The Dark Monk

13

ISINNED, TOO, when I stared at that handsome fellow, Peter, who works on the Huber farm, and just last week, I drank the cream from the top of the milk…and…And when I was a kid, I once threw a piece of horse dung at old Berchtholdt, and I never confessed to that…”

Magdalena was struggling for words. She was slowly running out of sins, and Brother Jakobus still showed no reaction to the poisons. Sitting alongside her in the pew, he bowed his head and only occasionally nodded or murmured his “Ego te absolvo.”

The monk sat completely still with closed eyes, lost in his narrow little world, soaking up her confession like a dry sponge and not reacting.

“Also, a week ago last Sunday, I was dreaming in church and made eyes at Simon, and during the hymns, I just mouthed the words…”

The hangman’s daughter continued confessing…on and on…But inwardly, she was cursing. Were the thorn apple seeds and dried belladonna too old? Had they lost their effect? Or did this monk simply have the constitution of a horse?

This was her last plan, and if it failed, she had no idea what to do. The monk kept nodding and mumbling his pious prayers.

“Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat, et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo…”

Suddenly, something seemed to be happening to Brother Jakobus. Little beads of sweat were forming on his brow, and he licked his dry lips. Then he started rubbing his legs together as if he were trying to smother a raging fire between them. Finally, he cast a glance at Magdalena that made her blood run cold. His eyes were huge black holes, his pupils so dilated that he looked like an old woman slathered with makeup. Saliva drooled down from the corner of his mouth, and he reached out to grab her thigh.

“Oh, Magdalena, the sins!” he whispered. “The sins are overwhelming me again. Help me, Holy Virgin Mary, help me to be strong in the face of sin!”

Magdalena pushed his hand away, but moments later it was back, his fingers crawling up her thigh like a fat spider, toward her breasts, and his whole body beginning to quiver.

“Oh, Magdalena! Demons are coming to get me! There are too many of them! They are touching me in unclean places, licking me, kissing me with their clammy lips, fondling my naked skin. Holy Mother of God, help me. Help me!”

With a loud cry, the monk leaped up and threw himself at her. Only at the last second was Magdalena able to jump away. He knocked over the pew, fell to the ground with it, and like a bull in heat, rubbed his thighs against the polished wood. When he stood up, Magdalena could see how his robe bulged out from the huge erection underneath. His eyes gleamed like those of an animal.

Magdalena took a few cautious steps back.

Damn, I should have used less belladonna and more of the thorn apple seeds! She cursed under her breath at her error. She should have known better! Both her father and the midwife Martha Stechlin had often used belladonna as an aphrodisiac, but Magdalena hadn’t been expecting such a strong reaction. By now Jakobus was bathed in sweat, breathing heavily, and his words came haltingly.

“Magdalena…Is it really you? Your breasts…your white skin…I will follow you wherever you go…”

The monk smiled as large drops of sweat rolled down his pale face. He seemed like a completely different person to Magdalena now.

“The brothel in Augsburg…” he whispered. “I’ll pay fat Agnes a lot of money to let you go. We’ll go…far away. To Rome…to the West Indies…From now on, your body must belong to no one else…no one but me!”

With a hoarse cry, he flung himself at her. She was so spellbound by his words that his sudden attack caught her by surprise. Flying through the air like a whirling dervish, the monk knocked her to the ground. His thin groping fingers seemed to be everywhere at once: between her thighs, inside her bodice, forcing her to the ground while his mouth searched for her lips. Screaming, Magdalena turned her head from side to side, nearly fainting from the stench of his putrid flesh. She could now clearly see the festering wound that stretched from his chest up to his chin, a wet, putrid wound pressing against her breasts.

“Magdalena…” Jakobus panted. “The sin…the two of us…can…be…one…”

Suddenly, his whole body began to convulse as if a crowd of devils were shaking him-all of them at the same time. But as fast as the convulsions came on, they stopped, and now he simply lay on her like a dripping sack, his arms outstretched.

It was eerily silent in the vault, the only sound being Magdalena’s own panting.

She hesitated a moment, then pushed the limp body off her in disgust. Jakobus rolled to one side, coming to rest on his back, eyes staring straight up, a final ecstatic smile playing around his lips. A damp spot spread from his robe.

