The Dark Monk

2

WITHOUT SAYING A word, the hangman, Simon, and the two women climbed up the narrow stairway from the crypt. When they got to the main room of the rectory, Magdalena stared expectantly at Simon and only then did he begin to tell his story. But after just a few words, he hesitated. In all the excitement, he had forgotten to ask who the beautiful woman was sitting next to Magdalena. She was not someone from the village-that much was certain. Magdalena noticed his questioning gaze.

“I didn’t introduce you yet,” she said. “This is Benedikta Koppmeyer, the sister of Father Koppmeyer. She is looking for her brother.”

Jakob Kuisl, who until now had been puffing glumly on his pipe, began to cough. His face was hard to make out behind thick clouds of smoke. Embarrassed, the medicus looked to one side. After a short while, Benedikta began to speak.

“What about my brother? There’s something going on. I can see it in your faces.”

Finally, Simon pulled himself together and began to speak hesitantly. “Well, your brother is…how shall I say-”

“He’s dead,” Kuisl interrupted. “Dead and gone. Pray for him. He will need it.” Having said this, he stood and went outside. The creak of the door seemed to resound through the house for a long time as Simon struggled for words.

Benedikta Koppmeyer’s face, already pale, seemed to become even more diaphanous as she stared at the medicus in disbelief. “Is it true?” she whispered. “Andreas is dead?”

“What does this mean?” Magdalena asked now, too. “Simon, explain yourself!”

Inwardly, Simon cursed the tactlessness of the dour, boneheaded hangman. He had seen him behave this way many times, yet Simon was always irritated by his coarse behavior, which was so unlike that of the Jacob Kuisl he knew who would spend hours poring over books or playing catch in the yard with his seven-year-old twins, Georg and Barbara.

After some hesitation, the medicus began to recount the morning’s events. As he spoke, the priest’s sister seemed to get a hold of herself again. She listened intently, with clenched fists and a look that showed Simon that this elegant woman had dealt with other tragedies in her life before this.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” she said finally. “But it at least explains the letter my brother sent me. He wrote of a strange discovery and that he didn’t know whom to turn to. My brother and I”-she hesitated for a moment and closed her eyes briefly, her lips tightening into two narrow lines-“were very close, and this is not the first time he asked me for advice in an important matter. He always listened to his little sister,” she said, forcing a smile.

“May I ask when exactly you received the letter?” Simon asked in a soft voice.

“Three days ago…And I left at once.”

“Where are you from?” Simon replied.

Benedikta Koppmeyer looked at him in bewilderment. “Haven’t I mentioned that? I come from Landsberg, farther down the Lech River. My late husband had a wine business there, which I have been managing for several years.”

And apparently not badly, Simon thought as he studied the elegant clothing of the merchant’s widow. Once again, he was struck by her delicate features, which were beginning to show the first signs of age. Her mouth was slightly austere and hard-this woman was accustomed to giving orders-but at the same time, her eyes exuded an almost childlike charm. The cut of her clothes befit the latest French fashion and her whole appearance exuded noblesse, something that Simon all too often missed in Schongau.

He straightened up. “I assume you’d like to see your brother again,” he said.

The merchant woman nodded, straightened up, and pulled her red hair into a bun. Finally, she followed the medicus outside. “Évidemment,” she whispered as she brushed past Simon in her flowing dress.

The medicus was thrilled. The distinguished lady from Landsberg not only dressed in the French fashion, but she also knew how to speak French! What a remarkable woman!

Magdalena hurried after them. If Simon had turned around, he would have noted the somber expression on her face. However, the medicus was still lost in thought about the elegant, urbane stranger.

After a good hour, the three set out on their way back to Schongau. They had laid out Koppmeyer’s corpse in the charnel house next to the church, and Simon and Magdalena left his sister alone with her brother for a while. When Benedikta Koppmeyer returned, she still looked pale but had pulled herself together again.

Jakob Kuisl had left, which didn’t surprise Simon very much. Many people had problems with the gruff, sometimes offensive nature of the executioner, but Simon knew him well enough by now to overlook that. He imagined that anyone who had hanged, beheaded, and quartered dozens of criminals in his lifetime just couldn’t ever be a humanitarian, too. Simon still had a clear memory of the last execution a little less than a year ago. One of the mercenaries responsible for the brutal murders of children in Schongau had met his end on the wheel. Jakob Kuisl had broken every bone in his body and then waited two more days to garrote him. During the whole procedure, with all the shouting, screaming, and crying, Kuisl had not shown a bit of emotion. No flinching, no trembling, nothing.

