The Dark Monk (37 page)

Lechner was silent for a moment; then he nodded. “As you will.” He pushed the papers in front of him to one side and pulled a large notebook from a bookshelf alongside the desk. “Let’s get to the reason I asked you to come.” He leafed through the book as he continued. “Scheller and his gang had their trial today, and—”

“They had
what?
” Kuisl sat bolt upright in his chair.

“Don’t interrupt me,” Lechner said, giving the hangman a severe look. “As I said, we put the gang on trial this morning in the Ballenhaus. It lasted just a quarter hour. Your presence wasn’t necessary.”

“And Burgomaster Semer?”

“He was informed and agreed to the procedure. The execution is set for this coming Saturday; that’s in three days.” He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, I was not successful in arranging the type of execution you requested. You’ll have to torture Scheller on the wheel.”

Kuisl could no longer stay seated. “But you gave me your word!” He jumped up so violently that his chair tipped backward and crashed to the floor. “I’m indebted to Scheller!”

The clerk shook his head as if he were speaking with a child. “Please, Kuisl! Indebted…to the head of a band of robbers?” He pointed at the chair on the ground. “Now please pick it up. We still have some things to discuss.”

Jakob Kuisl took a deep breath and stood there, his arms crossed.

“Believe me,” Lechner continued, “it’s the best thing for the city. We have to set an example. Every gang of robbers from here to Landsberg will hear Scheller scream. It will be a lesson to them. Besides”—he tapped his goose-quill pen on the document in front of him—“the execution will bring money back into the city coffers. We’ll have a big celebration with dancing, music, mulled wine, and roasted chestnuts. People need a change of pace after these cold, anxious days.” He leafed through the pages of the book. “You see, there are some things that have to be done. First, the execution site has to be cleaned. Also, I’ve checked and one of the beams is rotten. And down below, in the square, we’ll need some gallows—at least three of them. And seats with canopies for the patricians so the fine gentlemen don’t freeze their behinds off in the cold. I’m afraid the hunt for the other gangs of robbers will have to wait a bit.”

The hangman, who had listened stoically to Lechner’s words, stirred again. “And what about the children and the women?” he asked.

The clerk nodded. “They’ll go free, as promised. We’ll hang only the men and older boys. Scheller will be tortured on the wheel. Believe me, there were people on the council who wanted to hang the women and children, too.” He smiled at Kuisl. “You see, I’m trying to meet you halfway. Now get started. By Saturday noon everything has to be ready.”

With a nod, Lechner dismissed the hangman, who headed for the exit as if in a trance. After he closed the door behind him, the clerk groaned. He would never understand this pigheaded Kuisl! Torture on the wheel paid a full thirty guilders, yet Kuisl reacted as if he were being asked to string up his own daughter. Lechner watched out the window as the large man walked away. A strange man, this hangman, he thought. Strong, bright, but a little too sentimental for his job.

And definitely too curious.

Once more, Lechner removed the letter from under the table. Written on the finest stationery, it had arrived that morning. He could see from the seal that the messenger who had been here a few days earlier had spoken the truth. Someone very powerful wanted to do everything possible to keep the hangman from asking too many questions in Altenstadt.

Johann Lechner cast a final glance at the seal, just to make sure it was genuine, then held the letter over a candle on his desk. Flickering, the fire ate its way through the thin paper until there was nothing left but ashes. The instructions in the letter had been clear.
No proof, no written documents, no evidence that would reveal the identity of the client.

Johann Lechner counted out the freshly minted coins that had accompanied the letter. The money would help the city, as would the executions. Once again, the clerk was at peace with himself and the world.

Simon and Benedikta arrived in Schongau early in the evening. During the entire trip back, they’d been wondering about the strange words on the plaque, but also about the man who had watched them from the top of the fir. Was he part of the same gang that had been spying on them on the way to Wessobrunn? But why, then, hadn’t the robbers attacked? Why were the two of them being observed and followed?

Simon escorted Benedikta to her quarters at Semer’s inn, where she convinced him to remain a while for a glass of wine in the tavern.

