The Dark Monk (55 page)

“We robbed the courier because we hoped to find something of value in his bag,” the redhead whispered. “A bill of exchange, a few gold coins—but this time all we got were letters! I read a few of them out of pure curiosity and suddenly came across this incredible letter that mentioned a Templar’s grave and a riddle. In our family, the Templars were always the stuff of legend. When I was just a young child in France, my father told me about the legendary treasure. It could have been our last great exploit…” She stood up and brushed the snow from her charred dress. “Now what are you going to do with me?”

“First, you’ll go to the dungeon in Schongau,” Jakob Kuisl said. “After that, we’ll see. It’s possible they’ll put you on trial in Munich.”

The woman without a name bent down to wipe the snow off the hem of her dress. “Will you torture me in the dungeon?” she asked softly, as she continued brushing the snow from her boots. “Simon told me about the tongs and the brazier…”

“If you confess, I’ll see that not a hair on your head will be harmed until the trial,” Kuisl growled. “You have my word on that.”

Suddenly, the dainty little woman sprang up and threw a handful of snow in the hangman’s face. In the next second, she ran off between the gravestones.

“Stop, you bitch!” Jakob Kuisl shouted, wiping the snow out of his eyes. Then he looked at Simon and Magdalena standing alongside him, bewildered. “Why are you staring at me like two jackasses? Go after her! Her accomplices have killed people in Schongau!” The hangman ran after the fleeing woman as fast as he could.

Finally awakening from his paralysis, Simon set out after the hangman. He spotted a red shock of hair briefly above a gravestone, but then the woman disappeared again. The medicus turned left to run along the cemetery wall, hoping to cut her off if she tried to flee through the main gate. He reached the end of the wall, where he could see the hangman running through the crooked gravestones, but Magdalena was nowhere to be seen.

Arriving at the far end of the cemetery, Simon looked in all directions. The woman he knew as Benedikta had vanished from the face of the earth! He turned and started walking back slowly, checking behind the stones as he went. There was nothing there.

Perhaps it’s really better this way,
he thought.

At that moment he heard a soft, muted sound off to one side, someone gasping for breath. He tiptoed along a narrow, snowy path leading to a family burial vault through an archway whose columns were entwined with ice-encrusted ivy. Atop the archway was a statue of the Virgin Mary, smiling down benevolently and keeping watch over the dead. Behind a rusty gate, a few stone steps led down to a marble slab sealing off the entrance to the crypt.

Simon looked down in front of him at fresh tracks in the snow. Made by dainty feet.

Climbing over the gate, he saw her cowering at the foot of the steps—the woman who, for a week, had been the wealthy merchant’s widow from Landsberg, Benedikta Koppmeyer. She had tucked her legs under her now and wrapped her arms around them. Trembling with cold, her tangled hair falling down over her face, her makeup smeared, she looked up uncertainly at Simon standing at the top of the steps. Her eyes seemed to be begging for mercy, and her narrow lips formed a thin smile, like a child asking for forgiveness.

Simon looked at her for a long time. Behind the genteel exterior, the vanity, the ruthlessness, and the greed, he saw her now as a human being and believed he grasped who she really was.

“Well?” a voice asked from far off. It was the hangman. “Did you find her?”

Simon looked the redheaded woman in the face again, then turned around. “No, she’s not here!” he called out. “Let’s have a look over there.”

After searching another half-hour, the three finally met again at the main cemetery gate. Not only Benedikta, but also her horse was gone as well; the swindler had clearly managed to flee.

Magdalena, who hadn’t joined in the chase, was leaning against a gravestone waiting for the two men to return. “I don’t want to take part in a chase like that,” she said. “Even if I couldn’t stand her, she didn’t deserve that.”

“You fool!” Jakob Kuisl scolded. “That woman is responsible for the cold-blooded killing of at least a dozen men! She’s a murderer! Can’t you get that into your head?”

“She didn’t act like a murderer with us,” Simon said. “On the contrary. Back in the forest, on the other side of Peiting, she even saved my life.”

The hangman gave him a long, piercing gaze. “Are you certain you didn’t see her somewhere here in the cemetery?” he finally asked.

“I thought I saw her,” Simon said, “but I was mistaken.” Then he stomped away in the snow toward the dark monastery.

