Oliver Pötzsch: The Dark Monk

That evening at my grandmother’s house in Hohenschäftlarn, my son, daughter, and I visited the Kuisl gravesite on a hill directly above the entrance to the village church. I pointed to the names overgrown with ivy, and we stood there silently as darkness fell. I’ve always tried to create an awareness in my children that a family is more than just a father and mother, that it can be a large community, a place of refuge-and an endless treasure trove of stories.

Later I sat in the kitchen correcting the first draft of this book far into the night. It was a strange feeling sitting in the same house, the same room, where so many of my ancestors had lived, worked, laughed, and brooded before me. It almost seemed as if their shadows were leaning over my shoulder to see what their descendant had to say about their large, old family. I hope they’re happy.

The story you can read in these pages developed during the course of long hikes and bike tours and was inspired by the ideas and information from many people.

Unfortunately, I can’t list them all here, but I’d like to give special thanks to the local Schongau historian, Helmut Schmidbauer, who told me about the Altenstadt Templars and without whose extensive knowledge the first novel, and also this second one, never could have been written. Many thanks likewise to Wiebke Schreier, who showed me around Augsburg and gave me enough ideas for three books. Professor Manfred Heim has, I hope, been able to correct most of my errors that concern the history of Bavarian churches. In addition, he’s an excellent Latin teacher!

Dr. Claudia Friemberger of the University of Munich filled in the gaps in my knowledge of the Bavarian Templars, and Matthias Mederle from the German Rafting Society knows how fast a raft moves and at what times of the year it would have been used on rivers. Eva Bayer corrected my miserable French and knew the proper Parisian expletives. The pharmacist Rainer Wieshammer, who’s an expert on ancient medicines, prepares herbal medicines in his facility in Rottal and has a magnificent collection of Breverln -little cloth and paper talismans adorned with images of saints and prayers, which as late as the twentieth century were thought to have healing and protective properties. (Incidentally, Magdalena’s charm necklace looks just like the one Rainer Wieshammer donated to the Müllner-Peter-Museum in Sachrang. Perhaps someday you’ll have the chance to stop there for a look.)

Everything I know about executions comes from the enormous collection of notes by my deceased relative Fritz Kuisl-a wealth of information I draw upon even to this day.

Thanks also to my editor, Uta Rupprecht, who came up with the idea of the fungus herbarum antibiotic, and to my agent, Gerd Rumler, for a first-class Italian meal over which a few new ideas for the novel were born.

And last but not least, thanks to my entire extended family: my wife, my children, my parents, brothers, grandmother, and all the aunts, uncles, and cousins who surround me and support one another. Without you-your patience, your pride, and support-this book would never have been possible.

If, like me, you’re one of those people who like to read a book’s epilogue first, you should stop now. This book is a journey that will take you from one riddle to the next and to some of the most beautiful places in Bavaria. What pleasure is there in solving riddles when you already know the solutions? So stop reading!

STOP!

If, on the other hand, you have finished reading the novel, then sit back and enjoy this section. The following pages will help you plan your next vacation to the Priests’ Corner, absolutely my favorite area in the Alpine foothills. If I had to explain to an extraterrestrial what Bavaria is-what it smells and feels like-I would just set him down on the mountain Hoher Peißenberg and tell him to look around for himself at a countryside as colorful as a robust painting from the Bavarian baroque period: monasteries, chapels, lakes, gentle hills, and the distant Alpine peaks that, when the warm, dry foehn is blowing down from the mountains, appear as close as the nearest cow pasture.

The people who live here are all a little bit like my ancestor Jakob Kuisl: stubborn, grumpy, and reserved. But if you approach them with humility, respectfully doffing your hat politely in church, they won’t bite. Be brave!

You can find all the places mentioned in this novel on a map today. After a trip through your imagination, what makes more sense than actually traveling to this area to check out all the riddles and the history behind them? To best appreciate Kuisl’s time, of course, you should travel on foot or at least by bicycle. Back then, things were not as fast or hectic as they are today. In researching this book, I walked everywhere and got lost several times in the Ammer Gorge. Why should you get off any easier?

Enough said! Pack this book in your backpack with a pair of good hiking boots, a water bottle, and a local map, and come along with me to…

To find the place where my story begins, I had to search an awfully long time. The former Church of St. Lawrence lies on the outskirts of Altenstadt, at the far end of St. Lawrence Street (Sankt-Lorenz-Straße). Though it dates back to the twelfth century, it was renovated and converted into a farmhouse in 1812. For this reason, I walked right past it twice on my first trip, winding up in the parking lot of a nearby company before I finally realized that the old ivy-covered building at the edge of town actually had once been a church. Only its massive blocks of igneous rock and the navelike structure suggested a time and place when fat priests like Andreas Koppmeyer preached to their flock. The babbling of the Schönach next to the house, the reed-covered river valley, and the roadway lined with mountain ash, however, conjured up that ancient locale in my mind’s eye. I’m sure they will for you as well.

In Roman times and also later, in the Middle Ages, Altenstadt must have been an important trading center. Here, the Via Claudia Augusta, the greatest Roman highway this side of the Alps, intersected with the medieval Salt Route, which stretched from the Berchtesgaden area to the Allgäu. But the many merchants and travelers in that area also attracted robbers and hostile armies, and in the thirteenth century, citizens decided, therefore, to move to a protected hill a few miles away. That marked the birth of the town of Schongau, while Altenstadt-the “old city”-became a sleepy town and remained so until modern times, like Sleeping Beauty in the fairy tale.

When the St. Lawrence Church was remodeled in the nineteenth century, they say a crypt was found containing some unusually large human bones. We don’t know whether this was the crypt of a Templar knight, but it’s an established fact that the order of knights was active here. Near the former little church, there is to this day a Templar Street (Templerstraße). Also, the bill of sale, dated 1289, an agreement between the Premonstratensians and a certain Fridericus Wildergraue, “Supreme Master of the Templars in Alemania and Sclavis,” still exists. When I first saw a copy of this document, I knew at once that this was the start of a new novel.

Please follow me now to the center of town and…

THE BASILICA OF ST. MICHAEL IN ALTENSTADT

Within sight of the property formerly belonging to the Templars is my favorite church in the Priests’ Corner. Amid all the baroque splendor of the region, the Basilica of St. Michael, with its simplicity and large dimensions-its huge towers, massive outer walls, and rounded arches-looks more like a Romanesque castle than a sacral building.