Oliver Potzsch - The Dark Monk

They didn’t notice that they themselves were being observed.

“Up here?” Simon glanced up a steep staircase leading to the clock tower attic. Wind was whistling through the stairwell and shaking the entire roof truss, so that more than once the physician reached out and frantically grabbed hold of the railing.

“Just a security measure,” the abbot remarked, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. “During the Great War, we took all the monastery’s books up here. It’s the safest place around here. The tower is ancient and as solid as a fortified castle.”

Groaning, he continued upward, followed by Simon and Benedikta. The medicus examined the unplastered walls in the light of their lantern. The walls were several feet thick and interrupted only by the occasional narrow embrasure.

During the meal, Benedikta had repeated her wish to Abbot Bernhard to see the Wessobrunn Prayer. Her father, who came to Paris from Germany, had often told her about the oldest prayer in the German language, with its simple yet stirring words. When she found it necessary to travel to Augsburg on a business matter, she decided to take a detour to Wessobrunn and make a donation to the monastery to support the library. The prospect of a pending windfall made it easy to convince the abbot to show them the prayer that very night.

After a few more turns on the clock tower’s spiral staircase, they finally reached the attic. A trapdoor opened on the area directly under the roof. Simon peered in, moving the lantern around in a circle, and saw mountains of books and boxes scattered amid timber, trunks, and moth-eaten bundles of cloth, completely filling the attic.

With a barely suppressed cry of excitement, the medicus rushed to the first pile and began leafing through the books there. The first one was a yellow, faded copy of Seneca’s De vita beata, and next to it lay an illuminated edition of Paracelsus’s Gro?er Wundarzeney filled with detailed engravings and brilliant initials. Simon examined the books. Digging through the pile, he found a huge illustrated Bible and, right after that, the collected works of Aristotle, something he hadn’t held in his hands since his days as a student in Ingolstadt. This was no cheap printed copy, however, but handwritten, with marginalia in an elegant script. When he took it in hand and opened the ribbon, a cloud of dust swirled up. He had to sneeze, and the light from the lantern flickered.

“Careful with the fire,” murmured the abbot, who had disappeared behind some tall crates in a corner. “One false move and all of Western culture goes up in flames!”

Simon gingerly set his lantern down atop a pile of books and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, immersed himself in the world of letters. He felt neither the cold nor the wind whistling between the loose tiles of the roof.

It was Benedikta who shook him by the shoulder and roused him from his daydreams.

“Forget the books; we don’t have time!” she whispered. “Once we have the treasure in hand, you can buy all these books, for all I care, and lock yourself up with them for the rest of your life. But come now!”

In the meanwhile, the abbot reappeared from the rear of the attic carrying a small trunk closed with a heavy padlock. He took a key out from under his habit and opened the box decorated with silver fittings. Resting on a red velvet lining inside was a simple cross and, at the bottom, a single book bound in bright calfskin.

With slender fingers, the abbot opened two golden clasps along the side of the book, then turned the brittle parchment pages until he found a certain passage in the middle. Simon leaned over to get a closer look. Some of the letters were red, the color of dried blood in the lantern light, and others were written in fine dark-brown flourishes and only slighted yellowed. Despite their age, they were quite legible. “The Wessobrunn Prayer,” he whispered.

Abbot Bernhard nodded. “It’s many hundreds of years old,” he said, passing his hand gently over the page. “A treasure dating from the time the German Empire was still a primeval forest inhabited by heathens and wild animals. The prayer sounds like an ancient magic spell, and we Benedictines guard it like no other document.”

He sighed, quoting the beginning of the prayer with his eyes closed.

“This is what I learned among mortal men as the greatest wonder. That there was neither the earth nor the heaven above. Nor was there any tree nor mountain. Neither any star at all, nor any other thing, neither sun nor moon, nor the sparkling sea…”

Simon quickly read it through, but nothing stood out as a clue about where to turn next. Finally, he cleared his throat and interrupted the abbot’s monologue.

“Yes, a wonderful prayer, Your Excellency. Where was it stored before?”

Abbot Bernhard stopped and gave him a bewildered look. “Before?”

“Well,” said Simon, “I mean before it was brought to this tower during the Great War.”

Bernhard Gering smiled. “Ah, that’s what you mean. Well, it was in a little chapel in the rectory. We just barely had time to rescue the document. A few days later, the Swedes came to loot and pillage. The chapel, too, was burned to the ground.”

Simon gulped, and Benedikta, who stood beside him, turned even paler than usual. “Completely?” she asked.

“Yes, completely. We even carted away the foundations, and now a little herb garden is there in the summer. But are you feeling well?” Bernhard looked at them anxiously. “It was just a little chapel, after all, with no holy relics or church treasure, and the prayer, as I said, we were able to save. Were you acquainted with the little church before the war?”

Benedikta came to Simon’s aid. “My guide no doubt often prayed there as a child.” She turned toward the abbot. “Was anything else saved from the church along with the Wessobrunn Prayer? A picture? A statue? Perhaps a memorial plaque?”

The abbot shook his head. “Unfortunately not. Everything was destroyed. And there were no memorial plaques in the chapel. Did you want to go there to pray?”

Simon nodded. His head was spinning. They had placed such great hope in the prayer, in finding something that would give them a clue in their search for the treasure, but all they found was an ancient parchment that didn’t help at all. Was this the end of the search? Had the secret of the Templars’ treasure been buried forever with the destruction of the Wessobrunn chapel?

One last time, Simon scanned the lines, silently mouthing the verse to himself.

…that there was neither the earth nor the heaven above. Nor was there any tree…

Simon stopped short. They had overlooked something.

Tree…

Unlike the lines in the crypt of the ruined castle, the word here was not written in capital letters. So was there perhaps a certain tree here, and not in Peiting?

It was Benedikta who interrupted the silence. She, too, seemed to notice the discrepancy. “Is there perhaps somewhere around here a tree with some special significance?” she asked, trying to seem casual.

“A special significance?” The abbot looked even more confused. “What do you mean-”

“ Ah, oui, excusez-moi, ” Benedikta interrupted. “This is a prayer about the miraculous powers of nature, the heavens, the mountains, and trees. I am a devout soul in search of a powerful place for my prayer. Perhaps a tree?”

Bernhard’s face brightened. “Ah, yes, the old Tassilo Linden southeast of the monastery! An ancient tree blessed by God! Duke Tassilo is said to have dreamed there of the three wellsprings that later made this place famous. An excellent place to pray!”

“How old is this linden?” Simon asked.