The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman's Daughter Tale (39 page)

As he slowly made his way toward the exit down a hall hung with Gobelin tapestries, he thought again of the strange exchange of words between the count and his wife. Evidently Wartenberg was sent on a mission by the elector. But why? And what was so secret about it that it couldn’t be discussed in front of a stranger?

Simon remembered that the count had arrived more than a week early to deliver the key to the relics room. There was really no need for him to arrive until the next day for the Festival of the Three Hosts. Why had he come so early? And what sort of business was he involved in with the Schongau burgomaster?

When the medicus arrived at the high portal leading from the prince’s quarters to the ordinary rooms, he stopped. The guards stood on the other side of the portal while the count and his wife still sat at the bedside of their sick son. Simon looked at the individual doors leading off from the hall with curiosity. Should he dare have a look around here?

Heart pounding, he tiptoed over to the first door and pressed the latch. The room was unlocked. Casting a hesitant glance inside, he spied an open wardrobe and dresses, colorful scarves, and fur caps scattered around the floor, a sign that this must be the countess’s room. Quickly he closed the door and turned to the second room.

This
was what he was looking for.

A huge table of polished cherry took up almost the entire far end of the room. On top, inkpots and quills stood beside a pile of documents and rolls of paper. To the right of the table was a bookshelf reaching to the ceiling, and an armchair. The light of the afternoon sun filtered through a high window across the table and the documents scattered across it.

The medicus could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. This was clearly the count’s office.

He looked into the hallway once more. He could hear the countess sobbing in the sick room while her husband murmured some words of consolation. Hesitating briefly, Simon slipped into the room and hurried to the table. Frantically he searched the documents, which were all written in Latin and clearly dealt with the monastery’s relics. Instinctively, he stopped.

What in the world did the count have to do with the relics?

Simon discovered a list of dozens of items in the holy chapel, among them the victory cross of Charlemagne, the stole of Saint Nicolas, and a
sudarium
from the Mount of Olives.

Other ancient parchment rolls here dealt with the history of the Wittelsbachs and of the monastery. Hastily, Simon scanned the ones telling of the earlier castle of the Andechs-Meranier, its destruction by the Wittelsbachs, and the founding of the monastery of Andechs. He learned of the miraculous discovery of the relics that had been hidden during the storming of the castle and had come to light only centuries later, thanks to a mouse. He read of the increasing crowds of pilgrims, and he read that the relics had often been hidden or spirited away in times of war. None of this was really news to Simon, who had read it all before in the small Andechs chronicle. New, however, was another parchment sheet lying among the others on the table.

A map.

Torn on the edges and burned in places, the map clearly showed the outlines of a castle, with corridors that branched off into labyrinths and ended in several marked exits. A few trees sketched in around the castle suggested a forest, and below that there seemed to be a lake and some rocks indicating cliffs. After a while Simon was able to decipher a few hastily scribbled words.

Hic est porta ad loca infera…

“Here is the gateway to the underworld,” he mumbled. “What in God’s name…”

He was just bending over to examine the map closer when a sound caused him to spin around. Footsteps in the corridor. In a panic, the medicus looked for some way to escape, but the only way out was a large glass window at the back of the room. He ran toward it, turned the knob in the middle, and opened it. Looking down, he could feel his legs wobble under him.

God, don’t let this be the only way out of here.

Two stories below was the deserted courtyard. Beneath the window, a narrow ledge—about a hand’s-breadth in width—ran along the entire front of the building.

The footsteps in the hallway came to a stop just outside the office door. Simon crossed himself one final time, then stepped out on the ledge, closed the window, and moved one step to the right so he was not visible from inside. And not a second too soon, for in the next moment, he heard the latch being pressed and someone entering the room.

I hope he doesn’t notice that the window is ajar,
Simon thought.
If the count closes the window, my only option is to jump or knock politely and ask to be hanged.

He heard the easy chair in the office being moved aside.

