The Poisoned Pilgrim_A Hangman's Daughter Tale Read online

  Magdalena gave him an astonished look. “Blasphemous experiments?”

  “They… they didn’t say anything specific,” Simon replied hesitantly. “But clearly Nepomuk has often argued with Virgilius, and it no doubt had something to do with his experiments.”

  “That strange bier and all those wires up in the belfry,” Magdalena murmured. “Could those have been one of his experiments?”

  Simon shrugged. “I don’t know. The monks were very guarded about that. In any case, the entire council is a group of very strange characters.” He started counting them off on his fingers. “The cellarer is a fat zealot who wants nothing more than to burn the apothecary right off… The prior has something against me… And the old librarian was very cold, as if none of it mattered to him. Only the master of the novitiates seemed concerned about death. I think he’d been crying—his eyes were red, in any case.”

  He recounted in great detail his meeting with the abbot and the uproar that ensued when the monks heard about the automaton that had vanished.

  “The stupid cellarer really believes the automaton is a sort of golem that haunts the Holy Mountain,” Simon replied, shaking his head. “It’s almost as if time has stood still up here. Musical automata like that are pretty common nowadays.”

  “A golem?” Magdalena asked. “What is that?”

  “An object that springs to life when life is breathed into it.” Absentmindedly Simon reached for a piece of brick and crumbled it in his hand. “I read about that once when I was a student in Ingolstadt. Golem is the Hebrew word for unformed. Some Jewish rabbis were said to be able to create a lifeless servant out of clay. It involved some very complicated rituals.” He shook his head. “It’s nonsense naturally, but for literalist Christians, also a perfect opportunity to depict the Jews once again as the devil incarnate. The cellarer in any case was almost foaming at the mouth, and the librarian was just as fired up. If I remember correctly, he was the first to bring it up.”

  “Suppose someone in the council was involved somehow in the murders?” Magdalena wondered aloud.

  Simon laughed derisively. “Perhaps the abbot himself? Magdalena, give it up. It was the apothecary, without a doubt. He isn’t a sorcerer—it’s not that—but there’s a simple reason why he committed these murders. We just haven’t found out yet what that is. Jealousy toward a colleague, revenge… who knows? Brother Johannes put this idea into your head and now you’ll stop at nothing to try to prove his innocence.”

  “You didn’t talk with him,” Magdalena whispered. “Nepomuk is a man who has suffered a long time and is always fleeing from something because he can no longer stand the horror. A man like that would never kill three people. Besides, it wasn’t Nepomuk who pushed me out of the belfry. You told me yourself that at the time he was with you visiting the abbot.”

  Simon sighed. “From your mouth to God’s ear. So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going down to the tavern in Erling to send a message to Schongau. What else?” Magdalena jumped down from the wall and ambled away toward the village. “Expect to see my father arrive shortly to straighten things out.”

  “That’s the last thing I need,” Simon groaned. “I not only have to provide the abbot with more details on the murder, but now my father-in-law will be nosing around after me.”

  Magdalena turned around and grinned. “He’s always known what to do, so quit whining. You could have looked for another family to marry into.”

  With a wink, she ran through the flowering meadows toward Erling. To the west, the distant rumble of thunder could be heard.

  Somewhere deep inside the Holy Mountain a clicking and rattling could be heard.

  The automaton rumbled over pebbles and stones, banging against a low beam from time to time but stoically soldiering on. The corridor it rolled through was ancient, having been hewn into the mountain long before there was a monastery, at a time when the sword alone ruled and religious beliefs were celebrated in bloody rites with burning baskets full of writhing prisoners of war or on rough, charred altars. Since then, faith had grown; it had changed form, but it had persevered. In its new form it had overthrown kingdoms and crowned emperors. Its power was greater than ever.

  Like an ever-grinning, life-size nutcracker, the puppet kept opening and shutting its mouth, while its soft melody echoed through the hallways and off the rock faces, until it seemed to be playing everywhere at the same time.

