The Dark Monk (5 page)

“And moss to stop the bleeding!” the woman called after her. “She has already lost too much.”

Magdalena, jolted from her reveries, nodded. As she went out into the hall, she glanced back into the overheated, dark room. The shutters were locked and the cracks filled with straw and clay. Out in the main room, women from the neighborhood were sitting on benches around the hearth and at the table, anxiously and skeptically watching the struggling midwife and her young helper.

“Ave Maria, the Lord be with you…” Some of the old women started saying the rosary aloud. Evidently, they assumed that Josefa Hainmiller would soon be with the good Lord.

Magdalena hurried down the hall, took a handful of moss from the midwife’s bag, and filled a bowl of water from a copper basin on the hearth. When she returned to the main room, she slipped on the blood-soaked straw and fell flat on the floor. Water spattered the old women’s skirts.

“Good heavens, can’t you watch out?” One of the neighbor women looked at her angrily. “What is a young girl like you doing here, anyway? Damned hangman’s girl.”

A second neighbor woman chimed in. “It’s true what they say. A hangman in the house brings misfortune.”

“She is my apprentice,” Martha Stechlin panted as she continued to grope around inside the screaming Frau Hainmiller. “Now leave her alone and bring me some fresh linen.”

Magdalena clenched her teeth and got fresh water from outside. Tears of anger streamed down her face. When she returned, the women still hadn’t calmed down. Disregarding the cries of pain, they started whispering and pointing at her again.

“What’s the point of all this washing?” one of the older women asked. Her face was black with soot, and she had only three yellow teeth still left in her mouth. “Water has never helped during a difficult birth! You need Saint John’s wort and wild marjoram to chase out the devil, and perhaps holy water, but in any case, not simple well water—ridiculous!”

For Magdalena, that was the last straw. “You foolish women,” she shouted, slamming the bowl down on the table. “What do you know about healing? Dirt and foolish chatter—that’s what makes people sick!” She felt as if she were going to suffocate. For much too long she had been breathing the sharp odor of mugwort, garlic, and smoke. Rushing to the window, she tore open the shutters. Light flooded the room as the smoke drifted out.

The neighbors and family members gasped. It was considered a tried-and-true rule that the windows shouldn’t be opened when a woman was in labor. Fresh air and cold meant sure death to every newborn. For a while all that could be heard was the screaming of Frau Hainmiller, but it resounded now out into the street.

“I think it would be best for you to go now,” Martha Stechlin whispered, looking around carefully. “In any case, you can’t be of much help here anymore.”

“But—” Magdalena started to say.

“Go,” the midwife said, interrupting her. “It’s best for all of us.”

Under the withering gazes of the women, Magdalena stomped out the door. As she closed it behind her, she heard whispering and the sound of shutters slamming. She gulped and struggled to hold back her tears. Why was she always so stubborn! This trait, which she’d inherited from her father, had often caused trouble for her. It was possible that this visit to the Hainmillers would be her last one as a midwife. Her behavior would soon enough be the talk of the town, and it would be best for her not to show her face around Frau Stechlin for a while, either.

She sighed. Wearily, she picked up her leather bag containing scissors, old linen rags, and a few ointments, threw it over her shoulder, and headed back to Schongau. Maybe she would at least see Simon today. When she thought of the young medicus, a warm longing and a pleasant tingling rose inside her and her anger subsided. It had been much too long since they had spent a few hours together. It was on Epiphany, when carolers wandered from house to house and young men frightened little children with wild-animal masks. Lost in the masked crowd, the couple had walked hand-in-hand, disappearing into one of the warehouses down by the Lech River.

The clatter of hoofbeats interrupted Magdalena’s daydreams. A man on horseback was coming down the broad tree-lined road, which was blanketed knee-deep in snow. The hangman’s daughter squinted to get a better look and only then realized it wasn’t a man at all on the imposing stallion, but a woman. She appeared to be a stranger here; she looked all around as if she were searching for something.

Magdalena decided to stand by the side of the road and wait for the stranger. When the rider had approached to within a few yards, the hangman’s daughter could see that the woman had to come from a wealthy family. She was wearing a finely woven, dark-blue cape and underneath it a starched white skirt with polished leather boots. She was holding the reins loosely in her fur gloves. But the most striking thing about her was the shock of reddish-blonde hair that protruded from under a velvet hood, framing a pale, finely chiseled, aristocratic face. The rider was perhaps in her mid-thirties, statuesque, and certainly not from around here. She looked like someone from a big city far away—perhaps from Munich—but how in the world did she ever wind up in here in Altenstadt?