“You pig! You filthy pig!”

Magdalena struck out wildly at the man on the floor. As bright blood began flowing from his nose and mouth, she suddenly realized that Jakobus was probably dead.

Frantically, she searched his robe for the key, rushed to the door, and then down a long dark corridor. On and on she ran, her only thought being to flee from this man.

In the underground chapel, Brother Jakobus stared with a frozen grin up at the ceiling, where a few fat, naked cherubs danced to heavenly music that played just for him.

The hangman hurried along the quickest route to Rottenbuch, his head pounding. He avoided the main highway-the danger was too great that he would come upon people there who didn’t feel too kindly toward him after the execution that morning. Kuisl knew he’d ruined the big party for all of them. For far lesser shortcomings, other executioners had been strung up from the nearest tree.

As he moved quickly along, he only briefly thought about Hans Scheller and the four accomplices whom he’d hanged. The Schongau executioner felt no remorse. Hanging was his job, and he did it as quickly and painlessly as possible. He knew that all five condemned men had killed people, and probably in a far more bestial manner than he did. Now they were all in a better place, and Kuisl had seen to it that they hadn’t had to suffer unnecessarily. Breaking a convict on the wheel had always repelled him, and he gloated over how he’d been able to spoil the celebration for Johann Lechner and the Schongau patricians.

He plodded through the snowy forest on narrow paths, his wide-brimmed hat pulled far down over his face and his ragged coat wrapped tightly to protect him from the cold and the wind. He walked purposefully, like a beast of prey following a scent. He’d learned in Schongau that Simon and his companion had set out in the direction of Rottenbuch around noon the previous day. The fact that they hadn’t yet returned didn’t necessarily mean anything, but he was worried.

Kuisl’s worry grew when he arrived at the Rottenbuch Monastery. He noticed at once that something was wrong. The church portal was sealed with a heavy bolt and guarded by two grim-faced guards with halberds. On the square in front of the church, monks and workers stood around in small groups, talking softly. Only then did the hangman notice that nobody was working. Nobody was on the scaffolding, and none of the men here was holding a bucket of mortar or even a trowel in his hand. Walking by a few wildly gesticulating monks, he overheard what they were saying.

“I tell you it was the devil himself…”

“No, it was the Protestants. The war is starting all over again, and they are robbing the last of our church’s treasures…”

“The devil or the Protestants, it’s all the same! In any case, Judgment Day is close at hand.”

Jakob Kuisl paused for a moment. He guessed that Simon and Benedikta had found lodging in Rottenbuch; perhaps someone there would know where they were.

He had success at the very first tavern he stopped at, right by the gate opening onto the square. After he had knocked several times, the door opened on a thick-necked, sweaty barkeeper with a belly like a beer keg. When Kuisl described the medicus and his companion, the heavy-set man looked at him suspiciously.

“A little dandy and a refined-looking redheaded lady, huh? What business do you have with them?”

Jakob Kuisl answered cautiously; the tavern keeper seemed to be hiding something. “I’m just looking for them, that’s all. So what do you know? Were they here?”

The tavern keeper hesitated, then broke out into a grin. “I know you; you’re the hangman from Schongau. I didn’t think it would happen so fast. Well, everyone here is talking about the two people who desecrated the church.” He looked the hangman up and down. “Where’s your sword, your ropes, and the tongs, heh? What will you do with them? Will they burn in Rottenbuch or back in Schongau?”

It dawned on Jakob Kuisl that Simon had to be in far greater difficulty than he’d feared. He decided to play along. “Tell me, did the two run off on you?” he grumbled. “You didn’t help them get away, did you?”

The innkeeper turned as white as a ghost. “Oh no! I didn’t do anything. I swear by the Virgin Mary, it’s just as I told our venerable superintendent. The two of them left last night on the sled belonging to the Steingaden Monastery, and the abbot was with them!”

“The abbot?”

