The Dark Monk (50 page)

Simon walked over to the top of the spiral staircase. “Aren’t there any torches down there? I can’t see a thing.”

Magdalena walked over to join him. “It’s strange,” she murmured. “From here you should be able to see at least one torch. They’re attached to the walls at regular intervals. Someone must have extinguished them…”

“Or the wind blew them out,” Benedikta said, looking around. “In any case, we should take a few of these along,” she said, reaching for a few especially large books nearby.

“What are you doing?” Simon cried. “Are you really going to—”

“These parchments are centuries old. They’ll burn like the dickens,” Benedikta interrupted. “If you grab them by the cover, they make wonderful torches.”

Horrified, Simon pointed at the book in Benedikta’s hand. “But those are the
Confessions of Saint Augustine!
The book includes commentaries! It’s a sin to burn a book like that!”

Benedikta tossed the thick book to him and stuffed four others under her left arm. “That should be enough. Of course, if you want to, you can grope around in the dark and let someone creep up on you and slit your throat from behind.” Heading for the entrance, she added, “Now, follow me. Before the abbot comes back.”

She took one more step and disappeared in the darkness.

Augustin Bonenmayr’s nerves were shot. Again and again, he removed the pince-nez from his nose and polished them frantically.

“It must be here! Keep looking!” He kept blinking, as if that might help him see in the darkness. “The cross lies somewhere here at our feet!”

Along with Brother Nathanael and the two novitiates, Johannes and Lothar, the abbot had hurried over from the library to St. John’s Chapel in search of a clue, a secret chamber, anything that might lead them to the True Cross. For an hour they had been tapping on the walls, scanning for some kind of sign, but all they had seen so far were cold, bare walls. Augustin Bonenmayr looked around again, trying to figure out whether they had overlooked something.

The chapel was a small room built of sandstone blocks with a small altar to Mary on the east side. Modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, its circular form gave it the appearance of a stout, fortified tower from the outside. Above the portal hung a painting of Christ standing between Mary and John; a recumbent lion crouched on a stone slab on each side of the door.

Otherwise, the room was bare—and empty. Bonenmayr mumbled a soft curse.

Under his supervision, the monks had already tried to move the holy figures and pry up the large slabs beneath the lions. They had tapped along the walls searching for secret entrances and examined the flooring for trapdoors. They’d even checked underneath the vaulted chapel roof.

Now they were starting over again.

The abbot shouted and cursed, he kicked the altar, but all to no avail. St. John’s Chapel was not divulging its secrets.

“The treasure of the Templars in the house of the baptist in the grave of Christ,” Bonenmayr whispered, agitated. “The solution to the riddle is here! It must be here in the Chapel of Saint John! These accursed Templars…” He bit his lips and uttered a deep sigh. “We’ll dig up the floor,” he said finally.

Brother Johannes stopped tapping the walls and stared wide-eyed at the abbot. “But, Your Eminence!” he cried. “This is a holy place!”

“This is a hiding place for the damned Templars!” Bonenmayr shouted. “I won’t let them trifle with me any longer, not on my own property! We’re going to dig right here! Go and get the pickaxes—at once!”

Simon and Magdalena followed Benedikta down the steep winding staircase into the darkness. At the very next turn, Simon knew that Magdalena’s suspicions had been right. He reached for the tip of one of the torches; it was still hot. Someone must have extinguished it just moments ago.

The opening in the wall above them was now no more than a faint glow, and even that disappeared after the next turn. Benedikta stopped, pulled out a box of matches, and soon they saw a flickering light in front of them—she’d set fire to one of the books. Simon felt a twinge in his heart; he didn’t want to know which precious book had just met a fiery death. Aristotle? Thomas Aquinas? Descartes? He looked uneasily at the
Confessions of Saint Augustine
he held in his hands. He couldn’t yet bring himself to set fire to the masterpiece.

Holding the burning book, Benedikta led the way. At the bottom of the staircase, the corridor extended to the intersection where, not even an hour ago, Magdalena had stood looking for a way out.

“Which way?” Benedikta whispered.