They walked side by side in silence. Simon looked over at Benedikta Koppmeyer as she took her horse by the bridle and led it through the deep snow. She seemed lost in thought, obviously completely absorbed in grief over her dead brother. Simon did not dare to speak to her. Magdalena was silent, too, her eyes fixed straight ahead on the road. Simon tried to cheer her up once or twice, but her responses were surly and monosyllabic, and at last he gave up. What was wrong with her? Had he done something to offend her? He loved this girl, even if he knew that a marriage with the dishonorable hangman’s daughter was out of the question. His father kept trying to convince him to pursue a rich burgher’s daughter in Schongau. Simon was popular with the women in town. He dressed in the latest fashion, maintained a neat appearance, and always had a charming compliment on his lips. Women could overlook that he was a short man, only five feet tall, and he had had liaisons with a few of them in barns around town. Since he had met Magdalena, however, things were different. He was fascinated by this woman’s temperament, but also by her education and knowledge of medicinal and poisonous herbs, even when Magdalena’s stubbornness and occasional angry outbursts complicated their far-too-infrequent trysts.

On the other hand, what woman was simple?

After a short while, the forest gave way to open fields. Beyond that, the Lech River appeared like a green ribbon winding its way through the snow, and high on a hill, with the clear winter sky as a backdrop, stood the city of Schongau with its towers and walls. Simon felt relief as they passed through the city gate with its two sleepy guards. Benedikta, walking next to him, seemed more than exhausted. She had decided to seek quarters at the Goldener Stern Inn until the matter of her brother’s death was cleared up. The medicus wanted to talk her out of it, but a glance from her silenced him. The merchant’s widow did not look as if she would tolerate opposition.

Simon’s thoughts returned to the crypt and the inscription on the coffin.

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam…

Where had he seen these words before? Was it at the university in Ingolstadt? No, it wasn’t that long ago. In Schongau, then? In the city there were really only three places to find more books than just the Bible and a few farmers’ almanacs. The first was Simon’s bedroom, namely in a chest next to his bed, where he also liked to while away the hours during the day. The second was a small room in the executioner’s house where Jakob Kuisl kept a cabinet of books on herbs and poisons, but also writings about the latest therapies. The third, finally, was the heated library of the patrician Jakob Schreevogl, a book lover who had become Simon’s friend after the murders of the children last year, when the medicus had saved the life of the patrician’s daughter.

Schreevogl…library…

Something clicked in Simon’s mind.

Without waiting for the women, he ran through the city gate, startling the two constables who had dozed off.

“Where you going, Simon?” Magdalena called after him.

“Have to…take care of…something…” Simon blurted out as he ran. Then he disappeared around the next corner.

“Does he do that often?” Benedikta asked Magdalena as she walked along beside her.

The hangman’s daughter shrugged. “You can ask him yourself. Sometimes I think I don’t really know him.”

Simon ran down the Münzgasse, past the town hall. In the square behind that were rows of elegant patrician homes, three-story buildings with ornate balconies, stucco work, and colorful murals attesting to their owners’ prosperity. The city may have suffered during the Great War, but the city fathers had managed to keep themselves afloat in a new era. Payment of an exorbitant ransom had just barely managed to save Schongau from destruction by the Swedes. Enemy troops had burned down buildings on the outskirts of town, but the houses here in the market square still retained some of the splendor of past centuries when Schongau had been an important center of commerce. Only the crumbling plaster and peeling, faded paint gave evidence that the city on the river continued to waste away. Life continued elsewhere-in France, the Netherlands, perhaps even Munich and Augsburg-but certainly not in the Bavarian Priests’ Corner at the edge of the Alps.

Although the sun hadn’t set yet, the streets were practically empty. People had retired to their homes and were warming themselves by the hearth in the main room or by the kitchen stove. Here and there, behind the glass windows of middle-class homes, a candle or oil lamp flickered. Simon’s goal was the three-story patrician house on the left belonging to the Schreevogls. As often as he could, he visited the alderman’s house in order to browse his well-stocked library. By now he was pretty certain this was where he had first read the words they also saw in the crypt. It must have caught his attention some time or other while he was browsing through the library.

After he had rung twice, Agnes, the servant woman, appeared in the doorway and greeted him with a nod. Behind her, he could hear shrieks of joy. Clara Schreevogl came dashing toward him with outstretched arms. Ever since their adventure almost a year ago, Simon had become like an uncle to the ten-year-old orphan whom the Schreevogls had taken in and cared for like one of their own. She jumped into his arms, clinging to his jacket with her little hands.

“Uncle Simon, did you bring me something from the marketplace?” she asked. “Prunes or honey cakes? Please say you did!”

