The Play of Death

by Oliver Pötzsch

  She stopped short as another dizzy spell came over her. She had to think of her unborn child. Was the child still alive? Or had it perhaps died inside her in the cold water or during her long spell of unconsciousness? Instinctively, she reached down to touch her abdomen.

  “You’re pregnant,” said the monk. “The slight rounding was evident, but you did not have any bleeding, so you needn’t worry about that.”

  Magdalena looked skeptical. “For a celibate monk you know a lot about women.”

  “Well, even if we have to live without women, we can at least read about them.” Brother Konstantin grinned, revealing a few crooked remaining teeth. “Everybody has such secrets.”

  Again, Magdalena struggled to sit up. “Brother, I absolutely must get to Oberammergau today. Please . . .”

  “That’s at least four hours away by foot, and with the fever you have, you’d never make it.”

  “Then let me have a horse. I promise to return it to you. And I . . . I’ll pray for you every day.”

  Brother Konstantin laughed softly. “How can I do that? I’m just a poor old hermit and have no horse—and the monastery certainly won’t give one to a nameless girl who doesn’t even want to tell why she needs to go to Oberammergau.” He shook his head. “It’s not possible. It would be best for you to wait here until you feel better, and then go by foot.”

  Magdalena sank back on her bed of rushes. She felt weaker and more worn out than ever before. All the excitement of the last several days—the worry about Barbara, her fear of death in the barrel, the struggle in the water—overwhelmed her. “Then all is lost,” she whispered, as tears welled up in her eyes. The monk sighed.

  “Don’t cry,” he said. “First the kiss, and now this. It’s almost as if we’re married.” He hesitated. “Perhaps I have a solution.”

  Magdalena’s heart beat faster. “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, I have an old, stubborn donkey. His name is Franziskus, but unfortunately he’s not as gentle as his human patron saint. Perhaps he could take you to Oberammergau.” He winked at her. “If he wants to. Franziskus loves to lick on salt stone, and if you give him enough, perhaps he’ll let you ride him.”

  Magdalena laughed with relief. “By all the saints! I’ll treat him like the Savior’s donkey on His entrance to Jerusalem.”

  Cautiously and with unsteady steps she let Brother Konstantin lead her outside, where bees buzzed excitedly over the riverbank. The sun had already passed its highest point and Magdalena’s legs threatened to buckle at every step, but she walked upright down the narrow path leading to the monastery.

  She could only hope it wasn’t too late to save Barbara.

  “You’re supposed to go home?”

  Simon stared wide-eyed at his father-in-law. He’d just returned from Georg Kaiser’s house, where the two old friends had gone after the disastrous and apparently last rehearsal of the Passion play. Simon and Jakob ate their meal together silently, each absorbed in his own thoughts. Even the last of Simon’s coffee couldn’t change the atmosphere. But Jakob’s announcement that he’d have to return to Schongau tore Simon from his dark musings.

  “Lechner doesn’t want me to snoop around here anymore,” Jakob continued. He settled down comfortably on the bench alongside the stove, where he’d also spent the previous night, his feet on the table and his pipe dangling from the corner of his mouth. “He wants me to pack my things and stay out of this from now on. Yesterday afternoon he fired me.”

  “And you waited until now to tell me?”

  Jakob took a deep drag on his pipe. “I had to think about it; besides, how would it have changed anything if I’d told you? In any case, as you see, I’m still here, and all Lechner can do is throw a fit.”

  “But why does he want you to leave?” Simon asked, puzzled. “I mean, Johann Lechner brought you along specifically to find out more about the murders.”

  “Perhaps we’ve found out too much,” said Jakob, pointing the long stem of his pipe at Simon. “The order to stop snooping around applies to you, as well, so perhaps you can soon return again to my charming daughter.” He grinned. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  Simon cringed. In fact, ever since the events in Oberammergau had gotten out of hand, he hadn’t thought very much about Magdalena and could only hope that she and Paul were well. Probably Magdalena was still angry at him because he’d decided to accept Faistenmantel’s lucrative offer and stay a while with Peter. In any case, he hadn’t received any letter from Schongau so far, which wasn’t exactly the best sign.

