The Poisoned Pilgrim

19

LATE THE NIGHT OF SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 1666 AD

Outside the monastery gates, the worst thunderstorm Jakob Kuisl had seen in many years was raging. He could remember being caught in a similar storm as a child. Back then, the wind had carried away entire trees, and lightning had flashed like musket fire across the countryside. This time as well the heavens were ablaze with countless bolts of lightning. Black and violet clouds swirled across a sky that looked as if Judgment Day were at hand.

The thunder overhead was so loud that Kuisl imagined God himself was pounding against the monastery walls with a hammer. In the next instant there was a brilliant flash, another clap of thunder, and hail as large as quail eggs came pounding down on the roofs. The thunderstorm had to be directly over the Holy Mountain now.

For a while the hangman remained indecisively under the archway of the monastery, looking out at the impenetrable wall of rain. From the buried chamber under the keep, Kuisl had first made his way into the monastery beer cellar with the count. The entrance to the catacombs beneath the castle had been concealed hurriedly behind some barrels; the counterfeiters had made little effort to hide the hole in the wall. Since Brother Eckhart was the cellarer, he also was responsible for the monastery’s beer supply, and rarely did anyone else enter this cellar.

As Kuisl continued standing at the entrance to the monastery, he wondered whether his suspicions were correct. The rain and wind were so strong that it would be suicide to go out into this storm and expose himself to lightning-especially since he didn’t yet know where to go next. Was Virgilius somewhere in the forest? In his house? Atop a hill? Kuisl knew from experience that lightning always struck the highest point, and the highest point here was…

The steeple.

He slapped his forehead for not having thought of it before. His fear for the safety of his grandchildren must have frazzled his brain. Virgilius was certainly up in the steeple. That’s where Nepomuk had set up his lightning rod, and that, too, is where the crazy watchmaker had been carrying on his experiments since then. Surely Virgilius was up there.

Just as Kuisl was about to leave the church portal, he heard hurried footsteps and could just make out in the darkness and pouring rain a group of men rushing toward the tavern: the count returning with his soldiers. They were soaked through and through; water flowed in streams from their sleeves and trousers, but Leopold von Wartenberg tried to preserve decorum in spite of it all. He was walking quickly, not running, and once he arrived beneath the archway, he looked the hangman up and down suspiciously, as if not yet sure what to do about him.

“I’ve just gone to check myself that those two miscreants were put under lock and key in the monastery dungeon,” he finally said. “The matter is concluded, and the elector can be reassured. As far as you are concerned,” he continued after wringing out his long black hair and wiping his beard, “give me one reason, hangman, why I shouldn’t have you locked up as well. Just one.”

Kuisl grinned. “Perhaps because Your Excellency will soon be in need of a good executioner?”

“I have Master Hans in Weilheim for that. An excellent man. He would break his own mother on the wheel if she was guilty and if he was paid well enough.” A thin smile crossed his face. “Perhaps I should ask him to take care of you, as well. After all, you’re clearly responsible for the death of one of the Andechs guards. I’ve been lenient because you’re the father-in-law of the bathhouse surgeon who’s been caring for my son. And because your daughter seems to be one hell of a woman. But my patience has its limits.”

The hangman nodded. “So does mine,” he growled. “Listen, the real sorcerer is out there somewhere with my grandchildren. I’ve got to find them, and now. After that, you can do whatever you want with me.” Without another word, he turned to leave.

Stunned, Leopold von Wartenberg stood as if rooted under the archway. Finally he pulled himself together and cast an angry glance at his soldiers, who prudently held their heads down.

“One hour, Kuisl!” he shouted into the howling wind. But the hangman was now no more than a shadowy figure in the darkness. “I’ll give you an hour to bring me the real witch. And don’t think you can count on my help. One minute longer, and I’ll give Master Hans a nice reward for your head. Understand?”

But Kuisl could no longer hear him. As hail drummed down from the sky, he turned right at the church square, where just that noon hundreds of pilgrims had assembled. Now the area looked forsaken. Puddles the size of small ponds had formed on the hard-packed ground, and a few remaining sacks of limestone stood out of the watery scene like little islands. The pilgrims were waiting out the storm in local farmhouses and barns, praying the lightning would spare them.

Kuisl stomped through the ankle-deep water, casting an occasional glance up at the steeple, but he couldn’t make out anything suspicious behind the wall of rain. Had he been mistaken? Was Virgilius perhaps still down in the catacombs, lying in wait for Magdalena? Why did his daughter always have to be so stubborn and have things her way? As so often in matters concerning his daughter, Kuisl was torn between fear and anger. In any case, when all this was over, he’d give his daughter a good thrashing.

If she was still alive.

The hangman tried to suppress these gloomy thoughts, once again directing his gaze at the steeple housing the belfry. Carpenters had installed a new roof and patched up porous masonry damaged by lightning, but on one side, a new wall hadn’t yet been constructed, leaving only a knee-high truss there as reinforcement.

Just above the truss, Kuisl spotted a shadow scurry by and then vanish in the gloom. Still, this brief moment was long enough to convince the hangman his suspicions were correct.

Someone was up in the tower.

Breathlessly he splashed the last few yards through puddles to the church entrance. The double doors stood wide open, and rain, leaves, and dirt had blown onto the pews. Wind had partially ripped away the makeshift canopy, leaving shreds fluttering like flags in the storm. Water streamed down over the altars, statues, and weathered tombstones in the nave.

The hangman looked around, perplexed. He thought at least a few Benedictines would be here to keep order, but the church was deserted. Were the monks frightened by the storm? Or had they learned that three of their members had been arrested for counterfeiting relics? In the latter case, it was quite possible the Brothers had retreated to their cells lest they themselves be questioned or arrested.

After hesitating briefly, Kuisl hurried past the wet, mud-spattered pews as the wind continued to howl above him. He had no time for idle speculations. If his assumptions were right, his two beloved grandchildren were up above, at the mercy of the hail, lightning, and rain. Virgilius would wish he’d never been born.

Kuisl ran up the stairs to the balcony and, from there, up another stairway into the tower. Even now, after a full two weeks, work was far from finished. The storm whistled through the open windows, and the narrow, newly built stairs up to the belfry were steep, slippery, and groaning in the wind. The higher Kuisl climbed, the more the entire tower seemed to sway back and forth.

