The Dark Monk

12

THE EXECUTION WAS set for twelve o’clock noon sharp on Saturday.

Since the early morning hours, people had streamed into the city from surrounding towns. At market stalls around the square, vendors sold sausages dripping with fat and piping-hot mulled wine that made everyone’s cheeks red and their eyes sparkle. A scissors grinder strolled down the Münzgasse with his whetstone, loudly proclaiming his services, and in the wooden booths hastily set up the night before, copper pots, clay bowls, and withered apples were displayed for sale. The air smelled of coal, horse sweat, and cow dung, which had been trodden underfoot. People laughed and chatted, and only occasionally did anyone cast a furtive eye in the direction of the dungeon, where watchmen stood guard.

Finally, at around eleven thirty, the death knell began-a high-pitched, plaintive sound-and the crowd fell silent. Now all eyes turned to the dungeon door, which opened with a loud grating sound and spewed out a small band of ragged figures.

People laughed and hooted, pointing at the slowly approaching line of prisoners. Was this pathetic group really the notorious Scheller gang? The night before, one of the robbers had died of cold and exhaustion. The five remaining men didn’t walk so much as they staggered, looking straight ahead, their filthy faces black and blue, their hands roped together. The two measures of wine to which each condemned man was entitled on his execution day had all been emptied in a few gulps, and the men were clearly having trouble walking upright. Accordingly, the confessions the priest had taken from them earlier that morning were slurred and halting.

Behind them came the robbers’ wives. One carried a screaming infant in a sling on her back, while the other pushed a crying boy forward. The boy kept reaching for the hand of his drunken father, but the bailiffs pushed him away each time.

The hangman walked in front. Despite the cold, he wore only a leather waistcoat over a linen shirt and gloves that would be burned immediately after the execution. He dispensed with the usual wide-brimmed hat that day so that his long black hair and shaggy beard blew in the wind. In his right hand, Jakob Kuisl swung a long, heavy iron rod like a walking stick. It was this rod he would use in a little more than half an hour to break the bones of Hans Scheller, the robber chief.

The crowd jeered and threw snowballs, bones they’d been gnawing on, and moldy bread at the robbers. In the midst of the group was Hans Scheller. He appeared composed and carried his head high. Despite his wounds and bruises, there was something almost sublime about his gaze. People could sense that and tried to say things to frighten him.

“Hey, Scheller,” one called out. “Are your bones aching from loafing around so much? They’ll hurt even more in just a while!”

“Start with the legs! Kuisl, start with the legs! Then he won’t be able to run away!”

The Schongauers laughed, but Jakob Kuisl paid them no mind. At six feet tall, he towered over them. When the crowd got too close, he swung the iron rod through the air as if he were chasing away some barking dogs.

In the market square, they were joined by the aldermen and the court clerk, Lechner, who would preside over the execution as the representative of the elector. He gazed over the ragged crowd of robbers, nodded to Jakob Kuisl, then together they moved through the Hof Gate and down the Altenstadt Road, along a noisy line of people winding through the snowy countryside.

Accompanied by a fiddle, a street musician improvised on an ancient melody. “Scheller, Hans, Scheller, Hans, Just wait to feel Kuisl’s batons…!”

Arriving at the gallows, Johann Lechner looked approvingly at the broad area that had been cleared of snow. The hangman had done a thorough job in the last few days. Alongside the ten-foot-high platform where the convict was to be placed on the wheel, Kuisl had sunk three posts into the frozen ground, each with a crossbar so as to form a triangle. This is where the other four robbers would be hanged. In the front row, benches had been set up for the aldermen. The rest of the crowd would have to be content standing.

The death knell was still ringing. When everyone had arrived at the site, the clerk climbed the narrow stairway up to the wooden platform and held up a thin black wooden stick. Despite the large crowd, absolute silence reigned for a moment. The only thing audible was the ringing of the bell and the breaking of the stick.

Then Johann Lechner called out, “In the name of the power vested in me and as representative of His Noble Majesty Ferdinand Maria, I herewith announce that the execution can begin!”

