The Dark Monk

by Oliver Pötzsch

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Keep talking. Talk until I drift off into my dreams.”

  He held her in his arms and continued telling her about their new life together. After a while, he could feel that his hand was wet with her tears.

  They set out early the next morning. The sun was shining brightly in a clear blue sky, and even though it was still mid-January, everything had begun to thaw. Water dripped from farmhouse roofs along the way, and they could hear finches and robins chirping in the forests. Simon knew that this taste of spring would probably last only a day, but for that reason he enjoyed holding his face up to the warm sunshine all the more.

  In Schongau people were just coming from Sunday morning mass. They looked suspiciously at the three figures strolling through the market square and whispered among themselves. The son of the town physician together with the Kuisls! The old village women were certain the hangman’s daughter would be the downfall of young Fronwieser. Such a handsome fellow, but the Kuisls had cast their spell on him—that much was clear.

  The three paid no attention to the piercing glances but continued up the Münzgasse to the castle. Jakob Kuisl had insisted that Simon come along with him to pay a visit to the clerk, but he didn’t say why.

  “Don’t always ask. You’ll send me to an early grave with all your questions” was all he said. Then he winked and left Simon to ponder on his own.

  In the clerk’s office on the top floor of the castle, Johann Lechner was sitting, as usual, at his worn, massive, wood table, leafing through some old papers. He looked up in surprise as the three entered the room.

  “If you’re coming to excuse yourself for the botched execution, Kuisl, I’ll have to disappoint you.” He turned back to his documents. “There will be consequences. I’ve heard that the Memming executioner’s second son is looking for a job. Just because your family has been here for generations doesn’t mean that will always be the case.”

  Ignoring the threat, Jakob Kuisl settled comfortably into the easy chair opposite the desk. “There’s no longer a second gang of robbers.”

  “What?” The clerk looked up again.

  “I said there’s no longer a second gang of robbers. I got rid of them all in Steingaden. Only the leader could flee, but I’m sure she won’t show her face around here anytime soon.”

  “But you were alone,” the clerk replied.

  Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “There were only four of them—trained mercenaries, to be sure—but I dispatched them one after the other. The merchants can get back on the road again. There’s no one spying on their routes anymore.”

  “Kuisl, Kuisl…” Johann Lechner grinned and shook his head. “You always have some surprise up your sleeve. Now don’t torment me any longer! What happened? How did the gang go about it?”

  The hangman told him about the woman posing as Benedikta Koppmeyer and how she’d spied on the merchants and wagon drivers. He recounted his fight with the robbers in the Steingaden forest but avoided saying exactly how many robbers there were or what had happened in the playhouse. The clerk listened, spellbound.

  “Indeed,” Lechner said finally. “This woman often sat together with the merchants over there in Semer’s tavern and would sometimes ask about the best routes to take. Who would have believed she was working with the robbers?”

  “And that’s not all,” Jakob Kuisl continued. “That shameless woman and her gang were also trying to steal the sacred remains of two saints in Rottenbuch. First they snooped around the monastery and then started a fight with the monks. One of the bandits almost looked like our young Fronwieser…”

  Simon looked at the hangman in astonishment. What was Jakob Kuisl doing?

  “Like young Fronwieser?” Lechner asked, bewildered.

  “I can swear to it,” Kuisl said. “I almost thought it was Simon myself. The problem is that the Rottenbuchers believe our medicus had something to do with it, and they want to draw, quarter, and burn him—the sooner, the better.”

  Johann Lechner laughed. “Simon Fronwieser a defiler of holy relics? The only thing he defiles are the young maidens in town.” He laughed and shook his head. “What a crazy idea. I’ll send the Rottenbuch superintendent a letter telling him there must be some mistake. That should take care of the matter.”

  Reaching for some parchment and his quill, he began to write a short note. Simon smiled furtively at the hangman. Once more, Jakob Kuisl had gotten him out of a jam.

