by G. M. Dyrek
“Do you know the name of his dueling companion?” the Magistrate asked. His brows were knitted intently after instructing his men to lay the two soldiers out on the stone slabs in Paulus’s laboratory.
“His name is Ulrich, and he too belonged to the secret order of the Knight’s Hospitaller of Saint John. Both were paying guests here at Disibodenberg.” Paulus decided to leave Sophie’s ordeal out of the discussion for the time being. She had been through enough torment for a while, and even if she could be awakened, he knew she would be in no condition to answer questions. “Ulrich has, in my opinion, the temperament of a python, docile and placid until he feels in danger. Then he will strike with a vengeance. As you know, despite an owner’s affection, snakes will not build a relationship with people. These two had been on the road for years, and you see what Ulrich has done to his friend.”
Volmar bent over Donato’s corpse for another moment, seeing the same clean, expert wound as Atif’s in this man’s heart. “He tried to warn me, but I didn’t really listen.” He backed off. It was hard to believe that all this had happened within the past two days. “Three deaths,” he whispered in disbelief, “a devil’s triangle. Father,” Volmar said, lightly touching the Abbot’s shoulder. Abbot Burchard jerked from the touch but instantly relaxed upon seeing Brother Volmar. “Father, could I have a moment with you? I must speak with you—it is urgent.”
Volmar took the Abbot’s arm and led him to the common room by the roaring fire, well out of hearing range. He gave the details of what he observed and overheard while hiding in the secret chamber, and then he paused. “Father, there is more, but I must beg your forgiveness first before I reveal how I found out.”
“Brother Volmar, please tell me that you have not engaged in wrongful acts trying to unravel this murder.” His voice was both sharp and protective.
“I have not; but you see, Sister Hildegard . . .” Volmar began.
“Oh dear, what is it with you two and having to abide by the dictates of the church’s rules? Is the Holy Relic safe?”
“It is, Father. But Sister Hildegard is the one who has been visiting the Infirmary late at night.”
“Go on, I am listening,” the Abbot said sternly, focusing on the crown of thorns carved on his Savior’s head on the crucifix which hung around his neck.
“Sister Jutta endangered her health so much that she required immediate medical attention. Sister Hildegard disguised herself as a monk and went between Compline and Matins to find the herbs she needed to concoct the healing remedies which have strengthened and returned a modicum of health to our Anchoress.”
“I see. To her credit, she is a young woman of action. So, last night on one of her Infirmary pilgrimages, she must have seen something, for it is between those hours when the Magistrate feels the hanging took place.”
“She actually saw very little, but she overheard a great deal. She was hiding in very close proximity to the stable doors, so she was able to eavesdrop on the conversation between Matthias and the man whom we suspect to be Ulrich.” Volmar went on and explained the link between Brother Gerard’s desire to retrieve the Spear of Longinus and his plan to move the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John from Palestine to the island of Malta. Abbot Burchard listened intently. Volmar also told of the chance meeting he’d overheard in the sanctuary between Ulrich and Brother Rudegerus, and the fact that Rudegerus’s life was in considerable danger because he did not possess the Holy Relic.
“You are right, it doesn’t bode well for our own misguided brother.” The Abbot rubbed his brow. “He is acting stranger than usual out of guilt, I am sure of it; but guilt over what exactly?”
“I do not know. Ulrich must have been sorely upset when he did not find the Holy Relic on Matthias’s person and now feels that Rudegerus knows something of its whereabouts, which we know is not true.”
“Nevertheless, Volmar, Rudegerus’s life has been threatened, and we must do everything in our power to protect him.”
“I know. That’s why I’ve come up with a plan,” Volmar continued, explaining how he was going to entrap the murderer.
The Abbot nodded a firm assent. “I’ll explain it all to the Magistrate, and we will be there at the well at Prime. Go with my blessing, my son. But be careful, we are dealing with a man who would think nothing of taking a human life to satisfy his own personal greed.”
