The Dark Monk

5

AN UNPLEASANT ODOR brought Jakob Kuisl back from his nebulous nightmares and into the present. A musty smell of dust and earth, somewhat moldy and damp, like in a trench, he thought.

Where am I? What happened?

The memory came surging back-and with it, the anger and pain. He had failed to notice the third man! He must have come down the stairway to the crypt behind him. The stranger, who smelled of violets, had nearly strangled him with a leather strap. Jakob Kuisl knew that people who were strangled lost consciousness in a minute’s time and that death followed just a few minutes after that. He knew this well, as he himself had executed some people in this fashion. Some of those condemned to death at the stake had paid him to strangle them and spare them the painful death by fire. In the heavy smoke, onlookers couldn’t see that the person in the flames was already dead.

Jakob Kuisl remembered the poison dagger that paralyzed him down in the crypt in a matter of minutes. Some interesting poison that he had never heard of. The plant or berry no doubt came from another part of the world. Carefully, the hangman tried to wiggle his fingers and toes. They moved-a good sign. The effect of the poison, whatever it was, had started to wear off, and for the first time, he was able to open his eyes now.

And saw nothing.

He blinked a few times. Was he blind? Had the men blindfolded him? Or was it really so dark in this cellar? He tried to reach up and touch his face.

He couldn’t.

After a few inches, his hand bumped into something cold and hard. He tried the other hand, but the same thing happened. He tried to sit up, but his head bumped into a stone slab. He broke out in a sweat, and his mouth felt dry. He turned this way and that, but on all sides there was nothing but cold stone. He felt his heart beginning to race and struggled to control his breathing.

They’ve buried me alive. In the sarcophagus…

Jakob Kuisl counted his heartbeats. He struggled to breathe regularly, and finally he felt how the time between heartbeats was lengthening until it was beating normally again. And then he began to scream.

“Hey! Can anyone hear me? I’m here!”

He sensed that his voice reached no farther than the stone slab, where it was completely swallowed up. Considering the huge weight of the stone, it was likely that even someone standing directly next to the sarcophagus would not be able to hear him. He had to help himself.

Perhaps Jakob Kuisl could have raised the slab with his strong arms, but the cover was so close to him that he couldn’t raise his arms any higher than his chest. Perhaps he could…

Taking a deep breath, the hangman pressed his whole body upward so that his broad forehead touched the slab.

It felt as if he were trying to push his way through a wall with his head.

The veins on his temples bulged, and blood surged through his head. He pressed and pumped, his muscles as hard as rock. He could hear his bones crack, but the slab was as unmoving as if had been cemented in place.

Then, finally, he heard a soft grating sound.

A ray of light appeared in a narrow crack-actually, not a ray of light at all, but a darkness not quite as dark as the interior of the sarcophagus. He continued pushing his upper body against the stone, knowing that if he gave up now he wouldn’t regain the strength to raise the slab again for a long time. Perhaps forever. His lower back felt like a mighty oak that was ready to splinter, but finally he moved the slab far enough that he could raise his arms to his chest and push them up against the cold stone above him.

With a loud cry, he pushed away the six-hundred-pound stone.

The slab hovered above him for a moment like a serving tray, then tipped to one side and crashed to the stone floor, where it broke into pieces. Like a corpse rising from the dead, Jakob Kuisl sat up in the coffin. His body was covered with stone dust and crushed bone. Human bones and scraps of cloth were scattered all over the room, and in one corner lay the slab with the inscription.

Jakob Kuisl climbed out of the sarcophagus and reached for the marble slab. Only now did he notice that he was still holding in his left hand a scrap of the black cowl he had seized just before losing consciousness. He held it up to his nose and smelled a fragrance of violets, cinnamon, and something else that he couldn’t quite place.

He would never forget this fragrance.

With the scrap of cloth and the marble tablet in hand, he climbed out of the crypt. They would find out that it was a mistake to pick a fight with the hangman.

Magdalena had a bad night behind her. She had waited a full hour in front of the St. Lawrence Church, but her father still hadn’t returned. Finally, three figures in dark robes had crept out of the same church window they had pried open before and disappeared into the darkness. Magdalena could hear from far off the whinnying and hoofbeats of their horses as they left.

Where was her father?

Finally, she hurried to the rectory to awaken Magda and the gaunt sexton. Together they opened the door to the church, while Magda, terrified, kept making the sign of the cross, praying, and staring up into the night sky. If someone was really still lurking around in there, the shock would probably kill both of them, Magdalena thought. But the church was empty. The stone slab above the crypt had been moved aside, but even after Magdalena had descended the stairway-despite Magda’s praying and moaning-she had not been able to find anything. Evidently, there had been a struggle in both underground rooms, which were littered with refuse. In the back room, the sarcophagus had clearly been examined again. Bones and scraps of material lay around the room, but the sarcophagus stood just as her father and Simon had left it, with its lid closed. A strange fleeting feeling came over her as she looked at the sarcophagus, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. It almost seemed as if she could sense the presence of her father. But he was still nowhere to be seen.

Fearful, she finally spent the night in the rectory and returned home early the next morning. Her mother was already up and standing in the doorway, her eyes red with tears.

“Where were you?” she asked. “And where is your father?”

For a brief moment, Magdalena was tempted to lie to her mother: She had been called to work overnight as a midwife in Altenstadt, and her father was sleeping off a night of carousing at Strasser’s Tavern. But then it all came out.