“Is it possible these are the same men who were hanging around this area a few days ago?” Simon asked. “The same ones who ambushed the hangman in the crypt? Magdalena told her father about a few black-robed strangers in Strasser’s Tavern in Altenstadt who were speaking Latin. Perhaps they’ve been following us the entire time, and—”

“Magdalena is a little girl who probably doesn’t know a word of Latin,” Benedikta interrupted. “Perhaps they were just itinerant Benedictines saying their prayers before they ate.” She winked at him. “You’re beginning to look at every stranger like a murderer.” She put her hand around Simon’s arm, but he quickly pulled away.

“Don’t you sense that our every move is being watched?” he asked with alarm. “A highwayman who doesn’t attack, the man in the fir…That can’t all be a coincidence!”

“I think you’re just imagining things!” Benedikta laughed. “Now I’ll tell you what
I
think. The man you saw yesterday in the yew forest
was
a highway robber. We escaped. And the man in the fir tree was nothing but a figment of your imagination. You can’t even give a good description of what he looked like.”

“I know what I saw.” There was a long pause. When Simon spoke again, he decided to put all his cards on the table. “You’re right,” he said. “Perhaps it’s all just my imagination. Perhaps Andreas Koppmeyer was murdered for some completely different reason. Tell me, Benedikta, your brother surely must have left a will. What does it say?”

Benedikta stared back at him in astonishment and took a deep breath. “So that’s what you think!” she finally blurted out. “You suspect
me
of having killed my brother! You have no doubt been harboring this suspicion for a long time, haven’t you?”

“What does the will say?” Simon persisted.

Benedikta looked at him angrily, with her arms crossed. “I can tell you. I’m inheriting a leather-bound Bible from my brother, an old armchair, and a cookbook he wrote himself. And forty guilders that will hardly make up for the losses my wine business has incurred in the meanwhile.” She leaned over to Simon. “Those are his personal bequests. Everything else goes to the church!”

Simon winced. He hadn’t once stopped to think that the priest’s possessions would, in fact, for the most part, revert back to the church after his death. In all likelihood, Benedikta had probably inherited no more than these few worthless things.

“And if that were the case,” she continued, now in such a rage that other guests turned around to look at her, “why on earth would I want to hang around Altenstadt near the scene of the crime? Wouldn’t I have just poisoned my brother, gone back to Landsberg without anyone noticing, and waited there for news of his death? Nobody would have suspected anything.” She stood up quickly, knocking over her chair. “Simon Fronwieser, you’re really out of line.” Benedikta ran out, slamming the door behind her.

“Well, Fronwieser?” The brewer’s journeyman, Konstantin Kreitmeyer, looked over at him and grinned. “Trouble with women again? Better stay with your hangman’s daughter. She’s crazy enough for you.”

Some other brewer’s journeymen at Kreitmeyer’s table laughed and made a few obscene gestures.

Simon swallowed the rest of his wine and stood up. “Oh, shut your mouths!” He put a few coins on the table and left the tavern to a further chorus of lewd remarks.

Instead of turning into the Hennengasse and going home, Simon headed toward the Lech Gate. He couldn’t possibly sleep the way he felt now. He had acted like such a fool with Benedikta! How could he even imagine she’d poison her own brother? Further, the journeyman’s words had set him thinking of Magdalena again. Was she already on her way home from Augsburg? Perhaps her father had heard from her. Simon longed for a hot cup of coffee. The only thing awaiting him at home was work and a carping father who was fed up with his son’s escapades. The last time Simon visited the hangman, he brought Anna Maria a little bag of coffee beans, and he wondered now whether the hangman’s wife would brew him a cup of his favorite drink. He decided to pay the Schongau executioner a visit.

Before long, he was down in the Tanners’ Quarter, knocking on the front door of Kuisl’s house. The moment Anna Maria Kuisl opened the door, he could see something was wrong. The face of the otherwise vivacious woman seemed pale and drawn.

“It’s good you have come,” she said, motioning for Simon to enter. “Maybe you can cheer him up a little. He’s started to drink again.”

“Why?” asked Simon, taking off his wet coat and torn jacket and hanging both up to dry alongside the stove.

Anna silently eyed the ruined clothing, then went to look for a needle and thread in a drawer. “Lechner says my husband has to break Sheller on the wheel,” she said as she started sewing up the torn garment. “It’s going to happen in three days, even though Jakob gave his word to the robber chief. It’s a rotten group up there in the city council—they have money coming out their ears, but don’t care a bit about honor and decency!”