The Magistrate eyed the two suspiciously as he approached and cleared his voice loudly. “More revelations?” he asked, studying Volmar’s features, as if looking for answers to a much deeper, more inscrutable question.
This was the first time Volmar had been so close to the Magistrate. Before, his encounters were always perfunctory. He would simply bow politely and leave the Abbot to discuss important matters without listening ears or recorded words. Yet for some reason, right now, Volmar felt exposed in this man’s gaze. It was a feeling he’d never experienced before. What did the Magistrate know that he did not? It was as if a part of his soul were under this man’s thumb. “He knows of my past,” Volmar thought suddenly. “He already knows of my father’s connections with the Knights Hospitaller and his evil deeds in Jerusalem. Could I have such wicked yearnings in my own soul that he is cautioning me with his gaze to keep them under control?”
Instinctively, Volmar stepped back into the shadows and gave the Magistrate a wider berth. He was thankful for the Abbot’s protective wing and wondered how long he could hide beneath it.
“Come, Wolfe, my friend.” Abbot Burchard turned to the Magistrate. “There have been further developments. We must discuss them in private over a light meal.” The Abbot squeezed Volmar’s shoulder, before taking the arm of the Magistrate and leading him and his entourage back towards his private chambers. Many already were murmuring to themselves, speculating as to what the new developments could possibly be.
CHAPTER 4: RESURGENCE OF GRIEF
Infirmary at Disibodenberg Monastery
6th of November, After Lauds
Isabella heard nothing of the conversations of murder swarming around her. Nor had she truly acknowledged the two dead bodies that had moments earlier been carried through the common room to Paulus’s laboratory. Her consciousness still slept deep within her wakened self, and yet it had a desire, a restless yearning, for change. She rose quietly and slipped her skirt on over her tunic.
In the pallet next to hers, an elderly woman murmured darkly to her in a heavy Celtic accent. “In my country on a night like this, banshees92 will come howling up our mountain at the smell of a dead soul. Listen,” she paused, “do you hear them singing?” She inclined her head to the window. “If you want my advice, I’d stay close and not wander off. Those banshees will surely try to use their feminine wiles to trick those poor men’s Heaven-bound spirits into taking the Devil’s own road to Hell!”
“Shush, mother,” the elder woman’s daughter said, yawning and stretching. We’re guests in this monastery; such pagan beliefs are not permitted.” The daughter gave Isabella a weak smile. “Surely, the worst of the storm has passed.”
The old woman snorted at her daughter’s discomfort. She lay back, folding her arms to make a pillow for her head. Slowly a smug look of satisfaction spread across her face. “I told you I saw that man’s death in the fire last night and said there would be more murders. Mark my words. Death is not finished here.”
“Please forgive her,” the daughter said regretfully. “She’s always had these strange nightmare sights; frightening visions whenever she stares too long at any fire.”
Isabella nodded as if she understood and went over to wash her hands and face in the rose water kept in a wooden trencher on the stool beneath the clothes pegs. Curiously, she studied the dressing Brother Paulus had wound around her forearm earlier yesterday afternoon, completely oblivious as to how it got there or why. She knotted her long red hair and slipped on her shoes. “No matter,” she reasoned stolidly, “it is time to go.” Time, she knew, was like a river and no one can stand still against it
s current. She reached for the jar of worms, knowing she could brave any winter storm to find a home for her children.
Isabella turned her thoughts away from the throbbing pain in her arm. In her mind, all else had been silenced in order to listen for the cries of her children. No one interrupted her movements or even saw as she passed by, their huddled voices low behind the screens in anxious whispers or prayers. Isabella slid a latch on a plank door leading to the common corridor between the two halls of the Infirmary and shouldered it open. It swung heavily and not smoothly. She searched the corridor and saw the door to Brother Paulus’s laboratory had been left ajar.
Isabella entered the Infirmarian’s laboratory with a single thought once she had taken in the two dead bodies stretched out on the slab: Here was a place where the division between God and man was less distinct, and only here would her children be happy.