The medicus laughed and put the girl down. Whenever he went to browse through Jakob Schreevogl’s library, he paid a visit to Clara as well. Usually, he had a little present for her: a top, a carved wooden doll, or a candied fruit with honey.

“You’re like a leech, do you know that? And one with a sweet tooth, too!” He stroked her hair gently. “This time I haven’t come with anything. Look in the kitchen and see if the cook has a few dried apples for you.”

Clara walked away, pouting. Footsteps now could be heard on the wide spiral staircase that led to the upper floors. Jakob Schreevogl approached Simon in his bathrobe and slippers. The alderman had wrapped a scarf around his neck. He was pale and had a light cough, but his face brightened when he caught sight of Simon.

“Simon! What a pleasure to see you!” he called from the stairway, spreading his arms out. “In this beastly cold, anyone who will pay a visit inside these four walls and help to pass the time is welcome.”

“It looks like what you need is rest and a good doctor,” Simon replied with some concern. “As luck would have it, there happens to be one present. Shall I perhaps…” He reached for his doctor’s bag, which he had been dragging around with him since the morning, but Schreevogl waved him off.

“Oh, come now! It’s just a simple cold. Half the town is sicker than I am. Let’s hope at least that the good Lord will spare our children.” He winked at the medicus. “In any case, I don’t think you’re here for a boring house call. But do come with me to the library. There’s a nice warm fire in the stove, and if you are lucky, there will be some of this black devil’s brew left.”

Simon followed him upstairs, animated by the prospect of a cup of hot coffee. He had introduced Jakob Schreevogl to the pleasure of this trendy new beverage. Two years ago, the young medicus had first purchased the brown beans from an Arabian street vendor and since then had become addicted. And now he had apparently hooked the patrician Schreevogl on it as well. Together, they had enjoyed veritable coffee orgies in the library. After the third pot, even tedious theologians like Johann Damascenes or Petrus Lombardus began to make sense.

Simon entered the library and looked around. A little cast-iron stove was glowing in one corner of the wood-paneled room, and book after book lined the walls on gleaming cherrywood shelves. Jakob Schreevogl was well-to-do. His father had taken a small stove-fitting business and grown it into the leading one in the area. Since the death of his father, young Schreevogl had invested a considerable portion of his money in his book collection, a passion he shared with Simon.

The patrician offered him a chair and poured him a steaming cup of coffee. Jakob Schreevogl was a big man and, like all Schreevogls, had a pointed, slightly hooked nose that nearly hung down into his coffee. As the young alderman slurped the hot brew, Simon inquired about the aldermen’s meeting that had taken place that morning. He knew that important topics had been on the agenda.

“So, did the city council make any decision on how to proceed with these gangs of murderers?”

Jakob Schreevogl nodded earnestly. “We’ll no doubt send out a patrol to search for the robbers.”

“But you’ve done that once before!” Simon interjected.

“I know, I know,” Schreevogl sighed. “But this time it has to be well thought out and needs a competent leader. We’re still considering who might be the right person for that.”

Simon nodded. The matter was too serious to be entrusted to a few drunken village constables. For weeks, a band of robbers had been ravaging the countryside. A merchant and two farmers had been attacked. The highwaymen had slain the merchant, and the two farmers had just managed to escape. There were at least a dozen men, they reported, some with crossbows and a few with muskets, even. In other words, a real danger, if not for the city, then at least for the surrounding area.

“If the aldermen can’t get their hands on these scoundrels soon, we’ll have to ask Munich to send soldiers.” Jakob Schreevogl cursed under his breath and blew into his hot cup of coffee. “But the council wants to avoid that at all costs. Soldiers cost money, as you know. But forget about politics,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “It bores me. You have certainly come for a different reason.”

“Indeed,” Simon replied. “I’m looking for a book-or rather, for a quotation in a book that I think I’ve read here.”

“Aha, a book!” Jakob Schreevogl smiled. “I’m pleased that you enjoy my library so much. So tell me, how does the quote go?”

“Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam,” Simon repeated from memory.

The patrician stopped to think. “Where did you read this?”

“In the little church of Saint Lawrence in Altenstadt.”

“Not to us, o Lord, not to us, but to Thy name be the honor,” Jakob Schreevogl mumbled, furrowing his brow. “Strange. I believe that’s the motto of the Knights Templar.”

Simon had to cough when his coffee went down the wrong way. “The Templars?” he asked finally.

Schreevogl nodded. “It was their battle cry.”

