The Poisoned Pilgrim_A Hangman's Daughter Tale

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Magdalena held her breath and listened as the banging and scraping started in again. She was still standing with her father in the ancient cesspit of Andechs castle. He’d quickly stashed Nepomuk’s little notebook in his pack, along with the book with the remarkable drawings, and now he listened closely, too.

  “It’s not coming any closer,” he said. “It sounds like someone moving a few heavy crates.” He turned to the arched doorway and said, “Come, let’s have a look. Perhaps the sorcerer is trying to move out and taking his whole laboratory with him.”

  As they ran down the low-ceilinged passageway, it seemed to Magdalena as if they’d crossed half the length of the Kien Valley. Where might they be now? Under the monastery? Somewhere deep below the forest? She couldn’t imagine how her father could keep his bearings in these surroundings. The hangman was clearly too large for these narrow, low passageways. His huge body kept banging against the rock, and his shirt and trousers had taken on the color of lime, dirt, and stone.

  Now the scraping sound got louder, until finally it seemed to be directly above them. They turned another corner and came to a sudden stop.

  They had reached the end of the corridor.

  The hangman’s daughter stared at the hard granite wall. A small trickle of water emerged from the stone in front of them, accumulating in a dirty pool at their feet as tiny pebbles fell from the ceiling.

  “Great,” she panted. “We’ve come to a dead end. We’d better turn around and—”

  Magdalena stopped short as her father put his finger to his lips and pointed up. Turning and looking up, she could see a stone slab in the rock directly above her. In contrast with the stone around it, it was strangely light in color, as if it had been just placed there recently. The dragging sound came from above.

  “I think I know where we are,” the hangman whispered, pointing at the solid granite all around them. “If this used to be the escape tunnel for the castle, then we are in all probability directly beneath the former cellar of the keep.” Briefly he stared into space. “Back in the war, we stormed a castle up in Saxony,” he continued in a low voice. “There was so much screaming and butchering. The last inhabitants of the castle were as stubborn as mules and withdrew to the solid rock keep. When we finally broke through after two weeks, we found no one there. They had all fled through a tunnel like this.”

  “Now what do you suggest?” Magdalena asked impatiently. She didn’t like when her father started telling old war stories. “We can hardly attack them as you did back then, with shouts and rattling sabers. Especially since the stone slab overhead looks so heavy.”

  The hangman shrugged. “Your father is no longer a youngster,” he growled. “But as long as I can lift my executioner’s sword, I can lift a slab of stone like that. Step aside.”

  Kuisl stuck the torch into a crack in the rock, looked around for some large stones, and piled them up on the floor of the passageway, getting dirtier and dirtier in the process. When he judged it high enough, he climbed carefully on top and pushed against the stone slab with both hands. With a mixture of tension and horror, Magdalena watched, listening all the while in vain for sounds of crying children. The banging and scraping drowned out everything, however.

  “And what happens when the sorcerer, or whoever it is, sees the slab being pushed aside?” she asked her father anxiously.

  “Smart-ass woman,” Kuisl gasped, as the veins in his upper arms bulged out like little cords and beads of sweat ran down his muddy forehead. “Do you have a better idea? If not, shut up.”

  After a while the stone plate rose up with a grinding sound, and the hangman pushed it slightly to one side. Then he waved at Magdalena.

  “Quick, climb on my shoulders and tell me what you see,” he whispered.

  After a brief hesitation, Magdalena climbed up on her father’s back, just as she had as a child. His shoulders were still just as broad and strong as the yoke of an ox. She wavered a bit, then gaining her balance, carefully stuck her head up through the crack.

  “Well?” Kuisl whispered down below. “Do you see the children?”

  It took a while for her eyes to get used to the bright light above after the darkness in the tunnel. Finally she could make out a huge circular room with walls of rough-hewn granite. The ten-feet-high arched ceiling was also made of stone. At least a dozen torches illuminated a chaotic jumble of crates, chests, and tables, where a number of mysterious, nondescript objects stood. Three men in black robes, evidently monks from the monastery, scurried around amid the boxes.

