The Dark Monk

black brew usually spurred Simon’s thinking, it didn’t work this time.

The physician was also having trouble concentrating because the two monks, Lothar and Johannes, who were sent to guard them, didn’t even once leave their posts at the library door. The Steingaden abbot had made good on his threat and didn’t let Simon and Benedikta out of his sight. They’d traveled to Steingaden in complete darkness in the horse-drawn sled, then spent the rest of the night in two monks’ cells, which were locked from the outside. Simon knew he and Benedikta would be regarded as nothing but church desecrators by the abbot until they had convinced him otherwise.

He had to solve this damned riddle, or they’d be condemned to death and drawn and quartered!

He returned once again to the words scribbled on the parchment in front of him.

Heredium in baptistae sepulcro…

“The heritage in the grave of the baptist…” he mumbled. “That doesn’t help us very much. I’ve never heard of a grave of John the Baptist, have you?”

He turned to Augustin Bonenmayr, who was standing next to him, leaning over his shoulder. The abbot frowned.

“There are supposedly such places in the Holy Land, but-”

“That wouldn’t help us, either,” Benedikta interrupted.

“The treasure must be here in the Priests’ Corner, not in the Holy Land. Is there any place around here that you could call ‘the grave of the baptist’?”

August Bonenmayr thought for a minute. “There’s no grave, no, just a few chapels and baptismal fonts dedicated to Saint John-every parish church has such things. So that can’t be it.”

Reaching for the sword in one corner of the room, he passed his fingers over the rusty inscription again. “Maybe there’s a second clue concealed somewhere on the sword.”

Simon shook his head in resignation. “I’ve examined the sword three times already. There’s nothing else there-no inscription, no hidden compartment, and the handle isn’t hollow. The solution must lie in this one inscription!” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m at my wit’s end.”

“Then I’ll have to hand you over to the authorities in Rottenbuch,” Bonenmayr replied, turning to the door. “Enough of these antics! I have more important things to do.”

“Just a moment!” Benedikta said. “May I have one more look at the sword?”

The abbot hesitated before turning around and handing it to her. Once more, Benedikta examined each word closely.

“There’s something strange here,” she said. “The words aren’t inscribed in typical fashion-there are such wide gaps between them.”

Simon shrugged. “No doubt the inscription was intended to cover the length of the entire sword, so whoever wrote it just left wide intervals between the words.”

“Possible,” Benedikta replied. “But the width of the intervals varies. Why? Perhaps…” she hesitated before continuing. “Perhaps because something belongs in these empty spaces…?”

Simon jumped up so suddenly that the cup of coffee nearly fell over again.

“Words!” he cried. “That’s it! There are words missing in between. That’s the solution, of course!” He sat down again, staring at his page of notes. “We just have to figure out where these missing words are…”

“I think we both know,” Benedikta said softly. “We just don’t want to consider that possibility.”

Simon exhaled softly and pushed the parchment away. There was a long pause before he replied. “On the second sword, the one belonging to Saint Primus-that’s where the other words are engraved. The last clue pointed to both saints, so the next clue is to be found on both swords. How could I be so stupid?”

Augustin Bonenmayr took the sword back from Benedikta. “There’s not much chance you can check your hypothesis now,” he said with regret. “The relics in Rottenbuch are probably better guarded now than the bones of the Three Kings in Cologne.”

“You’re right,” Simon sighed. “But perhaps we can figure this out anyway now that we know every other word is missing.” He took a long gulp of coffee, reached for the parchment and a goose quill, and wrote down the words from the first sword, this time with the ordinary spacing.

Heredium in baptistae sepulcro…

“Let’s assume that heredium is the first word. That would mean that the treasure of something is in something that belongs to the baptist and has something to do with a grave.”

“The first connection is easy,” Benedikta said. “It would probably be heredium templorum-in other words, the heritage of the Templars.”

Simon nodded. “Perhaps. But what is the connection with the baptist-and above all, which grave could it be referring to?”

Benedikta leaned forward to look at the lines. “The most famous grave in Christendom is the grave of our Savior,” she mused. “Judging from the spacing between the words, the word after sepulcro could be Christi. But that doesn’t help us either, because that grave is certainly not in the Priests’ Corner-unless I’ve overlooked some important lines in the Bible… Your Excellency?”

Benedikta looked over at Augustin Bonenmayr. His face had suddenly paled and little drops of sweat stood out on his brow. He began to polish his pince-nez excitedly.

“What are you thinking?” Simon asked. “Have you ever heard of such a grave?”

“Tell us!” Benedikta cried.

The abbot continued polishing his glasses without looking up. “It may be a coincidence,” he said, “but here, in Steingaden, there actually is a very old chapel modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.”

Simon felt his mouth going dry, and his heart started to pound. “And the name…What’s the name of this chapel?” he whispered.

The abbot placed his pince-nez back on the bridge of his nose and stared at him attentively. “That’s the strange thing,” he said, playing with the golden signet ring on his finger. “It’s called Saint John’s Chapel, and it’s right next door to our church.”

Simon groaned loudly. St. John’s Chapel! They had walked right past it that morning, never dreaming that the small, unimposing chapel might conceal a treasure! Once more, he went over in his mind the words engraved on the sword. He could finally make a guess at how the inscription might fit together with the words on the other sword.

He whispered the sentence in Latin. “Heredium templorum in domu baptistae in sepulcro Christi.”

The heritage…of the Templars…in the…house…of the baptist…in the…grave…of Christ.

The passage had to read something like that! The Templars’ treasure was secured in St. John’s Chapel, which was modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. If you knew that the two inscriptions belonged together, the riddle was easy. Simon couldn’t suppress a grin. How carefully Friedrich Wildgraf had constructed his riddle! The Templars’ seal at the ruined castle in Peiting also showed two knights in armor on horseback.

Two riders, two swords-everything had been grouped in twos.

Simon jumped out of his chair and rushed to the door. They were very close to solving the riddle! Soon the Templars’ treasure would be in his hands! The Steingaden abbot would release them; perhaps he would even give them a little money, a valuable brooch, a golden chalice…After all, they’d helped him solve the riddle, and…

Only now did he notice that Augustin Bonenmayr had made it to the door before he did.

“My compliments! You really did excellent work,” the abbot said, smiling. His bloodshot eyes sparkled behind his polished eyeglasses as if he had just enjoyed a good joke. In his right hand, he was carrying the Templar’s sword. “It’s time I introduce you to a true servant-perhaps you’ve met before,” he said, opening the door.

Simon was stunned. In front of them was a monk in a long black robe, the same monk from the Rottenbuch Monastery who, just the day before, had slit open the soldier like a bag of wine. He was wearing a scimitar on his belt and around his neck, a heavy golden cross.

“Deus lo vult,” Brother Nathanael whispered. “God himself led you here.”