Magdalena looked around. “The chapel where I was held prisoner is to the left. The way straight ahead leads to the crypt of the Guelphs, but there’s no way out there, so let’s go right.”

Now Magdalena, too, had set fire to a book and, along with Benedikta, entered a corridor even narrower than the others. In the flickering light, Simon imagined he was looking at two sisters—the older one wearing a finely woven fur overcoat, her red hair up in a bun, and the other, with shaggy black hair, wearing a dress tattered from her long imprisonment, her eyes fiery with youth. Both had the same determined look on their faces.

Magdalena seemed to have regained her old self-confidence now, casting a sideward glance at Benedikta. “In that black coat you’re slower than a fat bear in hibernation,” she whispered. “You’d better let me go first. I’m younger and quicker.”

“
Petite garce!
” Benedikta hissed. “I hardly believe you could save us if we’re ambushed in here. You forget I have our only weapon.” She pulled out the pistol and stepped back a pace.

The hangman’s daughter scoffed at the little handgun. “That’s just a woman’s toy. You couldn’t shoot a chicken off the top of the manure pile with that little thing. You should see the weapons my father brought back from the war.”

“But your father is unfortunately not here to protect his dear little girl!”

Simon lifted his hands, pleading. “Ladies, please! Let’s just get out of here first, and then you’ll have plenty of time to bash each other’s heads in.”

Benedikta cast Simon a scornful gaze. “For once, you’re right. We’ve wasted enough time with this.” Then she quietly stepped out in front of the little group.

Magdalena and Simon followed her down the narrow passageway. Extinguished torches hung in rusty sconces along the wall at regular intervals; in one corner they found an empty black pitch bucket no doubt used to prepare the torches. They passed a number of niches and small passages leading off on both sides, but they continued down the main corridor. At one point, Magdalena bumped into Benedikta, who had stopped suddenly at an intersection. Two corridors forked away from this spot, both the same size.

“And where now, Madame Smarty Pants?” the hangman’s daughter whispered.

Benedikta held up her book, which had burned down about halfway. The flame guttered to the left with a thin trail of smoke.

“The passageway to the right seems to lead out,” she said. “At least that’s where the draft is coming from, so we should—”

She was interrupted by that shuffling, gasping sound. Now it was quite close, coming from a niche nearby. Or was it farther away? A clatter of little stones, then silence again.

Benedikta aimed her pistol into the darkness.

“Whoever or whatever you are, come out!” she cried. “I have a nice surprise for you here. Come and get it.”

Someone giggled.

Simon and the two women held their breath. The giggling echoed through the corridors, making it impossible to tell exactly where it was coming from.

Now came the sound of shoes shuffling over stone.

“Damn it, show your face!” Benedikta shouted. “You damn bastard, I’ll cut your balls off!
Je te coupe les couilles, fils de pute!
”

Despite his fear, Simon was astonished that Benedikta could curse like a longshoreman. Where had she learned to talk that way? His thoughts were interrupted by a rasping, cracking voice coming from somewhere down the corridor.

“The demons, Magdalena. The demons. They have taken possession of me. They…are eating…consuming me…from inside…Can you see the demons, Magdalena?”

“Oh my God, it’s Brother Jakobus!” Magdalena whispered. “He isn’t dead yet!”

“Or perhaps he is,” Benedikta replied. “This voice doesn’t sound like it comes from…the living.”

Simon could smell something now, at first just a faint odor, but then growing stronger and stronger. It was the pungent smell of burning tar, an acrid stench. It came from up ahead, riding on the draft of air. Now heavy, black, billowing clouds of smoke were drifting past them like thunderheads driven by a storm, and the voice was much louder, a rush of wind descending upon them.

“The demons, Magdalena. They…are consuming…me…Can you see them?
Can you see them?
”

As he spoke the last words, a small, flickering ball appeared on their right. It was rolling toward them, faster and faster, growing larger until it finally filled the entire passageway.

“Can you see them, Hangman’s Daughter?”

Magdalena and the others were so terrified they couldn’t move. Too late, they noticed that the fiery ball was the blazing monk’s robe. The fire was consuming his habit, eating its way through to his body, a living torch racing toward them.

Then, like a fiery nightmare, Brother Jakobus threw himself upon them.