  “Thank you, Your Excellency,” Simon said, bowing slightly in the clerk’s direction. “Such a regrettable misunderstanding. I don’t know myself how—”

  “All right, all right,” the clerk interrupted. “Express your thanks in deeds. We need our physician, after all, to take care of this dreadful fever, don’t we? Since you left, three more people have died. You’re not on very good terms with your father, to put it mildly.”

  Simon blushed, remembering that he’d visited neither his father nor little Clara since his arrival.

  “You’re right,” he replied in a subdued tone. “I really ought to get right back to work.” He said a hasty good-bye and rushed back to the Schreevogl house on the market square. In this miserable search for the Templars’ treasure, he had completely forgotten about the terrible illness still raging in Schongau. So many people had died while he was out chasing a fantasy. For a while, he’d even forgotten Clara!

  After he had knocked a few times at the patrician’s house, Maria Schreevogl opened the door. Her face was pale and she held a rosary in her scrawny fingers. “It’s good you’re here again,” she whispered. “Our Clara is worse again. She hasn’t awakened since yesterday, drinks nothing, and is coughing up red mucus. May God have mercy on her! My husband is upstairs with her now. Ave Maria, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women…”

  Without paying any further heed to her prayers, Simon hurried up the stairs and knelt alongside the bed, where Jakob Schreevogl was holding the feverish hand of his stepdaughter. The alderman looked up briefly, then continued wiping the perspiration from Clara’s forehead. The girl’s breathing was shallow and irregular, like a little bird’s, and interrupted occasionally by a dry rattling sound from her mouth.

  The physician realized at once that Clara didn’t have long to live if her condition didn’t quickly improve. In recent days, he’d seen the same symptoms in Schongau over and over. Once the patient started spitting blood, it wasn’t long till the trumpets of heaven would be sounding.

  “I hope your trip was successful,” Jakob Schreevogl said softly, without turning his eyes from Clara, “even though all the gold in the world means nothing to me now. Clara is so precious to us, and if she dies, a part of me goes with her…”

  Simon shook his head. “Our search was a failure. But that’s of no importance anymore. The only important thing is that your daughter gets better. No Templars’ treasure can restore her health, and it appears that I can’t, either. Only God can do that.”

  “God!” The patrician closed his eyes. “You sound like my wife! We always depend on God, and then God abandons us! Is there no medicine—perhaps something that hasn’t been tried yet—that can save my Clara?”

  “I don’t know of any.” Simon stood up. “Jesuit’s powder might help, but I don’t have any left, and it will be April before the merchant makes his way over the mountain passes from Venice. Perhaps there’s something in Augsburg…” Suddenly, a thought came to him, and he hesitated.

  Jesuit’s powder.

  Didn’t the hangman say that Magdalena had gone to Augsburg to get herbs and medicine? How could he have forgotten? Perhaps some of the medicines she brought back could help him now!

  “Excuse me,” Simon said, standing up from Clara’s bedside. “But I have to check. Perhaps there’s something that can help your daughter, after all.”

  Jakob Schreevogl looked at him hopefully. “Then run! Every moment is precious.”

  Simon ran back to the market square, where he bumped i
nto Magdalena, who had paid the blacksmith a visit after the meeting with Johann Lechner. Their grumpy old Walli urgently needed new horseshoes after Simon’s escapades.

  “Magdalena,” he gasped. “The medicine you were supposed to pick up in Augsburg…Do you still have it?”

  The hangman’s daughter looked surprised. “Of course, I even have it with me, but—”

  “Then let’s hurry back to my house,” he cried, turning to leave. “I want to have a look and see if there’s anything there for a fever.”

  “Simon, wait, I…”

  But the physician had already run off down the Weingasse to his father’s house. Clara needed help—at once! Any delay could mean her death. His inability to heal his patients from the fever, plus his guilty conscience at not having been there to help in recent days, came into focus on this one little person. It seemed to him that if he failed Clara, he would never become a doctor worthy of the name. He would be like…

  His father?

  Bonifaz Fronwieser tore open the front door even before Simon reached it.

  “Aha, my noble son back from the country?” he snarled. “People are dying on me like flies while you’ve been away, touring the local monasteries with beautiful ladies.”

  Simon opened his mouth to speak, but his father wouldn’t be interrupted.