“I…I just don’t know,” was all she could say, sobbing, before burying her face in her mother’s bosom. Sitting at the table inside, Anna Maria Kuisl finally learned the whole truth about her husband’s uncertain fate.

“How often have I told your father not to meddle in other people’s affairs!” she scolded. “Don’t we have enough problems already? But no, he won’t listen. He pokes his nose in books and other people’s garbage, and now he’s putting his own daughter in danger once again! To hell with him!”

Anna Maria Kuisl’s unique method of conquering her fear for her husband was by scolding and cursing. The more she cursed, the more relief she got. In the end, she often told him just to drop dead-although she really loved him. Anna Maria Kuisl herself came from a family of hangmen in Kempten. Death and horror were nothing new to her, but no one could take away her fear for her family. On the other hand, she simply couldn’t imagine that Jakob had been killed and buried by three dastardly murderers who were just passing through. They couldn’t do this to Jakob Kuisl, the hangman of Schongau, that goddamned pigheaded smart aleck!

Of course, Jakob Kuisl picked the most unfavorable of all possible moments to return home. The door creaked and his broad frame appeared in the doorway, still covered with stone dust, dirt, and crushed bone. His forehead and arm were bleeding, his hands badly skinned, and every one of his muscles was painful and stiff as a board. No doubt that was the reason he couldn’t duck when the pot of porridge came flying through the air at him.

“You bullheaded clod! How often have I told you to keep your daughter out of this when you go poking your nose around?”

Jakob Kuisl wiped the warm porridge from his shirt and stuck his finger in his mouth. “You got any more, or was that all for today? Doesn’t taste half bad…” he muttered.

A clay cup came flying through the air at him, but this time he was ready. Though his upper body was stiff, he managed to turn away so that the cup smashed into pieces against the wall behind him.

“How dare you even show up here,” his wife shouted. But her anger already seemed to have cooled somewhat. Besides, she didn’t have any more ammunition. “I’ve been worried sick about you two.”

The patter of little feet could be heard coming down the stairs. The seven-year-old twins, Georg and Barbara, stood there in their nightshirts, blinking at them from behind the railing.

“Mama, why does Papa have porridge all over his jacket?”

“Because Mama was scolding him.” Anna Maria Kuisl went up the stairs. “Because you have such a stubborn damned father. It’s outrageous. Now put some clothes on before you freeze to death.”

She disappeared upstairs with the children while Jakob grinned and pointed to Magdalena and to the pot on the floor.

“What do you say? Would you at least make me a pot of porridge? Or are you going to throw the spoon at me, too?

Magdalena smiled. “Well, Father, the main thing is that you’re back.” Then she picked up the battered pot, took it back to the kitchen, and put fresh water on to boil.

Early that afternoon, Simon Fronwieser stopped by the hangman’s house and reported what he and Benedikta had learned. The return trip from Steingaden to Schongau had been uneventful. Just after they’d left, they came upon an armed party of merchants who accompanied them to Schongau. The merchants hadn’t seen a trace of robbers. Perhaps they looked too well armed for them, Simon thought. Or they still remembered Benedikta and preferred to hide in the forest and lick their wounds.

Benedikta stayed at the Goldener Stern Inn, where she hoped to finish some important correspondence. Anna Maria Kuisl had taken the twins into the forest to gather firewood. She was still angry at her husband and, for that reason, was staying out of his way. Jakob knew that this would all pass over by the next day, at the latest.

Now Jakob and Simon were sitting at the table in the main room, thinking about everything that had happened the day before. A roughly mortared tile stove in the corner spread a pleasant warmth, and on the table a piece of wood was burning in a torch holder, bathing the low-ceilinged room in a gentle glow. Under the bench, a few chickens were scratching around in their cages.

Magdalena made an herbal broth that the men sipped morosely. Simon yearned for a cup of coffee, but Magdalena had refused to serve him the stimulating beverage. In his present condition, she said, a calming herbal drink would be just the right thing for him. In general, Magdalena seemed sullen and uncommunicative, and Simon had the feeling that she also refused him the coffee because he had traveled to Steingaden with Benedikta. At some point, when he touched her skirt, she retreated to the stove and avoided looking him in the eye.

Both the hangman and the physician had bandages on their foreheads. Jakob Kuisl had a bandaged hand as well, but that didn’t keep him from holding a cup in one hand and a smoking pipe in the other. He told Simon briefly about being attacked in the crypt, and now they were discussing what to do next.

“Let’s summarize what we know, again,” Simon began. “In the crypt under the Saint Lawrence Church are the bones of a Knight Templar; that’s at least what we can assume from reading the inscription on the sarcophagus.” He slurped listlessly on his herbal brew before continuing. “The church itself once belonged to the Knights Templar many years ago before the latter sold it to the Premonstratensians. The seller was a certain Friedrich Wildgraf, the local master of the Order of the Knights Templar in the German Empire. Benedikta assumes-”

“Oh, just stop already with this Benedikta!” Magdalena interrupted angrily. “Maybe you weren’t really in Steingaden until noon today; maybe you were making love in some stable, then showed up here holding hands this morning, and the whole story about the robbers is one big cock-and-bull story-”

“Be quiet, Magdalena, and stop talking such nonsense. Help us figure this out; that would be more helpful.”

Her father’s voice was calm and composed, but Magdalena knew she couldn’t take this much further. She and Simon had already had a heated argument earlier in the afternoon, and Simon had assured her that nothing had happened between him and Benedikta. But the way he looked down when he spoke to her made her fear the worst.

“Maybe the remains in the crypt belong to this Friedrich Wildgraf,” she suggested.