The moment of silence was past, and the crowd howled. The robbers’ wives ducked as snowballs started to fly again. They withdrew with the children behind the gallows, protected from the angry crowd by two bailiffs. With the exception of Hans Scheller’s wife, the council had given all the women permission to bury their husbands, a concession made at the request of the hangman. In fact, Jakob Kuisl had the first rights to the men’s clothing and bodies and could have made a tidy sum through the sale of human fat, hides, and four pairs of the thieves’ thumbs.

The crowd was getting more and more agitated, surging against the makeshift roped-off area around the execution site. Jakob Kuisl looked into their foaming mouths contorted with hatred and their predatory eyes glazed from the hot mulled wine.

I’m looking into an abyss, he thought.

Snowballs and pieces of ice were still flying. A clump struck one of the robbers in the face so that his skin split open and bright-red blood trickled into the snow. The robber seemed oblivious to the pain after two mugs of wine. He staggered a bit, but even the bawling of his little son wouldn’t bring him back to reality.

Johann Lechner took his place next to the wooden platform. “Let’s go,” he whispered in the hangman’s ear, “the people want to see blood. If you don’t hurry up, it will be yours they see.”

Kuisl nodded. It wasn’t uncommon for a crowd to lynch a hangman if the execution didn’t go according to plan. If the executioner slipped up, if his blow missed the target, or if, in the excitement, he simply slaughtered the condemned men, he could be quickly strung up on the nearest tree. Or even on the gallows.

Jakob Kuisl clenched his fists and cracked his knuckles-his ritual at the start of every execution. Then he put on his gloves, walked to the gallows, and went to work.

The hanging of the four condemned robbers went quickly and silently. The hangman went about his task as if he were just roofing a house or constructing a table. He climbed up the gallows ladder with each of the condemned men, placed the noose around his neck, tied the rope to the crossbeam, climbed back down again, and pulled the ladder away.

The men wriggled around briefly, wet spots appeared on their trousers, then they swayed back and forth like scarecrows in the wind. Only the fourth robber writhed a bit longer, much to the Schongauers’ amusement, but soon enough it was all over for him as well.

None of this was new to the crowd. They saw something like this at least once a year. But this was only the prologue; the main attraction was yet to come.

The hangman looked at Hans Scheller, who clenched his fists and nodded imperceptibly. Then Scheller climbed up the stairs to the wooden platform.

A drawn-out, ecstatic cry went through the crowd as Hans Scheller reached the top and turned around to scan the surrounding countryside-the mountains, the forests, the gentle hills. He closed his eyes briefly and breathed in the cold January air.

There are worse places to die, the hangman thought. A battlefield, for example.

With the iron rod in hand, Kuisl now stepped onto the wooden platform and motioned for Scheller to lie down. In one corner lay a heavy wagon wheel encased in iron, which the robber chief would be bound to later. Wooden wedges were set on the floor of the platform at regular intervals so that Scheller’s limbs wouldn’t lie flat and would break more easily. The hangman would begin with the lower part of the legs, then slowly work his way up. The last blow to the cervical vertebra was the so-called coup de grâce. For especially abhorrent crimes, this blow was avoided and the condemned man left on the wheel to die out in the open.

“One moment, Kuisl,” Hans Scheller said to Kuisl up on the platform. “I want to thank you for-”

The hangman waved him off. “Never mind. Take the poison and keep your mouth shut.”

Scheller shook his head. “There’s something else you ought to know. When we surprised those three other highwaymen, I didn’t just find the perfume, but something else, too. I had forgotten, but it came to me again last night.”

The executioner turned away from Scheller and looked down at the surging crowd. The people were getting impatient.

“Hey, Kuisl, what’s wrong up there?” some of them shouted. “You’re supposed to break his bones, not hear his confession!”

The first pieces of ice struck the hangman. Jakob Kuisl wiped the slush from his face and looked impatiently at the robber chief. “Spit it out, if it’s bothering you, but make it quick.”

Hans Scheller told the executioner what he’d found at the highwaymen’s campfire. The hangman listened without batting an eye. For the people down below, it had to look like the robber chief was begging for mercy one last time. When he finished, Scheller bowed his head and whispered a short prayer.

“Thank you,” Jakob Kuisl said softly. “If there is a just God, others will soon follow you. Now, put an end to it.”