  Two of them had just nailed a cover on one of the containers and now, groaning and gasping, were dragging it up a spiral staircase hewn into the rock to a doorway just beneath the ceiling. Another man was inspecting the contents of boxes that were still open. All three were turned away, so Magdalena couldn’t recognize them. The stone slab was situated in the middle of the room but half concealed behind boxes, so the monks hadn’t yet noticed it had been pushed aside.

  “Damn. Hurry up,” said the shrill voice of the monk standing closest to Magdalena. He was clinging to one of the crates, gasping, obviously exhausted. “It’s high time for us to get out of here. Evening mass is beginning soon.”

  “If you had helped us carry these, we would have finished a lot sooner,” said one of the monks standing on the staircase. “Besides, as I’ve told you a dozen times already, I’m sick of taking orders from you.”

  “Well, excuse me, but who had the idea of moving the stuff away?” complained the first. “That was you, you chicken-hearted coward.” He laughed hysterically, a high-pitched, girlish ring in his voice. “I can hear the golem already; he’s coming to get us.”

  “Stop,” cried the second monk on the staircase. He sounded like an anxious, whining child. Magdalena thought she’d heard the voice before. “That… that scares me. There’s something down there. I can feel it. We… we mustn’t disturb it unnecessarily.” Suddenly he let go of the chest and fell to his knees. The monk on the other side had trouble holding onto the heavy chest by himself.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” whined the kneeling monk. “Maybe the rumors about the golem are true. What does it say in the old stories? It’s a creature made of dirt and clay that came to life when a damned Jewish rabbi breathed life into it. Surely the golem feels right at home in these underground passageways. Let’s pray that—”

  In the next moment the other monk on the staircase cursed loudly and dropped the heavy chest. It tumbled down the stairs, turning over several times before finally landing a few steps away from the stone slab, where it burst apart, scattering bones, broken glass, and shreds of cloth across the floor.

  A golden crucifix landed directly in front of Magdalena. It had been dented in the fall, and the surface had peeled away in places.

  Beneath it was tarnished green copper.

  “The relics,” one of the men shouted down in the keep. “The beautiful relics! You superstitious ninny; now all this work was in vain.”

  The hangman’s daughter rubbed the dust from her eyes as her father staggered below like a stubborn packhorse.

  “Damn it,” Kuisl complained softly. “What’s going on up there? Say something.”

  “I… I’m not sure whether one of these three is the sorcerer,” she whispered, “but at least we’re onto another riddle here in the monastery. The relics—” She froze when she noticed the man closest to her had heard her voice.

  “What the hell…?” the monk cursed.

  The other two men were now staring down at her, as well—gawking at her as if she were a creature from the underworld. When she finally made out their faces in the torchlight, she let out a scream of terror.

  They were Brother Eckhart, the prior Jeremias, and the old, stooped librarian.

  “That’s… the hangman’s girl,” the prior exclaimed, recovering from the shock. “What’s she doing here?”

  “It doesn’t matter; she’s seen us,” the librarian said ominously. “And that’s bad, very
bad.” He hesitated briefly, then motioned to the fat Brother Eckhart.

  “Look for yourself, Brother. It’s not a golem, just a damned woman. Take her, and do with her what you did with all the other women.” His voice became soft and mellifluous. “Give free rein to your devilish impulses, Eckhart. She deserves it. The prior himself will grant you absolution, and we’ll see to it that no one ever finds the sinful woman.”

  The horror in Eckhart’s eyes vanished, giving way to a lewd grin.

  “As you command, Benedikt,” he replied softly, licking his fleshy lips. “I’ve already told the lewd woman she has no business in certain places. Those who don’t listen have to find out the hard way.”

  Rigid with fear, Magdalena watched the fat monk slowly descend the stairs, his huge hands reaching out in front of him and his mouth murmuring a soft prayer.

  At the same moment, the hangman’s daughter could feel herself slowly being raised up from below. Her father was pulling himself up on the edge of the opening. To the three monks in the cellar of the keep, Magdalena must have looked like an angel slowly ascending.