  Though this was a love song, here in the lonely depths of the mountain, it sounded sad.

  Sad and uncanny.

  5

  SCHONGAU, LATE EVENING, MONDAY, JUNE 14, 1666, AD

  THE SCHONGAU HANGMAN stared at the letter in his hand and felt his pulse quicken. It was rare that a messenger brought him a message in person. Just touching an executioner could in some regions cost an honorable man his reputation and his job. So this document had to be important.

  “Where does it come from?” Kuisl asked the courier, who had arrived on horseback and stood before him now looking down at the ground, crossing himself in a gesture meant to ward off evil spirits. His coat was dripping from the thunderstorm that had just passed through Schongau.

  “From… from Andechs,” the messenger mumbled. “From the Holy Mountain. The letter is from your daughter.”

  Kuisl grinned. “Then she surely had to pay you something extra to come down here to the hangman’s house.”

  “I was on my way to Schongau anyway,” the messenger answered hesitantly. “First thing tomorrow I head out for Augsburg. In any case, your daughter has astonishing… powers of persuasion. Not at all like…”

  “Like a dull hangman’s girl? Is that what you wanted to say?”

  The messenger winced. “Oh, God, no! Quite the contrary. She’s an extremely talkative and very attractive young lady.”

  “She gets that from her mother,” Kuisl growled, somewhat more obligingly. “Talking all the time, even when there’s absolutely nothing to talk about.”

  The hangman pulled out a few coins to hand to the messenger, but he waved him off. “Ah, that’s not necessary,” he stammered. “Your daughter and that bathhouse surgeon already paid for it. Farewell.” Anxiously, he bowed and disappeared in the cold, wet twilight.

  “Yeah, you can kiss my…” Kuisl grumbled before returning to the living room, where his wife had just had another coughing fit. Her fever hadn’t worsened in the last two days, but it hadn’t gone down, either. She still lay semiconscious on a bench by the oven. At least the two little ones were sleeping upstairs. Peter and Paul had been romping around all evening near their sick grandmother.

  “Is there news from Magdalena?” the hangman’s wife gasped. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  “Whatever it is, she charmed the dickens out of the messenger.” With his rough hands, Kuisl broke the simple wax seal and unfolded the letter. “So it won’t be so…” He stopped short. Only his lips read on, silently. Finally he had to find a seat on a stool.

  “What’s the trouble?” his wife asked. “Did something happen?”

  “No.” Kuisl tore at his hair. “It’s nothing, at least not what you think it is. It’s something… else.”

  “Good Lord, do I always have to drag everything out of you, you stubborn damned Schongauer?”

  Once more the hangman’s wife started to cough violently. When she had calmed down again, Kuisl continued haltingly. “Magdalena… she… she apparently met the ugly old Nepomuk. I haven’t heard a word from that bastard for almost thirty years, and then out of the blue he pops up in Andechs. I could wring the neck of that fat weasel.”

  “Nepomuk? The Nepomuk?”

  The hangman nodded. “He’s in a jam. It looks like he’s become a monk.” He spit onto the reeds on the floor, then pulled out his pipe and lit it from a burning wood chip.

  “Nepomuk, a monk,” he said finally. “It would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a hangman to become a priest. Nepomuk was always a sly
dog; he read a lot, and thought up the craziest things for the regiment to do. But he was far too soft for killing. Who knows, perhaps in another life he would really have been a good priest…” He stopped short. “In any case, they’re trying to pin three murders on him in the monastery and accusing him of witchcraft. He’s asking for me to come and help him.”

  Anna-Maria sat up carefully in bed. “And? What are you waiting for?”

  “What am I waiting for?” The hangman laughed darkly. “For you to get better. And I can’t leave my two grandchildren here all by themselves.” He took a deep drag on his pipe. “I told you about the Berchtholdts. I don’t trust them not to try to hurt the children while I’m away—if only to threaten me on account of the theft in the warehouse.”

  Anna-Maria seemed to be mulling this over. For a while, the only sound was the rattle in her lungs and the distant thunder.