Hans Scheller opened his fist, put the little poison pill in his mouth, and bit down. There was a soft crunching sound, and he had just enough time to lie down before darkness raced upon him like a summer thunderstorm.

Magdalena pushed aside the silken altar cloth and shook out the contents of the leather bag-a colorful collection of black and red berries, little bouquets of herbs, and pressed blossoms. Even the bezoar had survived the long trip! Unfortunately, the little bag was damp and crushed from being transported under her skirt for so long, and the herbs inside didn’t look very usable-some had even begun to take on a moldy sheen. Nevertheless, Magdalena hoped they would serve her purpose.

Basically, all she needed were two ingredients.

When she found the bag under the pew, she thought back on everything the Augsburg pharmacist Nepomuk Biermann had put together for her before Brother Jakobus appeared. Most of these ingredients she had been able to put in her pockets, along with some herbs lying out on the counter for another customer. Magdalena tried to remember which plants Biermann had already packed in the bag for her.

Ergot, artemisia, St. John’s wort, daphne, belladona, and thorn apple…

Belladona and thorn apple.

A few moments later, she found the small dried berries between two little bunches of herbs. Small and deadly. She grinned. Both belladonna and thorn apple were known among midwives and hangmen as medicines, but also as poisons that could bring swift and certain death. Possession alone was a punishable offense, as they could allegedly be used to make a salve that Satan’s playmates used to coat their brooms. Magdalena didn’t know if that was true, but she did know that both plants triggered nightmares and hallucinations. Presumably, anyone ingesting these herbs would actually be able to fly, and unfortunately dosage was a problem, particularly for thorn apple. After taking it, not just a few people took their last flight.

Magdalena thought of something Paracelsus had said more than a hundred years before.

The dosage makes the poison.

She nodded grimly. Brother Jakobus would get a dose that would send him flying straight to hell.

Magdalena picked out the dried belladonna berries and the thorn apple seeds, which reminded her a bit of black mouse droppings. She kept checking the door to see if Brother Jakobus was paying her an unannounced visit, but all was quiet.

When Magdalena had gotten everything together, she looked around for something she could use as a pestle. Her eye fell on a small bronze statue of Jesus standing on the altar. She turned it over and, using the Savior’s head, crushed the berries and seeds to a dark-brown powder. The hangman’s daughter was certain God would pardon her this sacrilege.

But would he also forgive her for murder?

Perhaps Brother Jakobus would not die, after all, but fall into a sort of rigid trance. She doubted that, though, given the dose she had in mind.

Standing on the altar was the communion chalice. Jakobus had gotten into the habit of celebrating Holy Communion once a day with Magdalena. At first she’d refused, but she finally shrugged and resigned herself to her fate. At mealtime the monk brought her nothing but bread, water, and a thin, tasteless porridge. The wine brightened her spirits at least, and she didn’t want to irritate Jakobus unnecessarily. By now Magdalena was certain the monk was insane. His behavior had to have something to do with his disease, but whatever the case, he was unpredictable.

Keeping an eye on the door, Magdalena poured the powder into the wine, stirred it with her index finger, then wiped her hand off on the altar cloth. The potion contained ten belladonna and just as many thorn apple seeds. She hadn’t dared use any more for fear Brother Jakobus would be able to taste the poison.

Finally, she knelt down in one of the pews, folded her hands in prayer, and waited.

Just as the noon bells rang, the door opened.

“I see you are praying, Magdalena. That is good, very good,” Brother Jakobus said. “If you make your confession to God, it will be easier to drive the demons out of you.”

Magdalena lowered her eyes. “I can feel the presence of God. Tell me, Brother Jakobus, may I receive Holy Communion again today?”

Jakobus smiled. “You may. But first let us pray.”

Magdalena let the mumbled Latin words wash over her like a warm summer rain, awaiting anxiously the moment they would approach the altar. Would Jakob taste the poison? And if he did, how would he react?

Would he force her to drink the wine herself?

Finally, the prayer was over. They knelt before the altar, and Brother Jakobus began the celebration of Holy Communion. Holding up the host and chalice, he mumbled the words of consecration.