Suddenly, the alderman’s brow furrowed again-he seemed to remember something. Quickly, he stood up and walked over to a shelf near the stove. “Now I know the book you mean!” he said. After a few minutes of searching, he took out a little leather-bound book no larger than the palm of a hand. “Here!” he exclaimed, handing it to Simon. “It’s in this treatise by Wilhelm von Selling. Ordinis Templorum Historia. An ancient, strange book. Selling was an Englishman, a Benedictine monk who, in contrast to the church, tried to keep the memory of the Templars alive. He wrote this book more than two hundred years ago, but even at that time, the Templars had been confined to history for a century.

Simon nodded as he leafed through the well-worn tome. Some pages apparently had been ripped out, moisture had curled others, and some were scorched. The book was written in Latin with embellished initials and was not printed, but handwritten. It looked like the book had been through a lot in its long life.

“At that time, I just skimmed the book,” Simon said, “but I remember the words. Tell me more about these…Templars.”

Jakob Schreevogl sat down again and sipped his coffee. It was a while before he began to speak. Outside an ice storm beat against the windowpanes.

“Their full name is a bit longer-The Poor Knights of Christ and of Solomon’s Temple. Much that we know of them is, perhaps, only a legend.” The patrician settled back in his chair as he continued speaking. “One thing is certain, however. The Templars were the most powerful and richest organization that the world has ever known. They started out as a small order of knights during the Crusades whose actual purpose was to protect pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Until then, the order was a unique mix of knights and ascetic monks. But through clever tactics and the right support, the group spread across all of Europe in a few decades. Branches were everywhere. If a person wanted, he could purchase a bill of exchange in Cologne and redeem it in Jerusalem or Byzantium. The order answered only to the Pope and was thus, in fact, sacrosanct. Through clever financial policies, the Templars gradually became richer than kings or emperors, and that would finally be their undoing…”

“What happened?” Simon asked curiously, pouring himself another cup of coffee.

“Well, it happened as it so often does.” Jakob Schreevogl shrugged almost apologetically. “The French King Philip IV had designs on their fortune. In the dead of night, he was able to arrest every Templar in all of France. He accused them of engaging in sodomy and satanic rites, bought witnesses, and extracted the necessary confessions through torture. Finally, even the church dissociated itself from the Templars. The pope could no longer support them and, in the end, let them fall. Their last Grand Master, to the best of my knowledge, was burned at the stake in Paris, and within a few years, the mightiest lords and masters of Europe became powerless victims. The Templars who were unable to go into hiding in time were pursued and killed. And all that after they had helped to shape the destiny of Europe for nearly two hundred years!”

“And what happened to their money?” Simon asked. “The French king no doubt grabbed that, didn’t he?”

The patrician grinned. “Only a small portion. The rest disappeared and has never been found-gold, jewels, religious relics…It is said that the Templars hid it somewhere. Some people think they took it to the New World; others say the Holy Land or the British Isles. Whoever finds it can no doubt buy himself any throne in the world.”

Simon whistled through his teeth. “Why have I never heard anything about this?”

Schreevogl was shaken by another fit of coughing. After a moment, he continued. “Because the church didn’t want its complicity in the matter exposed. The noblemen, too, politely stayed silent and confiscated the Templars’ territories. Only a few people, like Wilhelm von Selling, broke their silence.”

The medicus nodded. “But that still doesn’t explain what this Templar battle cry is doing in the Saint Lawrence Church.”

Schreevogl hesitated. “I once heard that the Saint Lawrence Church used to be a Templar church,” he said finally.

“A Templar church? In Altenstadt?” Simon almost choked again.

“Yes, why not?” the patrician said, shrugging. “The Templars had branches everywhere. And isn’t there even a Templar Lane in Altenstadt?”

“You’re right!” Simon cried. “The narrow little Templar Lane just before the bridge over the Schönach. It’s strange, but I’ve never wondered about that street’s name…”

“You see? But certainly the priest of the basilica in Altenstadt can tell you more. There have to be records from the little church next door. If they’re not in the Saint Lawrence Church itself, then they’d be in Saint Michael’s Basilica. Would you care for some more coffee?”

Simon stood up and grabbed Jakob Schreevogl’s hand. “Thank you, but I think I have to go and see my father. There are a few tedious treatments to perform-coughs, fevers, bloodletting, just the usual. But you have helped me a great deal.” He hesitated for a moment. “Could I ask for one more favor?”

The patrician nodded. “Yes, what is it?”

Simon pointed to the little leather-bound book on the side table. “This book about the Templars. Could I borrow it?”

“Of course. But be careful, it’s very valuable.”

Simon took the book and hastened toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped again briefly and turned around. “There’s another quote I can’t make sense of. It concerns two witnesses and a beast that does battle with them and finally kills them. Have you by chance ever heard of that?”