  “Konrad Faistenmantel is paying me a king’s ransom to work for a few weeks as the bathhouse keeper and medicus,” Simon replied as he sat down alongside his father-in-law at the table. “I can’t just up and leave, even if Lechner orders me to. Besides, I don’t like being pushed around like a pawn in a chess game. We’re close to solving this riddle, I can feel it.” He sighed. It was driving him crazy . . . If he went home now, everything they’d learned would be in vain, and he’d never receive the money he needed so badly from Faistenmantel. If he refused to leave, he’d be crossing swords with none less than the Schongau secretary. “But everything has changed,” he added gloomily, “now that the abbot has canceled the play.”

  Jakob frowned. “Canceled?”

  Simon told his father-in-law about everything that had happened at the final rehearsal. Jakob listened silently, and only when Simon mentioned the disappearance of Franz Würmseer did the hangman suddenly prick up his ears.

  “Do you know where Würmseer might have gone?” he asked.

  “Well, he didn’t go home. I went there looking for him, and his wife was very upset. I think she was telling me the truth. She said her husband had been acting very strange recently.”

  “Hmm. And you said Konrad Faistenmantel said some strange things earlier?”

  Simon nodded. “He said he knew something that wouldn’t please the abbot, and then Würmseer attacked Faistenmantel like a madman. That’s how the whole melee got started.”

  “Damn!” said Jakob, slamming his fist down on the table. “Everyone in this place seems to know more than the two of us do. Don’t we look like fools? And now I’m beginning to think even Lechner knows more than he’s letting on. But I’m not going to let them make a fool out of me any longer,” he said, pointing his pipe stem at Simon. “Tell your son that he and his friends need to keep an eye out for Würmseer. If he even breaks wind, I want to know about it. And in the meantime, you go and have a talk with Faistenmantel. By God, those two councilors know something that can lead us to the murderer, I can smell it, as sure as I am the hangman of Schongau.” He tapped his huge hooked nose. “I’ll get hold of Xaver Eyrl. He’s the third one who knows something, and if he’s somewhere here in the valley, I’ll find him.”

  “And how are you going to do that if Lechner sends you home?” Simon asked.

  Jakob grinned mischievously. “Oh, but I left a long time ago, didn’t I? I said goodbye to you, then headed back to Schongau. It was this afternoon.” He stood up and walked out into the hall, where a long coat, a knapsack, and a floppy hat with a wide brim hung on a hook. “These things only belong to the old peddler who wanders through the Ammer Valley. It’s possible he’ll be coming to your door tonight.” He nodded grimly. “A Kuisl can’t be bossed around that easily, as many have learned.”

  Just a few hundred paces away, Konrad Faistenmantel started up the path into the forest at the foot of the Kofel that protected the village from erosion and avalanches. Crumpled up in his hand was the letter he’d just received in his workshop at home. One of the young journeymen had handed it to him without comment, but Faistenmantel knew who it was from. He’d been expecting this for days. There was a lot to discuss, and the village tavern was surely not the right place for that. But he couldn’t quite figure out why the meeting had to be in that accursed region atop the Kofel. There were other out-of-the-way places that weren’t so forbidding.

  Sullenly
he stomped over the Ammer bridge, then down a narrow cowpath, past the meadows, toward the dark forest. It was late afternoon, the shadows were getting longer, and the Kofel stretched its black fingers out toward the valley. In the dense pine forest, darkness had already fallen.

  Anger began to rise again in Konrad Faistenmantel as he pushed his way through the dry branches. The abbot had canceled the play. Did this arrogant half-wit have any idea how much money, time, and work he, the Oberammergau Town Council chairman, had put into this production? The early scheduling would have given the Oberammergauers the money the village needed so urgently. The town coffers were empty and the trade route, in former times so busy, was in dreadful shape. They urgently needed the money—now—or the town would go to the dogs.

