When Simon turned the corner onto Weinstrasse, he could no longer hear his father’s screams. No doubt, Bonifaz Fronwieser was already washing down his anger with a glass of cheap white wine. Simon hoped that by nightfall his father would have calmed down again, and that Magdalena would have come to her senses, too. He’d stopped by at her house the day before and banged on the door several times, but no one had answered. Finally, Anna Maria Kuisl dumped a chamber pot out the window, an unmistakable sign that his presence was not desired. In a few days, the blizzard would no doubt die down, and maybe by then he would have learned more about the riddles concerning the Templars’ treasure. Possibly, he might get a better idea that very day after his visit to Peiting.
As he was leaving through the Lech Gate in the frosty morning fog, a figure approached him that, until that moment, had been hidden behind the town wall. It was Benedikta.
“I think our conversation yesterday ended much too abruptly,” she said, smiling. She wore a woolen cap and a heavy, coarse woolen coat that didn’t quite suit her dainty figure. She must have bought the clothing in town after realizing that she would be staying a bit longer. Seeing the surprised look on Simon’s face, she shrugged apologetically. “My brother’s burial is not until tomorrow, so I thought I might come along with you. For your own protection…” She winked at him.
Simon could feel himself blushing. Protected by a woman. I hope the hangman never hears about this…
Only now did he notice a bulge under Benedikta’s heavy coat at about hip level. He suspected that was where she stowed the pistol she had used to finish off the robber.
“Why not?” he said. “But please, let’s not take horses this time. Every muscle in my body still aches.”
Benedikta laughed aloud and walked ahead, crunching through the snow so fast that Simon had difficulty keeping up with her.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I gave my Aramis a day off today. And in any case, it’s not far, is it?”
Simon nodded. He had caught up and was walking alongside her now. “Do you see the big hill?” He pointed across the Lech River. “Beyond that is Peiting, the closest town, and right next to that is the castle on the hill with the old Guelph ruins-at least whatever the Swedes didn’t destroy.”
“Doesn’t anyone live up there on the hill anymore?” Benedikta asked.
Simon laughed. “Just a few castle ghosts. It was once inhabited by the Guelphs, a family of princes that reigned here. But that was long, long ago. In the Great War, people took refuge up there, but the Swedes destroyed the last remnants of the castle. Now, you’ll meet only an occasional farmer up there looking for stones for building his walls or barns.”
“And do you think we’ll actually find something up there?”
Simon shrugged. “Probably not, but then, at least we’ll have tried.”
The path along the Lech climbed gently. Soon they were surrounded by trees. The walls and houses of Schongau could be seen intermittently over the tops of the trees, until finally they were enveloped in dense forest. Simon looked around carefully. Peiting was less than an hour’s walk from town, yet after everything that had happened in the past three days, Simon thought he could see a highwayman behind every tree. Except for a tired farmer driving an oxcart, however, they didn’t meet a soul.
When the first houses of Peiting were in sight, they came upon a narrow path leading up to the top of Castle Hill. Simon walked ahead. The snow here was significantly deeper and not yet packed down, so progress was slow and difficult. They kept sinking into the snow, sometimes up to their hips. After a while, they discovered a trail animals had made in the snow, and walking became easier. The path climbed steeply now and was lined by ancient oak trees, which at one time must have flanked a boulevard built by the dukes but had since been reclaimed by the forest. About half an hour later, they reached the crest of the hill and the forest receded, revealing a clearing where the ruins stood.
The Swedes had done a thorough job. The outer walls had been torn down, and all that remained of the once stately buildings were scorched black skeletons, sooty beams, and rubble covered in snow. Only the ancient keep towered up from the ruins, like an index finger warning the visitors. Eerie silence lay over the clearing, as if the snow up here, three feet deep in places, had swallowed every sound.
“Wonderful,” Benedikta said, rubbing her frozen hands together. “This Templar certainly couldn’t have found a better place to hide something.”
Shrugging, Simon surveyed the chaotic scene, not sure where to begin. “When the Templars still lived in Schongau, this must have been an imposing castle. But at some point, the duke disappeared, the castle fell into ruin, and then the Swedes arrived…” He climbed up to the top of a pile of rubble, trying to get a better view of the entire site. From up there, he could see Schongau, the Lech that flowed out of the mountains toward Augsburg, and in the distance, the peak of Hoher Peißenberg peering out of the morning fog. Directly beneath them lay rubble and ruins. Simon sighed and carefully climbed back down to join Benedikta. “It would be just as easy to find a needle in a haystack,” he said. “But since we’re here…”
They decided to split up. Benedikta would take the southern side and Simon the northern. He trudged through rubble, glancing into the buildings as he passed; though all that remained, for the most part, were the walls. Now and then, he stumbled over bones and grinning skulls dispersed among blocks of stone. In one corner, he found a skeleton wrapped in the ragged remains of a Swedish uniform. Twice he broke through the snow, and one of those times he struggled to free himself when his boot became wedged in a hidden fissure.
“Did you find anything yet?” he called out toward the place he thought Benedikta must be. Strangely, his voice sounded both loud yet muffled to him.
“There’s nothing here,” she shouted back. “Do you really think we should keep looking?”
“Just a bit longer!” He climbed over another large pile of rubble and saw the ruins of a little chapel on a rise in front of him. He continued over rocks and snowdrifts toward the ruins of the nave, where he guessed the Guelphs probably had come to pray. Now all that remained were bare, sooty walls. Even the lead-framed church windows had been broken and the lead likely melted down to make bullets. Snow drifted down through the remains of the roof truss onto the stone altar, and burned beams were strewn around everywhere in heaps.
On a whim, Simon entered the chapel and climbed over a pile of wood to reach the altar. The Templar’s previous two riddles had to do with churches-first the little St. Lawrence Church and then the basilica in Altenstadt. Perhaps that was the case here as well. He just had to-
With a loud crack, the beams under him gave way. Splinters ripped at his overcoat and jacket as he fell with a muffled cry into a deep hole. He tried desperately to break his fall by gripping a piece of wood that jutted out, but it gave way, too, and followed him, crashing down into the darkness.
The landing was hard and painful. He could feel hard stone and something thin splintering beneath him. As he struggled to his feet, he heard a whoosh above him. Instinctively, he threw himself to one side before a whole batch of beams crashed down, landing on the ground right beside him. A few feet farther to the right and he would have been buried beneath them.
Simon took a deep breath and carefully tested his arms and legs. Nothing seemed to be broken. His new jacket from Augsburg was ripped from his shoulder down to his hip, and a few tiny splinters had pierced his clothing in places, but otherwise he was unhurt.
Only now did he have the chance to investigate what it was he had fallen into. Reaching over to one side, he picked up a pale, broken femur, and between his legs a toothless skull grinned up at him.