The innkeeper nodded emphatically. “Augustin Bonenmayr himself. I watched His Excellency come down the stairs with the two. Ha!” Again he grinned, this time so widely that the black stumps of his teeth protruded. “He’s probably taking them to the hangman in Steingaden, and you’ll be left all by yourself with your ropes and tongs! You’ll miss out on a nice heap of change.” He started to count on his short, fat fingers: “The tongs, the rack-they’ll probably be hanged, broken on the wheel, and then burned. Or maybe boiled alive in oil? Let’s see, that adds up to…”

But the hangman had long since stopped listening. He was already on the way to Steingaden.

Across the street from the tavern, two figures emerged from the shadow of a shed and started out in pursuit of Jakob Kuisl. The two men, dressed like mercenary foot soldiers from the Thirty Years’ War, were more than just worried; for the first time in a long while, they were slightly panicked. Somehow the physician and the redhead had eluded them and they’d lost one of their men in the fight with that damned monk in black. And now their cover was blown! This hulk of a hangman seemed their last hope.

With wide-brimmed hats pulled far down over their faces, they mingled with the workmen and the Augustinian monks still lamenting their loss, following Jakob Kuisl down the busy street full of horse-drawn sleds and hand carts, toward the forest.

Perhaps he would lead them to their goal.

Augustin Bonenmayr closed the door and motioned for Simon to take a seat. The physician plumped down dejectedly on a stool, so shaken that he couldn’t say another word and so wide-eyed with fright he could only stare at the dark monk, who was still leaning against the doorjamb playing with his dagger. A faint smile played across Nathanael’s lips. His golden cross swayed gently back and forth like a pendulum.

The abbot of Steingaden sat across the table from Simon and Benedikta and folded his hands as if in prayer. With his pince-nez, gray hair, and pinched lips, he looked like a compassionate schoolteacher preparing to give his students a stern lecture even though he didn’t really enjoy doing so.

“I am dreadfully sorry it had to turn out this way,” he began. “But apparently, God selected you for this role.” He removed the pince-nez and started polishing the glasses again without looking at either Simon or Benedikta. “You have, indeed, led us to the Templars’ treasure, and all of Christendom will be eternally grateful to you for that. But you must understand that allowing you to live is too risky. The word must not get out that the treasure was in the hands of heretics for centuries. Also, the fact that we had to spill blood to obtain it is”-he looked at Brother Nathanael reproachfully-“well, more than regrettable. It wouldn’t be good if something like this became public knowledge. All in all-”

“You knew the whole time!” Simon interrupted, having regained his voice. “From the very beginning, we were no more than your stupid flunkies whose job it was to find the treasure for you. You deliberately showed us the sales deed here in the monastery so we could draw our own conclusions!”

The abbot shrugged apologetically. “I knew that you were smart and curious, Simon Fronwieser. You found the entrance to the crypt along with the hangman, and you’ve proved on a number of occasions that you think faster than most people-like a puppy sniffing for a bone, you poke your nose in every corner. I admire that.” Bonenmayr smiled benevolently before continuing. “When you came to Steingaden, I considered hiding the document from you, but then I thought, why shouldn’t I let him dig for his bone? You never noticed them, but my colleagues were always nearby. Only the hangman was too dangerous for me, so I saw to it that he had other things to keep him busy.”

Simon groaned. “So you told Lechner to send Kuisl out to look for robbers!”

“Not directly. But the result leaves nothing to be desired, does it?” The abbot peered contentedly through the crystal-clear lenses of his pince-nez. “The robbers were hanged, we have the treasure, and the city has earned a little from it in the process.”

By now, Benedikta had clearly recovered from her fright as well. “Your visit to my brother’s funeral…” she said, looking angrily at the abbot. “You were only there to see how far along we were in solving the riddle. You didn’t give a damn about my brother!”

The abbot looked almost a bit sad. “That’s not quite correct. The death of your brother was regrettable, as I said. I wanted to pay him my final respects. He deserved it,” he said with a smile. “Besides, I thought I could divert Simon from what we were up to by making Koppmeyer’s sister a principal suspect.”

Benedikta jumped up as if she were going to seize the abbot by the throat. “You goddamned…!”

Nathanael drew his dagger, but Simon pulled her back down onto the chair before the monk could intervene.

