The Poisoned Pilgrim

4

ERLING, EARLY ON THE MORNING OF MONDAY, JUNE 14, 1666, AD

At sunrise, Simon rose with a groan from his prickly straw bed in the knacker’s house.

He’d worked till late in the night on his report for the abbot. In it, he mentioned a possible murder weapon he’d discovered the evening before by the pond. On a long net leaning against the side of the walkway, he found drops of blood that could have come from the back of the dead noviate’s head. But Simon could suggest neither a suspect nor a motive.

The medicus would have liked to sleep a bit longer, but Michael Graetz rose before sunrise, noisily prepared a breakfast for his guests, and then left, whistling and singing, to visit a farmer nearby. After that, sleep was out of the question. In any case, the events of the previous day kept going through Simon’s mind. He sat down at the rickety table and, lost in thought, served himself some steaming porridge.

“Can you be a bit quieter when you smack your lips, or do you want to wake the dead?” Magdalena rubbed her eyes and stared at Simon angrily.

“Well, at least when you grouse like that it seems you’re on the road to recovery.” Simon grinned and pointed at the second bowl of porridge. “Want some breakfast?”

Magdalena nodded, then stood up and dished out some porridge. She did in fact seem to have recovered and ate with an appetite that reminded Simon of a hungry wolf.

“I’ll deliver my report to the abbot this morning,” he said, wiping his mouth. “First, I’ll stop by to see this watchmaker Virgilius. From some of the things he said, I’m guessing he knows more about Brother Johannes than he wanted to tell me yesterday.”

“Do you think perhaps that Johannes killed his own apprentice?” she asked, taking another serving of porridge. “I wouldn’t put anything past that ugly toad. I can feel he’s covering up something.”

“Actually, it’s no business of ours,” Simon sighed. “If only I’d kept my big mouth shut when I was talking with the abbot. But now one more visit won’t make any difference. In any case, I’d like to take you along to have a look at that bizarre automaton,” he said, getting up from the table. “What do you say? Do you want to come?”

“To admire my rival? Why not?” Magdalena laughed. “Watch out-if I don’t like her, I’ll yank out a few screws, and after that your nutty companion Virgilius won’t be able to use his doll for anything but an expensive scarecrow.”

Shortly thereafter they strolled through the village, up the hill toward the monastery, then took the little trail branching off to the right to the watchmaker’s house. The sun had already risen above the treetops and shone brightly and warmly now on the freshly painted stone building with the little garden in front. Simon walked past the daisies and poppies and up to the door. He was about to knock when he noticed it was already ajar.

“Brother Virgilius?” he called into the room. “Are you there? I brought someone along whom I’d like you to…”

Noticing the stench of sulfur and gunpowder, he stopped short. He also sensed another odor, which at another time and place he might have experienced as pleasant.

The odor of grilled meat.

“What’s going on?” Magdalena asked, amused. “Did you catch the monk in bed with his doll?”

“Evidently Brother Virgilius has been experimenting again,” Simon murmured. “Let’s hope nobody got hurt this time.”

As he pushed against the door, he met with resistance, as if something heavy was right behind it. Groaning, he pushed harder, and the odor became stronger. Heavy clouds of smoke issued through the crack; then suddenly something sprang out of it like a snake.

A pale, bloated arm.

With a loud cry, Simon jumped back, stumbling and landing on his back in the middle of the daisies. Magdalena, too, stepped back, trembling and pointing to the arm that hung lifeless in the doorway at knee-height, its fingers pointing accusingly at the shocked couple.

“Someone… someone must be lying behind the door,” Simon stuttered, as he slowly rose to his feet.

“And whoever that is, is likely dead as a doornail.” Magdalena gathered her courage, struggled to open the door, and in the gradually dispersing smoke, gazed on a scene of horror. The room looked as if a demon had been unleashed in it.

Directly in front of them lay the corpse of the young assistant, Vitalis. The novitiate’s head was angled oddly, as if some superhuman force had broken his neck; his shirt and parts of his trousers were burned, and beneath the clothing, burned flesh was visible on his back and legs. His arm was extended toward the door as if in a last desperate attempt to flee, and his face, seared by the flames, grimaced in fear, his mouth wide-open and eyeballs turned upward.

“My God,” Simon panted. “What happened here?”

In the room itself, tables and chairs had been overturned, the valuable pendulum clock lay in pieces on the floor, and the two halves of the copper sphere had rolled into a corner. Only the crocodile dangled from the ceiling as before, staring with lifeless eyes on the chaos below.

“If Virgilius was really experimenting with gunpowder, he’s blown himself up, along with everything else here, and has dissolved in a cloud of smoke.” Magdalena stepped into the room and looked around warily. “In any case, he’s not here.”

Simon stooped down to pick up the head of a doll that had rolled in front of him, its forehead shattered and eyes smashed in. Perplexed, he was turning the porcelain head over in his hands when something crossed his mind.

The woman doll! Where in the world…

Simon groped about for a while in the dimly lit room, but the automaton had disappeared. In the middle of the room, however, he discovered Brother Virgilius’s black robe in a large pool of blood, as well as a scorched screwdriver.