When he got just a few yards beneath the belfry, he stopped and listened. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed, but amid the constant drumming of the rain, he thought he heard a shrill voice. Indeed, as he climbed higher, he could hear it more clearly.

“Hurry up,” a man screeched directly above him. “Before the storm passes. Didn’t I tell you yesterday to nail the device down? Now the storm has blown it over, and we’re losing valuable time.”

The only answer was a deep grumble, followed by the sound of a hammer pounding and a child crying.

Kuisl winced. His grandchildren were up there, and the second man was evidently Virgilius’s assistant. Cautiously, he crept up the last few steps and stuck his head through the opening into the floor of the belfry.

At first, all he could see were three bronze bells hanging between the iron-clad beams of the belfry. Fresh, new spruce flooring had been put down, but the walls were still covered with soot from the disastrous fire a few weeks before. Behind a knee-high railing on the east side, rain blew into the room through a gaping hole.

Once Kuisl had finally hoisted himself all the way through the opening, he could just barely make out behind the bells the back of a broad-shouldered man who was nailing a sort of bier upright against the wall. The wooden board was fitted with metal clamps like the ones Kuisl knew from torture racks, and a heavy wire dangled from the ceiling, connected with clamps to smaller wires.

To the left of the bier stood three people looking like a surreal caricature of a family in the raging wind: alongside the hunchback Virgilius was a distinguished looking lady with a red cape and blond hair blowing beneath a lopsided bonnet. She seemed strangely stiff, and it took Kuisl a moment to realize she was actually a life-size puppet.

Paul was clinging to the watchmaker’s arms, sobbing.

At first Kuisl wanted to rush out onto the platform screaming, but then he stopped to think this through. The risk was simply too great that Virgilius would harm the child, even throw him off the tower. The hangman decided therefore to sneak up close to the group and wait for a better opportunity. Cautiously he crept behind the belfry cage to watch.

After the broad-shouldered man finished his work, he hooked the hammer onto his belt and turned to Virgilius. Kuisl bit his lip when he finally saw the man’s face.

It was the knacker’s assistant, Matthias.

What a dirty trick these rascals played on you, involving you in this mess, young fellow, the hangman thought grimly. It would have been better if the Croatian mercenaries had killed you-it would have spared me the job now.

But Kuisl was astonished by what he saw on Matthias’s face. The young man’s eyes were strangely empty and red. It almost seemed that what was running over his cheeks were not raindrops but tears.

“What are you waiting for?” shouted Virgilius now against the storm. “Place Aurora in the bier as we discussed.” Then he lowered his voice and attempted a smile. “You do want your tongue back, don’t you? I can get it back for you. Just as I can breathe life into this puppet, I can give you back your voice, as well. Believe me! If you start doubting now that we are so close to our goal, all will be in vain.”

As Matthias approached the automaton hesitantly, he continued to look back at Paul. The boy stretched out his little arms toward the mute assistant, and his cries turned into screams that even drowned out the thunder.

“Damn it, I tell you nothing will happen to the boy,” Virgilius shouted when he saw the anxious expression on Matthias’s face. He was rocking the child mechanically, but the motion didn’t calm the boy down. “He’s only my hostage. As soon as all this is over, you can have the brat again. I promise. Now get to work quickly, before the lightning strikes.”

Matthias grumbled and nodded, then picked up the puppet with his powerful arms and leaned her against the bier. The clamps snapped shut around her stiff arms and legs; then the assistant attached the thin wires to the clamps and placed another wire around Aurora’s porcelain neck like a noose.

Evidently Virgilius had applied makeup to the automaton in preparation for its last great scene, because black and red trickles of makeup ran down her waxen face. Grinning, she looked out at a storm raging in full fury over the church steeple.

“Now all we need to do is wait for the right moment,” Virgilius shouted over the noise, dancing wildly like a dervish. “The lightning will enter the wire, pass through my beloved Aurora, and then-”

A loud crack was followed by an earsplitting rumble. The strike, which must have hit very nearby, was so powerful that Kuisl instinctively jumped to one side. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Virgilius, his eyes wide with hatred, had spotted him behind the bells.

“Aha, do you see now why I need the child as a hostage?” he screamed, turning to Matthias. “This hangman and his whole damned family. When you first told me about them, I knew they would give me trouble. Didn’t I tell you a dozen times to get rid of that inquisitive woman?”

Now Matthias had seen the hangman, as well. He stood uncertainly in the middle of the platform, surrounded by the raging storm like a rock in the sea. He seemed paralyzed with indecision.

“Get him, Matthias,” Virgilius roared. “He wants to destroy our plan. Don’t you understand? Think about your voice.”

Kuisl stood up behind the belfry, looking calmly into the tearful eyes of the knacker’s boy, raising his hands in a gesture of friendship. “You know this is wrong, don’t you, Matthias?” Kuisl said. “You can’t fool me. I’m a hangman. I’ve seen many murderers, but you are not one-at least not a murderer of children.” Cautiously, he advanced toward the silent assistant, who was still frozen in place. “If you overcome me in a fight, this madman will make short work of the boy-he will throw him from the tower. The boy means something to him only as long as he can use him to blackmail me. And you mean nothing to him, either.”

“That’s… that’s not true, Matthias,” Virgilius interrupted. “Think how I cared for you when you were young. Haven’t I taught you everything, the writing, the experiments, the apparatuses? Haven’t I given you a language to use for making yourself understood even without a tongue?”

The watchmaker clung tightly to the screaming and struggling Paul. “Yes, he’s crying now,” he continued unctuously. “He’s afraid-that’s understandable-but you, too, were afraid when you came to my laboratory the first time. Do you remember? You were a small, mute child without parents, an outcast, ridiculed by others, and I was the first to give you something that makes you a better person than all these boors. Knowledge. And if you’re patient just a while longer, I’ll give you back your voice. Aurora, you, and I will be a family. We’ll adopt this boy and-”

“Where’s my second grandchild, you monster?” the hangman shouted, approaching Virgilius with a menacing look. Paul saw his grandfather now and tried to squirm out of the grip of the hunchback, but Virgilius held him in a vicelike grip.

“Speak up, you crippled scum. What did you do to him?” Kuisl shouted again.

Matthias looked at Virgilius as if he, too, expected an answer.