“Your plot almost worked,” the medicus said after making sure Benedikta had calmed down again. “For a time, I did, in fact, suspect Benedikta of murdering her brother. How could I suspect that the abbot of Steingaden was behind it all?”

Augustin Bonenmayr shook his head sadly. “The order to kill the priest of the Saint Lawrence Church came from Augsburg-from high up, not from me. When Andreas Koppmeyer stumbled upon the crypt during the church renovations, he wrote a letter to the bishop. That’s how we learned the treasure had reappeared. I would have perhaps chosen another way, but the bishop considered it best to make sure there was absolute silence about it. Koppmeyer was a good priest, but unfortunately also a gossiper who knew too much. The danger that others might pick up the trail was simply too great. After all, Koppmeyer had already confided in his sister. You must understand, we had to put an end to this!”

“Who’s behind all this?” Simon asked in a hoarse voice. “The bishop? Or are there others?”

Bonenmayr laughed softly. His eyes sparkled like cold little diamonds behind his pince-nez. “There are many of us, in all Christian countries, from simple monks right up to the bishop. Not even the Pope knows our names, yet our members sit in the uppermost ranks of the Vatican. We fight against the spread of heresy and save the treasures of Christianity from destruction. For far too long we have stood by and watched as the Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Hussites, and all the rest of them defame our sacred places and desecrate our holy relics!” He leapt up, pacing in front of the shelves full of books and parchment scrolls. “These vermin! They keep citing the First Commandment, but in truth, they’re nothing but a gang of criminals! Disciples of Satan who melt down consecrated gold objects to make coins, who trample our altars and burn the bones of our saints!” His face had turned bright red, and his glasses started to steam up. Bonenmayr closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and a smile passed over his lips again.

“The fact that we learned so suddenly of Christendom’s greatest treasure through a simple village priest’s letter is a sign that God wants us to go forth and do battle in the greatest of all holy wars. The treasure is here! Right before our eyes!” Bonenmayr stopped and raised his arms to heaven. “It will adorn this church, and crowds of pilgrims will once again come flocking to Steingaden! Right here in the Priests’ Corner we will have a pilgrimage site to rival Santiago de Compostela! The bishop has already promised that at least a part of the treasure will be kept here.”

Smiling broadly, he approached Simon and Benedikta with his hand extended in benediction.

“You’ve helped us find it again and bring it back into the bosom of the Church,” he whispered. “For that we owe you eternal thanks. I am certain that God has set aside a very special place for you in heaven.”

“You can just go to hell for all I care; I’m not ready to go to heaven yet!” Benedikta shouted, running to the door. She tore it open and stormed out, bumping right into the two stocky novitiates, who were still standing guard. Brother Nathanael’s muscular fingers dug into her shoulder and pulled her back into the library. He pressed his dagger against her throat and a thin trickle of blood ran down her neck.

“Shall I…?” Nathanael asked, but Bonenmayr shook his head.

“Not yet. First I want to have the treasure in hand. We’ll leave them here in the library. The windows are too small for an escape, and the door has a strong lock. We’ll take care of them later.”

Simon made one more desperate attempt. “Listen, Your Excellency! You’re making a grave error. We will be missed. Surely the Schongau hangman is already looking for us and-”

“The Schongau hangman?” Bonenmayr interrupted him, laughing softly. “I don’t think so. No one knows you are here, and even if someone did…” He seemed to be thinking it over. “Who knows, perhaps I should hand you over to the Augustinians in Rottenbuch, and then this Kuisl can draw and quarter you and break you on the wheel-a just punishment for the destruction of the relics of Saint Felicianus, don’t you think?”

“We can keep quiet!” Benedikta pleaded. “And as for the Templars’ treasure, you can keep the money! We don’t want it, anyway. There’s too much blood on it.”

“Money?” The Steingaden abbot looked at them in surprise. “Do you really think all we care about is money?” He shook his head dolefully. “I thought you were smarter than that. You disappoint me.”

Still shaking his head, Bonenmayr left the library with Brother Nathanael. The door closed with a crash, leaving Simon and Benedikta to stare at the tall shelves of dusty books, folios, and parchments.

My grave, Simon thought.

Then he stopped to think about the meaning of Bonenmayr’s last words.