16

T
HEY SPENT THE
rest of the night with a farmer near Steingaden. Old Hans crossed himself three times when the Schongau hangman materialized in front of him, but he didn’t dare turn away the surly colossus with stitches in his face and a bloody bandage around his upper arm. So they remained till dawn in the warm farmhouse living room.

The entire night, Simon sat hunched over next to Magdalena on a narrow bench by the fire. He couldn’t fall asleep, not just because of the trumpet-like snoring of the hangman at their feet, but also because of all the thoughts racing around in his head. How had his judgment of Benedikta been so wrong? She’d used him, and he’d run after her like a trusting little puppy. But at the end, when he saw Benedikta cowering at the bottom of the stairs to the crypt, her eyes told a different story. Did she have any feelings for him, after all? At any rate, both of them would be sought now as fugitives, defilers of holy relics. Simon had no idea how he would ever get his head out of this noose. Worst of all, for the fleeting dream of fortune and happiness, he’d put his relationship with Magdalena at risk. The hangman’s daughter lay alongside him now as stiff as a corpse. He touched her once, tentatively, and she turned away, giving him the cold shoulder. But he could sense she wasn’t sleeping, either.

Shortly before daybreak, Magdalena sat bolt upright and glared at him, her eyes flashing furiously. Straw clung to her matted hair and a deep frown ran across her forehead. “So tell me the truth,” she hissed. “Did you sleep with her? Out with it, you shameless good-for-nothing!”

Pinching his lips together tightly, Simon shook his head. He was certain that, had he nodded, she would have taken a blazing log from the fireplace and killed him with it.

“There was nothing between us,” he whispered. “Believe me.”

“Swear to it, by all the saints!”

Simon smiled. “Let’s keep the saints out of this. I’m not on especially good terms with them right now. I swear by our love—will that do?”

Magdalena hesitated, then nodded earnestly. “By our love, then. But you must ask my forgiveness. Right now.”

Humbly, Simon closed his eyes. “I ask your forgiveness. I was a stubborn fool, and you knew better from the very beginning.”

She smiled and settled down next to him on a straw-filled pillow. Simon could feel her body had relaxed a bit, and he passed his hand gently through her hair. For a long while, they said nothing; the only sound was the hangman’s rattling snore.

“I could have had Philipp Hartmann,” Magdalena finally said softly, “the rich Augsburg hangman and his life of luxury. And what do I do instead? I fall in love with a skinny quack who flirts with other girls and whom I can’t marry in any case…” She sighed. “It doesn’t get stupider than that.”

“I promise you, we’ll get married someday,” Simon whispered. “Even without this treasure. We’ll move to another town where nobody knows you are the daughter of the Schongau hangman, and I’ll become a famous doctor, and you’ll help me with herbs and medicines, and—”

At this moment, she seized his hand and squeezed it so hard he almost let out a cry.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Keep talking. Talk until I drift off into my dreams.”

He held her in his arms and continued telling her about their new life together. After a while, he could feel that his hand was wet with her tears.

They set out early the next morning. The sun was shining brightly in a clear blue sky, and even though it was still mid-January, everything had begun to thaw. Water dripped from farmhouse roofs along the way, and they could hear finches and robins chirping in the forests. Simon knew that this taste of spring would probably last only a day, but for that reason he enjoyed holding his face up to the warm sunshine all the more.

In Schongau people were just coming from Sunday morning mass. They looked suspiciously at the three figures strolling through the market square and whispered among themselves. The son of the town physician together with the Kuisls! The old village women were certain the hangman’s daughter would be the downfall of young Fronwieser. Such a handsome fellow, but the Kuisls had cast their spell on him—that much was clear.

The three paid no attention to the piercing glances but continued up the Münzgasse to the castle. Jakob Kuisl had insisted that Simon come along with him to pay a visit to the clerk, but he didn’t say why.

“Don’t always ask. You’ll send me to an early grave with all your questions” was all he said. Then he winked and left Simon to ponder on his own.

In the clerk’s office on the top floor of the castle, Johann Lechner was sitting, as usual, at his worn, massive, wood table, leafing through some old papers. He looked up in surprise as the three entered the room.