The patrician thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It rings a bell somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it is. I’m sorry. Perhaps I’ll think of it later.” He looked at the medicus skeptically. “Simon, you’re not rushing headlong into another adventure with the hangman, are you? For heaven’s sake, be careful!”

Simon grinned. “I’ll try. But do let me know if you remember.”

He bowed briefly, then ran down the staircase with the book in hand. The patrician stood at the window upstairs and watched Simon vanish into the snowstorm swirling through the market square of Schongau.

The stonemason Peter Baumgartner was standing half naked, his muscular body stripped to the waist, in the middle of the hangman’s living room. He was so terrified that he almost pissed in his pants. Despite the icy wind that whistled around the pig bladders stretched out and nailed over the windows, sweat was running down his face. He kept asking himself whether he shouldn’t have forked out a few kreuzers more and gone to the medicus rather than the hangman. Or perhaps he shouldn’t have gone to either. Yes, that was it exactly; instead, he should have stayed at home, washed the pain down with an Ave Maria and a glass of brandy, and then hoped that, with God’s help, his shoulder would heal by itself. But now it was too late.

All sorts of tools lay on the table in front of him, and he couldn’t say if they were intended as instruments of torture or medical devices: long pincers, presumably for prying out teeth; sharp, brightly polished knives in all sizes and shapes; and a small handsaw with a few rust-colored spots-spots of dried blood, no doubt, Peter Baumgartner thought.

What terrified Baumgartner most, however, was the gigantic figure of the Schongau hangman standing directly before him. His huge hands were immersed in a pot of white, greasy paste, which he was smearing slowly and methodically over him.

“Is that…human fat?” the mason gasped. Even though Baumgartner tried hard to hide his fear, he couldn’t prevent his voice from trembling slightly. He knew that the Schongau executioner neatly flayed the corpses of the people he executed and scratched the fat off their skin. From that he made a paste that was supposed to work wonders. Baumgartner wanted very much to believe in miracles, but the thought of being rubbed down with the slimy remains of a criminal made him nauseous.

“You stupid bastard, do you think I’d waste my good human fat on somebody like you?” Kuisl grumbled, without looking up. “This is bear fat mixed with arnica, chamomile, and a few herbs you’ve never heard of. And now come here, it’s going to hurt a bit.”

“Kuisl, stop…I think I’d rather go to old Fronwieser…” the mason mumbled when he saw two huge dinner-plate sized hands in front of him dripping with fat.

“And let him charge you two guilders so that you’ll never be able to move your arm again. Don’t put up such a fuss, just come here.”

Baumgartner sighed. He had fallen from the scaffolding in the St. Lawrence Church a week ago, and since then his shoulder had been discolored with bruises. The pain throbbed all the way down to his right hand so that he could no longer even hold a spoon. He had hesitated for a long time before going to the hangman, but in the meantime, he worried that he might never be able to use his right arm again. So he had scraped together some money he had saved and set out at noon for Schongau. Jakob Kuisl was famous far and wide as a healer. Like all executioners, Kuisl earned his money less through executions and tortures, of which there were just a handful at most during the year, than through healing and the sale of salves, pills, and ointments. He would also sell you a piece of the hangman’s rope or a thief’s thumb. A mummified finger in your money pouch was supposed to protect you from thieves, but naturally only when you sprinkled the purse with holy water every day and firmly believed in it. Jakob Kuisl didn’t believe in it, but he earned good money from it anyway.

Like many other patients before him in the hangman’s house, Peter Baumgartner was torn between fear and hope. It was generally known that most people left Kuisl’s house no worse off than before, at least, and in many cases even better-something you couldn’t always say of doctors with university training. On the other hand, Jakob Kuisl was the Schongau hangman. A mere glance from him brought misfortune, and speaking with him was a sin. If Baumgartner confessed to this visit the next time he went to church, he would surely have to say a hundred Lord’s Prayers as penance.

“Come here, damn it, or I’ll dislocate your other shoulder, too.”

Jakob Kuisl, his hands smeared with fat, was still standing in front of the burly mason. Baumgartner nodded in resignation, made the sign of the cross, and then stepped forward. The hangman turned him around, carefully palpated the swollen shoulder, then suddenly seized Baumgartner’s right arm and yanked it back and down. There was a loud cracking sound.

The scream could be heard all the way up in the marketplace.

Baumgartner collapsed onto the stool by the table and nearly passed out. He was about to throw up and let out a stream of curses when he cast a glance down at his right hand.

He could move it again!

The pain in his shoulder seemed better, too. Jakob Kuisl handed him a wooden box.

“Tell your wife to massage your shoulder with this three times a day for a week. In two weeks you’ll be able to go back to work again. You owe me a guilder.”

