The Dark Monk

  “Sic transit gloria mundi,” the hangman mumbled. “Thus passes the glory of the world…”

  “He even circled the words. See for yourself!” Simon said, pointing to a squiggle around the inscription. The line was shaky, as if Koppmeyer had drawn it in the ice with the last ounce of his strength.

  “It was clear to him that his end was near,” the medicus mused. “Old Koppmeyer always had a sense of humor; you’ve got to hand it to him.”

  The hangman bent down and passed his hand over the stone relief of Mary, whose head was surrounded by a radiant halo.

  “One thing surprises me,” he mumbled. “This is a gravestone, isn’t it?”

  Simon nodded. “The whole Saint Lawrence Church is full of them. Why do you ask?”

  “Look around for yourself, you idiot.” The hangman gestured broadly at the interior of the church. “On the other stones you always see images of the deceased—councilmen, judges, rich broads. But this one is no doubt the Virgin Mary. No woman would be so bold as to let herself be depicted with a halo.”

  “Perhaps it was a donation to the church?” Simon thought out loud.

  “Sic transit—” the hangman mumbled again.

  “Thus passes the glory of the world,” Simon interrupted him impatiently. “I know, but what does that have to do with the murder?”

  “It’s possible that it has nothing to do with the murder, but with the hiding place,” Kuisl said suddenly.

  “Hiding place?”

  “Didn’t you tell me the priest spent all last night working in the church?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Look a little closer at the squiggle,” the hangman mumbled. “Do you notice anything striking?”

  Simon bent down and examined the circle a little more closely. Then it hit him.

  “The circle isn’t complete; it doesn’t go around the entire inscription,” he gasped, “but only around the first two words…”

  “Sic transit,” Jakob repeated, grinning. “The learned doctor surely knows what that means.”

  “This is the way…” Simon murmured absentmindedly. Only then did he get it. “Through…the slab of stone?” he whispered incredulously.

  “First we have to move it aside, of course.” The hangman was already struggling to move Andreas Koppmeyer’s huge frame aside. He grabbed him by the cassock and dragged him behind the altar, several yards away. “This will be his resting place for the time being,” he said. “No point scaring any old woman to death who comes in to say her rosary.” He spat into his hands. “Now let’s get to work.”

  “But the slab…It weighs at least a couple of hundred pounds,” Simon interjected.

  “So what?” Jakob Kuisl had already wrestled the stone from its setting using a carpenter’s nail as a lever. Now he grabbed it with both hands and raised it slowly, inch by inch. Tendons as thick as a man’s fingers protruded from his neck.

  “If a fat priest can lift it, it shouldn’t be so heavy, should it?” he panted.

  With a grinding sound, the massive stone slab crashed down right next to Simon’s feet.

  Magdalena Kuisl knelt in the bloody straw and pressed down on the swollen, bruised abdomen of Frau Hainmiller. The peasant woman screamed in her ear, making her wince. The expectant mother had been screaming for hours now, but it seemed like days to Magdalena. The night before, the hangman’s daughter had come to the Hainmiller household along with the midwife, Martha Stechlin. At first everything seemed to point to a normal birth. The aunts, nieces, cousins, and neighbor women had already spread fresh straw and rushes, put water on the fire, and spread out linens. The air was redolent of smoked mugwort. Josefa Hainmiller, whose head was as red as beetroot, pushed calmly and regularly. It was the farm woman’s sixth child, and up to then, she had always managed without difficulty.

  But now Josefa was losing more and more blood. The bedsheets, pink-hued at first from the broken water, had now taken on the color of a butcher block. But the child simply wouldn’t come. Josefa Hainmiller’s initial whimpers gave way first to sobbing and then to loud screams so that her husband, horrified, kept knocking on the door and praying aloud to St. Margareta. He didn’t dare enter—this was a woman’s realm—but if his wife or the child didn’t survive the birth, he already knew who was to blame: the goddamned midwife.

