The Dark Monk

9

THE FOLLOWING DAY, a snowstorm swept over the entire Priests’ Corner, as if the good Lord wanted to bury all life under a white cover. People stayed inside their houses and cottages, and when they did peek outside, it was only to briefly mumble a short prayer and shut their doors against the rattling wind. Traffic on the river, as well as on the roads, came to a halt, and the blizzard took a number of wagon drivers by surprise, leaving them to die lonely deaths, struggling to free their horses from snowdrifts several yards deep. They were not found until days later, frozen stiff alongside their wagons, some torn to shreds by the wolves, their horses having run off in the vast expanse of white.

The blizzard hit Augsburg, too. Since the day after Magdalena’s arrival, she had not been able to leave the hangman’s house for even a minute. Of course, time was of no importance, since a leisurely stroll through town was out of the question, in any case. The apothecary was surely closed in such weather, and the next commercial convoy to Schongau would have to wait until the weather cleared. Magdalena knew that traveling on her own would be suicide.

Thus, during the day, she made friends with little Barbara, who quickly captured her heart. Sitting by the fire, Magdalena whittled a wooden doll for her, singing the same children’s songs she had for the twins at home. She could sense the girl needed a mother. Barbara stared at her with her big eyes, running her hands over Magdalena’s cheeks, and pleaded “Again!” whenever Magdalena got tired and stopped singing. Magdalena often thought about the fact that little Barbara was a hangman’s daughter just like herself, except she had no brothers or sisters and, above all, no mother. How often had she herself sat just like this long ago in the lap of her father? How often had her own mother sung her to sleep with the same children’s songs?

During this time, Philipp Hartmann was working in the room next door, tying together bundles of herbs, making new ropes, and distilling herbal brandy in dark flasks. The aroma of alcohol drifted through the room, almost intoxicating Magdalena. From time to time, the hangman dropped in and patted his daughter on the head or gave her and Magdalena a prune or a dried apple. He avoided touching or making any unseemly advances on Magdalena, but she could sense him staring at her back. When he did so, a chill came over her despite the warmth in the room. Philipp Hartmann was certainly a good man and a good father, and well-to-do, but she loved someone else.

But did she really still love Simon? After the whole business with Benedikta, she noticed how her feelings had cooled-whether out of anger or disappointment, she couldn’t say. It would take time for her heart to warm to him again.

The blizzard raged into the next day, not letting up until evening, so the stores remained closed. Not until the third morning after her arrival could she finally get out to the apothecary. Along the way, she passed the enormous Augustus Fountain, now draped in icicles a yard long, and looked up at the five-story city hall on her left. Magdalena shuddered. How could men make such huge buildings? Patricians wrapped in heavy fur coats streamed out of the portal, absorbed in deep conversation. The snow was still knee-high, but city watchmen were already shoveling narrow lanes through the town square and the surrounding streets. Homes and shops were coming to life. People had been confined for two days, and now they could go out shopping again. They bought fresh bread and meat or fetched pitchers of foaming brown beer from the innkeeper. Magdalena made her way through crowds of quarreling cooks, each trying to buy a rabbit or pheasant for his master, and a group of choirboys on their way to the Augsburg Cathedral.

Finally, she arrived. Straight ahead, between Maximilianstraße and the magnificent St. Moritz Church, was the Marienapotheke, the oldest apothecary in Augsburg. That morning, Philipp Hartmann had told Magdalena that the owner, Nepomuk Biermann, worked closely with him and had the best selection of herbs and other ingredients in town. Hartmann bought several ingredients there that he couldn’t prepare himself, and in return, Nepomuk Biermann ordered from the hangman human fat and leather to treat joint pain and tight muscles.

“Biermann is a strange fellow,” Philip Hartmann said, “but he really knows what he is doing and tries to treat you fairly. Be sure you get to see the herb room-it’s huge.”

Nepomuk Biermann’s place was a narrow four-story gabled building that could have used a new coat of paint. Situated among patrician homes, it looked a little like a neglected stepchild. Magdalena passed under a sign that displayed the name of the shop in flowing letters. Opening a narrow but solid door, she was immediately enveloped in a cloud of fragrances-dried herbs and exotic odors that reminded her of their own medicine chest at home. She closed her eyes and inhaled the strange aromas, many of them from another world of plants and spices far across the ocean, from ancient forests where lions and other monsters dwelled, or from distant islands inhabited by cannibals and mythical creatures with feet attached to their heads. There was an aroma of cinnamon, muscat, and black pepper.

When Magdalena closed the door behind her, a little bell rang. Shortly thereafter, a man appeared. Stooped over, he was small and mostly bald, except for a fringe of hair around the sides like a monk. From behind an eyepiece resting on his nose, he stared out at the hangman’s daughter with a disgruntled expression. Evidently, he’d been occupied with something more important than the menial work of waiting on customers.

“Yes?” he asked, looking her up and down as he would an annoying insect. “How can I help you?”

“I was sent by Philipp Hartmann,” Magdalena said. “I’m supposed to pick up a few herbs.”

At once, the man’s expression changed. His toothless mouth broadened into a smile. “Hartmann, huh? Did the Augsburg hangman manage to get a woman, after all?”

“I’m…just helping him at present,” Magdalena stammered, handing Nepomuk Biermann the list of ingredients. Gripping his eyepiece, the pharmacist studied the piece of parchment. “Aha, I see,” he mumbled. “Ergot and artemisia, also daphne, belladona, and thorn apple. What are you going to do with this-send the hangman off into the other world or ride away yourself on a broomstick?”

Magdalena struggled for words. “I…uh…We’re expecting a difficult birth,” she finally said. “The child won’t come and the mother’s in great pain.”

“Aha, I see, severe pain,” Nepomuk Biermann said, holding the glass up to his eye again. “But be careful you don’t give her too much of it all at the same time, or the good woman won’t suffer any pain at all. Ever again.” He grinned and winked his right eye, which peered out like that of a giant fish from behind the eyepiece. “You know, dosis sola venenum facit-it’s only the dose that makes the poison. Even old Paracelsus knew that. Did the hangman tell you about Paracelsus, eh?”

Magdalena nodded quickly, and the little man left it at that. Nepomuk Biermann walked toward a low doorway that led from the shop counter to the rear of the building. He motioned for her to follow. “Come along, girl, you can at least help me collect the herbs.”

Magdalena hurried after him. She found herself in a room cluttered with shelves and drawers. High wooden walls divided the room into sections and doubled as shelves. Nepomuk Biermann scurried like a dervish through the narrow corridors, carefully opening labeled drawers here and there. He checked the contents of each drawer against the list in his hand, spooning out a portion and weighing it on a scale that stood on a marble table in the center of the room.

“Ergot, artemisia…” he mumbled. “Just where do I have the damned daphne…? Ah, yes, here it is.”