He’s sitting down. The count is sitting down. Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus, don’t let him nod off. I can’t stand being out here that long.

Simon tried not to look down, but out of the corner of his eye he could see the ground fifty feet below seemingly reaching up to him. He sensed he was going to pass out, and his legs felt like rotting wood beneath him. An invisible force seemed to pull him toward the abyss.

Just as he was about to lose all hope, he heard the scraping of the armchair again, then the door to the corridor squeak closed.

Simon waited a few seconds, then worked his way carefully back toward the window. Casting a sidelong glance into the room behind the glass, he finally pushed the door open with a
gentle, silent swing. He tiptoed back into the room and closed the window again. His jacket was soaked in sweat, and his knees so weak that walking on the parquet beneath him felt like wading through a deep swamp.

With three deep breaths, he hurried silently to the door where he first listened and then rushed out into the empty corridor. A few moments later, Simon hobbled past the guards at the door and nearly tumbled down the stairway.

“Everything… Everything is fine,” he shouted, his voice cracking, though he tried to sound more or less normal. “Just a bit tired. Now let’s all pray for the little count. Good night.”

“Did you see how ashen the bathhouse surgeon was?” the fat watchman asked, as Simon disappeared down the stairs. “If you ask me, he caught an infection from the little one.”

“Shady quack doctor,” the other hissed. “I’ll bet the count will have him hanged if that blasted fever doesn’t get him first.” He sighed, scratching himself hard between the legs. “It’s really time for us to get out of this hellhole.”

Simon staggered out into the courtyard and looked up at the ledge where he’d stood just a few minutes before. Just the sight made his head spin again. Deep in thought, he walked through the inner gate leading from the courtyard into the narrow lanes in front of the monastery, where he was immediately engulfed in an unending stream of noisy pilgrims.

His head was spinning, due only in small part to his experience on the ledge. What sort of map had he seen on the table in the count’s study? Was it the same the librarian was so eager to find, the map showing the way to the monks’ subterranean hiding place? And what was the strange reference to a door into the underworld?

The more the medicus thought about it, the more he was convinced that Leopold von Wartenberg was somehow implicated in the strange events taking place in the monastery. The
count was clearly involved in the matter of the relics, and had been sent there personally by the elector for some mysterious reason. Besides that, he had a map presumably showing the corridors in the basement of the old castle—the same ones haunted by a golem, and the same ones where the effeminate novitiate master had almost met his death.

Simon pushed his way past the pilgrims as he hurried back to the clinic, where he’d last left the Andechs chronicle. In his free time, he’d leafed through it again and again, and now he positively had to read the little book to the end. Perhaps there was something in the little book pointing to what the count was searching for here. Or was the count himself the sorcerer?

As Simon entered the clinic, he was met by a dejected Jakob Schreevogl. The whole clinic stank of urine and garbage, Schreevogl’s jacket was smeared with sweat and dirt. The stress of the last few days was clearly visible in the face of the Schongau councilor.

“We have another death to announce,” the patrician said softly.

Simon’s heart skipped a beat. “Not Brother Laurentius, I hope?”

Schreevogl shook his head. “It’s one of our Schongau masons, Andre Losch. God rest his soul.” He sighed deeply. “I still can’t believe it. Andre was such a bear of a man. Three days ago, he was carousing with the other master masons in the tavern and suddenly—”

“Just a moment,” Simon interrupted. “In the tavern, you said?”

Schreevogl nodded. “That’s right. All three were brought here with high fevers, along with the Twangler brothers, but Andre’s case was the worst.”

Simon remembered now what had been bothering him during his conversation with the count. Leopold von Wartenberg mentioned his family had also dined in the monastery tavern.

And only now did it occur to the medicus that other patients had been there as well—not just Losch, but little Martin and the Twangler brothers, too.

Evidently many of the more well-to-do pilgrims had eaten there, and Simon could see now that the sickness seemed to especially affect those with means to eat there.

He chewed his lower lip as he turned this over in his mind. Did the fever have some connection with the tavern? What could it be?

