The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman's Daughter Tale (2 page)

Timidly Coelestin started down the narrow, slippery walkway and reached for a fishnet leaning on a post alongside the pier. With his hood deep down over his face, he leaned into the wall of rain and wind and moved his net back and forth listlessly in the water. If he hurried, he might be back in the monastery pharmacy before the trousers and socks under his thick black robe were soaked as well. In another life he probably would have slapped Brother Johannes across his chubby face with the carp, but for now, he was damned to prayer and obedience. This was the price he had to pay for such a comfortable life.

A slight creaking sound, almost drowned out by the thunder, caused the novitiate to pause. It sounded as if someone had stepped onto the walkway behind him. But just as Coelestin was about to turn around, something started flopping about in his net, and with a sigh of relief, he pulled in the long pole.

“Got you,” he mumbled. “Let’s have a look at what a big fish—”

At that instant, something heavy hit him on the back of the head.

Coelestin staggered, slipped on the rain-soaked wood of the walkway, and finally fell—fishnet and all—into the swirling water of the pond, where he thrashed around and fought to save himself. Like so many people of his time, Coelestin could skin a rabbit, identify hundreds of herbs by their smell, and recite whole sections of the Bible by heart. But one thing he couldn’t do was swim.

The young novitiate shouted, waved his arms around, and kicked his skinny legs, but his own weight pulled him inexorably down. When he felt the muddy bottom beneath his feet, he pushed himself back up to the surface, gasping. In despair he reached out in all directions until he suddenly felt the pole floating in front of him on the surface. He clung to it and pulled himself up. Through the increasingly violent downpour he could see a hooded figure on the walkway holding the other end of the net.

“Oh, thank you,” he groaned. “You saved my—”

At that moment the figure pushed the pole down so hard that Coelestin sank again, gurgling. When he came to the surface again, he felt the pole push him down violently once again.

“But—” he started to say as his mouth filled with murky water, which stifled his last desperate cries. Silently he sank into the pond.

As life ebbed from his body in little air bubbles, Coelestin could feel the fat, slimy carp rubbing against his cheeks and nibbling on the short hair of his tonsure. When the dying youth had
finally sunk to the bottom, his mouth was as wide open as those of the fish around him that stared back at him with dumb, expressionless eyes.

The man on the walkway watched the bubbles for a while and finally, nodding contentedly, put the net back in place and set out for home.

The time had come for him to complete his work.

A
T THE SAME MOMENT, IN THE FORESTS BELOW THE
H
OLY
M
OUNTAIN
.

L
IGHTNING FLASHED FROM
the sky like the finger of an angry god.

Simon Fronwieser saw it directly over Lake Ammer, where for a fraction of a second, it lit up the foaming waves in a sickly green. It was followed by a peal of thunder and a steady downpour—a black, soaking wall of rain that within moments drenched the two dozen or so pilgrims from Schongau. Though it was only seven in the evening, night had fallen suddenly. The medicus gripped the hand of his wife, Magdalena, tighter and, along with the others, prepared to climb the steep hill to the Andechs Monastery.

“We were lucky!” shouted Magdalena over the thundering downpour. “An hour earlier and the storm would have caught us out on the lake.”

Simon nodded silently. It wouldn’t be the first time a ship of pilgrims had gone down with all hands in Lake Ammer. Now, barely twenty years after the end of the Great War, the crowds of pilgrims streaming to the famous Bavarian monastery were larger than anyone could remember. In a time of hunger, storms, ravenous wolves, and marauding brigands, people were more
eager than ever to find protection in the arms of the church. This longing was fed by reports of miracles, and the Andechs Monastery in particular, thirty miles southwest of Munich, was renowned for its ancient relics that possessed magic powers—as well as for its beer, which helped people to forget their worries.

When the medicus turned around again, he could just make out through the rainclouds the wind-whipped lake that they had just managed to escape. Two days earlier, he had left Schongau with Magdalena and a group from their hometown. The pilgrimage led them over the Hoher Peißenberg to Dießen on Lake Ammer, where a rickety rowboat took them to the other shore. Now they were proceeding through the forest along a steep, muddy path toward the monastery, which towered far above them in the dark clouds.

