“Giddyap! Go, you damned mare!”
Joseph, his first servant, whipped one of the Haflingers so hard that it jumped and the wagon finally lurched forward, over the snowdrift. The journey could resume.
Wagon tracks with only a light covering of snow appeared on the road in front of them. Leonhard Weyer smiled. They would make it. He’d be doing business in Füssen before anyone else, and the profit would be considerable. Perhaps after he’d concluded this deal, he could finally retire and leave everything to his sons. A warm hearth, a good drink, a fat roast capon—what more could a person want?
A sound came from the right, a faint crackling in the icy branches. Leonhard Weyer squinted into the darkness in front of him, but all he could make out were the dense thickets of pines. His servants had heard something, too. They whispered and looked around warily in all directions. Something was lurking out there. Now Weyer heard a whistle from a tree nearby. Looking up in the tree, he could see branches moving as if they were alive, swaying back and forth in the almost windless air.
He noticed the eyes much too late.
They were gleaming white on an otherwise ashen face, and below the eyes, a crossbow was aimed directly at the merchant. Leonhard Weyer heard a soft click, then felt a searing pain in his right shoulder. Tumbling from his horse, he instinctively reached for his pistol but couldn’t find it. All around him, chaos broke out: There was shouting in the gathering darkness, shots, and the groans of men fighting. A shrill cry became a gurgle; then someone fell to the ground with a thud. He looked to the side and saw Joseph, his first servant, his eyes bulging in terror. Blood gushed from a broad wound across his neck onto Weyer’s expensive fur coat. The merchant gazed at the slaughter in disbelief. How was this happening?
Who, in God’s name, could know that we were taking the old road?
He pushed the corpse in front of him to one side and reached into his coat. The fur was so heavy he couldn’t find the opening. Where were his damned pistols? Finally, he felt their cold steel and slipped them out through the opening. He ignored the pain in his shoulder and sat up carefully. From this position, he could see that two of his servants lay bleeding on the ground and another was struggling with three robbers, one of whom struck him on the back of the neck with an ax. Out of the corner of his eye, Weyer noticed a shadow approaching from the left. He wheeled around to see a man running toward him. He had tied pine branches to his arms and legs, his face was blackened, and in his right hand, he held a polished pistol. He was short in stature, and his movements were sleek, like a cat’s. Despite the disguise, Weyer had the feeling he had seen this man before.
But where?
There was no time to think about it, however. Weyer pointed his loaded pistol at the bandit and pulled the trigger.
There was a click, nothing else.
Damn, the powder got wet, Leonhard Weyer thought. God help me!
The figure slowly moved closer, obviously enjoying this moment, and pointed the barrel of his pistol directly at Weyer’s forehead. Just before the cock came down, igniting the powder, Weyer finally recalled where he’d seen the figure.
Was it possible? But why…?
The sudden realization couldn’t help him now. The world flew apart into a thousand stars, and behind them was nothing but unending blackness.
They met on the market square before dawn, shadows in the darkness that only gradually took shape as Jakob Kuisl approached.
The hangman knew most of them: The gatekeeper, Jakob Rauch, was there as well as the powerfully built smith, Georg Krönauer, and Andre Wiedemann, an old war veteran leaning wearily on his musket, suspiciously eyeing the newcomers shuffling into the square in heavy overcoats, their breath turning into white clouds in front of them. Farther back, Kuisl saw the sons of aldermen Semer and Hardenberg standing with Hans Berchtholdt, whose father represented the bakers in the Outer Council. They whispered among themselves, pointed at the hangman, and played apathetically with their shining sabers. From time to time, as the remaining men arrived, Kuisl heard laughter coming from that group.
Nearly two dozen men had formed a circle around the hangman—aldermen, tavern keepers, and tradesmen, all honorable citizens, eyeing him with a mixture of distrust and hostility, as if they were just waiting for him to give them some reason to contradict him. Jakob Kuisl suddenly realized how futile Lechner’s plan was. He was nothing more than a dishonorable hangman, a torturer and butcher. How could he give orders to these people?