  Martha Stechlin groped inside the mother for the child, who was lying crosswise in the uterus. Her arms reached up to her elbows inside the Hainmiller woman, whose dress had slipped up over her thighs, but still the midwife could not get a firm hold on the child. The face of the older midwife was spattered with blood, sweat streamed down her forehead, and she had to keep blinking as it dripped into her eyes.

  Magdalena looked anxiously at the aunts and cousins. They whispered among themselves, murmured their rosaries, and kept pointing at the midwife. Just last year, Martha Stechlin had been accused of murdering a child and practicing witchcraft. Only quick action by Magdalena’s father and the young medicus had saved her from the fire. Nevertheless, the midwife was viewed in town with suspicion, and it clung to her like a baby’s first stool. People still called upon her when there was a birth or asked her for herbs to reduce a fever, but behind her back the good citizens crossed themselves to ward off her black magic.

  Just as they do with me, Magdalena was thinking as she wiped strands of matted black hair out of her face. Her eyes, usually so cheerful, looked tired and strained, and sweat gathered in her thick, bushy eyebrows. She sighed as she continued to push down rhythmically on the mother’s body.

  Magdalena was grateful when Frau Stechlin had asked her about half a year ago if she would like to be her apprentice. As the daughter of a hangman, she didn’t have many choices. The job of hangman was a dishonorable line of work, and people avoided her and her family. If she wanted a husband, her only real choice would be another hangman, and because that didn’t interest her, she had to support herself. At twenty-one, she could no longer be a burden on her parents.

  The vocation of midwife was just the right thing for her. After all, she had learned everything worth knowing about herbs from her father. She knew that mugwort was good for internal bleeding and parsley would ensure that unwanted children didn’t come into the world. She knew how to prepare an ointment of goose fat, melissa, and mutton bones, and she knew how to prepare hemp seeds with a mortar and pestle to help a young girl get pregnant. But now, seeing all the blood, the whispering aunts and the screaming mother, she was suddenly no longer sure she really wanted to be a midwife. As she continued pressing and squeezing, her mind wandered. In another world, she could see herself standing at the altar with Simon, a wreath of flowers in her hair and an “I do” on her lips. They would have children, and he would make a modest income as the respected town medicus. They could—

  “Stop dreaming, girl! We need fresh water!” Martha Stechlin’s blood-spattered face turned toward Magdalena. She tried to speak in a calm voice, but her eyes said something else. Magdalena thought she could detect a few new wrinkles in the wizened face of the forty-year-old woman. In just the last year, her hair had turned almost completely gray.

  “And moss to stop the bleeding!” the woman called after her. “She has already lost too much.”

  Magdalena, jolted from her reveries, nodded. As she went out into the hall, she glanced back into the overheated, dark room. The shutters were locked and the cracks filled with straw and clay. Out in the main room, women from the neighborhood were sitting on benches around the hearth and at the table, anxiously and skeptically watching the struggling midwife and her young helper.

  “Ave Maria, the Lord be with you…” Some of the old women started saying the rosary aloud. Evidently, they assumed that Josefa Hainmiller would soon be with the good Lord.

  Magdalena hurried down the hall, took a handful of moss from the midwife’s bag, and filled a bowl of water from a copper basin on the hearth. When she returned to the main room, she slipped on the blood-soaked straw and fell flat on the
floor. Water spattered the old women’s skirts.

  “Good heavens, can’t you watch out?” One of the neighbor women looked at her angrily. “What is a young girl like you doing here, anyway? Damned hangman’s girl.”

  A second neighbor woman chimed in. “It’s true what they say. A hangman in the house brings misfortune.”

  “She is my apprentice,” Martha Stechlin panted as she continued to grope around inside the screaming Frau Hainmiller. “Now leave her alone and bring me some fresh linen.”

  Magdalena clenched her teeth and got fresh water from outside. Tears of anger streamed down her face. When she returned, the women still hadn’t calmed down. Disregarding the cries of pain, they started whispering and pointing at her again.

  “What’s the point of all this washing?” one of the older women asked. Her face was black with soot, and she had only three yellow teeth still left in her mouth. “Water has never helped during a difficult birth! You need Saint John’s wort and wild marjoram to chase out the devil, and perhaps holy water, but in any case, not simple well water—ridiculous!”

