Oliver Potzsch - The Dark Monk

On the other side of the church, where the memorial slabs were set into the wall, three figures emerged from the shadows. Like ghosts, they glided along the side of the church toward the physician and his companion.

Nathanael pulled down his hood, stuck the dagger back in his belt, and hunkered down to hide in the snow. His intuitions in recent days hadn’t deceived him.

It was time to find out who had been following them.

Simon glanced up at the icy scaffolding and gave Benedikta a skeptical look. “You want us to climb up there? We’ll slip and…”

But Benedikta had already boosted herself up onto the first level of the scaffolding. Once again, the physician was astonished at how agile she was. He was about to tease her, but then he resigned himself to his fate, pulling himself up, groaning, then continuing on to the second and third levels. From up here, he had a view of the entire snowbound monastery. In some of the windows across the courtyard lights were burning, but otherwise it was completely dark. For a moment, Simon thought he saw something move in the courtyard, but his view wasn’t good enough in the darkness and driving snow. Finally, he turned to the window frame through which Benedikta had already entered the church.

Her plan seemed to be working. The men hadn’t been able to complete their work before the evening, and the glass was still not installed in some windows. Simon sat in the opening, his legs dangling down, watching Benedikta tie a rope around one of the crossbeams and climb down hand over hand into the church. The medicus crossed himself and followed. Soon enough, his feet touched the cold stone floor and he could look around.

Even though the church doors were closed at night, the monks had left some of the altar and votive candles burning, and their flickering light gave a ghostly appearance to the entire nave. From up on the high altar, the skeletons of Saints Primus and Felicianus looked down at the intruders from inside their glass coffins, swords ever in hand and laurel wreaths on their bare skulls.

At this time of night, there was nothing sacred, soothing, or protective about the figures. In fact, Simon had the feeling that, at any moment, the skeletons would step down to throttle the two sinners with their thin, bony fingers. But they remained standing there, their bare teeth frozen in grins and their eye sockets dark and dead.

“Which of the two do you think it is?

“What?”

Simon was so wrapped up in the ghastly sight that he didn’t hear Benedikta at first.

“I mean, which of the saints could be concealing the message?” Benedikta replied. “We probably won’t have enough time to open both coffins.”

“Which one…?” Simon stopped to think. “Let’s take Felicianus,” he finally said. “ Felicianus means ‘happy’ or ‘lucky,’ and the finder of the prize will be happy and lucky. And doesn’t it say in Matthew that the first-that is, the primi- will be the last?”

Benedikta looked at him skeptically. “From your lips to God’s ear.”

They approached the high altar until they were standing directly beneath Felicianus’s coffin.

“If you take me on your shoulders, maybe I can reach the coffin,” Benedikta said. “Then I’ll try to lift the lid.”

“But it’s much too heavy,” Simon whispered. “You’ll certainly drop it!”

“Oh, come now, it’s just made of glass, after all. And the skeleton inside doesn’t weigh any more than a few dusty old bones.”

“And what happens if it falls, anyway?”

Benedikta grinned. “Then we’ll just have to put old Felicianus back together again. You’re a doctor, after all!”

Simon sighed and knelt down so that Benedikta could climb onto his shoulders. Then, swaying slightly, he lifted her up. When the physician felt Benedikta’s thigh brush against his cheek, a pleasant tingling coursed through his body.

Wonderful, he thought. We’re desecrating the bones of a saint while I’m dreaming of the thighs of a naked woman. Two mortal sins at the same time.

Finally, Benedikta could reach the coffin. Reaching her arms around the lower part of the glass case, she whispered to Simon. “Now let me down-slowly!”

As Benedikta continued gripping the precious case, Simon knelt down slowly, bit by bit. The coffin swayed back and forth, scraped along the base of the altar, and finally touched the ground. Benedikta hopped nimbly down from Simon’s aching shoulders.

“And now let’s open it.”

Benedikta laid the coffin down on the ground gingerly and examined the cover. The edges of the glass were soldered with a gold alloy. She pulled out her knife and began to make a clean cut through the seam.

“Benedikta,” Simon whispered in a hoarse voice. “Are you sure we should be doing this? If we get caught, we’ll be put on trial, and our punishment will make Scheller’s torture on the wheel look like a walk in the park.”

Benedikta looked up from her work for just a moment. “I didn’t come all the way here to give up now. So come now and help me!”

Simon took out the medical stiletto he always carried with him, inserted it in the soldered crack, and pried open the seam, inch by inch. The alloy was soft and brittle, and it didn’t take them long to remove the lid.

“St. Felicianus, forgive us!” Simon mumbled, though he didn’t think his prayer would meet with much understanding in heaven. “We’re doing it only for the good of the church!”

A musty odor rose up from the open coffin, and Simon stared in disgust at the skeleton, which was covered in patches of green mold. The bones were tied to one another and to the glass coffin in back by thin wires. The dried laurel wreath atop the saint’s head had slipped down over the forehead, and between the bony fingers of his right hand, St. Felicianus held a rusty sword.

“The sword and laurel wreath,” Simon whispered, “are symbols of a martyr’s death and victory.”

Benedikta had already started examining the bones. She poked her fingers in the eye sockets and felt around the inside of the skull. “There has to be a message hidden here somewhere,” she mumbled, “a piece of paper, a note. Damn, Simon, help me look! We don’t have forever!”

Suddenly, something clattered behind them. Simon turned around but could make nothing out in the darkness. Shadows and light from the flickering candles at the foot of the Virgin Mary’s altar floated back and forth between the columns.

“Did you hear that?” Simon asked.

Benedikta was now examining the slightly moldy chest cavity. “A rat, a gust of wind-what do I know? Now come over here and help me!”

Once again, Simon gazed out over the nave. The columns, the altar to the Virgin, the flickering candles…

The medicus jumped.

Flickering candles…?

All along, the candles had been burning evenly. If they were flickering now, then-

“Simon, Simon! I’ve found it! I’ve found the message! Come and look!” Benedikta’s shout tore him from his thoughts. She had scraped some of the rust from the sword blade, and her eyes glowed as she pointed to her discovery. “It was underneath the rust! You were right!”

Simon came closer, bending down over the sword. An inscription could be seen under the rust on the blade, though only a few words were legible.

Heredium in…

With his stiletto, he hurriedly set about scraping the rust from the rest of the inscription, letter for letter, word for word.

Heredium in baptistae…

As he continued scraping, he whispered a translation of the Latin verse.

“The heritage in the baptist…”

He got no further because at that very moment all hell broke loose around them.