Oliver Potzsch - The Dark Monk

He was freezing under his thin tunic and black-hooded coat, clenching his teeth but not complaining. His former master had trained him to be tough. He was a guard dog of the Lord, and his command was to follow the woman and the man. And if they found the treasure, he was to kill them quickly and silently, retrieve the treasure, and report back to the brotherhood. That was his assignment.

Trembling with cold, he played with the dagger in his hand and pressed his back against the frost-covered wall of the monastery. Snowflakes melted as they fell on his brown, scarred face. He was from Castille, near the magnificent city of Salamanca, and his task at the moment seemed to him like a test from God. The Lord himself had sent him to this inhospitable, remote region and, as an additional punishment, had sent him Brother Avenarius.

The short, plump Swabian standing next to him and mumbling his prayers had been personally assigned to him and Brother Jakobus in Augsburg by the master. Brother Avenarius was second to none in his knowledge of the written word-he knew all about the treasure and was an expert in solving riddles-but as a comrade-in-arms, he was about as useful as an old woman. Once again, he started whining.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Why can’t we go back to our quarters?” His thick Swabian accent sometimes drove Brother Nathanael crazy. “Who can say whether the two will really try to break into the church tonight?” the Swabian lamented. “And even if they do, we can catch up with them again in the morning! So what are we doing here?”

Nathanael ran the dagger along his fingers-from his index finger, to his middle finger, to his ring finger, and back, a little nervous routine he could repeat for hours. It calmed his mind.

“I keep telling you we can’t let him out of our sight! The matter is too important. Besides, if you’d only solved the riddle before they did, we’d be back in Augsburg by now!”

Brother Avenarius looked to the ground with embarrassment. “I’ll admit I underestimated the physician,” he grumbled. “Who would have suspected that the words primus and felicianus referred to the two saints? At least I figured out before he did that the inscription referred to the Wessobrunn Prayer.”

“And how was that of any help?” Nathanael was running the dagger through his fingers faster and faster. “We searched the entire damned monastery for the book, and it was in the bell tower! ”

“But I had no way of knowing that,” Brother Avenarius whined.

Brother Nathanael let loose with a curse to heaven and went back to playing with his dagger. Things had not gone as planned. Everything had looked so simple at first. It was just two weeks ago that the local master had summoned him and Jakobus, telling them that the greatest treasure in all of Christendom had been found, not in some far-distant place, but right nearby. It was a sign from God; he was one of the chosen!

Never would he have dared to hope God would choose him for this task! Cast into this world as a filthy little orphan, Nathanael had found a home among the Dominicans in Salamanca, where his special abilities were soon recognized. He was intelligent and well read, but he’d also retained much of the toughness and smarts he’d picked up from his days on the street-qualities the other monks lacked. Soon the Brotherhood had come to him. They had often recruited soldiers from the Dominicans, and they needed people like him. Nathanael was something special-a monk and warrior, like the Templars who had once been the greatest enemies of the Brotherhood. There were many unbelievers to battle in the Spanish provinces, and the church needed people now and then to do its dirty work. That was Nathanael’s specialty.

A few years back, he’d been called to Augsburg, where the German Brotherhood had its headquarters. Much of the German Empire had fallen into the hands of the Lutherans, and many church treasures and relics were threatened by looting and desecration. Altars and shrines had been melted down, statues smashed, and in Konstanz, mobs of heretics had even cast the bones of St. Konrad and St. Pelagius into the Rhine! It was Brother Nathanael’s job in the Brotherhood to return these threatened treasures to the bosom of the Holy Roman Church, a job that occasionally demanded not just his intuition, but his dagger.

A few years ago, he had met Brother Jakobus, the right-hand man of the master of the German provinces, in Augsburg. Jakobus was a vain but extremely devout man who, like himself, made no compromises and knew only one goal: the defense of the true faith. Together they’d been able to save many of the church’s sacred objects from destruction-relics, pictures of saints, statues of Mary…

But never did Nathanael think that, after all these years of praying and waiting, they’d be the ones chosen to retrieve the greatest treasure in all of Christendom, a treasure the Templars had seized almost five hundred years ago, one believed to be forever lost. And then this damned hangman and his daughter got in the way, along with that smart-ass physician! Ever since then, everything had been going to hell.

Brother Avenarius was standing quietly beside him, mumbling his prayers and clutching a chain on his neck that held the cross with the double beams, the symbol of the Brotherhood. The tubby Swabian seemed to have resigned himself to standing a few more hours in the driving snow. With closed eyes, he recited the prayer for self-control from Holy Scripture.

“ Who shall set a watch before my mouth, and a seal of wisdom upon my lips? Who will set scourges over my thoughts, and the discipline of wisdom over my heart? ”

Nathanael sighed. At first, it seemed quite suitable for the Swabian monk to have been assigned to them. According to everything the master had learned from the letter of the pious Altenstadt priest, the Templars hadn’t made it easy for them. Friedrich Wildgraf’s heretical order was known for its secret codes and riddles, and Brother Avenarius was considered an excellent authority on the Bible, a bookworm who could put his finger on even the most obscure quotation and knew more about the history of the relics than anyone else. But up till now, he hadn’t been of much help to the group, and after the completion of this assignment, Nathanael would speak to the master and recommend his removal.

But for now, he needed him.

Especially now that Brother Jakobus had headed back to Augsburg to report to the master and obtain some new poison. Again, Nathanael wondered why his brother monk had been so quick to set out on the long trip back. Did it, perhaps, have something to do with the festering rashes that had been tormenting him for weeks? Jakobus had changed a lot recently. These sudden, furious outbursts, these muffled cries of pain in the night, his hair falling out…It was sad when a once-brave companion let himself go. In the end, one was always alone.

Nathanael looked around in all directions. Had he heard something? For days he’d had the vague feeling they were being observed. But by whom? Was someone else interested in the treasure, someone they didn’t even know about yet?

A short but unmistakable cry pulled him out of his thoughts. Two stooped figures approached the church. Snow lay ankle-deep over the church courtyard, muffling the sounds of their footsteps, but not the angry words of one of them. Nathanael grinned. This brash medicus would never learn to keep quiet.

So much the better.

The physician and his woman had approached the right-hand side of the church and were standing underneath the scaffolding. Nathanael gave Brother Avenarius a sign and set out after them. But suddenly, he hesitated. At first it was just a small movement he noticed out of the corner of his eye, but looking closer, he could see everything plainly.