“Kuisl! My God, Kuisl!” he shouted. “What’s happening?”
In the next moment, it occurred to him how stupid his question was. Evidently the hunters had found the hiding place and were engaged in a fight with the hangman. And Simon was standing down below, where he couldn’t do a thing.
After waiting at the base of the cliff for a long time, not knowing what to do, he heard another shout, and moments later, a body came tumbling down, landing right in front of him. Simon cringed. Before him lay one of the Andechs hunters, his head twisted at a strange angle from the fall, a crossbar bolt embedded in his shoulder. He quivered briefly one more time, then his eyes took on the glassy sheen the medicus had seen so many times on dying men.
Wonderful, Simon thought. Now we’ll be sought not just as charlatans and false monks but as murderers, too. And all I wanted to do was to go on a pilgrimage.
“Damn, Simon, run. Run to Magdalena.” Kuisl’s voice boomed down into the valley and tore him from his thoughts. Simon looked up once more, but the figures had disappeared. Presumably the fight had moved back onto the path. Some of the hunters could already be looking for some way to get down to him.
Simon hesitated. Should he really abandon his father-in-law? Of course, he wasn’t much help to him down here either. Kuisl was right-they had to warn Magdalena. After this, the guards would surely be looking for her, as well. Were the Semers perhaps already on the way to the knacker’s house? Magdalena had suggested they all meet there again after the mass.
One last time Simon looked at the battered, twisted body of the Andechs hunter at his feet. He stooped down, closed the corpse’s eyes, and said a short prayer.
Then he ran through the dark valley past firs, beeches, and steep cliffs. He planned to make a wide circle around the monastery to reach Andechs and the knacker’s house. Perhaps it wasn’t too late.
Simon worried less about his father-in-law. This wasn’t the hangman’s first fight. No, Simon’s greater worry was that, in this situation, the hangman might commit a few more mortal sins.
Like a bear held at bay by a pack of hounds, the hangman stood on the tall rock, kicking at the hunters to fend them off.
The bailiffs had arrived just moments after Simon slid down the slope. They must have been somewhere close by and heard Simon’s shouts. Now three of them surrounded the boulder and lunged at Kuisl with spears; the fourth ran back toward the monastery, Kuisl assumed, for reinforcements.
As he continued kicking, he could see out of the corner of his eye one hunter put down his spear and reach for a little crossbow at his side. Kuisl cursed softly-up here on the rock, he was an easy target for a marksman; he’d be brought down like a wounded boar. Kuisl had no time to think, though. At the same moment, another bailiff was climbing up the rock with a dagger.
Cautiously the man got up onto the slippery, moss-covered boulder and tried to stab Kuisl in the side with his long-handled knife. The hangman dodged, grabbed the bailiff by the waist, and lifted him, screaming and thrashing about wildly, toward the archer: a living shield. At the same moment the bolt whizzed toward him, hitting the man in the shoulder. The hangman cringed as he felt a searing pain around his waist. He thought he’d been hit by a bolt, as well, but then he realized he’d only pulled a muscle and knew his back would be hurting for a day or so.
Damn, he thought. I’m getting too old for this nonsense. It’s time for the young folk to deal with these bailiffs, robbers, and insane murderers.
Kuisl released his hold, and the injured guard fell to the ground, slipping toward the cliff only a few feet away. Frantically he tried to dig his fingers into the rock, but the porous stone began to crumble. For one last moment the hangman could see the horrified face of the injured man, and then he fell, shrieking, into the gorge.
By God, I swear I didn’t want that to happen, Kuisl thought. But, unfortunately, no one will believe that.
He called down loudly to Simon to run as fast as possible to warn Magdalena, but he had no idea whether the medicus even heard him, or whether he was injured or even dead. Moments before, Simon had shouted something, but since then, Kuisl hadn’t heard a word. But now Kuisl had no time to lose. The archer on the path below was cranking the handle, winding another bolt into his crossbow, which Kuisl figured would take just a few seconds.
Shouting, he hangman leapt from the boulder and charged the three men. They instinctively withdrew, and this short moment gave him enough time to dash off down the path toward the monastery. Another bolt whizzed past his head before he reached a bend in the path and was out of his pursuers’ sight for a moment.
There was no one on the path in front of him, but close behind he could hear the shouts of the three bailiffs. It would be just a matter of seconds before they would appear behind him again.
As he looked around anxiously, he spotted a nearby alder tree, just on the other side of the wall, with a thick bough projecting over the path.
Kuisl sprinted, jumped up, and clutched the branch, which creaked menacingly under the sudden weight. Then he pulled himself up, clenching his teeth, balanced himself on the branch, and ran over the fifteen-foot wall of the monastery. Without looking down, he jumped over the side, his black coat fluttering like the wings of an enormous bat.
And not a moment too soon.
As Kuisl rolled down the embankment wet with dew, he could hear furious shouts from the other side of the wall. Had they seen him jump? He held his breath, but the men kept running, and soon silence returned.
Breathless, the hangman looked around. He was in the monastery cemetery. Graves with wooden and stone crosses dotted the broad grassy area toward the monastery, and in the center was a round well that he remembered from his previous visit-the same one from which they’d fished the burned corpse of the watchmaker two days before.
Crouching over, Kuisl ran along the graves while organ music sounded from the church. Evidently the service of thanksgiving to honor the sacred hosts was underway.
Once more the hangman observed the fresh graves of the two novitiates Coelestin and Vitalis; and not far from there, the mound marking the grave of the third older monk who had died more than a month ago. The footprints had disappeared, but the earth still looked as fresh as if it had been turned over just a few days before. Kuisl thought about the handkerchief with the initials that he and Simon had found next to the grave.
Was it possible a bloodthirsty golem had defiled the corpses here?
He shook his head as he continued past the well and a few more stone crosses, finally arriving at the oldest section of the cemetery. The crosses here were crooked, weathered, and partially covered with ivy. Faded Roman numerals indicated which people had passed away many years ago.
Kuisl remembered Simon’s stories about the destruction of the castle. It wasn’t until two hundred years later that the Augustinians had founded this monastery. Later still came the Benedictines. Some of the graves here must have dated from that period. Or were there perhaps other, even older, graves?
Again his gaze wandered over the cemetery’s crosses and circular well. As so often happened when he was about to come upon some connection, some missing piece of a puzzle, something troubled him. But whatever it was, it was still beyond him, in his subconscious, and had not yet come to the surface.
The graves…
Sighing, he finally gave up. There were too many other things to clear up at present. He could only hope that Simon had managed to escape and warn Magdalena in time. Kuisl absolutely had to speak with the two of them. Perhaps by that time, whatever was rumbling around so deep in his subconscious would come to light. But how could he get in contact with his daughter and son-in-law? He couldn’t go back to the knacker’s house. Surely the two Semers would be lying in wait for him there with a few guards. So where should they meet?