“It doesn’t look like Virgilius made it out of this room alive,” he murmured. A horrible thought passed through his head, so absurd that he cast it at once into the furthest corner of his mind.

Could the doll have killed its master and dragged him away? Was that even possible?

Suddenly he could feel something crunch beneath his feet. Stooping down, he picked up a broken lens inside a small, blood-stained brass ring. It took him a moment to realize what it was.

Brother Johannes’s eyepiece-the one the monk had worn yesterday in the apothecary’s house.

Simon was about to turn around to Magdalena when he saw two black-robed Benedictine monks in the doorway. Their faces, white as sheets, stared down in horror at the dead Vitalis at their feet.

“For the love of the Holy Virgin, what happened here?” one of them groaned, while the younger one stared at Magdalena and crossed himself.

“A witch!” he wailed, falling to his knees. “A witch has killed our dear Brother Virgilius and Vitalis. Lord in heaven, help us!”

“Uh, that’s not exactly what happened,” Simon replied hesitantly from out of the darkness, which made both monks scream in terror.

“A witch, the Grim Reaper, and the stench of sulfur,” the older one cried out. “It’s the end of the world!”

Wailing and screaming, they ran up the mountain to the monastery, where the bells had just started to ring. Simon nervously turned the destroyed eyepiece in his hand. It appeared he would have to rewrite his report.

Far below in his hideout, the man read the news his assistant had just brought him. A faint smile passed over his face. They’d found the dead assistant amid the chaos, and the watchmaker had disappeared. Now everything else would take its course.

The only thing troubling him was that sneaky bathhouse surgeon and his damned woman. Why did they have to poke their noses into everything? Had she noticed anything in the tower? And why had her husband gone to the pond yesterday to nose around? Those two were like boils that itched and ached-not really dangerous but a distraction nevertheless. The man decided he’d have to keep a better eye on them, and he knew from experience what to do with painful boils.

You cut them out.

Full of a newly regained composure, he rose and crossed to a heavy oaken table covered with books and parchments. Some of these that were from distant lands would have been unfamiliar to most people; some were written with flourishes and in runes; one even in blood. All sought answers to a secret so ancient that it went back to the very beginnings of human life and human faith-when a first fur-clothed cave dweller held in his hands a shiny stone, a little bone, or a skull and kneeled down to kiss it.

It was faith alone that breathed life into that dead thing.

The man hunched over the books, closed his eyes, and ran his fingers over the lines written in blood. The solution was hidden somewhere in these books. And he suspected even more blood would flow before it was found.

An hour later, Simon stood in front of the monastery council in what they called the Prince’s Quarters on the third floor. Abbot Maurus Rambeck sat at the head of a long table, and to his right sat his deputy, the Prior Brother Jeremias, as well as the cellarer, the novitiate master, and the cantor, who was responsible for the care of the library, among other things. They all stared at Simon with dark and reproachful looks that conveyed their certainty he had something to do with the horrible murder.

Simon swallowed hard. For a moment he thought he could already feel the fire at his feet as he was being burned at the stake. At this moment he envied Magdalena, who, as a woman, was not allowed in the monastery wing. The monks had arrested her and taken her to an adjacent building, pending the outcome of his interrogation. Simon himself had had only a few minutes to speak privately with the abbot before the other members of the council appeared.

“Dear Brothers in Christ,” the abbot began with a trembling voice. Simon noticed that Brother Maurus, in contrast to the last visit, now appeared extremely anxious, even confused. Nervously he passed his tongue over his bulging lips. “I’ve called you together here because a murder has been committed in our ranks, one so horrible and mysterious that it’s difficult for me to find the right words…”

“The devil,” interrupted the cellarer, a fat monk whose tonsure was encircled by only a few thin hairs he’d artfully combed back over his bald head. “The devil came to fetch this effeminate Vitalis, along with his master, the warlock Virgilius. I’ve warned him many times to stop his accursed experiments, and now he’s fallen into Satan’s hands.”

“Brother Eckhart, I forbid you from talking that way about our fellow Brother,” the abbot shouted at him. “Brother Virgilius has disappeared, and that’s all we know. The blood in his shop leads us to believe there has been an accident. My God, perhaps he is just as dead as Vitalis…” Maurus Rambeck stopped and pressed his lips together, visibly moved.

“We must expect the worst, Maurus,” murmured the cantor and librarian sitting at the far end of the table. His hair was snow-white, and deep folds in his face made him look like a withered plum cake. “The destruction suggests a deadly battle took place. But why?” Distrustfully he looked at the medicus.

“I think it’s time for the bathhouse surgeon to tell us what he saw,” said the scrawny prior whose hooked nose and piercing eyes reminded Simon of an eagle.

An eagle just before it plunges downward toward a terrified little mouse in the wheat field, thought Simon. I’m lucky this Jeremias is only the abbot’s deputy.

“Who can tell us that this man from Schongau doesn’t have anything to do with it?” the prior continued. “After all, Brother Martin and Brother Jakobus came upon him and that woman at the scene. And other monks have disclosed to me that the bathhouse surgeon went to visit Virgilius-and Brother Johannes-yesterday,” he added ominously.

