The Dark Monk (32 page)

“Herbs from pharmacist Biermann,” she said, addressing the watchmen and pouting. “Sage and chamomile. The prior has a terrible cough.”

The soldier glanced briefly into the bag, then let her pass with a nod. Only after Magdalena had passed through did he stop to think.

“Strange,” he remarked to his colleague. “The prior looked the picture of health this morning. He was well enough to give his usual fire-and-brimstone sermon. Hey, girl!” But the hangman’s daughter had already disappeared around the corner.

Magdalena had trouble finding the stranger again. The little streets, lined with the homes of goldsmiths, silversmiths, engravers, and clothiers, were narrower and more winding than in the lower part of Augsburg. On a hunch, she turned right, only to wind up at a dead end. She spun around, ran this time in the other direction, and found herself suddenly right in front of the cathedral, a structure at least three times higher than the church in Schongau. Bells echoed through the cathedral courtyard as pilgrims and others who’d come to pray streamed out through the mighty portal, making way for those entering. On the steps, tattered beggars held out their hands, pleading with passersby. A mass must have just finished. Magdalena had to hold her breath—how many people could fit inside this enormous dome? She looked around hastily but saw only a sea of unfamiliar forms and faces.

The stranger had disappeared.

She was about to give up when she saw something glitter among the churchgoers and beggars on the wide steps leading up to the portal. She ran up the steps and was just able to catch a glimpse of the man as he disappeared inside the cathedral. The golden cross on his chain sparkled briefly once more in the sun, and then he was swallowed up inside the enormous building. Magdalena ran after him at a brisk pace.

Entering the cathedral, she couldn’t help pausing a moment. It seemed as if she were in another world; she had never before seen such an imposing building. As she continued to move forward, she looked up at the towering columns, the balcony, and the bright, colorful stained-glass windows with the morning sun streaming in. On all sides, angels and saints stared down from richly decorated walls.

The monk strode through the cathedral and finally turned left toward the end of a side aisle. Here, he knelt down in front of a sarcophagus and bowed his head in prayer.

Magdalena hid behind a column, where she finally had a chance to catch her breath.

A murderer who prays…

Had he come, perhaps, to confess his sins? Magdalena considered this for a moment before rejecting it. After all, the stranger had just purchased more poison. A penitent sinner wouldn’t do that.

She wanted to get a look at his face, but the haggard monk still hadn’t removed his cowl, and the only thing visible was his protruding, pointed nose. The bag with the poison was still dangling from his wrist, and the cross hung down from his broad shoulders like a heavy padlock.

Magdalena couldn’t see whose coffin the man kneeled at. Concealed behind the column, she watched him impatiently. When she realized the prayer might take a while, she looked up once more to admire the size of the cathedral. She studied the columns and side altars, the many niches, and the stairways that led up and down. On the left, a well-worn stone staircase led down into a crypt, and farther back, a small walkway branched off. On her right, above the stone altar where the stranger was praying, a row of paintings depicted some old men wearing mitres and capes. Each held a shepherd’s crook in his hand and looked down benevolently on his followers. Magdalena noticed that the paintings on top left were old and faded, and their subjects had a strange gray hue, like messengers from a distant era. Farther down to the right, the paintings seemed newer and more colorful. Each painting was dated, and Magdalena realized these were portraits of all the Augsburg bishops. In the last painting on the bottom row, an astonishingly young man was depicted with thinning black hair, a hooked nose, and a strange penetrating gaze. Magdalena read the name beneath it.

Bishop Sigismund Franz. Appointed 1646.

The bishop up there seemed to be staring directly into her soul with his unpleasant piercing eyes.

She hesitated.

Something about the painting irritated her. Was it the black, almost impoverished look of the cloak? The cold gaze? The surprising youth amid all these old men? As she looked closer, she realized what it was, but it took a while to accept it.

Around the bishop’s neck hung a golden chain with a cross—with two crossbeams.

Just like the one the monk wore!

Magdalena almost cried out loud. Thoughts raced through her head, but she had no time to organize them—the monk had finished praying. He stood up, crossed himself, and bowed now. Finally, he headed for the cloister and disappeared through an ancient stone doorway. He hadn’t once turned around. Casting a final glance at the young bishop above her, Magdalena took off after the stranger. She felt as if Bishop Sigismund Franz’s eyes were boring right through her from behind.

