Oliver Potzsch - The Dark Monk

“We caught them,” he grumbled. “Down in the Ammer Gorge near Schleyer Falls. A good number of them are dead, and the rest are cooling their heels up in the dungeon. So I’ll have plenty to do in the next few days, too, and won’t be able to help you.” He lit his pipe with an ember and eyed Simon sternly. “But stop stalling and tell me now…What happened up on Castle Hill? Or do I have to apply the thumbscrews to you first?”

Simon grinned inwardly. Even if the hangman was crabby and uncommunicative, he was just as curious as Simon. The physician wished he could get more out of the hangman about the fight with the robbers, but for now, he related what he had found in the crypt under the chapel and everything else he had learned in his search with Benedikta. “The inscription,” he concluded, “must be a riddle. And the word tree is carved in capital letters. But I swear we examined every tree in the whole damned forest up on that mountain and couldn’t find a thing!”

“An inscription in German…” the hangman murmured. “Strange, you would think the Templars would have written in Latin at that time. At least that’s the way it is in all my old books, only pompous-sounding Latin, no German and certainly not Bavarian German. Well, so be it…” He puffed big black clouds of smoke from his stem pipe, eyeing them intently in the flickering light of the embers. “This damned Templar is sending us on a wild goose chase,” he muttered. “First the crypt in the Saint Lawrence Church, then the basilica in Altenstadt, and now the castle ruin in Peiting, which doesn’t seem to be the last riddle, either. I wonder what else lies in store for us.”

“I think I know,” Simon said. He explained his suspicion that Temple Master Friedrich Wildgraf had concealed part of the Templar’s treasure here. The hangman listened without saying a word. “This treasure is more than anything we can imagine,” Simon finally concluded in a whisper, as if he feared someone could be listening in on them. “Enough to buy whole cities, I believe, and fund wars. Such a treasure would also explain the murder of Koppmeyer, the presence of these monks in Strasser’s Tavern, and the attempt on your life. Someone is doing everything he can to eliminate anyone else who might know about this.”

“But what’s the point of all this rubbish with the riddles and the game of hide-and-seek?” grumbled the hangman, drawing on his pipe. “A simple clue in the crypt, a testament would have also sufficed.”

“Up to now, all the riddles have had something to do with God,” Simon interrupted, struggling not to cough through the clouds of smoke. “The Templars no doubt wanted to make sure only a true believer would find the treasure. The inscription from the castle ruins also seems like a sort of prayer.” He pulled out a parchment roll on which he had noted the lines.

“ This is what I discovered among men as the greatest wonder, ” the physician mumbled, “ that the earth did not exist, nor the sky above, nor TREE …” He hesitated. “Why in the world is ‘tree’ capitalized? Did we overlook something up there?”

“ Deus lo vult, ” the hangman murmured suddenly.

“ What? ”

“ Deus lo vult- it’s the will of God. That’s what the man with the dagger said to the fat Swabian down in the crypt. It almost sounded like a battle cry. What the devil does that mean?”

Simon shrugged. “A man with a strong scent of perfume, another with a curved dagger, a fat Swabian…” The medicus rubbed his tired eyes, which were tearing up from the smoke. “What an odd group! And how did these men ever learn about the Templar’s grave? From the construction workers?”

The hangman shook his head. “I don’t think so. I actually have another idea, but it’s too early to say yet. Now I’m tired.”

He rose to accompany the physician to the door. Suddenly, it occurred to Simon that, with all the excitement, he had completely forgotten to ask the hangman about Magdalena.

“Your daughter…” he began saying at the doorway. “I…I must speak with her. I think I have to apologize. Is she upstairs in the house or still with Stechlin?”

The hangman shook his head. “Neither. She left for Augsburg this morning on the ferry to get a few supplies for me and the midwife. It’s probably best if you don’t see each other for a while.”

“But…” Simon suddenly felt forlorn.

Jakob Kuisl pushed him outside, slowly closing the door behind him. “She’ll come back, don’t worry,” he grumbled. “She’s just a stubborn Kuisl like her mother, and now, good night. I have to go upstairs and have a look at little Georg.”

With a creak, the door clicked shut on Simon, leaving him alone with the darkness. Snowflakes were falling on his head, and it was as silent as the grave. Carefully, he threaded his way through the fresh snow toward the lights of the town. Slowly, a feeling crept over him that he had made a great mistake.

The merchant stopped bothering Magdalena for the rest of the way to Augsburg. Once or twice, he cast a glance at her with reddened, spiteful eyes, but otherwise, he was busy washing off the quicklime with icy water from the Lech and rubbing lotion on his burning face. Oozing red pustules were breaking out around the edges of his beard, and he cursed softly as he sipped from a bottle of fruit brandy to calm himself down.

The six o’clock bells were about to ring when Magdalena spotted a number of sparkling lights in the darkness ahead-just a few at first, but as time passed, more and more appeared until they eventually filled the entire horizon.

“Augsburg,” she whispered, full of awe.

Until now, Magdalena had known the city only from what people had told her-that it was a metropolis more lively and colorful than little Schongau. Here Protestants and Catholics lived peacefully side by side in a free city, subject only to the emperor. Its wealth was legendary before the Great War, and even now, the city seemed to have lost little of its former splendor.

The view helped the hangman’s daughter forget her anger and sadness for the time being. The ferry landing was a short way outside the city, near the Red Gate. Even at this late hour, there was more activity on the pier than Magdalena had ever seen in Schongau. Barrels and sacks were being offloaded by the dozen, and a crowd of dockworkers were bent over as they carried the heavy cargo to storage sheds nearby. The glow of innumerable torches and lanterns made it possible for work to continue even now, after darkness had fallen. Harsh commands, but also crude words and laughter, could be heard all over the landing.

Fortunately, Magdalena had already paid for her passage in Schongau, so she could disembark without having to deal with the merchant anymore and disappear in the noisy crowd. She kept checking to make sure the little linen bag was still hanging over her shoulder. It contained instructions from Stechlin and her father-but above all, the money the midwife had given her. Twenty guilders! She had never had so much money in her life! Most of it came from the pregnant Frau Holzhofer, who was waiting in Schongau for her bezoar.

When Magdalena looked around again, she noticed that Oswald Hainmiller, along with two men dressed all in black, had been trailing her. He was whispering to them and pointing at her. His face, disfigured with pustules and a red rash, seemed to flare with hatred.

Magdalena boarded one of the little boats that ferried people over a canal to the Red Gate. It was a rough trip, and passengers were pressed close together. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the two men had boarded the boat as well, but she decided to ignore them for the time being.