As the Steingaden abbot held out his hand to the black monk, Simon noticed that Bonenmayr’s signet ring bore the same cross as the monk’s chain.
A cross with two beams.
13
I sinned, too, when I stared at that handsome fellow, Peter, who works on the Huber farm, and just last week, I drank the cream from the top of the milk…and…And when I was a kid, I once threw a piece of horse dung at old Berchtholdt, and I never confessed to that…”
Magdalena was struggling for words. She was slowly running out of sins, and Brother Jakobus still showed no reaction to the poisons. Sitting alongside her in the pew, he bowed his head and only occasionally nodded or murmured his “Ego te absolvo.”
The monk sat completely still with closed eyes, lost in his narrow little world, soaking up her confession like a dry sponge and not reacting.
“Also, a week ago last Sunday, I was dreaming in church and made eyes at Simon, and during the hymns, I just mouthed the words…”
The hangman’s daughter continued confessing…on and on…But inwardly, she was cursing. Were the thorn apple seeds and dried belladonna too old? Had they lost their effect? Or did this monk simply have the constitution of a horse?
This was her last plan, and if it failed, she had no idea what to do. The monk kept nodding and mumbling his pious prayers.
“Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat, et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo…”
Suddenly, something seemed to be happening to Brother Jakobus. Little beads of sweat were forming on his brow, and he licked his dry lips. Then he started rubbing his legs together as if he were trying to smother a raging fire between them. Finally, he cast a glance at Magdalena that made her blood run cold. His eyes were huge black holes, his pupils so dilated that he looked like an old woman slathered with makeup. Saliva drooled down from the corner of his mouth, and he reached out to grab her thigh.
“Oh, Magdalena, the sins!” he whispered. “The sins are overwhelming me again. Help me, Holy Virgin Mary, help me to be strong in the face of sin!”
Magdalena pushed his hand away, but moments later it was back, his fingers crawling up her thigh like a fat spider, toward her breasts, and his whole body beginning to quiver.
“Oh, Magdalena! Demons are coming to get me! There are too many of them! They are touching me in unclean places, licking me, kissing me with their clammy lips, fondling my naked skin. Holy Mother of God, help me. Help me!”
With a loud cry, the monk leaped up and threw himself at her. Only at the last second was Magdalena able to jump away. He knocked over the pew, fell to the ground with it, and like a bull in heat, rubbed his thighs against the polished wood. When he stood up, Magdalena could see how his robe bulged out from the huge erection underneath. His eyes gleamed like those of an animal.
Magdalena took a few cautious steps back.
Damn, I should have used less belladonna and more of the thorn apple seeds! She cursed under her breath at her error. She should have known better! Both her father and the midwife Martha Stechlin had often used belladonna as an aphrodisiac, but Magdalena hadn’t been expecting such a strong reaction. By now Jakobus was bathed in sweat, breathing heavily, and his words came haltingly.
“Magdalena…Is it really you? Your breasts…your white skin…I will follow you wherever you go…”
The monk smiled as large drops of sweat rolled down his pale face. He seemed like a completely different person to Magdalena now.
“The brothel in Augsburg…” he whispered. “I’ll pay fat Agnes a lot of money to let you go. We’ll go…far away. To Rome…to the West Indies…From now on, your body must belong to no one else…no one but me!”
With a hoarse cry, he flung himself at her. She was so spellbound by his words that his sudden attack caught her by surprise. Flying through the air like a whirling dervish, the monk knocked her to the ground. His thin groping fingers seemed to be everywhere at once: between her thighs, inside her bodice, forcing her to the ground while his mouth searched for her lips. Screaming, Magdalena turned her head from side to side, nearly fainting from the stench of his putrid flesh. She could now clearly see the festering wound that stretched from his chest up to his chin, a wet, putrid wound pressing against her breasts.
“Magdalena…” Jakobus panted. “The sin…the two of us…can…be…one…”
Suddenly, his whole body began to convulse as if a crowd of devils were shaking him-all of them at the same time. But as fast as the convulsions came on, they stopped, and now he simply lay on her like a dripping sack, his arms outstretched.
It was eerily silent in the vault, the only sound being Magdalena’s own panting.
She hesitated a moment, then pushed the limp body off her in disgust. Jakobus rolled to one side, coming to rest on his back, eyes staring straight up, a final ecstatic smile playing around his lips. A damp spot spread from his robe.
“You pig! You filthy pig!”