“Can I assist you?” Magdalena inquired with a warm smile.

The stranger seemed to think this over, then smiled in return. “You can, girl. I’m looking for my brother, a pastor in this community. Andreas Koppmeyer by name.”

She leaned over to Magdalena and extended her gloved hand. “My name is Benedikta Koppmeyer. And what is yours?”

“Magdalena Kuisl. I am the…midwife here.” As always, it was hard for Magdalena to say she was the daughter of the town executioner. That often led to people making the sign of the cross or turning away, mumbling.

“Magdalena…a beautiful name,” the lady continued, pointing to her bag. “I see you are just coming from delivering a child. Did everything go well?”

Magdalena nodded, looking at the ground. She hoped the lady didn’t notice how she was blushing.

“I am happy to hear that,” the lady said, smiling again. “But on another matter…Do you know where my brother’s church is?”

Without saying a word, Magdalena turned around and headed back to the village. She was actually happy she had met the stranger—a little diversion would do her some good.

“Follow me, it’s not far from here,” she said, pointing to the west. “Behind the hills there, you can make out the Church of Saint Lawrence.”

“I hope my brother is home,” Benedikta Koppmeyer said, dismounting elegantly in order to give the reddish-brown sorrel a chance to rest. “He wrote me a letter. It seems important.”

She followed Magdalena down the street in Altenstadt, holding her horse’s reins in her hand. Suspicious villagers on both sides of the street watched the two women from behind closed shutters.

Simon stared into the black hole that opened up in front of them. A musty, damp odor rose out of the square opening, and a steep staircase, hewn into the rock, led down to the crypt. After just a few yards, the passage was enveloped in darkness.

“Shall we…?” the medicus started to say, then stopped when he saw the hangman’s grim nod. “We’ll need a light,” he said finally.

“We’ll take those over there.” Jakob Kuisl pointed toward two five-armed silver candelabras standing on the altar. “The dear Lord certainly won’t hold it against us.”

He seized the two candelabras and lit them with a votive candle burning in a niche in front of the statue of St. Sebastian, his body pierced by arrows.

“Come now.”

He handed Simon the second candelabra and descended the stairway, Simon close behind. The steps were damp and slippery. As they continued downward, the medicus briefly thought he smelled something strange, but he couldn’t place it and the odor soon vanished.

After only a few yards, they reached the bottom of the chamber. Jakob Kuisl held the candles up to illuminate the almost cubical area. Broken barrels and slats of wood lay around rotting. A splintered crucifix with a fading Jesus lay moldering in a corner, its paint flaking off. In another corner lay a bundle of rags. Simon leaned over and picked one up. Sacrificial lambs and crosses were embroidered onto the moldy linen, which crumbled in his hands.

Meanwhile, Jakob Kuisl had opened a trunk standing crosswise in the middle of the room and pulled out a rusted candelabra and a votive candle that had burned down to the base. Disgusted, he threw the objects back into the trunk. “Holy Saint Anthony, thank you! We have found the church’s storeroom,” he grumbled. “Nothing but rubbish!”

Simon nodded in agreement. It looked as if they had found the junk room of the St. Lawrence Church. Evidently, for hundreds of years, everything for which there was no use up above had been brought down here. So was it just chance, after all, that the dead priest had come to rest right over the tombstone?

Simon’s gaze wandered over the walls, where the candlelight caused outsized shadows to dance about. In the middle, exactly opposite where he stood, was a pile of rubbish—boards, splintered chairs, and a huge oaken table turned upside down against the wall. Behind the table something white was shimmering. Simon went over to it and moved his finger back and forth over the spot.

When he examined his finger in the light of the candle, it was white with lime.

And only then did he remember the odor he had noticed on the stairway. It smelled of lime. Lime and fresh mortar.

“Kuisl!” he cried out. “I think I’ve found something!”

When the hangman saw the fresh mortar, he heaved the huge oak table to one side in a single movement. Behind it a freshly walled-up, chest-high doorway came into view.