“That’s also what Benedikta assumes,” Simon replied, shrugging.

“Nonsense.” From a flask under the table, the hangman poured something strong into his cup of herbal brew. “This Templar sold the property. Why would he want to be buried there? Anyway, such a noble gentleman has certainly found a better place to bide his time until Judgment Day than in our dilapidated Saint Lawrence Church, of all places.”

Neither Simon nor Magdalena could argue with that.

“Whatever the case,” Simon continued, “what’s down there is certainly the grave of a Knight Templar. That old fart Koppmeyer finds it, talks too much, and suddenly he’s dead.”

“Probably poisoned by the three men that Magdalena and I saw in the church yesterday,” Jakob Kuisl grumbled. “They were looking for something there. What the hell could it be?”

“In any case, these men are still around here somewhere,” Magdalena added. “They have been wandering about here for days, talking in Latin with each other in the tavern.” Once more, she told them what she’d learned in Altenstadt. “Strasser, the tavern keeper, thinks they are monks,” she said, “refined, educated people. One of them stank of perfume, he said, like a whole gang of Frenchmen.”

“Damn! What was I thinking?” Jakob Kuisl said, slapping himself on the forehead. Then he pulled out the bit of cloth he had brought back from the crypt.

“I almost forgot. This is a piece of the cloak I tore off one of the thugs in the Saint Lawrence Church. I’m sure it’s from the same bastard who visited Lechner in the castle that morning. He nearly ran me down.”

“Are you quite sure?” Simon inquired.

“Just as sure as I am that the devil has a cloven hoof. It was the same perfume. Nobody can tell me different!” He kneaded the scrap of black cloth in his hand, as if he were trying to squeeze out its fragrance.

“Lechner-a part of the conspiracy that cost the fat priest his life…?” Simon shook his head skeptically. “The clerk may well be an unscrupulous schemer, but this doesn’t sound like him at all.”

“Anyway,” Kuisl grumbled, “he ordered me to stay out of this. As of tomorrow, I’ll be leaving to catch the gang of robbers in the Schongau forest.”

“You? Why you, Father?” Magdalena stood there with her mouth open.

“Because Lechner thinks I’m the only one who can do it. And because that way he can get rid of me.”

Jakob Kuisl told them briefly what the clerk had demanded of him.

“He wants to get me out of the way-that much is certain,” he grumbled. “But I can’t be put off that easily. I’m going to find the bastard who did this to me as sure as Jakob Kuisl is my name.”

Simon swallowed hard. He didn’t want to think about what the hangman would do with the three assassins if he actually caught them.

“Until the hunt’s over, you’ve got to be my tracking dog around here,” Kuisl said, turning to Simon. “I don’t give a damn about Koppmeyer, but now they’ve gone too far. Nobody locks the hangman inside a coffin, no one, and certainly not bums and beggars like these!”

With a sweeping gesture, Jakob Kuisl pulled out the marble slab, which he’d kept under the bench until this point.

“The solution is right here somewhere,” he said, tapping the slab with his bandaged finger. “This smart-aleck knight hid something while he was still alive, and we’ll find it if we can solve this riddle. I’ll bet my fat ass on it.”

“But maybe it’s just an inscription, an epitaph, and nothing more,” Simon objected.

“Not at all!” The hangman was adamant. “The assassins were interested in the slab as well; in any case, it was no longer in the coffin. The solution is right here before our eyes!”

Once more, Simon looked at the strange inscription.

And I will tell my two witnesses to prophesy. And when they have ended their testimony, the beast that arises from the depths will fight, conquer, and kill them.

He racked his brain trying to figure out what these words might mean. If it referred to a place, then it had to be somewhere they knew about, and if there was ever a chance of finding it, it had to still exist today, three hundred years later.

Two witnesses…a beast that fights them and kills them…

Images passed through his mind, only to vanish again: warriors, knights, monsters, dragons. Suddenly, a new image came to mind, and this time, it stuck.

Two witnesses…A beast…

“I have it!” he shouted suddenly. “It’s so simple when you know. It was always right in front of us.”

“What do you mean?” Magdalena asked.

Simon hopped excitedly around the table. One of the cups fell over, spilling herbal brew across the table. The hangman, too, gave Simon a bewildered look.

“Come on now, tell us,” he said. “And please don’t act like the incarnation of Beelzebub.”

Simon paused, but he didn’t sit back down. “First…first, I have to check something,” he said gasping for breath. “Do you have a Bible here in the house?”

Jakob Kuisl stood up, went to his room, and came back with a well-worn book.

“God also has a place in the hangman’s house,” he growled, tossing the Bible to Simon. The physician leafed through it until he found the page he was looking for.

“Here!” he said, pointing triumphantly at a passage. “The Revelation of Saint John, Chapter Four. Here’s the verse!” He began reading the line out loud: “I will tell my two witnesses to prophesy…” He looked at the two of them excitedly. “The two witnesses are Enoch-the son of Cain-and the prophet Elijah! When they arrive to fight the beast, the Day of Judgment is close at hand!”

Magdalena shrugged, obviously bored. “Nice that you’re so well versed in the Bible. But where can we find these…witnesses? I, for one, have never seen them here in Schongau.”

Simon grinned broadly.

“Not here in Schongau, actually,” he said. “But you can see them magnificently portrayed over the portal to the basilica in Altenstadt. I think we should pay a visit to this beautiful church today.”

When they saw the relief above the portal, they were surprised they had not noticed it earlier. Directly above the entrance, it depicted a knight fighting a dragon with a shield and sword, as well as a second man who was being devoured by the beast. How many times had each of them passed under this relief on entering the basilica?