Now all five monks eyed Simon suspiciously. Their gazes seemed to pass right through him. Once more the medicus felt as if his feet were being held to the fire.

“Allow me please to explain what happened,” he began hesitantly. “I… can explain everything.”

The abbot nodded sympathetically, and Simon began his report, starting with his visit the previous day with Brother Johannes. He mentioned the latter’s argument with Virgilius, and finally pulled out the blood-encrusted eyepiece he’d found on the floor in the watchmaker’s workshop, which Abbot Rambeck reached for and showed to the other monks.

“This clearly belongs to Brother Johannes,” he said pensively. “The Schongau bathhouse surgeon told me before our meeting about his suspicion, and I then summoned Johannes.”

“And?” the old librarian asked.

Rambeck sighed. “He disappeared.”

“Is it possible he’s just in the forest collecting herbs?” the novitiate master interjected. He was a younger man with pleasant features and alert eyes, which were slightly red now. Simon wondered whether he’d been crying.

“Collecting herbs this early in the morning? Brother Johannes?” The cellarer Eckhart laughed derisively. “That would be the first time our dear Brother had been up that early. He usually prefers to go out in the light of the full moon and, after that, down a few pitchers of beer.”

“In any case, I’ve sent a few men out from the village to search for him and bring him back,” said Rambeck. “I’m reluctant to disturb the judge with the case until I’ve spoken with him. You know what that would mean.”

The monks nodded silently, and Simon, too, could imagine the consequences of a visit by the local judge. A few years ago, the elector’s deputy had appeared in Schongau at a witch trial, along with a large retinue and noisy soldiers. The city was still paying the bill for that months later.

“What we have here is a murder, Maurus,” the prior scolded, shaking his head. “Probably even a double murder, if we can’t find Virgilius.” He shrugged, and Simon thought he saw quiet satisfaction in his eyes. “I’m afraid we can’t avoid calling the district judge from Weilheim.”

The medicus took a step forward and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but perhaps Brother Johannes is even responsible for three deaths.”

The prior frowned. “What do you mean?”

Hesitantly, Simon removed his report from his pocket and presented it to the council. He briefly explained his suspicions concerning the death of the novitiate Coelestin.

For a while, no one said a word.

Finally, the abbot spoke, his face now ashen. “Do you mean that Brother Johannes may have first killed his assistant Coelestin, then Vitalis, and possibly Virgilius as well? But… why?”

“We know that all too well,” Brother Eckhart snapped. His bald head turned red, and little veins stood out. “Haven’t the two always carried out sacrilegious experiments? Johannes and Virgilius? Didn’t we just two weeks ago forbid Brother Johannes from studying things that only God should be concerned with? And yet he persisted.” He stood up from his chair, panting heavily, and pounded the table so hard with his fist that the monks stared back at him in shock. “I’ll tell you what happened: the good novitiate Coelestin wanted to prevent his master from experimenting any further with this devil’s work. So Johannes simply killed him. Finally there was an argument between the two sorcerers Johannes and Virgilius; they fought with balls of fire and sulfur, until Virgilius went up in smoke at the end and went to hell, and his assistant was struck down by his enemy’s magic spells.”

“Nonsense,” the young novitiate master mumbled. “Nobody goes up in smoke. There must be another explanation.”

“Think of the wounds poor Vitalis suffered,” the prior pleaded. “May his soul rest in peace. They were clearly not of natural origin.”

“To know that for certain, we’d have to examine-” Simon started to object, but the old librarian interrupted, raising a trembling hand.

“Something else must be noted,” he said hoarsely. “You know all these automata that Virgilius was so fond of-this woman made of metal who plays the glockenspiel.”

“I do hope it has been destroyed,” Brother Eckhart grumbled. “That at least would be something positive. God alone, and not man, should create life.”

“Well, it’s even worse,” the librarian continued hesitantly. “Our Brothers Martin and Jakobus have told me that the… well, the automaton has disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” The prior shook his head. “Just like Virgilius? But how is that possible? The doll is as large as a human and certainly very heavy. How could anyone-”

“My God,” Brother Eckhart, who was still standing, raised his hands in prayer and directed his gaze theatrically to the ceiling. “Don’t you understand what happened? Don’t you understand the full horror of this?” His voice was trembling. “This… creature… has come to life and has seized its master. Somewhere here in the monastery a golem is stalking about. God help us!”

Excited murmurs could be heard from all sides; some of the monks crossed themselves or clung tightly to their rosaries. Simon, too, felt a shiver run up his spine. He couldn’t help thinking of the automaton in the watchmaker’s shop, the lifeless face and the slightly off-key melody of a glockenspiel playing inside. He could practically see the puppet in front of him as it whirred through the room.

Like a ghost gliding along weightlessly, he thought, driven by a lust for revenge-one that never stops until its task is complete.

The abbot stood now and pounded the table angrily with the palm of his hand, bringing Simon back to reality.

“Quiet!” he shouted. “Dear Brothers, I beg for silence.”

