Oliver Potzsch: The Dark Monk

The housekeeper shook her head. “Our honey pot was empty. I meant to buy more at the market next week, but this time I had to make the doughnuts without honey. Heaven knows who spread it on them, but it wasn’t me.”

Simon glanced at the frozen pastor and then looked carefully around the church. A cold draft passed through his hair, and he suddenly felt as if he were being observed. He left the church, Magda in tow, while the wind tugged at his coat as if trying to hold him back.

Once outside, he took the housekeeper by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. She was as white as a sheet.

“Listen to me! Send Gedler back to Schongau again,” he said softly. “Tell him to get the hangman.”

“The hangman?” Magda shrieked. Her face turned a shade whiter. “But why?”

“Believe me,” Simon whispered. “If anyone can help us here, it’s him. Now just stop asking questions and go-go!”

He gave the housekeeper a slap on her fat behind, then pushed the heavy doors, which closed with a loud squeal. The medicus quickly turned the bronze key in the lock and slipped it into his pocket. Only now did he feel a little more secure.

The devil was there in the church, and only the hangman could drive him away again.

A short time later, Simon was sitting in the drafty main room of the rectory chewing on an old crust of bread and sullenly slurping on some linden blossom tea that Magda had made for him. Actually, it was steeped from the dried blossoms that the medicus had brought for the pastor, who wouldn’t need them now. The odor of the greenish-brown concoction reminded him of sickness and hangovers.

Simon sighed as he sipped on the hot brew. He was alone. The sexton was on his way to Schongau to get the hangman, and Magda had run to the village to spread the dreadful news. She could have kept it to herself if the priest had simply eaten himself to death, but not if he had been poisoned. Tongues were no doubt already wagging among the common folk in town about satanic rituals and who might have prepared the poison. The medicus shook his head. How he wished he had a cup of strong coffee now instead of this miserable tea, but the hard brown beans were carefully stored in a trunk at home, inside a leather pouch. Not many remained from his last shopping trip at the market in Augsburg, and he would have to be sparing with them because coffee was an expensive, exotic product. Only rarely did merchants bring it with them from their travels to Constantinople or even farther afield. Simon loved the bitter aroma that made it possible for him to think clearly. With coffee he could solve the toughest of problems and now, more than ever, he needed some.

Simon’s musings were suddenly interrupted by a sound outside the window-a soft clicking or squeaking as if a rusty gate were slowly being opened. Carefully, he made his way to the door, opened it a crack, and looked outside. There was nothing there. He was about to step back inside when he looked down again and was shocked to see fresh tracks leading right to the front portal of the church.

The wide wooden door was open a crack.

Simon cursed. He reached into his coat pocket and could feel the cold steel of the church key. How in the world…?

Nervously, the medicus searched the room for a suitable weapon. His gaze wandered from the hearth to a large cleaver. He reached for it; it felt cold and heavy. Then he went outside.

The tracks, clearly those of a large man, led from the walkway directly into the church. Simon made his way quietly through the snow, holding the knife like a sword in front of him until he reached the portal. From outside, nothing was visible inside the darkened church. Summoning all his courage, he stepped inside.

Farther back, the dead pastor was still lying on the floor. A bleeding Jesus on the cross stared wide-eyed and reproachfully at Simon from behind the apse, and along the sides wooden figurines of martyrs were standing in the niches, writhing in the throes of death, their bodies tortured, slain, and riddled with holes, like St. Sebastian on Simon’s left, pierced by six arrows from a crossbow.

The scaffolding, which towered up into the gallery, glittered with hoarfrost. As Simon stepped inside, he heard a loud spitting sound. His knife in hand, the medicus turned around, frantically seeking the source of the sound and scrutinizing the shadows the martyrs cast on the walls.

“Put the knife down before you hurt yourself, you quack!” someone growled. “And stop prowling like a thief through the church. You wouldn’t be the first one I’ve strung up for robbing the offertory box.”

The voice seemed to be coming from high up in the balcony, and when Simon looked up, he saw a huge cloaked figure standing behind the rotting balustrade. The collar of his coat was turned up and a wide-brimmed hat hung down over his face so all that was visible was the end of a huge hooked nose. Little clouds of smoke rose from his long-stemmed clay pipe, and between his hat and disheveled black beard, two lively eyes flashed, mocking Simon.

“My God, Kuisl!” Simon cried with relief. “You scared the daylights out of me!”

“The next time you go sneaking through a place, remember to look up,” the hangman scolded as he swung down the scaffolding. “Or the next time, your killer will lay you flat and that will be the end of the learned medicus.”

Having reached the ground, Jakob Kuisl brushed mortar dust from his threadbare coat and snorted contemptuously, pointing the stem of his pipe at the pastor’s corpse.

“A fat priest who ate himself to death…And that’s the only reason you called me? As a hangman and butcher of worn-out horses, I’m responsible for dead critters, but dead priests don’t concern me.”

“I believe he’s been poisoned,” Simon said softly.

The hangman whistled through his teeth. “Poisoned? And now you think I can tell you what kind of poison it was?”

Simon nodded. The Schongau executioner was widely viewed as a master of his craft, not only with the sword, but also in the field of healing herbs and poisonous plants. When they fell ill, many simple folk preferred the hangman over the medicus for a concoction of ergot and rue for unwanted pregnancies, a few pills for constipation, or a sleeping potion made from poppies and valerian. It was cheaper and they didn’t leave any sicker than when they’d arrived. Simon had often asked the hangman for advice about medicines and mysterious sicknesses, much to his father’s chagrin.

“Couldn’t you take a little closer look at him?” Simon asked, pointing at the stiff, frozen body of the priest. “Perhaps we’ll find a clue to who the murderer is.”

Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “I don’t know what we’d learn from that, but I might as well, since I’m here. He took a deep draw on his pipe and eyed the corpse lying on the floor. Then he bent down and examined the body. “No blood, no sign of strangulation or a struggle,” he mumbled, passing his hand over Koppmeyer’s clothing, which was spattered with frozen bits of vomit. “Why do you think he was poisoned?”

Simon cleared his throat. “The doughnuts…” he started.

“The doughnuts?” The hangman raised his bushy eyebrows quizzically.

Simon shrugged and told Jakob Kuisl briefly what he had learned from the sexton and the housekeeper. “It would be best for you to come back to the rectory with me,” he said finally, heading for the door. “Perhaps I’ve overlooked something.”

As they exited the church, Simon cast a questioning sidelong glance at Jakob Kuisl. “How did you get into the church, by the way? I mean…I have the key here…”

The hangman grinned and held out a bent nail. “These church doors are like curtains. It’s no wonder so many offertories are broken into around here. The priests might just as well leave the doors to their churches wide open.”