Oliver Potzsch: The Poisoned Pilgrim

Magdalena left the pew on tiptoe and climbed up to the balcony. In fact, there was a low entrance there and, behind that, a newly constructed staircase leading up. The old wooden stairway had been almost completely destroyed by fire. In some places the remains of the old, worn steps were visible, but for the most part all that remained were charred stubs over the void below. Magdalena crossed herself and started up the creaking frame.

After just a few steps, she was all alone. She could hear hammering and shouting down below, but the higher she climbed the more the sounds faded. Through the empty, charred window openings that appeared at regular intervals, Magdalena could look out into the green valley of the Kien, the beech forests around the monastery, and the construction site far below. The workers looked like ants crawling around the building site, pushing tiny stones.

The makeshift staircase creaked and swayed; there was no hand railing, and Magdalena could feel herself getting dizzy again. One step at a time she climbed higher and higher. Drops of sweat ran into her eyes and she silently cursed herself for climbing the burned-out, rickety tower. She was about to turn back when she saw a square opening in the ceiling just above her. She climbed through it and had finally made it into the belfry. A cool wind blew through the blackened window openings. The view was splendid.

Several times Magdalena had climbed to the top of the Hoher Pei?enberg not far from Schongau, but here she felt just a little bit closer to heaven. Far out on the horizon, the snowcapped Alps served as a background to the Bavarian foothills, with their forests, moors, and lakes. On the west side of Lake Ammer, she could see the great tower of the Augustinian monastery in Die?en, and to the left of that, the Hoher Pei?enberg, which blocked the view of her hometown just a few miles beyond. Here in the church steeple, everything seemed so close at hand as to make their two-day pilgrimage look like nothing more than a leisurely stroll.

Suddenly a gust of wind tugged at her hair, and she tightened her grip on a wooden beam to keep from falling. When she had regained her balance, she turned around to get a look at the interior of the destroyed tower room.

The walls were blackened and had burst in places from the heat, but beyond the empty window frames she could see only blue sky. In the middle of the belfry, three bells that had survived the flames hung in an iron-reinforced wooden frame. The floor around it had mostly burned away, so Magdalena could see through the beams into the yawning abyss below. A new rope dangled down from the bell cage.

It occurred to Magdalena now that she’d heard the bells early that morning. Could it have been just the bell ringer checking things last night? She frowned. What in the world could he have been doing up here in the pitch black?

Magdalena decided to climb over the balcony to the bells to get a better view of the room, taking care not to look down any more than absolutely necessary. As long as she put one foot in front of the other and kept looking straight ahead, she felt more or less secure.

Finally she reached the huge bronze bells and placed her arms around the smallest one, feeling the cool metal in her hands and breathing a sigh of relief. Her dizziness was completely gone now. It was as if the exertion had renewed her strength and cured her. As she stood up carefully to look to the other side of the room behind the bells, she spotted something strange.

Against the opposite wall, a sort of stretcher lined with metal clamps along the side leaned upended against the wall. On the ground in front of it lay some polished iron rods. Something squeaked, and looking up she saw on the ceiling directly above the stretcher a wire about the thickness of a finger, swaying in the wind like a hangman’s noose.

As she approached the strange contraption, she heard a sound on her right and wheeled around.

A black form ran toward her, like a human bat that had been sleeping in the tower rafters and was now swooping down on the unexpected visitor. The figure wore a black robe and a cowl, so Magdalena couldn’t see his face.

In the next instant he attacked.

Magdalena staggered, her hands lost their grip on the smooth metal bell, and she lost her balance. As she fell through an opening between the beams, something sharp scraped against her thigh. At the last moment she reached out and seized a wooden beam above her. The tendons in her wrists felt like they were going to rip out, but she held on with all her strength. As she swung wildly back and forth, she looked down, heart pounding, into the abyss beneath her. For a moment, she thought she was going to pass out, but then she heard steps on the stairs beneath her, and the figure disguised in black robes appeared again, then raced down the stairs so fast it almost appeared he was about to fly away. A moment later, the man had disappeared into the church nave.

Magdalena swung back and forth like a thin branch in the wind, knowing her strength wouldn’t last much longer. Tears of anger and despair ran down her face. With a last ounce of strength, she pulled herself up to see the bell rope hanging just two arm’s lengths away.

Would she be able to reach it?

Inch by inch, she worked her way forward. At one point her left hand slipped and she was barely able to hold on. When finally she got close enough, she let out a gasp and leapt for the salvation of the rope. Grabbing it tightly, she tumbled one or two yards, then started to sway back and forth.

The church bells rang wildly.

Magdalena’s ears rang, too; it seemed as loud as if she were being tossed around inside the heavy, hollow bell itself as it swayed back and forth, yanking her up and down. Slowly she slid down the rope to the bottom of the tower, where several surprised workers were already looking up wide-mouthed at her, Jakob Schreevogl and Balthasar Hemerle among them.

Magdalena could see they were both shouting and trying to tell her something, but all she could hear was the thundering bells-a constant and deafening booming, clanging, clanking, and rumbling.

As if the angels were announcing the Last Judgment.

The pealing bells could also be heard in the main building of the monastery, interrupting the Andechs abbot, Maurus Rambeck, for a moment. But the occasion was too serious to pause for long.

“So do you really think it was murder?” The abbot raised his right eyebrow and cast a short glance through the window, as if in this way he might determine the reason for the ringing bells. Simon guessed that Rambeck was about fifty, but his shaved head and black Benedictine robe made him look considerably older. After what seemed like an eternity, the abbot turned back to his visitor. “What makes you say such a dreadful thing?”

“Well… ah, I found bruises on the novitiate’s shoulder blades and chest, Your Eminence,” Simon mumbled. “And a large bump on the back of his head. Feel free to examine the corpse yourself.”

“You can be sure I’ll do that.”

Simon looked down, silently examining the many books on the shelves all around them. Brother Johannes and he had met Maurus Rambeck in the so-called study on the second floor-a room meant exclusively for the abbot. He was sitting at a table, scrutinizing a tattered book full of strange signs that seemed vaguely familiar to Simon.

“If your theory is correct,” Rambeck continued, “then it’s a matter for the district court in Weilheim-something I’d like very much to spare us all. Are there any clues who the culprit might be?”

“Unfortunately not.” Simon sighed. “But perhaps we should pay a visit to this fish pond, if you will permit me to say so.”

“Perhaps we should do that, indeed.”

The abbot ran his tongue over his plump lips, lost in thought. Maurus Rambeck was a chubby man with the jowls of an old lap dog. He radiated an easy-going nature; only his eyes revealed the quick mind behind his demeanor. As they walked toward the monastery living quarters, Johannes told Simon that the abbot had assumed his duties only a few months ago and was regarded as one of the smartest minds in Bavaria. He spoke eight languages fluently and could read twice that number. Like many educated men of his time, he had studied not only theology but philosophy, mathematics, and experimental physics at the Benedictine University in Salzburg. After serving in his youth as a simple monk in the monastery, he had been sent back to the university in Salzburg as a lecturer. His call back to Andechs had caused quite a stir in the monastery council.