The Poisoned Pilgrim

Breathlessly Simon rushed past a group of pilgrims from Landshut, bumping into their praying leader and sending him sprawling and shouting to the ground with their banner. The richly embroidered flag, which weighed at least thirty pounds, fell on two old women, covering them like a huge bed sheet. Out of the corner of his eye, the medicus could see the two women wailing and struggling to get free from the heavy banner.

  Finally Simon reached the wall separating the church square from the forest. Looking back, he was relieved to see that the two Semers were also having trouble making their way through the dense crowd. He was about to heave a big sigh of relief when he spied two of the Andechs hunters coming toward him. The bailiffs had decided not to try to make their way through the crowd in the square but to run around the edge, where there were fewer people. Now the men ran toward Simon, grinning. One already had his crossbow in hand, and the other lowered his spear menacingly.

  “In the name of the monastery, stop at once,” the guard with the crossbow ordered.

  Simon paid him no heed but turned and ran toward the gate through which Kuisl had just disappeared. There was a soft whirring sound, then a bolt slammed into one of the trees directly above him.

  And all this because, once more, my stubborn father-in-law won’t listen to me, he thought grimly. Now we’re probably both being sought as false monks. The Weilheim executioner won’t have to complain about a lack of work.

  Simon slipped through the open gate and turned right onto the path along the monastery wall. Soon he saw St. Elizabeth’s Chapel in front of him and a path leading down a steep slope into the forested Kien Valley on the left. Turning around, he was horrified to see the hunters had followed him, joined by four others, and were approaching in long strides.

  The path continued along the edge of the gorge; to his right were fields and farmland. Where should he go? If he ran out into the open country, the hunters would shoot him down like an animal, but the way into the forest was blocked by the gorge. If he continued running along this path, the bailiffs would likely catch up with him soon. Unlike the slender Schongau medicus, they looked strong and athletic; laughing and shouting, they seemed to enjoy the hunt.

  “Look how he runs,” shouted one, alarmingly close by. “Like a rabbit, a frightened little rabbit. Hey, stop, you coward! We’ll catch you anyway!”

  The path now took a turn, and for a brief moment, Simon was out of their line of sight. As he desperately looked around for a place to hide, a hand shot out from behind a rock at the edge of the gorge and grabbed him by the collar. Waving his arms around helplessly, he was dragged behind a huge boulder.

  “Damn, just what the—” was all he could say before hairy fingers grabbed him by the throat, silencing him.

  “Shut your mouth and stop flailing around. You dance around more than a billy goat.”

  Simon relaxed when he recognized the voice of his father-in-law. Crouching behind the rock, they were dangerously close to the gorge: only a few fingers’ breadths stood between them and the steep gorge falling a hundred feet down to the river. Kuisl continued to hold Simon tight in his grip, but looking down at the steep slope at his feet, Simon raised no objection.

  “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from the presentation of the hosts?” Simon gasped as he tried to get a firmer footing on the narrow ledge. “Now we’re both wanted, and I really don’t know how I’m going to get out of this mmmmmm.”

  The hangman held his hand in front of Simon’s mouth as the steady pounding of the bailiffs’ footsteps approached along the path. Simon could hear their breathing, and for a moment, he felt like an animal at bay. But then they passed, and soon Simon and Kuisl could hear only the twittering of the birds.

  Kuisl had closed his eyes. Now he turned silently to Simon.

  “There were only two of them,” he whispered. “No doubt the other two are looking for us behind the other boulders along the path. They’ll be here soon. We have no choice but to head down into the gorge.”

  “Down?” Simon looked at him in horror, pointing at the cliff that fell off steeply into the gorge. “Do you mean down there?”

  “Of course, you idiot. Where else? It isn’t as bad as it looks. There are little trees you can hold onto all the way down.”

  Simon couldn’t help thinking of the window ledge outside the count’s office where he’d been standing the day before. Now he would have to tempt fate again. He was a good swimmer, and narrow subterranean passageways were no problem for him, but he’d always had a great fear of heights. And this one was particularly high.