  For Magdalena, that was the last straw. “You foolish women,” she shouted, slamming the bowl down on the table. “What do you know about healing? Dirt and foolish chatter—that’s what makes people sick!” She felt as if she were going to suffocate. For much too long she had been breathing the sharp odor of mugwort, garlic, and smoke. Rushing to the window, she tore open the shutters. Light flooded the room as the smoke drifted out.

  The neighbors and family members gasped. It was considered a tried-and-true rule that the windows shouldn’t be opened when a woman was in labor. Fresh air and cold meant sure death to every newborn. For a while all that could be heard was the screaming of Frau Hainmiller, but it resounded now out into the street.

  “I think it would be best for you to go now,” Martha Stechlin whispered, looking around carefully. “In any case, you can’t be of much help here anymore.”

  “But—” Magdalena started to say.

  “Go,” the midwife said, interrupting her. “It’s best for all of us.”

  Under the withering gazes of the women, Magdalena stomped out the door. As she closed it behind her, she heard whispering and the sound of shutters slamming. She gulped and struggled to hold back her tears. Why was she always so stubborn! This trait, which she’d inherited from her father, had often caused trouble for her. It was possible that this visit to the Hainmillers would be her last one as a midwife. Her behavior would soon enough be the talk of the town, and it would be best for her not to show her face around Frau Stechlin for a while, either.

  She sighed. Wearily, she picked up her leather bag containing scissors, old linen rags, and a few ointments, threw it over her shoulder, and headed back to Schongau. Maybe she would at least see Simon today. When she thought of the young medicus, a warm longing and a pleasant tingling rose inside her and her anger subsided. It had been much too long since they had spent a few hours together. It was on Epiphany, when carolers wandered from house to house and young men frightened little children with wild-animal masks. Lost in the masked crowd, the couple had walked hand-in-hand, disappearing into one of the warehouses down by the Lech River.

  The clatter of hoofbeats interrupted Magdalena’s daydreams. A man on horseback was coming down the broad tree-lined road, which was blanketed knee-deep in snow. The hangman’s daughter squinted to get a better look and only then realized it wasn’t a man at all on the imposing stallion, but a woman. She appeared to be a stranger here; she looked all around as if she were searching for something.

  Magdalena decided to stand by the side of the road and wait for the stranger. When the rider had approached to within a few yards, the hangman’s daughter could see that the woman had to come from a wealthy family. She was wearing a finely woven, dark-blue cape and underneath it a starched white skirt with polished leather boots. She was holding the reins loosely in her fur gloves. But the most striking thing about her was the shock of reddish-blonde hair that protruded from under a velvet hood, framing a pale, finely chiseled, aristocratic face. The rider was perhaps in her mid-thirties, statuesque, and certainly not from around here. She looked like someone from a big city far away—perhaps from Munich—but how in the world did she ever wind up in here in Altenstadt?

  “Can I assist you?” Magdalena inquired with a warm smile.

  The stranger seemed to think this over, then smiled in return. “You can, girl. I’m looking for my brother, a pastor in this community. Andreas Koppmeyer by name.”

  She leaned over to Magdalena and extended her gloved hand. “My name is Benedikta Koppmeyer. And what is yours?”

  “Magdalena Kuisl. I am the…midwife here.” As always, it was hard for Magdalena to say she was the daughter of the town executioner. That often led to people making the sign of the cross or turning away, mumbling.

  “Magdalena…a beautiful name,” the lady continued, pointing to her bag. “I see you are just coming from delivering a child. Did everything go well?”

  Magdalena nodded, looking at the ground. She hoped the lady didn’t notice how she was blushing.

  “I am happy to hear that,” the lady said, smiling again. “But on another matter…Do you know where my brother’s church is?”

  Without saying a word, Magdalena turned around and headed back to the village. She was actually happy she had met the stranger—a little diversion would do her some good.

  “Follow me, it’s not far from here,” she said, pointing to the west. “Behind the hills there, you can make out the Church of Saint Lawrence.”