  “Don’t lie to me! This sort of thing gets around fast in a little place like Schongau. First, there was that dissolute hangman’s girl, and then some flighty tramp from Landsberg. You are bringing shame to me and the Fronwieser name!”

  Suddenly, Magdalena appeared behind Simon, gasping for air. “Simon, I must tell you something—” she whispered.

  But Bonifaz Fronwieser launched right back into his tirade. “And here she is! Speak of the devil! Stop following my son around, do you hear? Right away! We are decent people and want nothing to do with you hangman riffraff.”

  “Oh, come on, Father, just shut your goddamned mouth!” Simon blurted out. “I can’t stand your yammering anymore, you old quack!”

  Even as he spoke, Simon was startled by his own words. He’d gone too far this time. Bonifaz Fronwieser was stunned as well. Blanching, his mouth fell open. In the houses nearby, people were peering out from behind their shutters. Finally, the gaunt old man pulled himself together, buttoned his coat in silence, then made his way out toward the market square.

  Simon knew that his father was no doubt heading to one of the taverns to wash down his anger with a mug of beer. The young physician shook his head as he entered the house. He would never be able to make his father happy, not as a son, and certainly not as a doctor! But that was of no importance now. He had to help Clara—that was all that mattered.

  “Quick, Magdalena! Show me what you brought!” Simon hurried toward the living room window, where a big worn table covered with all sorts of mortars and pestles doubled as a pharmacist’s workbench. “Maybe there’s something here we can use. Do you have Jesuit’s powder? Tell me you have it.”

  Without saying a word, Magdalena pulled the little linen bag from her jacket and emptied the contents on the table.

  Simon studied the damp, whitish-green clump tied together with a string. In addition to the aromas the various herbs gave off, they smelled of decay.

  “What…is this?” Simon asked, horrified.

  “The herbs I brought with me from Augsburg,” Magdalena replied. “Ergot, artemisia, daphne…I also took a few other herbs, but I don’t know what they are, except that they’re all moldy! I’ve been carrying them under my jacket far too long. I kept trying to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen!”

  Simon stared mutely at the moldy pile on the table in front of him. The herbs from Augsburg had been his last hope. “It’s…all right, Magdalena,” he finally said. “At least we tried.”

  He was about to sweep the damp herbs off the table and onto the floor, when he stopped. He couldn’t disappoint Jakob Schreevogl! Simon had seen the spark of hope in the patrician’s eyes when Simon spoke of a possible cure. If he went back empty-handed now, the Schreevogls would die of grief even before their stepchild. Experience had taught Simon how important it was for sick people and their families to believe in a cure. Faith was sometimes the best medicine.

  Often the only one, Simon thought.

  And so the physician tossed the moldy seeds into a mortar and ground them into a fine powder.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Magdalena asked. “The herbs are spoiled! They can’t do anyone any good now!”

  “Clara needs medicine,” the physician murmured, laboriously grinding the seeds with the pestle. “The rest is out of my hands.”

  After a while, Simon added honey and yeast to the ground herbs and rolled the mix into little pills that he dried in a small pan over the fire as Magdalena watched, frowning. Finally, the physician placed the medicine in a box of polished cherrywood embossed with an alchemist’s symbol. He closed the little box and said a quiet prayer as he passed his finger over it.

  “After all, our medicine has to look impressive, too,” Simon said with a sad smile, as if he’d already been caught in this little deception. “Otherwise, it won’t work.”

  Magdalena shook her head. “Medicine from moldy herbs! Who ever heard of anything like that? Just don’t let my father hear of it.” Then she suddenly kissed him on the cheek. “And don’t let your father know about this, either.”

  A warm feeling passed through him from deep inside, extending right out to the roots of his hair. He would love this woman forever, no matter what their two fathers and all the people in Schongau thought of it! Tenderly, he passed his hand through her hair and pulled her to him. She smelled of sweat and ash.

  But Magdalena pushed him away. “I don’t believe our beloved physician has time for that sort of thing now.” She broke into a broad smile. “But he can come to my window and visit me tonight…”

  Simon sighed and nodded with resignation. One last time, he passed his hand through Magdalena’s hair, then stuffed the cherrywood box in his coat pocket and headed straight for the Schreevogls, who were anxiously awaiting his return.