“He… he’s with his father,” the watchmaker stammered. “He’s safe and sound…”

There was a growling sound like that of an angry bear as Matthias shook his head wildly. Kuisl could see how the journeyman was struggling with himself. Virgilius, too, seemed to notice it. With the boy twisting in his arms, he approached Matthias, keeping a suspicious eye on Kuisl. For a moment the hangman considered throwing himself at the watchmaker and seizing the boy, but the risk of something happening to Paul was still too great, especially since Kuisl still didn’t know what Matthias would do.

“Come and look,” Virgilius said to his servant, putting his hand solicitously on the young man’s broad shoulder and leading him over to the knee-high barrier above the yawning abyss. “Can you see Erling over there?” he asked, pointing into the raging storm. “The little cemetery at the edge of the village? That’s where your parents are buried. Do you remember how often you cried in the years after their deaths? That miserable knacker Graetz paid you and fed you, but a clever boy like you is destined for greater things. You will be a witness to how man creates life. Look at the cemetery.”

Virgilius nudged Matthias even closer to the barrier. Something in the watchmaker’s voice seemed to reassure him, and reluctantly the servant moved closer, bending over the edge and staring out at the little cemetery that was almost invisible now in the streaming rain.

“All the dead lying there,” Virgilius continued gently. “We can bring them back-your parents, too. What do you think? Do you know what would be even better? You could simply go and… visit them now. Farewell.”

The hunchback gave the strapping youth a sudden shove, and Matthias flailed his arms around wildly as he tottered like a mighty oak in the storm. Kuisl could see the watchmaker’s hate-filled eyes flashing through the darkness, but before the hangman could react, Virgilius gave his servant another push. Astonished, Matthias grunted, turning his head briefly one more time toward his master, as if expecting an explanation. Then he fell through the flimsy wooden barrier. Without another sound, he plunged toward the roof of the church, landing on a temporary canvas cover which slowed his fall just slightly before it ripped and the journeyman fell with a loud impact onto the floor of the nave.

In the belfry, the only sounds were the wailing child and the steady drumbeat of the rain. With an exhausted expression, Virgilius stared down at the damaged roof while Paul continued struggling in his arms.

“A shame, really a shame,” Virgilius said finally, stepping back from the splintered railing. “He was a good pupil, and so… closed-mouthed.” He smiled weakly and looked up at the lightning that flashed through the darkened sky. “But you’re right, hangman. In the end he really didn’t mean anything to me; he was a hindrance, just as all the others were hindrances.” Suddenly he looked straight at Kuisl, his eyes reduced to narrow slits. “And if you move a single step, your grandson will be such a hindrance, too. Do you understand me?”

The hangman nodded grimly and raised his hands again. “I understand,” he said softly. “And what do you intend to do now? Are you going to wait forever for a bolt of lightning? It isn’t going to strike just because my friend Nepomuk hung a little bit of wire up here. It could happen today, or in the next storm, or in a few years-your automaton will simply rust away up here.”

“Ha! You don’t understand anything,” Virgilius hissed. “Do you think I would have gone to all this trouble if I hadn’t seen that it really works?” He extracted a little bottle from under his jacket and approached the smiling puppet in the upright bier.

“Your simple-minded Nepomuk told me about his experiments with lightning,” he continued with a laugh. “I was the only one who knew he’d hung up one of his so-called lightning rods in the tower. And then the lightning actually hit here. Quod erat demonstrandum. From that point on, I knew I was on the right path. The only thing I lacked was the aqua vitae…” He pulled the cork out of the bottle with his teeth and began pouring the liquid carefully into a hole in the puppet’s back.

“This water of life will pulse through her artificial veins like blood,” he murmured. “Like blood. The lightning will strike, and my Aurora will finally return to me; the waiting will be over.”

When the bottle was finally empty, Virgilius threw it out of the tower with a shout. Then with the boy in his arms, he moved to another corner, leaned against the wall, and waited, his lips moving quietly as if in prayer.

“Lightning, water of life. This is craziest nonsense I’ve ever heard,” the hangman scoffed. “Nepomuk’s experiments, however, were pure science. Now give me back my boy and tell me what you’ve done with Peter and my son-in-law. I hope for your sake they’re still alive. If not, this thunderstorm will be nothing compared to what happens when I get hold of you.”

Kuisl still didn’t dare make a move to approach Virgilius or the boy. Matthias’s murder had shown him the watchmaker would stop at nothing. So Kuisl’s threats were meant only to kill time until Virgilius made a false move. But the monk only gripped the screaming child tighter.

“Don’t come any closer,” Virgilius snarled. “Many people have already died so my dream can come true, and this little life here is of little importance to me now.” He cast a longing glance at the automaton as thunder rolled over the countryside. “Now let’s just stand here and wait.”

At that moment, a soft tapping could be heard on the steps beneath them: footsteps, slow and deliberate, yet clearly audible over the sound of the pouring rain.

Someone was coming up the tower.

Down in the catacombs of the castle, Magdalena felt paralyzed as blue flames spread quickly across the altar. In a matter of seconds, the entire stone block was engulfed in a blaze that spread to the ground and, from there, in small pathways to the many mounds of white powder.

“Get out of here,” Magdalena shouted, grabbing her son. “At once!”

Then she realized with horror that Simon couldn’t run. She hesitated a moment, then pointed toward the exit and gave Peter a push. “Run, Peter! Quickly! I have to help your father!”

The boy seemed to understand. Ignoring the flickering blue sea of flames all around him, he ran toward the door and vanished. In the meantime, Magdalena leaned over her husband and started to shake him.

“Simon, you must get up.”

Simon groaned and raised his arms slowly, but his legs seemed as if they were tied to the rock with strong ropes. Magdalena realized he wouldn’t make it without her help, so she grabbed him under the arms and pulled him up until he was standing in front of her and leaning against the wall, his face as white as chalk. Bluish flames were crackling all around them, eating their way through the overturned shelves and broken mechanical devices, leaving only a narrow path open to the exit.

“You’ve got to hold onto me,” she shouted over the roaring of the flames. “Do you understand, Simon? Hang on to me!”

She turned around, bent over, and pulled his arms over her shoulders, then stood up, gasping, and dragged her husband like a sack of flour through the raging flames.

At five feet tall, Simon was one of the most diminutive men in Schongau; his size was often ridiculed by coarse men in town, especially since Magdalena in fact was a few fingerbreadths taller. Now, however, his delicate stature would prove to be what saved his life. Magdalena felt like a pack mule, but at least she was able to pull Simon step by step from the burning room.