Do you really think all we care about is money…?

Simon could feel things coming together. He was sure he was holding all the pieces of the puzzle in his hands now, and all he had to do was put them together.

A site to rival Santiago de Compostela…Crowds of pilgrims will once again come flocking to Steingaden…the treasures of Christendom…

“Of course! That must be the solution!”

The physician jumped up and started searching for a book in what seemed like endless rows of shelves.

If he had to die, then at least he wanted to know why.

Shortly after leaving Rottenbuch, Jakob Kuisl sensed he was being followed. He turned off the broad road into a forest and took a small path known only to a few of the locals. Nevertheless, he wasn’t alone.

It was that familiar feeling between his shoulder blades, plus a soft, recurring rustling he could hear in the branches and the dull thud of snow falling in clumps from pine trees that he hadn’t even brushed up against. His instincts were now on high alert. The men behind him were good, but they weren’t good enough.

Suddenly, the hangman veered off the path, disappearing into a withered thicket of blackberry bushes weighed down by snow. Before him, a deer path appeared that had not been visible from the outside. Kuisl hunkered down amid the bushes and became completely silent. His years of hiking through the forest looking for herbs or hunting game had taught him how to blend in with his environment. If the wind was right, he could wait for a deer to pass, then break its neck with one well-placed blow with the side of his hand.

A crackling in the bushes told him the men were approaching. They communicated without speaking; only the faint sound of their steps in the snow revealed that one was entering the thicket, while the other walked around to the other side. He’d be able to knock them off one at a time. The hangman grinned.

An advantage for me…

Kuisl reached for the larch-wood club he always carried with him and waited for the first man to approach. He finally saw him crawling along the deer path, looking intently in all directions with a loaded pistol in his hand. He was wearing a slouch hat decorated with feathers and a colorful jacket beneath a ragged overcoat, showing him to be a former mercenary foot soldier-a bearded war veteran, hardened through innumerable battles, with the strength and skill of a man who had learned the art of killing at a very young age, a man just like the one Kuisl used to be.

Kuisl waited until the soldier crawled past him, then hit him hard on the hand with the club.

The man was quick.

At the last moment, he must have noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and rolled to one side, cursing and pointing his pistol toward the hangman. A shot rang out. Though Jakob Kuisl could feel a burning sensation on his cheek, he had no time to think about it. Howling furiously, he charged the man, who tossed the useless pistol to one side and drew his dagger. In the thick underbrush, the mercenary couldn’t swing his arm back far enough, so he lunged at the hangman a few times, then made a headlong dive out of the bush. Jakob Kuisl was able to give the man one more light blow with the club between the shoulder blades before the man completely disappeared.

The hangman cursed. He’d lost the element of surprise. Now both soldiers were standing in front of the bush, while he himself crouched in his hiding place like a wild animal at bay. He could hear the men outside panting, and he could make out their shapes amid the branches. A snapping sound told him that one of them was loading his crossbow, while the other seemed to be refilling his pistol with powder.

I’ve got to beat them to it, or they’ll shoot me down like a mad dog…

Without further hesitation, Jakob Kuisl stormed out of the bushes, howling. With a bloodied face and a torn coat splattered with mud, he now looked every bit a threatened animal at bay. His wild screams petrified the men for a moment, long enough to give Kuisl the advantage. The man with the pistol hastily threw his weapon aside and reached for his sword. The other was unable to load the crossbow in time and an arrow flew with a loud twang, nailing the hangman’s boot to the forest floor. Now Jakob Kuisl screamed even louder. He tore himself free and rammed the club into the pit of the first man’s stomach, and the man dropped to the ground like a felled tree. Then he took a wide swing and brought the cudgel down on the man’s head. There was a loud crack like a walnut being shelled.

Next he turned to the second man, who tried to hold him off with a sword. The weapon whizzed through the air as the man danced back and forth, bobbing and weaving, lunging and retreating. He managed to hit the hangman’s arm and slit open his coat, but the hangman retreated in time. When the man thrust at him again, Kuisl ducked down and suddenly came up face to face with his attacker.

“You filthy dog, I’ve got you now.”

The hangman punched his opponent in the mouth so hard that he collapsed like a bundle of dry wood.

