marker. Running his hand over it, he whispered, “I feel we’ve almost reached our goal.”
“And you think this is the old Saint John’s Chapel?” Brother Nathanael asked skeptically. “How can you be so sure? The Steingaden Monastery is ancient, and this could just as well be any other forgotten crypt.”
The abbot shook his head and pointed at the grave markers. “Just look at the inscriptions!” he whispered. “These are the graves of abbots and other religious dignitaries connected to the monastery. I’ve already taken a closer look at the dates of death, and the most recent entry is dated 1503. And the Saint John’s Chapel alongside the church was not built until 1511-that’s just eight years later. That can’t be a coincidence! I’m certain we’re standing in the crypt of the former Saint John’s Chapel. In the years that war was raging in this country, it was simply forgotten.” He started tapping on the grave slabs. “Now we must just find the entrance to the hiding place. I suggest-”
There was a soft creaking sound overhead, and the abbot stopped to listen. Then a thud followed, as if a heavy sack had fallen to the floor.
“Brother Johannes!” Bonenmayr cried out. “What in the world are you doing up there?”
The monk up above did not answer.
“Damn it, Johannes, I asked you a question!”
Again, silence.
The abbot turned to Brother Nathanael. “Please go up there and see what’s going on. We have no time for such childish nonsense.”
Nathanael nodded, clenching his dagger between his teeth, and climbed up the pulley rope to the stage.
Bonenmayr now inspected the plaques more closely. The reliefs depicted skulls, crossbones, occasionally a monk with his eyes closed and arms crossed, and Roman numerals indicating the year of death in each case.
Bonenmayr suddenly stopped in front of an especially weathered plaque.
“It’s strange, but I’ve never seen this inscription before,” he said, tapping his slender fingers against the plaque. “I have never heard of an abbot by this name.” He bent down and examined the name again through his pince-nez. “And the dates can’t be right, either.”
He wiped the dust from the inscription so that the letters beneath the crossbones were easily legible.
H. Turris. CCXI.
“What does that mean?” Bonenmayr murmured. “Perhaps an honorable Horazio Turris, born 211 in the Year of Our Lord? A Roman officer who found his last resting place here?”
Brother Lothar nodded obsequiously. “It’s just like you said, Your Eminence.”
“You ass!” The abbot looked at the monk disdainfully. “This monastery is old, but not that old.”
“Possibly the
The abbot thought about this for a bit and shook his head. “Then the other numbers would be worn as well. No, there’s something behind all this. Quick! Give me your torch!”
The baffled monk watched as Bonenmayr took the torch and copied the letters of the inscription on the dust of the stone floor.
“
Brother Lothar looked on, confused. “Your Excellency, what in the world-”
“Hold your tongue. Bring me some more light from the other torch over there,” Bonenmayr grumbled. Silently the monk held up the torch Nathanael had left behind and watched as the abbot continued sketching and erasing the letters.
Finally Bonenmayr stopped. His face partly obscured in the shadows, his eyes narrowed to slits behind his pince-nez. He grinned like a schoolboy, pointing at the letters on the ground. Beneath the name and the year of death there were now two new words.
Two very familiar words.
“It’s an anagram,” Bonenmayr murmured. “
15
The muffled voices behind the door became louder and louder, then suddenly fell silent. Simon held his breath. He was sure he’d heard the Steingaden abbot. Had the secret passageway perhaps led them to St. John’s Chapel? But they must have gone much farther than that…The medicus had lost all sense of direction. Placing his finger to his lips, he motioned to the two women to keep silent. After a while they could hear the sound of pickaxes. Someone on the other side of the door seemed to be pounding away at stone.
Carefully, Simon pressed down on the rusty door handle. The tarnished portal opened a crack, unexpectedly, and then jammed. Peering through the crack, Simon couldn’t make out more than a few shapeless pieces of rubble that blocked his view. He pressed against the low wooden door with his shoulder, and it opened, squeaking, bit by bit. The pounding on the other side continued, and now Simon could clearly hear the abbot’s voice.
“Faster, faster! There’s an opening behind it, you asses! Hurry up!”
Suddenly, a loud crash sounded somewhere up above. Something big and heavy must have fallen over in the room above them. For a moment, Augustin Bonenmayr fell silent, but then he continued, even louder: “I don’t care if the world is coming to an end up there! That must not stop us! Keep going!”
Finally, the crack was wide enough that Simon and the two women could slip through. Not far from the door, he spotted a tall, rotten shelf they could hide behind. But looking closer, he stopped short. The shelves were piled high with masks with crooked noses, dusty wigs, fake beards, and moth-eaten clothing. Beside the shelf, he saw a strange apparatus, something he’d never seen before: Standing upright on a small wagon was a barrel with a little handle sticking out of the side. The barrel itself was wrapped in a bolt of fabric. Simon rubbed his eyes. What place had they stumbled into? This couldn’t possibly be St. John’s Chapel, could it?
Carefully, the medicus peered out from beyond the shelving. He saw a huge subterranean dome. Through a tiny opening in the middle of the ceiling, a rope descended to a block of wood on the ground. In one corner Simon recognized one of the two monks from the library. He was hacking on a grave slab with a pickaxe, and next to him, Augustin Bonenmayr was frantically pushing rubble off to the side. When a large-enough hole opened up, the abbot pulled back his white robe and crept inside.
“Give me the torch-quickly!” The monk handed Bonenmayr the torch, and moments later, a shout came from behind the gravestone. “Holy Mother of Jesus, we’ve found it! We’ve really found it!”
The Steingaden abbot began to cackle hysterically, and Brother Lothar, curious, crawled in after him. Once the monk disappeared into the hole, Simon gave the women a sign and they all tiptoed over to the opening. One inch at a time, Simon moved closer to the edge.
Finally, he worked up the courage and looked inside.
Holding his dagger between his teeth, Brother Nathanael pulled himself out of the trapdoor and onto the stage, only to realize he had left his torch down below. The auditorium was as dark as a dungeon! Brother Johannes had a lantern with him, but it had disappeared along with the monk himself.
“Brother Johannes!” Nathanael called out. “Are you here somewhere?” His voice echoed through the drafty building, but there was no answer.
Nathanael remembered seeing candleholders earlier in niches along the stage. Blindly, he groped toward the niches, until his hand grasped a bronze candelabra. With frozen fingers, he reached under his robe for the little box of matches he always carried with him and lit the five candles. After a few moments, he could just make out the stage and the seats in the auditorium. Brother Johannes was nowhere to be seen.
With the candelabra in hand, Nathanael crossed the stage, stopping in front of a heap of crumpled curtain material. He was just about to go down the steps into the orchestra pit when something on the floor caught the light. Stooping down with the candelabra, he saw a little puddle spilling out from under the heap.
