Oliver Potzsch - The Dark Monk

“Well, Fronwieser?” The brewer’s journeyman, Konstantin Kreitmeyer, looked over at him and grinned. “Trouble with women again? Better stay with your hangman’s daughter. She’s crazy enough for you.”

Some other brewer’s journeymen at Kreitmeyer’s table laughed and made a few obscene gestures.

Simon swallowed the rest of his wine and stood up. “Oh, shut your mouths!” He put a few coins on the table and left the tavern to a further chorus of lewd remarks.

Instead of turning into the Hennengasse and going home, Simon headed toward the Lech Gate. He couldn’t possibly sleep the way he felt now. He had acted like such a fool with Benedikta! How could he even imagine she’d poison her own brother? Further, the journeyman’s words had set him thinking of Magdalena again. Was she already on her way home from Augsburg? Perhaps her father had heard from her. Simon longed for a hot cup of coffee. The only thing awaiting him at home was work and a carping father who was fed up with his son’s escapades. The last time Simon visited the hangman, he brought Anna Maria a little bag of coffee beans, and he wondered now whether the hangman’s wife would brew him a cup of his favorite drink. He decided to pay the Schongau executioner a visit.

Before long, he was down in the Tanners’ Quarter, knocking on the front door of Kuisl’s house. The moment Anna Maria Kuisl opened the door, he could see something was wrong. The face of the otherwise vivacious woman seemed pale and drawn.

“It’s good you have come,” she said, motioning for Simon to enter. “Maybe you can cheer him up a little. He’s started to drink again.”

“Why?” asked Simon, taking off his wet coat and torn jacket and hanging both up to dry alongside the stove.

Anna silently eyed the ruined clothing, then went to look for a needle and thread in a drawer. “Lechner says my husband has to break Sheller on the wheel,” she said as she started sewing up the torn garment. “It’s going to happen in three days, even though Jakob gave his word to the robber chief. It’s a rotten group up there in the city council-they have money coming out their ears, but don’t care a bit about honor and decency!”

The medicus nodded. He’d become accustomed to the hangman’s excesses. Before executions, Kuisl would go on drinking binges, but amazingly, when the time came for the actual execution, he’d always completely sobered up again.

Simon let Anna Maria grumble on while he went over to the main room, where he found the hangman leaning glassy-eyed on the gallows ladder and brooding. The sweet odor of alcohol and sweat drifted through the room. On the table, a few opened books lay alongside an open bottle of brandy, and in a corner of the room, the pieces of a smashed beer stein flashed in the dim light. Kuisl’s face shone in the light of the fire as he prepared to take another mighty swig.

“Drink with me or leave me alone,” he said, slamming the bottle back down on the table. Simon put a fat-bellied clay cup to his mouth and sipped on its contents. It was something very strong that the hangman made from the fermented apples and pears from his orchard. Presumably, there were also a few herbs mixed in, which the medicus didn’t even want to know about.

“We found a new riddle in Wessobrunn,” Simon said abruptly. “Some words up in a linden tree. I thought you might be able to make some sense out of them.”

Kuisl belched loudly and wiped the corner of his mouth. “Who gives a damn? But go ahead, spit it out. You can’t just keep it to yourself.”

Simon smiled. He knew how curious the hangman was, even when he was stoned. “It goes like this: In gremio Mariae eris primus et felicianus. ”

Kuisl nodded, then translated aloud. “ You will be first at Mary’s bosom, and a happy person. ” He broke into a laugh. “Just a pious sentiment, nothing more! That can’t be the clue.”

He picked up the bottle again with a vacant look, one that Simon had trouble reconciling with Kuisl’s other, sensitive and educated side. People were always astonished that the executioner knew Latin so well, even when he was completely soused. They would be even more astonished if they looked around the hangman’s library and saw all the books in German, Latin, and even Greek, written by scholars still completely unknown in most German universities.

“But it must be the next riddle,” Simon objected. “He put his name at the bottom of it. Friedrich Wildgraf, anno domini 1328-a year before his death.”

Kuisl rubbed his temples, trying to think clearly. “Well, it’s not anything from the Bible that I can remember,” he growled. “And I know most of those biblical aphorisms. You wouldn’t believe how pious people become when it’s time for them to die. I’ve heard it all, but never these words.”

Simon swallowed before continuing. Jakob Kuisl’s father had been the local hangman before him, and before that, his grandfather-a true dynasty of executioners now extending over a whole host of Bavarian cities and towns. The Kuisls had probably heard more whining and pious words than the Pope himself.

“If it’s not from the Bible, maybe it’s some secret message,” Simon said, repeating the words. “ You will be first at Mary’s bosom, and a happy person. What does that mean?”

The hangman shrugged before picking up the bottle again. “Damned if I know. What’s it to me, anyway?” He took such a long swig that Simon was afraid he might choke. Finally, he put the bottle down again. “For my part, I’m going to break Scheller on the wheel on Saturday, and there’s nothing more I can do to help you. Till then, there’s a lot to do. The people want a spectacle.”

Simon could see from the hangman’s bloodshot eyes that the bottle was almost empty. Jakob Kuisl was leaning farther and farther over on his stool. A whole bottle of brandy apparently was a little too much even for a big, broad-shouldered man six feet tall.

“You’ll need some medicine,” Simon sighed, “or you won’t have a clear head tomorrow.”

“Don’t need no medicine from you goddamned quacks. I’ll make my own.”

Simon shook his head. “This medicine is something only I have.” He stood up and walked over to the living room, where Anna Maria was still sitting at a table mending the rip in the Simon’s jacket.

“Make a strong cup of coffee for your husband,” Simon said. “But don’t skimp on the beans. It’ll only work if it’s strong enough for the spoon to stand up in the cup without falling over.”

Magdalena awoke to a monotonous humming sound that grew louder and louder until she thought her head would split. Her headache was even worse than the last time she woke up. Her lips were so rough and dry that when she passed the tip of her tongue over them, they felt like the bark of a tree. She opened her eyes, blinded at first by bursts of light, but after a while the flashing stopped, things came into focus-and what she saw was paradise!

Cherubs fluttered around the head of the Savior, who was wearing a crown and looking down at her compassionately from the cross. St. Luke and St. John were off to one side, keeping watch over the starry heavens, while down below, the serpent Lucifer writhed about, impaled by the lance of the Archangel Michael, and high above, the twelve apostles sat enthroned in glory on the clouds. All the figures were ablaze in gleaming gold, bright silver, and all the shimmering colors of the rainbow. Never before had Magdalena seen such splendor.

Was she in heaven?

At least I’m no longer lying in the coffin, she thought. That’s an improvement, in any case.

As soon as she turned her head, she could see she was not in heaven, but in a sort of little chapel. She lay on her back on a stone altar surrounded by four burning candles. The walls of the whitewashed room were so densely covered with lavish oil paintings depicting various scenes from the Bible that there was hardly any space between them. Sunlight entered the room from the east through a tiny window, but the stone was so cold that her muscles felt like ice.