The medicus nodded. He’d become accustomed to the hangman’s excesses. Before executions, Kuisl would go on drinking binges, but amazingly, when the time came for the actual execution, he’d always completely sobered up again.

Simon let Anna Maria grumble on while he went over to the main room, where he found the hangman leaning glassy-eyed on the gallows ladder and brooding. The sweet odor of alcohol and sweat drifted through the room. On the table, a few opened books lay alongside an open bottle of brandy, and in a corner of the room, the pieces of a smashed beer stein flashed in the dim light. Kuisl’s face shone in the light of the fire as he prepared to take another mighty swig.

“Drink with me or leave me alone,” he said, slamming the bottle back down on the table. Simon put a fat-bellied clay cup to his mouth and sipped on its contents. It was something very strong that the hangman made from the fermented apples and pears from his orchard. Presumably, there were also a few herbs mixed in, which the medicus didn’t even want to know about.

“We found a new riddle in Wessobrunn,” Simon said abruptly. “Some words up in a linden tree. I thought you might be able to make some sense out of them.”

Kuisl belched loudly and wiped the corner of his mouth. “Who gives a damn? But go ahead, spit it out. You can’t just keep it to yourself.”

Simon smiled. He knew how curious the hangman was, even when he was stoned. “It goes like this:
In gremio Mariae eris primus et felicianus.
”

Kuisl nodded, then translated aloud. “
You will be first at Mary’s bosom, and a happy person.
” He broke into a laugh. “Just a pious sentiment, nothing more! That can’t be the clue.”

He picked up the bottle again with a vacant look, one that Simon had trouble reconciling with Kuisl’s other, sensitive and educated side. People were always astonished that the executioner knew Latin so well, even when he was completely soused. They would be even more astonished if they looked around the hangman’s library and saw all the books in German, Latin, and even Greek, written by scholars still completely unknown in most German universities.

“But it
must
be the next riddle,” Simon objected. “He put his name at the bottom of it. Friedrich Wildgraf, anno domini 1328—a year before his death.”

Kuisl rubbed his temples, trying to think clearly. “Well, it’s not anything from the Bible that I can remember,” he growled. “And I know most of those biblical aphorisms. You wouldn’t believe how pious people become when it’s time for them to die. I’ve heard it all, but never these words.”

Simon swallowed before continuing. Jakob Kuisl’s father had been the local hangman before him, and before that, his grandfather—a true dynasty of executioners now extending over a whole host of Bavarian cities and towns. The Kuisls had probably heard more whining and pious words than the Pope himself.

“If it’s not from the Bible, maybe it’s some secret message,” Simon said, repeating the words. “
You will be first at Mary’s bosom, and a happy person.
What does that mean?”

The hangman shrugged before picking up the bottle again. “Damned if I know. What’s it to me, anyway?” He took such a long swig that Simon was afraid he might choke. Finally, he put the bottle down again. “For my part, I’m going to break Scheller on the wheel on Saturday, and there’s nothing more I can do to help you. Till then, there’s a lot to do. The people want a spectacle.”

Simon could see from the hangman’s bloodshot eyes that the bottle was almost empty. Jakob Kuisl was leaning farther and farther over on his stool. A whole bottle of brandy apparently was a little too much even for a big, broad-shouldered man six feet tall.

“You’ll need some medicine,” Simon sighed, “or you won’t have a clear head tomorrow.”

“Don’t need no medicine from you goddamned quacks. I’ll make my own.”

Simon shook his head. “This medicine is something only I have.” He stood up and walked over to the living room, where Anna Maria was still sitting at a table mending the rip in the Simon’s jacket.

“Make a strong cup of coffee for your husband,” Simon said. “But don’t skimp on the beans. It’ll only work if it’s strong enough for the spoon to stand up in the cup without falling over.”

Magdalena awoke to a monotonous humming sound that grew louder and louder until she thought her head would split. Her headache was even worse than the last time she woke up. Her lips were so rough and dry that when she passed the tip of her tongue over them, they felt like the bark of a tree. She opened her eyes, blinded at first by bursts of light, but after a while the flashing stopped, things came into focus—and what she saw was paradise!