Magdalena decided to stand by the side of the road and wait for the stranger. When the rider had approached to within a few yards, the hangman’s daughter could see that the woman had to come from a wealthy family. She was wearing a finely woven, dark-blue cape and underneath it a starched white skirt with polished leather boots. She was holding the reins loosely in her fur gloves. But the most striking thing about her was the shock of reddish-blonde hair that protruded from under a velvet hood, framing a pale, finely chiseled, aristocratic face. The rider was perhaps in her mid-thirties, statuesque, and certainly not from around here. She looked like someone from a big city far away-perhaps from Munich-but how in the world did she ever wind up in here in Altenstadt?
“Can I assist you?” Magdalena inquired with a warm smile.
The stranger seemed to think this over, then smiled in return. “You can, girl. I’m looking for my brother, a pastor in this community. Andreas Koppmeyer by name.”
She leaned over to Magdalena and extended her gloved hand. “My name is Benedikta Koppmeyer. And what is yours?”
“Magdalena Kuisl. I am the…midwife here.” As always, it was hard for Magdalena to say she was the daughter of the town executioner. That often led to people making the sign of the cross or turning away, mumbling.
“Magdalena…a beautiful name,” the lady continued, pointing to her bag. “I see you are just coming from delivering a child. Did everything go well?”
Magdalena nodded, looking at the ground. She hoped the lady didn’t notice how she was blushing.
“I am happy to hear that,” the lady said, smiling again. “But on another matter…Do you know where my brother’s church is?”
Without saying a word, Magdalena turned around and headed back to the village. She was actually happy she had met the stranger-a little diversion would do her some good.
“Follow me, it’s not far from here,” she said, pointing to the west. “Behind the hills there, you can make out the Church of Saint Lawrence.”
“I hope my brother is home,” Benedikta Koppmeyer said, dismounting elegantly in order to give the reddish-brown sorrel a chance to rest. “He wrote me a letter. It seems important.”
She followed Magdalena down the street in Altenstadt, holding her horse’s reins in her hand. Suspicious villagers on both sides of the street watched the two women from behind closed shutters.
Simon stared into the black hole that opened up in front of them. A musty, damp odor rose out of the square opening, and a steep staircase, hewn into the rock, led down to the crypt. After just a few yards, the passage was enveloped in darkness.
“Shall we…?” the medicus started to say, then stopped when he saw the hangman’s grim nod. “We’ll need a light,” he said finally.
“We’ll take those over there.” Jakob Kuisl pointed toward two five-armed silver candelabras standing on the altar. “The dear Lord certainly won’t hold it against us.”
He seized the two candelabras and lit them with a votive candle burning in a niche in front of the statue of St. Sebastian, his body pierced by arrows.
“Come now.”
He handed Simon the second candelabra and descended the stairway, Simon close behind. The steps were damp and slippery. As they continued downward, the medicus briefly thought he smelled something strange, but he couldn’t place it and the odor soon vanished.
After only a few yards, they reached the bottom of the chamber. Jakob Kuisl held the candles up to illuminate the almost cubical area. Broken barrels and slats of wood lay around rotting. A splintered crucifix with a fading Jesus lay moldering in a corner, its paint flaking off. In another corner lay a bundle of rags. Simon leaned over and picked one up. Sacrificial lambs and crosses were embroidered onto the moldy linen, which crumbled in his hands.
Meanwhile, Jakob Kuisl had opened a trunk standing crosswise in the middle of the room and pulled out a rusted candelabra and a votive candle that had burned down to the base. Disgusted, he threw the objects back into the trunk. “Holy Saint Anthony, thank you! We have found the church’s storeroom,” he grumbled. “Nothing but rubbish!”
Simon nodded in agreement. It looked as if they had found the junk room of the St. Lawrence Church. Evidently, for hundreds of years, everything for which there was no use up above had been brought down here. So was it just chance, after all, that the dead priest had come to rest right over the tombstone?
Simon’s gaze wandered over the walls, where the candlelight caused outsized shadows to dance about. In the middle, exactly opposite where he stood, was a pile of rubbish-boards, splintered chairs, and a huge oaken table turned upside down against the wall. Behind the table something white was shimmering. Simon went over to it and moved his finger back and forth over the spot.
When he examined his finger in the light of the candle, it was white with lime.
And only then did he remember the odor he had noticed on the stairway. It smelled of lime. Lime and fresh mortar.
“Kuisl!” he cried out. “I think I’ve found something!”
When the hangman saw the fresh mortar, he heaved the huge oak table to one side in a single movement. Behind it a freshly walled-up, chest-high doorway came into view.
“Well, just look at that,” Jakob Kuisl panted, pushing the rest of the clutter to one side with his foot. “The priest actually did lend a hand in the renovations. Just differently than we thought. It looks like he just recently walled up this entrance.” He sunk his finger into the mortar, which was still wet.
“I wonder what’s behind it,” Simon said.
“I’ll be damned if it’s not something valuable,” Jakob Kuisl said, scratching away at the fresh mortar with a nail until a brick wall became visible behind it. “And I’ll bet the priest was killed for exactly that reason.”
He kicked the walled-up doorway, and some bricks fell into an opening behind them, setting off a chain reaction. Cracking and then breaking into pieces, the whole wall collapsed. After a while the noise subsided, but a cloud of mortar dust hung in the air, blocking the view through the portal that was now open. Not until the dust had settled could Simon make out another room. In the middle of it stood something big and heavy, but it was too dark to see anything more.
The hangman climbed over the rubble and ducked through the low entrance. Simon heard him whistle through his teeth at what he saw.
“What is it?” Simon asked, trying in vain to see more than just a huge silhouette from his vantage point.
“It’s best for you to come and see for yourself,” Jakob Kuisl said.
With a sigh, Simon stooped down and followed the hangman through the narrow entranceway, shining his light into the second room.
The chamber was empty except for a huge stone sarcophagus resting on an even larger block of stone. The sarcophagus was simple and without ornamentation except for the relief of a long broadsword, a full five feet in length, depicted on its lid. At the head of the stone block, a Latin inscription was chiseled into the stone, and Simon drew in close to decipher it.
Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.
“Not to us, o Lord, not to us, but to Thy name be the honor,” the medicus read softly.
Somewhere he had seen these words, but he couldn’t remember when or where. Bewildered, he looked at the hangman, who was kneeling now and also considering the inscription.
Finally, Kuisl shrugged. “You’re the scholar,” he grumbled. “Now show me your damned overpriced education was worth anything.”
Simon couldn’t help smiling to himself. Jakob Kuisl would never forgive him for going off to the university while he, as a hangman, couldn’t because of his dishonorable profession. Kuisl didn’t think much of the learned quacks, and often Simon had to agree. But Simon would be better off now if he hadn’t broken off his study of medicine after seven semesters in Ingolstadt for financial reasons and out of sheer laziness.