“Karl Semer paid a visit to your cousin,” she finally replied.
“Graetz? For heaven’s sake, why?”
“If you want to know, just be still and listen to me.”
After Magdalena had told her father about the threatening visit from the Schongau burgomaster, Kuisl angrily pounded his fist against the wall of the shed.
“Damn, that’s all I needed,” he blustered. “Now I know why the hunters and a few other bailiffs were prowling the back lanes around the monastery. Semer probably promised them a nice reward if they catch me. But they can wait for that until hell freezes over.” He looked at his daughter, worried. “Did Simon tell you what happened up in the monastery?”
“I was just looking for him. Evidently they found Virgilius dead. Is that true?”
The hangman nodded. “Let’s go find your husband. We have to talk about what to do next. I’ll tell you all the rest along the way.”
As they headed for the clinic, Kuisl told her about the monstrance being found and the dying Laurentius.
“We can only hope the Brother is still able to talk,” the hangman said softly. “And that the damned sorcerer doesn’t get to him first. Pray that your husband keeps a sharp eye out and doesn’t fall asleep, or he’ll be sorry he ever had an executioner as a father-in-law.”
Magdalena nodded and tried not to think about what her father meant by that. She knew he was subject to sudden fits of temper, but thank God he could calm down just as fast afterward.
They hurried along until the clinic finally appeared before them. The horse stable was already completely enveloped in darkness, with no sign of a light inside.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Kuisl growled. “Either Simon has eyes like a cat or he’s fallen asleep, the idiot.”
“Perhaps it’s all been too much for him recently,” Magdalena whispered, suddenly feeling sorry for her husband. Why did her father always have to be so hard on him?
Without replying, Kuisl reached under his jacket and pulled out a torch, which he lit with a tinderbox he’d brought along. Then he silently opened the door to the clinic.
In the torchlight, Magdalena could vaguely see about two dozen beds scattered throughout the room. In most, sleepy figures coughed, thrashed about, or lifted their heads before falling back onto the bed again. In the rear, the hangman’s daughter caught sight of her husband huddled down on a chair alongside a bed. His chest rose and fell in rhythm.
And he was snoring.
“I should have guessed. Damn!”
The hangman hurried over to the peacefully sleeping medicus and shook him awake. “Didn’t I tell you to keep a lookout?” he growled. “And here you are snoring so loud it sounds like you’re sawing down the whole Kien Valley forest.”
“What?…? What?” Simon rubbed his eyes. It took him a while to recognize who was standing in front of him.
“My God, Kuisl,” he finally said. “I’m… I’m sorry. But the last few days…”
But the hangman had already turned to the lifeless body of the novitiate master. He held his ear to his chest, then felt his pulse.
“Damn,” he whispered. “The man’s dead. Now we’ll never find out where he found the monstrance and who did this to him.”
“That’s… that’s impossible,” said Simon, jumping up and feeling for Laurentius’s pulse. He tore the bandages from the monk’s burnt face and held the little copper disk in front of his nose. When it didn’t fog up, he fell back on his chair, crushed.
“It must have happened just in the last hour,” he said remorsefully. “I was reading for a while, then probably my eyes closed.”
“And the sorcerer waltzed in here and killed our only witness,” the hangman spluttered. “It didn’t take much to do that.”
“Do you think it was really the sorcerer?” Magdalena whispered so as not to wake the other patients. “Maybe he just died.” She knew she was just looking for reasons to spare her husband the wrath of her father.
“What is this here?” Gently the hangman removed a scrap of black cloth from the clenched fist of the novitiate master. “It looks like Brother Laurentius didn’t set out for paradise without a fight.”
Magdalena bent down to look at the little scrap of cloth. “That might be from a robe,” she said, thinking out loud, “or some other piece of clothing. In any case it isn’t necessarily…” She stopped abruptly to watch Simon, who was crawling around on the floor, evidently looking for something. “What in heaven’s name are you doing down there?”
“The… the Andechs chronicle!” Simon exclaimed. “It’s disappeared. I was reading it just a while ago, and when I fell asleep it must have fallen out of my hand. And now it’s gone.”
“Isn’t that just fine,” the hangman growled. “It’s not enough that this sorcerer kills our only witness; he steals your book, as well, while you sit there snoring. How stupid can you be?”
“Father, stop tormenting him,” Magdalena said angrily. “Can’t you see how sorry he is? Besides, couldn’t you have stayed here and kept watch? But no, you had to go waltzing through the forest as you so often do.”
“Because I’m a wanted man, you fresh little thing. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Moaning could be heard now from beds farther back in the room. An ashen-faced older farmer with sunken cheeks sat up and stared at them curiously.
“If I may make a suggestion,” Simon whispered, getting up from the floor. “Let’s continue this conversation down in St. Elizabeth’s chapel. There we’ll be undisturbed, and I can tell you in more detail what I learned in the chronicle.” He ventured a smile. “And perhaps I can in some small way make amends for what happened-and avoid the torture rack.”
St. Elizabeth’s chapel was located under the monastery church. Built directly into the side of the mountain, it was an unassuming little church that, even on busy days, was a refuge of silence and meditation.
Sometimes pilgrims visited the chapel because water from the little fountain in the apsis was said to cure eye problems, but now, at ten o’clock at night, it was as quiet as the forest behind it. Small candles burned alongside the altar, casting a flickering light on the few pews where the three sat.
“You think the librarian, the cellarer, and perhaps the sorcerer as well are searching for the relics and treasures hidden during the storming of Andechs castle long ago?” asked Magdalena incredulously.
After Simon told them what he’d learned, he shook his head contemplatively. “It says in the Andechs chronicle that the conquerors found nothing-nothing at all,” he finally replied. “Not until almost two hundred years later did a mouse dash out of a hole in the chapel with a scrap of parchment in its little mouth picturing some of the relics. And that’s how they finally managed to track them down.”
“That’s right,” Magdalena joined in, shivering and pulling her shawl tight over her shoulders. “That’s what that disgusting Brother Eckhart told me, but why should there be more down there than what they found at that time?”
Simon leaned forward in the pew. “The chronicle mentions all the relics kept in the holy chapel,” he said. “But the count’s list contains many more, among them-”
“What is this count’s list?” interrupted Kuisl, who had been listening silently until this point, puffing on his pipe. “This is the first I’ve heard of that. Did the smart-ass nobleman offer to show you around his office? Please stop beating around the bush.”
“Patience, patience: I still haven’t told you the best part.” The medicus raised his hands, grinning, trying to calm Kuisl down. He knew the hangman’s curiosity was insatiable. Now it was Simon’s turn to torture his father-in-law.
“Of course the count didn’t show me around his study,” he finally said smugly. “I had a look around without his permission, and I came across the list and a map-a map, which in my opinion, shows the ancient subterranean passageways and cellars of this castle. It’s quite possibly the same map stolen from the librarian, so we have to at least consider the possibility that the count is the sorcerer and that he, and a number of the monks as well, are looking for the hidden treasure.”