She staggered through the second room with the canopy bed and dressing table, where flames were already licking at the walnut veneer. Finally, gasping, she reached the round doorway as another bookshelf came crashing down somewhere behind her, burying the ivory horn, the globe, and the shiny bronze astrolabe. She was relieved to see that Simon was now able to hold on by himself and that his legs were moving slightly. The paralysis, in fact, seemed to be abating.

Coughing, Magdalena peered into the smoke-filled passageway through which she’d entered just a few minutes ago. She was unable to save her torch from the burning room, but it wasn’t really necessary now. Horrified, she saw little fires burning on the floor of the tunnel as well. Virgilius must have strewn the phosphorus powder all over the catacombs, and now Magdalena realized what that meant: as soon as the flames arrived at the latrine where the laboratory was located, everything would explode.

Frantically she looked around for her son but couldn’t find him in the clouds of smoke. She couldn’t even imagine what might have happened to her second child. She could only hope that Peter had told her the truth and little Paul was somewhere outside with the treacherous Matthias and unharmed.

“Peter!” she shouted, her husband still clinging to her shoulders with his almost one hundred pounds. “Peter, where are you?”

She heard crying and finally a voice. “Mama, Mama, I’m here!”

Magdalena listened intently. The cry hadn’t come from the right where the corridor led to the hermit’s cave but from the left. Peter had run the wrong way, and she’d have to bring him back as soon as possible. If they spent too long down here, they would all be lost-either they would burn up or the smoke would suffocate them.

Cursing and struggling for breath, she stumbled through gray, foul-smelling clouds, her eyes tearing up from the smoke and Simon’s weight practically crushing her to the ground. Nevertheless, slowly, yard by yard, she moved ahead, calling her son’s name again and again. “Peter! Peter! Here I am!”

The damp, low passageway turned slightly upward, and after a short while, Magdalena noticed that there were fewer mounds of phosphorus, then eventually none at all. Behind her she heard the crash of another wall collapsing. Clouds of smoke reached out to her like long fingers, but she could feel a draft of fresh air coming from somewhere ahead, and the smoke was thinning out. Evidently Peter had intuitively chosen the right direction.

Turning another corner, she finally saw her son. She cried out with relief but just as quickly caught her breath. The passageway ended there; Peter was pounding frantically on a heavy wooden door without a handle.

“Mama! The garden! I want to see the garden.”

“The… garden?” She looked at her son blankly. His face was as black as coal and he was coughing, but she didn’t see any burns on his body. On the contrary, the three-year-old seemed almost cheerful. Carefully she set her husband down on the ground and examined the locked door.

“Which garden do you mean?” she responded.

“The garden with the jolly stone man who spits water,” he said excitedly. “It’s behind this door.”

“You mean the… the monastery garden?” Suddenly she realized how the boys had been abducted. Virgilius must have lured the two from the garden into a hidden passageway there. Anxiously, she examined the weathered wood but couldn’t find a handle or a keyhole. The hinges were massive.

“Damn,” she hissed. “Another of the crazy watchmaker’s infernal objects.” She kicked the door, but it felt like solid brick. Nervously she looked back down the steep, slippery corridor from which clouds of smoke were still rising.

“If we can’t think of something soon, we’ll suffocate here like foxes in a burrow,” she mumbled. In vain she examined the rock walls for hidden cracks or holes. Finally, she turned helplessly to Simon, who was lying on the ground behind her.

“Simon, can you hear me? We’ll suffocate here. Wake up. I need your help.”

Simon groaned and struggled to move as if he was in great pain; finally he managed to turn on one side and sit up. He was panting hard; clearly that little movement had caused him unbelievable effort.

Torn between hope and despair, Magdalena stared at her husband, whose paralysis was slowly beginning to wear off. Would it happen fast enough for him to help her? She doubted that, and in any case, she didn’t know what she expected him to do. Snap his fingers and make the door open? The little medicus had so often come up with an idea that saved the day. She prayed now he would be able to walk and speak again as soon as possible. Tears welled up in her eyes when she thought of the unavoidable fate that awaited them both.

Suffocated to death on the wrong side of a door leading into a blooming garden.

“Mama, when can we leave?”

Magdalena awakened with a start from her dark musings and smiled wearily at her son. “We… we can’t go, unfortunately, Peter. Father is sick and I don’t know how to open this door.”

“But all you have to do is press on the stone.”

“What?”

She jumped up-she’d almost forgotten that Peter had been here before. It was possible the boy had observed how the door was opened.

“Which stone, Peter?” She took him up in her arms and looked him directly in the eye. “Listen now. This is very important. Which stone do I have to push?”

Silently Peter pointed to a square stone about as large as a fist, which protruded a finger’s breadth from the wall. Magdalena hadn’t noticed it before among all the other irregular stonework, but now it really stood out. The image of a laughing face, etched into its surface, seemed to jeer at her.

“This stone?” she asked cautiously.

Peter nodded, and Magdalena pressed the square button. Silently the stone slid back into the space behind it, and there was a click as the heavy wooden door opened a crack. Heavy rain could be heard now on the other side, accompanied by thunder and lightning that lit up the passageway for a moment.

“You… you are wonderful, Peter,” Magdalena laughed. “For this, you can have honey cakes, as many as you can eat. But first I have to get your father out of here. Come, the fresh air will surely do him some good.”

When they turned around, Magdalena was relieved to see Simon had already gotten onto his knees. He swayed like a reed in the wind, but he didn’t fall. Breathing heavily, he reached out to his wife.

“I ccccaaaan… wallllk all by myyyself,” he croaked. “By myyyself…”

Magdalena ran to help him before he could fall. “That’s what you think,” she replied, pulling him up and guiding him carefully to the door.

When the door opened all the way, they found themselves staring into another cave.

Magdalena uttered a brief cry of disappointment. She was sure they’d just entered another underground passageway, but then she felt the wind on her face, heard the rain coming down, and smelled the flowers in the garden. She realized they’d entered the artificial grotto the abbot had shown her just two days before. In the middle was the basin with the statuettes of the Greek gods. The door through which they’d entered the grotto was covered with gray plaster so as to blend in perfectly with the rock.

Peter had already run into the garden and was climbing jubilantly onto one of the little walls as the rain drummed down on him, washing the soot from his face. He waved to his mother cheerfully, seeming to have survived the recent terror unscathed.