Only gradually did quiet return to the room. The abbot took a deep breath before continuing in a broken voice. “We won’t understand what has happened until… until Brother Johannes is back among us. We have to be grateful for every clue.” Turning to Simon, he added, “I shall read your report carefully, and I’d be very grateful if you can contribute anything else to clarify this case. You’ve seemed quite astute thus far.”

Prior Jeremias gasped. “A bathhouse surgeon, a dishonorable person, helping to solve a murder in the monastery? My dear Brother, I beg you-”

“And I beg you to be silent,” Abbot Rambeck interrupted. “Dishonorable or not, this bathhouse surgeon has made more intelligent observations than all of us together. It would be stupid not to accept his help. I’m asking him to continue work on his report.” Rambeck seemed to get briefly lost in thought, and his hands began to tremble again. After a brief pause, he turned back to Simon. “Ah, there’s something else, Master Fronwieser. It’s come to my attention that some of the pilgrims are ill. Now that our apothecary is no longer available, someone else is needed to care for them…”

It sounded like an order, so Simon nodded respectfully. “Naturally, Your Eminence, as you wish.”

Wonderful, he thought. Until today, I was an ordinary pilgrim, and now I must write a report about a mysterious murder and care for sick pilgrims. Why didn’t I just go to Altotting with Magdalena?

The abbot closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross. “Then let us pray to God for our dead and missing Brothers.”

Simon watched each monk, one after the other, as Maurus Rambeck recited a psalm in Latin. The Brothers had folded their hands, murmuring the prayers as they lowered their eyes. It seemed each radiated an evil aura quite out of place in this cloistered atmosphere. Suddenly the prior raised his head and looked Simon directly in the eye.

The medicus winced. In Brother Jeremias’s eyes Simon saw a hateful spark that rattled him to the core.

Brother Johannes ran through the forest as if the devil himself were in pursuit.

He stumbled over roots, picked himself up again breathlessly, jumped over muddy ditches, and rushed through thick underbrush. The hem of his robe had long been reduced to tatters; thistles and branches clung to the material, and his face was sweaty and mud-stained. Tears ran down his chubby cheeks and his heart pounded. Except for a linen bag with his essential belongings, he hadn’t been able to save a thing.

Johannes cursed and sobbed. His former life behind him, he would have to hit the road again. He didn’t know what the future held for him, only what would happen if they caught him: They’d pull out his fingernails and toenails and stretch his bones until they popped out of their sockets. Then they’d crush his thumbs, burn his wizened skin with matches, and throw him on a huge pile of wood and brush to be consumed by fire.

Brother Johannes knew all this because he was familiar with torture and executions. He had seen far too many up close; he knew what awaited a murderer and warlock.

Without stopping once to look around, the fat apothecary ran through the Kien Valley. By now it was early morning, and the sun bore down mercilessly through the boughs and branches. Like most of the other monks, Johannes had been awakened at the crack of dawn by loud wailing. Something dreadful must have happened, and he had a dark suspicion what it was. He’d secretly hurried to the watchmaker’s house, only to find the bathhouse owner and his woman leaving, both of them as white as a sheet. From the bits of conversation he overheard, he pieced together what they’d discovered inside.

When he heard them mention his name, Brother Johannes knew he couldn’t return. They would find out everything-the experiments, the fire in the tower, all about his former life…

A curse on you, Virgilius!

Thus Johannes snuck back to his little house, picked up some provisions, a blanket, and his old wooden cross, and made off toward the Kien Valley. He ran through a narrow hidden gorge, which many Erlingers had used during the Great War to escape the Swedes and was known to them as The Ox’s Gorge… From time to time Johannes had to gather up the folds of his robe and wade through the Kien Brook. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear dogs barking and a horn sounding. Were they already on his heels?

He suppressed the thought and rushed forward blindly. If he could make it down to Muhlfeld or Wartaweil, perhaps he had a chance. He could find a fisherman to take him over to Die?en, and from there he could keep going toward Landsberg, where he had friends who would help him. Perhaps somewhere he would find an army he could join up with. People with his experience were always needed.

The trees in front of him were thinning out, so he could already see the lake sparkling down in the valley. His goal, the little fisherman’s port not far from Muhlfeld Castle, seemed within reach. As soon as Brother Johannes stepped out of the forest, he heard a shot. A bullet whizzed by his ear, missing him by just inches. Gasping, he threw himself down in the mud.

“There he is, the filthy bastard. You were right; he fled through the Ox’s Gorge.”

A man stepped out from behind the trees with a smoking musket, followed by a second and a third. All were experienced hunters employed by the monastery, and Johannes knew them. In the tavern they sometimes whispered behind his back; they didn’t like it that he collected herbs in their hunting grounds and scared the wildlife. To them, he was just a fat, ugly priest who ate what by rights belonged to them. A monster in a monk’s cassock who terrified children.

Today was the day of reckoning.