Biermann couldn’t help but laugh as he watched Magdalena, standing wide-eyed in the midst of the six-foot-high shelves. “Well, you never saw anything like this before, eh?” With a sweeping gesture, he announced, “This is the largest collection of herbs from here all the way to Munich, you can take it from me. Probably not even the venerable Paracelsus had an apothecary shop like this.”

He had just opened another drawer when the little bell up front in the shop rang again. He stopped, annoyed. “Please excuse me,” the little hunchbacked man said to Magdalena, placing the bag of herbs he had already weighed in her hand and scurrying out of the room. “I’ll be right back.”

The hangman’s daughter stayed behind and looked around in wonderment at the fragrant labyrinth.

It was the voice that caught her attention, the demanding voice of a man who was clearly annoyed; he was talking with the pharmacist, and this was not a friendly conversation. Out of sheer curiosity, she walked over to the door leading to the shop up front and listened in.

“I need the same thing that I got once before from you,” the stranger growled.

“The…the same?” Nepomuk Biermann asked. “You know it’s hard to get, and actually, I’m not supposed to sell it. That…could cost me my business.”

Magdalena could sense the pharmacist’s anxiety. Carefully, she stepped back against the wall in order to hear better.

“I’ll pay you well,” the man said to the sound of jingling coins. “But I’m depending on it really working right this time! The last time death came much too fast. This time it has to be slow so no one notices, or else…”

“You must always use it in small doses,” Nepomuk Biermann insisted. “If you use only small doses, no one will become suspicious, I swear by God!”

“Then swear by the Savior,” the stranger said, and laughed raucously. “Deus lo vult.”

Magdalena gasped when she heard these last few words-the same words the man in the crypt had spoken to her father shortly before they’d stabbed him.

Was it perhaps the same man?

Although Magdalena was aware of the danger she was in, she moved closer to the door. Sidling up to it, she slowly turned her head toward the front of the store. From here, she could see only a small section above the counter, but it was enough to cause chills to run up and down her spine.

Magdalena glimpsed a black cowl and, dangling from a golden chain, a golden cross with two crossbars. Not until now did she notice that a new scent had joined the mix in the apothecary.

Violets.

“I need something else,” the stranger said, scratching his chest. “Quicksilver. As much as you can get hold of.”

Nepomuk Biermann nodded. “I…understand. Give me until tomorrow-”

“I shall be here tomorrow morning,” the man interrupted. “The other preparations I’ll take along with me right away.”

The stranger reached out for a little silk pouch the pharmacist offered him, then without a further word, turned to leave, slamming the door behind him.

Magdalena hesitated briefly, then gathered up the herbs that Biermann had already packed for her and stuffed them into her linen bag. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed other herbs lying out on the table. Quickly, she grabbed these as well and put them in her bag. Who knows what I might be able to use them for? she thought.

With the bag in hand, she hurried back to the sales room and, from there, out the door.

“Hey!” Nepomuk Biermann called after her. His face was as white as a sheet, and pearls of sweat had formed on his forehead. “What are you doing? You have to pay! Stay here. That man is dangerous! You don’t understand…”

Whatever else he said was drowned out in street noise. Magdalena hurried after the priest’s murderer, past snowdrifts and astonished pedestrians. She didn’t know what she was going to do when she caught up with him, but she wouldn’t be a Kuisl if she allowed this chance to slip by.

In Schongau the blizzard raged, too, and people stayed inside their warm houses, hoping they wouldn’t run out of firewood. In the surrounding forests, the howl of wolves could be heard now and then, and on the rooftops snow piled up, making the beams creak. Even the oldest Schongauers had rarely seen a storm like this, and it was certainly the worst since the Great War had ended.

The streets and narrow lanes in town were empty except for a single figure making his way through the blizzard, up from the Tanners’ Quarter, toward the dungeon. Jakob Kuisl held onto his wide-brimmed hat with his right hand, shielding his eyes with his left and trying to see ahead through the chaos. He looked like a black giant in a sea of white. He cursed under his breath. His pipe had gone out in the blizzard, and though he needed it to concentrate now more than ever, it would no doubt take a long time for him to relight the wet pipe.

Immediately after the council meeting, Johann Lechner had told the hangman he would send him out to hunt for the second group of thieves. This time, however, he would be allowed to pick out his men himself. The hangman decided to keep the company small. From what the robber chief told him, he knew that there were probably only four bandits roaming around out there, but they were all experienced fighters. Somehow they had managed to find out the planned routes of individual merchants, even though the victims all claimed they had discussed their plans only among themselves. Was there a leak somewhere among the Schongau patricians? Could one of them be involved in the raids?

Matthias Holzhofer’s injured drivers had been questioned but revealed little. The attackers were disguised, they said, wrapped in black coats and armed with crossbows, muskets, and rifles. They were clearly a small but ferocious group and far superior to the ordinary highway bandits.

To learn more about this mysterious group, the hangman decided, despite the blizzard, to visit the dungeon and question Hans Scheller again.

There was no watchman standing guard at the door to the massive tower, and Jakob Kuisl assumed the bailiff was either in the tavern or inside the dungeon. Who could blame him in such weather? The hangman knocked loudly on the iron-reinforced door and heard steps coming from inside.

“Who’s there?” a voice asked.

“It’s me, Jakob Kuisl. Open up before the storm blows me away.”

There was a grinding sound as a key turned in the lock. The door opened a crack, and the pinched face of the city bailiff Johannes peered out. “What do you want, huh? Your last visit cost me a fine of eight kreuzers and an extra day of guard duty. Lechner’s not happy when somebody crosses him.”

“Let me talk with Scheller once more.” The hangman gave the door such a shove that the bailiff was pushed aside.

“Hey, Kuisl, you can’t do that!”

Kuisl tossed him a little bag. “Take this and be quiet.”

The bailiff looked inside curiously. “What is it?”

“Chewing tobacco. From the West Indies, where the snakes are as fat as the trunks of oak trees. Chew it, but don’t swallow. It will keep you awake and warm.”

Withdrawing to a stool in the corner with his little bribe, Johannes sniffed at the dried weed. “Chew it, huh?” He looked at the hangman again. “But don’t crush Scheller’s other hand, or he’ll die on us in the dungeon, and it’ll be my fault.”

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

The hangman approached the cells in the rear, where the robbers were detained. In contrast to his last visit, they appeared listless now. The men and women crouched in the corners on filthy straw. They had wrapped themselves in threadbare coats and tried to keep each other warm against the January cold. In their midst lay the feverish boy, trembling all over. The wind whistled through the barred window behind them. Alongside the robbers sat a bowl of moldy bread and an apparently empty pitcher of water. A bucket of excrement stank so badly that Kuisl had to step back. Hans peered out at him from behind the bars with an empty gaze, his small right finger festering like a bloated sheep intestine.

“It’s you again,” he whispered. “What else do you want?”

The hangman spun around. “What kind of a pigsty is this?” he shouted at the bailiff, who was still absorbed in the exotic, fragrant plant. “These people have nothing to eat or drink, and there are no blankets or fresh straw! Do you want them to die before they are executed?”

