The Dark Monk

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “Why?” asked Simon, taking off his wet coat and torn jacket and hanging both up to dry alongside the stove.

  Anna silently eyed the ruined clothing, then went to look for a needle and thread in a drawer. “Lechner says my husband has to break Sheller on the wheel,” she said as she started sewing up the torn garment. “It’s going to happen in three days, even though Jakob gave his word to the robber chief. It’s a rotten group up there in the city council—they have money coming out their ears, but don’t care a bit about honor and decency!”

  The medicus nodded. He’d become accustomed to the hangman’s excesses. Before executions, Kuisl would go on drinking binges, but amazingly, when the time came for the actual execution, he’d always completely sobered up again.

  Simon let Anna Maria grumble on while he went over to the main room, where he found the hangman leaning glassy-eyed on the gallows ladder and brooding. The sweet odor of alcohol and sweat drifted through the room. On the table, a few opened books lay alongside an open bottle of brandy, and in a corner of the room, the pieces of a smashed beer stein flashed in the dim light. Kuisl’s face shone in the light of the fire as he prepared to take another mighty swig.

  “Drink with me or leave me alone,” he said, slamming the bottle back down on the table. Simon put a fat-bellied clay cup to his mouth and sipped on its contents. It was something very strong that the hangman made from the fermented apples and pears from his orchard. Presumably, there were also a few herbs mixed in, which the medicus didn’t even want to know about.

  “We found a new riddle in Wessobrunn,” Simon said abruptly. “Some words up in a linden tree. I thought you might be able to make some sense out of them.”

  Kuisl belched loudly and wiped the corner of his mouth. “Who gives a damn? But go ahead, spit it out. You can’t just keep it to yourself.”

  Simon smiled. He knew how curious the hangman was, even when he was stoned. “It goes like this: In gremio Mariae eris primus et felicianus.”

  Kuisl nodded, then translated aloud. “You will be first at Mary’s bosom, and a happy person.” He broke into a laugh. “Just a pious sentiment, nothing more! That can’t be the clue.”

  He picked up the bottle again with a vacant look, one that Simon had trouble reconciling with Kuisl’s other, sensitive and educated side. People were always astonished that the executioner knew Latin so well, even when he was completely soused. They would be even more astonished if they looked around the hangman’s library and saw all the books in German, Latin, and even Greek, written by scholars still completely unknown in most German universities.

  “But it must be the next riddle,” Simon objected. “He put his name at the bottom of it. Friedrich Wildgraf, anno domini 1328—a year before his death.”

  Kuisl rubbed his temples, trying to think clearly. “Well, it’s not anything from the Bible that I can remember,” he growled. “And I know most of those biblical aphorisms. You wouldn’t believe how pious people become when it’s time for them to die. I’ve heard it all, but never these words.”

  Simon swallowed before continuing. Jakob Kuisl’s father had been the local hangman before him, and before that, his grandfather—a true dynasty of executioners now extending over a whole host of Bavarian cities and towns. The Kuisls had probably heard more whining and pious words than the Pope himself.

  “If it’s not from the Bible, maybe it’s some secret message,” Simon said, repeating the words. “You will be first at Mary’s bosom, and a happy person. What does that mean?”

  The hangman shrugged before picking up the bottle again. “Damned if I know. What’s it to me, anyway?” He took such a long swig that Simon was afraid he might choke. Finally, he put the bottle down again. “For my part, I’m going to break Scheller on the wheel on Saturday, and there’s nothing more I can do to help you. Till then, there’s a lot to do. The people want a spectacle.”

  Simon could see from the hangman’s bloodshot eyes that the bottle was almost empty. Jakob Kuisl was leaning farther and farther over on his stool. A whole bottle of brandy apparently was a little too much even for a big, broad-shouldered man six feet tall.

  “You’ll need some medicine,” Simon sighed, “or you won’t have a clear head tomorrow.”

  “Don’t need no medicine from you goddamned quacks. I’ll make my own.”

  Simon shook his head. “This medicine is something only I have.” He stood up and walked over to the living room, where Anna Maria was still sitting at a table mending the rip in the Simon’s jacket.