“Well, just look at that,” Jakob Kuisl panted, pushing the rest of the clutter to one side with his foot. “The priest actually did lend a hand in the renovations. Just differently than we thought. It looks like he just recently walled up this entrance.” He sunk his finger into the mortar, which was still wet.

“I wonder what’s behind it,” Simon said.

“I’ll be damned if it’s not something valuable,” Jakob Kuisl said, scratching away at the fresh mortar with a nail until a brick wall became visible behind it. “And I’ll bet the priest was killed for exactly that reason.”

He kicked the walled-up doorway, and some bricks fell into an opening behind them, setting off a chain reaction. Cracking and then breaking into pieces, the whole wall collapsed. After a while the noise subsided, but a cloud of mortar dust hung in the air, blocking the view through the portal that was now open. Not until the dust had settled could Simon make out another room. In the middle of it stood something big and heavy, but it was too dark to see anything more.

The hangman climbed over the rubble and ducked through the low entrance. Simon heard him whistle through his teeth at what he saw.

“What is it?” Simon asked, trying in vain to see more than just a huge silhouette from his vantage point.

“It’s best for you to come and see for yourself,” Jakob Kuisl said.

With a sigh, Simon stooped down and followed the hangman through the narrow entranceway, shining his light into the second room.

The chamber was empty except for a huge stone sarcophagus resting on an even larger block of stone. The sarcophagus was simple and without ornamentation except for the relief of a long broadsword, a full five feet in length, depicted on its lid. At the head of the stone block, a Latin inscription was chiseled into the stone, and Simon drew in close to decipher it.

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

“
Not to us, o Lord, not to us, but to Thy name be the honor,
” the medicus read softly.

Somewhere he had seen these words, but he couldn’t remember when or where. Bewildered, he looked at the hangman, who was kneeling now and also considering the inscription.

Finally, Kuisl shrugged. “You’re the scholar,” he grumbled. “Now show me your damned overpriced education was worth anything.”

Simon couldn’t help smiling to himself. Jakob Kuisl would never forgive him for going off to the university while he, as a hangman, couldn’t because of his dishonorable profession. Kuisl didn’t think much of the learned quacks, and often Simon had to agree. But Simon would be better off now if he hadn’t broken off his study of medicine after seven semesters in Ingolstadt for financial reasons and out of sheer laziness.

“I don’t know where I’ve seen this saying,” Simon cursed. “But I swear I’ll figure it out. And when I…”

He stopped because he thought he’d heard a sound in the adjacent room, steps scraping along the floor and moving away quickly, something brushing against a wall. Or was he mistaken? Echoing underground crypts could play all kinds of tricks on your imagination. Perhaps the sound had come from the church above?

The hangman obviously had not heard anything. In the meantime, he had started running his hands over the walls but couldn’t find any other exit.

“If I’m right, if the fat priest died because of this,” he mumbled, “then there’s got to be more down here than a stone grave. Or…” He turned again to the sarcophagus. “The secret is in the grave.”

He went to the head end of the stone block and tried to push the cover aside. His face turned a bright red.

“Kuisl! You can’t just…” Simon cried out. “That’s disturbing the dead!”

“Oh, come now!” the hangman panted as he continued to struggle with the stone slab. “The dead don’t care, and this one has been dead for so long that the living won’t complain, either.”

There was a grinding sound as the slab moved aside a half inch or so. Simon watched with fascination as Kuisl, all by himself, raised the slab that had probably been wrestled into place by a whole group of men long ago.

And no doubt they had used tools and ropes for that, too…

He was always astonished by the hangman’s enormous strength. Once more the slab moved with a grinding sound, and a crack the width of a hand appeared.

“Don’t just stand there gaping,” Kuisl cursed between gasps. “Help me!”

Simon pushed, too, even though he was sure he couldn’t be of much help. After a few minutes they had shoved the slab back a good half a yard, and panting, Kuisl shone his light around inside. A musty stench rose from the coffin and a skull grinned back at them. Faded white bones lay at the bottom of the coffin amid dust and rusting pieces of knight’s armor. The hangman picked up a bone and held it to the light. Simon recognized from the few anatomy courses he had taken at the university in Ingolstadt that it was a man’s upper arm bone. But what a huge one!