Magdalena felt a lump in her throat when she thought of her younger son. Where had Matthias taken little Paul? Was he even still alive?

She was startled by something pressing against her shoulder. Simon was propping himself up against her. “I ccccaaaan… wallllk all by myyyself,” he stammered again.

Simon let go of her and tottered like an automaton into the garden.

The medicus had walked only a few yards when they heard a mighty rumbling. At first Magdalena thought it was thunder, but then the earth beneath their feet began to shake and large rocks came rolling down the hill into the garden. An especially heavy boulder crashed directly in front of her, burying the basin with the Greek statuettes.

Behind Magdalena, a rumbling could be heard in the passageways below, sounding as if hell had in fact opened its gates. Instinctively the hangman’s daughter threw herself down onto the damp lawn and watched as the little grotto behind her finally collapsed.

Hic est porta ad loca inferna…

The green fire had finally reached the cesspit below.

Jakob Kuisl and Virgilius held their breath as the footsteps on the creaking staircase approached the belfry. The steps were slow and calm; whoever was groping his way up evidently had time on his hands. Or was he too tired and old to move any faster?

Finally a black hood appeared in the opening. The figure continued climbing until he’d arrived at the landing, his torch bathing the belfry in flickering glow. At last his thin, arthritic fingers pulled back a scarf that had been obscuring his face.

Virgilius shouted out with surprise.

Before them stood the Andechs abbot. His face was as deeply furrowed as parched earth, and his thin tonsure as white as snow. Maurus Rambeck seemed to have aged years in the last few weeks.

“Maurus,” Virgilius said. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to prevent you from causing any more harm,” the abbot replied firmly. “If that’s still possible. Let the child go.” Pointing to the small crying boy, he walked slowly toward the watchmaker.

“Never!” Virgilius shouted. He drew back and held the struggling child over the stormy void. “Stay where you are, Maurus. Even you won’t stop me from bringing back my Aurora.”

“You’re sick, Virgilius,” Father Maurus said softly. “Very sick, and this is the end. Accept that; put yourself in God’s hands. Don’t bring any more sins down on yourself or this monastery.”

“But… but you helped me,” Virgilius pleaded. “You yourself wanted Aurora to come back to me.”

“I never wanted that,” replied the abbot, his voice rising. “I wanted all this madness to end. Yes, to save you, but also to save the monastery. I see now that was an error.”

When Kuisl stepped out of the darkness, the abbot noticed him for the first time. Brother Maurus raised his slim eyebrows in astonishment, and his tired but intelligent eyes flashed with emotion.

“You’re here, too?” he asked. Then the monk regained his composure and a faint smile appeared on his weathered face. “I should have expected as much. Your burgomaster is right; you really are an annoying snoop. But what does it matter? It’s all over now.”

“You knew all along, didn’t you?” the hangman retorted. “You knew your brother was behind all this.”

Maurus Rambeck shook his head wearily. “Not at first, though I’ll admit I had my suspicions. Virgilius had been pestering me for weeks about the hosts. He wanted me to get them for him, just for a while, and he would give them back. Naturally I didn’t go along with that.”

“Curses on you, Maurus,” the watchmaker snarled. He’d moved a few steps closer to his brother, the crying child still in his arms. “All these… these problems wouldn’t have come up if you’d just given me the hosts. I could have switched them with other ones. No one would have noticed, and Elisabeth would be back with me again.”

“Forget about your Elisabeth,” Maurus shouted. “Don’t you realize that you can’t bring her back, Virgilius? She’s been dead now for more than thirty years.” The old man drew closer to his younger brother, his eyes flashing with anger. “Elisabeth’s remains are rotting in some cemetery in Augsburg. Her flesh, her red lips, her tender breasts that you longed for so much have all turned to dust long ago. Only her spirit lives on, but you can’t bring that back, either. Only God can do that.”

“No! That… that can’t be! She… she must come back to me; she just has to.” Virgilius stamped his feet on the ground like an angry child, shaking Paul so violently the boy started screaming. When the hangman advanced, Virgilius ran back to the opening and held the struggling child over the void.

“Get back! Everyone get back!” he screamed. “We’re going to wait for the lightning to come from heaven and bring my woman back to me.” He held his head out to the sky, opened his mouth as if to drink from the falling drops, and closed his eyes to let the water stream down his face.

“Elisabeth was Virgilius’s great love,” Father Maurus tried to explain, looking sadly at his mad brother. “Back then, his name was Markus. He was smart, well-read, and extremely sensitive, and when Elisabeth died, it broke his heart. Our parents thought it would pass, and so did I, but instead things became worse and worse until my brother would no longer even get out of bed or eat or drink. A doctor finally concluded that sending him abroad would help him forget.” He sighed. “So my wealthy father gave him money, and my brother embarked on long voyages. In fact, he seemed to be getting better; he sent us optimistic news from Africa and the West Indies. We should have suspected the madness was still simmering beneath the surface.”

Virgilius started humming a soft melody, the same one his automaton played, but the sound clashed with the crying of the child like a poorly tuned instrument. Kuisl wondered again how he might overpower the watchmaker, but the child was still dangling over the void.

“When my brother came to Andechs and started work here as a watchmaker, I thought he was cured,” Rambeck continued, shaking his head. “But then he built this… this monster.” Disgusted, he pointed at the grinning automaton. “He dressed it like Elisabeth; he even gave it her nickname. It must have been that damned book about golems that sent him over the edge. From that point on there was nothing I or anyone could say to him. He didn’t respond to my letters, so not until I returned from Salzburg and assumed the position of abbot did I see how bad the situation was. But then it was too late. All he ever wanted was the sacred hosts.”

“And when he didn’t get them, he simply staged an abduction and extorted you,” the hangman replied harshly. “Admit it, you knew he was behind it.”

“I… suspected so. When I found the book in our library about golems, it slowly dawned on me what Virgilius was up to.” The abbot shook his head regretfully. “I knew I could no longer stop him, but I also didn’t want to turn him over to the bailiffs. After all, he’s my brother. They would have tortured him and burned him alive.”

“So instead my friend Nepomuk has to die,” Kuisl growled.

Father Maurus shrugged apologetically. “The whole thing was like a little trickle that grows and grows until a river just carries you away. It was driving me crazy. When you caught me in Virgilius’s house, I was on the point of confessing, but I still had hope you might be able to stop him, that I could learn where he was hiding out.”