“We heard you killed three of your Brothers, you scum,” the oldest growled, nudging the monk with his foot. His eyes gleamed with the thrill of the chase. “It was easy for you with the three priests, but we’re made of different stuff.” Laughing, he turned to his friends. “Well, what do you think? Do we want to see the fat toad jump again?” When the others howled their approval, he held his musket in the air and fired. A swarm of sparrows scattered, chirping angrily in the direction of the monastery.

Dazed by the noise and fearful, Brother Johannes leapt up and stumbled toward a field of barley. Behind it was the lake with little boats rocking on the waves-he could almost smell the water. As he began to run, he looked up and could see between the low-lying clouds on the horizon the monastery in Die?en. And he could hear the rustle of the grain beneath his feet as he ran.

The world is so beautiful, he thought. Why are the people in it so cruel? Will they let me go in the end?

When Johannes heard the dogs barking behind him, he knew it was all over.

Magdalena crouched on the floor of the filthy provision cellar, watching flies buzz about in the light from a small window. For a while she had paced around, but now she settled down in a corner where she brooded and cursed her husband for getting her into this disastrous situation.

After Simon had been taken off to see the abbot, a few grim-faced helpers had silently led Magdalena away. Since then, the hangman’s daughter had been awaiting her fate in the cellar of the monastery dairy farm. There was an odor of old cheese and fermented milk in the air, and in one corner, a pile of moldy boards and broken containers made of willow bark. Otherwise the room was empty. A massive wooden door with a heavy sliding bolt was the only way in or out.

Lost in thought, Magdalena ran her hand through her hair and tried to ignore the strong odor of the old cheese baskets. She couldn’t imagine they would charge her and Simon with the murder of the watchmaker’s assistant just because they’d found the corpses. But she wasn’t entirely sure, either. The way the two monks ran screaming from the scene made it clear to her how inflamed the mood was in the monastery. Magdalena had to admit that all the strange events-the bestial murder of the assistant, the disappearance of his master, and an automaton that had likewise vanished-all this made her also wonder if the devil was at work here.

She was just about to get up to stretch her legs a bit when she heard steps outside the door. A moment later, the bolt was pushed back, a disheveled Brother Johannes staggered in, and fell lifelessly to the floor.

“Lots of luck with the bathhouse owner’s woman, you scum,” jeered one of the two men standing outside in the corridor with their muskets. “But leave something for us-don’t eat her up afterward the way you did the watchmaker.” Laughter rang out, then the door closed with a crash.

For a while, the only sounds were the gasps of the apothecary. Finally, Magdalena bent down to him and touched him gently on the shoulder.

“How… how are you?” she asked hesitantly. “Do you need…”

Suddenly Brother Johannes raised his head and stared her in the eye without saying a word. With a muted cry, Magdalena jumped. The monk’s face, already an ugly sight, was beaten black and blue, one eye was swollen shut, and blood dripped from his swollen lips onto the ground. He looked like something resurrected from the Andechs cemetery. He crawled into a corner and held his swollen nose.

“I’ve… lived through worse things,” he muttered. “And this is nothing compared with what I still have coming. I know what I’m up against.”

Suspiciously, Magdalena observed the monk doubled up in the corner. Simon had found the apothecary’s eyepiece at the crime site and had witnessed the argument between Johannes and the watchmaker. His entire behavior to that point made him look suspicious. He was no doubt the murderer of two of the men, if not all three. Still, as Magdalena looked at him, beaten and bloody like a wounded animal, a wave of pity came over her. She tore off a part of her skirt and handed it to him.

“Here, take this, or nobody will be able to see your pretty face again.”

In the dim light, Johannes’s faint grimace looked like that of a badly stitched puppet. “Thanks,” he murmured. “I know I’m not the handsomest fellow.”

“It still remains to be seen whether you are also a murderer.” Magdalena moved back to her corner and watched Johannes dab at his face. Flies buzzed around, trying to settle on his bloody lips, and though Johannes chased them away each time, they kept coming back. Magdalena couldn’t help but think of a stoic ox being whipped.

“You must be the wife of that Schongau bathhouse surgeon,” the monk said after a while. By now he was looking halfway human. “Are you feeling better? Your husband said you were suffering from stomach trouble.”

Magdalena laughed despairingly. “Thank you for asking, but I think that’s the least of my problems at present.” She sighed. “It looks like we’re in the same boat. We’re suspected in the murder of the watchmaker’s helper.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be released soon.” Johannes said, waving her off. “They want to get me, and no one else.”

“Why? Are your accusers right?” Magdalena asked in a soft voice. “Are you a warlock and a murderer?”

The ugly monk looked her up and down. “Do you seriously believe I’d tell you that if I really was?” he said finally. “And if I’m not the murderer but nevertheless have other dark secrets, why should I tell you? Who’s to say you wouldn’t betray me?”

Shaking her head, Magdalena leaned back against the wall. “Whether I betray you or not makes no difference. No doubt they’ll call the local judge tomorrow, then they’ll take you to the torture chamber in Weilheim. They’ll show you the instruments, and if you still don’t confess, they’ll start breaking your bones.”

Brother Johannes took a deep breath. Magdalena could see how he was shaking. “It’s astonishing a bathhouse owner’s wife like you knows so much about these things,” he murmured. “It’s almost as if you’d seen a torture once yourself.”

