The Poisoned Pilgrim

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Simon continued leafing through the book by Girolamo Fracastoro, hoping to learn more about the mysterious illness. The Italian scholar believed that sicknesses were not, as commonly assumed, spread by bad vapors, but through tiny particles in food, in water, and in the air. Could that explain the plague at Andechs?

  As the setting sun cast its last warm rays through the tiny windows of the infirmary, Simon’s growling stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten since that morning. He put aside his dirty work apron, splashed some fresh water on his face, and looked around for Magdalena, who was just giving some syrup to a girl who must have been about six years old in order to bring down her fever. Their own children were playing in a corner with a few nativity figurines that a woodcutter had donated in lieu of money.

  “I’m dying of hunger,” Simon groaned. “Shall we go down to the tavern for a cup of stew and a glass or two of wine? There’s not much to do here anyway. The people will keep coughing and spitting up, whether we’re here or not.”

  Magdalena looked anxiously over at Peter and Paul. “I think I’d rather go back to the knacker’s house with the children,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “The boys have been here with all the sick people for far too long, and they should go to bed soon in any case.” She pointed at Paul, who was rubbing his eyes. “But you go ahead; I’ll be all right.”

  Simon grinned. “Because you’ll be back with your mute helper?”

  “Matthias?” Magdalena shook her head with a laugh. “Don’t worry about that. You may talk too much sometimes, but I could never stand a man who’s silent all the time.” She took the two yawning children in her arms and waved once more to her husband as she left. “But he’s a handsome fellow, Matthias.”

  Before Simon could reply, she had disappeared in the growing darkness. The medicus checked a few patients then headed outside, too, where he was greeted by a warm wind. Again his stomach growled. With pleasant anticipation, he was heading toward the tavern below the monastery when he noticed a figure approaching.

  Much too late he realized it was Karl Semer.

  Damn. I completely forgot about him, Simon thought to himself.

  “Ah, my dear friend, Burgomaster Semer,” he began, as he shrugged apologetically. “I remember… the conversation with the abbot. Unfortunately I haven’t yet—”

  “You can forget it,” Semer interrupted. His malicious smile told Simon he had a rude surprise in store for him. “In the meantime I’ve had a chance to talk with the prior,” Semer continued. “And lo and behold—His Excellency is of exactly the same opinion as I. He sent for the judge in Weilheim this afternoon, and I’m sure the judge will be here tomorrow to give the sorcerer his well-deserved punishment.”

  “But… but…” Simon stammered.

  “The abbot? It wasn’t necessary to ask him.” Semer picked at his teeth lazily, removing a long strand of meat. “Trial or not, Rambeck’s days are numbered,” he continued smugly. “The judge won’t be happy to learn that such foul deeds were kept from him. There will be pressure on the monks, and presumably Rambeck will resign on his own. In any case, the prior seems a worthy successor.”

  Simon bit his lip and stared silently at the burgomaster. He knew as well as Semer did that the judge’s arrival would seal Nepomuk’s fate. There would be torture, a confession, and finally a sentence. There was no way out.

  “I’ll… I’ll write my report to the monastery, as I promised.” Simon tried to sound as confident as possible. “There are still many discrepancies to clear up.”

  “Do that, do that,” Semer replied, “Though I hardly believe the judge will attach much credence to the opinions of a Schongau… bathhouse surgeon.” He screwed up his face into a broad sneer. “But please go ahead and do that. And if you have any thoughts of drawing the trial out, for whatever reason…” Semer shrugged disparagingly. “The apothecary won’t burn before the festival, in any case. The wheels of justice turn too slowly for that, unfortunately. But at least we’ll know then who it was, and peace will once again reign in this monastery. Law and order are a citizen’s first duties, master Fronwieser,” he said, tapping Simon’s chest with his pudgy finger, “and the first rules in doing business, too. And now farewell.”

  Semer turned and headed for the tavern, where presumably his son, and perhaps the Wittelsbach count, as well, awaited him. Despite his corpulence, the burgomaster had a spring in his step now.