  “I hope my brother is home,” Benedikta Koppmeyer said, dismounting elegantly in order to give the reddish-brown sorrel a chance to rest. “He wrote me a letter. It seems important.”

  She followed Magdalena down the street in Altenstadt, holding her horse’s reins in her hand. Suspicious villagers on both sides of the street watched the two women from behind closed shutters.

  Simon stared into the black hole that opened up in front of them. A musty, damp odor rose out of the square opening, and a steep staircase, hewn into the rock, led down to the crypt. After just a few yards, the passage was enveloped in darkness.

  “Shall we…?” the medicus started to say, then stopped when he saw the hangman’s grim nod. “We’ll need a light,” he said finally.

  “We’ll take those over there.” Jakob Kuisl pointed toward two five-armed silver candelabras standing on the altar. “The dear Lord certainly won’t hold it against us.”

  He seized the two candelabras and lit them with a votive candle burning in a niche in front of the statue of St. Sebastian, his body pierced by arrows.

  “Come now.”

  He handed Simon the second candelabra and descended the stairway, Simon close behind. The steps were damp and slippery. As they continued downward, the medicus briefly thought he smelled something strange, but he couldn’t place it and the odor soon vanished.

  After only a few yards, they reached the bottom of the chamber. Jakob Kuisl held the candles up to illuminate the almost cubical area. Broken barrels and slats of wood lay around rotting. A splintered crucifix with a fading Jesus lay moldering in a corner, its paint flaking off. In another corner lay a bundle of rags. Simon leaned over and picked one up. Sacrificial lambs and crosses were embroidered onto the moldy linen, which crumbled in his hands.

  Meanwhile, Jakob Kuisl had opened a trunk standing crosswise in the middle of the room and pulled out a rusted candelabra and a votive candle that had burned down to the base. Disgusted, he threw the objects back into the trunk. “Holy Saint Anthony, thank you! We have found the church’s storeroom,” he grumbled. “Nothing but rubbish!”

  Simon nodded in agreement. It looked as if they had found the junk room of the St. Lawrence Church. Evidently, for hundreds of years, everything for which there was no use up above had been brought down here. So was it just chance, after all, that the dead priest had come to rest right over the tombstone?

  Si
mon’s gaze wandered over the walls, where the candlelight caused outsized shadows to dance about. In the middle, exactly opposite where he stood, was a pile of rubbish—boards, splintered chairs, and a huge oaken table turned upside down against the wall. Behind the table something white was shimmering. Simon went over to it and moved his finger back and forth over the spot.

  When he examined his finger in the light of the candle, it was white with lime.

  And only then did he remember the odor he had noticed on the stairway. It smelled of lime. Lime and fresh mortar.

  “Kuisl!” he cried out. “I think I’ve found something!”

  When the hangman saw the fresh mortar, he heaved the huge oak table to one side in a single movement. Behind it a freshly walled-up, chest-high doorway came into view.

  “Well, just look at that,” Jakob Kuisl panted, pushing the rest of the clutter to one side with his foot. “The priest actually did lend a hand in the renovations. Just differently than we thought. It looks like he just recently walled up this entrance.” He sunk his finger into the mortar, which was still wet.

  “I wonder what’s behind it,” Simon said.

  “I’ll be damned if it’s not something valuable,” Jakob Kuisl said, scratching away at the fresh mortar with a nail until a brick wall became visible behind it. “And I’ll bet the priest was killed for exactly that reason.”

  He kicked the walled-up doorway, and some bricks fell into an opening behind them, setting off a chain reaction. Cracking and then breaking into pieces, the whole wall collapsed. After a while the noise subsided, but a cloud of mortar dust hung in the air, blocking the view through the portal that was now open. Not until the dust had settled could Simon make out another room. In the middle of it stood something big and heavy, but it was too dark to see anything more.

  The hangman climbed over the rubble and ducked through the low entrance. Simon heard him whistle through his teeth at what he saw.

  “What is it?” Simon asked, trying in vain to see more than just a huge silhouette from his vantage point.