He cleared his throat and was about to speak when a voice rang out in the fog behind him.
“Gentlemen, I have some sad news for you all.”
Johann Lechner had appeared like a ghost out of the gloom. He looked as if he’d been awake for hours: Elegantly coiffed with a cleanly clipped beard, his jacket and coat neatly buttoned, he had the bearing of someone accustomed to giving orders. He directed his piercing eyes at the crowd.
“A few dead bodies have been discovered in the forest just on the other side of Lechbruck,” he continued. “They were the Augsburg merchant Leonhard Weyer and his servants, who departed from Schongau just yesterday morning.” He raised his voice, scrutinizing the men standing around him armed with scythes, flails, and rusty muskets. “The next time it may be one of us they rob and murder. My fellow citizens, it is finally time to crack down on this gang.”
There was whispering in the crowd and curses here and there.
“Quiet, please!” The clerk clapped his hands, and immediately, the crowd fell silent. “Kuisl was a mercenary in the Great War,” Johann Lechner began, pointing to the middle of the group, where the hangman stood completely outfitted with saber, rifle, and pistols. “An able and clever leader, as I have heard. He has had experience with these sorts of scoundrels, and he knows better than any of us how to handle weapons. I want you to follow his commands, for the good of us all.”
“And if we don’t want to, eh?” It was Hans Berchtholdt, the baker’s son, who struck a defiant posture across from the clerk. “My father thinks you don’t have any right to give us orders. This is still a free city! A Berchtholdt won’t be bossed around by a dirty butcher!”
A swish could be heard as Jakob Kuisl pulled his saber out of its sheath, gripping the handle tightly.
“Your father is an old fool.” The voice came from the right, where Jakob Schreevogl materialized out of the heavy morning mist. The patrician nodded in the direction of the clerk and Jakob Kuisl. “If you’ll allow me, I wish to join the group.” The young alderman put his well-oiled pistol back in his belt and took a stand next to the hangman.
“I’m pleased that another fighter has joined our ranks,” Johann Lechner responded with a smile. “And now, to your question…” He glared at the baker’s son, and Berchtholdt stepped back, intimidated. “The attack on the Augsburg merchant was a dastardly murder and thus no longer a concern of the town but of the elector,” Lechner continued. “I am the representative of the elector in Schongau, and I am directing the hangman to lead this group. Would you like to discuss this matter with me before the court in Munich?”
Hans Berchtholdt stepped back into the ranks again, and the two other patricians’ sons looked away, distraught.
“No…of course not. I…” Berchtholdt stammered.
“Good. Then we can finally begin.” The clerk turned to Jakob Kuisl. “The hangman will explain how we will proceed.”
Jakob Kuisl grinned. You could say what you wanted about Lechner, but he had a firm grip on his town. Grimly, the hangman rammed his saber back into its sheath, looking each of the men in the face, one after the other. Then he briefly explained his battle plan.
As Simon slammed the door behind him and set out to inspect the castle ruins in Peiting, he could hear his father cursing and carrying on behind him. It was just before eight in the morning, and the first farmers and tradespeople were up and about with their carts in the streets of Schongau.
Bonifaz Fronwieser had insisted that his son stay home to help wit
h the patients who would be coming in for treatment. Just the night before, two more Schongauers had come to the house complaining of coughing and chills. The old doctor had talked them into buying a syrup of linden blossom extract and, for an exorbitant fee, also examined their urine. Then, with a few words of assurance, he had sent them on their way. Simon was so happy he wouldn’t have to watch this foolishness that day. They were so powerless! People were dying like flies, and the doctors here couldn’t think of anything better to do than to bleed the patients and administer enemas. In Paris, London, and in Leiden in the Netherlands, doctors were far more advanced. Some renowned scholars there even asserted that illness was transmitted from person to person—not by bad air and miasmas, but by creatures too small to be seen with the naked eye. In Schongau, they still thought snot was mucus draining from the brain and that a common cold could cause a person to wither up inside and become a zombie.