“But I haven’t. I’ve just listened carefully to what my father has to say.”

“Your father?” For the first time Johannes appeared really confused.

“He’s the Schongau executioner, Jakob Kuisl.”

“Jakob Kuisl?”

A sudden change came over the Benedictine monk. His face turned ashen, his eyes widened, and he mumbled softly to himself. After a while Magdalena could hear him praying.

“Oh Dear Lord, I have doubted, pardon me,” he pleaded. “I was a fool, a doubting Thomas. But you sent me a sign, Glory to God in the Highest! This is a miracle, a miracle!”

He fell on his knees and swayed back and forth, clutching a little wooden cross hanging by a chain from his neck.

“By all the saints… what… what is wrong with you?” Magdalena asked cautiously. Had pain and fear driven the monk mad? “Is it something I said?”

Finally Broker Johannes raised his head. “You… you… are an angel,” he began in solemn tones. “An angel passing through on a mission from God.”

He really has gone mad. Magdalena shuddered. Perhaps I should call the guards before he attacks me?

She smiled uncertainly. “An… an angel?”

Brother Johannes nodded eagerly. “An angel sent to me to announce Jakob’s coming.” He looked at her earnestly, and suddenly the maniacal expression vanished from his face.

“By God,” he whispered. “Your father is the only one who can still save me.”

Plumes of smoke rose into the sky above Schongau like the shadows of restless spirits.

As he had the day before, Jakob Kuisl sat beside the moat, looking down into the same green water where just a hundred years ago women who had murdered their children had been drowned. Kuisl liked this lonely place, as people very rarely wandered into it. The moat was regarded as cursed because so many poor souls had met their ends here, and the people of Schongau believed you could hear the dead crying here when the moon was full. Kuisl had never heard anything-on the contrary, the moat was a place of silent tranquility that the hangman missed all too often in town.

Kuisl needed rest. He wondered what to do about the Berchtholdt brothers. Was it advisable to go to the secretary and tell him about the thefts in the warehouse? At one time, Kuisl wouldn’t have hesitated, but now his two grandchildren were there, and they were in danger. Would the Berchtholdts really attack innocent children?

No matter how hard Kuisl tried to achieve clarity, his thoughts kept returning to the past. His conversation the day before with his son Georg had awakened memories of the war-the many dead and the battles, but above all the only true friend he’d ever had in his life. Together they’d gone through hell; they’d stood together in the front lines when they were attacked. They’d been almost the same age, like brothers.

But above all, they were bound together by a fate that separated them from all others.

As Kuisl stared into the water mirroring the willows along the bank, he suddenly had the bitter taste of gunpowder in his mouth, and in the distance he imagined he could hear shouting and the clanging armor.

It was as if he were looking through a tunnel as an indistinct image emerged at the other end.

Drums beat; flutes play; smoke and the scent of frying mutton are in the air. Eighteen-year-old Jakob wanders from campfire to campfire. As far as he can see, there are colorful tents alongside the dirty canvas-covered wagons belonging to the sutlers-the peddlers, traders, and whores who follow the army. In the foreground are the hastily dug trenches, and in the distance, the city they will storm the next day.

Will he still be alive tomorrow?

Jakob has been traveling with the army for five years. The pimply drummer boy has become a broad-shouldered man, a fearsome warrior who always stands in the frontlines with his two-handed sword. The captain awarded him a master’s certificate for the long sword, and his men fear him because they know his sword is thirsty for blood, a magic blade that moans when battle begins.

A hangman’s sword.

With the sword strapped to his back, he strides through the camp. The mercenaries who know him step back and cross themselves. The hangman’s son is not a welcome guest here; he is respected but not loved.

When Jakob senses someone looking at him, he turns around to see the ugliest fellow he’s ever met. With a face swollen like a pig’s bladder, eyes bulging, and mouth crooked, the stranger crouches like a fat toad in front of a campfire. It takes Jakob a moment to realize that the stranger is smiling.

A fine blade indeed,” says the stranger. His voice sounds soft and intelligent, out of character with his face. “No doubt cost a lot. Or did you steal it?”

“What business is that of yours?” Jakob grumbles. He is about to turn away when the other reaches behind him to extract his own sword from a pile of rags. A two-hander without a point-almost seven feet long, with a blood groove and short crossguard-it looks remarkably like Jakob’s sword.

Inherited the sword from my father, who was fetched by the devil,” the ugly stranger says with a grin. “In Reutlingen, where I come from, people say it shouts for blood on execution day. But ever since I was a little kid, I’ve never once heard it shout. It’s only the others who do the shouting.”

Jakob laughs softly. For the first time in a long while.

Now the Reutlingers will have to do their dirty work by themselves,” he growls. “Serves ’em right, the fat old moneybags.”

As the ugly man nods and runs his huge hands over the freshly sharpened blade, Jakob knows he has found a friend for life.

The Schongau hangman tossed a stone in the moat. As little waves spread in circles, his image in the water dissolved. He stood up and headed for home, his heart pounding.

It wasn’t good to awaken too many old memories.

