Read Online The Dark Monk by Oliver Pötzsch, Lee Chadeayne - Free Book Online

Would you care for some more coffee?”
    Simon stood up and grabbed Jakob Schreevogl’s hand. “Thank you, but I think I have to go and see my father. There are a few tedious treatments to perform—coughs, fevers, bloodletting, just the usual. But you have helped me a great deal.” He hesitated for a moment. “Could I ask for one more favor?”
    The patrician nodded. “Yes, what is it?”
    Simon pointed to the little leather-bound book on the side table. “This book about the Templars. Could I borrow it?”
    “Of course. But be careful, it’s very valuable.”
    Simon took the book and hastened toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped again briefly and turned around. “There’s another quote I can’t make sense of. It concerns two witnesses and a beast that does battle with them and finally kills them. Have you by chance ever heard of that?”
    The patrician thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It rings a bell somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it is. I’m sorry. Perhaps I’ll think of it later.” He looked at the medicus skeptically. “Simon, you’re not rushing headlong into another adventure with the hangman, are you? For heaven’s sake, be careful!”
    Simon grinned. “I’ll try. But do let me know if you remember.”
    He bowed briefly, then ran down the staircase with the book in hand. The patrician stood at the window upstairs and watched Simon vanish into the snowstorm swirling through the market square of Schongau.
    The stonemason Peter Baumgartner was standing half naked, his muscular body stripped to the waist, in the middle of the hangman’s living room. He was so terrified that he almost pissed in his pants. Despite the icy wind that whistled around the pig bladders stretched out and nailed over the windows, sweat was running down his face. He kept asking himself whether he shouldn’t have forked out a few kreuzers more and gone to the medicus rather than the hangman. Or perhaps he shouldn’t have gone to either. Yes, that was it exactly; instead, he should have stayed at home, washed the pain down with an Ave Maria and a glass of brandy, and then hoped that, with God’s help, his shoulder would heal by itself. But now it was too late.
    All sorts of tools lay on the table in front of him, and he couldn’t say if they were intended as instruments of torture or medical devices: long pincers, presumably for prying out teeth; sharp, brightly polished knives in all sizes and shapes; and a small handsaw with a few rust-colored spots—spots of dried blood, no doubt, Peter Baumgartner thought.
    What terrified Baumgartner most, however, was the gigantic figure of the Schongau hangman standing directly before him. His huge hands were immersed in a pot of white, greasy paste, which he was smearing slowly and methodically over him.
    “Is that…human fat?” the mason gasped. Even though Baumgartner tried hard to hide his fear, he couldn’t prevent his voice from trembling slightly. He knew that the Schongau executioner neatly flayed the corpses of the people he executed and scratched the fat off their skin. From that he made a paste that was supposed to work wonders. Baumgartner wanted very much to believe in miracles, but the thought of being rubbed down with the slimy remains of a criminal made him nauseous.
    “You stupid bastard, do you think I’d waste my good human fat on somebody like you?” Kuisl grumbled, without looking up. “This is bear fat mixed with arnica, chamomile, and a few herbs you’ve never heard of. And now come here, it’s going to hurt a bit.”
    “Kuisl, stop…I think I’d rather go to old Fronwieser…” the mason mumbled when he saw two huge dinner-plate sized hands in front of him dripping with fat.
    “And let him charge you two guilders so that you’ll never be able to move your arm again. Don’t put up such a fuss, just come here.”
    Baumgartner sighed. He had fallen from the scaffolding in the St. Lawrence Church a week