  “What in the world…” Brother Eckhart started to say. Then he saw the upper body of the hangman, covered with lime and dirt, emerging from the hole, groaning and growling like a wounded bear.

  “My God, the golem,” shrieked the fat monk, tumbling back several paces. “It’s really the golem rising up from the underworld.”

  Finally Kuisl had hoisted himself up far enough that Magdalena could jump from his shoulders. He pulled himself completely out of the hole then and stood before the monks at his full six feet, his body smeared with mud and clay, brown streaks across his face.

  He looked indeed like a creature arisen directly from hell.

  The rigid life-size puppet stared down at Simon, who was still struggling desperately to move.

  By now he’d succeeded in turning his head far enough on the stone floor to look directly at the door on the other side of the room. His eyes were open, but so dried out they burned like fire. Nevertheless, he kept looking to the entrance where he could hear the soft pitter-patter of little feet. A moment later his two children appeared, their eyes red from crying, their shirts torn and filthy, but otherwise unharmed.

  “Papa!” Peter cried out, stumbling toward Simon. He stretched out his little hands as if expecting his father to jump up at any moment and take him in his arms. But Simon could only lie there, his face distorted in a grimace.

  “Papa?” Peter stood in front of him now, passing his little fingers over Simon’s sweaty brow. The medicus’s eyes were still wide open. “Papa, are you asleep?”

  Little Paul had arrived now, as well. He crawled onto Simon’s chest and pressed his head tenderly against it. Simon always caressed him until he fell asleep, but now he lay beneath his son like a piece of dead meat. Paul began to cry.

  “Don’t be sad, children,” said the hoarse voice from the other side of the corridor. “You have much to learn in your lives. Everyone must die, even your father. But at least come and have a good look at him, and remember him this way. I, too, had to watch over my dearest a long time before God finally took her away from me. This time, however, the trick is on God. Say goodbye, children; it’s time for you to go.”

  The voice became louder as the stranger entered the room, approaching from the side so that Simon recognized his face only at the last moment.

  The medicus tried to scream, and this time he was so terrified that, despite his paralysis, a brief, stifled squawk emerged.

  The man standing above him did actually come from the underworld.

  With a mixture of awe and horror Magdalena watched as her father, smeared with clay and lime, took out his cudgel and advanced menacingly toward Brother Eckhart.

  “Where are the children?” he growled. “Speak up, you fat, black-robed rascal, before I send the whole bunch of you straight to hell.”

  “What… what children?” Brother Eckhart was clearly confused. Until this point, he’d been firmly convinced a genuine golem was standing in front of him. Now this golem was posing curious questions, and in the thickest Bavarian accent. Magdalena could see clearly the monk’s mind working.

  The wizened librarian had ascended the staircase and was now standing alongside Brother Jeremias, looking down incredulously at the scene below. Finally, he began to laugh hysterically.

  “Damn, Eckhart,” he cried out. “That’s no golem; it’s the same man I caught snooping around Laurentius’s cell—that stubborn Schongau hangman, a man of flesh and blood. I was almost believing that nonsense about a golem myself.”

  The Andechs prior seemed to have pulled himself together now, as well. He glanced nervously at the door, as if he were considering running away, but then he evidently made a decision. Reaching inside his robe, he suddenly pulled out a pistol.

  “Stay where you are, hangman,” he shouted down into the keep. “We haven’t toiled away all these years to have everything ruined by a filthy country bumpkin. One step closer, and I’ll blow you away like a mad dog.”

  The old librarian at Jeremias’s side seemed stunned for a moment by his colleague, but then a thin smile passed over his lips. “Well, well, Jeremias,” he purred, “I never thought you had it in you. Perhaps I’ve underestimated you all these years. Where does an impoverished monk get a hold of such a beautiful weapon?”

  “That’s beside the point,” the prior snapped. “The important thing is that this girl and her father don’t give us away. So put down your cudgel, hangman.”