The bailiff shrugged. “You can see for yourself what the weather is like outside. I’ve asked twice for food, but none arrives.”

“Then go and get it yourself.”

“Now?” Johannes looked bewildered. “But the storm-”

“At once!” The hangman walked over to him, grabbed him by the collar, and lifted him off the stool so that his feet dangled in the air. His face turned bright red, and his eyes bulged.

“That’s the way Scheller is going to feel soon,” Jakob Kuisl growled, “and so will you, by God, if you don’t do what I say at once. Fresh water, bread, warm blankets-do you understand?”

The bailiff nodded, and Kuisl let him down again.

“And now get out.”

Without even turning around, Johannes rushed out. Snow and wind blew in through the open door, but as soon as the hangman closed it, silence prevailed once more in the dungeon. The only sounds now were the soft whine of the baby and the distant howling of the wind. The robber chief looked at Jakob Kuisl in astonishment. Just as he was about to ask a question, the hangman spoke up.

“Did the medicine I gave you help the boy?”

Scheller nodded, still speechless about what he had just witnessed. “Why did you do that?” he asked finally.

Jakob Kuisl didn’t answer. “I spoke with Lechner,” he said. “No torture on the wheel, a quick, clean hanging, and the women and children will be let go.”

Scheller broke into a wide smile, but soon he turned serious again. “How long do we have?” he asked.

Jakob Kuisl took a draw on his cold pipe. “If the weather permits, the trial will be in a few days. After that there will be three more days-that’s the custom. Semer, the tavern keeper, will serve you your last meal: bacon, dumplings, sauerkraut, and for each of you, a jug of muscatel to keep you warm on your last walk.”

Hans Scheller nodded. “A full week, then.” He stopped. “It’s good it’s over,” he said finally. “This wasn’t really any way to live.”

The hangman changed the topic. “There’s still something I have to ask you about the other gang of robbers. You said there were four of them. Four plates, four cups, four knives…”

Hans Scheller nodded. “As I said, the fourth probably had just gone out into the woods to relieve himself.”

“But the fourth plate,” the hangman continued. “Was it dirty? Did it looked used?”

The robber chief stopped to think. “Now that you mention it…actually, no. You’re right…Three plates that had been used were around the fire, but the fourth was stashed away in one of the saddlebags along with a cup.”

Jakob Kuisl chewed on his cold pipe stem, cursing to himself because it had gone out. “That must mean that the fourth man hadn’t been with the others for a while. Perhaps he was in town.”

Hans Scheller shrugged. “Who cares where the fourth man was? Perhaps he had run away earlier.”

The hangman told him about the town clerk’s suspicion that information about the merchants’ secret routes had been leaked to someone. The robber chief nodded.

“I understand. The fourth man hangs around in town and informs his comrades about the routes. Then all they have to do is help themselves. After all, the wagons are not very well guarded, and the merchants are not afraid of anything. Not a bad plan.” He grinned, and Kuisl could see that almost all of his top teeth were missing. “Sounds like a plan I would make up.” Suddenly, he stopped. “I just thought of something.”

“What is that?”

“Alongside the leather bag that you have now, something else was lying there by the campfire-a little bottle made of blue glass. It looked quite valuable, and when we opened it, it smelled like the whole damned palace of the French kings.”

Jakob Kuisl forgot about his pipe. “Perfume, you mean?”

Scheller nodded. “Yes, exactly. It stank like a whole field of spring flowers.”

“And this perfume…” The hangman chose his words carefully. “Did it smell like…violets, perhaps?”

Scheller shrugged. “I don’t know anything about these things. We poured it over our horse. He smashed the bottle the next day in the cave, the stupid beast.”

Jakob Kuisl contemplated this a few more minutes, then turned to leave. “Thanks, Scheller. You’ve been a lot of help to me. When we meet the next time, I’ll see to it that it goes fast. I promise.”

“Kuisl.” Hans Scheller’s voice had a faraway, dreamy sound. The hangman turned around.

“What is it, Scheller?”

The robber chief seemed to be struggling for words. Finally, he began to speak. “Do you really want to know what I’ve learned, hangman?”

“Tell me.”

“I was a carpenter, a good one, down in Schwabmünchen. But then the Swedes came and raped my wife and cut her throat. They bashed my boy’s head against the door and set my house on fire. I fled into the woods, and now it all ends here.” He tried to smile. “Tell me, hangman. If you were in my shoes, what would you have done?”

Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “You always had a choice.” He walked to the door, but then turned around again. “I’m sorry about what happened to your wife and the boy. At least you’ll be together again soon.”

The door closed and Scheller remained alone with his thoughts. He would have cried like a little child if he hadn’t long since forgotten how.

Outside, the blizzard lashed Jakob Kuisl’s face with sharp pellets of ice. He pulled his hat down and forged ahead through the wall of white. His head was spinning as if the storm were also raging inside him.

A perfume that stank like a meadow in springtime…

Had the man with the violet perfume paid a visit to the robbers? Or was he the fourth man? Magdalena told him that the stranger had been sitting with his friends in the Altenstadt tavern. Had they overheard the merchants’ conversations about the route? But even if that was the case, what did any of this have to do with the Templars’ treasure? The hangman cursed. He needed to finally put all those pieces together.

Another day would pass before the good Lord would send someone to help Jakob Kuisl solve at least one of the riddles.

The blizzard brought new patients, so Simon hardly had a moment to even think about the Templars or the Wessobrunn Prayer during the day. He and his father had been able to save only one of the two wagoners employed by the alderman Matthias Holzhofer. The other had quietly passed away the same evening.

In other respects, too, Simon and his father never had a chance to rest. They passed the hours stirring new medicine, bleeding patients, and examining urine. Among the victims of the “Schongau Fever,” as the epidemic had come to be known, were a carpenter’s journeyman whose whole body had broken out in blue pustules, another patient whose foot was crushed by an oxcart, and a wagon driver with frostbite on both hands. The man had attempted to drive from Schongau to Landsberg in his wagon and was discovered lying in a ditch only a mile from town. He had been trying in vain to pull his wagon out of the snow when he was finally overcome by the cold. Simon and his father agreed that three fingers on the left hand would have to be amputated-a job that Bonifaz Fronwieser regarded as one of his specialties since his days as an army doctor.

Old Fronwieser had traveled around with his family during the Great War, following the Bavarian foot soldiers. He had sawed off innumerable arms and legs that were riddled with bullets, and he cauterized the stumps. It was during this time that his wife died, so after the war, Bonifaz Fronwieser settled down in Schongau with his son. He’d never forgiven his son for dropping out of an expensive medical school in Ingolstadt a few years ago, partly because he was short of money, but also because he lacked the interest. Even back then, Simon was attracted more to the latest fashions and games of dice than to Hippocrates, Paracelsus, and Galen.