  “Then take them along,” she said finally.

  “What?” Kuisl was startled out of his gloomy thoughts.

  “Peter and Paul. Take them along.”

  “But… but… how would I do that?” the hangman managed. “I’ll save my friend from execution while I watch the children like an old nanny?”

  “Magdalena and Simon are there, too. They can take care of them—they’re the parents, after all.”

  The hangman shook his head slowly. His wife’s idea was not that bad. Martha Stechlin wouldn’t be able to care for his grandchildren at present; especially now, after Simon had left, the midwife was much too busy treating sick people in the area. Anna-Maria wasn’t the only one suffering from the fever, and Kuisl didn’t have much faith in Georg and Barbara. They were both scatterbrains and couldn’t be depended on to protect the little ones from the Berchtholdts. The only option left was his wife’s…

  “If I go,” he began, “what will happen to you? You’re sick, and who will take care of you when I’m not here?”

  “Martha can,” Anna-Maria replied. “She knows almost as much about healing as you. And Georg and Barbara are here, too. So why not—” Again, she had to cough.

  The hangman gave his wife a worried look.”You’re the most precious thing I have, Anna,” he murmured. “I would never forgive—”

  “For God’s sake, get moving!” his wife shouted. “Nepomuk was once your best friend. How often you’ve told me about him. Do you want him to burn at the stake while you’re just a few miles away brewing chamomile tea?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then get moving, you dolt, and take your grandchildren along.” She pulled a tattered woolen blanket around her neck and closed her eyes. “And now let me sleep. You’ll see; tomorrow I’ll be much better.”

  Kuisl collapsed in a heap on a stool and stared at his sick wife. They’d been together almost thirty years. At that time, Kuisl had taken Anna-Maria from a village laid waste by his regiment near Regensburg. And even if the two quarreled and growled at each other like two old dogs, they had always been close. Their ostracism by the citizens of Schongau, their love for their children, their daily work together—all that bound them together. Kuisl would never say so, and he didn’t have to, because Anna already knew that, in his own gruff way, he loved his wife more than himself.

  Softly, so as not to waken Anna-Maria, Jakob stood up from the stool. He crossed to the storeroom where he kept his medicine cabinet, a few torture instruments, and a trunkful of old weapons from the war. He hesitated briefly, then opened a weathered box he’d kept with him the last forty years. On top was a moth-eaten soldier’s uniform, its once bright colors now pale and faded. Underneath were the sword, the matchlock musket, and two well-oiled wheel-lock pistols.

  Lost in thought, Kuisl passed his hands over the barrel of the guns while memories came rushing back. He closed his eyes and saw himself standing in the frontlines beside Nepomuk, his best friend, as they marched toward the Swedes…

  A yellow line on the horizon quickly approaching… Drums and fifes, then the shouts of men breaking rank to become individual soldiers. The enemy mercenaries running toward them with long pikes, swords, and daggers; behind them the closed ranks of the musketeers, the flash from the muzzles, the moaning and wailing of the injured and dying… Jakob smells the gunpowder; he looks over at Nepomuk, and sees the fear in his eyes. But he sees something else: a beastly gleam, a blackness deep as the pit of hell, and suddenly Jakob notices he’s looking into a mirror.

  What he sees there is the joy of killing.

  Jakob shakes himself, reaches for his sword, and strides out to meet the screaming enemy. Calmly and precisely, he performs a task he never wants to repeat.

  The job of a hangman.

  Jakob slammed the trunk shut as if he could block out the spirits he’d just awakened in this way. As he wiped his forehead, he noticed it was damp with cold sweat.

  Raindrops ran like tears down the panes of the bull’s-eye glass in the Andechs Monastery tavern.

  Simon stared out into the growing gloom as a ghostly group of singing forms ascended the mountain for evening mass. Magdalena had also decided to attend mass to thank God for the recovery of her two children the year before. That was, after all, the reason she and Simon had come to Andechs.