  “This… this is at least sixty feet up,” he objected, looking down suspiciously into the dark gorge, whose bottom was only vaguely visible among firs and beeches.

  “Come now,” the hangman said under his breath. “Shall I tell Magdalena you met your end as a yellow-bellied coward on the gallows?”

  “All right then… very well.”

  Simon turned to face the cliff and slowly slipped into the gorge. Once he’d found a foothold in a crack in the rock, he reached out for a small fir growing on the slope, then took a step toward a ledge farther off.

  “If you keep going like that, you won’t reach the bottom until St. Martin’s Day,” Kuisl said, watching him from up above. “Hurry up. After all, I have to come down behind you.”

  “I’d be glad to let you go first, my dear father-in-law,” Simon hissed.

  “So you’ll fall down on top of me? Thanks very much, but I’d prefer to stand guard for the time being up here.”

  Simon took a deep breath, then started climbing down the cliff again. He was beginning to get the knack of it—in fact it wasn’t as hard as he’d feared at first. There were plenty of ledges, bushes, and trees to hang onto.

  When he got about halfway down the cliff, he took a break, wiped the sweat from his brow, and looked up, where he could just make out Kuisl as a dark little figure between the rocks.

  Still gasping, Simon reached for another little fir when suddenly he heard a loud ominous crack.

  The tree above him gave way.

  Another crunching sound followed; then Simon slipped. The earth below him gave way as pebbles and small rocks fell noisily down into the gorge. Up above, he saw the angry face of his father-in-law.

  “Watch out, you idiot,” Kuisl hissed before realizing how desperate Simon’s situation was. The medicus only had the small fir to hold onto, and bit by bit, the roots were pulling out of the cliff. The bottom was still fifty feet below.

  “Wait, I’ll—” Kuisl began.

  But at that moment, the rest of the root ripped out and Simon fell downward, screaming and thrashing wildly.

  The landing was less painful than he feared. The forest floor was covered with old leaves, and a gentle slope at the bottom ensured the landing wasn’t too abrupt. He turned head over heels a few times, rolling like a little human avalanche into valley and finally coming to rest next to a large beech.

  Carefully Simon checked his arms and legs. Nothing seemed broken, though his jacket was ripped in several places and there were some scrapes and bruises on his face and back.

  Just as he was about to call back that everything was all right, he heard cries at the top of the cliff. Squinting, he could see vague movements far up on the ledge where Kuisl had been standing. More shouting followed, along with what sounded like clanking weapons. Evidently there was fighting up there.

  “Kuisl! My God, Kuisl!” he shouted. “What’s happening?”

  In the next moment, it occurred to him how stupid his question was. Evidently the hunters had found the hiding place and were engaged in a fight with the hangman. And Simon was standing down below, where he couldn’t do a thing.

  After waiting at the base of the cliff for a long time, not knowing what to do, he heard another shout, and moments later, a body came tumbling down, landing right in front of him. Simon cringed. Before him lay one of the Andechs hunters, his head twisted at a strange angle from the fall, a crossbar bolt embedded in his shoulder. He
quivered briefly one more time, then his eyes took on the glassy sheen the medicus had seen so many times on dying men.

  Wonderful, Simon thought. Now we’ll be sought not just as charlatans and false monks but as murderers, too. And all I wanted to do was to go on a pilgrimage.

  “Damn, Simon, run. Run to Magdalena.” Kuisl’s voice boomed down into the valley and tore him from his thoughts. Simon looked up once more, but the figures had disappeared. Presumably the fight had moved back onto the path. Some of the hunters could already be looking for some way to get down to him.

  Simon hesitated. Should he really abandon his father-in-law? Of course, he wasn’t much help to him down here either. Kuisl was right—they had to warn Magdalena. After this, the guards would surely be looking for her, as well. Were the Semers perhaps already on the way to the knacker’s house? Magdalena had suggested they all meet there again after the mass.

  One last time Simon looked at the battered, twisted body of the Andechs hunter at his feet. He stooped down, closed the corpse’s eyes, and said a short prayer.