“I have seen images like this in other churches,” Simon muttered. “A priest in Ingolstadt explained to me that it at one time stood for the approaching Judgment Day.”

“Then Judgment Day has been a long time coming,” Magdalena said. “After all, we’re still waiting for it.”

“You were never in a war,” Kuisl said, pondering the dragon’s claws and wings, its foaming mouth, “or else you would know that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been among us for a long time.”

“Stop this silly talk, Father,” Magdalena said. “Just help us figure this out.” Then she turned to Simon. “So here are the two witnesses. And now what?”

“There has to be a clue somewhere here,” Simon said softly, “in or around the basilica. I suggest we separate. You, Magdalena, look around the outside of the building, and your father and I will go in.”

Jakob Kuisl headed toward the portal, with Simon close behind. On entering St. Michael’s, a shiver ran down his spine, as so often before. The Great God of Altenstadt was looking down on him benignly from a huge cross more than nine feet tall. Now, in the late afternoon, they were almost alone in the church except for a few old women fingering their rosaries with arthritic hands. There was a strong smell of incense in the air. Simon forgot for a brief moment why he was here, and folded his hands to pray. Comparing the splendid new buildings at the Steingaden Monastery with the basilica here in Altenstadt, he had the feeling that this was God’s true home.

While Simon, lost in thought, was pondering the mighty crucifix, the hangman walked straight through the nave to study the frescoes in the chancel. After that, he proceeded down the side aisles. On the south side, a long-dead artist had painted a mural of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Over the entrance, a larger-than-life statue of St. Christopher looked down sternly at the hangman.

“Nothing,” he grumbled. “I’m not finding anything. Damn! I think you were wrong.”

“We have to keep looking,” Simon insisted. “There is certainly something here; it’s just well concealed. Perhaps-”

He was interrupted by a shout from outside. Magdalena! They rushed out to find her standing at the edge of the snow-covered graveyard surrounding the basilica. She was facing the south wall of the church and pointing at a small, chest-high plaque almost completely covered with ivy. Magdalena had pulled the ice-covered vegetation aside.

“Here!” she exclaimed. “Here it is! You were right, Simon!”

The stone plaque, old and weathered, was cemented into a recess in the wall. On it an inscription was engraved.

Fridericus Wildergraue, Magister Domus Templi in Alemania. Anno domini MCCCXXIX. Sanctus Cyriacus, salva me.

“Friedrich Wildgraf’s memorial plaque,” Simon whispered. “Master of the Knights Templar in Germany. Deceased in the Year of Our Lord 1329. Saint Cyriacus, save me.”

“But why is this plaque here when the grave of the Templar is in the Saint Lawrence Church?” Magdalena wondered.

Simon shrugged. “By the year 1329, the Templars had been banned in Germany for more than twenty years,” he said. “Maybe it was just too dangerous to bury the German provincial master here. It’s possible that the priest at that time could get approval for this small tablet.” He ran his hands over the inscribed letters. “But perhaps this tablet is only intended as a clue to put us on the right track…”

“Before we beat around the bush any further,” the hangman said, “let’s just figure out a few things.” He pulled out his knife and began scraping away the mortar around the tablet.

“But, Father!” Magdalena whispered. “What if the priest sees us-”

“The priest is busy preparing for mass and probably getting stoned on the wine,” Jakob Kuisl said and continued scraping. “But feel free to ask him, if you wish.”

Soon he had made a little groove around the tablet, then inserted his dagger to pry it out, and it fell into the soft snow.

Behind it there was nothing but gray stone.

Simon tapped on it, but it was solid, a part of the enormous block of stone and as immovable as the other stones the church was made of.

“Damn!” he exclaimed. “This can’t be it! Is this Templar just making fools of us?”

The medicus kicked the icy wall, which seemed to make no impression on the church. Only his frozen toes hurt. Finally, he took a few deep breaths.

“Very well. The riddle has led us here to the basilica,” he murmured. “Here’s the memorial plaque. What have we overlooked?”

The hangman bent over and picked up the plaque lying in the snow in front of him.

“Sanctus Cyriacus, salva me. Saint Cyriacus, save me,” Kuisl repeated. “Isn’t it strange that he chose this saint for the inscription? As far as I know, Saint Cyriacus was a martyr who was burned in boiling oil and then beheaded.”

“St. Cyriacus is the patron saint for those tempted in the hour of death,” Simon said. “For a Templar accused of treason and sodomy, not a bad patron to have.”

“Aren’t those the Fourteen Holy Helpers depicted in the basilica?” Kuisl asked. “I’ve never seen a Saint Cyriacus there…”

A sudden thought flashed through Simon’s mind. The saints in the south aisle! How could he have been so blind?

Without waiting for the others, he raced around the church, stormed through the portal, and finally, stopped in front of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in the south aisle. They were positioned in groups of two, one above the other. At the very top was Barbara, the patron saint of the dying and helper in cases of lightning and fire. After her was St. Christopher, St. Margaret as patron saint of women in childbirth, St. George, and St. Blaise, who helped in cases of illness of the throat. Nine other patrons were immortalized on the wall of the church, but St. Cyriacus was not among them.

But there was another saint pictured there whose name was noted in small letters beneath the picture.

St. Fridericus…

Simon almost laughed when he read the inscription. Apparently, none of the church’s many visitors had ever noticed the error. The painting depicted a man in a bishop’s robe with a miter and staff. His right hand was raised protectively over a castle sitting atop a forested mountain, and on closer examination, one could see he was touching the castle with his index finger.