Magdalena struck out wildly at the man on the floor. As bright blood began flowing from his nose and mouth, she suddenly realized that Jakobus was probably dead.
Frantically, she searched his robe for the key, rushed to the door, and then down a long dark corridor. On and on she ran, her only thought being to flee from this man.
In the underground chapel, Brother Jakobus stared with a frozen grin up at the ceiling, where a few fat, naked cherubs danced to heavenly music that played just for him.
The hangman hurried along the quickest route to Rottenbuch, his head pounding. He avoided the main highway-the danger was too great that he would come upon people there who didn’t feel too kindly toward him after the execution that morning. Kuisl knew he’d ruined the big party for all of them. For far lesser shortcomings, other executioners had been strung up from the nearest tree.
As he moved quickly along, he only briefly thought about Hans Scheller and the four accomplices whom he’d hanged. The Schongau executioner felt no remorse. Hanging was his job, and he did it as quickly and painlessly as possible. He knew that all five condemned men had killed people, and probably in a far more bestial manner than he did. Now they were all in a better place, and Kuisl had seen to it that they hadn’t had to suffer unnecessarily. Breaking a convict on the wheel had always repelled him, and he gloated over how he’d been able to spoil the celebration for Johann Lechner and the Schongau patricians.
He plodded through the snowy forest on narrow paths, his wide-brimmed hat pulled far down over his face and his ragged coat wrapped tightly to protect him from the cold and the wind. He walked purposefully, like a beast of prey following a scent. He’d learned in Schongau that Simon and his companion had set out in the direction of Rottenbuch around noon the previous day. The fact that they hadn’t yet returned didn’t necessarily mean anything, but he was worried.
Kuisl’s worry grew when he arrived at the Rottenbuch Monastery. He noticed at once that something was wrong. The church portal was sealed with a heavy bolt and guarded by two grim-faced guards with halberds. On the square in front of the church, monks and workers stood around in small groups, talking softly. Only then did the hangman notice that nobody was working. Nobody was on the scaffolding, and none of the men here was holding a bucket of mortar or even a trowel in his hand. Walking by a few wildly gesticulating monks, he overheard what they were saying.
“I tell you it was the devil himself…”
“No, it was the Protestants. The war is starting all over again, and they are robbing the last of our church’s treasures…”
“The devil or the Protestants, it’s all the same! In any case, Judgment Day is close at hand.”
Jakob Kuisl paused for a moment. He guessed that Simon and Benedikta had found lodging in Rottenbuch; perhaps someone there would know where they were.
He had success at the very first tavern he stopped at, right by the gate opening onto the square. After he had knocked several times, the door opened on a thick-necked, sweaty barkeeper with a belly like a beer keg. When Kuisl desc
ribed the medicus and his companion, the heavy-set man looked at him suspiciously.
“A little dandy and a refined-looking redheaded lady, huh? What business do you have with them?”
Jakob Kuisl answered cautiously; the tavern keeper seemed to be hiding something. “I’m just looking for them, that’s all. So what do you know? Were they here?”
The tavern keeper hesitated, then broke out into a grin. “I know you; you’re the hangman from Schongau. I didn’t think it would happen so fast. Well, everyone here is talking about the two people who desecrated the church.” He looked the hangman up and down. “Where’s your sword, your ropes, and the tongs, heh? What will you do with them? Will they burn in Rottenbuch or back in Schongau?”
It dawned on Jakob Kuisl that Simon had to be in far greater difficulty than he’d feared. He decided to play along. “Tell me, did the two run off on you?” he grumbled. “You didn’t help them get away, did you?”
The innkeeper turned as white as a ghost. “Oh no! I didn’t do anything. I swear by the Virgin Mary, it’s just as I told our venerable superintendent. The two of them left last night on the sled belonging to the Steingaden Monastery, and the abbot was with them!”
“The abbot?”
The innkeeper nodded emphatically. “Augustin Bonenmayr himself. I watched His Excellency come down the stairs with the two. Ha!” Again he grinned, this time so widely that the black stumps of his teeth protruded. “He’s probably taking them to the hangman in Steingaden, and you’ll be left all by yourself with your ropes and tongs! You’ll miss out on a nice heap of change.” He started to count on his short, fat fingers: “The tongs, the rack-they’ll probably be hanged, broken on the wheel, and then burned. Or maybe boiled alive in oil? Let’s see, that adds up to…”
But the hangman had long since stopped listening. He was already on the way to Steingaden.