  Then he ran through the dark valley past firs, beeches, and steep cliffs. He planned to make a wide circle around the monastery to reach Andechs and the knacker’s house. Perhaps it wasn’t too late.

  Simon worried less about his father-in-law. This wasn’t the hangman’s first fight. No, Simon’s greater worry was that, in this situation, the hangman might commit a few more mortal sins.

  Like a bear held at bay by a pack of hounds, the hangman stood on the tall rock, kicking at the hunters to fend them off.

  The bailiffs had arrived just moments after Simon slid down the slope. They must have been somewhere close by and heard Simon’s shouts. Now three of them surrounded the boulder and lunged at Kuisl with spears; the fourth ran back toward the monastery, Kuisl assumed, for reinforcements.

  As he continued kicking, he could see out of the corner of his eye one hunter put down his spear and reach for a little crossbow at his side. Kuisl cursed softly—up here on the rock, he was an easy target for a marksman; he’d be brought down like a wounded boar. Kuisl had no time to think, though. At the same moment, another bailiff was climbing up the rock with a dagger.

  Cautiously the man got up onto the slippery, moss-covered boulder and tried to stab Kuisl in the side with his long-handled knife. The hangman dodged, grabbed the bailiff by the waist, and lifted him, screaming and thrashing about wildly, toward the archer: a living shield. At the same moment the bolt whizzed toward him, hitting the man in the shoulder. The hangman cringed as he felt a searing pain around his waist. He thought he’d been hit by a bolt, as well, but then he realized he’d only pulled a muscle and knew his back would be hurting for a day or so.

  Damn, he thought. I’m getting too old for this nonsense. It’s time for the young folk to deal with these bailiffs, robbers, and insane murderers.

  Kuisl released his hold, and the injured guard fell to the ground, slipping toward the cliff only a few feet away. Frantically he tried to dig his fingers into the rock, but the porous stone began to crumble. For one last moment the hangman could see the horrified face of the injured man, and then he fell, shrieking, into the gorge.

  By God, I swear I didn’t want that to happen, Kuisl thought. But, unfortunately, no one will believe that.

  He called down loudly to Simon to run as fast as possible to warn Magdalena, but he had no idea whether the medicus even heard him, or whether he was injured or even dead. Moments before, Simon had shouted something, but since then, Kuisl hadn’t heard a word. But now Kuisl had no time to lose. The archer on the path below was cranking the handle, winding another bolt into his crossbow, which Kuisl figured would take just a few seconds.

  Shouting, he hangman leapt from the boulder and charged the three men. They instinctively withdrew, and this short moment gave him enough time to dash off down the path toward the monastery. Another bolt whizzed past his head before he reached a bend in the path and was out of his pursuers’ sight for a moment.

  There was no one on the path in front of him, but close behind he could hear the shouts of the three bailiffs. It would be just a matter of seconds before they would appear behind him again.

  As he looked around anxiously, he spotted a nearby alder tree, just on the other side of the wall, with a thick bough projecting over the path.

  Kuisl sprinted, jumped up, and clutched the branch, which creaked menacingly under the sudden weight. Then he pulled himself up, clenching his teeth, balanced himself on the branch, and ran over the fifteen-foot wall of the monastery. Without looking down, he jumped over the side, his black coat fluttering like the wings of an enormous bat.

  And not a moment too soon.

  As Kuisl rolled down the embankment wet with dew, he could hear furious shouts from the other side of the wall. Had they seen him jump? He held his breath, but the men kept running, and soon silence returned.

  Breathless, the hangman looked around. He was in the monastery cemetery. Graves with wooden and stone crosses dotted the broad grassy area toward the monastery, and in the center was a round well that he remembered from his previous visit—the same one from which they’d fished the burned corpse of the watchmaker two days before.

  Crouching over, Kuisl ran along the graves while organ music sounded from the church. Evidently the service of thanksgiving to honor the sacred hosts was underway.