For a long time, Magdalena could only stare at the monk in the Andechs dungeon in disbelief.

“You… You know my father?” she finally asked.

Brother Johannes was still kneeling in front of her. Now he crossed himself and struggled to his feet.

“Let’s say I knew him,” he murmured. “Better than my own brother. But I didn’t know he’d gone back to Schongau and become an executioner again. We’ve not been in touch for more than thirty years.” He laughed and raised his hands to heaven. “It’s a miracle that I’m now meeting his daughter. Perhaps everything will turn out well, after all.”

Magdalena looked at him skeptically. “Even if you knew him, why should everything turn out for the better now? How could my father help you?”

“You’re right.” Brother Johannes sighed and crouched down in his corner again.

“I’ll probably wind up burned at the stake soon, but if anyone could help, it would be your father, believe me. I don’t expect he’s lost any of that quick mind, has he?”

Magdalena had to smile. “Nothing of his sharp mind or his pig-headedness. Was he always like that?”

“He was the most pig-headed damn guy in the whole regiment. A great fighter and smart as a whole army of Jesuits.” Johannes grinned, then he began his story: “We had known each other since the battle at Breitenfeld. We were both hangmen’s sons and both running away from our former lives. War is a great equalizer-there’s no better place to start over again. We understood each other from the start.” He laughed, causing his swollen lip to burst open again. Cursing, he wiped the blood from his mouth. “I got a job as a whipping boy and had soon worked my way up to our regiment’s executioner. Your father, despite his dishonorable status, became a sergeant, something very few simple people manage to do. He was so damned clever that he figured out almost every case of theft in his regiment. Every unauthorized raid, every rape.” Johannes’s face darkened. “Then it was my job to string up the poor bastards. I can still see them in my dreams, twitching and thrashing about up in the trees. My God, how I hated that.”

For a while, the only sounds were the chirping sparrows outside the window.

“Is that why you became a monk?” Magdalena finally asked. “Because you were no longer able to stomach the killing?”

Johannes nodded hesitantly. “Jakob… he… could simply handle death better,” he continued in a halting voice. “He’d run away from home, just like me, because he didn’t want to be a hangman, but really he never gave it up.” He raised his hands dismissively. “Not bloodthirsty-not that-but rather an… an… archangel like Michael who came down to earth with his sword to vanquish evil. I couldn’t do it… the constant torturing and killing…”

The Brother clapped his hands over his face to hide his tears. “Finally, I deserted. Without a word I just left and wandered about for years until I found a place to stay here in Andechs more than ten years ago. My apothecary’s license was forged, but that didn’t bother the abbot at the time. All that mattered to Father Maurus Friesenegger was that I knew about herbs. The new abbot, Maurus Rambeck, also knows about my past. But if the others learn about it… a hangman disguised as a monk and apothecary.” He laughed bitterly. “What does it matter? Nothing matters anymore.”

Still on his knees, he slid across the floor to Magdalena, who to this point had been listening in silence.

“Please,” he stammered. “You must tell your father I’m in trouble. He’s my only hope. Tell him… tell him ugly Nepomuk needs his help.”

“Nepomuk?” Magdalena stopped short. “Is that your real name?”

“Nepomuk Volkmar. I was baptized with that name.” Groaning, he rose to his feet. “The name is a curse. I renounced it when I took my vows.”

At that moment, footsteps could be heard again. The door creaked and swung open, and Simon entered. He looked over at Magdalena with concern, but hardly glanced at the monk at her side.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he said, shrugging. “But the abbot had a few more questions. Now everything is clear.” He smiled. “We are free to go.”

“Simon,” Magdalena replied, pointing to Nepomuk Volkmar. “This monk knows my father. He-”

“That won’t help him now,” Simon interrupted. “The Weilheim executioner is in charge of executions at Andechs, not the one from Schongau.” Whispering, he continued, “Besides, I don’t know what your father could do here except assure a fast, halfway bearable death.”

“Simon, you don’t understand. Nepomuk was-”

“What I understand is that you’ve been happily chatting away with a man accused of three murders and the guards outside are already looking at us suspiciously,” Simon hissed. “So let’s get out of here, please, before the abbot changes his mind and locks us up for complicity in this case.”

Nepomuk Volkmar gave Magdalena a hopeful look. “You will tell your father, won’t you?” he murmured. “You won’t forsake me?”

“I’ll…” Magdalena began as Simon pulled her out the door. The last thing Magdalena saw as the dungeon door closed slowly behind them was the ugly apothecary’s battered, pleading gaze.

Then the door slammed shut.

Outside, the sun shone brightly in a blue sky as a few puffy clouds passed overhead, and the world seemed like quite a different place. The sound of singing pilgrims could be heard in the distance and butterflies fluttered over the meadows near the monastery.

Magdalena sat down on the ruins of a wall and stared at Simon angrily. “You didn’t even let me finish,” she hissed. “Don’t you ever do that again. I’m not one of your former whores. I’m a woman, damn it-don’t you forget it.”