Burgomaster Karl Semer led the procession on horseback, followed on foot by his grown son and the Schongau priest, who struggled to keep a huge painted wooden cross upright in the storm. Behind him came carpenters, masons, cabinetmakers, and, finally, the young patrician Jakob Schreevogl, the only other city councilman to follow the call for the pilgrimage.

Simon assumed that both Schreevogl and the burgomaster had come less in search of spiritual salvation than for business reasons. A place like Andechs, with its thousands of hungry and thirsty pilgrims, was a gold mine. The medicus wondered what the dear Lord would have to say about this. Hadn’t Jesus chased all the merchants and money lenders from the temple? Well, at least Simon’s own conscience was clear. He and Magdalena had come to Andechs not to make money but only to thank God for saving their two children.

Simon couldn’t help smiling when he thought of three-year-old Peter at home and his brother, Paul, who had just turned two. He wondered if the children were giving their grandfather, the Schongau hangman, a hard time at home.

When another bolt of lightning hit a nearby beech, the pilgrims screamed and threw themselves to the ground. There was a snapping and crackling as sparks jumped to other trees. In no time, the entire forest seemed to be on fire.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God!”

In the twilight, Simon could see Karl Semer fall to his knees a few paces away and cross himself several times. Alongside him, his petrified son stared open-mouthed at the burning beeches while, all around him, the other Schongauers fled into a nearby ravine. Simon’s ears were ringing from the bone-jarring thunderclap that seemed to come at the same instant from right over their heads, so he could only hear his wife’s voice as if through a wall of water.

“Let’s get out of here. We’ll be safer down there by the brook.”

Simon hesitated, but his wife seized him and pulled him away just as flames shot up from two beeches and a number of small firs at the edge of the narrow path. Simon stumbled over a rotten branch, then slid down the smooth slope covered with dead leaves. Arriving at the bottom of the ravine, he stood up, groaning, and wiped a few twigs from his hair while scanning the apocalyptic scene all around.

The lightning had split the huge beech straight down the middle, and burning boughs and branches were strewn down the slope. The flames cast a flickering light on the Schongauers, who moaned, prayed, and rubbed their bruised arms and legs. Fortunately, none of them appeared injured; even the burgomaster and his son seemed to have survived the disaster unscathed. In the gathering dusk, old Semer was busy searching for his horse, which had galloped away with his baggage.

Simon felt a slight satisfaction as he watched the burgomaster running through the forest, bellowing loudly.

Hopefully the mare took off with his moneybags
, he thought.
If
that fat old goat shouts one more hallelujah from up there on his horse, I’m going to commit a mortal sin.

Simon quickly dismissed this thought as unworthy of a pilgrim and quietly cursed himself for not having brought along a warmer coat. The new green woolen cape he’d bought at the Augsburg cloth market was dapper, but after the rain it hung on him like a limp rag.

“One might almost think God had some objection to our visiting the monastery today.”

Simon turned to Magdalena, who was looking up at the sky as rain ran down her mud-spattered cheeks.

“Thundershowers are rather common this time of year,” Simon replied, trying to sound matter-of-fact and somewhat composed again. “I don’t think that—”

“It’s a sign,” cried a trembling voice off to one side. Sebastian Semer, son of the burgomaster, held out the fingers of his right hand in a gesture meant to ward off evil spirits. “I told you right away we should leave the woman at home.” He pointed at Magdalena and Simon. “Anyone who takes a hangman’s daughter and a filthy bathhouse owner along on a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain might as well invite Beelzebub, too. The lightning is a sign from God warning us to do penance and—”

“Shut your fresh mouth, Semer boy,” Magdalena scolded, narrowing her eyes. “What do you know about penance, hm? Wipe your britches off before everyone notices you’ve peed in your pants again.”

Ashamed, Sebastian Semer stared at the dark spot on the front of his wide-cut reddish-purple petticoat breeches. Then he turned away silently, but not without casting one last angry look at Magdalena.

“Don’t mind him. The little rascal is nothing but the spoiled offspring of his father.”