  “Make a strong cup of coffee for your husband,” Simon said. “But don’t skimp on the beans. It’ll only work if it’s strong enough for the spoon to stand up in the cup without falling over.”

  Magdalena awoke to a monotonous humming sound that grew louder and louder until she thought her head would split. Her headache was even worse than the last time she woke up. Her lips were so rough and dry that when she passed the tip of her tongue over them, they felt like the bark of a tree. She opened her eyes, blinded at first by bursts of light, but after a while the flashing stopped, things came into focus—and what she saw was paradise!

  Cherubs fluttered around the head of the Savior, who was wearing a crown and looking down at her compassionately from the cross. St. Luke and St. John were off to one side, keeping watch over the starry heavens, while down below, the serpent Lucifer writhed about, impaled by the lance of the Archangel Michael, and high above, the twelve apostles sat enthroned in glory on the clouds. All the figures were ablaze in gleaming gold, bright silver, and all the shimmering colors of the rainbow. Never before had Magdalena seen such splendor.

  Was she in heaven?

  At least I’m no longer lying in the coffin, she thought. That’s an improvement, in any case.

  As soon as she turned her head, she could see she was not in heaven, but in a sort of little chapel. She lay on her back on a stone altar surrounded by four burning candles. The walls of the whitewashed room were so densely covered with lavish oil paintings depicting various scenes from the Bible that there was hardly any space between them. Sunlight entered the room from the east through a tiny window, but the stone was so cold that her muscles felt like ice.

  The murmuring came from one side. Turning her head a bit farther, Magdalena could see Brother Jakobus dressed in a simple black robe kneeling before a small altar to the Virgin Mary, his head bowed in quiet prayer. A golden cross with the two beams dangled at his chest.

  “Ave Maria, the Lord be with you, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your body, Jesus Christ…”

  Magdalena tried to sit up. Could she flee without the monk noticing? Only a few steps behind her, she spotted a low wooden door with a golden handle. If she could only get to it…

  When she tried to prop herself up, she found she was bound by her hands and feet like a lamb on its way to slaughter.

  Christ, Lamb of God, who bears the sins of the world…

  Magdalena panicked remembering the words from the Bible. What did this madman intend to do with her? Was he going to sacrifice her on the altar? Was this the reason for the lighted candles? Another Bible quotation came to mind.

  God spoke to Abraham: Take your son Isaac, whom you love, and bring him to the mountain as a sacrifice…

  The monk’s monotonous chant grew louder and higher in pitch until he was almost screaming in a falsetto. Magdalena tried to fight the fear rising in her and forced herself to breathe calmly and evenly. Perhaps she could even manage to crawl through the door? Crawling, creeping, hopping—it didn’t matter. She just had to get away from here. She rocked back and forth, managing to reach the left side of the altar. Just a few more inches and she would be there. She could already feel the edge underneath her when she tipped over and fell…

  Her feet bumped against a large candlestick, which fell to the ground with a crash.

  The singing stopped abruptly. She could hear footsteps, and a moment later, Brother Jakobus stood over her, his dagge
r drawn. Magdalena screamed as he pointed the dagger at her.

  “Hold your tongue, stupid woman. Nobody is going to hurt you.” The monk cut the cords tying her hands and stepped off to one side. “If you promise to hold still, I’ll cut off the shackles on your feet as well. Do you promise?”

  Magdalena nodded and was free a moment later. She stood up and tried to move her arms and legs but was still too weak even to remain standing. Breathing heavily, she sank down onto one of the pews and felt as if she were going to pass out.

  “The poison does that to you,” Brother Jakobus said, sitting down on the bench alongside her. “A mixture of opium poppies and a few rare plants from the nightshade family. You’ll feel weak for a while; then it will pass.”

  “Where…where am I?” Magdalena rubbed her wrists, which tingled as if ants were crawling around inside them.

  “That’s of no concern to you,” the monk said. “This is a place where no one will disturb us. The walls are thick, and not a sound can penetrate the windows. A wonderful place to find God.”

