The Dark Monk

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “Who’s behind all this?” Simon asked in a hoarse voice. “The bishop? Or are there others?”

  Bonenmayr laughed softly. His eyes sparkled like cold little diamonds behind his pince-nez. “There are many of us, in all Christian countries, from simple monks right up to the bishop. Not even the Pope knows our names, yet our members sit in the uppermost ranks of the Vatican. We fight against the spread of heresy and save the treasures of Christianity from destruction. For far too long we have stood by and watched as the Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Hussites, and all the rest of them defame our sacred places and desecrate our holy relics!” He leapt up, pacing in front of the shelves full of books and parchment scrolls. “These vermin! They keep citing the First Commandment, but in truth, they’re nothing but a gang of criminals! Disciples of Satan who melt down consecrated gold objects to make coins, who trample our altars and burn the bones of our saints!” His face had turned bright red, and his glasses started to steam up. Bonenmayr closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and a smile passed over his lips again.

  “The fact that we learned so suddenly of Christendom’s greatest treasure through a simple village priest’s letter is a sign that God wants us to go forth and do battle in the greatest of all holy wars. The treasure is here! Right before our eyes!” Bonenmayr stopped and raised his arms to heaven. “It will adorn this church, and crowds of pilgrims will once again come flocking to Steingaden! Right here in the Priests’ Corner we will have a pilgrimage site to rival Santiago de Compostela! The bishop has already promised that at least a part of the treasure will be kept here.”

  Smiling broadly, he approached Simon and Benedikta with his hand extended in benediction.

  “You’ve helped us find it again and bring it back into the bosom of the Church,” he whispered. “For that we owe you eternal thanks. I am certain that God has set aside a very special place for you in heaven.”

  “You can just go to hell for all I care; I’m not ready to go to heaven yet!” Benedikta shouted, running to the door. She tore it open and stormed out, bumping right into the two stocky novitiates, who were still standing guard. Brother Nathanael’s muscular fingers dug into her shoulder and pulled her back into the library. He pressed his dagger against her throat and a thin trickle of blood ran down her neck.

  “Shall I…?” Nathanael asked, but Bonenmayr shook his head.

  “Not yet. First I want to have the treasure in hand. We’ll leave them here in the library. The windows are too small for an escape, and the door has a strong lock. We’ll take care of them later.”

  Simon made one more desperate attempt. “Listen, Your Excellency! You’re making a grave error. We will be missed. Surely the Schongau hangman is already looking for us and—”

  “The Schongau hangman?” Bonenmayr interrupted him, laughing softly. “I don’t think so. No one knows you are here, and even if someone did…” He seemed to be thinking it over. “Who knows, perhaps I should hand you over to the Augustinians in Rottenbuch, and then this Kuisl can draw and quarter you and break you on the wheel—a just punishment for the destruction of the relics of Saint Felicianus, don’t you think?”

  “We can keep quiet!” Benedikta pleaded. “And as for the Templars’ treasure, you can keep the money! We don’t want it, anyway. There’s too much blood on it.”

  “Money?” The Steingaden abbot looked at them in surprise. “Do you really think all we care about is money?” He shook his head dolefully. “I thought you were smarter than that. You disappoint me.”

  Still shaking his head, Bonenmayr left the library with Brother Nathanael. The door closed with a crash, leaving Simon and Benedikta to stare at the tall shelves of dusty books, folios, and parchments.

  My grave, Simon thought.

  Then he stopped to think about the meaning of Bonenmayr’s last words.

  Do you really think all we care about is money…?

  Simon could feel things coming together. He was sure he was holding all the pieces of the puzzle in his hands now, and all he had to do was put them together.

  A site to rival Santiago de Compostela…Crowds of pilgrims will once again come flocking to Steingaden…the treasures of Christendom…

  “Of course! That must be the solution!”

  The physician jumped up and started searching for a book in what seemed like endless rows of shelves.

  If he had to die, then at least he wanted to know why.

