The Dark Monk (40 page)

“And?” Simon asked.

“Last night it came to me. It’s the cry the Crusaders made as they rode off into battle against the unbelievers—
God wills it.
This is how they attempt to excuse all the massacres of the Arabs. God wills it…”

Simon shook his head. “The old Crusaders’ battle cry on the lips of murderers and bandits. Just who are these lunatics we’re trying to track down?” He hesitated. “Do you know the bishop of Augsburg?” he finally asked.

“The bishop of Augsburg?” The alderman frowned. “Well, I’ve seen him once or twice in the Imperial City at large receptions—a young, ambitious man, people say. He’s said to be very literal in his understanding of the Bible, very pious.” Schreevogl smiled wanly. “The pope certainly has his reasons for sending one of his strictest shepherds to Augsburg, this den of iniquity, full of Protestants. But why do you ask?”

Simon shrugged. “Nothing in particular…a suspicion, that’s all. No doubt complete nonsense.”

Jakob Schreevogl shook his hand firmly. “In any case, keep alert. And there’s something else…”

“Yes?”

“This Friedrich Wildgraf. I’ve seen his name somewhere before.” The patrician bit his lip. “If only I knew where!”

Simon nodded. “I feel the same way. It’s like a ghost that keeps coming back to haunt me, but when I try to grab hold of it, it slips away and dissolves into thin air. I think it has something to do with that little book about the Templars you gave me. Could you spare it for two more days?”

“Certainly,” Schreevogl replied. “All I really want is for my Clara to get well again.” They’d reached the front door now, and snowflakes were blowing over the doorsill into the house.

“I wish you much luck. Godspeed!” Jakob Schreevogl looked Simon firmly in the eye again, then closed the door.

The medicus turned to leave. And then he stopped short.

Benedikta was standing down below on the street. She had loaded her things onto her horse and bridled it, and she was waving good-bye.

Magdalena stared up at the benevolent Jesus on the ceiling, knowing he wouldn’t be able to help her, either. Time slowed to a drag. She had been locked in this chapel for three days—three days of waiting, cursing, and sometimes crying. At first she thought of nothing except how to escape, but the only window, no more than a hand’s breadth across and made of some sort of translucent stone, was located about fifteen feet above the altar.

Her cries for help had echoed from the walls of the chapel unanswered. The door was massive and furnished with a lock, an additional bolt, and a peephole at eye level that her jailer, the monk, used regularly to keep an eye on her.

Brother Jakobus was, in fact, the only person she’d been able to talk to during these three days. He brought her food and drink, provided her with blankets, and once a day took away the bucket she had to use to relieve herself under the watchful eyes of all the archangels and evangelists. Before entering the chapel, Brother Jakobus would open the peephole. Magdalena then had to sit on one of the prayer stools visible from the peephole, and only then would he push back the bolt and enter. This was intended to keep her from attacking him when he entered the chapel, and indeed, she soon gave up on the idea. The monk might have been haggard, but he was also very hardy and muscular and, besides that, always carried a dagger at his side, which Magdalena assumed to be poisoned.

At first she refused to say more than just a few words to him, even though Brother Jakobus tried several times to engage her in conversation. With time, however, she became more and more bored in the drafty chapel. By now she knew the ceiling frescos like the back of her hand, as well as how many paces it was from the altar to the door and from the shrine of the Virgin to the altar. The only book here was a dog-eared prayer and hymn book whose Catholic hymns she had practically memorized by now.

On the second day, she started paying more attention to the monk’s diatribes—for the most part, endless, bigoted lectures full of quotes from the Bible. Brother Jakobus approached her with a mix of contempt, hatred, and even…adoration, something that increasingly confused her. Often, he passed his hands through her hair, only to break away a moment later and start pacing furiously among the pews again. More than once, she was afraid he would cut her throat in a sudden fit of madness.

“It was you women who brought evil into the world!” he lectured, waving his finger in the air. “You ate the apple, and since then, we have been living in sin!”

Magdalena couldn’t resist an answer: “Aha, and Adam just stood there and watched?” A moment later, she regretted speaking up.