His father became even more displeased when Simon started consorting with the Schongau hangman, borrowing books on medicine from him and often looking over his shoulder when he was treating patients. Simon then used what he had learned from the hangman on patients in Fronwieser’s own practice.

Simon was also critical of his father during the amputation of the wagon driver’s three fingers, an operation Bonifaz Fronwieser could do in his sleep. They had sedated the patient with a bottle of brandy and shoved a board between his teeth. When old Fronwieser picked up his surgical pincers to nip off the black stumps that had once been fingers, Simon pointed to the rusty cutting blades.

“You have to clean them first,” he whispered to his father, “or the wound will become infected.”

“Nonsense,” said Bonifaz Fronwieser. “We’ll cauterize the places afterward with boiling oil-that’s what I learned from my father, and that’s the logical way to do it.”

Simon shook his head. “The wound will become inflamed, believe me.”

Before his father could answer, he’d taken the pincers and washed them off in a pot of boiling water on the stove, and only then did he start to operate. Watching silently, his father had to admit that Simon knew what he was doing and completed the job quickly. There was no doubt that the boy was talented. Why, for heaven’s sake, had he ever dropped out of school in Ingolstadt? He could have become a great doctor, not a run-of-the-mill barber surgeon like himself, but a doctor with university training, a learned, esteemed physician whom people would respect and reimburse with silver coins-not with rusty kreuzers, eggs from the farm, and worm-infested corned beef. A Dr. Fronwieser, a first in the family…

Sullenly, the old man watched as Simon finally applied the white linen bandage. “Not bad work at all,” he grumbled, “but what are you going to do with the dirty pincers? Are you going to throw them away and buy new ones?”

Simon shook his head and smiled. “I’ll wash them off again in boiling water and use them again; that’s what the hangman does when he clips off a thief’s thumb or index finger, and nobody has died on him.” He checked the wagon driver’s breathing. “Just recently Kuisl told me about an old remedy. He smears sheep dung and mold on the wound and says there’s nothing better for inflammation. The mold…” He stopped because he could see he had gone too far. His father’s face had turned a bright red.

“Just cut it out with your damned hangman and his filthy drug collection!” Bonifaz Fronwieser shouted. “He just puts crazy ideas in your head. He should be forbidden from practicing! Sheep dung and mold-bah! I didn’t send you off to school to study that!” He walked to the other room and slammed the door behind him. Shrugging, Simon watched as his father left, then poured a bucket of water over the wagon driver’s face to wake him up.

A few more hours passed before Simon finally found time again to delve into the world of the Templars and the Wessobrunn Prayer. At six o’clock sharp, as the bells tolled, he closed the office and went down to the marketplace. When he opened the door to the Stern, where he’d arranged to meet Benedikta, he was greeted with the warmth and stuffy odor of wet clothing. At this time of day, the tavern was full of wagon drivers and merchants stranded by the storm and whiling away the time drinking and playing dice. Under the low ceiling of the taproom, about a dozen men were milling about, most of them engaged in serious, muffled conversations.

The merchant woman was sitting at a corner table in the very rear, engrossed in a parchment. As Simon approached, she rolled up the document and smiled at him.

Simon pointed to the roll. “Well? Are you taking notes on the damned riddle?”

Benedikta laughed. “No, this is just a terribly boring balance sheet. Business goes on in Landsberg even when it rains or snows. Believe me, the life of a merchant’s widow is a rather boring one. And unfortunately, I haven’t yet found a new husband who is clever and loving and also knows how to deal with this tedious stuff.” She winked at Simon. “All my suitors up to now could do only one or the other.” She stuck the parchment roll in a bag at the end of the table and gestured for him to take a seat. “But enough of this sad story. Have you studied this Templar’s book some more?”

Simon nodded. “I actually do have some ideas.” He took the little guide out of his jacket pocket and started leafing through it, while Benedikta snapped her fingers to get the attention of the innkeeper and ordered two cups of brandy.

“The Order of the Knights Templar was founded by a certain…Hugues de Payens, a Norman knight,” the medicus began, his finger passing over the scrawled lines in the text. A small tallow candle on the table gave off so little light that Simon had difficulty continuing. “At first there were only nine men, a small fraternity, but the order soon spread, first to the Orient, along the routes to Jerusalem, and later to all of Europe-Italy, France, and England.”

“But how about German lands?” Benedikta interrupted.

Simon shrugged. “Not so much here. In our countries, the so-called Teutonic Order of Knights was in charge, an order that attempted to convert the heathen in Eastern Europe with fire and the sword…” He shook his head. The medicus had never thought highly of trying to convince people of the true faith through force of arms. Simon believed in the power of words over the sword. “Be that as it may,” he continued, “there were also German Templars and, naturally, German commanderies-that is to say, Templar settlements-here in Bavaria, in Augsburg, Bamberg, and Moosburg, for example. The settlement in Altenstadt must have been a part of the Moosburg commandery.” He sighed. “The little Saint Lawrence Church is all that remains of it, however.”

“And a certain Friedrich Wildgraf, who was no less than the German master of the Order of Templar Knights, sold this settlement, with all the land and the Saint Lawrence Church, to the monastery at Steingaden in the year 1289,” Benedikta continued. “Years later, when the Templars were being hunted down all over Europe, he hid a treasure here…”

She paused while a server set down two cups of brandy, giving Simon a flirtatious glance. Teresa, like so many other girls, had a crush on the medicus. Benedikta didn’t speak again until the girl left.

“All right, then, let’s assume this treasure is really buried somewhere around here. Then tell me something…Why is the grave of this Friedrich Wildgraf located in Altenstadt if nothing around here belonged to the Templars anymore?” She shook her head. “His date of death is given as 1329 on the memorial plaque at the Altenstadt basilica, and that’s long after the estate was sold. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Simon shrugged. “Or maybe it does. Let’s just imagine that Friedrich Wildgraf sells this settlement for the Templars because it’s just too remote, too far from the roads leading to Jerusalem. There’s too little activity here; it just doesn’t pay to keep the settlement. Twenty years later, the Templars are being hunted down all over Europe. Friedrich Wildgraf remembers this little remote commandery-”

“And decides to hide out here!” Benedikta interrupted him excitedly. “Naturally! No doubt he had compatriots here from back in the old days-loyal servants. Friedrich Wildgraf knew the aldermen in the area and influential citizens who were still well disposed toward him, and even the Templars’ church still existed. A perfect hiding place for him and for the treasure!”