  Shortly after leaving Rottenbuch, Jakob Kuisl sensed he was being followed. He turned off the broad road into a forest and took a small path known only to a few of the locals. Nevertheless, he wasn’t alone.

  It was that familiar feeling between his shoulder blades, plus a soft, recurring rustling he could hear in the branches and the dull thud of snow falling in clumps from pine trees that he hadn’t even brushed up against. His instincts were now on high alert. The men behind him were good, but they weren’t good enough.

  Suddenly, the hangman veered off the path, disappearing into a withered thicket of blackberry bushes weighed down by snow. Before him, a deer path appeared that had not been visible from the outside. Kuisl hunkered down amid the bushes and became completely silent. His years of hiking through the forest looking for herbs or hunting game had taught him how to blend in with his environment. If the wind was right, he could wait for a deer to pass, then break its neck with one well-placed blow with the side of his hand.

  A crackling in the bushes told him the men were approaching. They communicated without speaking; only the faint sound of their steps in the snow revealed that one was entering the thicket, while the other walked around to the other side. He’d be able to knock them off one at a time. The hangman grinned.

  An advantage for me…

  Kuisl reached for the larch-wood club he always carried with him and waited for the first man to approach. He finally saw him crawling along the deer path, looking intently in all directions with a loaded pistol in his hand. He was wearing a slouch hat decorated with feathers and a colorful jacket beneath a ragged overcoat, showing him to be a former mercenary foot soldier—a bearded war veteran, hardened through innumerable battles, with the strength and skill of a man who had learned the art of killing at a very young age, a man just like the one Kuisl used to be.

  Kuisl waited until the soldier crawled past him, then hit him hard on the hand with the club.

  The man was quick.

  At the last moment, he must have noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and rolled to one side, cursing and pointing his pistol toward the hangman. A shot rang out. Though Jakob Kuisl could feel a burning sensation on his cheek, he had no time to think about it. Howling furiously, he charged the man, who tossed the useless pistol to one side and drew his dagger. In the thick underbrush, the mercenary couldn’t swing his arm back far enough, so he lunged at the hangman a few times, then made a headlong dive out of the bush. Jakob Kuisl was able to give the man one more light blow with the club between the shoulder blades before the man completely disappeared.

  The hangman cursed. He’d lost the element of surprise. Now both soldiers were standing in front of the bush, while he himself crouched in his hiding place like a wild animal at bay. He could hear the men outside panting, and he could make out their shapes amid the branches. A snapping sound told him that one of them was loading his crossbow, while the other seemed to be refilling his pistol with powder.

  I’ve got to beat them to it, or they’ll shoot me down like a mad dog…

  Without further hesitation, Jakob Kuisl stormed out of the bushes, howling. With a bloodied face and a torn coat splattered with mud, he now looked every bit a threatened animal at bay. His wild screams petrified the men for a moment, long enough to give Kuisl the advantage. The man with the pistol hastily threw his weapon aside and reached for his sword. The other was unable to load the crossbow in time and an arrow flew with a loud twang, nailing the hangman’s boot to the forest floor. Now Jakob Kuisl screamed even louder. He tore himself free and ramme
d the club into the pit of the first man’s stomach, and the man dropped to the ground like a felled tree. Then he took a wide swing and brought the cudgel down on the man’s head. There was a loud crack like a walnut being shelled.

  Next he turned to the second man, who tried to hold him off with a sword. The weapon whizzed through the air as the man danced back and forth, bobbing and weaving, lunging and retreating. He managed to hit the hangman’s arm and slit open his coat, but the hangman retreated in time. When the man thrust at him again, Kuisl ducked down and suddenly came up face to face with his attacker.

  “You filthy dog, I’ve got you now.”

  The hangman punched his opponent in the mouth so hard that he collapsed like a bundle of dry wood.