As Virgilius continued humming the automaton’s melody, Kuisl watched him cautiously, but Paul was still dangling over the void, crying.

“It wasn’t Virgilius who dug up the dead monk in the cemetery; it was you, and you set fire to him and threw him in the well,” Kuisl thundered now at the abbot. “You were afraid we’d catch on to what he was doing. Admit it.”

“That’s true,” Maurus smiled. “It seemed too dangerous to have you turn him in to the judge in Weilheim, so I set fire to the corpse of our dearly departed brother Quirin, who’d been suffering from consumption, and placed one of Virgilius’s walking sticks beside it. I even cut off Quirin’s ring finger so he would look just like Virgilius. After all, a corpse can’t commit a murder, can it?” He winked at the hangman. “Tell me how you figured it out.”

“It was you yourself who raised my suspicion when you found the body in the well so quickly,” Kuisl replied. “Besides, how could a hunchback with a walking stick have dug up a grave? And there were no prints in the ground from a cane. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was this handkerchief.”

The abbot looked bewildered. “What handkerchief?”

“Alongside the grave we found a lace handkerchief with the initial A. My superstitious son-in-law thought it belonged to Aurora.”

“Oh, that?” Rambeck laughed softly, shaking his head again. “I must have lost the handkerchief near the grave. A stands for abbot. Every abbot in this monastery receives such cloths, along with gloves, napkins, and other such frilly things. They all bear this insignia.”

Virgilius’s humming finally stopped. The hunchbacked watchmaker’s eyes were still closed as he held the boy out in the rain like a sacrificial offering.

“I… I understand,” Virgilius murmured suddenly as if in a trance. “I finally understand. There can be no new life until an old one dies. It all makes sense. You here, Maurus, are the messenger of Christ, and the hangman is a messenger from hell-and then this boy. Above all the boy. God sent him to me.”

There was another blinding flash of lightning as Virgilius stepped just a bit closer to the opening. Solemnly, he held the crying child up to the black clouds.

“O, God of vengeance, take this living sacrifice from me and give me back my Aurora,” he pleaded.

Then he dropped the boy over the side.

Like corpses, Magdalena and Simon lay motionless on the ground of the monastery garden, while Peter played atop the ivy-covered walls, undeterred by the steady drumbeat of rain. Behind them, the last section of the grotto had collapsed, sealing the entrance to the underworld off forever.

Simon coughed and spat phlegm and water, but the cool rain had helped relieve his paralysis somewhat. Now he could even talk, though the words came out with a strange drawl. In faltering sentences, he told Magdalena what had happened in the passageways.

“He took Paul with him,” he gasped. “Along with that damned Matthias. I… I knew right away that that fellow wasn’t to be trusted.”

Magdalena shrugged sadly. “You’re right, but that doesn’t bring our son back. Even if he’s alive, he’s out there somewhere in this storm. If I only knew-” Suddenly she jumped up. “Of course. How could I forget?” she laughed. “This damned fear muddles my mind. They’ve surely gone up to the belfry.”

Simon frowned. “The belfry?”

Magdalena nodded vigorously. “Remember, Simon? It must have been Matthias who almost threw me off the tower. I presume I interrupted him setting up everything for his master’s great experiment. This time, they intend to carry it out. The lightning will surely strike the belfry.”

She quickly stood up and called to Peter, who came running. Anxiously she eyed her husband on the ground. “Can you walk or would you rather…?”

“Stay here while my youngest son is in the hands of a madman?” Simon croaked, struggling to get up. “Are you kidding? I’d rather crawl on all fours to that blasted bell tower.”

“Then let’s go.” Magdalena pulled her husband to his feet, took Peter by the hand, and led them both quickly across the fields and meadows toward the monastery. Simon staggered and stumbled but, with Magdalena’s occasional help, was able to walk on his own. So they moved ahead faster than expected.

“You may be right,” Simon gasped, pointing at the dark steeple in the distance that seemed to sway slightly in the storm. “If lightning strikes anywhere around here, it would be up there.”

Magdalena crossed herself. “God forbid it comes to that.”

Storm clouds still hung dark and heavy over the Holy Mountain, rain poured down, the storm raged like a wild beast, and hail flattened the fields of grain.

Along the way they came across splintered branches and fruit trees knocked down by the storm. Clearly the harvest this year would be a disaster and people would go hungry again.

A few minutes later they arrived at the outer monastery wall. Blown open by the wind, the gate was standing crooked on its hinges. Silently they ran through deserted streets, ankle-deep in mud. Here and there, lights could be seen burning in the farm buildings and in the monastery, and though Magdalena thought she saw anxious faces peering out from between the slats of the shutters, she hurried on.

Briefly she thought of asking the abbot or some of the other monks for help. But the Andechs bailiffs were still after Simon, and she had to hope her father in any case was on his way to the church tower with some of Wartenberg’s soldiers. No doubt he would have figured out that Virgilius wanted to carry out his experiments up there.

Climbing the final yards up the steep slope, they arrived in the muddy church square and stared up at the tower. Rain fell in their eyes, and though it was only seven in the evening, it was almost dark.

“There!” Simon cried suddenly pointing to a tiny point in the belfry that seemed to be moving. “You were right. Someone is up there. But I can’t see who.”

Magdalena squinted and held her hand up to shield her face from the downpour, but she could only make out a figure holding a sort of bundle out over the scaffolding. There was no sign of her father or the count’s soldiers.

“Whoever it is up there, we must hurry,” she said. “If necessary, I’ll go alone and you can stay down here with Peter, and I…”

Hearing a soft groan inside the church, Magdalena stopped short and listened. Then she raised her mud-splattered skirt and ran toward the portal while Simon and Peter followed close behind.

The nave was so dark that only the vague contours of objects were visible. Leaves and twigs had blown in through the damaged roof and columns, and the altars and confessional stools stood out from the wet floor like black boulders. A few of the artistic stained glass windows had been damaged by the storm, and the pews were strewn with colorful splinters of glass.

In the middle of the church, a figure lay in a pool of blood. His arms and legs were contorted and twisted like those of a broken doll, and though he was groaning and twitching slightly, he was otherwise motionless. Slowly he turned his head toward Magdalena and she finally recognized who it was.

Matthias.