  He let his gaze wander over the splendid fresco on the ceiling. “Don’t worry. For now, you are our guarantee that your father won’t disturb us, and later…” He looked her directly in the face with what suddenly seemed like a soft, tender look. Again, the sweet scent of perfume wafted over to her.

  “Magdalena…” he sighed. “The name brings many things to my mind.” He paused for a long time. “You do know Mary Magdalene, don’t you?” he asked suddenly. “The woman who was always at our Savior’s side? The patron saint of whores and adulteresses, and unclean women like you…”

  She nodded. “My father named me for her.” Her voice sounded strange and grating after having remained silent for so long.

  “Your father is a smart man, Magdalena. A…prophet, one might say.” Brother Jakobus laughed, bending his haggard, hunched body down to her like a scarecrow in the wind and passing his long fingers gently over her dress—hands as slender and delicate as a woman’s. “St. Mary Magdalene…” the monk whispered. “You really do resemble your namesake—beautiful and clever, but a pariah. A dirty hangman’s daughter, the scum of the city. A pious whore who secretly devotes herself to the sins of the flesh.”

  “But—”

  “Silence!” The monk’s voice sounded shrill again. “I know women like you only too well! Haven’t I seen you with your physician friend? So do not lie to me, Daughter of Eve!”

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and finally managed to calm down again. “But you are a believer, I can see that,” he said, laying his hand on her forehead as if to bless her. “Deep inside you, there is a good heart. You women are not all bad. Even Mary Magdalene became a saint, and you, too, can be saved.” His voice fell to a whisper now, and Magdalena struggled to hear what he was saying.

  “Do you know the Bible, Hangman’s Daughter?”

  He was still holding his hand on her forehead. Magdalena decided to remain silent, and he kept on speaking without waiting for an answer.

  “Luke, Chapter Eight, Verse One. Jesus was traveling with a few women he had healed and saved from evil spirits, among them Mary Magdalene, from whom he had driven out seven demons. Seven demons…” The monk’s eyes flashed in the light of the candles. “You, too, are possessed by seven demons, Magdalena, and I will drive them out later, once your task here has been completed. Then you will be pure and good, a chaste maiden. Do not be troubled. We will find a place for you here in the monastery.”

  He walked toward the door, but then he stopped and turned around to her again.

  “I will save you, Magdalena.”

  The monk smiled, then opened the door and disappeared. There was a grating sound as a key turned in the lock, then footsteps that became fainter until they finally faded away.

  The hangman’s daughter remained behind with the angels, the evangelists, and a savior. Two women knelt at the foot of his cross and wept.

  Simon looked into the rigid eyes of the man laid out on the bed in front of him and put down his doctor’s bag. The medicus didn’t have to listen to his heart, feel his pulse, or put a mirror under his nostrils anymore. He knew the man was dead. Gently, he closed the old man’s eyes, then turned to the deceased’s wife, who stood alongside, whimpering.

  “I’ve come too late,” Simon said. “Your husband is already in a better place.”

  The farm woman nodded, looking intently at her husband as if her gaze alone could bring him back to life. Simon guessed she was in her mid-forties, but the hard work in the fields, the yearly births, and the bad food made her look older. Her hair was gray and unkempt, and deep wrinkles had formed in the corners of her mouth and eyes. A few rotting, yellow stumps of teeth could be seen behind her cracked lips. Simon wondered if Magdalena would look like this in twenty years.

  Simon had been up all night thinking about the hangman’s daughter. How was she doing in Augsburg? Her father had received no news from her yet, though he expected her return at any moment. But because of the blizzard, it was quite possible she’d be further delayed. No doubt she was waiting to join a group of merchants who awaited better weather—and an end to the attacks.

  A child’s cry startled Simon out of his thoughts. A girl about four years of age was fondling the face of her dead father, and at the back of the room, six more of the farmer’s children were standing about with lowered heads. Two of them were coughing loudly; the medicus hoped they hadn’t caught the fever, too.

