Oliver Potzsch - The Dark Monk

She pounded and kicked the stone slab.

“Help!” she cried. “Doesn’t anyone hear me out there? Help me!”

Smiling broadly, Brother Jakobus moved toward her, his hands raised as if in benediction. Only at the last minute did she see the curved dagger in his right hand.

“I’ll give you just a little cut, I promise,” he whispered. “Just like your father. You’ll sleep like the stone knight behind you.” He feigned a blow from above, then thrust the knife at her from below. Magdalena reached for his hand, but the man was quicker. The blade came down, and even though she ducked to one side, it cut her upper arm, which she had raised to fend off her attacker.

“Divine providence has led you to us!” Brother Jakobus murmured. “I know your name, Maria Magdalena, the whore of Christ. You are much too precious to commit to the flames. I have great plans for you.”

Magdalena could feel her body going stiff. When numbness reached her legs, she slid down the gravestone behind her and came to rest on the floor, her eyes wide in fear. From far off, she could hear an organ.

Maria zu lieben ist allzeit mein Sinn, in Freuden und Leiden ihr Diener ich bin…My heart is devoted to Mary, my queen, in joy and in sorrow to serve her I mean…

In the cathedral above, just a few yards away, mass had begun.

Early the next morning, Simon and Benedikta set out for Wessobrunn on horseback. They avoided major roads leading north along the Lech River that might be under the robbers’ surveillance. Instead, they crossed the bridge over the Lech to Peiting and, from there, headed directly toward Mount Hoher Pei?enberg, which towered like a giant above the villages and little towns in the otherwise flat countryside. The blizzard of the last two days had passed, and the air was clear and pure. The sun shone so brightly in the blue sky that Simon had to close his eyes whenever he looked too long at the snowy fields and trees.

In the last hour, Simon had often glanced back. Whenever he and Benedikta left a clearing and entered the endless forests around the mountain, the feeling came over him that he was being watched. It felt like an itch between his shoulders, and Simon expected any moment to hear the twang of a bowstring or the rattle of a saber. Whenever he turned around, though, all he saw was an impenetrable thicket of pines. Occasionally, a startled bird flew away, squawking, or snow trickled softly down from branches. Otherwise, silence prevailed.

In many places, the blizzard had bent the trees down like reeds, and from atop his horse, Simon looked down on wide swaths of downed trees in the forest. At least the farmers wouldn’t complain this winter about a lack of firewood.

“Don’t look so cross!” Benedikta called to him. “It doesn’t go well with your beautiful eyes. The robbers are on the Lech, not here. What is there of any value here?”

In contrast to Simon, the businesswoman seemed carefree, humming a French tune and spurring her horse on across the wide clearings. Simon had trouble keeping up with her. He’d borrowed the hangman’s old mare again for their ride to Wessobrunn. Walli seemed to have gotten somewhat used to him, but she stopped from time to time whenever something green poked its head out of the snow cover. Then even kicking her wouldn’t get her to move. Occasionally, she snapped at Simon or tried to throw him off, but the medicus was determined to teach the beast some manners. The horse came to a dead stop again and tugged calmly at a weed poking its head up out of the snow. Simon tugged desperately on the reins and dug his heels into Walli’s scrawny body, but he might as well have been sitting on a rock.

Benedikta watched him struggle, grinned, then put two fingers to her mouth and whistled.

“ Allez hop, viens par ici! Giddyap, this way!”

As if the horse had just been waiting for Benedikta’s command, it started to move again.

“Just where have you learned to deal with horses like that?” Simon asked, patting Walli on the rump and trying to catch up.

“My mother comes from a family of Huguenots who fled from the French Catholics.” Benedikta brought her horse into a faster trot. “A respected family from the area around Paris with an estate and property. She learned to ride as a child and no doubt passed this love along to me. Je suis un enfant de France! ” She laughed, racing off.

Simon dug his heels into Walli’s sides, trying to keep up with Benedikta, and for a brief while they rode side by side.

“France must be gorgeous!” he cried to her. “Paris! Notre Dame! Fashion! Is it true that the city blazes with the light of a thousand lanterns at night?”

“In your Schongau, I’d be pleased to see even a dozen lanterns. And people smell better in Paris.” She gave her horse a slap. “But now, enough of this foolishness. The last one to reach the edge of the clearing pays for the first round of muscatel in Wessobrunn! Allez, hue, Aramis! ”

Her sorrel leapt forward and raced to the edge of the clearing, while Walli plodded along listlessly, clearly in the hope of finding a few tasty blades of grass at the forest edge.

As they approached Pei?enberg, they turned left, heading north, and, two hours later crossed through a dense forest of firs interspersed with dark-green yews.

“Keep an eye on your horse. The trees are very poisonous, so make sure she doesn’t eat the leaves or the hangman will wring your neck,” Benedikta warned.

Simon nodded. He didn’t want to think what Jakob Kuisl would do to him if he had to flay his own horse. Probably, he’d stick Simon up to his neck in a vat of tannic acid. The medicus was still lost in thought, pondering how indebted he really was to the hangman, when he suddenly felt the urgent call of nature.

“Benedikta, excuse me, but I…” He smiled with embarrassment and pointed to the yews on the left. “It will take only a moment.”

“If you’ve got to go…” she said, winking. “But don’t let the bad fellows catch you with your pants down.”

Entering a thicket of yews, Simon squeezed past sharp branches and opened the buttons of his coat and trousers. When he was finished, he paused to enjoy a moment of peace and tranquility in the forest.

At this moment, Simon had the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching.

It was a warm, tickling sensation on his back; he was petrified when, a moment later, he heard a crackle behind him. Slowly, he buttoned up his trousers and moved farther back into the thicket. Instead of going back to the road, he turned left, jumped down into a ditch in front of him and crawled along on the ground parallel to the road. For protection, he picked up a branch about the length of a club, which had broken off in the blizzard. Finally, he crossed through another thicket and, in a wide circle, returned to where he’d started. Holding the club tightly, he moved forward, trying not to make a sound. Just behind a large fallen tree he came to a stop.

Ten paces in front of him, a man was leaning against a tree.

He was wearing the red Turkish trousers of a mercenary foot soldier and a gray jacket from which a sword and powder horn hung. In his right hand he held a musket like a walking stick. He was looking out at the road, where Benedikta was waiting. Suddenly, the man put his hand to his mouth and let out a very realistic-sounding caw like that of a jay. Another caw answered, then a third. The man nodded with calm satisfaction, pulled a dagger from his waistband, and began cleaning his fingernails, all the while keeping a close eye on the road.

Simon clutched the cudgel so tightly that his knuckles turned white and he had trouble swallowing. An ambush! Judging from the signals, there had to be at least three men. The physician looked around at the bushes and yews but couldn’t see any other men. They were probably hiding on the other side of the road. Simon rose cautiously, trying to formulate a plan. He had to warn Benedikta and then ride away as soon as possible! He could only hope the highwaymen didn’t have horses.