Magdalena stared up at a gaping hole in the roof and the torn canvas that had been temporarily covering it. The knacker’s boy must have fallen straight through the opening. It was a miracle he was still alive.

“You… you monster!” she shouted, running toward him. “What did you do with my children? I trusted you, I…”

She saw the smiling face of the silent journeyman and stopped short. Even now that she knew Matthias had abducted her children, he looked friendly, helpful. Could he really be in league with Virgilius?

Moaning, he stretched out his hand and seemed to wipe the floor. It took Magdalena a while to realize he was writing something on the mud- and blood-stained surface. She knelt down to read it before the rain could wash it away.

I am sorry.

“Bah, as if that changes anything,” exclaimed Simon, who had now arrived on the scene. “He’s sorry. This scoundrel has been deceiving us all along and working with Virgilius. He’s a criminal and kidnapper, and perhaps even Brother Laurentius’s killer. And he was out to get you, too.”

But even Simon couldn’t keep his son from leaning down and passing his hand through the man’s blood-spattered red hair.

“Matthias sick?” Peter asked anxiously.

Magdalena nodded. “Your friend Matthias is very sick,” she said softly. “He’s probably going to die.” She cast an anxious gaze up at the balcony, then at the stairway leading from there up to the belfry. “But before that perhaps, he’s going to tell us what’s happening there. Do you hear me, Matthias?” She turned to the mortally injured workman. “Who’s up there? If you want to make amends, do it now.”

Matthias grumbled, then reached for his dirty, torn jacket. Pulling a wax tablet and stylus from a pocket, he started laboriously composing a message.

“This is taking too long,” Simon groaned. “In the meantime, Virgilius may kill our child.”

“Wait!” Magdalena raised her hand for silence, but she, too, kept staring through the hole in the roof where the tower was clearly visible. “Just a moment. This might be important.”

Finally Matthias finished writing. He groaned and handed the tablet to Magdalena, who quickly started reading.

Virgilius and the boy are in the belfry. So is your father and the abbot. No harm will come to the boy. Don’t let the boys think badly of me. Only God knows the entire truth.

Magdalena looked sorrowfully at the childish scribbles.

Only God knows the entire truth…

When she looked down again, she saw his head had tipped to one side and his eyes were staring rigidly skyward. A few green and red beech leaves floated down from the hole above.

“Matthias dead?” Peter asked anxiously.

Magdalena nodded. She couldn’t hold back a few tears forming in the corner of her eyes. “He… he is now with our dear Lord, and we’ll probably never find out why he conspired with this madman. But deep inside, I know he wasn’t a bad man.”

“Not a bad man?” Simon shook his head furiously. “Magdalena, he abducted our children. He’s a murderer and a criminal.”

“How many murderers has my father executed who would perhaps have been saints in another life?” she said softly. “And how many scoundrels are running around free, dressed in expensive clothes.”

She crossed herself, rose to her feet, and straightened up.

“You stay down below here with Peter,” she told her husband gruffly. “I’ll go up there now and bring my son back. If my father and the abbot can’t do it, I’ll just have to do it myself. To hell with Virgilius.”

Without another word, she ran toward the balcony that lay in the growing darkness.

There was something in the watchmaker’s eyes that tipped Jakob Kuisl off a fraction of a second before he released the boy.

An instant just long enough for Kuisl to lunge for the opening. Slowly, as if God had ordered time to stop, the hangman saw his grandson falling. He reached out and just managed to catch the bawling child by the collar. There was a horrifying rip as the clothing started to tear, but then it held. With his arms and legs thrashing about, Paul dangled like a marionette from his grandfather’s outstretched arms.

As Kuisl pulled the boy back inside with a loud shout, Virgilius gave him a sudden push from behind. For what seemed like an eternity, the hangman tottered at the edge of the opening. The watchmaker screeched behind him in an inhumanly high pitch. “The sacrifice! You took away my sacrifice. I need this boy so that Aurora can live.”

A sudden gust of wind struck the hangman from the front, allowing him to regain his balance. One last time, he glanced down into the gaping void and then, summoning all his strength, threw himself back onto the platform. The boy landed safely beside him and clung tightly to his grandfather.

“It’s over, Virgilius,” the abbot shouted into the storm. “Give up and return to God. It’s still not too late.”

“Never!” Only the whites of the watchmaker’s eyes were still visible, shining eerily in the gathering darkness as he broke into a defiant laugh.

“God took away what was dearest to me; how can I return to him? He mocked me and forsook me.” Virgilius’s voice was so loud that it even drowned out the clap of thunder. “I can be my own God. I don’t need him. Don’t you understand, Maurus? It’s faith alone that makes this Christian Moloch so strong. I used my faith to bring Aurora back.”

“God alone can create life,” the abbot admonished, approaching him with raised hands. “Repent, Virgilius. Let me grant you absolution.”

“I curse your absolution. I curse God.” Virgilius ran to his automaton, grasped it by its stiff arms, and looked out into the darkened heavens.

“All I need is a single bolt of lightning,” he cried, looking up into the clouds. “There will come a day when we realize that lightning, too, isn’t divine, but a natural phenomenon we can use for our own purposes.” He reached for the wire leading from the ceiling down to the bier, where it branched into other smaller wires. Carefully he checked the connections. “I must have done something wrong. There must be some reason the lightning hasn’t hit the steeple yet,” he murmured. “Exactly, that must be it. We must work even more carefully if we wish to abolish God. Like a watchmaker. We must-”

Suddenly the stairway started creaking again and footsteps could be heard coming up. Virgilius turned around to stare at the woman who had just appeared in the opening. He couldn’t recognize her in the darkness. Her hair was drenched from the rain and she was breathing heavily from the climb up the stairs, but she held her determined head up and chin out. Like an angry, vengeful goddess, she raised her hand to point at the watchmaker, who cried out in delight.

“Aurora… is it you?” he asked hesitantly. “Did you finally come back to me after all these years? But…” His gaze shifted from the automaton to the woman standing before him in the opening. “How… how is that possible? The lightning…”

“Go to hell, Virgilius,” she snarled.

At this moment, there was a crash so loud that Kuisl thought the tower would split apart. A fraction of a second later, a blue light as thick as a man’s arm shot from the top of the steeple directly into the puppet. Virgilius, still clinging to an end of the wire, was enveloped in a bluish aura like a gigantic halo. Flames shot out from his hair, his sleeves, even from his ears, and as he opened his mouth in a shrill, inhuman scream, tiny flames appeared there, as well.