Baumgartner’s joy at being relieved of his pain was short-lived.

“A guilder?” he gasped. “Damn, not even old Fronwieser asks that much. And he has studied at the university.”

“No, he’ll bleed you, send you home, and three weeks later, saw off your whole arm for three guilders. That’s what he studied.”

Baumgartner wrung his hands, thinking it over. He really did seem cured. Just the same, he began to haggle.

“A guilder, eh? That’s more than a miller earns in a whole day. How about half and we’ll call it a deal?”

“Let’s say a whole one, and I won’t dislocate your other shoulder.”

Baumgartner gave up with a sigh. He rummaged about in his purse and counted out the coins neatly on the table. The hangman picked up half of them and pushed the other half back across the table to Baumgartner. “I’ve given it some more thought,” he said. “Half a guilder if you can tell me something in return.”

Baumgartner looked at him in astonishment but then hurriedly put the coins back in his purse.

“What do you want to know?”

“You’re the mason up the Saint Lawrence Church, aren’t you?”

“Indeed,” Baumgartner replied. “That’s where I took a fall from that damned scaffolding.”

Jakob Kuisl pulled out his tobacco pouch and began slowly and carefully to fill his pipe.

“What are they building up there?” he asked.

“Well…Actually, they aren’t building anything,” Baumgartner said with hesitation. He watched the hangman with fascination as he filled his pipe. Pipe-smoking was a completely new fashion. The mason had never met anyone except Kuisl who did anything like it. To be on the safe side, the Schongau priest had declared it a vice in one of his last homilies.

“We’re just renovating the church,” Baumgartner continued finally. “Both on the outside and on the inside-the whole balcony. It was close to collapsing. The church is said to be a good five hundred years old.”

“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary during your renovations?” Kuisl asked. “Drawings? Figures? Old paintings?”

The mason’s face brightened. “Yes, there was something unusual! Up in the balcony, the wall was full of bright-red crosses. The whole left-hand wall was covered with them!”

“What did they look like?”

“Well, different from the cross of Our Savior. They were rather…May I?” Baumgartner pointed to one of the sharp knives on the table. When the hangman nodded, Baumgartner carved a cross into the wood. The arms were of equal length and became narrower toward the center. The mason nodded with satisfaction. “They looked something like that.”

“And what did you do with the crosses?” Kuisl continued.

“It was strange. The priest told us to paint them over. That was shortly after he got so upset about the cellar.”

“The cellar?” The hangman frowned.

“Well, on New Year’s Day, while moving the slabs, Johannes Steiner noticed that under one grave marker there was a hollow space. We then moved the cover aside. We needed three men to do that-it was a huge thing-and from there, steps led down below.”

Jakob Kuisl nodded, lighting his filled pipe with a glowing wood chip. Baumgartner looked at him with growing enthusiasm.

“Did you go down into the cellar, too?” Kuisl asked, puffing on his pipe.

“No…Only the priest went down, and soon he came back all excited. The next day he told us to paint over the crosses, and we did.”

The hangman nodded slowly. “Are you sure none of you went down?” he asked again.

“I swear by the Virgin Mary, no!” Baumgartner cried. “But why is that so important?”

Jakob Kuisl stood up and walked to the door. “Forget it. You can go now.”

Peter Baumgartner straightened up, relieved. He didn’t know why Kuisl was asking all these questions, but at least it had saved him half a guilder. Besides that, he was happy he could leave the executioner’s house. He was sure he could see evil lurking in every corner of the room. Still, he was itching to ask just one last question.

“Kuisl?”

“What do you want to know?”

“This pipe of yours. How does it taste? It smells…well, really not so bad.”

Jakob Kuisl expelled a huge cloud of smoke that almost completely enveloped his head.

“Don’t get started with it,” his voice rang out from behind the cloud. “It’s like with drinking. You enjoy it, but you can’t ever quit.”

When the mason had left, Magdalena came down the narrow staircase into the main room. After the strenuous night, being thrown out of the Hainmiller house and meeting Benedikta Koppmeyer, she had lain down for a rest and had had weird dreams in which Simon and Benedikta rode past her in a sleigh, laughing and waving. Simon’s face was a grotesque mask that dissolved and dripped to the ground like melting snow. She was finally awakened by Peter Baumgartner’s scream. Through the thin floor, she overheard the rest of their conversation.

“Why do you think the priest wanted to have the crosses painted over?” she asked as she descended the staircase. “Do you think they had something to do with the crypt? And by the way, what did you find down there, anyway?”

“It would be better for you not to know,” her father grumbled, “or you’ll just start snooping around again.”