Simon cursed. Until just the week before, he’d held onto a bit of Jesuit’s powder, which was extracted from the bark of an exotic tree that grew on the other side of the Great Ocean. The fever was receding, but he’d used up the last bit of it now, and the next Venetian merchant would not be coming north over the mountain passes to Schongau until spring.
When Simon turned the corner onto Weinstrasse, he could no longer hear his father’s screams. No doubt, Bonifaz Fronwieser was already washing down his anger with a glass of cheap white wine. Simon hoped that by nightfall his father would have calmed down again, and that Magdalena would have come to her senses, too. He’d stopped by at her house the day before and banged on the door several times, but no one had answered. Finally, Anna Maria Kuisl dumped a chamber pot out the window, an unmistakable sign that his presence was not desired. In a few days, the blizzard would no doubt die down, and maybe by then he would have learned more about the riddles concerning the Templars’ treasure. Possibly, he might get a better idea that very day after his visit to Peiting.
As he was leaving through the Lech Gate in the frosty morning fog, a figure approached him that, until that moment, had been hidden behind the town wall. It was Benedikta.
“I think our conversation yesterday ended much too abruptly,” she said, smiling. She wore a woolen cap and a heavy, coarse woolen coat that didn’t quite suit her dainty figure. She must have bought the clothing in town after realizing that she would be staying a bit longer. Seeing the surprised look on Simon’s face, she shrugged apologetically. “My brother’s burial is not until tomorrow, so I thought I might come along with you. For your own protection…” She winked at him.
Simon could feel himself blushing. Protected by a woman. I hope the hangman never hears about this…
Only now did he notice a bulge under Benedikta’s heavy coat at about hip level. He suspected that was where she stowed the pistol she had used to finish off the robber.
“Why not?” he said. “But please, let’s not take horses this time. Every muscle in my body still aches.”
Benedikta laughed aloud and walked ahead, crunching through the snow so fast that Simon had difficulty keeping up with her.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I gave my Aramis a day off today. And in any case, it’s not far, is it?”
Simon nodded. He had caught up and was walking alongside her now. “Do you see the big hill?” He pointed across the Lech River. “Beyond that is Peiting, the closest town, and right next to that is the castle on the hill with the old Guelph ruins—at least whatever the Swedes didn’t destroy.”
“Doesn’t anyone live up there on the hill anymore?” Benedikta asked.
Simon laughed. “Just a few castle ghosts. It was once inhabited by the Guelphs, a family of princes that reigned here. But that was long, long ago. In the Great War, people took refuge up there, but the Swedes destroyed the last remnants of the castle. Now, you’ll meet only an occasional farmer up there looking for stones for building his walls or barns.”
“And do you think we’ll actually find something up there?”
Simon shrugged. “Probably not, but then, at least we’ll have tried.”
The path along the Lech climbed gently. Soon they were surrounded by trees. The walls and houses of Schongau could be seen intermittently over the tops of the trees, until finally they were enveloped in dense forest. Simon looked around carefully. Peiting was less than an hour’s walk from town, yet after everything that had happened in the past three days, Simon thought he could see a highwayman behind every tree. Except for a tired farmer driving an oxcart, however, they didn’t meet a soul.
When the first houses of Peiting were in sight, they came upon a narrow path leading up to the top of Castle Hill. Simon walked ahead. The snow here was significantly deeper and not yet packed down, so progress was slow and difficult. They kept sinking into the snow, sometimes up to their hips. After a while, they discovered a trail animals had made in the snow, and walking became easier. The path climbed steeply now and was lined by ancient oak trees, which at one time must have flanked a boulevard built by the dukes but had since been reclaimed by the forest. About half an hour later, they reached the crest of the hill and the forest receded, revealing a clearing where the ruins stood.
The Swedes had done a thorough job. The outer walls had been torn down, and all that remained of the once stately buildings were scorched black skeletons, sooty beams, and rubble covered in snow. Only the ancient keep towered up from the ruins, like an index finger warning the visitors. Eerie silence lay over the clearing, as if the snow up here, three feet deep in places, had swallowed every sound.
