The Poisoned Pilgrim

by Oliver Pötzsch

  The world is so beautiful, he thought. Why are the people in it so cruel? Will they let me go in the end?

  When Johannes heard the dogs barking behind him, he knew it was all over.

  Magdalena crouched on the floor of the filthy provision cellar, watching flies buzz about in the light from a small window. For a while she had paced around, but now she settled down in a corner where she brooded and cursed her husband for getting her into this disastrous situation.

  After Simon had been taken off to see the abbot, a few grim-faced helpers had silently led Magdalena away. Since then, the hangman’s daughter had been awaiting her fate in the cellar of the monastery dairy farm. There was an odor of old cheese and fermented milk in the air, and in one corner, a pile of moldy boards and broken containers made of willow bark. Otherwise the room was empty. A massive wooden door with a heavy sliding bolt was the only way in or out.

  Lost in thought, Magdalena ran her hand through her hair and tried to ignore the strong odor of the old cheese baskets. She couldn’t imagine they would charge her and Simon with the murder of the watchmaker’s assistant just because they’d found the corpses. But she wasn’t entirely sure, either. The way the two monks ran screaming from the scene made it clear to her how inflamed the mood was in the monastery. Magdalena had to admit that all the strange events—the bestial murder of the assistant, the disappearance of his master, and an automaton that had likewise vanished—all this made her also wonder if the devil was at work here.

  She was just about to get up to stretch her legs a bit when she heard steps outside the door. A moment later, the bolt was pushed back, a disheveled Brother Johannes staggered in, and fell lifelessly to the floor.

  “Lots of luck with the bathhouse owner’s woman, you scum,” jeered one of the two men standing outside in the corridor with their muskets. “But leave something for us—don’t eat her up afterward the way you did the watchmaker.” Laughter rang out, then the door closed with a crash.

  For a while, the only sounds were the gasps of the apothecary. Finally, Magdalena bent down to him and touched him gently on the shoulder.

  “How… how are you?” she asked hesitantly. “Do you need…”

  Suddenly Brother Johannes raised his head and stared her in the eye without saying a word. With a muted cry, Magdalena jumped. The monk’s face, already an ugly sight, was beaten black and blue, one eye was swollen shut, and blood dripped from his swollen lips onto the ground. He looked like something resurrected from the Andechs cemetery. He crawled into a corner and held his swollen nose.

  “I’ve… lived through worse things,” he muttered. “And this is nothing compared with what I still have coming. I know what I’m up against.”

  Suspiciously, Magdalena observed the monk doubled up in the corner. Simon had found the apothecary’s eyepiece at the crime site and had witnessed the argument between Johannes and the watchmaker. His entire behavior to that point made him look suspicious. He was no doubt the murderer of two of the men, if not all three. Still, as Magdalena looked at him, beaten and bloody like a wounded animal, a wave of pity came over her. She tore off a part of her skirt and handed it to him.

  “Here, take this, or nobody will be able to see your pretty face again.”

  In the dim light, Johannes’s faint grimace looked like that of a badly stitched puppet. “Thanks,” he murmured. “I know I’m not the handsomest fellow.”

  “It still remains to be seen whether you are also a murderer.” Magdalena moved back to her corner and watched Johannes dab at his face. Flies buzzed around, trying to settle on his bloody lips, and though Johannes chased them away each time, they kept coming back. Magdalena couldn’t help but think of a stoic ox being whipped.

  “You must be the wife of that Schongau bathhouse surgeon,” the monk said after a while. By now he was looking halfway human. “Are you feeling better? Your husband said you were suffering from stomach trouble.”

  Magdalena laughed despairingly. “Thank you for asking, but I think that’s the least of my problems at present.” She sighed. “It looks like we’re in the same boat. We’re suspected in the murder of the watchmaker’s helper.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be released soon.” Johannes said, waving her off. “They want to get me, and no one else.”

  “Why? Are your accusers right?” Magdalena asked in a soft voice. “Are you a warlock and a murderer?”

