Oliver Potzsch: The Dark Monk

Jakob Schreevogl looked at him hopefully. “Then run! Every moment is precious.”

Simon ran back to the market square, where he bumped into Magdalena, who had paid the blacksmith a visit after the meeting with Johann Lechner. Their grumpy old Walli urgently needed new horseshoes after Simon’s escapades.

“Magdalena,” he gasped. “The medicine you were supposed to pick up in Augsburg…Do you still have it?”

The hangman’s daughter looked surprised. “Of course, I even have it with me, but-”

“Then let’s hurry back to my house,” he cried, turning to leave. “I want to have a look and see if there’s anything there for a fever.”

“Simon, wait, I…”

But the physician had already run off down the Weingasse to his father’s house. Clara needed help-at once! Any delay could mean her death. His inability to heal his patients from the fever, plus his guilty conscience at not having been there to help in recent days, came into focus on this one little person. It seemed to him that if he failed Clara, he would never become a doctor worthy of the name. He would be like…

His father?

Bonifaz Fronwieser tore open the front door even before Simon reached it.

“Aha, my noble son back from the country?” he snarled. “People are dying on me like flies while you’ve been away, touring the local monasteries with beautiful ladies.”

Simon opened his mouth to speak, but his father wouldn’t be interrupted.

“Don’t lie to me! This sort of thing gets around fast in a little place like Schongau. First, there was that dissolute hangman’s girl, and then some flighty tramp from Landsberg. You are bringing shame to me and the Fronwieser name!”

Suddenly, Magdalena appeared behind Simon, gasping for air. “Simon, I must tell you something-” she whispered.

But Bonifaz Fronwieser launched right back into his tirade. “And here she is! Speak of the devil! Stop following my son around, do you hear? Right away! We are decent people and want nothing to do with you hangman riffraff.”

“Oh, come on, Father, just shut your goddamned mouth!” Simon blurted out. “I can’t stand your yammering anymore, you old quack!”

Even as he spoke, Simon was startled by his own words. He’d gone too far this time. Bonifaz Fronwieser was stunned as well. Blanching, his mouth fell open. In the houses nearby, people were peering out from behind their shutters. Finally, the gaunt old man pulled himself together, buttoned his coat in silence, then made his way out toward the market square.

Simon knew that his father was no doubt heading to one of the taverns to wash down his anger with a mug of beer. The young physician shook his head as he entered the house. He would never be able to make his father happy, not as a son, and certainly not as a doctor! But that was of no importance now. He had to help Clara-that was all that mattered.

“Quick, Magdalena! Show me what you brought!” Simon hurried toward the living room window, where a big worn table covered with all sorts of mortars and pestles doubled as a pharmacist’s workbench. “Maybe there’s something here we can use. Do you have Jesuit’s powder? Tell me you have it.”

Without saying a word, Magdalena pulled the little linen bag from her jacket and emptied the contents on the table.

Simon studied the damp, whitish-green clump tied together with a string. In addition to the aromas the various herbs gave off, they smelled of decay.

“What…is this?” Simon asked, horrified.

“The herbs I brought with me from Augsburg,” Magdalena replied. “Ergot, artemisia, daphne…I also took a few other herbs, but I don’t know what they are, except that they’re all moldy! I’ve been carrying them under my jacket far too long. I kept trying to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen!”

Simon stared mutely at the moldy pile on the table in front of him. The herbs from Augsburg had been his last hope. “It’s…all right, Magdalena,” he finally said. “At least we tried.”

He was about to sweep the damp herbs off the table and onto the floor, when he stopped. He couldn’t disappoint Jakob Schreevogl! Simon had seen the spark of hope in the patrician’s eyes when Simon spoke of a possible cure. If he went back empty-handed now, the Schreevogls would die of grief even before their stepchild. Experience had taught Simon how important it was for sick people and their families to believe in a cure. Faith was sometimes the best medicine.

Often the only one, Simon thought.

And so the physician tossed the moldy seeds into a mortar and ground them into a fine powder.

“What in the world are you doing?” Magdalena asked. “The herbs are spoiled! They can’t do anyone any good now!”

“Clara needs medicine,” the physician murmured, laboriously grinding the seeds with the pestle. “The rest is out of my hands.”

After a while, Simon added honey and yeast to the ground herbs and rolled the mix into little pills that he dried in a small pan over the fire as Magdalena watched, frowning. Finally, the physician placed the medicine in a box of polished cherrywood embossed with an alchemist’s symbol. He closed the little box and said a quiet prayer as he passed his finger over it.

“After all, our medicine has to look impressive, too,” Simon said with a sad smile, as if he’d already been caught in this little deception. “Otherwise, it won’t work.”

Magdalena shook her head. “Medicine from moldy herbs! Who ever heard of anything like that? Just don’t let my father hear of it.” Then she suddenly kissed him on the cheek. “And don’t let your father know about this, either.”

A warm feeling passed through him from deep inside, extending right out to the roots of his hair. He would love this woman forever, no matter what their two fathers and all the people in Schongau thought of it! Tenderly, he passed his hand through her hair and pulled her to him. She smelled of sweat and ash.

But Magdalena pushed him away. “I don’t believe our beloved physician has time for that sort of thing now.” She broke into a broad smile. “But he can come to my window and visit me tonight…”

Simon sighed and nodded with resignation. One last time, he passed his hand through Magdalena’s hair, then stuffed the cherrywood box in his coat pocket and headed straight for the Schreevogls, who were anxiously awaiting his return.

“My husband already told me about your miracle drug!” exclaimed Maria Schreevogl, standing at the door with the rosary still in her hand. “Praise be to God! Perhaps there is hope, after all!”

“I can’t promise you it will work,” Simon protested. “It’s a…new, very costly medicine from China. The doctors there are very knowledgeable. They call it…uh…mold that grows on herbs.”

“Mold that grows on herbs?” The patrician woman looked at him, confused.

“I myself prefer the term fungus herbarum, ” Simon quickly added.

Maria Schreevogl nodded. “I like that better. It sounds more like medicine.”

Taking several steps at a time, the physician hurried to the top floor. In Clara’s room, Jakob Schreevogl was still kneeling by the bed, just as Simon had left him, his face almost as gray and haggard as his stepdaughter’s.

“Do you have the medicine?” the alderman asked softly.

Simon nodded, carefully opening the little box and placing three little pills in Clara’s mouth. Her lips were narrow and hard as leather, and her mouth was dry. Then he gave her something to drink from a cup and tenderly passed his hand over her sweaty brow.

“There’s nothing more I can do,” he whispered.

Jakob Schreevogl nodded humbly and closed his eyes. It seemed to Simon that the alderman had aged years in the last few hours. Fine gray strands appeared in his otherwise blond hair and wrinkles framed his narrow lips.