In the evening, they finally suspended the questioning. The next day was, after all, the Andechs Festival of the Three Hosts, famous throughout all of the German Empire. Christian brotherly love simply forbade pulling fingernails off on such a day, so they’d have to put it off until the next day.
Cursing, the prior dug his heels into the sides of his horse, spurring it on. There was so much left to do. The abbot had told him the morning before that he would assign him, Jeremias, the duty of conducting the festival mass. The prior smiled wanly. Evidently the old man had already accepted the fact that someone else would be in charge soon. It was therefore all the more important for Brother Johannes to confess-not only because the Weilheim judge had made it very clear that a successful interrogation was required before the prior could be appointed abbot, but also because Jeremias needed a scapegoat. This miserable affair had to be put behind them as soon as possible. There had been much too much snooping around already. That bathhouse doctor from Schongau was driving him crazy, and Brother Benedikt had told him also that the phony monk had been searching the rooms in the monastery. And that the map had now disappeared, too-the map, so long concealed, that had been in the monastery’s possession for centuries. Had someone already gotten wind of them? The prior had a terrible suspicion.
As the howling of the wolves drew closer, Brother Jeremias finally realized he was in danger. This sounded like no less than the whole pack that had been striking terror into people’s hearts in the forests around Andechs. Grimly the prior grasped the reins and slapped the horse on its hindquarters. “Giddyap, run, you old mare, if you care for your life.”
Jeremias bent forward over the saddle to offer as little resistance to the wind as possible. When he was made abbot, he would send men out to deal with these beasts once and for all. And there were some things in the monastery that would change. For a long time, Jeremias had been dreaming of tearing down the old building and bringing in skilled tradesmen from Wessobrunn, and from the other side of the Alps, to build him a new monastery like the neighboring ones at Steingaden and Rottenbuch-bigger and more impressive. He wouldn’t allow the Holy Mountain to look like a storm-ravaged ruin dating back to the Great War. But to do that, he needed money, lots of money. The prior smiled.
Soon money would be no problem; in a few years, his dream would be realized-as long as nothing unexpected happened and their little hiding place wasn’t discovered…
If only for this reason, Johannes had to confess. For the good of the church. So that peace and order would reign again.
The wolves were so close now that Brother Jeremias could see their eyes shining in the dark. He could feel the horse tremble beneath him, its coat dripping with sweat. Soon the path would head up the steep slope of the Kien Valley and the horse would have to slow down. The wolves were gaining on them; the prior could hear the howling and panting closing in.
With a wild cry, he suddenly whirled around, pulled an ivory-handled flintlock pistol from under his robe, and fired. The shot flashed through the darkness, and there was a loud report followed by howling. The wolves pulled back.
Breathing heavily, the prior put the pistol back under his robe and concentrated on the path in front of him. It was now so dark between the trees he could scarcely see branches that had fallen across the path. He trembled. The Weilheim judge had given him the weapon and gunpowder just the day before, a personal gift meant to seal the bond between them. Never did the prior think he would have to use the pistol so soon, but now, feeling the cold iron of the barrel beneath his robe, he noticed he’d really enjoyed using it.
He had… enjoyed it. The cool feel, the recoil, the tortured cries of the wolves…
Reaching for the weapon again, he turned around, but the wolves had disappeared.
A shame.
After what seemed an eternity, the lights of the houses at the foot of the monastery appeared. The prior slapped his horse one more time, and finally, bathed in sweat, he reached the outer gate, which the gatekeeper opened with a respectful nod.
After Jeremias had dismounted, he reached down again to touch the cool weapon between his legs. He smiled and absent-mindedly crossed himself.
Perhaps he would be able to use the pistol again sometime soon.
15
ANDECHS, NOON ON SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 1666 AD
Shortly before the noon bells, pilgrims gathered on the square in front of the church, though many had been there since dawn. Amid the tightly packed crowd were brightly colored flags showing the coats of arms of many cities and villages. Simon stood wedged among a few pale, exhausted city people from Munich and a crowd of pilgrims from Augsburg who kept reciting the Lord’s Prayer and Ave Maria endlessly in their Swabian dialect. By now, over a thousand pilgrims must have crowded into the little square, and below the monastery even more were pressing up the narrow road. The pilgrims kept looking up toward the bay window of the church where the Three Holy Hosts were to be displayed at noon.
Jakob Kuisl stood alongside Simon, yawning. As so often in the past, he’d spent half the night wandering through the forest, thinking, and hadn’t returned to the knacker’s house until the early morning hours. In his black coat, the hangman tried to seem as inconspicuous as possible amid all the worshippers-which, in view of his size, was a rather hopeless undertaking. Nevertheless, Simon had been unable to dissuade him from attending the “Weisung,” or display of the hosts. Later they planned to attend mass, then join the crowd of pilgrims and monks circling the church with the monstrance. Both men still hoped something would happen that day to help them in their search.
Simon rubbed his reddened eyes sleepily. He’d been summoned by Count Wartenberg in the early morning hours. Though he was convinced he was heading for his own execution, his fears had proven groundless. The Jesuit’s powder seemed to have worked. The boy’s fever had broken, and he was clearly on the road to recovery. When, once or twice, the count gave Simon a sidelong glance, the medicus feared his search of the study the day before had in fact not escaped notice. And when the count patted him on the shoulder, Simon had to be careful not to wince.
A sudden pain brought the medicus back to the present-a pilgrim had accidentally stepped on his foot. Simon suppressed a curse and turned to whisper to his father-in-law. “What are you going to do if someone recognizes you now?” After Magdalena told him of their unhappy confrontation with the Semers, Simon reckoned that the hangman’s cover would be blown at any moment. “You could at least have put on a less conspicuous coat. Didn’t you say yourself that the monastery bailiffs are out looking for you?”
“Nonsense,” Kuisl growled, pulling his collar a little tighter. “They really have better things to do today than to look for some no-account Franciscan monk. Just see for yourself what’s going on here.” With a sweep of his powerful arm, he indicated the crowds of pilgrims all around singing hymns and growing larger by the minute. The smell of incense was so strong it almost made him dizzy.
“We can only hope the sickness going around isn’t as contagious as I feared,” the medicus murmured, “or all of Bavaria will catch it.”
Indeed, pilgrims seemed to have come from the farthest corners of the electorate and beyond. Simon could hear dialects from Swabia, Franconia, the Palatinate, and Saxony, and even a few foreign languages. The thought that the pilgrims might carry the disease back with them to their cities and villages made the medicus queasy. With everything going on, Simon still hadn’t had time to ask Jakob Schreevogl what he’d learned the day before in the tavern.