Soon thereafter, when the man regained consciousness, he found himself tied up and with a pounding headache. Jakob Kuisl was sitting next to a little fire nearby, his head glowing in the red light of the flickering flames. Blood streamed down his right cheek while he sewed up the gunshot wound with clenched teeth.

When the hangman noticed the man looking over at him, he grinned. “It’ll be some scar,” he said, “but nothing compared to the scars you’ll have if you don’t come clean with me right away.” He nodded in the direction of the campfire. In the flames, the man saw a huge double-edged hunting knife, its blade glowing red.

Then he decided to talk.

Magdalena ran from the subterranean chapel, up through a dark tunnel, until she came to a junction. Corridors at about shoulder height branched off to the left and the right, illuminated by flickering torches spaced at wide intervals in the darkness.

Where was she? Which corridor should she take?

On an impulse, she decided to go left. The corridor curved around, ending after only a few steps in a stone grotto. In the middle of the almost cubical space stood two sarcophagi. Here, too, burning torches were attached to the walls. The grave markers each depicted a knight in full armor holding a sword. Carefully, Magdalena approached the huge stone coffins.

Was she imprisoned now in another Templar tomb?

She didn’t notice the marble tablet embedded in the foot of the tomb until she stubbed her toe on it. Cursing softly, she hopped around a few times in a circle. When the pain finally subsided, she struggled to translate the ornate, slightly archaic Latin on the tablet in front of her.

Beneath this marker lie the precious remains of the exalted and mighty Princes of Bavaria, the father Guelph VI and his son Guelph VII, equal in virtue to his father.

Magdalena held her breath. She was evidently in the crypt of the Guelphs, the mighty family of noblemen who ruled over Bavaria long ago. That much she knew. Her prison, the chapel, had to be their shrine! But she had no idea where their tomb was. In Munich? In Nuremberg?

Perhaps…in Augsburg?

Only now did she notice the soft humming, murmuring, singing sound, similar to what she’d heard below the cathedral in Augsburg. After her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could make out a slight glimmer along the ceiling of the room. Light fell through the cracks in a rectangle at the same place the sound was coming from. Magdalena’s heart began to pound. Only a few meters above her were people who could come to her aid! Monks, perhaps, who were singing a chorale, or attendees at a mass, who were singing a last hymn. She was about to shout out for help, but then she stopped short.

What if the group above her was just another gathering of those maniacs-a secret meeting of the order of murderers and fanatics headed by the bishop of Augsburg?

Magdalena decided to remain silent until she’d first examined the other passages.

When she got back to where the passageways crossed, she heard a different sound for the first time: a barely audible scraping and shuffling coming from the direction of the chapel, as if something were being dragged along the ground. Magdalena was startled. Was Brother Jakobus not dead, after all? Was his spirit, an avenging angel, coming to get her? The hangman’s daughter tried to shake this off, just as she would a night of bad dreams.

You’re seeing ghosts, that’s all…

This time she took the right corridor. After a few turns, it led to a steep spiral staircase. Again she heard the shuffling sound behind her. She decided to pay no more attention to it and hurried up the stairway, sometimes two steps at a time.

The top of the staircase ended in front of a dirty wooden wall.

Had she reached a dead end? She stood still, listening. There was that sound again; now she could hear it quite clearly. Down below, something was crawling slowly up the staircase, dragging itself, pulling itself, panting like a large, heavy beast. Desperately, she pushed against the wooden wall. Behind it, she heard muffled voices. Should she knock? Cry for help?

Never before in her life had Magdalena experienced such fear. In front of her these deranged people were probably waiting for her, and behind her something was panting and dragging itself up the staircase. In her despair she crouched down against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible, as if this might allow her to vanish into the wall.

There was a click.

The wall creaked and tipped forward, and Magdalena fell into the room behind it with a loud crash. Wood splinters and bricks of plaster came raining down from the ceiling.

When the dust finally cleared and Magdalena raised her head, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“What in the world are you doing?”

Benedikta stared open-mouthed at Simon, who was walking down the endless rows of shelves, examining the great number of books in the monastery library.

“I’m looking for a book.”