Simon nodded. “This time he probably didn’t come as a Templar, but perhaps as a trader or the local priest-who knows? But he brought something to Schongau with him, something very valuable, and when he noticed that his hour of death was at hand, he decided to hide it in such a way that only a select group would be able to find it…”

“The Templars’ treasure,” Benedikta murmured. “It could have happened that way. Probably only a chosen few even knew that it existed! As the former master of the order in Paris, Wildgraf may have learned about the treasure and was given the assignment of finding a suitable place to hide it. He had already gone into hiding and his pursuers had lost track of him…”

The medicus smiled grimly. “Friedrich Wildgraf certainly went to a lot of trouble to hide his tracks. Only a small memorial plaque at the church in Altenstadt mentions his death.” He nipped on his strong brandy, which tasted of pepper, cloves, and cinnamon, before continuing. “But his grave is actually located under the former Templars’ church, and that’s where Friedrich Wildgraf left his riddle. He chose Christian symbolism to prevent the treasure from falling into the wrong hands. Perhaps the grave was meant to be opened again on a specific date, and if that’s the case, perhaps that was all forgotten-the date came and went unnoticed, with nothing happening. But perhaps, too, the riddle was meant to be solved only on Judgment Day. We’ll never find out…”

Benedikta frowned. “Then, during the restoration work in the church, my brother finds the sealed crypt, opens it, and tells me and the bishop about it,” she said, lost in thought.

Simon started. “The bishop?”

“Didn’t I mention that?” Benedikta gave him a confused look. “My brother wrote in his letter that he would also tell the bishop in Augsburg about it. After all, the bishop was his superior.”

The physician frowned. “Did he send a messenger to the bishop, or did he write?”

“I…I don’t know.”

The wind rattled the windows. Simon gripped the cup of brandy tightly to keep warm.

“Perhaps someone intercepted the messenger and learned about the treasure that way,” he murmured, looking around carefully. “It’s quite possible that someone was watching us when we went to the Altenstadt basilica and to the castle ruins.” He leaned forward and continued in a whisper. “Benedikta, it’s all the more important for that reason that no one learns where we are going now, because the next riddle is something known only to us at present. We have to leave for Wessobrunn without anyone noticing!”

Benedikta smiled at him. “Let me take care of that. Mysterious disappearances are my specialty…along with reading balance sheets…”

Simon laughed, and for a moment his gloomy thoughts receded. But then it occurred to him that he hadn’t thought about Magdalena since the previous day. He sighed, washing his guilty conscience down with brandy that had become lukewarm in the meanwhile. Well, at least she was far from any possible danger she might encounter in Schongau. He grinned. Besides, a Kuisl never had any trouble taking care of him or herself, anyway.

Magdalena ran out into the street just in time to see the stranger taking a left turn. He was swinging the silk purse of poison almost playfully as he strode along the broad main street.

For the first time, the hangman’s daughter got a good look at him. Dressed in a black cloak and a white tunic, he was gaunt and his arms and legs seemed unnaturally long for his body. He was slightly stooped, as if carrying some invisible weight. With his cowl pulled down over his face and his arms swinging, he looked like a busy black bug scuttling for cover. The man was clearly a monk, though Magdalena couldn’t say what order he belonged to. Carefully, she followed.

The only path through the snow was a track just wide enough for two people. Hurrying, he passed bundled-up councillors and maids carrying baskets; once, he gave a shove to a farmer leading a stubborn ox to the butcher’s. The farmer landed in the snow, cursing, alongside the animal. Without paying him any attention, the stranger continued on. Magdalena had trouble keeping up, squeezing her way past grumbling people, forced to step into the knee-high snow to the left or right of the path. Soon her shoes and stockings were drenched. She needed to catch a glimpse of the man’s face, but he was still wearing his cowl and didn’t turn around once.

Deep inside, Magdalena hoped he would never turn around to look at her. That would probably mean certain death for her.

Farther ahead in the market square the path became wider. Market women, wrapped in layers of thick underskirts, were setting up their stands for the farmers’ market. The monk walked straight past them without looking one way or the other. Finally, Magdalena could see where he was headed.

The Domburg.

The hangman’s daughter knit her brow. The previous day, during the snowstorm, when Philipp Hartmann had told her some of the history of the imperial city, he had mentioned the Domburg. The center of Augsburg was a little city in itself, surrounded by a wall and gates. It was the site of the first Roman settlement, a military headquarters along the Lech River. Since then, the bishop’s offices, the cathedral, and the bishop’s palace were all located there, too, along with the homes of well-to-do tradesmen. What could Koppmeyer’s murderer be looking for there?

On each side of the gate, two of the bishop’s watchmen dressed in elegant uniforms leaned on their halberds. As the monk walked by, they saluted briefly, then went back to dreaming of mulled wineandwarm gingerbread cookies. Magdalena paused for a moment. The man had entered the Domburg without being stopped! Had the watchmen recognized him?

She had no time to think about this. If she didn’t want to lose sight of the stranger, she would have to walk past the guards. Closing her eyes and crossing herself, she approached the gate, smiling broadly. The two bailiffs looked at her suspiciously.

“Stop! Where are you going?” one of them demanded. It didn’t really sound as if he was interested in knowing but was just doing his duty in asking the question. Magdalena smiled and showed the guard the bag of herbs she was holding under her coat. She also noted, with some satisfaction, the little leather bag of guilders from the Augsburg hangman still hanging at her side. Even if she lost track of the strange monk now, she still had done well in her business dealings. That little gnome of a pharmacist had it coming to him! Why was he selling poison to a murderer?

“Herbs from pharmacist Biermann,” she said, addressing the watchmen and pouting. “Sage and chamomile. The prior has a terrible cough.”

The soldier glanced briefly into the bag, then let her pass with a nod. Only after Magdalena had passed through did he stop to think.

“Strange,” he remarked to his colleague. “The prior looked the picture of health this morning. He was well enough to give his usual fire-and-brimstone sermon. Hey, girl!” But the hangman’s daughter had already disappeared around the corner.

Magdalena had trouble finding the stranger again. The little streets, lined with the homes of goldsmiths, silversmiths, engravers, and clothiers, were narrower and more winding than in the lower part of Augsburg. On a hunch, she turned right, only to wind up at a dead end. She spun around, ran this time in the other direction, and found herself suddenly right in front of the cathedral, a structure at least three times higher than the church in Schongau. Bells echoed through the cathedral courtyard as pilgrims and others who’d come to pray streamed out through the mighty portal, making way for those entering. On the steps, tattered beggars held out their hands, pleading with passersby. A mass must have just finished. Magdalena had to hold her breath-how many people could fit inside this enormous dome? She looked around hastily but saw only a sea of unfamiliar forms and faces.

The stranger had disappeared.

She was about to give up when she saw something glitter among the churchgoers and beggars on the wide steps leading up to the portal. She ran up the steps and was just able to catch a glimpse of the man as he disappeared inside the cathedral. The golden cross on his chain sparkled briefly once more in the sun, and then he was swallowed up inside the enormous building. Magdalena ran after him at a brisk pace.

Entering the cathedral, she couldn’t help pausing a moment. It seemed as if she were in another world; she had never before seen such an imposing building. As she continued to move forward, she looked up at the towering columns, the balcony, and the bright, colorful stained-glass windows with the morning sun streaming in. On all sides, angels and saints stared down from richly decorated walls.