In the meantime, Jakob Kuisl and his daughter had also arrived in front of the picture of St. Fridericus.

“He fooled us all for many hundreds of years,” Simon exclaimed, laughing. Some of the women praying turned around with admonishing glances. “St. Fridericus!” he added, whispering, but still grinning. “He simply used his own name! What magnificent blasphemy!”

“But what is this Templar trying to tell us?” Magdalena asked, puzzled, as she considered the fresco. “Is he just mocking us?”

Kuisl approached the painting to within a few inches. He tapped the castle beneath the picture of the saint, where he’d noticed a brown spot not much larger than a flyspeck.

“Here,” he said. “Here it is.”

He fished out a magnifying lens from deep inside his pocket and held it over the spot. Suddenly, he was able to make out two words painted in thin, shaky brush strokes.

Castrum Guelphorum…

“The old castle of the Guelphs,” Simon whispered, “up on the Castle Hill above Peiting. My God, all that stands there now is ruins!” He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. “I am afraid the search will last longer than we first expected.”

The stranger with the black cowl and the sweet smell of violets was standing outside in the cemetery of the basilica. With trembling hands, he held up the Templar’s stone plaque, which Jakob Kuisl had left lying there.

How was that possible? The hangman was not only still alive, but had also apparently discovered a clue! Perhaps it was an act of providence, after all, that this Kuisl had not suffocated in the sarcophagus. The stranger had thought this a suitable way of dying for someone responsible for killing so many others. In any case, the man was alive and had solved the riddle-he, his daughter, and that brash young medicus. Why hadn’t they been able to figure this out? Didn’t the monks have a specialist in their own ranks? They had read the same words on the marble plaque in the crypt but hadn’t been able to make sense of them.

For days they had been hiding like itinerant riffraff in local barns to avoid arousing suspicion. They lived on nothing but dry bread and their faith; they froze, they prayed, and the only thing that kept them going was the knowledge that they were the chosen ones, those sent by God.

Deus lo vult…

The stranger cursed in Latin and, at once, murmured a short prayer asking the Lord to forgive this little sin. Then he started putting his thoughts together.

Everything now was actually very simple. They would track these three like bloodhounds, they would find the treasure, and the Master would give them his blessing. Their place in paradise was assured, even if the path to it was cold and stony.

The stranger made the sign of the cross and smiled. Carefully, he put the stone plaque down on the ground again and hid behind the gravestones, waiting for the three to come back out of the basilica.

Simon’s initial elation at finding the clue in the basilica quickly turned into confusion and anger, and the reason was walking along defiantly beside him. Without speaking a word, he and Magdalena descended the narrow pathway back down to Schongau. The hangman’s daughter nearly slipped a few times, but when Simon reached out to help her, she brushed his hand aside. Just what was wrong with her? Not a word of approval about his find, just this silence.

Jakob Kuisl had gone his own way back in Altenstadt, grumbling about having to pick something up from the blacksmith down on the Mühlenweg as he disappeared into a narrow lane. The clerk had ordered him to report to the marketplace with a group of citizens the next day to begin a search for the robbers in the Schongau forests. For that reason, Simon knew he wouldn’t be able to count on the hangman in the next few days. He also suspected Kuisl stayed behind in Altenstadt for another reason-sensing that there were bad feelings between Magdalena and himself. Kuisl wanted to give them some time alone. But his plan had backfired. Ever since they had started the hike back to Schongau, they had not exchanged a word, and just as they were arriving at the Hof Gate, Simon blew his top.

“Magdalena, just what is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” She glared at him. “You should ask yourself, instead, what’s wrong with you! Flirting with this Benedikta. I’m good enough for cleaning and cooking, but this Benedikta is a fine lady!”

Simon could only roll his eyes. “Magdalena, we have already talked about this. There is nothing between me and Benedikta Koppmeyer,” he tried to convince her, choosing his words carefully. “She saved my life; she is an amazing woman, but-”

“An amazing woman! Bah!” Magdalena stopped and glared at him. “She can talk fine, the amazing woman. She has beautiful, expensive clothes, but underneath it all, she is nothing but a dolled-up tramp!”

“Magdalena, I forbid you-”

“No, you can’t forbid me from doing anything, you scoundrel!” Magdalena worked herself into a rage. “Do you think I can’t see how you flirt around with other girls behind my back? But because I’m just the hangman’s daughter, it doesn’t matter. People are bound to gossip, anyway. I’m telling you, Benedikta is a slut!”

“Aha! A slut?” Simon lost his patience now, and his voice took on an icy tone. “This…slut has more decency and education than you’ll ever have in three lifetimes. She knows how to behave, she speaks proper German without stammering and stuttering, and she can even speak French! She is a refined lady and no foul-mouthed hangman’s girl!”

The chunk of ice hit him right on the nose so that, for a brief moment, he felt faint. When he gathered his wits again, he felt warm blood flowing down his face, forming a pattern of red dots in the snow.

“Magdalena!” he shouted, still holding his nose and snuffling. “Stay here. I didn’t mean it that way!” But the hangman’s daughter had already passed through the Hof Gate and vanished.

Cursing under his breath, he hurried toward town, taking care that the blood didn’t drip onto his expensive petticoat breeches. Why did Magdalena always have to be so ill-tempered? He knew that what he had said was pretty stupid, and he wanted to ask her forgiveness, take her in his arms, and tell her that she was the only one he really wanted. But the hangman’s daughter was nowhere in sight.