  But Faistenmantel wasn’t driven just by the money. In fact, the merchant wished to present the Passion as a gift to the Lord, because he too carried the burden of much guilt in his life. He had ruined his competitors; he had sold them bad wood; and he had paid his colleagues poorly for their carvings, then sold them for outrageous prices in Augsburg and Venice. He had always been the strongest one and had swallowed up the others. For this reason—and because he knew they disliked him and in fact were afraid of him—he’d allowed them to play their little games behind his back. He’d guided this village with a carrot on a stick. But now they’d gone too far. What were suspicions at first had turned into a certainty for him. He couldn’t go on like this. And as far as the play was concerned, the last word had not yet been heard. Faistenmantel wouldn’t give up that easily.

  Somewhere in the dense pine forest he could hear a cuckoo announcing the long-awaited summer. A second cuckoo answered, and Konrad Faistenmantel was surprised that he’d heard two of them almost at the same time. It was almost as if they were talking to each other.

  Just like people, he thought.

  For a moment he thought about his youngest son, Dominik, who had died such a gruesome death. He had also been a strange bird, and Faistenmantel had always suspected that the sensitive boy, in contrast to his strong, strapping brothers, was illegitimate. Last year, when his wife confessed to him on her deathbed that she’d had an affair with an itinerant law student, he wasn’t surprised. His grief at the loss of the strange alleged son was therefore restrained. But now other faithful citizens of the town had died, and he had to put an end to it. He would put his foot down, and then this miserable Schongau secretary and his crony the hangman would finally stop snooping around. No matter what some fellow townsmen might have done, they didn’t need any out-of-towners here to put things in order.

  Again he heard the cry of a cuckoo, now much closer. Konrad Faistenmantel pushed another branch aside and found himself facing a steep rock wall directly below the summit in a dark forest of firs. Following the directions in the message, he turned left and was soon at the specified meeting place: a shell-shaped hollow known for its deep rock crevices.

  Here, too, just as at the Malenstein, the children’s hiding spot in the forest, there were ancient drawings in the rock, magical symbols and representations of pagan gods. Among the moss and lichen was a sneering devil’s face along with some numbers and letters. For this reason, the place was called Devil’s Rock and was, for the most part, avoided, as were the Malenstein and the Döttenbichl, neither of which was far away.

  Konrad Faistenmantel passed his fat fingers over the shallowly engraved images and had the impression that some of the figures hadn’t been there on his last visit. Perhaps children had added to them—or would grownups possibly do things like that?

  From far off he could hear bells ringing in the Oberammergau church steeple—three rings, the prearranged signal. He leaned against the cold rock wall and waited. Water dripped onto his bald head from higher up on the mountain, and as he wiped his forehead, he heard a trickling of small stones nearby.

  Again he heard the cuckoo, this time directly overhead, and suddenly he was sure it was not a bird but a human voice.

  As he looked up, something suddenly grabbed him by the feet, and with a surprised shout he fell hard into the dirt. Only now did he realize there had been a snare on the ground in front of the opening that was suddenly pulled tight. The fat merchant struggled like a rabbit in a trap.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” he shouted. “Get your dirty fingers off—”

  He was silenced as a fist-sized stone struck him on the forehead and, with a groan, his bloodied head tipped to one side.

  Quick hands bound him by his arms and legs so tightly that he almost looked like a well-tied bale of rags, then someone pushed a gag into his mouth in case he regained consciousness too soon.

  Strong hands marked by hard work lifted him up and carried him through the forest to the place where the great sacrifice had been prepared. If Faistenmantel hadn’t been unconscious, he would have seen the imposing cross made of oak beams erected there for him.

  Mercifully, he was spared the sight.

  With fast, skillful movements Peter sketched the strange stone circle from memory and stared at it, wondering. He wished he knew the meaning of the lines that Würmseer had made with the stones and twigs—if only to impress his father. But no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t make any sense of it. Discouraged, he crumpled up the drawing and threw it into a corner of the cave.

  He was sitting with Jossi and Maxl in their hiding place behind the Malenstein. All morning the three boys had been looking for Franz Würmseer. They’d even gone down to Unterammergau, but the wagon driver had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. Eventually they’d decided to go back to the cave and discuss what to do next. They’d heard noises outside a while ago, and it sounded like a large group of people was walking by, but now silence had returned. The entire time they’d remained silent, carving little figurines and occasionally chewing on their hard crusts of bread.