  Suddenly the medicus had lost his appetite.

  After darkness descended like a dark shroud over the monastery and quiet finally returned to the little streets, a large figure crept toward the watchmaker’s house. The man wore a monk’s habit and, in his right hand, held a lantern, which he’d covered so only a small slit of light fell on the ground. He looked around one last time in every direction before pressing his fingers carefully against the charred door, which opened with a soft creaking sound.

  The hangman nodded with satisfaction. The monks were so afraid of this supposedly haunted place that they’d apparently made no effort to close up or lock the house pending further investigations. Perhaps, though, this oversight was due to the remarkable events taking place now in the monastery. Kuisl hoped to find something in this house that would bring all these events together—the theft of the hosts, the murders, and the disappearance of the watchmaker and his automaton. Kuisl believed he now knew who’d stolen the relics from the chapel, but the motive was still unclear. Something deep inside him told him the solution was hidden in the watchmaker’s house. It was a strange tickle in his redoubtable nose that always gave him direction when his subconscious mind was a step ahead.

  Now, too, his nose was itching terribly.

  Quietly, the hangman snuck inside the house, moving the lantern shade just enough to cast a faint circle of light around the room. At first glance, everything appeared the same as four days ago when Simon and Magdalena had found the dead watchmaker’s assistant here. Tables and chairs lay on the floor, some of them broken, and shards of broken glass from test tubes and blackened metal parts were strewn around everywhere. The severed doll head stared up at Kuisl from a corner.

  A creaking sound startled the hangman and caused him to look up at the ceiling. Above him, hanging from a string, was the stuffed creature Simon had told him about. For a moment, the hangman and the crocodile eyed each other like two like-minded beings—ugly, mythical creatures that evoked terror in men and inspired grisly stories.

  What did you witness from up there, you silent monster? Kuisl wondered. What in hell happened here?

  He turned the lantern in a circle until he found the burn marks on the door where the young watchmaker’s assistant had met his horrible end. Another large burned area in the middle of the room indicated where the fire had eaten down into the wooden floor, and the boards creaked ominously as the hangman walked across them. Squinting in the dim light, the hangman tried to reconstruct what had happened.

  Someone had poured phosphorus over the poor fellow. He’d run to the door, trying to flee, but then suffered the fatal blow to his head. That’s what must have happened, but where was the automaton, and what had happened to his master? Was he dead?

  Kuisl groped carefully through the dark room, looking for some clue. On the back wall wind blew in through a large, smoke-stained fireplace. To the right of that, Kuisl found another room with a small bed, presumably that of the assistant. And nearby, a stairway led up to the second floor, the watchmaker’s quarters, Kuisl guessed.

  The hangman climbed the narrow, worn steps leading to a corridor with two doors at the end. Behind one was a bedroom with a stool and a chamber pot. The other room was more interesting: it contained several shelves of a well-ordered private library.

  Kuisl whistled softly through his teeth. Though he had an impressive library in his home in Schongau, his were primarily works dealing with the healing arts. The books here seemed to be more of a technical nature.

  The hangman pulled out some of the precious tomes and casua
lly leafed through them. There were works by Greek authors—Heron of Alexandria, Homer, and Aristotle—written on parchment and translated into Latin, but also more recent works by Descartes, Cardano, and a certain Salomon de Caus.

  The works by the latter were especially well thumbed-through, with many passages marked in red. Leafing quickly through the text, Kuisl learned that Salomon de Caus experimented with steam engines and believed that technical apparatuses could be powered in this way. The hangman regretted now that he’d never had a chance to chat with Brother Virgilius, who seemed to be an interesting man.

  Or to have been one, Kuisl thought. Anyone dealing with such heretical knowledge quickly makes enemies in a monastery.

  The hangman thought about this as he placed the book back on the shelf and took the narrow stairway back down to the first floor, unsettled by the feeling he’d overlooked something. Once again he looked around at the destruction in the room—broken chairs, shards of glass, the puppet’s head in the corner, the monster dangling above him and seeming to grin at him…

  What the devil is wrong here?