  Soon thereafter, when the man regained consciousness, he found himself tied up and with a pounding headache. Jakob Kuisl was sitting next to a little fire nearby, his head glowing in the red light of the flickering flames. Blood streamed down his right cheek while he sewed up the gunshot wound with clenched teeth.

  When the hangman noticed the man looking over at him, he grinned. “It’ll be some scar,” he said, “but nothing compared to the scars you’ll have if you don’t come clean with me right away.” He nodded in the direction of the campfire. In the flames, the man saw a huge double-edged hunting knife, its blade glowing red.

  Then he decided to talk.

  Magdalena ran from the subterranean chapel, up through a dark tunnel, until she came to a junction. Corridors at about shoulder height branched off to the left and the right, illuminated by flickering torches spaced at wide intervals in the darkness.

  Where was she? Which corridor should she take?

  On an impulse, she decided to go left. The corridor curved around, ending after only a few steps in a stone grotto. In the middle of the almost cubical space stood two sarcophagi. Here, too, burning torches were attached to the walls. The grave markers each depicted a knight in full armor holding a sword. Carefully, Magdalena approached the huge stone coffins.

  Was she imprisoned now in another Templar tomb?

  She didn’t notice the marble tablet embedded in the foot of the tomb until she stubbed her toe on it. Cursing softly, she hopped around a few times in a circle. When the pain finally subsided, she struggled to translate the ornate, slightly archaic Latin on the tablet in front of her.

  Beneath this marker lie the precious remains of the exalted and mighty Princes of Bavaria, the father Guelph VI and his son Guelph VII, equal in virtue to his father.

  Magdalena held her breath. She was evidently in the crypt of the Guelphs, the mighty family of noblemen who ruled over Bavaria long ago. That much she knew. Her prison, the chapel, had to be their shrine! But she had no idea where their tomb was. In Munich? In Nuremberg?

  Perhaps…in Augsburg?

  Only now did she notice the soft humming, murmuring, singing sound, similar to what she’d heard below the cathedral in Augsburg. After her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could make out a slight glimmer along the ceiling of the room. Light fell through the cracks in a rectangle at the same place the sound was coming from. Magdalena’s heart began to pound. Only a few meters above her were people who could come to her aid! Monks, perhaps, who were singing a chorale, or attendees at a mass, who were singing a last hymn. She was about to shout out for help, but then she stopped short.

  What if the group above her was just another gathering of those maniacs—a secret meeting of the order of murderers and fanatics headed by the bishop of Augsburg?

  Magdalena decided to remain silent until she’d first examined the other passages.

  When she got back to where the passageways crossed, she heard a different sound for the first time: a barely audible scraping and shuffling coming from the direction of the chapel, as if something were being dragged along the ground. Magdalena was startled. Was Brother Jakobus not dead, after all? Was his spirit, an avenging angel, coming to get her? The hangman’s daughter tried to shake this off, just as she would a night of bad dreams.

  You’re seeing ghosts, that’s all…

  This time she took the right corridor. After a few turns, it led to a steep spiral staircase. Again she heard the shuffling sound behind her. She decided to pay no more attention to it and hurried up the stairway, sometimes two steps at a time.

  The top of the staircase ended in front of a dirty wooden wall.

  Had she reached a dead end? She stood still, listening. There was that sound again; now she could hear it quite clearly. Down below, something was crawling slowly up the staircase, dragging itself, pulling itself, panting like a large, heavy beast. Desperately, she pushed against the wooden wall. Behind it, she heard muffled voices. Should she knock? Cry for help?

  Never before in her life had Magdalena experienced such fear. In front of her these deranged people were probably waiting for her, and behind her something was panting and dragging itself up the staircase. In her despair she crouched down against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible, as if this might allow her to vanish into the wall.

  There was a click.

  The wall creaked and tipped forward, and Magdalena fell into the room behind it with a loud crash. Wood splinters and bricks of plaster came raining down from the ceiling.

  When the dust finally cleared and Magdalena raised her head, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “What in the world are you doing?”