“This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Putting the chalice to his lips, he drank deeply. Magdalena stared at him as if in a trance, watching as little drops ran down from the corners of his mouth, over his unshaven, pimply chin, and dripped onto the altar. Jakobus wiped his mouth and handed the chalice to Magdalena.

He hadn’t noticed a thing.

The hangman’s daughter looked into the cup and froze-the powder hadn’t dissolved properly! A dark silt remained at the bottom, and besides that, Jakobus had drunk only half of the wine! Would the dose be enough just the same?

Magdalena smiled at the monk, took the cup, and acted as if she was about to sip it.

“You are so hesitant today, Hangman’s Daughter,” Jakobus said. “What is wrong with you?”

“I…I have a headache,” Magdalena stammered, placing the chalice back on the altar. “The wine makes me tired. I need a clear head today.”

“How so?”

“I wish to make my confession.”

The monk looked both astonished and delighted. “Right now?”

Magdalena nodded. The idea came to her out of nowhere, but it was just what she needed. She needed to detain Jakobus in the chapel for at least half an hour. What good would it do if he collapsed after leaving her in this prison? If her plan didn’t work, she’d slowly die of thirst and hunger down here, unnoticed and unheard, while the monk’s corpse lay rotting outside the door.

“We have no confessional here,” Jakobus said, “but that’s not really necessary. I’ll simply take your confession here in the pew.”

He sat down so close to her that his violet perfume couldn’t cover up the stench of his festering wounds.

“May God, who illumines our hearts, give you the true realization of your sins and of His mercy…” Brother Jakobus began.

Magdalena closed her eyes and concentrated. She hoped that enough sins would come to mind to last until the poison took effect.

“You pulled a fast one on me, Kuisl!” Johann Lechner shouted, jabbing his finger into the hangman’s broad chest. “And not only on me! You’ve been messing with every single citizen of this town! You haven’t heard the end of this!”

Jakob Kuisl, almost two heads taller than the angry clerk, looked down at Lechner, his arms folded. Nevertheless, when it came to anger and assertiveness, Lechner was any man’s match. The clerk had ordered Kuisl to report to his office in the palace right after the execution. He was still beside himself over the fiasco of Hans Scheller’s execution.

The robber chief hadn’t made a sound up on the wooden platform, not even a faint cry, even though the hangman had broken every single bone in his body! Lechner had heard the cracking and splintering, and it was only at the end that the hangman crushed the prisoner’s cervical vertebra. The crowd was furious. They had expected a bloody spectacle, and all they got was a bored hangman thrashing away at a lifeless body.

The clerk had been sitting right up in front in the first row and had thus seen the smirk on the lips of the robber chief. Scheller’s eyes were closed as if he were asleep, and his extremities limp, almost relaxed. The condemned man had escaped his just punishment, and Lechner was certain the hangman had something to do with it.

“I can’t prove anything right now,” the clerk snapped, walking back to his desk, “but you can be sure I’ll find out, and then God help you! I’ll get the Augsburg hangman to come and put you on the wheel, and this time it will be done right!”

“Your Excellency, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jakob Kuisl remained calm. Only someone looking very closely would have noticed a faint smile on his lips, little dimples hidden behind his thick beard. “Often, condemned men faint out of fear and pain. There’s nothing I can do to change that.”

“Nonsense, you gave him a drug. Admit it!” Lechner took a seat again behind his desk and was busily scribbling notes in a document in front of him with his goose-quill pen. “It’s about time for me to take away your damned crucibles, potions, and salves. I can do that, you know.” His voice suddenly sounded threatening. “You have no right to give people medical care. Only the physician can do that. In other cities, they would have long ago revoked your permission.”

“Then I will no longer be able to brew the drink Your Excellency has ordered from me. I’ll just have to take the opium poppy I have at home and throw it in the Lech.”

“Oh, just stop!” The clerk seemed to have calmed down a bit. “I didn’t mean it that way. Turn your attention to this fever going around, and put a stop to it. If you can do that, I’ll let you sell love potions, toad eggs, and hangman’s nooses to your heart’s content. Now, beat it. I’ve got a lot to do!”