“Magdalena!” he shouted over and over, looking everywhere in the little side streets. “Come back! I’m sorry!”

Passersby gave him strange glances, but he held his head down and hurried along. She had to be somewhere! At the next street corner, he stumbled over a little dog and it ran off whimpering. On and on he went, passing ox carts and glancing nervously at heavily clothed figures, shadowy figures barely visible in the snow that was starting to fall. Magdalena had simply disappeared. As he turned into the Münzgasse, he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Simon?”

He turned around. Standing in front of the portal of the Church of the Ascension was Benedikta, eyeing him with concern. Apparently, she was just coming out of the Schongau parish church.

“You’re bleeding!” she exclaimed. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. “I…fell, that’s all.”

“Let me have a look.” She walked over to him and started to dab determinedly at the blood on his face with her lace handkerchief. And although her touch burned, it felt good, too.

“A sheet of ice in front of the Hof Gate,” he sniffed softly as she continued to wipe his nose. “I slipped.”

“You need hot water to clean the wound. Come.” Like a mother, she took his arm and pulled him along behind her.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To Semer’s Tavern, where I’m staying,” she said. “In the restaurant we can surely get a bowl of water and a cup of mulled wine for you. And then you can tell me if you have found out anything in the meanwhile.”

Simon hesitated. Actually, he wanted to keep looking for Magdalena, and his father would be waiting for him at home. This damned fever was claiming more and more victims who needed treatment. But how could anyone object to a cup of mulled wine? Magdalena had probably already made it back to the tanners’ section of town and was sitting in her father’s house and sulking. It was probably better anyway to wait until the worst of her anger had passed.

There was also a lot to tell. So much had happened in the last few days, and Simon simply needed someone to talk to. In happy anticipation, he staggered along behind Benedikta toward Semer’s Tavern. When she opened the door, his swollen nose took in the fragrance of freshly baked pastries and warm wine.

Magdalena wiped the tears from her eyes as she ran half blind through the streets of Schongau, not even noticing people she passed along the way. She was just so…furious. How could Simon be so cruel to her? Perhaps it was true they were not a good match-she, a hangman’s daughter, a butcher’s girl, the offspring of a dishonorable family; he, an educated medicus, someone who could speak well and wore polished boots and a coat with shiny buttons, and who was adored by the women in town. But he, too, came from a poor family! His money and his clothes were borrowed or donated by one or another of his fawning admirers. Magdalena clenched her teeth. She had watched this spectacle far too long, and this was finally the limit. She might well be a dishonorable, dirty hangman’s daughter, but she still had her pride.

The sound of a child coughing and whining tore her from her thoughts. Without paying much attention to where she was going, she had turned off into a small side street just after the Hof Gate and wandered through narrow lanes into the Women’s Gate area, where the poorer residents lived. The air reeked of tanning solution. Acrid clouds of steam billowed from a dyer’s cottage where freshly dyed gray linen smocks hung out to dry on wooden frames. Magdalena looked around and listened. The crying was clearly coming from the workshop. As the hangman’s daughter walked by the ramshackle thatch-roofed hut, she saw a pale woman with sunken cheeks standing in the low doorway.

“You are Kuisl’s daughter, aren’t you?”

Magdalena could find nothing hostile in the way the woman looked at her, so she stopped and nodded.

“They say you’re a good midwife,” the woman continued. “You helped the dairyman’s wife in the birth of her twins, and both are still alive. And you gave a powder to the blue-dyer’s daughter, the young hussy, to get rid of the fetus…”

Magdalena looked around carefully in all directions. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said softly.

“Oh, come now.” The woman made a dismissive gesture. “In this part of town, you can speak openly. Every other woman here has gotten something from your father to keep from having a kid, or a love potion he brewed up.” She giggled, revealing a few black stumps of teeth between her dry lips. “Only the fat cats can afford the fancy physician, or those who flirt with him. But I don’t need to tell you that…”

“What do you want from me?” Magdalena asked. “I have no time for your silly talk.”

The woman’s face suddenly turned dark.

“My little Lisbeth is sick. I think she has this fever. But we don’t have any money for the doctor. Perhaps you’d like to come in and have a look.”

She gestured for Magdalena to enter and at the same time curtsied clumsily. Her scornful look had completely vanished, and all that remained was a despairing mother who feared for the life of her child.

Magdalena shrugged. “I can have a look at her, but I can’t promise anything.”

Entering the smoke-filled house, she found a kettle standing on a rusty tripod over an open fire and emitting thick, acrid steam. The smoke was so thick that it wasn’t possible to see much more of the cabin. Magdalena could make out a wobbly table, a churn of rancid butter, a stool, and a few sacks filled with straw in a corner. This was the same corner the whining was coming from. Moving closer, Magdalena caught sight of a little child on the ground, a girl perhaps ten years old, with a pale face and sunken cheeks. Rings like black half-moons circled her eyes, which flitted around anxiously. She was coughing, shaking, and spitting up red mucus. The hangman’s daughter realized at once that it was the same fever that had killed so many Schongauers in recent weeks. She bent down over the girl and stroked her hot forehead.

“Everything will be all right,” she murmured. The child’s eyes closed, and her breathing became more regular.

“Give me some hot water,” Magdalena called out over her shoulder, and the anxious dyer woman hurried away, then returned with a steaming cup. The hangman’s daughter pulled out a leather purse from a deep pocket in her skirt and shook a gray powder into the cup.