Suddenly he had a terrible suspicion.

“Master Schreevogl,” he said, turning to the councilor. “Could you do me a favor?”

“And what would that be?”

Quietly, so as not to waken the patients and start a panic, Simon told him.

Schreevogl nodded, moved toward the door, then turned again to address the medicus. “If you’re really right,” he said softly, but with a dark undertone, “then at least one head will roll here, and this time it won’t be the poor apothecary’s.”

Nepomuk Volkmar cowered in the pitch black of his cell, staring at his bloody fingers. Some were missing their nails, and the bloody stumps throbbed with a hellish pain.

In theory, the apothecary was happy he was unable to see anything in the darkness—at least that relieved him of the torture of seeing his battered body. But new waves of pain kept coursing through him, and he knew that such agony would be his constant companion from then on.

Master Hans had done a thorough job the day before. After he showed his victim the instruments of torture, as prescribed by law, he put Nepomuk in what they called the interrogation seat, a chair covered with spikes. His arms and legs were secured by iron clasps lined with spikes; even his feet were placed on a board of spikes. As the seated prisoner
felt the spikes slowly cutting into his flesh, the pain followed quickly.

After two hours of torture in the interrogation chair, Nepomuk still hadn’t confessed to any witchcraft, so Master Hans started pulling out the apothecary’s fingernails with a set of long tongs.

It was then that Nepomuk’s screams were audible even in the square in front of the dungeon.

But despite all the pain, the monk had remained strong, closing his eyes, praying, declaring his innocence, and thinking about the words of his friend Jakob Kuisl.

No matter what happens, don’t confess. If you confess, it’s all over.

How could anyone not confess, knowing this was only the beginning? That far worse torture would follow until he finally collapsed, wailing, and confessed to witchcraft? Nepomuk had watched some tortures at his father’s side—his father, the executioner of Reutling—and knew that victims yearned for death at some point. When they were finally dragged to the scaffold like animals to slaughter, there was often not much left of them but broken bones.

Would he be able to keep silent after he, too, had been reduced to a whimpering bundle of flesh, yearning for his own death? How long would it take?

Finally after hours of torture, he’d been dragged back to his cell. When the trapdoor slammed shut over him, he could only wait in the darkness for the next horror. Sleep was out of the question, so as the hours dragged by, Nepomuk tried to console himself with memories of better days. The melody of a fiddle; the rhythmic beat of drums before battle; the wild parties with the other mercenaries; the many practice battles with his only real friend, Jakob Kuisl; their conversations on long winter nights in burned-out barns or in the protection of storm-buffeted, half-ruined castles…

“Where is your God, anyway?” Jakob asks as Nepomuk rubs the dirty rosary between his fingers. “Is he dead? I can’t see him; I can’t hear him.”

“You can only believe in him,” Nepomuk answers.

Jakob laughs softly, turning a sizzling rabbit on the spit as fat hisses and drips into the flames.

“I believe in hard iron,” he says finally. “In laws, and in death.”

“God is stronger than death, Jakob.”

The son of the Schongau executioner watches his friend for a long time, then stomps off silently into the night.

The next day they string up a half dozen outlaws together. As the bandits writhe about in the trees above, Jakob suddenly looks over to his friend as if still expecting an answer from him.

Nepomuk remains silent.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”

Sitting in his cell, mumbling softly, Nepomuk recited the eternal words of the rosary, hoping to rekindle an old faith that seemed to be slowly escaping through tiny cracks in the walls.

“Blessed are thou amongst women, and blessed is…”

A creak of the trapdoor above him caused Nepomuk’s heart to race. He knew they were coming to fetch him for another session. His tongue became as dry as a bone, and he suddenly felt himself start to shake.

In fact it wasn’t long before the ladder was lowered down again. Since he was too weak to climb unassisted, one of the watchmen descended and tied a rope around his waist. Then the men overhead all pulled together, hauling him up like a fish wiggling on a hook.