Just after the first cockcrow, there was such a loud pounding at Jakob Kuisl’s door that it sounded as if he himself were being summoned for execution. Outside, it was still the dead of night. Kuisl lay in bed alongside the soft, warm body of his wife, who turned, blinking and groggy, to her husband after the visitor had pounded on the door a third time.

“It doesn’t matter who it is…Wring his neck,” she mumbled and buried her head under a down pillow.

“You can bet on it,” the hangman groaned, swinging his legs out of bed, almost falling down the stairs when the knocking began again a fourth time. In the next room, the twins woke up and began to cry.

“All right, all right,” the hangman growled, “I’m coming!”

As he stumbled down the ice-cold stairs barefoot and dressed only in his nightshirt, he swore to himself he would, at the least, apply thumbscrews to this disturber of the peace. He would probably also shove burning matches under his fingernails.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

Jakob Kuisl had had a strenuous night. The little ones had a terrible cough and couldn’t be calmed down, even with hot milk and honey. Once Georg and Barbara had finally drifted off to sleep, Kuisl rolled around in bed for hours thinking about the second gang of robbers. He was brooding about the mysterious fourth man when he’d finally fallen asleep.

Only to be awakened what seemed like five minutes later by this fool trying to break down his door.

Furious, Jakob Kuisl ran down the steps, threw aside the bolt, tore open the door, and shouted at his visitor so loudly that the guest almost fell over into a large snowdrift behind him.

“What is God’s name do you think you’re doing, you stupid clod, coming here in the middle of the night…” Too late, he noticed it was Burgomaster Karl Semer standing there. “Confound it…” the hangman muttered.

The hangman stood a full head taller than the burgomaster, and the patrician looked up at Kuisl in terror. There were dark circles under Semer’s eyes, he was pale, and his left cheek was badly swollen.

“Excuse my bothering you at such an early hour, Kuisl,” he whispered, pointing at his cheek. “But I just couldn’t stand it…the pain…”

The hangman frowned, then opened the door. “Come in.”

Leading the burgomaster into the main room, he relit the fire in the hearth with a few pieces of kindling he kept in holders on the table.

In the faint light, Karl Semer looked around the hangman’s quarters—the executioner’s sword next to the devotional corner, the rough-hewn stool, the huge well-worn table, the gallows ladder in the corner. A few books lay open on the table.

“You’re reading…?” the burgomaster asked.

The hangman nodded. “Dioscorides’s work. An old tome, but there’s nothing better for learning about herbs. And this one here,” he continued, holding up a newer book, “Athanasius Kircher, a damned Jesuit, but what he writes about the plague is first rate. Do you know his work?”

The burgomaster shrugged. “Well, to tell the truth…I read mostly balance sheets.”

Lighting his pipe from a piece of kindling, the hangman continued. “Kircher thinks the plague is transmitted by tiny, winged creatures that he has seen with a so-called ‘microscope.’ He says nothing about vapors emanating from the earth, or God knows what else the quack doctors go on and on about, but creatures so small they’re invisible to the naked eye, that jump from one person to another—” Kuisl’s enthusiastic remarks were interrupted by his children’s crying. His wife, too, could be heard complaining loudly up in the bedroom.

“What in God’s name is going on down there?” she cursed. “If you want to go out and drink, go to Semer’s tavern and let the children sleep in peace!”

“Anna,” Jakob Kuisl hissed, “Semer is standing right down here.”

“What?”

“The burgomaster is down here with a toothache.”

“Toothache or not, please keep the noise down, for God’s sake!”

A door slammed.

The hangman looked at Karl Semer and rolled his eyes. “Women,” he whispered, but softly enough that his wife couldn’t hear. Finally, he turned serious again. “So what brings you to me?”

“My wife thinks you’re the only one who can help me,” the burgomaster said, pointing to his swollen cheek. “I’ve had this toothache for weeks, but tonight…” He closed his eyes. “Make it go away. I’ll pay whatever you ask.”

“Well then, let’s have a look.” Jakob Kuisl guided the burgomaster to one of the stools. “Open your mouth.”