“Magdalena, it was all for your own good. The guards-”

“Now just shut your mouth and listen to me,” she interrupted. “That man in there is probably my father’s best friend, and unless a miracle happens, he’ll be tortured as a sorcerer and murderer and burned in short order. Can you imagine what will happen if I don’t tell my father about it? Can you imagine what he’s going to do to you if you stop me?”

“His best friend?” the medicus asked, surprised. “How do you know that?”

Briefly, Magdalena told Simon about the monk’s former life, his time as regimental executioner in the war and his friendship with her father. When she had finished, the medicus still looked skeptical.

“And you believe everything he says? Don’t you think it’s more likely the man is just grasping at straws?”

“He knew details of my father’s life, Simon. He… he described them better than I could.” Magdalena looked into the distance, where a new storm was approaching over Lake Ammer. “Yes, I believe him.”

“Very well,” said Simon, softening his tone. “Perhaps he really does know him, but that’s a far cry from saying he’s innocent.” He held his wife firmly by the shoulder. “Magdalena, all the evidence points to his guilt. The eyepiece at the scene, the argument with the watchmaker, his behavior… Didn’t you yourself say he was behaving strangely? Just think of those strange rods he was carrying in the forest. In the council, too, they said he’s engaged in blasphemous experiments.”

Magdalena gave him an astonished look. “Blasphemous experiments?”

“They… they didn’t say anything specific,” Simon replied hesitantly. “But clearly Nepomuk has often argued with Virgilius, and it no doubt had something to do with his experiments.”

“That strange bier and all those wires up in the belfry,” Magdalena murmured. “Could those have been one of his experiments?”

Simon shrugged. “I don’t know. The monks were very guarded about that. In any case, the entire council is a group of very strange characters.” He started counting them off on his fingers. “The cellarer is a fat zealot who wants nothing more than to burn the apothecary right off… The prior has something against me… And the old librarian was very cold, as if none of it mattered to him. Only the master of the novitiates seemed concerned about death. I think he’d been crying-his eyes were red, in any case.”

He recounted in great detail his meeting with the abbot and the uproar that ensued when the monks heard about the automaton that had vanished.

“The stupid cellarer really believes the automaton is a sort of golem that haunts the Holy Mountain,” Simon replied, shaking his head. “It’s almost as if time has stood still up here. Musical automata like that are pretty common nowadays.”

“A golem?” Magdalena asked. “What is that?”

“An object that springs to life when life is breathed into it.” Absentmindedly Simon reached for a piece of brick and crumbled it in his hand. “I read about that once when I was a student in Ingolstadt. Golem is the Hebrew word for unformed. Some Jewish rabbis were said to be able to create a lifeless servant out of clay. It involved some very complicated rituals.” He shook his head. “It’s nonsense naturally, but for literalist Christians, also a perfect opportunity to depict the Jews once again as the devil incarnate. The cellarer in any case was almost foaming at the mouth, and the librarian was just as fired up. If I remember correctly, he was the first to bring it up.”

“Suppose someone in the council was involved somehow in the murders?” Magdalena wondered aloud.

Simon laughed derisively. “Perhaps the abbot himself? Magdalena, give it up. It was the apothecary, without a doubt. He isn’t a sorcerer-it’s not that-but there’s a simple reason why he committed these murders. We just haven’t found out yet what that is. Jealousy toward a colleague, revenge… who knows? Brother Johannes put this idea into your head and now you’ll stop at nothing to try to prove his innocence.”

“You didn’t talk with him,” Magdalena whispered. “Nepomuk is a man who has suffered a long time and is always fleeing from something because he can no longer stand the horror. A man like that would never kill three people. Besides, it wasn’t Nepomuk who pushed me out of the belfry. You told me yourself that at the time he was with you visiting the abbot.”

Simon sighed. “From your mouth to God’s ear. So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going down to the tavern in Erling to send a message to Schongau. What else?” Magdalena jumped down from the wall and ambled away toward the village. “Expect to see my father arrive shortly to straighten things out.”

“That’s the last thing I need,” Simon groaned. “I not only have to provide the abbot with more details on the murder, but now my father-in-law will be nosing around after me.”

Magdalena turned around and grinned. “He’s always known what to do, so quit whining. You could have looked for another family to marry into.”

With a wink, she ran through the flowering meadows toward Erling. To the west, the distant rumble of thunder could be heard.

Somewhere deep inside the Holy Mountain a clicking and rattling could be heard.

The automaton rumbled over pebbles and stones, banging against a low beam from time to time but stoically soldiering on. The corridor it rolled through was ancient, having been hewn into the mountain long before there was a monastery, at a time when the sword alone ruled and religious beliefs were celebrated in bloody rites with burning baskets full of writhing prisoners of war or on rough, charred altars. Since then, faith had grown; it had changed form, but it had persevered. In its new form it had overthrown kingdoms and crowned emperors. Its power was greater than ever.

Like an ever-grinning, life-size nutcracker, the puppet kept opening and shutting its mouth, while its soft melody echoed through the hallways and off the rock faces, until it seemed to be playing everywhere at the same time.

Though this was a love song, here in the lonely depths of the mountain, it sounded sad.

Sad and uncanny.