Brother Jakobus walked over to her and seized her head like a ripe pumpkin he wanted to crush between his hands. “She talked him into it, do you understand?” he mumbled. “Adam had a moment of weakness, but God does not tolerate weakness, not a moment. He punished us all—
all
of us!”

Once more, she could smell his sweet perfume, but now, for the first time, Magdalena detected another scent behind the fragrance of violets—a vile, overpowering breath. The monk’s whole body stank like rotting flesh; his mouth smelled like a sewer, and his crooked black stubs of teeth jutted out from foul, festering gums. The white tunic he wore under his black hooded cowl was stained with wet spots, which she came to realize were caused by festering ulcers. Magdalena could see that his tonsure was not shaved by hand but, in fact, that his hair on top had fallen out.

Brother Jakobus seemed to be rotting from the inside out.

The hangman’s daughter remembered she’d seen these symptoms before in a Genoese merchant who had come to see her father some years ago. The man had staggered into the hangman’s house, evidently in great pain. Most of his hair had fallen off, like balls of wool flying from a spindle, and he was twitching oddly. Her father had spoken of a French disease and sent the merchant off with a phial of mercury and a drink of opium poppies to relieve the pain. When Magdalena asked her father whether the man could be cured, he’d shaken his head. “He’s been sick for too long,” he had said. “If he’s lucky, he’ll die before he’s completely in the grip of madness.”

Was Brother Jakobus in the grip of madness, too? Magdalena wondered what the monk intended to do with her.

At times, he’d gently stroke her head, almost lovingly passing his hand through her hair. Then his mind seemed far off, on some distant voyage. On one such occasion, Brother Jakobus had poured out his heart to her.

“When I was still young, I was in love with a girl like you,” he whispered. “A…whore…And her name was Magdalena. She brought ruin upon herself—and me. I was lecherous, a drunken fool stumbling through Augsburg in search of gratification. But then God sent me a sign. He punished me with this disease, and I collapsed in front of the Dominican Church of Saint Magdalene!” He giggled softly. “St. Magdalene—what a divine irony!” His giggle gave way to a loud coughing fit, and it was a long time before he could continue speaking. “Since then, I have devoted my life completely to the service of the Order. And now God has given me the chance to make up for my past. Magdalena…” Lost in thought, he stroked her cheeks. “My Magdalena is dead, but
you
can be healed. I will drive the demons out of you like the smoke and stench from a stifling farmhouse parlor.”

While he read verses from the Bible, Magdalena closed her eyes, thinking frantically about how she might escape.

The situation looked pretty bleak at first. The door was impregnable and the window too small. She had no idea how many guards were here assisting Brother Jakobus. Besides, she was unarmed. She estimated she’d been in the coffin for two days. At their last stop, the men had been speaking a Swabian dialect. Was she already beyond the Bavarian border or perhaps still somewhere in Augsburg? Had she been taken away on a ship? All she knew was that she had to be near a large church. At regular intervals, she could hear big, heavy bells tolling—the kind only large congregations could afford.

For the hundredth time, she cursed her stupidity. Why didn’t she tell anyone before she went down into the concealed vault under the cathedral? Capturing her had been an incredible stroke of luck for Jakobus and his accomplices. Clearly, she, along with her father and Simon, had been on the trail of a huge conspiracy with the Augsburg bishop at its head! With the hangman’s daughter as their hostage, the conspirators could now be assured the mysterious Templars’ treasure would not fall into the wrong hands. Magdalena was certain her father and Simon would do everything in their power to free her.

Simon…

She felt a tickle in her lower body just thinking of him. If they were together, they would certainly have figured out how to escape this prison. What she liked most about the physician was how clever he was. Simon was sly, funny, eager to learn things, and well, perhaps just a little bit too short.

Magdalena smiled, thinking of all the things they had been through together. As far as shrewdness was concerned, Simon was even a match for her father, and that said a lot. The medicus had solved the riddle in the crypt under the St. Lawrence Church on his own. But then along came that accursed Benedikta who put herself between them—that elegant, blasé
woman from Landsberg! Even down here in her prison, the thought of Simon and Benedikta together made Magdalena flush with anger. Just let her get her hands on that woman!

