“But why is this plaque here when the grave of the Templar is in the Saint Lawrence Church?” Magdalena wondered.
Simon shrugged. “By the year 1329, the Templars had been banned in Germany for more than twenty years,” he said. “Maybe it was just too dangerous to bury the German provincial master here. It’s possible that the priest at that time could get approval for this small tablet.” He ran his hands over the inscribed letters. “But perhaps this tablet is only intended as a clue to put us on the right track…”
“Before we beat around the bush any further,” the hangman said, “let’s just figure out a few things.” He pulled out his knife and began scraping away the mortar around the tablet.
“But, Father!” Magdalena whispered. “What if the priest sees us-”
“The priest is busy preparing for mass and probably getting stoned on the wine,” Jakob Kuisl said and continued scraping. “But feel free to ask him, if you wish.”
Soon he had made a little groove around the tablet, then inserted his dagger to pry it out, and it fell into the soft snow.
Behind it there was nothing but gray stone.
Simon tapped on it, but it was solid, a part of the enormous block of stone and as immovable as the other stones the church was made of.
“Damn!” he exclaimed. “This can’t be it! Is this Templar just making fools of us?”
The medicus kicked the icy wall, which seemed to make no impression on the church. Only his frozen toes hurt. Finally, he took a few deep breaths.
“Very well. The riddle has led us here to the basilica,” he murmured. “Here’s the memorial plaque. What have we overlooked?”
The hangman bent over and picked up the plaque lying in the snow in front of him.
“
“St. Cyriacus is the patron saint for those tempted in the hour of death,” Simon said. “For a Templar accused of treason and sodomy, not a bad patron to have.”
“Aren’t those the Fourteen Holy Helpers depicted in the basilica?” Kuisl asked. “I’ve never seen a Saint Cyriacus there…”
A sudden thought flashed through Simon’s mind. The saints in the south aisle! How could he have been so blind?
Without waiting for the others, he raced around the church, stormed through the portal, and finally, stopped in front of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in the south aisle. They were positioned in groups of two, one above the other. At the very top was Barbara, the patron saint of the dying and helper in cases of lightning and fire. After her was St. Christopher, St. Margaret as patron saint of women in childbirth, St. George, and St. Blaise, who helped in cases of illness of the throat. Nine other patrons were immortalized on the wall of the church, but St. Cyriacus was not among them.
But there was another saint pictured there whose name was noted in small letters beneath the picture.
St. Fridericus…
Simon almost laughed when he read the inscription. Apparently, none of the church’s many visitors had ever noticed the error. The painting depicted a man in a bishop’s robe with a miter and staff. His right hand was raised protectively over a castle sitting atop a forested mountain, and on closer examination, one could see he was touching the castle with his index finger.
In the meantime, Jakob Kuisl and his daughter had also arrived in front of the picture of St. Fridericus.
“He fooled us all for many hundreds of years,” Simon exclaimed, laughing. Some of the women praying turned around with admonishing glances. “St. Fridericus!” he added, whispering, but still grinning. “He simply used his own name! What magnificent blasphemy!”
“But what is this Templar trying to tell us?” Magdalena asked, puzzled, as she considered the fresco. “Is he just mocking us?”
Kuisl approached the painting to within a few inches. He tapped the castle beneath the picture of the saint, where he’d noticed a brown spot not much larger than a flyspeck.
“Here,” he said. “Here it is.”
He fished out a magnifying lens from deep inside his pocket and held it over the spot. Suddenly, he was able to make out two words painted in thin, shaky brush strokes.
“The old castle of the Guelphs,” Simon whispered, “up on the Castle Hill above Peiting. My God, all that stands there now is ruins!” He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. “I am afraid the search will last longer than we first expected.”
The stranger with the black cowl and the sweet smell of violets was standing outside in the cemetery of the basilica. With trembling hands, he held up the Templar’s stone plaque, which Jakob Kuisl had left lying there.
How was that possible? The hangman was not only still alive, but had also apparently discovered a clue! Perhaps it was an act of providence, after all, that this Kuisl had not suffocated in the sarcophagus. The stranger had thought this a suitable way of dying for someone responsible for killing so many others. In any case, the man was alive and had solved the riddle-he, his daughter, and that brash young medicus. Why hadn’t
For days they had been hiding like itinerant riffraff in local barns to avoid arousing suspicion. They lived on nothing but dry bread and their faith; they froze, they prayed, and the only thing that kept them going was the knowledge that
The stranger cursed in Latin and, at once, murmured a short prayer asking the Lord to forgive this little sin. Then he started putting his thoughts together.
Everything now was actually very simple. They would track these three like bloodhounds, they would find the treasure, and the Master would give them his blessing. Their place in paradise was assured, even if the path to it was cold and stony.
The stranger made the sign of the cross and smiled. Carefully, he put the stone plaque down on the ground again and hid behind the gravestones, waiting for the three to come back out of the basilica.
Simon’s initial elation at finding the clue in the basilica quickly turned into confusion and anger, and the reason was walking along defiantly beside him. Without speaking a word, he and Magdalena descended the narrow pathway back down to Schongau. The hangman’s daughter nearly slipped a few times, but when Simon reached out to help her, she brushed his hand aside. Just what was wrong with her? Not a word of approval about his find, just this silence.
Jakob Kuisl had gone his own way back in Altenstadt, grumbling about having to pick something up from the blacksmith down on the Muhlenweg as he disappeared into a narrow lane. The clerk had ordered him to report to the marketplace with a group of citizens the next day to begin a search for the robbers in the Schongau forests. For that reason, Simon knew he wouldn’t be able to count on the hangman in the next few days. He also suspected Kuisl stayed behind in Altenstadt for another reason-sensing that there were bad feelings between Magdalena and himself. Kuisl wanted to give them some time alone. But his plan had backfired. Ever since they had started the hike back to Schongau, they had not exchanged a word, and just as they were arriving at the Hof Gate, Simon blew his top.
“Magdalena, just what is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with
Simon could only roll his eyes. “Magdalena, we have already talked about this. There is nothing between me and Benedikta Koppmeyer,” he tried to convince her, choosing his words carefully. “She saved my life; she is an amazing woman, but-”
“An amazing woman! Bah!” Magdalena stopped and glared at him. “She can talk fine, the amazing woman. She has beautiful, expensive clothes, but underneath it all, she is nothing but a dolled-up tramp!”