  The hangman was startled now by the sound of footsteps approaching the house. Quickly he extinguished the lantern and leaned against the wall of the laboratory, completely enveloped in shadow.

  The steps were moving straight toward the door when suddenly they stopped. The stranger seemed to hesitate.

  For God’s sake, what an idiot I am, Kuisl thought. I left the door ajar; it’s half open.

  For a while, there was silence outside; all the hangman could hear was the sound of his own shallow breathing. Then, after a while, he heard the steps receding down the gravel path, moving away from the house faster and faster. Someone was running away.

  The hangman rushed to the door, tore it open, and stared out into the night, but there was nothing there now except a cat that turned and hissed at him from atop a wall. In the darkness he could hear someone running over the compact clay soil. A shadowy figure disappeared around a corner, and then there was nothing but silence.

  With a suppressed curse, Kuisl stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind him, and headed home. How had he been so stupid as to have revealed his presence there? Kuisl was sure someone had the same thought as he had, and intended to look for a clue in the watchmaker’s house. But who? The real sorcerer? A curious monk? A young local lad looking for a thrill? Now Kuisl would probably never find out.

  Grimly he stomped down the dirt path to Erling, while two cold, evil eyes shined eerily in the darkness, watching him leave. Then their owner turned away, too, and vanished into the night.

  9

  ERLING, THE MORNING OF THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1666 AD

  THE COACH FROM Weilheim came sooner than expected.

  Shortly after ten o’clock mass a procession of three coaches came up the valley through Erling. A half dozen soldiers with muskets sat atop the first one, looking down pompously at the villagers. Behind them, drawn by two black stallions, came an imposing, well-sprung enclosed coach escorted by four musketeers on horseback on the left and right. The third coach, however, was a simple oxcart with a solid wooden cage nailed to the top, large enough for a man.

  It was in this cage that the soldiers would escort the sorcerer back to Weilheim.

  “Damn, Simon. You were right,” Kuisl growled, spitting directly at the feet of one of the many spectators nearby. The hangman was still wearing his monk’s robe, and some bystanders couldn’t help but gawk at his great size and sinister appearance. “They’ll make short work of Nepomuk,” he said angrily. “Why didn’t I go to speak with him again?”

  After his expedition the night before, the hangman had spent some time alone in the forest. But this time, for once, no sudden inspiration came to him. Simon finally found him at the crack of dawn, sitting alongside a brook not far from the knacker’s house and smoking his pipe.

  Now the medicus stood beside his father-in-law and Magdalena, trying to get a glimpse into the coach through the gaping crowd. Simon, two heads shorter than Kuisl, had trouble seeing anything at all of the people in the procession. To make matters worse, he was carrying Paul on his shoulders, who kept tugging at his hair. In the meantime, Peter, along with some other boys, was chasing a startled chicken. Only reluctantly did he finally let his mother hold his hand.

  “It looks like the district judge has come personally,” Simon shouted over the voices of those standing around. “Who would ever have expected that?”

  He pointed at the coach, where a pale, plump face with a Van Dyke beard now appeared at the window, waving graciously to the crowd with a wrinkled hand adorned with several glittering golden rings.

  “What a vain dandy,” Simon continued, in a noticeably softer voice. “I once saw the count at a meeting with our secretary. The old man spends the entire year at royal hunting parties. But His Excellency naturally wouldn’t pass up a trial against a sorcerer. People will be talking about it for years to come.”

  In fact, the Count von Cäsana und Colle spent most of his time in Munich, leaving the work in Weilheim to his administrator—a situation the citizens didn’t mind all that much. But today the people of Erling seemed eager for pomp and glory. Rarely did a high-placed nobleman, with his soldiers and retinue, pay a visit to the little town, much less for the purpose of arresting “the warlock of Andechs”—as the former apothecary was now being called.