Kuisl bowed and disappeared silently through the low doorway. Lechner stared after him for a long time. What a stubborn old fool! He just couldn’t see what was good for the city and what was not. The clerk rubbed his temples and again studied the letter he was holding in his hands, which had arrived that morning. It demanded once more that he do whatever was necessary to make sure the hangman minded his own business.

Lechner cursed softly. What did the writer of this letter want him to do-watch over Jakob Kuisl like a nursemaid? And who the hell did he think he was, anyway, giving orders in Lechner’s city? Lechner took orders from Munich, from the elector personally, or from the elector’s representative, not from some church dignitary!

He picked up the envelope and looked at the seal of the church. Then he examined the inside of the envelope again. There were no coins in it, nor a promissory note like the last time.

He ripped the letter up into small pieces and tossed it in the fire. Let the gentleman pamper the hangman himself. He had more important things to do.

A short time later, Jakob Kuisl entered his house in the Tanners’ Quarter. Anna Maria was sitting at the kitchen table, rubbing her eyes.

“What’s the matter, woman?” the hangman asked. “Is it on account of the twins?” He placed his hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but suddenly he felt the effects of the alcohol and lack of sleep. “Pull yourself together. It’s probably not the fever.”

Anna Maria sighed. She’d been awakened again and again by the coughing of her two youngest children the night before and hadn’t been able to sleep. But she, too, thought it was just a simple cold. She was worried less about the children than about her husband, who, as so often before executions, had been drinking far into the night, mumbling and cursing about the evil in the world and the wickedness of the people of Schongau in particular. Anna Maria knew that, at such times, there was nothing she could do to help him, so she had lain awake thinking of Magdalena.

Magdalena, her eldest, the apple of her eye, stubborn and unrestrained like her father, and still not back from Augsburg.

Sitting at the dinner table, she was so burdened by grief she couldn’t eat a thing. She didn’t touch the bread, and even her husband couldn’t console her. Worry about her daughter made her look older than her forty years. The first strands of gray were beginning to show in the long black hair she’d been so proud of as a child and that she’d passed on to her daughter.

“It’s been a week, and Magdalena still isn’t back,” she lamented to Jakob, whose hand was still resting on her shoulder. “Something’s wrong.”

“Oh, come now,” the hangman grumbled. “I think she’s just having a good time in Augsburg. When she gets home, we’ll give her a good spanking and then everything will be all right.”

Anna Maria brushed her husband’s hand away and stood up abruptly. “I’m sure something’s happened to her. A mother can feel these things.” She gave the stool a quick kick, and it tipped over, landing with a crash in a corner. “And Lechner has you out in the forest hunting for robbers instead of looking after your daughter! Doesn’t he have bailiffs to do that?”

Jakob Kuisl remained silent. When his wife got wound up, there was no stopping her. The simplest thing to do then was not to fight it, but just to let the storm pass. The hangman’s wife could rage and wail for hours, but this time she quickly ran out of steam.

“It’s bad enough that you hang and break people on the wheel for Lechner and his fat burgomasters,” she shouted. “What a dirty job! Let those big shots bloody their own hands!”

Jakob Kuisl grinned. He loved his wife, even when she lost her temper. “At least I screwed things up for him with the Scheller execution.” He poured himself a mug of light beer and emptied it in one gulp. “And as for Magdalena, don’t worry. She knows how to take care of herself.” He brushed the dark foam from his lips with the back of his broad, hairy hand. “In contrast to Simon. He’s in real danger, and he doesn’t even know it.”

The hangman’s wife snorted. “Stop talking like a smart-ass. How do you know that?”

Jakob Kuisl picked up a loaf of bread from the table and turned to leave. “I know it, that’s all.” Without turning around, he marched out into the snow. “I’ve got to save Simon from doing something really stupid. I at least owe him that.”

The hangman stomped down to the bridge over the Lech, leaving his nagging wife behind.

“Isn’t that nice!” she shouted as he left. “Go and save the fine gentleman, but don’t give a damn about your daughter! Go to hell, you old fool!”

But Jakob Kuisl, who had disappeared in the drifting snow, didn’t hear a word of what she said, his hangover pounding in his head with every step he took.