  The ugly monk looked her up and down. “Do you seriously believe I’d tell you that if I really was?” he said finally. “And if I’m not the murderer but nevertheless have other dark secrets, why should I tell you? Who’s to say you wouldn’t betray me?”

  Shaking her head, Magdalena leaned back against the wall. “Whether I betray you or not makes no difference. No doubt they’ll call the local judge tomorrow, then they’ll take you to the torture chamber in Weilheim. They’ll show you the instruments, and if you still don’t confess, they’ll start breaking your bones.”

  Brother Johannes took a deep breath. Magdalena could see how he was shaking. “It’s astonishing a bathhouse owner’s wife like you knows so much about these things,” he murmured. “It’s almost as if you’d seen a torture once yourself.”

  “But I haven’t. I’ve just listened carefully to what my father has to say.”

  “Your father?” For the first time Johannes appeared really confused.

  “He’s the Schongau executioner, Jakob Kuisl.”

  “Jakob Kuisl?”

  A sudden change came over the Benedictine monk. His face turned ashen, his eyes widened, and he mumbled softly to himself. After a while Magdalena could hear him praying.

  “Oh Dear Lord, I have doubted, pardon me,” he pleaded. “I was a fool, a doubting Thomas. But you sent me a sign, Glory to God in the Highest! This is a miracle, a miracle!”

  He fell on his knees and swayed back and forth, clutching a little wooden cross hanging by a chain from his neck.

  “By all the saints… what… what is wrong with you?” Magdalena asked cautiously. Had pain and fear driven the monk mad? “Is it something I said?”

  Finally Broker Johannes raised his head. “You… you… are an angel,” he began in solemn tones. “An angel passing through on a mission from God.”

  He really has gone mad. Magdalena shuddered. Perhaps I should call the guards before he attacks me?

  She smiled uncertainly. “An… an angel?”

  Brother Johannes nodded eagerly. “An angel sent to me to announce Jakob’s coming.” He looked at her earnestly, and suddenly the maniacal expression vanished from his face.

  “By God,” he whispered. “Your father is the only one who can still save me.”

  Plumes of smoke rose into the sky above Schongau like the shadows of restless spirits.

  As he had the day before, Jakob Kuisl sat beside the moat, looking down into the same green water where just a hundred years ago women who had murdered their children had been drowned. Kuisl liked this lonely place, as people very rarely wandered into it. The moat was regarded as cursed because so many poor souls had met their ends here, and the people of Schongau believed you could hear the dead crying here when the moon was full. Kuisl had never heard anything—on the contrary, the moat was a place of silent tranquility that the hangman missed all too often in town.

  Kuisl needed rest. He wondered what to do about the Berchtholdt brothers. Was it advisable to go to the secretary and tell him about the thefts in the warehouse? At one time, Kuisl wouldn’t have hesitated, but now his two grandchildren were there, and they were in danger. Would the Berchtholdts really attack innocent children?

  No matter how hard Kuisl tried to achieve clarity, his thoughts kept returning to the past. His conversation the day before with his son Georg had awakened memories of the war—the many dead and the battles, but above all the only true friend he’d ever had in his life. Together they’d gone through hell; they’d stood together in the front lines when they were attacked. They’d been almost the same age,
like brothers.

  But above all, they were bound together by a fate that separated them from all others.

  As Kuisl stared into the water mirroring the willows along the bank, he suddenly had the bitter taste of gunpowder in his mouth, and in the distance he imagined he could hear shouting and the clanging armor.

  It was as if he were looking through a tunnel as an indistinct image emerged at the other end.

  Drums beat; flutes play; smoke and the scent of frying mutton are in the air. Eighteen-year-old Jakob wanders from campfire to campfire. As far as he can see, there are colorful tents alongside the dirty canvas-covered wagons belonging to the sutlers—the peddlers, traders, and whores who follow the army. In the foreground are the hastily dug trenches, and in the distance, the city they will storm the next day.

  Will he still be alive tomorrow?

  Jakob has been traveling with the army for five years. The pimply drummer boy has become a broad-shouldered man, a fearsome warrior who always stands in the frontlines with his two-handed sword. The captain awarded him a master’s certificate for the long sword, and his men fear him because they know his sword is thirsty for blood, a magic blade that moans when battle begins.