“Have her drink one swallow of this mornings and evenings for three days,” she said, “but three swallows right now. It’s arnica, evergreen, St. John’s wort, and a few herbs that you don’t know. It will help her sleep and forget the cough. That’s all I can do,” she said with a shrug.

The dyer woman clutched the cup and looked at Magdalena anxiously. “Will she recover? She’s all I have left. My husband, Josef, died last summer when tanning fumes burned his insides. He was spitting blood at the end, just like Lisbeth now.”

“Don’t you have any other children?” Magdalena asked sympathetically.

“Smallpox took every last one, and Lisbeth is the last…”

The woman’s eyes filled with tears. She pressed her lips together tightly and stared fixedly into space. The girl seemed to be sleeping now, but with every breath her frail chest rattled.

In a moment of inspiration, Magdalena reached for a chain around her neck decorated with amulets attached at regular intervals: a wolf’s tooth in a tin setting, a bloodstone, a silver arrow like the one that pierced St. Sebastian, a mole’s paw, a rock crystal, a tiny cloth pouch that had been blessed…It was a so-called “Fraisen chain,” a charm necklace meant to ward off evil spirits and black magic. The hangman’s daughter tore the wolf’s tooth off the chain, bent down to the girl, and pressed it into her limp hand. The little girl’s hand closed in her sleep.

“What is it…?” the mother asked anxiously.

“It will protect her,” Magdalena said, trying to console her. “My father cast some powerful charms on it.”

That was not really true, but the hangman’s daughter knew that faith, love, and hope could often do more than the strongest medicine. Her father had given her the charm necklace when she was still a child, and whenever she was afraid or felt threatened, she would clutch it tightly in her hand. It gave her strength, and she hoped that some of this strength would be transferred to the little girl now.

“I will never be able to pay you,” the woman objected. “I am a poor dyer woman.”

Magdalena stopped her with a wave of her hand. “It’s the wolf my father shot last year. We have enough teeth in our house for all of Schongau.” She winked at her conspiratorially. “The important thing is the magic charm it possesses. You won’t betray me, will you?”

The woman shook her head, still speechless over the gift from the hangman’s girl. Then something occurred to her, and her face brightened. “Though I have no money,” she said, “perhaps I can help you. Your father was over in Altenstadt because of the dead priest, wasn’t he?”

Magdalena pricked up her ears. “How do you know…?”

The woman shrugged. “People talk. They say he was poisoned. Now listen…”

She looked around carefully and lowered her voice.

“I went to see Koppmeyer a few days ago-had to give him some dyed fabric for the mass. I’m standing there in front of the rectory and see a man talking with the priest inside. A monk it was, with a black cowl, and under the cowl was a fine, white cloth, not the sort of rags that people like us wear.”

“Please continue,” Magdalena urged her.

“The monk was speaking softly, but very intensely with the priest. I could see that Koppmeyer was really afraid. His eyes were bulging as if they might almost fall out of their sockets. Then the man shouted at him and went outside for his horse. I hurried over to hide behind the woodpile.”

“What did he look like?” Magdalena asked.

“There wasn’t much to see because of his hood and the robe…” The woman hesitated. “But one thing was very strange.”

“What? Tell me!”

“He had to bend forward as he mounted his horse, and underneath his robe I saw a golden chain dangling down with a big, beautiful cross. But it looked different from the crosses we have in church.”

The excitement practically took Magdalena’s breath away. “What…what did it look like?”

“Well, it didn’t have just one crossbeam, it had two; the upper one was shorter, and the whole cross was made of gold. I have never seen one like that before.”

Magdalena thought for a moment but couldn’t remember ever seeing a cross like that, either.

“What happened then?” she finally asked.

The dyer woman shrugged. “I took the cloth to Koppmeyer. He was still pretty upset. He handed me two pennies too much and sent me on my way. I’ve never in my life seen the fat priest so frightened. I mean, the man was as strong as a bear!”

Magdalena nodded. “You have helped me a lot, and I am grateful.” She headed toward the door, deep in thought. “Don’t forget the potion for your daughter,” she said as she left. “If she doesn’t get better in three days, come over and see us at the hangman’s house.” She grinned. “If you dare…But my father kills only people who have done something to deserve it.”

The dyer woman watched as Magdalena vanished into the next alleyway. The girl started to cough again. Praying quietly to herself, the mother returned to the house and to her daughter.

Simon was sitting alongside Benedikta at a table in the back of the tavern at the Goldener Stern Inn, sipping on a mug of mulled wine. His nose had finally stopped bleeding, but he could feel it swelling by the minute. He was probably already completely disfigured. He glanced around at the other guests. Now, as evening set in, the tavern was filling slowly with merchants, wealthy craftsmen, and a few aldermen who would overnight there. The tavern belonged to Karl Semer, the city’s presiding burgomaster. It was the best place in town and thus attracted a wealthy clientele. A fire was burning in the large stone fireplace in the corner, lending a cozy atmosphere to the room, and a chandelier bathed the low, wood-paneled room in a subdued light. The aroma of cinnamon, cloves, and stew hung in the air.

Simon rarely came here, preferring the cheap saloons in the area behind the Ballenhaus, where the wine and the beer were cheaper but also caused bigger hangovers in the morning. He loved it when one of the journeymen or apprentices picked up a fiddle and started to play while the other guests stamped their feet and the girls’ skirts whirled around. Here at Semer’s Tavern, things were much more civilized. At the table next to them, two merchants were talking in hushed tones about their recent sales, and farther back, the alderman Johann Püchner tried flirting with one of the servers by inviting her to join him for a glass of wine. The perky young woman put a glass of the best Alsace wine down in front of him, then disappeared into the kitchen, giggling.

