move and all of Western culture goes up in flames!”
Simon gingerly set his lantern down atop a pile of books and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, immersed himself in the world of letters. He felt neither the cold nor the wind whistling between the loose tiles of the roof.
It was Benedikta who shook him by the shoulder and roused him from his daydreams.
“Forget the books; we don’t have time!” she whispered. “Once we have the treasure in hand, you can buy all these books, for all I care, and lock yourself up with them for the rest of your life. But come now!”
In the meanwhile, the abbot reappeared from the rear of the attic carrying a small trunk closed with a heavy padlock. He took a key out from under his habit and opened the box decorated with silver fittings. Resting on a red velvet lining inside was a simple cross and, at the bottom, a single book bound in bright calfskin.
With slender fingers, the abbot opened two golden clasps along the side of the book, then turned the brittle parchment pages until he found a certain passage in the middle. Simon leaned over to get a closer look. Some of the letters were red, the color of dried blood in the lantern light, and others were written in fine dark-brown flourishes and only slighted yellowed. Despite their age, they were quite legible. “The Wessobrunn Prayer,” he whispered.
The Dark Monk Page 26