  A hangman’s sword.

  With the sword strapped to his back, he strides through the camp. The mercenaries who know him step back and cross themselves. The hangman’s son is not a welcome guest here; he is respected but not loved.

  When Jakob senses someone looking at him, he turns around to see the ugliest fellow he’s ever met. With a face swollen like a pig’s bladder, eyes bulging, and mouth crooked, the stranger crouches like a fat toad in front of a campfire. It takes Jakob a moment to realize that the stranger is smiling.

  A fine blade indeed,” says the stranger. His voice sounds soft and intelligent, out of character with his face. “No doubt cost a lot. Or did you steal it?”

  “What business is that of yours?” Jakob grumbles. He is about to turn away when the other reaches behind him to extract his own sword from a pile of rags. A two-hander without a point—almost seven feet long, with a blood groove and short crossguard—it looks remarkably like Jakob’s sword.

  Inherited the sword from my father, who was fetched by the devil,” the ugly stranger says with a grin. “In Reutlingen, where I come from, people say it shouts for blood on execution day. But ever since I was a little kid, I’ve never once heard it shout. It’s only the others who do the shouting.”

  Jakob laughs softly. For the first time in a long while.

  Now the Reutlingers will have to do their dirty work by themselves,” he growls. “Serves ’em right, the fat old moneybags.”

  As the ugly man nods and runs his huge hands over the freshly sharpened blade, Jakob knows he has found a friend for life.

  The Schongau hangman tossed a stone in the moat. As little waves spread in circles, his image in the water dissolved. He stood up and headed for home, his heart pounding.

  It wasn’t good to awaken too many old memories.

  For a long time, Magdalena could only stare at the monk in the Andechs dungeon in disbelief.

  “You… You know my father?” she finally asked.

  Brother Johannes was still kneeling in front of her. Now he crossed himself and struggled to his feet.

  “Let’s say I knew him,” he murmured. “Better than my own brother. But I didn’t know he’d gone back to Schongau and become an executioner again. We’ve not been in touch for more than thirty years.” He laughed and raised his hands to heaven. “It’s a miracle that I’m now meeting his daughter. Perhaps everything will turn out well, after all.”

  Magdalena looked at him skeptically. “Even if you knew him, why should everything turn out for the better now? How could my father help you?”

  “You’re right.” Brother Johannes sighed and crouched down in his corner again.

  “I’ll probably wind up burned at the stake soon, but if anyone could help, it would be your father, believe me. I don’t expect he’s lost any of that quick mind, has he?”

  Magdalena had to smile. “Nothing of his sharp mind or his pig-headedness. Was he always like that?”

  “He was the most pig-headed damn guy in the whole regiment. A great fighter and smart as a whole army of Jesuits.” Johannes grinned, then he began his story: “We had known each other since the battle at Breitenfeld. We were both hangmen’s sons and both running away from our former lives. War is a great equalizer—there’s no better place to start over again. We understood each other from the start.” He laughed, causing his swollen lip to burst open again. Cursing, he wiped the blood from his mouth. “I got a job as a whipping boy and had soon worked my way up to our regiment’s executioner. Your father, despite his dishonorable status, became a sergeant, something very few simple people manage to do. He was so damned clever that he figured out almost every case of theft in his regiment. Every unauthorized raid, every rape.” Johannes’s face darkened. “Then it was my job to string up the poor bastards. I can still see them in my dreams, twitching and thrashing about up in the trees. My God, how I hated that.”

  For a while, the only sounds were the chirping sparrows outside the window.

  “Is that why you became a monk?” Magdalena finally asked. “Because you were no longer able to stomach the killing?”