Cursing under his breath, he hoped he wasn’t too late for the physician.

As Simon leaned over the colorful illustrated Bible, he knocked over his cup of coffee, and a brown flood surged across the walnut table onto the polished parquet floor.

“Damn!” he shouted. “I’m sorry, I’m probably getting tired.”

“Don’t curse,” Augustin Bonenmayr scolded, looking at the physician through his pince-nez. “God punishes every vice, even the smallest-even if there’s a good reason to curse. The Bible in front of you is worth many hundreds of guilders, so please handle it with great care.”

Simon nodded and carefully wiped the spilled coffee from the table with a parchment full of notes he’d taken. Since early that morning, he and Benedikta had been sitting in the Steingaden Monastery library, which they’d visited on their first trip. Together, they studied the Bible quotations and descriptions of landmarks in the Priests’ Corner, looking for the solution to the riddle they’d found in Rottenbuch. All around them, books, folios, and parchments were piled high on the tables they’d pushed together. Simon had even been able to get a closer look at Friedrich Wildgraf’s sales deed, but so far they hadn’t found anything to help in their search.

Augustin Bonenmayr kept coming back to the library to check on their progress. The last time he’d even done Simon the favor of having the kitchen brew a cup of coffee from the physician’s supply of beans. But whereas the black brew usually spurred Simon’s thinking, it didn’t work this time.

The physician was also having trouble concentrating because the two monks, Lothar and Johannes, who were sent to guard them, didn’t even once leave their posts at the library door. The Steingaden abbot had made good on his threat and didn’t let Simon and Benedikta out of his sight. They’d traveled to Steingaden in complete darkness in the horse-drawn sled, then spent the rest of the night in two monks’ cells, which were locked from the outside. Simon knew he and Benedikta would be regarded as nothing but church desecrators by the abbot until they had convinced him otherwise.

He had to solve this damned riddle, or they’d be condemned to death and drawn and quartered!

He returned once again to the words scribbled on the parchment in front of him.

Heredium in baptistae sepulcro…

“The heritage in the grave of the baptist…” he mumbled. “That doesn’t help us very much. I’ve never heard of a grave of John the Baptist, have you?”

He turned to Augustin Bonenmayr, who was standing next to him, leaning over his shoulder. The abbot frowned.

“There are supposedly such places in the Holy Land, but-”

“That wouldn’t help us, either,” Benedikta interrupted.

“The treasure must be here in the Priests’ Corner, not in the Holy Land. Is there any place around here that you could call ‘the grave of the baptist’?”

August Bonenmayr thought for a minute. “There’s no grave, no, just a few chapels and baptismal fonts dedicated to Saint John-every parish church has such things. So that can’t be it.”

Reaching for the sword in one corner of the room, he passed his fingers over the rusty inscription again. “Maybe there’s a second clue concealed somewhere on the sword.”

Simon shook his head in resignation. “I’ve examined the sword three times already. There’s nothing else there-no inscription, no hidden compartment, and the handle isn’t hollow. The solution must lie in this one inscription!” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m at my wit’s end.”

“Then I’ll have to hand you over to the authorities in Rottenbuch,” Bonenmayr replied, turning to the door. “Enough of these antics! I have more important things to do.”

“Just a moment!” Benedikta said. “May I have one more look at the sword?”

The abbot hesitated before turning around and handing it to her. Once more, Benedikta examined each word closely.

“There’s something strange here,” she said. “The words aren’t inscribed in typical fashion-there are such wide gaps between them.”

Simon shrugged. “No doubt the inscription was intended to cover the length of the entire sword, so whoever wrote it just left wide intervals between the words.”

“Possible,” Benedikta replied. “But the width of the intervals varies. Why? Perhaps…” she hesitated before continuing. “Perhaps because something belongs in these empty spaces…?”

Simon jumped up so suddenly that the cup of coffee nearly fell over again.

“Words!” he cried. “That’s it! There are words missing in between. That’s the solution, of course!” He sat down again, staring at his page of notes. “We just have to figure out where these missing words are…”

“I think we both know,” Benedikta said softly. “We just don’t want to consider that possibility.”