  “They’ll have a spectacular public festival in Weilheim on the day of the execution,” Magdalena murmured. “So many people.”

  Her father looked disapprovingly at the noisy crowd. He’d never been able to explain why people were so elated at the prospect of someone’s execution—even though this was the way he made a living.

  “Even if the Andechs abbot wanted to, he couldn’t stop the trial,” Kuisl finally growled. “Cases like these fall under the jurisdiction of Weilheim. The most they ever do in Erling is hang a few highway robbers on gallows hill down by Graetz.”

  By now, the procession had almost taken on the character of a festival. Many pilgrims had joined the citizens of Erling in marching behind the three coaches, and the coachmen had trouble making their way through the crowd. One yard at a time the procession made its way up the mountain toward the monastery. Children and barking dogs ran ahead and everyone else pointed at the wooden crate, already imagining the fate that awaited the sorcerer.

  “In Augsburg they once put a sorcerer into boiling water,” an old farmer mumbled in a conspiratorial voice. “He screamed for hours, then cursed to himself as he shot down to hell like a bolt of lightning.”

  “If they confess first, they’re just burned alive,” replied one of the passing servants pompously, as if he witnessed a witch trial every day. “Sometimes the hangman strangles them first or wraps a sack of gunpowder around them, but only if he’s in a good mood.”

  A little old woman giggled. “Then I’d say things really look bad for the warlock of Andechs. The Weilheim hangman is one mean guy, you know. He never in his entire life had a good day. When he’s got someone on the rack, the poor fellow screams so loud you can hear him all the way to the palace in Seefeld.”

  The bystanders laughed while Simon felt sick to his stomach. On several occasions, he’d attended a public execution, most of them carried out by his father-in-law, but the upcoming one promised to be particularly gruesome. The medicus knew that sorcerers and magicians could expect the worst punishment. He’d heard of a case in Munich where the assumed heretic had first been pinched by burning tongs, then put on the wheel, and finally burned at the stake. Magicians were quartered, boiled, buried alive, and in earlier times, even impaled. Evidently, only the complete destruction of their bodies was enough to break their evil spells.

  By now the procession had arrived at the church square. The soldiers jumped down from the coach and cleared a path so the Weilheim judge could make his way into the church without being mobbed. It seemed His Excellency wanted to attend mass before turning to the irksome task of pickin
g up the prisoner. In dignified fashion, though trembling somewhat, the sixty-year-old Count von Cäsana und Colle descended from the coach on a little stepladder, his entire being exuding the power he’d been accruing for decades. His belly, bloated by red meat, beer, and wine, was wrapped in velvet trousers; around his neck he wore a stiff ruffle that made his chin stand out and lent him an imperious look. At the church portal, the old man was received by the considerably younger Wittelsbach Count Wartenberg and the prior. Brother Jeremias bowed and spoke a few words of greeting.

  “Isn’t that actually the job of the abbot?” Magdalena asked. “Where is he, anyhow?”

  Simon frowned. “Apparently the balance of power in the monastery changes faster than you can say a rosary. I’m anxious to find out whether the prior tells the judge about the hosts that have disappeared, or whether he just hopes the thief will be found before the festival. Look over there.” Simon pointed at three monks who exited the church and were bowing one by one before the two counts.

  “Look. It’s the librarian, the novitiate master, and the cellarer,” Magdalena whispered. “Bosom pals. Now the whole council is here except for the abbot. If you ask me,” she continued, “at least one of them has something to hide. They’re all learned people, but evil doesn’t stop at the doorstep to the universities. On the contrary, the more learned they are, the more outrageous their behavior.”

  Suddenly her father seemed to freeze beside her. Then he pounded his forehead with his fist. “What an idiot I am,” he groaned. “Why didn’t I think of that before? I’ve got to get to Nepomuk before it’s too late.”

  “Now?” Simon stared at him, horrified. “But what about the soldiers from Weilheim? No doubt some of them are already down at the dairy. They’ll ask who you are, and then—”