The monk strode through the cathedral and finally turned left toward the end of a side aisle. Here, he knelt down in front of a sarcophagus and bowed his head in prayer.

Magdalena hid behind a column, where she finally had a chance to catch her breath.

A murderer who prays…

Had he come, perhaps, to confess his sins? Magdalena considered this for a moment before rejecting it. After all, the stranger had just purchased more poison. A penitent sinner wouldn’t do that.

She wanted to get a look at his face, but the haggard monk still hadn’t removed his cowl, and the only thing visible was his protruding, pointed nose. The bag with the poison was still dangling from his wrist, and the cross hung down from his broad shoulders like a heavy padlock.

Magdalena couldn’t see whose coffin the man kneeled at. Concealed behind the column, she watched him impatiently. When she realized the prayer might take a while, she looked up once more to admire the size of the cathedral. She studied the columns and side altars, the many niches, and the stairways that led up and down. On the left, a well-worn stone staircase led down into a crypt, and farther back, a small walkway branched off. On her right, above the stone altar where the stranger was praying, a row of paintings depicted some old men wearing mitres and capes. Each held a shepherd’s crook in his hand and looked down benevolently on his followers. Magdalena noticed that the paintings on top left were old and faded, and their subjects had a strange gray hue, like messengers from a distant era. Farther down to the right, the paintings seemed newer and more colorful. Each painting was dated, and Magdalena realized these were portraits of all the Augsburg bishops. In the last painting on the bottom row, an astonishingly young man was depicted with thinning black hair, a hooked nose, and a strange penetrating gaze. Magdalena read the name beneath it.

Bishop Sigismund Franz. Appointed 1646.

The bishop up there seemed to be staring directly into her soul with his unpleasant piercing eyes.

She hesitated.

Something about the painting irritated her. Was it the black, almost impoverished look of the cloak? The cold gaze? The surprising youth amid all these old men? As she looked closer, she realized what it was, but it took a while to accept it.

Around the bishop’s neck hung a golden chain with a cross-with two crossbeams.

Just like the one the monk wore!

Magdalena almost cried out loud. Thoughts raced through her head, but she had no time to organize them-the monk had finished praying. He stood up, crossed himself, and bowed now. Finally, he headed for the cloister and disappeared through an ancient stone doorway. He hadn’t once turned around. Casting a final glance at the young bishop above her, Magdalena took off after the stranger. She felt as if Bishop Sigismund Franz’s eyes were boring right through her from behind.

Just after the first cockcrow, there was such a loud pounding at Jakob Kuisl’s door that it sounded as if he himself were being summoned for execution. Outside, it was still the dead of night. Kuisl lay in bed alongside the soft, warm body of his wife, who turned, blinking and groggy, to her husband after the visitor had pounded on the door a third time.

“It doesn’t matter who it is…Wring his neck,” she mumbled and buried her head under a down pillow.

“You can bet on it,” the hangman groaned, swinging his legs out of bed, almost falling down the stairs when the knocking began again a fourth time. In the next room, the twins woke up and began to cry.

“All right, all right,” the hangman growled, “I’m coming!”

As he stumbled down the ice-cold stairs barefoot and dressed only in his nightshirt, he swore to himself he would, at the least, apply thumbscrews to this disturber of the peace. He would probably also shove burning matches under his fingernails.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

Jakob Kuisl had had a strenuous night. The little ones had a terrible cough and couldn’t be calmed down, even with hot milk and honey. Once Georg and Barbara had finally drifted off to sleep, Kuisl rolled around in bed for hours thinking about the second gang of robbers. He was brooding about the mysterious fourth man when he’d finally fallen asleep.

Only to be awakened what seemed like five minutes later by this fool trying to break down his door.

Furious, Jakob Kuisl ran down the steps, threw aside the bolt, tore open the door, and shouted at his visitor so loudly that the guest almost fell over into a large snowdrift behind him.

“What is God’s name do you think you’re doing, you stupid clod, coming here in the middle of the night…” Too late, he noticed it was Burgomaster Karl Semer standing there. “Confound it…” the hangman muttered.

The hangman stood a full head taller than the burgomaster, and the patrician looked up at Kuisl in terror. There were dark circles under Semer’s eyes, he was pale, and his left cheek was badly swollen.

“Excuse my bothering you at such an early hour, Kuisl,” he whispered, pointing at his cheek. “But I just couldn’t stand it…the pain…”

The hangman frowned, then opened the door. “Come in.”

Leading the burgomaster into the main room, he relit the fire in the hearth with a few pieces of kindling he kept in holders on the table.

In the faint light, Karl Semer looked around the hangman’s quarters-the executioner’s sword next to the devotional corner, the rough-hewn stool, the huge well-worn table, the gallows ladder in the corner. A few books lay open on the table.

“You’re reading…?” the burgomaster asked.

The hangman nodded. “Dioscorides’s work. An old tome, but there’s nothing better for learning about herbs. And this one here,” he continued, holding up a newer book, “Athanasius Kircher, a damned Jesuit, but what he writes about the plague is first rate. Do you know his work?”

The burgomaster shrugged. “Well, to tell the truth…I read mostly balance sheets.”

Lighting his pipe from a piece of kindling, the hangman continued. “Kircher thinks the plague is transmitted by tiny, winged creatures that he has seen with a so-called ‘microscope.’ He says nothing about vapors emanating from the earth, or God knows what else the quack doctors go on and on about, but creatures so small they’re invisible to the naked eye, that jump from one person to another-” Kuisl’s enthusiastic remarks were interrupted by his children’s crying. His wife, too, could be heard complaining loudly up in the bedroom.

“What in God’s name is going on down there?” she cursed. “If you want to go out and drink, go to Semer’s tavern and let the children sleep in peace!”

“Anna,” Jakob Kuisl hissed, “Semer is standing right down here.”

“What?”

“The burgomaster is down here with a toothache.”

“Toothache or not, please keep the noise down, for God’s sake!”

A door slammed.

The hangman looked at Karl Semer and rolled his eyes. “Women,” he whispered, but softly enough that his wife couldn’t hear. Finally, he turned serious again. “So what brings you to me?”

“My wife thinks you’re the only one who can help me,” the burgomaster said, pointing to his swollen cheek. “I’ve had this toothache for weeks, but tonight…” He closed his eyes. “Make it go away. I’ll pay whatever you ask.”

“Well then, let’s have a look.” Jakob Kuisl guided the burgomaster to one of the stools. “Open your mouth.”

He held up a small piece of burning wood to see into the burgomaster’s mouth. “Ah, I can see it, the son of a bitch,” he mumbled. “Does this hurt?” He tapped a finger on a black stump of a tooth far back in the burgomaster’s mouth. The burgomaster jumped and let out a scream.

“Shh,” Kuisl said. “Remember my wife. She doesn’t have much understanding for these things.”

He left for the adjoining room and returned shortly with a little bottle.