Until that moment, Benedikta had refrained from asking questions, dabbing away now and then at the blood beneath Simon’s nose. She appeared lost in thought as she nipped on her cup of diluted wine and, like Simon, seemed to be carefully observing the other guests. Finally, she turned and spoke to him.

“I have decided to stay in Schongau for a few more days. My manager can handle the business in Landsberg just as well as I can, and besides, I was able to make some good contacts today with a few wine merchants from Augsburg.” She sighed. “But of course it’s primarily my brother that keeps me here. I won’t rest until they catch the damned murderer. Have you been able to learn more about his death?”

Simon hesitated for a moment, then told her about the solution to the riddle, what they had found in the basilica in Altenstadt, and how he planned to search the ruins of the Guelph castle for further clues.

Benedikta’s face darkened. “But what does that all have to do with my brother? It’s not possible that he knew about all these things.”

Simon took a long sip before continuing. “Your brother certainly did not know the entire truth, but he knew about the grave under the church. He told someone about it, and that someone wanted to keep the information to himself.”

“So that no one else would know about it?” Benedikta looked at him in disbelief. “What have you found up to now except a few silly riddles, a joke played by an aging knight?” She shrugged. “Perhaps this Wildgraf was just a man with a sense of humor and all you’ll find in the castle ruins is a coarse rhyme about how nosy some people are.”

Simon shook his head. “The Templars didn’t think that way. They were an order of knights that combined the virtues of a Christian life and knighthood; they didn’t go around tricking people. The first riddle comes from the Revelation of Saint John, and the second refers to an ancient noble family, the Guelphs. It can’t be an accident. It almost looks as if our dead knight wanted to test us to see if we were worthy. Clearly, he was looking for men who were well versed both in the Bible and in the life of the nobility. Templars…” He hesitated, then stopped speaking.

“Is something wrong?” Benedikta looked at him and smiled. “Has the wine gone to your head?”

Simon shook his head, then pulled out the little guide he had borrowed from Jakob Schreevogl and was still carrying around in his jacket pocket.

He laid it on the table and started leafing through it excitedly.

“What is that?” Benedikta asked, trying to get a glimpse.

“It’s a book about the Templars,” Simon replied, but then he stopped flipping through the pages and sighed. “For a moment, I thought I had remembered something, but I must be mistaken.”

He told Benedikta briefly what he knew about the Templars.

“This Friedrich Wildgraf, who was buried down there in the crypt, was a master of the Order of Teutonic Knights,” he concluded. “According to the contract we saw in Steingaden, he was the commander for the entire German Empire. He was a member of the inner circle of power. But in just a few years, the Templars were pursued and wiped out all over Europe. Their huge fortune, however, vanished…” He looked Benedikta straight in the eye before continuing. “Why would a powerful master of the order pose riddles like this if not to conceal something? First there was the quotation on the sarcophagus, now the clue in the basilica…There must be a reason for all that!”

“Do you think…?”

Simon nodded. “I think Friedrich Wildgraf may have hidden the Templars’ treasure somewhere around here. Or at least a part of it.”

“A treasure?” Benedikta picked up her handkerchief and wiped a few drops of wine from her lips. “Why would the Templars want to hide something in this godforsaken spot, of all places? According to what you have told me, they had headquarters in Paris, in Jerusalem, in Rome! What would lead them to the Priests’ Corner, of all places”-she spat the name out like a piece of rotten fruit-“to bury a treasure in the remotest part of Bavaria?”

Simon pounded his fist on the table. “That’s just the point! Nobody would think to look for the treasure here. The French king probably couldn’t have found the Priests’ Corner on a map, even if the duke had drawn a circle around it. Mountains, forests, swamps, and a few illiterate, but well-mannered peasants-the perfect hiding place!”

Benedikta was silent for a while; then she nodded slowly. “Perhaps you’re right.” Her eyes, so often alert, took on a glassy sheen. “How much do you think…?”

“Money?” Simon shrugged. “It’s hard to say, but in any case, more than we can imagine. Don’t forget, the French king ordered the extermination of the Templars just because of this fortune. Even if only a part of it is here…” He broke off in the middle of his sentence and looked around. “In any case,” he whispered, “we had better be careful. People have been killed for a lot less money.”

“But people have also risked their lives for far less,” Benedikta replied with a wink. “Don’t ever tell a businesswoman about hidden treasures; you’ll have a hard time getting rid of her. In my opinion, we should take this risk,” she said, raising her wine glass. “To your health! A la vôtre!”

“A la vôtre,” replied Simon, and they clinked glasses. This woman from Landsberg surprised him again and again, but she was right: If only a fraction of the Templars’ treasure were buried somewhere in the Priests’ Corner, he would never have to worry about his future again. He would be able to buy crates full of coats, petticoat breeches, new shoes, hats with peacock feathers, a fast horse, and a trunk full of the latest medical instruments. His standing in town would change dramatically, and not only that…Who could forbid him then from marrying the hangman’s daughter? He would build a house for Magdalena and himself! Who knows, maybe they would open an apothecary together in Schongau. He, the physician, and she, the wife, an expert in the healing herbs and poisons in the region-a perfect couple!

He was so absorbed in the joyful anticipation of his future life that he didn’t notice a haggard figure in the back of the tavern standing up and heading toward the door. As the man left the tavern, he exuded a soft aroma like a gentle whiff of spring.