“But, Father,” she said with a look that had always bewitched him since she was a little girl, “if you don’t tell me, Simon will. So tell me!”

“You’d better keep a close eye on your Simon.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You know exactly what I mean. He’s doing more than just making eyes at this woman from the city.”

Magdalena blushed. “How can you say something like that? You have hardly ever seen them together,” she cried. “And besides…I don’t care who Simon flirts around with, anyway.”

“Then it’s all right.” He walked over to the stove and threw another piece of wood on the fire, sending sparks into the air. “It’s much more important for us to learn who the workers were in the church.”

Magdalena had trouble focusing her thoughts on anything but Simon. They had been a couple for more than a year, even if they couldn’t act like one openly. She cursed her father for suggesting that Simon might have something to do with another woman.

“Why are you concerned with the workers?” she said finally, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation. “You certainly don’t believe that-”

“You heard it,” her father interrupted. “The workers opened the crypt, and even if Baumgartner swears up and down that none of them were down below, I don’t believe it. Someone poked around down there.”

“And then killed the priest?” Magdalena gasped.

“Rubbish!” Kuisl exclaimed, spitting on the floor, something he only dared to do when his wife, Anna Maria, wasn’t home. At the present, she was up at the market in town with the twins.

“Naturally, none of them is responsible for what happened to the fat priest,” he continued. “But they weren’t able to keep their mouths shut, either. We’ve got to find who they spoke to, and I’m sure we’ll have the murderer then.”

Magdalena nodded. “The murderer learned about the crypt and was afraid Koppmeyer would find out too much, and that’s why he killed him. That could be what happened,” she said, mulling it over.

The hangman opened the door so that clouds of tobacco smoke and fumes from the stove could drift out, and an ice-cold breeze blew through the room.

“So what are you waiting for?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Magdalena said, with some irritation.

“You wanted to help me snoop around, so go find the workers who were in the Saint Lawrence Church and talk with them. Talking with men and making eyes at them is something you can do, can’t you?”

Magdalena grimaced at him, then put on her cape and walked out into the cold.

When Simon walked in the front door, he realized it would probably be some time before he would be able to continue reading the little book about the Templars. Sitting on the bench by the stove were three citizens of Schongau, all of whom looked like they needed more than just a few words of consolation and a cheese compress. Simon knew them all. Two were farmers from the area whom he had often seen in the marketplace. The third was the Schongau blacksmith’s journeyman. He was coughing up reddish-yellow mucus, which he thoughtfully spat into some brown rags. Nevertheless, some kept spattering onto the wooden floorboards, which were only sparsely covered with dirty reeds. The faces of the patients were drawn, beads of sweat stood out on their foreheads, and all of them had dark rings around their eyes and faces the color of wax.

To drive away the poisonous miasma, old Fronwieser had been burning lavender and balm, and it smelled like Easter mass in the little room. Simon didn’t think these vapors did any good. He had read, in fact, that diseases were carried by dirt and bodily fluids, but his father considered this to be just newfangled nonsense. As the blacksmith’s journeyman on his left went into a new fit of coughing, Simon cautiously moved one step to the side.

“Isn’t it nice that the young gentleman finally showed up. What kept you so long in Altenstadt? A nice little supper with the priest?” Bonifaz Fronwieser entered from the adjacent room holding a smoking pine chip and a few more sprigs of lavender. At one time, as a dashing young army surgeon in the Great War, he had been an imposing figure and had made eyes with many a pretty girl, but now, stooped over with thinning gray hair, he looked older than his fifty years, and all that remained of his former self was his piercing, alert eyes. And his harsh tone.

“I’ve been waiting for you for hours!” he snapped softly enough that the three patients on the bench couldn’t hear. “I have to pay a visit to Master Hardenberg, a member of the city council. He’s come down with it, too! And instead, here I am fooling around with a few farmers who can only afford to pay me with a few eggs, at best!”

He poked his withered index finger at Simon’s chest. “Tell me the truth-you’ve been keeping company with the hangman again and sticking your nose into those filthy books! People are already gossiping, and you’re giving them a reason to.”

Simon rolled his eyes. Bonifaz Fronwieser hated the hangman, who he thought was corrupting his son with books and his unorthodox methods of healing.

“Father, the priest-” he said, trying to interrupt his father’s harangue, but his father cut him off nevertheless.

“Aha, so that’s it! No doubt you were partying with the fat old codger, eh? Hope you enjoyed your meal, at least,” he croaked. “His housekeeper at least is supposed to be a good cook!”

“He’s dead, Father,” Simon said softly.

“What?” Bonifaz Fronwieser seemed irritated. For a moment, he wanted to continue his litany of complaints, but now he hesitated. He hadn’t reckoned with this news.

