Oliver Potzsch - The Dark Monk

When she found the bag under the pew, she thought back on everything the Augsburg pharmacist Nepomuk Biermann had put together for her before Brother Jakobus appeared. Most of these ingredients she had been able to put in her pockets, along with some herbs lying out on the counter for another customer. Magdalena tried to remember which plants Biermann had already packed in the bag for her.

Ergot, artemisia, St. John’s wort, daphne, belladona, and thorn apple…

Belladona and thorn apple.

A few moments later, she found the small dried berries between two little bunches of herbs. Small and deadly. She grinned. Both belladonna and thorn apple were known among midwives and hangmen as medicines, but also as poisons that could bring swift and certain death. Possession alone was a punishable offense, as they could allegedly be used to make a salve that Satan’s playmates used to coat their brooms. Magdalena didn’t know if that was true, but she did know that both plants triggered nightmares and hallucinations. Presumably, anyone ingesting these herbs would actually be able to fly, and unfortunately dosage was a problem, particularly for thorn apple. After taking it, not just a few people took their last flight.

Magdalena thought of something Paracelsus had said more than a hundred years before.

The dosage makes the poison.

She nodded grimly. Brother Jakobus would get a dose that would send him flying straight to hell.

Magdalena picked out the dried belladonna berries and the thorn apple seeds, which reminded her a bit of black mouse droppings. She kept checking the door to see if Brother Jakobus was paying her an unannounced visit, but all was quiet.

When Magdalena had gotten everything together, she looked around for something she could use as a pestle. Her eye fell on a small bronze statue of Jesus standing on the altar. She turned it over and, using the Savior’s head, crushed the berries and seeds to a dark-brown powder. The hangman’s daughter was certain God would pardon her this sacrilege.

But would he also forgive her for murder?

Perhaps Brother Jakobus would not die, after all, but fall into a sort of rigid trance. She doubted that, though, given the dose she had in mind.

Standing on the altar was the communion chalice. Jakobus had gotten into the habit of celebrating Holy Communion once a day with Magdalena. At first she’d refused, but she finally shrugged and resigned herself to her fate. At mealtime the monk brought her nothing but bread, water, and a thin, tasteless porridge. The wine brightened her spirits at least, and she didn’t want to irritate Jakobus unnecessarily. By now Magdalena was certain the monk was insane. His behavior had to have something to do with his disease, but whatever the case, he was unpredictable.

Keeping an eye on the door, Magdalena poured the powder into the wine, stirred it with her index finger, then wiped her hand off on the altar cloth. The potion contained ten belladonna and just as many thorn apple seeds. She hadn’t dared use any more for fear Brother Jakobus would be able to taste the poison.

Finally, she knelt down in one of the pews, folded her hands in prayer, and waited.

Just as the noon bells rang, the door opened.

“I see you are praying, Magdalena. That is good, very good,” Brother Jakobus said. “If you make your confession to God, it will be easier to drive the demons out of you.”

Magdalena lowered her eyes. “I can feel the presence of God. Tell me, Brother Jakobus, may I receive Holy Communion again today?”

Jakobus smiled. “You may. But first let us pray.”

Magdalena let the mumbled Latin words wash over her like a warm summer rain, awaiting anxiously the moment they would approach the altar. Would Jakob taste the poison? And if he did, how would he react?

Would he force her to drink the wine herself?

Finally, the prayer was over. They knelt before the altar, and Brother Jakobus began the celebration of Holy Communion. Holding up the host and chalice, he mumbled the words of consecration.

“This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Putting the chalice to his lips, he drank deeply. Magdalena stared at him as if in a trance, watching as little drops ran down from the corners of his mouth, over his unshaven, pimply chin, and dripped onto the altar. Jakobus wiped his mouth and handed the chalice to Magdalena.

He hadn’t noticed a thing.

The hangman’s daughter looked into the cup and froze-the powder hadn’t dissolved properly! A dark silt remained at the bottom, and besides that, Jakobus had drunk only half of the wine! Would the dose be enough just the same?

Magdalena smiled at the monk, took the cup, and acted as if she was about to sip it.

“You are so hesitant today, Hangman’s Daughter,” Jakobus said. “What is wrong with you?”

“I…I have a headache,” Magdalena stammered, placing the chalice back on the altar. “The wine makes me tired. I need a clear head today.”

“How so?”

“I wish to make my confession.”

The monk looked both astonished and delighted. “Right now?”

Magdalena nodded. The idea came to her out of nowhere, but it was just what she needed. She needed to detain Jakobus in the chapel for at least half an hour. What good would it do if he collapsed after leaving her in this prison? If her plan didn’t work, she’d slowly die of thirst and hunger down here, unnoticed and unheard, while the monk’s corpse lay rotting outside the door.

“We have no confessional here,” Jakobus said, “but that’s not really necessary. I’ll simply take your confession here in the pew.”

He sat down so close to her that his violet perfume couldn’t cover up the stench of his festering wounds.

“May God, who illumines our hearts, give you the true realization of your sins and of His mercy…” Brother Jakobus began.

Magdalena closed her eyes and concentrated. She hoped that enough sins would come to mind to last until the poison took effect.

“You pulled a fast one on me, Kuisl!” Johann Lechner shouted, jabbing his finger into the hangman’s broad chest. “And not only on me! You’ve been messing with every single citizen of this town! You haven’t heard the end of this!”

Jakob Kuisl, almost two heads taller than the angry clerk, looked down at Lechner, his arms folded. Nevertheless, when it came to anger and assertiveness, Lechner was any man’s match. The clerk had ordered Kuisl to report to his office in the palace right after the execution. He was still beside himself over the fiasco of Hans Scheller’s execution.

The robber chief hadn’t made a sound up on the wooden platform, not even a faint cry, even though the hangman had broken every single bone in his body! Lechner had heard the cracking and splintering, and it was only at the end that the hangman crushed the prisoner’s cervical vertebra. The crowd was furious. They had expected a bloody spectacle, and all they got was a bored hangman thrashing away at a lifeless body.

The clerk had been sitting right up in front in the first row and had thus seen the smirk on the lips of the robber chief. Scheller’s eyes were closed as if he were asleep, and his extremities limp, almost relaxed. The condemned man had escaped his just punishment, and Lechner was certain the hangman had something to do with it.

“I can’t prove anything right now,” the clerk snapped, walking back to his desk, “but you can be sure I’ll find out, and then God help you! I’ll get the Augsburg hangman to come and put you on the wheel, and this time it will be done right!”

“Your Excellency, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jakob Kuisl remained calm. Only someone looking very closely would have noticed a faint smile on his lips, little dimples hidden behind his thick beard. “Often, condemned men faint out of fear and pain. There’s nothing I can do to change that.”