Simon exhaled softly and pushed the parchment away. There was a long pause before he replied. “On the second sword, the one belonging to Saint Primus-that’s where the other words are engraved. The last clue pointed to both saints, so the next clue is to be found on both swords. How could I be so stupid?”

Augustin Bonenmayr took the sword back from Benedikta. “There’s not much chance you can check your hypothesis now,” he said with regret. “The relics in Rottenbuch are probably better guarded now than the bones of the Three Kings in Cologne.”

“You’re right,” Simon sighed. “But perhaps we can figure this out anyway now that we know every other word is missing.” He took a long gulp of coffee, reached for the parchment and a goose quill, and wrote down the words from the first sword, this time with the ordinary spacing.

Heredium in baptistae sepulcro…

“Let’s assume that heredium is the first word. That would mean that the treasure of something is in something that belongs to the baptist and has something to do with a grave.”

“The first connection is easy,” Benedikta said. “It would probably be heredium templorum-in other words, the heritage of the Templars.”

Simon nodded. “Perhaps. But what is the connection with the baptist-and above all, which grave could it be referring to?”

Benedikta leaned forward to look at the lines. “The most famous grave in Christendom is the grave of our Savior,” she mused. “Judging from the spacing between the words, the word after sepulcro could be Christi. But that doesn’t help us either, because that grave is certainly not in the Priests’ Corner-unless I’ve overlooked some important lines in the Bible…Your Excellency?”

Benedikta looked over at Augustin Bonenmayr. His face had suddenly paled and little drops of sweat stood out on his brow. He began to polish his pince-nez excitedly.

“What are you thinking?” Simon asked. “Have you ever heard of such a grave?”

“Tell us!” Benedikta cried.

The abbot continued polishing his glasses without looking up. “It may be a coincidence,” he said, “but here, in Steingaden, there actually is a very old chapel modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.”

Simon felt his mouth going dry, and his heart started to pound. “And the name…What’s the name of this chapel?” he whispered.

The abbot placed his pince-nez back on the bridge of his nose and stared at him attentively. “That’s the strange thing,” he said, playing with the golden signet ring on his finger. “It’s called Saint John’s Chapel, and it’s right next door to our church.”

Simon groaned loudly. St. John’s Chapel! They had walked right past it that morning, never dreaming that the small, unimposing chapel might conceal a treasure! Once more, he went over in his mind the words engraved on the sword. He could finally make a guess at how the inscription might fit together with the words on the other sword.

He whispered the sentence in Latin. “Heredium templorum in domu baptistae in sepulcro Christi.”

The heritage…of the Templars…in the…house…of the baptist…in the…grave…of Christ.

The passage had to read something like that! The Templars’ treasure was secured in St. John’s Chapel, which was modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. If you knew that the two inscriptions belonged together, the riddle was easy. Simon couldn’t suppress a grin. How carefully Friedrich Wildgraf had constructed his riddle! The Templars’ seal at the ruined castle in Peiting also showed two knights in armor on horseback.

Two riders, two swords-everything had been grouped in twos.

Simon jumped out of his chair and rushed to the door. They were very close to solving the riddle! Soon the Templars’ treasure would be in his hands! The Steingaden abbot would release them; perhaps he would even give them a little money, a valuable brooch, a golden chalice…After all, they’d helped him solve the riddle, and…

Only now did he notice that Augustin Bonenmayr had made it to the door before he did.

“My compliments! You really did excellent work,” the abbot said, smiling. His bloodshot eyes sparkled behind his polished eyeglasses as if he had just enjoyed a good joke. In his right hand, he was carrying the Templar’s sword. “It’s time I introduce you to a true servant-perhaps you’ve met before,” he said, opening the door.

Simon was stunned. In front of them was a monk in a long black robe, the same monk from the Rottenbuch Monastery who, just the day before, had slit open the soldier like a bag of wine. He was wearing a scimitar on his belt and around his neck, a heavy golden cross.

“Deus lo vult,” Brother Nathanael whispered. “God himself led you here.”

As the Steingaden abbot held out his hand to the black monk, Simon noticed that Bonenmayr’s signet ring bore the same cross as the monk’s chain.

A cross with two beams.