Virgilius twitched and thrashed. His whole body trembled as he continued holding the wire. Then it became a giant flaming torch.

The force of the explosion threw Kuisl back against the side of the tower as everything around him erupted in flames. His ears were ringing shrilly, but otherwise all he could hear was blood pulsing through his head. Coughing, the Andechs abbot crawled toward the trapdoor, his robe ablaze. In the opposite corner, Magdalena clutched her boy in her arms, her eyes and mouth open wide in a scream, though Kuisl still couldn’t hear a thing.

He jumped up, rushed to Magdalena, seized her and the child, and pushed them both toward the trapdoor. All around them timbers were beginning to fall from the ceiling. Though Kuisl could feel flames singeing his beard, he didn’t stop until he made sure his daughter and grandson made it to the trapdoor over the stairs. Then he climbed down behind them.

When he turned around one last time, he could see Virgilius still standing like a flaming scarecrow alongside his beloved Aurora. A blackened clump engulfed in flames, he bared his teeth and stared at the automaton he had created. The puppet’s wax face was melting like honey, revealing the metal parts and iron beneath.

Her dead mechanical eyes glowed, and for a brief moment it looked to Kuisl as if it wasn’t Virgilius clinging to his automaton but the automaton clinging to its creator.

Then more burning beams fell from the ceiling, burying the two.

The hangman rushed down the stairs, away from the chaotic scene above, just a few yards behind Magdalena and Paul. He could hear the wind whistling through the tower, fanning the fire, a flaming hell they struggled to escape as they staggered down the steep stairway. They stumbled a few times but always managed to grab hold of the railing at the last moment.

Arriving breathlessly in the nave, Kuisl felt enormous relief on finding his second grandchild and son-in-law unharmed and waiting. The Andechs abbot stood to the side, coughing, his robe burned up to his knees and his face blackened with soot, but otherwise apparently uninjured.

“That… that was the punishment of God,” Maurus Rambeck gasped, staring blankly into space. “We’ve seen the face of God.”

“If we don’t hurry, we’ll see it again soon,” replied Kuisl, nudging the others toward the exit. “This fire will destroy the entire monastery.”

Standing in front of the church, they watched the burning steeple light up the darkness like a mighty torch. Glowing beams and shingles fell on the church roof below, and soon the entire structure was in flames, threatening to spread to the neighboring monastery buildings.

More and more monks-as well as pilgrims and simple villagers-gathered in the square, staring up in disbelief at the roaring conflagration that continued to grow as the rain gradually eased off.

“This is the end of the monastery,” whispered the abbot next to Kuisl.

“Or the beginning,” the hangman replied. “Didn’t you want to build a new, finer one anyway? If not now, when?”

Suddenly shouts could be heard in the crowd, voices of the count and his soldiers assigning men to various fire brigades. Armed with buckets, people ran like frightened ants in all directions-pilgrims and Benedictines side by side, all trying to control the fire. Kuisl spotted his cousin Michael Graetz in the front row of the crowd with some other dishonorable people. The hangman suspected the battle was hopeless. Wind whipped flames toward the monastery and the outlying buildings, and a few glowing roof shingles were already falling from the far-off brewery.

“Damn it, hangman,” cried Leopold von Wartenberg, who had fought his way over to them. “What did you do up there? I’ll have Master Hans personally boil you in oil for this.”

Unlike the figures around him, who were covered with ash, mud, and soot, the count was still as neat as a pin, lightly perfumed, and untouched by the slightest smudge of dirt. Evidently Leopold von Wartenberg was better at giving commands than at doing things himself. When he raised his hand to strike the dishonorable hangman, the Andechs abbot intervened.

“Your Excellency, this man is innocent,” Maurus Rambeck said firmly. The abbot seemed to have regained his former haughty manner. “It was the lightning that struck in the tower, burning my brother to death and destroying the automaton.”

“Your brother who is already dead?” The count sneered. “Then it’s true what this shrewd hangman surmised? Virgilius was behind all of this?”

Maurus Rambeck nodded. “I’ll draft a report first thing tomorrow morning and make a clean breast of it all. But for now, let’s all lend a hand. We must at least save the library.”

“My God, the library!” Simon hobbled toward the burning monastery, wringing his hands. “All the beautiful books. We must save them.”

“Damn it, Simon, stop,” cried Magdalena, while both children clung to her singed skirt. “You can’t run that fast yet. Come and care for your two little boys instead.”

But Simon had already disappeared with one of the fire brigades.

She sighed. “Perhaps it would have been better if that strange poison had affected him a bit longer. Then he wouldn’t always be running off on me.”

“When will you women finally understand you can’t change us men?” the voice of her father grumbled behind her.

He smiled at his daughter, his black beard burned away in spots and little embers still glowing in others. “Your husband loves his children, Magdalena,” he continued with feigned severity. “But they’re safe now, and at present he has to care about his other beloved things.”

“As long as he still remembers his family,” she sighed. “Books, books, books are all this dreamer thinks about. I’d better not tell him that a few especially valuable ones went up in flames down in the catacombs, or else-” Suddenly she seized her father by the arm. “My God, Nepomuk’s and Virgilius’s notebooks. Are they perhaps…?”

The hangman nodded grimly. “They burned up in the tower. In all the confusion, they must have fallen out of my pocket. What a shame.” He looked at his daughter seriously, but she noticed a slight flicker in his eyes. Only she and her mother were able to tell when he was lying.

“Believe me, it’s better like this,” Kuisl continued. “Knowledge like this can always be used both for good and evil. Nepomuk was committed to doing good, but as long as there are men like Virgilius, such books shouldn’t be allowed in our libraries. Their time will come soon enough.” Without another word he turned to leave.

“Where… where are you going?” she cried. “Damn it. Can’t you men just say what you’re doing and stop disappearing without saying a thing?”

Kuisl turned to her again. “I’m going to the clinic. What else? If Simon isn’t there tending his patients, I’ll have to do it myself. Or do you just want to let the sick there burn to death?”

With a defiant look on her face, Magdalena fell silent; then finally she broke into a smile.

“Do you know what?” she said, squeezing her children’s hands hard as Kuisl hobbled off toward the clinic. “Your grandfather is a stubborn, dishonorable, eccentric scoundrel, but I think the dear Lord loves him just the same.”