The Dark Monk

you look like you’re freezing,” she said as she led Simon into the warm room.

She poured some hot apple cider for Simon and handed him the cup. The room was filled with the aroma of steaming onions and melted butter.

“Here, this will be good for you.” She smiled cheerfully at him as he sipped on the cider sweetened with honey.

“I’m sorry I can’t offer you coffee, but perhaps you’d like to wait for my husband in the other room. I’ve got to go back upstairs and have another look at the children.” They could hear a dry cough and the cries of little Barbara upstairs.

“Georg has it in his chest,” she said anxiously. “Let’s hope it’s not this fever that’s going around.” She’d climbed the steep flight of stairs before Simon could ask if Magdalena was home.

She was probably still feeling hurt. Well, he had learned that women needed time. She’d be back, and then he would have a chance to say he was sorry.

Fortified by the sweet apple cider, Simon entered the adjacent room. In the course of the last year, he had become accustomed to visiting the hangman’s library at least once a week, and Jakob Kuisl allowed him to browse through the old folios and leather-bound books in his absence. In the process, Simon had often stumbled upon things that were interesting for his work as a doctor. For example, the hangman had the complete works of the English doctor Thomas Sydenham, in which every known illness was listed and described in detail-a compendium not even found in the library in Ingolstadt!

The book he held in his hand at the moment, however, didn’t have the slightest thing to do with medicine. Titled Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches’ Hammer), it was written by two Dominicans-Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger. Some pages were soiled and worn, and some had a brownish sheen that looked like dried blood. Simon had frequently browsed through the so-called Witches’ Hammer. On the page he had open at the moment, the authors tried to prove that the Latin word femina (woman) came from fides minus, meaning “of less faith.” Another chapter described what witches looked like, the type of magic they used, and how one could protect himself from them. Then, Simon became engrossed in a detailed passage that described how to make the male organ disappear by magic.

“A bad book,” a voice behind him said. “It would be better for you to put it away.”

Simon turned around. In the doorway, the hangman stood wearing a bandage over his left arm, while snow melted from his fur trousers and formed a puddle at his feet. He tossed his musket in a corner and took the volume from Simon’s hands.

“This book belonged to my grandfather,” he said as he placed it back on one of the tall shelves along with the other books, parchment rolls, notes, and farmers’ almanacs. “He used it in interrogations back in the days when more than sixty women were burned at the stake in Schongau. You can make anyone out to be a witch if you just badger them long enough.”

Simon felt a chill, and not just because of the unheated room. Like all other Schongauers, he’d heard a lot about the notorious witch trials three generations ago that had made the city a name for itself all over Bavaria. In those days, Jakob Kuisl’s grandfather Jorg Abriel had come into a lot of money and dubious notoriety. With his attendants, he traveled by coach to a number of places where executions were to be held and extracted a confession from every witch.

“These Dominicans…” Simon asked after a pause. “Aren’t they often inquisitors at witch trials?”

The hangman nodded. “Domini canes is another name for them-the dogs of the Lord. They are clever and well read and do the dirty work for the Pope.” He spat on the floor, which was covered with fresh reeds. “Let’s hope that no one from this despicable order ever comes to Schongau. Where the Dominicans are, there is fire. And who gets his hands dirty then? Who do you think? Me! That filthy, accursed gang! Unscrupulous smart-asses and bookworms who revel in the suffering of others!”

Having worked himself into a frenzy, he pulled out the bottle of brandy from under his overcoat and took a deep swig. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took a deep breath. Only slowly did he regain his usual composure.

“Do you yourself use that…book?” Simon pointed hesitantly to The Witches’ Hammer on the shelf.

The hangman shook his head and headed toward the heated room. “I have other methods. But tell me now what you found up at the castle.”

They made themselves comfortable by the stove, where a stew of onions, carrots, and bacon was simmering. Suddenly, Simon realized how hungry he was, so when the hangman filled up two plates, he dug in gratefully.

After they had eaten in silence for a while, Simon pointed to the hangman’s bandaged arm. “Did that happen while you were chasing the robbers?” he asked.

Jakob Kuisl nodded, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and pushed the plate aside. Then he started filling his long-stem pipe.

“We caught them,” he grumbled. “Down in the Ammer Gorge near Schleyer Falls. A good number of them are dead, and the rest are cooling their heels up in the dungeon. So I’ll have plenty to do in the next few days, too, and won’t be able to help you.” He lit his pipe with an ember and eyed Simon sternly. “But stop stalling and tell me now…What happened up on Castle Hill? Or do I have to apply the thumbscrews to you first?”

Simon grinned inwardly. Even if the hangman was crabby and uncommunicative, he was just as curious as Simon. The physician wished he could get more out of the hangman about the fight with the robbers, but for now, he related what he had found in the crypt under the chapel and everything else he had learned in his search with Benedikta. “The inscription,” he concluded, “must be a riddle. And the word tree is carved in capital letters. But I swear we examined every tree in the whole damned forest up on that mountain and couldn’t find a thing!”

“An inscription in German…” the hangman murmured. “Strange, you would think the Templars would have written in Latin at that time. At least that’s the way it is in all my old books, only pompous-sounding Latin, no German and certainly not Bavarian German. Well, so be it…” He puffed big black clouds of smoke from his stem pipe, eyeing them intently in the flickering light of the embers. “This damned Templar is sending us on a wild goose chase,” he muttered. “First the crypt in the Saint Lawrence Church, then the basilica in Altenstadt, and now the castle ruin in Peiting, which doesn’t seem to be the last riddle, either. I wonder what else lies in store for us.”

“I think I know,” Simon said. He explained his suspicion that Temple Master Friedrich Wildgraf had concealed part of the Templar’s treasure here. The hangman listened without saying a word. “This treasure is more than anything we can imagine,” Simon finally concluded in a whisper, as if he feared someone could be listening in on them. “Enough to buy whole cities, I believe, and fund wars. Such a treasure would also explain the murder of Koppmeyer, the presence of these monks in Strasser’s Tavern, and the attempt on your life. Someone is doing everything he can to eliminate anyone else who might know about this.”

“But what’s the point of all this rubbish with the riddles and the game of hide-and-seek?” grumbled the hangman, drawing on his pipe. “A simple clue in the crypt, a testament would have also sufficed.”

“Up to now, all the riddles have had something to do with God,” Simon interrupted, struggling not to cough through the clouds of smoke. “The Templars no doubt wanted to make sure only a true believer would find the treasure. The inscription from the castle ruins also seems like a sort of prayer.” He pulled out a parchment roll on which he had noted the lines.

“This is what I discovered among men as the greatest wonder,” the physician mumbled, “that the earth did not exist, nor the sky above, nor TREE…” He hesitated. “Why in the world is ‘tree’ capitalized? Did we overlook something up there?”

“Deus lo vult,” the hangman murmured suddenly.

“What?”

“Deus lo vult-it’s the will of God. That’s what the man with the dagger said to the fat Swabian down in the crypt. It almost sounded like a battle cry. What the devil does that mean?”

Simon shrugged. “A man with a strong scent of perfume, another with a curved dagger, a fat Swabian…” The medicus rubbed his tired eyes, which were tearing up from the smoke. “What an odd group! And how did these men ever learn about the Templar’s grave? From the construction workers?”

The hangman shook his head. “I don’t think so. I actually have another idea, but it’s too early to say yet. Now