“What is that?” the burgomaster grumbled, half dazed with pain.

“Clove oil. It will ease the pain.” The hangman put a few drops on a cloth and dabbed it on the tooth.

Karl Semer groaned with relief. “Indeed, the pain is better. What a miracle!”

Jakob Kuisl grinned. “I can inflict pain, and I can take it away. Everything at a price. Here, take it!” He handed the burgomaster the little bottle. “I’ll give you the tincture for a guilder.”

Kuisl poured the burgomaster a cup of brandy. He drank it in one gulp and gratefully took another cupful.

The two men sat across from each other for a while in silence. Curious, Semer looked around the room again, his eyes coming to rest on the gallows ladder.

“Scheller’s trial will probably be tomorrow,” the burgomaster said, pointing to the ladder. Relieved of pain, he now looked remarkably relaxed, even in the hangman’s house. “Then, in three days, you can go to work.”

But then he became angry. “This damned second band of robbers!” He pounded the table with his fist so hard that the brandy splashed out of the glass. “If it weren’t for them, I could sell my muscatel easily in Landsberg and beyond. The Swabians love their wine, and I can’t deliver it!”

“But perhaps you can.” The hangman poured himself a big glass of liquor this time.

Karl Semer looked up at him in amazement. “What do you mean by that? Don’t talk nonsense. As long as we don’t know who’s leaking information about our secret routes, it’s extremely dangerous out there. Shall I let the same thing happen to me as Holzhofer and the others?”

Jakob Kuisl grinned. “I know roads that even the highway robbers don’t. It would be easy to get through with a horse and sled. And besides, you could get an escort for the first few miles. With my men, I’ll be out there chasing the thieves down the next few days, anyway.”

“An escort, huh?” The burgomaster furrowed his brow. “And what will that cost me?”

Jakob Kuisl emptied the liquor in one gulp like a glass of milk. “Almost nothing,” he said. “Just a little information.” He leaned over the table. “All I’d like you to do on your way to Swabia is to ask around a bit for me. For a man like you, what I want to know should be easy to get.” He explained to the burgomaster what he wanted.

Semer listened attentively and nodded. “I don’t really know what good that will do, but if that’s all there is to it, sure…And we could leave as early as tomorrow?”

The hangman nodded. “As soon as the snowstorm lets up. But until then…” He pointed to the burgomaster’s cheek. “With a tooth like that, I wouldn’t take any big trips, anyway.”

The burgomaster blanched. “But the pain has stopped, and I have the clove oil…”

“That will work for a while, but believe me, the pain will return, worse than before, and eventually, even the cloves won’t help anymore.”

“Oh, God, what shall I do?” Karl Semer, seized by panic, held his cheek and gave the hangman a pleading look. “What shall I do?”

Jakob Kuisl went to the chest in the next room and brought back a pair of pincers as long as his arm, a tool he usually used only for torturing prisoners. “We’ll probably have to pull it,” he said.

Karl Semer looked close to passing out. “Right away?”

The hangman gave the burgomaster a stein full of liquor. “Why not? My wife has to get up, anyway.”

The scream that followed awoke not only Anna Maria and the twins, but the entire Tanners’ Quarter as well.

Magdalena followed the dark monk through the Augsburg Cathedral, seeking cover behind columns along the way. He disappeared into a cloister directly in front of her. The hangman’s daughter then followed him through a portal leading to the atrium, just in time to see him walk past a wooden door and disappear around another corner. Two acolytes were walking toward her, giving her curious looks. She slowed her pace and smiled as she passed by them, swinging the bag of herbs as casually as possible. The pimply young men stared at her low neckline as if they’d never seen a woman before. They probably don’t see a low neckline in the cloister too often, Magdalena thought, smiling stoically. Finally passing the acolytes, she picked up her pace, rounded the next corner…

And no one was there.

Magdalena uttered a curse she’d learned from her father. The damned monk had gotten away again!

She hurried on, circling the atrium until she was back again at the door leading into the cathedral. How was that possible? How had the man disappeared through the portal again? She would have to have seen him! Standing in the cloister, she looked around an inner courtyard surrounded by columns. There was not a soul to be seen here in the little herb garden or amid the low bushes, which lay dormant under a cover of snow. It seemed as if the stranger had simply vanished into thin air. Once more, she made the rounds of the cloister. Maybe she had overlooked a door somewhere, an opening, a hidden niche?

Until now, Magdalena hadn’t had time to look around more carefully. The walls on one side were covered with memorial plaques from many historical periods. Knights in old-fashioned armor, grinning skeletons, and hook-nosed bishops stared out at her. But there was no door to be seen.

She had completely lost track of the man.

Exhausted, she leaned against one of the slabs and took a deep breath. At least she knew now that Koppmeyer’s murderer was somehow connected with this cathedral. The watchmen at the gate had greeted him, he obviously knew his way around the cathedral, and he was wearing the same cross as the young bishop pictured over in the side aisle. A cross with two crossbeams.

The same cross…The thought that suddenly dawned on her was so dreadful and absurd that she didn’t want to accept it at first.

Could it be that this monk and the bishop were one and the same?

Before she could think through the implications of this ghastly idea, the slab behind her began to speak.

Magdalena jumped away, dropping the purse and the herbs. She stared at the man engraved on the stone slab-a knight in armor with an open helmet, a broadsword at his side, and two dogs playing at his feet. He glared back at her with vacant eyes.

Magdalena held her breath and listened. From the knight’s mouth, open in a mute cry, Magdalena thought she could make out an almost inaudible murmuring and hissing.

Carefully, she approached the stone relief once more. Pressing her ear against the cold plaque, she could hear a hum behind it, a continuous, mournful sound. Magdalena closed her eyes and listened. It was not a single voice, but the muffled choir of many men that came through the stone.

Was it possible…?

She pressed both hands against the slab, but it didn’t yield. She looked for a crack along the edges where she might get a handhold; she probed for some hidden mechanism.

All in vain.

Finally, she noticed two palm-size basins of holy water attached waist-high to both sides of the slab-two grinning stone skulls, each with a depression in the top serving as a basin. The skulls appeared old and weathered, and the holy water in the basins was frozen. Magdalena examined them more closely.

The skull on the right was bent at an odd angle and looked up at Magdalena with a teasing grin.

Like a man on the gallows whose neck my father has broken, she was thinking. She reached out for the skull and tried to turn it straight.

It moved.

With a grating sound, the heavy stone slab moved back, revealing a steep, worn stone staircase leading down into the darkness. Magdalena held her breath and listened. From far below, she could hear men singing a mournful chorale in Latin.

Mors stupebit et natura, cum resurget creatura…Deus lo vult…Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis…Deus lo vult…Deus lo vult. God wills it.

There they were again, those strange Latin words her father had told her about, the ones used by the Latin-speaking strangers in the Altenstadt tavern and by the murderers in the crypt.