Like gravediggers, the monks pounded away with pickaxes on the chapel floor. Sweat poured down their faces as they hacked away at the floor slabs, smashing them to pieces, then digging them out with their shovels. Weathered memorial slabs, tiles decorated with crosses, inlaid mosaics—everything was pounded to rubble and tossed outside in a pile next to the church. Beneath the slabs they found nothing but dirt.

“Keep digging!” the abbot shouted. “Perhaps it’s hidden somewhere in the ground! It
has
to be here!”

Breathing heavily, the monks went to work on the hard ground. The soil was full of little stones that made digging especially difficult. Despite the icy temperature, sweat stains formed on the monks’ tunics, which were turning brown with dirt. The Premonstratensian monks groaned and moaned; they weren’t accustomed to such hard work.

Brother Nathanael had assisted with the digging at first, but now he was standing alongside the abbot. The Dominican pointed to the pit in the ground, which got stonier as the monks continued to dig. “The medicus must have been mistaken. The cross isn’t here!”

Frantically, Bonenmayr looked around the chapel, which appeared more and more like a pile of rubble. Where had they not yet dug? What had they forgotten? His gaze wandered to the only object not yet hacked to pieces.

The altar.

Brother Johannes noticed the abbot’s gaze. “Your Eminence, not the altar!” he groaned. “It’s sacred and—”

“Stop talking and give us a hand.” Augustin Bonenmayr strode toward the large white block of stone, which was emblazoned with the relief of a simple cross. He yanked aside a dirty red velvet cloth covering the altar; then they all pushed against the stone block. The abbot gave orders in a loud voice. “One, two, three—now!”

With a loud grinding sound, the block tipped, then fell over. A cloud of dust formed, and after it settled, Bonenmayr looked down intently.

Bare earth.

So exhausted that they nearly fainted, the monks collapsed on the floor.

The abbot took a deep breath and sat down on the overturned altar. Sweat poured down over his eyeglasses so that he could only vaguely see. He removed the pince-nez and polished them.

He had forgotten something. What?

The solution to the riddle was correct—of that he was certain. If the solution was correct and he still couldn’t find anything at the location, it could mean only one thing:

The place had changed.

His gaze wandered along the vaulted ceiling. All the way at the top, in the middle, he noticed the keystone had a number inscribed on it. Putting his glasses back on, he squinted to read what it said.

MDXI

Augustin Bonenmayr let out a little cry and clenched his fists. How could he be so stupid? The St. John’s Chapel they were in was only built in 1511. This couldn’t be the right place. The abbot knew from studying the centuries-old monastery records that there had been a St. John’s Chapel in Steingaden before that.

But where…?

Bonenmayr closed his eyes and concentrated. After a while it all started coming back to him. Was it possible? Had the answer always been so close at hand?

A smile spread across his face.

“Put down the pickaxes!” he ordered. “We’re going to look somewhere else!” He stomped out into the darkness. “And this time we’ll find this damned cross, even if I have to burn this whole monastery to the ground!”

Immobilized with terror, Magdalena felt Brother Jakobus throw his whole weight against her and smelled the fire that had turned his robe into a gigantic torch. Desperately, she tried to push away his burning body, but his hands held her in a tight grip down on the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see how long strings of a sticky, viscous substance were dripping down on her. Brother Jakobus must have taken pitch from the buckets in the corridor and rubbed it all over his body. The crackling heat from his tunic almost caused her to faint. The monk was looking directly into her face now. Fire had burned off his hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, and all that was left were two deranged, glowing white eyes and a black hole that had once been his mouth from which a high-pitched, almost childlike cry emanated.

“Come back, Magdalena…!”

Frantically, Magdalena turned her head to one side and could see Benedikta waving her pistol toward the burning monk, trying to shoot without striking Magdalena, who was still pinned beneath him. The monk’s robe had ripped apart and, in some places, was sticking to him, burning into his skin. Magdalena could feel the flames lick at her own clothing.

A shot echoed through the corridor. The bullet ricocheted off a rock right next to Magdalena, but Jakobus didn’t let go and Magdalena could hear Benedikta cursing. The shot had missed.