He held up a small piece of burning wood to see into the burgomaster’s mouth. “Ah, I can see it, the son of a bitch,” he mumbled. “Does this hurt?” He tapped a finger on a black stump of a tooth far back in the burgomaster’s mouth. The burgomaster jumped and let out a scream.

“Shh,” Kuisl said. “Remember my wife. She doesn’t have much understanding for these things.”

He left for the adjoining room and returned shortly with a little bottle.

“What is that?” the burgomaster grumbled, half dazed with pain.

“Clove oil. It will ease the pain.” The hangman put a few drops on a cloth and dabbed it on the tooth.

Karl Semer groaned with relief. “Indeed, the pain is better. What a miracle!”

Jakob Kuisl grinned. “I can inflict pain, and I can take it away. Everything at a price. Here, take it!” He handed the burgomaster the little bottle. “I’ll give you the tincture for a guilder.”

Kuisl poured the burgomaster a cup of brandy. He drank it in one gulp and gratefully took another cupful.

The two men sat across from each other for a while in silence. Curious, Semer looked around the room again, his eyes coming to rest on the gallows ladder.

“Scheller’s trial will probably be tomorrow,” the burgomaster said, pointing to the ladder. Relieved of pain, he now looked remarkably relaxed, even in the hangman’s house. “Then, in three days, you can go to work.”

But then he became angry. “This damned second band of robbers!” He pounded the table with his fist so hard that the brandy splashed out of the glass. “If it weren’t for them, I could sell my muscatel easily in Landsberg and beyond. The Swabians love their wine, and I can’t deliver it!”

“But perhaps you can.” The hangman poured himself a big glass of liquor this time.

Karl Semer looked up at him in amazement. “What do you mean by that? Don’t talk nonsense. As long as we don’t know who’s leaking information about our secret routes, it’s extremely dangerous out there. Shall I let the same thing happen to me as Holzhofer and the others?”

Jakob Kuisl grinned. “I know roads that even the highway robbers don’t. It would be easy to get through with a horse and sled. And besides, you could get an escort for the first few miles. With my men, I’ll be out there chasing the thieves down the next few days, anyway.”

“An escort, huh?” The burgomaster furrowed his brow. “And what will that cost me?”

Jakob Kuisl emptied the liquor in one gulp like a glass of milk. “Almost nothing,” he said. “Just a little information.” He leaned over the table. “All I’d like you to do on your way to Swabia is to ask around a bit for me. For a man like you, what I want to know should be easy to get.” He explained to the burgomaster what he wanted.

Semer listened attentively and nodded. “I don’t really know what good that will do, but if that’s all there is to it, sure…And we could leave as early as tomorrow?”

The hangman nodded. “As soon as the snowstorm lets up. But until then…” He pointed to the burgomaster’s cheek. “With a tooth like that, I wouldn’t take any big trips, anyway.”

The burgomaster blanched. “But the pain has stopped, and I have the clove oil…”

“That will work for a while, but believe me, the pain will return, worse than before, and eventually, even the cloves won’t help anymore.”

“Oh, God, what shall I do?” Karl Semer, seized by panic, held his cheek and gave the hangman a pleading look. “What shall I do?”

Jakob Kuisl went to the chest in the next room and brought back a pair of pincers as long as his arm, a tool he usually used only for torturing prisoners. “We’ll probably have to pull it,” he said.

Karl Semer looked close to passing out. “Right away?”

The hangman gave the burgomaster a stein full of liquor. “Why not? My wife has to get up, anyway.”

The scream that followed awoke not only Anna Maria and the twins, but the entire Tanners’ Quarter as well.

Magdalena followed the dark monk through the Augsburg Cathedral, seeking cover behind columns along the way. He disappeared into a cloister directly in front of her. The hangman’s daughter then followed him through a portal leading to the atrium, just in time to see him walk past a wooden door and disappear around another corner. Two acolytes were walking toward her, giving her curious looks. She slowed her pace and smiled as she passed by them, swinging the bag of herbs as casually as possible. The pimply young men stared at her low neckline as if they’d never seen a woman before.
They probably don’t see a low neckline in the cloister too often,
Magdalena thought, smiling stoically. Finally passing the acolytes, she picked up her pace, rounded the next corner…