Across the street from the tavern, two figures emerged from the shadow of a shed and started out in pursuit of Jakob Kuisl. The two men, dressed like mercenary foot soldiers from the Thirty Years’ War, were more than just worried; for the first time in a long while, they were slightly panicked. Somehow the physician and the redhead had eluded them and they’d lost one of their men in the fight with that damned monk in black. And now their cover was blown! This hulk of a hangman seemed their last hope.
With wide-brimmed hats pulled far down over their faces, they mingled with the workmen and the Augustinian monks still lamenting their loss, following Jakob Kuisl down the busy street full of horse-drawn sleds and hand carts, toward the forest.
Perhaps he would lead them to their goal.
Augustin Bonenmayr closed the door and motioned for Simon to take a seat. The physician plumped down dejectedly on a stool, so shaken that he couldn’t say another word and so wide-eyed with fright he could only stare at the dark monk, who was still leaning against the doorjamb playing with his dagger. A faint smile played across Nathanael’s lips. His golden cross swayed gently back and forth like a pendulum.
The abbot of Steingaden sat across the table from Simon and Benedikta and folded his hands as if in prayer. With his pince-nez, gray hair, and pinched lips, he looked like a compassionate schoolteacher preparing to give his students a stern lecture even though he didn’t really enjoy doing so.
“I am dreadfully sorry it had to turn out this way,” he began. “But apparently, God selected you for this role.” He removed the pince-nez and started polishing the glasses again without looking at either Simon or Benedikta. “You have, indeed, led us to the Templars’ treasure, and all of Christendom will be eternally grateful to you for that. But you must understand that allowing you to live is too risky. The word must not get out that the treasure was in the hands of heretics for centuries. Also, the fact that we had to spill blood to obtain it is”-he looked at Brother Nathanael reproachfully-“well, more than regrettable. It wouldn’t be good if something like this became public knowledge. All in all-”
“You knew the whole time!” Simon interrupted, having regained his voice. “From the very beginning, we were no more than your stupid flunkies whose job it was to find the treasure for you. You deliberately showed us the sales deed here in the monastery so we could draw our own conclusions!”
The abbot shrugged apologetically. “I knew that you were smart and curious, Simon Fronwieser. You found the entrance to the crypt along with the hangman, and you’ve proved on a number of occasions that you think faster than most people-like a puppy sniffing for a bone, you poke your nose in every corner. I admire that.” Bonenmayr smiled benevolently before continuing. “When you came to Steingaden, I considered hiding the document from you, but then I thought, why shouldn’t I let him dig for his bone? You never noticed them, but my colleagues were always nearby. Only the hangman was too dangerous for me, so I saw to it that he had other things to keep him busy.”
Simon groaned. “So you told Lechner to send Kuisl out to look for robbers!”
“Not directly. But the result leaves nothing to be desired, does it?” The abbot peered contentedly through the crystal-clear lenses of his pince-nez. “The robbers were hanged, we have the treasure, and the city has earned a little from it in the process.”
By now, Benedikta had clearly recovered from her fright as well. “Your visit to my brother’s funeral…” she said, looking angrily at the abbot. “You were only there to see how far along we were in solving the riddle. You didn’t give a damn about my brother!”
The abbot looked almost a bit sad. “That’s not quite correct. The death of your brother was regrettable, as I said. I wanted to pay him my final respects. He deserved it,” he said with a smile. “Besides, I thought I could divert Simon from what we were up to by making Koppmeyer’s sister a principal suspect.”
Benedikta jumped up as if she were going to seize the abbot by the throat. “You goddamned…!”
Nathanael drew his dagger, but Simon pulled her back down onto the chair before the monk could intervene.
“Your plot almost worked,” the medicus said after making sure Benedikta had calmed down again. “For a time, I did, in fact, suspect Benedikta of murdering her brother. How could I suspect that the abbot of Steingaden was behind it all?”
Augustin Bonenmayr shook his head sadly. “The order to kill the priest of the Saint Lawrence Church came from Augsburg-from high up, not from me. When Andreas Koppmeyer stumbled upon the crypt during the church renovations, he wrote a letter to the bishop. That’s how we learned the treasure had reappeared. I would have perhaps chosen another way, but the bishop considered it best to make sure there was absolute silence about it. Koppmeyer was a good priest, but unfortunately also a gossiper who knew too much. The danger that others might pick up the trail was simply too great. After all, Koppmeyer had already confided in his sister. You must understand, we had to put an end to this!”
“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?”
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