  Once more the hangman observed the fresh graves of the two novitiates Coelestin and Vitalis; and not far from there, the mound marking the grave of the third older monk who had died more than a month ago. The footprints had disappeared, but the earth still looked as fresh as if it had been turned over just a few days before. Kuisl thought about the handkerchief with the initials that he and Simon had found next to the grave.

  Was it possible a bloodthirsty golem had defiled the corpses here?

  He shook his head as he continued past the well and a few more stone crosses, finally arriving at the oldest section of the cemetery. The crosses here were crooked, weathered, and partially covered with ivy. Faded Roman numerals indicated which people had passed away many years ago.

  Kuisl remembered Simon’s stories about the destruction of the castle. It wasn’t until two hundred years later that the Augustinians had founded this monastery. Later still came the Benedictines. Some of the graves here must have dated from that period. Or were there perhaps other, even older, graves?

  Again his gaze wandered over the cemetery’s crosses and circular well. As so often happened when he was about to come upon some connection, some missing piece of a puzzle, something troubled him. But whatever it was, it was still beyond him, in his subconscious, and had not yet come to the surface.

  The graves…

  Sighing, he finally gave up. There were too many other things to clear up at present. He could only hope that Simon had managed to escape and warn Magdalena in time. Kuisl absolutely had to speak with the two of them. Perhaps by that time, whatever was rumbling around so deep in his subconscious would come to light. But how could he get in contact with his daughter and son-in-law? He couldn’t go back to the knacker’s house. Surely the two Semers would be lying in wait for him there with a few guards. So where should they meet?

  Kuisl thought about this for a moment before breaking out into a wide grin. The perfect place had just come to mind.

  If Magdalena was really his daughter, she’d know where to find him.

  Nearly blind with anxiety, Magdalena ran across the field of flowers, along the gorge that led down into the Kien Valley.

  Her children had disappeared. Perhaps this lunatic had already seized them. Some madman had already tried to kill her several times, so why wouldn’t he go after her children, as well? Magdalena still hoped the two boys had just run off and were playing somewhere nearby. She worried most about the steep rock slope nearby and decided not to tell Simon and her father yet, but to first have a look along the edge of the gorge.

  “Peter, Paul? Can you hear me? Are you here???
? Her voice echoed across the deserted valley. Wherever she looked, she saw rocks and ragged boulders that looked like petrified trolls amid the stunted pines and spruce, like man-eating ogres whom God had punished long ago for their transgressions.

  Did the trolls eat my children, as well?

  She continued past some thorny bushes blocking her view into the valley. Looking down, she saw one of the Andechs hunters dressed in green several yards below, running toward the monastery along a path that skirted the edge of the gorge. She was about to call for help when the man encountered two other bailiffs. Gesturing wildly, the little man stopped to tell them something, but from where she stood above the trail, Magdalena could understand only a few words.

  “The false monk… chasing… fleeing with this bathhouse doctor… need reinforcement…”

  The false monk? The bathhouse doctor?

  Magdalena could feel the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She knew only one false monk and one bathhouse doctor in Andechs: her father and Simon. What in God’s name had happened? Evidently her father had been found out, and these men were chasing him and Simon.

  She crouched down behind one of the hawthorn bushes and waited. She couldn’t hear a word of their conversation, but all three of them went back in the direction the first bailiff had come from.

  Magdalena’s head was spinning. Did she dare to keep calling for the children? It was possible the hunters would hear her and recognize her. As they knew she was the wife of the Schongau bathhouse surgeon, it seemed a better idea to steer clear of the bailiffs.

  Anxiously she gazed across the valley one last time. She saw rocks, trees, bushes, dead wood…

  But no children.

  Practically numb with despair, Magdalena bit her fist. The pain helped her to think clearly, at least for a while. She needed help, and the only two people who came to mind other than Simon and her father were Graetz and Matthias. Taking a deep breath, she turned and ran back across the meadows and fields until she arrived at the dirt path to Erling. Her heart was pounding in her chest and every breath was painful, but still she ran on and on. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she could see the knacker’s house between two other farmhouses at the forest edge.