“Well, isn’t that nice! The Steingaden abbot gives us the choice of being stabbed to death by his hoodlums or broken on the wheel by the Schongau executioner, and my dear medicus friend is looking for a book!”

Simon paused for a moment. “I’m not looking for just any book, but a particular, special one. I suspect that when we finally know what this abbot is actually looking for, we’ll at least have the possibility…Ah, here it is!”

He pulled a large leather-bound volume from a lower shelf. “I knew that a Premonstratensian monastery would have a work like this. Now let’s see if I was right…”

Benedikta looked over his shoulder with curiosity. “May I ask what you’re looking for?”

Simon leafed through the pages quickly as he spoke. “This is a standard work about the history of the Holy Cross-the De Sancta Cruce by the Jesuit Francisco de Borja. There’s another copy in Jakob Schreevogl’s library. I’m sure in this book we’ll find that…”

He continued leafing through the book until he got to a smudged page depicting various types of crosses. Benedikta recognized the Byzantine cross, the St. Andrew’s cross with its diagonal cross beams, and the Maltese cross with the eight points. Even the Templars’ cross was there. At the very bottom, there was another cross that caused Benedikta to hold her breath.

The cross had two crossbeams.

The upper crossbeam was shorter than the lower one. It was the exact same cross that Brother Nathanael was wearing on a chain around his neck and the abbot of Steingaden on his signet ring.

“The cross of Caravaca,” Simon whispered. “Also called the Spanish cross or the Patriarchal cross. The crossbeam at the top stands for the INRI inscription on the cross of Jesus. Worn by archbishops, it is said to have been brought down to earth from heaven by two angels during the war against the Moors.”

Benedikta nodded excitedly. “It’s clearly the sign of this strange order. But why?”

A broad smile spread across Simon’s face. “Ah, now comes the interesting part! The original cross of Caravaca supposedly contains a sliver of wood from the True Cross-the cross on which Jesus was crucified. I asked myself why the order chose this particular symbol, and I came to the conclusion that there is only one possible explanation…”

“They’re looking for the True Cross,” Benedikta gasped. “Of course! The abbot and his disciples are looking for the cross of Christ, the greatest treasure in Christendom! Not gold, silver, or jewels, just a goddamn rotten old wooden cross.” The disappointment showed in her face. “If I’m not mistaken, there are hundreds of slivers of wood floating around that were allegedly once part of the True Cross. Every other village church has one-you could build a city out of them! This rotten old cross is just one of many.” She sighed. “We could have saved ourselves this wild goose chase.”

Simon shook his head as he continued leafing through the Jesuit’s book, looking for something else. “I don’t think so. I’ve seen this book once before in Schreevogl’s library, and there’s a certain page that keeps coming back to me. Look at this…” He pointed to a section containing a number of illustrations and then started reading in a hoarse voice. “Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, found the Holy Cross and had it set up for viewing in Jerusalem, but the cross was stolen by the Sassanids and returned only many years later to the Holy City. Since that time, the cross was carried into every battle waged against the infidels, and a group was charged with protecting this mighty relic from being stolen again.”

“The Templars!” Benedikta exclaimed. “The cross is the Templars’ treasure!” She paused for a moment. “But why do you think our cross is the real one? It could be just two more rotten beams of wood like all the other fake crosses.”

Simon turned to the next page, which displayed a colorful image of two knights on horseback riding into battle, preceded by a person carrying a huge cross. The medicus pointed at the picture.

“The battle of Hattin,” he whispered. “The cross was there as well. In that battle in the year 1187, the Saracen Prince Saladin vanquished the army of the Crusaders. Ten thousand Christians died, including hundreds of Templars. The prisoners were skinned alive-”

A pounding sounded from somewhere. Simon paused for a moment, but then the noise stopped. After a moment of hesitation, he continued.

“The battle of Hattin was the beginning of the end for the Crusaders. In the same year, Jerusalem fell to invaders. But worst of all, the True Cross was lost in this battle! It was believed that several Templars escaped with the cross and buried it in the sand so it could be retrieved later. But it was never found again.”

“And do you believe it was the Templars who hid the cross at that time?” Benedikta asked.