  “My husband already told me about your miracle drug!” exclaimed Maria Schreevogl, standing at the door with the rosary still in her hand. “Praise be to God! Perhaps there is hope, after all!”

  “I can’t promise you it will work,” Simon protested. “It’s a…new, very costly medicine from China. The doctors there are very knowledgeable. They call it…uh…mold that grows on herbs.”

  “Mold that grows on herbs?” The patrician woman looked at him, confused.

  “I myself prefer the term fungus herbarum,” Simon quickly added.

  Maria Schreevogl nodded. “I like that better. It sounds more like medicine.”

  Taking several steps at a time, the physician hurried to the top floor. In Clara’s room, Jakob Schreevogl was still kneeling by the bed, just as Simon had left him, his face almost as gray and haggard as his stepdaughter’s.

  “Do you have the medicine?” the alderman asked softly.

  Simon nodded, carefully opening the little box and placing three little pills in Clara’s mouth. Her lips were narrow and hard as leather, and her mouth was dry. Then he gave her something to drink from a cup and tenderly passed his hand over her sweaty brow.

  “There’s nothing more I can do,” he whispered.

  Jakob Schreevogl nodded humbly and closed his eyes. It seemed to Simon that the alderman had aged years in the last few hours. Fine gray strands appeared in his otherwise blond hair and wrinkles framed his narrow lips.

  Suddenly the physician fell to his knees alongside the patrician and folded his hands. “Let us pray,” he said softly.

  First haltingly, then in firmer voices as the words came back to them, they murmured the words of consolation they had both learned as children.

  “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters…”

  It was t
he first time Simon had prayed in a long time. He’d never been an especially devout person, but he was suddenly seized by a longing—something in him wanted to believe. God had allowed so many terrible things to happen, and the horror had to end sometime!

  O, God, if you really exist, help this poor little girl…If you let her live, I will make a pilgrimage to the black madonna in Altötting, barefoot, in the winter!

  After a while, when the physician looked up at Clara again, he thought he saw a slight smile on her lips. Her breathing seemed easier and regular, and her eyelids were no longer fluttering. He stopped praying, leaned over the bed, and felt her pulse.

  It was quiet and slow, just like that of a healthy sleeping girl.

  This isn’t possible…is it?

  Only now did Simon notice an object on the bare wall in front of him—an object so ordinary it hadn’t attracted his attention until now, almost as if it hadn’t been there before.

  Over Clara’s bed hung a plain, small wooden cross.

  EPILOGUE

  IT WAS THE second of February in the year 1660. The bells of the Altenstadt basilica resounded through the countryside around Schongau as people streamed into the large church to celebrate Candlemas. In the Schongau market square, booths had already been set up with fat sausages frying over charcoal fires, roasting chestnuts, and long white candles awaiting consecration. Even a group of acrobats from Munich was on hand.

  According to tradition, Candlemas signaled the end of winter, and people came from miles around to celebrate mass in the largest church in the area. Even though it was bitter cold in the basilica, the people in their Sunday best—clean, colorful clothes—looked happier and more lighthearted than they were just a few days ago.

  This was, to a large extent, because the dreaded fever that had been plaguing the town for so long finally seemed to have passed. On every street corner, people were talking about the young Schongau physician and his miracle drug, fungus herbarum—or as some said in an undertone, the China Mold. The physician gave all his patients the little round pills from that distant land, and in a short time they’d all recovered! Since then, people doffed their hats and greeted Fronwieser’s son with respect on the street. Only a few still grumbled about his love affair with the hangman’s daughter down in the Tanners’ Quarter. Indeed, some aldermen even wondered whether Fronwieser might be a good match for their young daughters, now that he seemed prepared to follow in the footsteps of his father and would surely become a rich and respected doctor. He looked impressive in his tailored jackets from Augsburg and with his perfectly trimmed Vandyke beard. One could learn to overlook his small stature and lower-class origins…