The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman's Daughter Tale
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Authors: Oliver Pötzsch
Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Historical
Books by Oliver Pötzsch
The Ludwig Conspiracy
THE HANGMAN
’
S DAUGHTER SERIES
The Hangman’s Daughter
The Dark Monk: A Hangman’s Daughter Tale
The Beggar King: A Hangman’s Daughter Tale
The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman’s Daughter Tale
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 by Oliver Pötzsch
English translation copyright © 2013 by Lee Chadeayne
Map illustration copyright © Peter Palm
Author photo © Gerald von Foris
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman’s Daughter Tale
was first published in 2012 by Ullstein Buchverlag GmbH as
Der Hexer und die Henkerstochter
. Translated from German by Lee Chadeayne. First published in English in 2013 by AmazonCrossing.
Cover design by Ben Gibson
Published by AmazonCrossing
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
Digital ISBN: 9781477856123
For Marian, Wolfgang, Martin, Vitus, Michi, and all the rest. With hoods pulled far down over their faces and swords swinging in an almost perfect circle…
SCHONGAU PILGRIMS
MAGDALENA FRONWIESER (NÉE KUISL)
, the hangman’s daughter
SIMON FRONWIESER
, Schongau bathhouse medicus
KARL SEMER
, presiding burgomaster of Schongau
SEBASTIAN SEMER
, son of the presiding burgomaster
JAKOB SCHREEVOGL
, stove fitter and Schongau alderman
BALTHASAR HEMERLE
, Altenstadt carpenter
KONRAD WEBER
, city priest
ANDRE LOSCH, LUKAS MÜLLER, HANS AND JOSEF TWANGLER
, bricklayer’s journeymen
OTHER CITIZENS OF SCHONGAU
JAKOB KUISL
, hangman of Schongau
ANNA-MARIA KUISL
, the hangman’s wife
GEORG AND BARBARA
, the hangman’s twin children
PETER AND PAUL
, Magdalena and Simon Fronwieser’s children
MARTHA STECHLIN
, midwife
THE BERCHTHOLDT BROTHERS HANS, JOSEF, AND BENEDIKT JOHANN LECHNER
, court clerk
ANDECHS MONASTERY
MAURUS RAMBECK
, abbot
BROTHER JEREMIAS
, prior
BROTHER ECKHART
, cellarer
BROTHER LAURENTIUS
, novitiate master
BROTHER BENEDIKT
, cantor and librarian
BROTHER VIRGILIUS
, watchmaker
BROTHER VITALIS
, novitiate and watchmaker’s assistant
BROTHER JOHANNES
, apothecary
COELESTIN
, novitiate and apothecary’s assistant
ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS
MICHAEL GRAETZ
, Erling knacker
MATTHIAS
, knacker’s journeyman
COUNT LEOPOLD VON WARTENBERG
, the Wittelsbachs’ ambassador
COUNT VON CÄSANA UND COLLE
, Weilheim district judge
MASTER HANS
, Weilheim executioner
E
RLING, NEAR
A
NDECHS
S
ATURDAY
, J
UNE
12, 1666 AD,
EVENING
D
ARK THUNDERCLOUDS HUNG
overhead as the novitiate Coelestin, with a curse on his lips, marched toward his imminent death.
In the west, beyond Lake Ammer, swirling clouds towered up, the first flashes of lightning appeared, and a distant rumble of thunder could be heard. When Coelestin squinted, he could make out gray rain clouds over the monastery in Dießen, five miles away. In only a matter of minutes the storm would be raging over the Holy Mountain, and now, of all times, the fat monk of an apothecary had sent him to fetch a carp from the monastery pond for supper. Coelestin cursed again and pulled the cape of his black robe farther down over his face. What could he do? Obedience was one of the three vows of the Benedictine order, and Brother Johannes was his superior—it was that simple. An occasionally hot-tempered, often enigmatic, and above all gluttonous lay brother, but nevertheless his superior.
“Porca miseria!”
As so often when he was in a bad mood, Coelestin switched to his mother tongue. He had grown up in an Italian village on the other side of the Alps, but in the turmoil of the war, his father had become a mercenary and his mother a
whore who followed army camps. Here in the monastery on the Holy Mountain, Coelestin had found a home in the pharmacy at Andechs. Even though the incessant litanies and nightly prayers sometimes got on his nerves, he felt safe here. Three times a day he got a good meal; he had a warm, dry place to sleep, and the Andechs beer was said to be one of the best in the entire Electorate of Bavaria. In these hard times, one could have it much worse. Nevertheless, the spindly little novitiate cursed under his breath, and not just because he would soon be as wet as the carp in the pond of the Erling Monastery.
Coelestin was afraid.
Ever since the discovery he made three days ago, fear had been eating at him like a rabid beast. What he saw was so horrible that his blood almost froze in his veins. It still followed him at night in his dreams, when he woke up screaming and bathed in sweat. God would never allow such a crime to go unpunished; that much was certain. To Coelestin, the dark clouds and the flashes of lightning in the sky seemed like the first harbingers of an Old Testament revenge that would soon be visited on the monastery.
Even more threatening than the heresy, actually, was the man’s hateful gaze. The man had recognized Coelestin when the novitiate tried to make a hasty escape—at least that’s what Coelestin thought. And the look on the novitiate’s face said more than a thousand words. In recent days they had reached out to him, prodding, as if checking that Coelestin hadn’t betrayed the secret.
Coelestin knew that the
other one
had powerful advocates. Why would they believe him, the little novitiate? The accusation was so monstrous that he could be considered insane. Or even worse, a character assassin. This comfortable life, with meat, beer, and a warm, dry bed, would then no doubt be gone forever.
Nevertheless, Coelestin had decided to speak up. The next
morning he would tell the monastery council what he’d seen and his conscience would finally be clear.
A loud clap of thunder rolled across the countryside, and the freezing novitiate could feel the first cool drops of rain on his face. Hastening, he tightened his hood and had soon left the last houses of Erling behind. Fields and meadows spread out before him. On the other side of a small wooded area, surrounded by fences and bushes, lay the fishpond. When Coelestin turned around, he saw storm clouds towering over the monastery up on the mountain—the home he might soon have to leave. He sighed and shuffled the last few yards to the pond, as if advancing toward his own execution.
In the meantime, drops fell faster and faster, until the surface of the pond seemed to boil up like a poisonous brew. Coelestin could see the fat gray bodies of the carp slowly coursing through the dark water by the dozens. Their hungry mouths snapped at the raindrops as if they were manna from heaven. Coelestin shuddered as a wave of disgust came over him. He’d never cared for carp. They were dumb, slimy scavengers whose flesh tasted of moss and decay. The fish reminded him of the monsters he’d seen in pictures of Jonah and the Whale: horrible creatures of the deep that swallowed whole everything that wriggled in front of them in the water.