  Benedikta stared open-mouthed at Simon, who was walking down the endless rows of shelves, examining the great number of books in the monastery library.

  “I’m looking for a book.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice! The Steingaden abbot gives us the choice of being stabbed to death by his hoodlums or broken on the wheel by the Schongau executioner, and my dear medicus friend is looking for a book!”

  Simon paused for a moment. “I’m not looking for just any book, but a particular, special one. I suspect that when we finally know what this abbot is actually looking for, we’ll at least have the possibility…Ah, here it is!”

  He pulled a large leather-bound volume from a lower shelf. “I knew that a Premonstratensian monastery would have a work like this. Now let’s see if I was right…”

  Benedikta looked over his shoulder with curiosity. “May I ask what you’re looking for?”

  Simon leafed through the pages quickly as he spoke. “This is a standard work about the history of the Holy Cross—the De Sancta Cruce by the Jesuit Francisco de Borja. There’s another copy in Jakob Schreevogl’s library. I’m sure in this book we’ll find that…”

  He continued leafing through the book until he got to a smudged page depicting various types of crosses. Benedikta recognized the Byzantine cross, the St. Andrew’s cross with its diagonal cross beams, and the Maltese cross with the eight points. Even the Templars’ cross was there. At the very bottom, there was another cross that caused Benedikta to hold her breath.

  The cross had two crossbeams.

  The upper crossbeam was shorter than the lower one. It was the exact same cross that Brother Nathanael was wearing on a chain around his neck and the abbot of Steingaden on his signet ring.

  “The cross of Caravaca,” Simon whispered. “Also called the Spanish cross or the Patriarchal cross. The crossbeam at the top stands for the INRI inscription on the cross of Jesus. Worn by archbishops, it is said to have been brought down to earth from heaven by two angels during the war against the Moors.”

  Benedikta nodded excitedly. “It’s clearly the sign of this strange order. But why?”

  A broad smile spread across Simon’s face. “Ah, now comes the interesting part! The original cross of Caravaca supposedly contains a sliver of wood from the True Cross—the cross on which Jesus was crucified. I asked myself why the order chose this particular symbol, and I came to the conclusion that there is only one possible explanation…”

  “They’re looking for the True Cross,” Benedikta gasped. “Of course! The abbot and his disciples are
looking for the cross of Christ, the greatest treasure in Christendom! Not gold, silver, or jewels, just a goddamn rotten old wooden cross.” The disappointment showed in her face. “If I’m not mistaken, there are hundreds of slivers of wood floating around that were allegedly once part of the True Cross. Every other village church has one—you could build a city out of them! This rotten old cross is just one of many.” She sighed. “We could have saved ourselves this wild goose chase.”

  Simon shook his head as he continued leafing through the Jesuit’s book, looking for something else. “I don’t think so. I’ve seen this book once before in Schreevogl’s library, and there’s a certain page that keeps coming back to me. Look at this…” He pointed to a section containing a number of illustrations and then started reading in a hoarse voice. “Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, found the Holy Cross and had it set up for viewing in Jerusalem, but the cross was stolen by the Sassanids and returned only many years later to the Holy City. Since that time, the cross was carried into every battle waged against the infidels, and a group was charged with protecting this mighty relic from being stolen again.”

  “The Templars!” Benedikta exclaimed. “The cross is the Templars’ treasure!” She paused for a moment. “But why do you think our cross is the real one? It could be just two more rotten beams of wood like all the other fake crosses.”

  Simon turned to the next page, which displayed a colorful image of two knights on horseback riding into battle, preceded by a person carrying a huge cross. The medicus pointed at the picture.

  “The battle of Hattin,” he whispered. “The cross was there as well. In that battle in the year 1187, the Saracen Prince Saladin vanquished the army of the Crusaders. Ten thousand Christians died, including hundreds of Templars. The prisoners were skinned alive—”

  A pounding sounded from somewhere. Simon paused for a moment, but then the noise stopped. After a moment of hesitation, he continued.