  Until now, Kuisl had listened to the two Benedictines in silence. Now he lowered his weapon and stepped back. “A nice toy you have there, little monk,” he growled. “A genuine Flemish flintlock pistol, if I’m not mistaken. Must have cost a heap of money. Unfortunately, it fires only one shot, and there are two of us.”

  “Brother Eckhart can take care of the girl all by himself,” the prior snarled, pointing at the fat cellarer still standing uncertainly on the floor of the keep. “He’s been looking forward to dealing with that girl so long, and we don’t want to disappoint him, do we?”

  Until then, Magdalena had been standing behind one of the closed crates, observing the three Benedictines. Now she stepped forward angrily.

  “Some fine monks you are,” she shouted up to the prior on the staircase. “Is this what our Savior understood by brotherly love? Rape and murder?”

  “Silence, woman,” Father Benedict chimed in. “You don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “I don’t understand?” Magdalena pointed at the crates around her. In the torchlight, she saw rusty crucifixes lying around on the tables, along with jawbones, colorful glass stones, and cheap tin chalices. “I’ll tell you what I understand. You’re making counterfeit relics here. I’ve no idea what you’re doing with them, but certainly you’re not putting the fake chalices in your own chapel.”

  The librarian laughed again. “Didn’t I tell you, stupid hangman’s girl, that you really don’t understand?”

  Magdalena looked at him incredulously. “Does that mean—”

  “I’ll tell you what it means,” her father interrupted, swinging his cudgel. “The three of them are probably selling the genuine relics and putting the counterfeit ones in the holy chapel. Isn’t that right? You’re selling all the beautiful chalices, monstrances, and crucifixes, and the people in Andechs are praying to tin-plated counterfeits?”

  Magdalena looked back again at the tables with the glass stones and rolls of fabric. To the right stood a brazier with a small bellows, and alongside them a few sparkling gold figurines.

  “You’re… you’re melting down the chalices and crucifixes?” she cried out in horror. “You’re destroying the sacred treasures of Andechs Monastery and selling them as gold bars? Everything up there is nothing but cheap imitations?”

  “Stupid brat.” The prior rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Of course not everything. Do you have any idea how many relics have been accumulating up there? Hundred
s! Nobody notices when one or two relics are replaced by cheap imitations. The bones and cloth are returned. We change only the containers, so to speak, and the contents remain the same.”

  He smiled broadly and continued pointing the pistol at Kuisl. The weapon seemed to lend him an enormous degree of self-confidence, and Magdalena could positively feel how the prior was enjoying this scene.

  “Believe us, we didn’t plan it this way,” Jeremias continued almost apologetically. “During the Great War, hordes of mercenaries descended on us looking for our relics, and Benedikt and I had to hide them again and again. We hid the treasures deep down below the monastery. Then one day, we happened to find a walled-over section in the beer cellar. We broke through the wall and the passage led us here.”

  “To the buried keep of Andechs Castle,” Magdalena murmured. “How many of these underground passageways do you think are still here?”

  “We never looked any farther,” said the librarian, rubbing his tired little eyes. “It didn’t interest us. We were happy to find a good hiding place during the war.” His voice turned shrill and hatred gleamed in his eyes. “In any case, our own soldiers were worse than the enemy mercenaries. The elector always demanded money for his expensive military campaigns. Where do you think we got that? We melted down some of our relics and replaced them with cheap tin and glass stones. Nobody noticed a thing—on the contrary. The worse the war became, the more pilgrims came here, and they didn’t care what they were worshipping—tin or gold. The only thing they needed was faith.”

  “And then after the war you simply carried on and pocketed the money yourselves,” the hangman snorted. “Greedy little monks. You’re all the same.” Warily he eyed the muzzle of the pistol, but Brother Jeremias didn’t let Kuisl out of his sight for a minute.

  The old librarian smiled wanly. “I knew a stupid, dishonorable hangman would see it that way,” he finally replied. “But if you really want to know—no, we didn’t pocket the money ourselves. We used it to buy books, valuable knowledge that would otherwise be lost to history, and we’re saving it to make this monastery into something great someday. Soon we can begin with our new construction, isn’t that right, Brother Jeremias?”