God wills it…

It was time to go down and see what this was all about.

Magdalena stuffed the purse with the herbs back under her dress and started down the steep staircase, one step at a time. The steps spiraled around a weathered column, and the singing grew louder as she drew nearer. She noticed symbols carved into the walls now-engravings of fish here and there, the letters P and X. She passed niches in which there were flickering oil lamps lighting her way. She had the feeling this stairway was much older than the cathedral above.

She finally reached the bottom. A narrow, domed corridor led toward the singing, and farther ahead she could make out a bright light. As she groped through the dark corridor, her hand felt something smooth and dry that crumbled at her touch. Pulling her hand back, she gazed down on a neatly stacked pile of skulls on the floor next to her. She had stuck her hand straight in the eye socket of one of the skulls. On the opposite wall, bones were stacked up to the ceiling. The singing sounded quite close now.

Iudex ergo cum sedebit, quidquid latet apparebit…Deus lo vult…

Magdalena had reached the end of the corridor. Kneeling down, she peered out from behind the little pyramid of skulls.

What she saw was terrifying. The high-vaulted room was the size of a church and had rough niches carved into the walls all around, reaching up to the ceiling and stacked full of bones. At the front of the room was a stone altar and, beyond that, a weathered cross on the wall. By the light of torches, Magdalena could see a group of at least two dozen men in monks’ cowls and capes gathered around the cross, some kneeling and some standing and singing their chorale. Over their black habits, all of them wore white cloaks adorned with crosses in the same shape and color as the one behind the altar.

The crosses had two crossbeams, painted blood red.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum, per sepulcra regionum…Deus lo vult…

After what seemed like an eternity, the men finished singing. Though Magdalena could feel her feet falling asleep, she remained crouched behind the pyramid of skulls, watching the proceedings. One of the cloaked men stepped up to the altar and raised his hands in blessing. He, too, had a cowl pulled down over his face. He turned around to face the group and spoke in a loud voice that echoed through the vault.

“Dear brethren,” he began, “honorable citizens, clergy, and simple pastors who have traveled from afar to get to this place. Our brotherhood has always made it our mission to destroy heretics wherever they may be and prevent the spread of the accursed Lutheran heresy!” A murmur of approval rose from beneath the cowls, but the man motioned for his listeners to be silent. “You know that we are also trying to save our Master’s treasures from destruction at the hands of heretics. Much has been returned to the fold of the Holy Catholic Church, the only church!” He paused dramatically before continuing. “I have convened this meeting to proclaim some happy news. We have succeeded in finding the largest treasure in all of Christianity!” Excited whispers coursed through the crowd. Their leader raised his hand again to silence them.

“The wretched Templars have hidden it in a place not far from here. But in his infinite mercy, God has sent us a sign that this treasure will soon be ours and we will soon be able to embark on our Holy War! We must not allow this Lutheran rabble to again sully the name of our Savior. It was here, in this city, that the heresy began to spread through German lands, and here it will end! I am certain that, with the help of this treasure, the Great War can begin again! Down with the heretics! Victory is ours!”

“Deus lo vult! Deus lo vult!” cried a number of the monks. Others fell on their knees and began to pray or flagellate themselves with their belts.

Again, their leader demanded silence.

“Most of you already know about the treasure, but now Brother Jakobus, a true servant of our brotherhood, will give you further details. I don’t need to stress how important it is to maintain strict secrecy about everything he tells us. Traitors will meet a fiery death.”

“Death to traitors!” someone shouted. “Death to the heretics and Lutherans!” Others joined in the shouting.

Magdalena gulped, crouching even lower behind the skulls.

Now a man dressed in a cowl and cloak stepped forward. As he started to speak, a chill ran up and down Magdalena’s spine. It was the stranger from the apothecary! Somewhere down below here in the vault, he must have donned the white coat with the strange cross. But it was his voice she recognized.

“My brethren! He speaks the truth. Victory is close at hand!” Though he had a slight lisp, Magdalena understood every word. “It’s a miracle, believe me! Many years ago, but just a few miles from here, the accursed Templars buried the greatest treasure in all Christendom. These heretics made up a few childish riddles to keep the secret from us, but just recently-”

Much too late, Magdalena noticed that she had leaned too far over the pile of skulls. She bumped one with her right elbow. Falling from the pyramid, it rolled noisily across the floor toward the vault.

Brother Jakobus paused and looked suspiciously in Magdalena’s direction. He was about to resume speaking when the other skulls started tumbling forward as well. Frantic, Magdalena tried to stop them, but it was too late.

A centuries-old equilibrium disturbed, the skulls now started falling on all sides with a clattering and banging. Soon Magdalena found herself standing in the corridor in plain view. For a moment, time seemed to stand still.

“Seize her!” the leader shouted to his comrades-in-arms, who were just as shocked as Magdalena. The man’s cowl slipped off the back of his head and Magdalena found herself staring into a spiteful face-the same face she had seen in the portrait up in the cathedral.

The bishop.

In a fraction of a second, Magdalena realized what this meant. The Augsburg dignitary was not the murderer of Andreas Koppmeyer. No, he was the leader of this insane group-a group presumably capable of far worse crimes, one that, barring a miracle, would torture her as a witch, strangle her, and commit her body to the fire. If she were lucky, they would tear her into pieces first.

Brother Jakobus was the first to get over his shock and run toward the hangman’s daughter, who was rushing down the corridor, stumbling over bones, getting back on her feet again, and racing up the stairs. Behind her she could hear the monk’s footfalls. She ran and ran, spiraling up the staircase as if trapped on a nightmarish merry-go-round, until she finally reached the door.

It was then she realized the door had no handle on the inside.

Gasping for breath, she threw herself against the stone, but this was like hitting her head against a wall. The door would not yield a bit.

She pounded and kicked the stone slab.

“Help!” she cried. “Doesn’t anyone hear me out there? Help me!”

Smiling broadly, Brother Jakobus moved toward her, his hands raised as if in benediction. Only at the last minute did she see the curved dagger in his right hand.

“I’ll give you just a little cut, I promise,” he whispered. “Just like your father. You’ll sleep like the stone knight behind you.” He feigned a blow from above, then thrust the knife at her from below. Magdalena reached for his hand, but the man was quicker. The blade came down, and even though she ducked to one side, it cut her upper arm, which she had raised to fend off her attacker.

“Divine providence has led you to us!” Brother Jakobus murmured. “I know your name, Maria Magdalena, the whore of Christ. You are much too precious to commit to the flames. I have great plans for you.”

Magdalena could feel her body going stiff. When numbness reached her legs, she slid down the gravestone behind her and came to rest on the floor, her eyes wide in fear. From far off, she could hear an organ.

Maria zu lieben ist allzeit mein Sinn, in Freuden und Leiden ihr Diener ich bin…My heart is devoted to Mary, my queen, in joy and in sorrow to serve her I mean…

In the cathedral above, just a few yards away, mass had begun.