“If you’re coming to excuse yourself for the botched execution, Kuisl, I’ll have to disappoint you.” He turned back to his documents. “There will be consequences. I’ve heard that the Memming executioner’s second son is looking for a job. Just because your family has been here for generations doesn’t mean that will always be the case.”

Ignoring the threat, Jakob Kuisl settled comfortably into the easy chair opposite the desk. “There’s no longer a second gang of robbers.”

“What?” The clerk looked up again.

“I said there’s no longer a second gang of robbers. I got rid of them all in Steingaden. Only the leader could flee, but I’m sure she won’t show her face around here anytime soon.”

“But you were alone,” the clerk replied.

Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “There were only four of them—trained mercenaries, to be sure—but I dispatched them one after the other. The merchants can get back on the road again. There’s no one spying on their routes anymore.”

“Kuisl, Kuisl…” Johann Lechner grinned and shook his head. “You always have some surprise up your sleeve. Now don’t torment me any longer! What happened? How did the gang go about it?”

The hangman told him about the woman posing as Benedikta Koppmeyer and how she’d spied on the merchants and wagon drivers. He recounted his fight with the robbers in the Steingaden forest but avoided saying exactly how many robbers there were or what had happened in the playhouse. The clerk listened, spellbound.

“Indeed,” Lechner said finally. “This woman often sat together with the merchants over there in Semer’s tavern and would sometimes ask about the best routes to take. Who would have believed she was working with the robbers?”

“And that’s not all,” Jakob Kuisl continued. “That shameless woman and her gang were also trying to steal the sacred remains of two saints in Rottenbuch. First they snooped around the monastery and then started a fight with the monks. One of the bandits almost looked like our young Fronwieser…”

Simon looked at the hangman in astonishment. What was Jakob Kuisl doing?

“Like young Fronwieser?” Lechner asked, bewildered.

“I can swear to it,” Kuisl said. “I almost thought it was Simon myself. The problem is that the Rottenbuchers believe our medicus had something to do with it, and they want to draw, quarter, and burn him—the sooner, the better.”

Johann Lechner laughed. “Simon Fronwieser a defiler of holy relics? The only thing he defiles are the young maidens in town.” He laughed and shook his head. “What a crazy idea. I’ll send the Rottenbuch superintendent a letter telling him there must be some mistake. That should take care of the matter.”

Reaching for some parchment and his quill, he began to write a short note. Simon smiled furtively at the hangman. Once more, Jakob Kuisl had gotten him out of a jam.

“Thank you, Your Excellency,” Simon said, bowing slightly in the clerk’s direction. “Such a regrettable misunderstanding. I don’t know myself how—”

“All right, all right,” the clerk interrupted. “Express your thanks in deeds. We need our physician, after all, to take care of this dreadful fever, don’t we? Since you left, three more people have died. You’re not on very good terms with your father, to put it mildly.”

Simon blushed, remembering that he’d visited neither his father nor little Clara since his arrival.

“You’re right,” he replied in a subdued tone. “I really ought to get right back to work.” He said a hasty good-bye and rushed back to the Schreevogl house on the market square. In this miserable search for the Templars’ treasure, he had completely forgotten about the terrible illness still raging in Schongau. So many people had died while he was out chasing a fantasy. For a while, he’d even forgotten Clara!

After he had knocked a few times at the patrician’s house, Maria Schreevogl opened the door. Her face was pale and she held a rosary in her scrawny fingers. “It’s good you’re here again,” she whispered. “Our Clara is worse again. She hasn’t awakened since yesterday, drinks nothing, and is coughing up red mucus. May God have mercy on her! My husband is upstairs with her now. Ave Maria, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women…”

Without paying any further heed to her prayers, Simon hurried up the stairs and knelt alongside the bed, where Jakob Schreevogl was holding the feverish hand of his stepdaughter. The alderman looked up briefly, then continued wiping the perspiration from Clara’s forehead. The girl’s breathing was shallow and irregular, like a little bird’s, and interrupted occasionally by a dry rattling sound from her mouth.

The physician realized at once that Clara didn’t have long to live if her condition didn’t quickly improve. In recent days, he’d seen the same symptoms in Schongau over and over. Once the patient started spitting blood, it wasn’t long till the trumpets of heaven would be sounding.