“I don’t just believe it; I know it.” Simon grinned. “For days, I’ve been trying to remember where I’ve seen the name of the German Temple Master Friedrich Wildgraf before. But while we were talking about the Holy Cross, it all came back to me.”

“Well?” Benedikta asked. “Tell me!”

With a look of satisfaction, Simon closed the huge book and, from under his jacket, took out the little book about the Templars he’d borrowed from Jakob Schreevogl. “The battle of Hattin is also mentioned in this book by Wilhelm von Selling,” he whispered, looking through the book until he found a soiled page full of scribbled notes. “There’s a note in the margins mentioning several warriors from that battle that I didn’t pay too much attention to at first. Just as in every army today there is a standard flag bearer, there was one person who carried the Holy Cross into battle for the Templars.” He grinned and deliberately paused a moment before continuing.

“In the battle of Hattin that person was none other than a certain Carolus Wildgraf. I’ll bet anything that Friedrich Wildgraf was a direct descendant of the person who carried the Holy Cross back then.”

A brief moment later, the shelf above them gave way, sending a jumble of books cascading down on them. A particularly thick volume hit Simon on the forehead, and he fell to the ground. More books tumbled down until the whole world around them comprised nothing but ink and letters.

Magdalena stumbled through the hole that had opened up, rushing forward with outstretched arms, not knowing where she was headed. She could hear cracking, banging, and the muffled sound of falling objects. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a large roomful of books with shelves reaching almost to the ceiling. The wall behind the shelves had tipped forward along with the contents of the shelves, freeing up an opening behind it. Thick clouds of dust gradually settled on the floor, and behind them, a mountain of fallen books materialized in the middle of the room.

And then the mountain moved.

Ready for the worst, Magdalena picked up the heaviest volume she could find. Plato’s Symposium would send whoever came creeping out of that pile of books to kingdom come.

Two heads pushed through the pile. Magdalena closed her eyes, then opened them again.

I’m dreaming.It’s all a dream…

Before her, she saw Benedikta and an ashen-faced Simon trying to extricate themselves from the mountain of books. Blood trickled down the medicus’s forehead. Covered in dust, plaster, and shreds of parchment, the two looked like revenants from the underworld.

The Symposium slipped from Magdalena’s hands, her knees became weak, and she had to steady herself against one of the shelves. When Simon finally noticed her in the gaping hole, his jaw dropped.

For a long time no one said a word.

“You…?” Simon finally managed to say.

Magdalena struggled to stand up straight, looked angrily at the two sitting in the mountain of books, then folded her arms.

“Yes, me. And just what are you doing here with this woman?”

Magdalena had survived imprisonment, poison, and a crazy monk; she had fled through dark passageways and been carted around in a coffin as a living corpse. Over the past few days, her life had come apart at the seams. But of all the things that had happened to her recently, seeing Simon in front of her, stumbling around and covered with scraps of parchment, had to be the limit. She forgot all the frightening things she had been through and directed all of her anger at the medicus and Benedikta.

“I just want to know what the two of you are doing here!” she shouted. “Just once I leave town, and here you are cavorting behind my back with this hussy from Landsberg!”

“Magdalena,” Simon said as softly and calmly as possible. “Benedikta is no hussy, and we’re not cavorting around, either. Quite the opposite. We’re locked up here in the Steingaden library for having defiled sacred relics, and we’re about to be either stabbed to death or broken on the wheel by your father. So would you please tell me now what you’re doing here?”

As Simon’s voice got louder and louder, Magdalena stared at him wide-eyed, only slowly coming to a realization about what was going on.

“The…library in Steingaden, you say?”

Benedikta nodded. “We’re being held hostage in the Steingaden Monastery. But now,” she added, pointing to the opening behind Magdalena, “it appears we have at least one way out, and as fast as we can we ought to-”

“Just a moment,” Simon interrupted. “Can’t you see she needs some rest? Besides, she needs to tell us what’s on the other side.”

The medicus walked over to Magdalena and squeezed her hand. He could feel her pulse racing, her whole body shaking. Only slowly did the trembling subside.

The hangman’s daughter dropped down on a pile of books and took a few deep breaths. Then she began her story.