“There, there, my dears,” she said, puckering her lips and cooing softly at the jar of worms. “You’ll rest soon.”
She went to the body of the man with a deep gash on his calf. In a flash of insight she knew she’d found a better home for her children.
She turned over the jar above the gaping wound. The worms squirmed around for only a moment and then went deathly pale and stiff. Isabella reacted to this in slow motion, finding for a second it was almost as if she couldn’t feel she was there. It was as if the cumulative effects of so much pain had shocked her into an emotional numbness. When she could feel again, it gave her such a resurgence of grief, she collapsed to the floor. The lantern she held tipped to one side, sending the candle inside tumbling with her to the floor. Its darting flames singed and started to burn the folds of the linen cloth draped at the dead man’s feet. When she started screaming, she stretched her arms out above her head, trying to claw down God in all His power from the heavens themselves.
This was how the men found her, screeching piteously, surrounded by a ring of fire. The men crowded through the entrance, falling over each other as they rushed to put out the flames. Thankfully, parts of the linen cloth were still damp from the falling snow, and the heavy wet cloth suffocated its own flames.
Sophie breathed smoke in the cold air as she leaned in closer over Isabella, cradling the grown woman in her arms like a baby. Sophie’s own eyes had grits of sand in them and her mouth was sour from her heavy sleep. She did not understand Isabella’s words but felt their meaning nevertheless.
Brother Paulus’s massive stature commanded order even before any words were spoken. He covered his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his cassock and went to open the window—a blast of cold air filled the room and began to lift the choking smoke. Paulus thanked the men for putting out the flames and advised them to step outside a while to breathe in fresh air and clear their lungs. Fortunately, the flames had been put out before they had caused much damage to his beloved laboratory.
When the last of the men left, Paulus bent over and saw Isabella’s jar lying empty and overturned on the floor below Matthias’s untouched body. Only then did he fully understand what had transpired: Her worm children lay white and rigid in the open cut on Matthias’s calf. Here was all the proof he needed to verify what had killed the knight and what could have just as easily killed him.
CHAPTER 5: ADDRESSING DEATH
Stables at Disibodenberg Monastery
6th of November, After Lauds
Volmar waited until the last of the onlookers left the stables. He then slipped unnoticed into the tack room just off of the stall where the horses had been the day before. His idea was simple. If he could find a suitable spearhead to substitute for the real Holy Relic, he could slip it into the well’s bucket. Then when the bells chimed for prayers at Prime and Ulrich came to pick it up, the Lord Magistrate and his men would be there waiting in the woods to arrest him.
Volmar held his torch high, scanning the open shelves, knowing there would be no chance of finding any weapons amongst Brother Hugo’s tools and harnesses. However, there was one tool in particular, he remembered, one he had used many times to turn over the compost as a stable boy years ago. When altered, he figured it could pass convincingly for a thousand-year-old spearhead.
There were the usual tack supplies such as saddles, bridles, reins, and halters. “Now where’s that spade?” he muttered, opening and peering into cupboards and drawers. The hook where it usually hung was empty. It was in no way sharp enough to be a spearhead, but a thousand years would take the edge off of most weapons, he imagined. Finally when Volmar looked under the work bench behind the table, he found the gardening spade sitting upright in a bucket with the rake. He turned it over in his hand. It was so unlike Brother Hugo to leave his tools unwashed and not put away properly. He wondered who had been there using it and for what reason. And why hadn’t it been put back where it belonged?
Volmar prayed under his breath, “Forgive me, Brother Hugo,” before twisting loose the spade’s small wooden handle. With a few more turns the handle fell away from the iron-forged blade. He reached for a clean leather polishing cloth and thought after carefully wrapping it that he had a convincing-enough relic to carry through with his plan.