“Koppmeyer is dead, so there were some things that had to be done,” Simon repeated.

“I’m…I’m really sorry,” the older physician grumbled after a short pause. “Did he have this fever, too?”

Simon eyed the three patients, who looked at him partly out of curiosity and partly out of fear. Then he shook his head.

“No…It was something else. I’ll tell you later.”

“Very well,” his father grumbled, falling back into his familiar role. “Then get to work. As you can see, there are still a few of the living here and they need to be treated.”

Simon sighed, then helped his father in examining the patients. There wasn’t a lot to do: fetch a few dried herbs for a potion, listen to a few chests, check tongues, the usual sniffing and observing of urine samples. Simon had no illusions-most of this was just cheap playacting performed to give sick people false hope and take their money. Even doctors with university degrees couldn’t usually tell very much. The two Fronwiesers were just as helpless in the face of this fever, which had been spreading around Schongau for a full two weeks and had killed a dozen people. People were getting chills and pain in the joints, and some died suddenly overnight. Others survived the first onslaught, only to be overcome with terrible coughing fits soon after.

It made Simon furious to stand by helpless in the face of this epidemic. His father, on the other hand, seemed to have resigned himself to it. The relationship between them was tense, to put it mildly. As the town doctor of Schongau, Bonifaz Fronwieser hoped his son would someday follow in his footsteps. But Simon didn’t want anything to do with his father’s old-fashioned methods-enemas, bloodletting, sniffing old men’s urine. The young medicus preferred to occupy himself with the books that the Schongau hangman was always lending to him. He had long ago worked his way through the box of leather folios that Jakob Kuisl had given him as a present almost a year ago, and he longed for more. Even now, as he was occupied with treating the three patients, he couldn’t help but think again about the theories of controversial scientists. Currently, he was rereading the work of an Englishman named William Harvey, which dealt with the circulation of blood in the human body. Was it possible that blood consisted of tiny animalcules…?

“Why are you standing around daydreaming, you good-for-nothing!” his father snapped, interrupting his reveries. “Here, take some blood from Johannes Steringer! I’m going to the alderman now. Bleeding is something you can do by yourself!”

He handed Simon the sharp little stiletto they used for slitting a patient’s veins. Then, after briefly wishing them a good recovery, he set out on his way. “And don’t let them put you off with a few eggs and a loaf of bread,” he scolded Simon as he walked past him.

Simon looked down at Johannes Steringer, who was sitting on the bench in front of him, coughing and shaking and spitting up reddish-yellow phlegm into a ratty handkerchief. He knew the blacksmith’s journeyman from a few previous house calls, a strong, solid fellow who was slumped over now, hardly able to move, and staring blankly into space. The idea of letting blood from this sick, weakened body seemed outright foolish to Simon. He knew that bloodletting was a tried-and-tested remedy for almost any sickness; nevertheless, he put the stiletto aside.

“It’s all right, Steringer,” he said. “You can go home now. Have your wife make you some sage broth and lie down next to the stove until it gets better.”

“And the bloodletting?” the journeyman gasped.

“We’ll do that another time. For now, you need your blood. Go home.”

Steringer nodded and set out for home, as did the two farmers. Simon gave each of them a little jar of wild thyme. As payment, the young medicus pocketed a few old discolored coins and half a leg of smoked ham. He thanked them and closed the door behind them as they left.

Simon took a deep breath. Finally, he had time to devote to the little book the patrician had given him. He sat down excitedly on the bench next to the stove and leafed through the yellowing pages.

There was a lot to learn about the rise and fall of the Templars. He read that they had even lent money to the Pope and that they had been almost invincible in battle, a band with strange rites and customs whose members had sworn allegiance to one another, who had flung themselves headlong into battle for God, and who were even admired by their enemies for their bravery. He read about the great battles in the Holy Land, the destruction of Jerusalem, the flight of the Templars to Cyprus, and their continuing power in Europe. He was astonished to learn that, in the end, the knightly order owned more than ten thousand castles and estates, from England to Byzantium! Had there also been a branch here in Schongau? Which Templar’s bones had they found under the St. Lawrence Church? Had he left a message to posterity on the marble slab?

Two witnesses who prophesy…the beast that arises from the depths that fights, conquers, and kills them.

But even after studying the book a long time, Simon still couldn’t find the strange saying engraved on the marble slab in the coffin. The book also said nothing about the Templars’ legendary treasure. Was it possible it had never existed? Simon rubbed his tired eyes and went to bed. The wind continued whistling through the shutters, while in his room a thin layer of ice slowly formed over the bedposts.