Then it occurred to her that she had other problems at the moment.

To get her mind off these things, she thought back again on a conversation she’d had the day before with Brother Jakobus about the treasure. She’d asked the monk several times what the treasure was and if it really was something left behind by the Templars, but he avoided answering all her questions.

“It’s a treasure that will determine the future of Christianity,” he said, looking up to the Savior on the ceiling. “With it, we will finally destroy the armies of the Lutheran heretics! As soon as our master tells the Pope about it, the Pope will join forces with us in a holy war to drive the Protestant princes out of the German Empire. The master knows that the Great War is not yet over!”

“Who is your master?” Magdalena interrupted. “The bishop of Augsburg?”

Brother Jakobus smiled. “Our numbers are legion.”

The nights were cold and damp. Even under the wool blankets and in the warm glow of the candles the monk brought each night, she froze. Her arms and legs were stiff and tingled from lack of movement. The only indication it was day or night was the narrow beam of light that came through the little shuttered window. She was in despair.

Then, on the third day, something happened.

It was around noon. She had gotten up from the cold stone floor and was dozing on one of the pews when, half asleep, she rolled off the narrow bench onto the floor again. Sitting there, with blankets around her shoulders, cursing, she noticed a small bundle hidden under a pew. She hesitated for a moment, then quickly picked it up.

It was the little bag of herbs she’d been carrying around with her for the last four or five days since her visit to the apothecary in Augsburg. It must have fallen off her waistband and wound up under the bench. She’d completely forgotten it.

Carefully, she untied the string and looked inside. There was a sharp aroma of herbs. Everything she’d hastily stuffed into the bag at Nepomuk Biermann’s apothecary was still there—a little crumbled, perhaps, but still useable.

Magdalena rubbed the dried herbs between her fingers, thinking.

And in her mind a plan began to take shape.

From the top of the stairs leading to Schreevogl’s front door, Simon looked down at Benedikta, who stood at the foot of the stairs in full riding costume. Her horse was saddled, and she was holding the reins in her hand. The sorrel pranced around nervously, and the saddlebags on both sides were filled to the brim.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Benedikta said, patting her horse to calm it down. “I was told I might find you here. I’d like to say good-bye.”

“You’re leaving?” asked Simon, his mouth falling open.

The merchant woman swung up into the saddle. “After our last meeting, I had the feeling it would be best for me to go. And to be honest, I don’t really put much faith in all this talk about treasures and murderers. It won’t bring my brother back, so I wish you farewell!”

“Benedikta, wait!” Simon hurried down the stairway. “I didn’t really mean what I said two days ago in the tavern. I was no doubt too harsh. It’s just that…” He hesitated and eyed the refined lady from Landsberg again. With her fur coat, billowing skirt, and cape, she looked so different from all the Schongau women who were always chasing after him. She was a visitor from another world who would leave him now—alone in this filthy little provincial dump.

“What’s the matter, physician?” She looked at him, waiting.

“I’m sorry, I was a fool. I…I would be really happy if you could stay and help with the rest of my search.” The words simply tumbled out before he’d had a chance to think them through. “It’s very possible that I’ll urgently need your self-confident, refined demeanor once again! The superintendent in Rottenbuch probably won’t want anything to do with a little field surgeon, but with you…”

“Rottenbuch?” Benedikta asked with curiosity. “The riddle points to Rottenbuch?”

Simon sighed. Without noticing, he’d already made a decision. “Let’s go to one of the quiet side rooms at Semer’s Tavern,” he said. “I’ll explain everything else to you there. We need to set out today.”

Benedikta smiled and looked down at the medicus, who kept shifting around, trying to get out of the way of her nervous horse.

“All right,” she said finally. “I’ll stay. But this time, let’s rent an obedient fast horse for you here at the post house. Do you think we might have to flee from robbers again?”

The monastery of Rottenbuch was only ten miles from Schongau, a journey of less than two hours.

Benedikta rode so fast and gracefully that Simon had trouble keeping up and not falling off his horse. As they raced past snow-covered trees, Simon often had to squint or close his eyes briefly in the light flurries and let the horse take its own pace—it seemed to know better than he where they were headed.