“Wonderful,” Benedikta said, rubbing her frozen hands together. “This Templar certainly couldn’t have found a better place to hide something.”
Shrugging, Simon surveyed the chaotic scene, not sure where to begin. “When the Templars still lived in Schongau, this must have been an imposing castle. But at some point, the duke disappeared, the castle fell into ruin, and then the Swedes arrived…” He climbed up to the top of a pile of rubble, trying to get a better view of the entire site. From up there, he could see Schongau, the Lech that flowed out of the mountains toward Augsburg, and in the distance, the peak of Hoher Peißenberg peering out of the morning fog. Directly beneath them lay rubble and ruins. Simon sighed and carefully climbed back down to join Benedikta. “It would be just as easy to find a needle in a haystack,” he said. “But since we’re here…”
They decided to split up. Benedikta would take the southern side and Simon the northern. He trudged through rubble, glancing into the buildings as he passed; though all that remained, for the most part, were the walls. Now and then, he stumbled over bones and grinning skulls dispersed among blocks of stone. In one corner, he found a skeleton wrapped in the ragged remains of a Swedish uniform. Twice he broke through the snow, and one of those times he struggled to free himself when his boot became wedged in a hidden fissure.
“Did you find anything yet?” he called out toward the place he thought Benedikta must be. Strangely, his voice sounded both loud yet muffled to him.
“There’s nothing here,” she shouted back. “Do you really think we should keep looking?”
“Just a bit longer!” He climbed over another large pile of rubble and saw the ruins of a little chapel on a rise in front of him. He continued over rocks and snowdrifts toward the ruins of the nave, where he guessed the Guelphs probably had come to pray. Now all that remained were bare, sooty walls. Even the lead-framed church windows had been broken and the lead likely melted down to make bullets. Snow drifted down through the remains of the roof truss onto the stone altar, and burned beams were strewn around everywhere in heaps.
On a whim, Simon entered the chapel and climbed over a pile of wood to reach the altar. The Templar’s previous two riddles had to do with churches—first the little St. Lawrence Church and then the basilica in Altenstadt. Perhaps that was the case here as well. He just had to—
With a loud crack, the beams under him gave way. Splinters ripped at his overcoat and jacket
as he fell with a muffled cry into a deep hole. He tried desperately to break his fall by gripping a piece of wood that jutted out, but it gave way, too, and followed him, crashing down into the darkness.
The landing was hard and painful. He could feel hard stone and something thin splintering beneath him. As he struggled to his feet, he heard a whoosh above him. Instinctively, he threw himself to one side before a whole batch of beams crashed down, landing on the ground right beside him. A few feet farther to the right and he would have been buried beneath them.
Simon took a deep breath and carefully tested his arms and legs. Nothing seemed to be broken. His new jacket from Augsburg was ripped from his shoulder down to his hip, and a few tiny splinters had pierced his clothing in places, but otherwise he was unhurt.
Only now did he have the chance to investigate what it was he had fallen into. Reaching over to one side, he picked up a pale, broken femur, and between his legs a toothless skull grinned up at him.
Simon jumped up in horror and looked around. Decayed, partially discolored skulls and bones were strewn all across the floor. Apparently, he had fallen through the rotted flooring into the crypt. A few rays of light streamed in through an opening above him. On the western side of the crypt, a narrow stone staircase led to a trapdoor in the ceiling that no doubt was once used as an entrance. Plaques with inscriptions on them were set into the stone walls here, showing knights with swords and on horseback. Simon looked closer. The men pictured there were probably Guelph rulers or members of the House of Hohenstaufen, which had inhabited this castle after them. The physician remembered that the castle had once served the Romans, too, as a fortified tower. Just how old were these bones?
“Is everything all right?” Benedikta’s voice came from the opening above, where he could see her anxious face now. “I heard the crash and came over right away. What happened?”