  In the last two weeks, over thirty people had died in Schongau from the mysterious illness, most of them the elderly or children. Along the city wall, St. Sebastian’s Cemetery was filling up, and a number of the old graves holding victims of the plague were now being turned over to make room for the new arrivals. Simon and his father had tried everything. They had bled their patients, given them enemas, brewed them a drink of linden blossoms and wild marjoram. Bonifaz Fronwieser had even leafed through the pages of the so-called Dreckapotheke, or Dirty Pharmacy, in search of a magic potion for fever. When his father started mixing dried toads in vinegar and making powder from mouse droppings, Simon ran out of the treatment room, cursing.

  “Faith, it’s faith that helps,” his father called after him.

  “Faith! Is that the best we can do?”

  The very thought of what his father was doing made Simon curse under his breath. Mouse droppings and dried toads! Next they’d be painting pentagrams and magic signs on the doors of the sick. If only he had some of that Jesuit’s powder! The physician was sure this medicine, acquired from the bark of a tree in the West Indies, would quickly reduce the fever. Simon had long ago used his last bit of it, however, and the next Venetian merchant would not be heading their way until the mountain passes were open again.

  Once more, he turned to the farm woman and her coughing children. “It’s important now that you bury your husband as soon as possible,” said Simon. “He could be carrying something that will infect you and the children as well.”

  “A…spirit?” the farm woman asked anxiously.

  The physician shook his head in resignation. “No, not a spirit. Think of them as tiny creatures that—”

  “Tiny creatures?” The woman’s face became even paler. “In my Alois?”

  Simon sighed. “Just forget about that and bury him.”

  “But the ground is frozen, and we’ll have to wait until—”

  There was a knock at the door. Simon turned around to see a dirty little boy in the doorway, looking up at him with a mixture of fear and respect.

  “Are you the Schongau physician?” he asked finally. Simon nodded. Secretly, he was happy to be addressed this way, because most residents still regarded him as nothing more than the coddled son of the local doctor, a dandy and a womanizer who had run out of money at the university in Ingolstadt.

  “The…the Schreevogls have sent me,” the boy said.

  “I’m supposed to tell you that Clara is coughing up snot and mucus. And please, can you stop
by as soon as possible?”

  Simon closed his eyes in a silent prayer. “Not Clara,” he murmured. “God, not Clara.”

  He grabbed his doctor’s bag and, after exchanging a few more words with the farmer’s family, rushed off after the boy. On the way to the marketplace where the Schreevogls lived, Simon couldn’t help thinking of Clara. So much had happened in the last few days that he’d completely forgotten her! Usually, he stopped to pay a visit to his little friend several times a week. And now she was sick; perhaps she even had this terrible fever!

  Maria Schreevogl was waiting for him by the front door. As so often, she appeared pale and agitated. Simon never understood what the patrician saw in the overly pious, sometimes hysterical woman. He assumed there were financial considerations involved in the marriage. Maria Schreevogl’s maiden name was Püchner, and she came from an old influential family with political connections.

  “She’s in bed up in her room!” the woman lamented. “Please Mary, Mother of God and all saints, don’t let it be this fever! Don’t let this happen to my Clara!”

  Simon hurried up the wide staircase and entered the room of the sick girl. Clara lay in her bed coughing, her pale face peeking out from a thick comforter.

  Her stepfather, Jakob Schreevogl, sat anxiously at the edge of the bed. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Fronwieser,” he said, standing up. “Would you like something to drink—perhaps some coffee?”

  Simon shook his head, noticing with concern that the patrician peered back at him with vacant eyes. The councillor looked like he was in a trance. Just the evening before, he’d returned with the hangman from their trip with Karl Semer, and clearly, he was severely shaken by the news of his daughter’s sickness.

  Simon bent down to look at Clara. “Clara, it’s me, Simon,” he whispered, but Clara didn’t react. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing fast. In her sleep her whole body shook from time to time with a coughing fit. The physician placed an ear to her chest and listened to her breathing.

  “How long has she been this way?” Simon asked, trying to speak over the crying and wailing of Schreevogl’s wife, who had followed him into the room, anxiously passing rosary beads through her fingers.