  The medicus sighed softly. This pilgrimage was turning into a real nightmare. It wasn’t just that they were once again caught up in a murder case or that his grouchy father-in-law would be arriving soon. Now more and more pilgrims were coming down with a strange fever that brought on weariness, headaches, and stomach cramps. Could this be the same sickness Magdalena had suffered?

  Simon had fulfilled the abbot’s request and spent the entire day treating patients in a building adjoining the monastery. Three or four cases had grown to a full dozen now, many of the patients showing red spots on their chests or grayish-yellow tongues. He treated the first patients free of charge, but in the course of the day had begun asking for a few coins, at least from the better-off patients.

  Now he had turned some of his earnings into a pitcher of hot mulled wine. While Simon drank, he listened to the clatter in the kitchen and brooded. In vain he tried to make sense of the strange events of the last two days.

  Just as he was pouring himself a new cup, someone touched him on the shoulder. He turned around to find himself looking directly into the grinning face of the Schongau burgomaster. In contrast to their last meeting in the tavern, Karl Semer was extremely friendly this time.

  “Fronwieser!” he exclaimed, as if greeting an old friend. “It’s good I’ve found you here. I hear that the abbot put you in charge of looking into these terrible murders. Is that correct?”

  Simon grew suspicious. The burgomaster was cheerful like this only when he wanted something. “Could be,” he muttered. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Well…” Semer made a dramatic pause, then sat down next to Simon and beckoned to the innkeeper. “Some of the Tokay we had yesterday.” he ordered gruffly. “Two glasses, and quick.”

  After the innkeeper brought the wine, bowing profusely, Semer paused, then began again in a whisper. “All these events are most unfortunate. Among the pilgrims, there’s already talk of witchcraft—they say a puppet has come to life and is shuffling through the monastery killing monks.” He laughed under his breath. “What nonsense. But fortunately, you have the perpetrator already, don’t you? They say it’s the ugly apothecary. Can we therefore—uh—reckon with a trial soon?”

  “The investigation isn’t yet complete,” Simon replied curtly. “It’s not certain Brother Johannes is really the culprit. The abbot is requesting a few days to think it over before he informs the district judge in Weilheim.”

  Karl Semer waved him off. “Pure waste of time, if you ask me. It was the apothecary; that’s as sure as the amen in the church. It would be better to burn him now than later.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Well, I… have my sources.” The burgomaster smiled broadly. “I know that the monster’s eyepiece was found at the scene. He fled. A
nd moreover…” He leaned forward with a conspiratorial look. “Since then, the prior had the apothecary’s cupboard searched and found a number of forbidden medicines that suggest the practice of witchcraft—belladonna, henbane, thornapple, also that notorious red powder obtained from the mummies of executed men…”

  Simon rolled his eyes. “Belladonna in small doses is very useful in curing fever, and henbane is something that quite a few monks have mixed in their beer in the past, and still do.”

  “Aha, and the red powder? Tell me about the red powder.”

  “Burgomaster, may I ask why you are so keen on seeing the monk burned at the stake?” Instinctively, Simon recoiled from Semer. The medicus still hadn’t touched the glass of wine in front of him.

  “Isn’t that obvious?” Semer hissed. “The Festival of the Three Hosts is in exactly six days, and crowds of pilgrims will be coming to the Holy Mountain. What do you think will happen if the culprit isn’t caught before then?”

  “Let me guess,” Simon replied. “A rumor would go around about an automaton that’s murdering people, fewer pilgrims would come, and you’d be left with a lot of unsold candles, votive pictures, and wine carafes. Is that right?”

  The burgomaster cringed. “Who told you that…” he flared up, before getting control of himself again. “All I care about is the welfare of the pilgrims,” he whined. “Look, Fronwieser—what would our Savior have to say about fear and terror on the Holy Mountain?” He shook his head regretfully. “It really would be best if you could convince the abbot to wrap up the case before the festival next Sunday.” He looked at him solicitously. “We’ll take care of you financially. I have powerful allies who are certainly ready to pay—”