The Dark Monk

could see light from torches inside the rectory through slits in the shutters. The housekeeper and the sexton were evidently still awake. Jakob Kuisl headed directly toward the church while Magdalena tugged nervously at his arm.

“Look over there,” she whispered, pointing at the church.

The door to the church was chained shut, but for a moment the light from a torch appeared in the windows. It was just a brief flicker, but Kuisl had seen it clearly.

“What in God’s name…?” he grumbled. He walked around the church, Magdalena at his heels. They discovered fresh footprints leading from the cemetery gate toward the apse.

The hangman stooped to examine the footprints. “There are two of them,” he whispered. “Solid shoes, good boots. They’re not workers or farmers from around here.” His eyes followed the footprints, which led to a shaky scaffold the workmen had constructed back in autumn and, high above, to a church window that had been forced open.

“We need to go and get help,” Magdalena said anxiously.

Her father laughed softly to himself. “Who shall we ask? Magda? The skinny sexton?” He walked over to the scaffolding. “I’ll have to deal with it myself,” he said, turning around once again to look at Magdalena.

“You stay here, do you understand? No matter what happens. If I’m still inside when the bells toll again, you can go and get help if you want. But not before.”

“Shouldn’t I come along with you?”

“Nothing doing. You’re no help to me. Go and hide behind the gravestones and wait for me to come back.”

That said, he began to climb the bars of the scaffolding. It creaked and swayed, but it held. In a short while, the hangman reached the second platform and was working his way across the icy boards to the window that had been forced open. Then he slipped inside.

Though darkness was just beginning to fall outside, it was already pitch black in the church. Jakob Kuisl squinted; it took a while for his eyes to get accustomed to the dark. He could feel the smooth, freshly planed flooring of the balcony beneath his feet and hear hammering and whispering voices from somewhere below. Finally, he could vaguely make out the flooring and walls of the church. Just one look showed that the mason, Peter Baumgartner, had spoken the truth-up here in the balcony, the wall was emblazoned with the red cross pattees of the Templars. The crosses had recently been painted over, but in a few places someone had taken the trouble to wipe off the white lime wash.

As if he wanted to check to see what was behind it, the hangman thought.

Looking down from the balcony, he could see that the stone slab had been pushed aside again, even though he had replaced it the last time he was there.

He reached under his coat for the heavy, larch-wood cudgel that he always carried with him. He had avoided using it in the tavern, knowing that one blow from this weapon could smash the skull of any opponent like a walnut. Now he took it out and weighed the warm wood in his hand. He would need it today-that much was sure.

His feet groped for the flight of steps that led down from the portal. As silent as a cat, he slipped down and scurried over to the hole in the floor. He could hear voices below, echoing strangely-the intruders were no doubt in the back part of the crypt, where the sarcophagus stood.

The hangman paused for a closer look at the heavy stone slab, which lay on the floor off to one side. Whoever was down below must have just arrived; after all, he and Magdalena had just a few moments ago seen the light of torches in the church.

The hangman looked around again in the darkness, then climbed slowly down the stone steps until he reached the storeroom.

The oaken table along the opposite wall had been moved aside, and through the low entryway behind it, he could see the flickering light of a lantern and hear the voices clearly now.

“Damn! There has to be some hint here-something!” one of them hissed. His voice sounded strangely hoarse, as if the man had difficulty speaking. “This is the right grave, so he hid it here somewhere.”

A second, darker voice replied with a Swabian accent. “There’s nothing here, by God, nothing but bones, dust, and this marble slab with the inscription.” His voice fell to a low whisper. “I swear, I hope God does not punish us for disturbing the rest of the dead.”

“Don’t waste your time thinking about that…Think instead about solving this blasted riddle. That’s the only reason the Master summoned you to help us here. Don’t forget that, you fat, mollycoddled old bastard! If it had been up to me, you’d still be dusting off books in some cellar. So stop your whining and keep looking! Deus lo vult! God wills it!”

Not until that moment did Jakob Kuisl notice an unusual accent in the first stranger’s hoarse voice. He had to be a foreigner.

“All right, then, let’s have another look around the next room,” the anxious Swabian voice said. “Maybe I overlooked something in one of the boxes. The heretic could have hidden it there among all the rubbish.”

By the sound of the voices, Jakob Kuisl could tell that the figures were heading now toward the exit. He stepped back against the wall right next to the doorway. As the steps came nearer, a warm circle of light slowly moved in his direction. A sinewy hand, then the sleeve of a black cowl, emerged with an iron oil lamp.

Jakob Kuisl reacted fast. He brought the cudgel down hard on the hand so that the lantern fell to the ground and went out. The monk carrying the lantern barely had time to shout because Kuisl yanked him forward and struck him directly on the back of the head with his cudgel. Groaning, the fat man sank to the ground. For a moment, it was quiet; then the hoarse voice spoke up again from the other room.

“Brother Avenarius? What is the problem? Are you…”

The voice broke off, and all that could be heard was a soft rustling sound.

“Your Brother Avenarius is not feeling very well,” Kuisl called back into the silence. “But still, he’s better off than Koppmeyer. You killed him, didn’t you?”

He waited for a reaction, but when no sound came from the other side, he spoke again.

“I don’t like it when people are poisoned in my district. There’s only one person here allowed to kill other people, and that’s me.”

“And who are you that you think this is any business of yours?” the voice with the foreign accent hissed back at him from the other side.

“I’m the hangman,” Kuisl replied. “And you know what fate is reserved here for people who poison others. The wheel. But first I’ll string you up and probably cut you up, too.”

There was hoarse laughter in the other room.

“And how does the hangman die? Well, no matter, you’ll find out soon enough.”

Jakob Kuisl growled. He had had enough of this idle banter. The man on the ground next to him groaned- apparently the blow hadn’t been hard enough and he would come to soon enough. Just as the hangman was preparing to strike him again, he felt a draft of air. A shadow sprang out of the doorway and swung at him from the side. Kuisl jumped back and felt a curved blade slice into his left forearm. He took a swing with the cudgel again, but the heavy larch-wood club whizzed past his opponent’s head, just missing him. Kuisl picked up his foot and kicked the man hard right between the legs. He was happy to hear the man groan in pain and step back. In the darkness, Kuisl could see nothing but a black outline. The man in front of him seemed to be wearing a monk’s cowl and gripping a curved dagger like the ones Kuisl had seen before carried by Muslim warriors. But there wasn’t any time to look at him more closely, as he was preparing to attack again and this time lunged toward the hangman’s chest. Kuisl stepped back and drove off his opponent with his cudgel. When he took another step forward, he stumbled over something soft and large-the fat Swabian he had put down earlier, still lying on the ground in front of him.

He was about to fend his opponent off with a few more blows when he heard a soft scraping sound behind him. In the next moment, a thin rope came down around his neck.

But weren’t there only two of them?

Kuisl put his hands up to his neck, but the leather cord was already cutting deep into his skin. He gasped for air like a fish out of water, and everything turned black. In a desperate move, he threw his whole weight backward and could feel how he hit against something-the wall! He planted both feet firmly on the ground and tried to crush the man behind him between his broad back and the wall. Finally, the pressure on his neck decreased and air started streaming into his lungs again. He gasped and coughed, then with a loud roar, wheeled around, ready for