  Peter, at least, had finished the homework Poxhannes had given him the day before as a punishment, and he’d been able to help Jossi, who hadn’t gotten very far in Latin beyond memorizing the Ave Maria and the Lord’s Prayer. Strangely, Hannes hadn’t seemed very interested in their progress, and Peter assumed he didn’t know much more Latin than Jossi. Otherwise, even though the teacher’s assistant had whipped a few pupils in school that day, he had seemed distracted, his thoughts elsewhere.

  Jossi and Maxl seemed distracted, as well, possibly because Joseffa still hadn’t returned to school. There were rumors she’d been badly injured in the forest, and some said she was dying.

  “I told my father about Joseffa,” Peter said finally, in order to break the silence in the cave and cheer the boys up a bit. He was proud his father was able to cure people. “He said he’d go have a look today.”

  Jossi looked at him in astonishment. “You did what?”

  “Well, my father is a medicus, and I thought I could—”

  “How many times do we have to tell you not to meddle in our affairs?” Jossi interrupted angrily. “You’re just going to make it worse.”

  “But I just wanted to help,” Peter whined. Tears ran down his face and, once again, he felt that he didn’t belong.

  Maxl sighed. “But you don’t understand,” he said gently, putting his arm around Peter’s shoulder. “You meant well, but nobody can help us, we are . . .” He struggled for words.

  “Cursed,” Jossi said darkly. He stared toward the cave entrance, where the first shadows of the afternoon were settling over the dark firs. A breeze had come up, shaking the branches as if it wanted to reach in to the children in the cave. “God knows, we are cursed.”

  “By the way, starting tomorrow you’ll have to get along without me,” Maxl said after a while. Then he cleared his throat. “My father needs me to help with the logging over on the Laber. He’ll give me hell if I don’t go along.”

  “It’s the same for me, I’m afraid,” Jossi added, trying to sound a bit calmer. “If not my parents, then certainly Poxhannes will need me. We can’t always escape him. Just this morning
he ordered the others to be ready, starting at four o’clock. No doubt he’s going to be furious again.” He scratched his head. “Even though I don’t think he’s going to send us off to work in this weather. There’s something brewing up there on the Kofel.” He smiled sadly at Peter. The older boy looked pale again, just as he had yesterday, and there were still dark rings under his eyes. “Perhaps some other time, all right?”

  Angry and confused, Peter tossed a stone toward the back of the cave. Just that morning his father had asked him to keep his eyes and ears open. Würmseer had disappeared during the rehearsal for the play and was now nowhere to be found. Peter was happy his father had put so much trust in him, and now he’d have to disappoint him again.

  “Würmseer is up to some mischief,” he grumbled, “or we would have found him. I’m telling you, he’s hiding somewhere and planning to make trouble. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was out to get you workers.”

  “Perhaps he even left our area and is in Graswang Valley or Tyrol, or God knows where,” Maxl replied. “In any case, I’m not sorry he’s gone, and I wish he’d taken his fat son along, too—then we’d finally have a little peace around here.” He laughed bitterly, then got up from his rocky seat and addressed the others. “Let’s go home. It’ll be dark soon and we won’t be able to look anymore.”

  Jossi, too, stood up. With an apologetic look, he turned to Peter. “We really tried, Peter. Don’t be sad. We’ve taken some risks because of you, and we just can’t do anything more.” Along with Maxl he squeezed his way out through the small hole in the back of the cave. Peter followed, struggling with tears. For a brief time, he thought he’d finally found a group of friends, but now everything seemed to be falling apart. Moreover, he had the feeling that Jossi and Maxl were hiding something from him. Sometimes they would glance furtively at one another or whisper behind his back with the other workers’ children. No doubt they wanted to keep their distance from him, the dishonorable grandson of the Schongau executioner. How could he know if the story about having to work for their parents or Poxhannes was really true or if they got together to play secretly without him?