Jakob Schreevogl now emerged from the darkness of the
forest, wearing a tight-fitting jerkin, high leather boots, and a white lace collar framing an unusual face with a Vandyke beard and a hooked nose. A fine rain trickled down his ornamented sword.

“In general I agree with you, Fronwieser.” Schreevogl turned to Simon and pointed at the sky. “Such violent storms aren’t unusual in June, but when the lightning strikes right beside you, it’s like you’re feeling God’s anger.”

“Or the anger of your fellow citizens,” Simon added gloomily.

Almost four summers had passed since his marriage to Magdalena, and since then, a number of Schongau citizens had let Simon know just how they felt about this marriage. As the daughter of the hangman, Jakob Kuisl, Magdalena was an outcast, someone to be avoided if possible.

Simon reached for his belt to check that a little bag of healing herbs and medical instruments was still attached there. It was quite possible he’d need some of his medicines during this pilgrimage. The Schongauers had often sought his help in recent years. Memories of the Great War still haunted some of the older people, and plagues and other diseases had swept over Schongau in recent years again and again. Last winter, Simon and Magdalena’s sons had also fallen ill, but God had been merciful and spared them. In the following days, Magdalena prayed many rosaries and finally convinced Simon to take a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain with her after Pentecost, along with nearly two dozen other citizens of Schongau and Altenstadt—citizens who wanted to show their gratitude to the Lord at the famous Festival of the Three Hosts. Simon and Magdalena had left the two children in the care of their grandparents—a wise decision, in view of the last hour’s events, the medicus again admitted to himself.

“It looks as if the rain will finally quench the fire.” Jakob
Schreevogl pointed at the storm-ravaged beech, where only a few flames still flickered. “We should move along. Andechs can’t be far off now—perhaps one or two miles. What do you think?”

Simon shrugged and looked around. The other trees were just smoldering now, but the rain had in the meantime become so heavy that the pilgrims could hardly see their hands in front of their faces in the growing dusk. The Schongauers had taken refuge beneath a nearby fir to wait out the heaviest rain. Only Karl Semer, still looking for his horse, was wandering around somewhere in the nearby forest, shouting loudly. His son had decided in the meantime to sit down and pout on an overturned tree trunk, trying to drive the cold from his bones with help of a flask he’d brought along. His Excellency Konrad Weber frowned at the young dandy but didn’t interfere. The old Schongau priest was not about to pick a fight with the son of the presiding burgomaster.

Just as the pilgrims were beginning to calm down, another bolt of lightning struck not far away and once again the Schongauers ran like spooked chickens down the muddy slopes, farther into the valley below. The priest’s wooden cross came to rest filthy and splintered between some rocks.

“Just stay together,” Simon shouted into the thunder and rain. “Lie down on the ground. On the ground you’ll be safe.”

“Forget it.” Magdalena shook her head and turned to leave. “They don’t hear you, and even if they did, they’d hardly obey a dishonorable bathhouse owner.”

Simon sighed and hurried after the others with Magdalena. Beside them, the carpenter Balthasar Hemerle carried an almost thirty-pound pilgrimage candle. Though its flame had gone out, the powerful, nearly six-foot-tall man held it up as straight as a battle flag. In comparison, Simon looked even smaller and more slender.

“Stupid peasants,” Hemerle grumbled, stepping around a muddy puddle in great strides. “It’s just a thunderstorm. We
have to get out of this goddamned forest—fast. But if those cowards keep running around like that, we’ll get completely lost.”

Simon nodded silently and rushed ahead.

In the meantime darkness had descended completely under the dark canopy of trees. The medicus could see only vague shadows of some of the Schongauers, though he heard anxious cries farther off. Someone was praying loudly to the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

And in the distance now howling wolves could be heard.

Simon shuddered. The beasts had multiplied considerably in the years since the Great War and by now had become a true plague upon the land, like wild pigs. The hungry animals were no threat to a group of twenty hardy men, but for anyone wandering alone through the forests, the wolves presented a real danger.

Branches lashing his face, Simon struggled not to lose sight of at least Magdalena and the sturdy Balthasar Hemerle’s pilgrimage candle. Fortunately, the carpenter was so tall that Simon could see him over the tops of bushes and even some low trees.