The well was situated less than thirty paces beyond the compost pile out back. It was comfortably centered between the kitchen gardens and the stables. With his torch in hand and his hoax under wraps, he quietly exited the stables. The cobbled path had several inches of newly fallen snow. As Brother Hugo’s stable assistant, Volmar remembered taking many trips down this very path, carrying heavy buckets full of well water for the trough or picking up rotten apples that fell from the trees of the orchard to feed the pigs. The clearing provided a serene setting for the stone well. He entered it, envisioning how the arrest would take place. In less than two hours, he reckoned, dropping the fake relic into the old bucket, the well would not be granting this murderer’s secret wish.
Volmar stood back and stared at the well, his mind drifting back to the scene in the sanctuary. In his opinion, Rudegerus had behaved in a cowardly way towards Ulrich’s threat. Surely he could have reasoned with the hooded hunchback and told him that he had no idea where the real Holy Relic was. Volmar couldn’t understand why Rudegerus had given up so easily and lay sniveling like a bewildered child on the stone floor before the altar.
Snowdrifts surrounded him. Returning to the stables the way he had come, Volmar trudged back past the compost pile. His torch’s light bounced off of something silvery partially buried in the compost heap. He broke off a twig from a nearby tree and used it to unearth the shiny silver object. Curiously, a handful of peach pits rolled away from it. Volmar caught a strong whiff of almonds. As soon as he cleared the dirt from the silvery object, he knew at once what it was. A silver claw-spur from a fighting cock! He remembered Sophie’s warning about a rooster. He turned it over with his stick. Again a musty smell of bitter almonds seemed to be coming directly from it. Volmar thought back to what Brother Paulus had said and backed away, thankful he had used a stick to unearth the silver spur. So, he reasoned, Matthias’s murderer was indeed not human. Hildegard had been right! Matthias had been fatally wounded by a cyanide-dipped claw on a fighting cock! What mind could conceive of such horror?
He tripped over what appeared to be a gray stone and fell backwards. He froze. There, lying off to the side of the compost heap was Samson. A dusting of snow lightly covered his furry body. Volmar sank the torch upright into the compost heap before lifting his cat. Instead of Samson’s welcoming warmth, he felt a cold stiffness; a stiffness that told him the cat was already dead and had been for a while. “Samson,” he murmured, burying his face into his cat’s strange smelling fur. “My little friend.” His face quivered and melted suddenly. Tears fell, dampening his cheeks.
His breathing increased almost to the point of panting. Just as swiftly, an overwhelming dizziness came over him. Volmar touched his head. His eyes started to itch and burn. He felt weak, intensely weak, as if his insides were rebelling against all their usual actions and had de
cided to retreat from duty. He coughed. Fear suddenly enveloped him. In his grief he had failed to register that Samson smelled of bitter almonds. His cat had been poisoned, and now so was he! He rose, stumbling away from Samson’s tainted body and the compost pile.
There was a rustle, followed by the sound twigs make when they’re snapped. Out from the cover of a large tree, Michael and his younger brother Gabriel emerged. “So sorry to disturb you brother, but are you all right, sir?”
Volmar raised his horror-stricken face and tried to say something. His throat ached. He shook his head instead before collapsing into the snow bank.
“Go find Brother Johannes, and hurry!” Michael instructed his brother with authority. The older boy bent down and turned Volmar over, cradling the young monk’s head in his lap. He loosened Volmar’s collar and cleared the hair from his eyes. Volmar’s eyelids fluttered. Instinctively, the boy started talking to Volmar, somehow knowing that he shouldn’t fall asleep. “Help is on its way. Gabe’s quick. He even runs in his sleep, he does. At night I hear him panting and sweating. In the morning he remembers nothing, which is probably a good thing.”
The boy heard the Iron Gate creak open in the distance. “Brother Johannes will know what to do. Come on, wake up, brother,” he said, gently nudging Volmar.
Volmar inclined his head, but kept his eyes shut. He heard the boy but, only as if he was speaking to him through water.
“Wake up!” Michael said, fierce with determination, this time slapping Volmar’s cheek. He rocked back and forth erratically with no rhythm. “Do you hear me?” he said, loudly addressing Death in the eerie silence of the orchard surrounding him and added with a roar, “Stay away!”