  Johannes nodded hesitantly. “Jakob… he… could simply handle death better,” he continued in a halting voice. “He’d run away from home, just like me, because he didn’t want to be a hangman, but really he never gave it up.” He raised his hands dismissively. “Not bloodthirsty—not that—but rather an… an… archangel like Michael who came down to earth with his sword to vanquish evil. I couldn’t do it… the constant torturing and killing…”

  The Brother clapped his hands over his face to hide his tears. “Finally, I deserted. Without a word I just left and wandered about for years until I found a place to stay here in Andechs more than ten years ago. My apothecary’s license was forged, but that didn’t bother the abbot at the time. All that mattered to Father Maurus Friesenegger was that I knew about herbs. The new abbot, Maurus Rambeck, also knows about my past. But if the others learn about it… a hangman disguised as a monk and apothecary.” He laughed bitterly. “What does it matter? Nothing matters anymore.”

  Still on his knees, he slid across the floor to Magdalena, who to this point had been listening in silence.

  “Please,” he stammered. “You must tell your father I’m in trouble. He’s my only hope. Tell him… tell him ugly Nepomuk needs his help.”

  “Nepomuk?” Magdalena stopped short. “Is that your real name?”

  “Nepomuk Volkmar. I was baptized with that name.” Groaning, he rose to his feet. “The name is a curse. I renounced it when I took my vows.”

  At that moment, footsteps could be heard again. The door creaked and swung open, and Simon entered. He looked over at Magdalena with concern, but hardly glanced at the monk at her side.

  “I’m sorry it took so long,” he said, shrugging. “But the abbot had a few more questions. Now everything is clear.” He smiled. “We are free to go.”

  “Simon,” Magdalena replied, pointing to Nepomuk Volkmar. “This monk knows my father. He—”

  “That won’t help him now,” Simon interrupted. “The Weilheim executioner is in charge of executions at Andechs, not the one from Schongau.” Whispering, he continued, “Besides, I don’t know what your father could do here except assure a fast, halfway bearable death.”

  “Simon, you don’t understand. Nepomuk was—”

  “What I understand is that you’ve been happily chatting away with a man accused of three murders and the guards outside are already looking at us suspiciously,” Simon hissed. “So let’s get out of here, please, before the abbot changes his mind and locks us up for complicity in this case.”

  Nepomuk Volkmar gave Magdalena a hopeful look. “You will tell your father, won’t you?” he murmured. “You won’t forsake me?”

  “I�
��ll…” Magdalena began as Simon pulled her out the door. The last thing Magdalena saw as the dungeon door closed slowly behind them was the ugly apothecary’s battered, pleading gaze.

  Then the door slammed shut.

  Outside, the sun shone brightly in a blue sky as a few puffy clouds passed overhead, and the world seemed like quite a different place. The sound of singing pilgrims could be heard in the distance and butterflies fluttered over the meadows near the monastery.

  Magdalena sat down on the ruins of a wall and stared at Simon angrily. “You didn’t even let me finish,” she hissed. “Don’t you ever do that again. I’m not one of your former whores. I’m a woman, damn it—don’t you forget it.”

  “Magdalena, it was all for your own good. The guards—”

  “Now just shut your mouth and listen to me,” she interrupted. “That man in there is probably my father’s best friend, and unless a miracle happens, he’ll be tortured as a sorcerer and murderer and burned in short order. Can you imagine what will happen if I don’t tell my father about it? Can you imagine what he’s going to do to you if you stop me?”

  “His best friend?” the medicus asked, surprised. “How do you know that?”

  Briefly, Magdalena told Simon about the monk’s former life, his time as regimental executioner in the war and his friendship with her father. When she had finished, the medicus still looked skeptical.

  “And you believe everything he says? Don’t you think it’s more likely the man is just grasping at straws?”

  “He knew details of my father’s life, Simon. He… he described them better than I could.” Magdalena looked into the distance, where a new storm was approaching over Lake Ammer. “Yes, I believe him.”

  “Very well,” said Simon, softening his tone. “Perhaps he really does know him, but that’s a far cry from saying he’s innocent.” He held his wife firmly by the shoulder. “Magdalena, all the evidence points to his guilt. The eyepiece at the scene, the argument with the watchmaker, his behavior… Didn’t you yourself say he was behaving strangely? Just think of those strange rods he was carrying in the forest. In the council, too, they said he’s engaged in blasphemous experiments.”