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

ago, and since then his shoulder had been discolored with bruises. The pain throbbed all the way down to his right hand so that he could no longer even hold a spoon. He had hesitated for a long time before going to the hangman, but in the meantime, he worried that he might never be able to use his right arm again. So he had scraped together some money he had saved and set out at noon for Schongau. Jakob Kuisl was famous far and wide as a healer. Like all executioners, Kuisl earned his money less through executions and tortures, of which there were just a handful at most during the year, than through healing and the sale of salves, pills, and ointments. He would also sell you a piece of the hangman’s rope or a thief’s thumb. A mummified finger in your money pouch was supposed to protect you from thieves, but naturally only when you sprinkled the purse with holy water every day and firmly believed in it. Jakob Kuisl didn’t believe in it, but he earned good money from it anyway.
    Like many other patients before him in the hangman’s house, Peter Baumgartner was torn between fear and hope. It was generally known that most people left Kuisl’s house no worse off than before, at least, and in many cases even better—something you couldn’t always say of doctors with university training. On the other hand, Jakob Kuisl was the Schongau hangman. A mere glance from him brought misfortune, and speaking with him was a sin. If Baumgartner confessed to this visit the next time he went to church, he would surely have to say a hundred Lord’s Prayers as penance.
    “Come here, damn it, or I’ll dislocate your other shoulder, too.”
    Jakob Kuisl, his hands smeared with fat, was still standing in front of the burly mason. Baumgartner nodded in resignation, made the sign of the cross, and then stepped forward. The hangman turned him around, carefully palpated the swollen shoulder, then suddenly seized Baumgartner’s right arm and yanked it back and down. There was a loud cracking sound.
    The scream could be heard all the way up in the marketplace.
    Baumgartner collapsed onto the stool by the table and nearly passed out. He was about to throw up and let out a stream of curses when he cast a glance down at his right hand.
    He could move it again!
    The pain in his shoulder seemed better, too. Jakob Kuisl handed him a wooden box.
    “Tell your wife to massage your shoulder with this three times a day for a week. In two weeks you’ll be able to go back to work again. You owe me a guilder.”
    Baumgartner’s joy at being relieved of his pain was short-lived.
    “A guilder?” he gasped. “Damn, not even old Fronwieser asks that much. And he has studied at the university.”
    “No, he’ll bleed you, send you home, and three weeks later, saw off your whole arm for three guilders. That’s what he studied.”
    Baumgartner wrung his hands, thinking it over. He really did seem cured. Just the same, he began to haggle.
    “A guilder, eh? That’s more than a miller earns in a whole day. How about half and we’ll call it a deal?”
    “Let’s say a whole one, and I won’t dislocate your other shoulder.”
    Baumgartner gave up with a sigh. He rummaged about in his purse and counted out the coins neatly on the table. The hangman picked up half of them and pushed the other half back across the table to Baumgartner. “I’ve given it some more thought,” he said. “Half a guilder if you can tell me something in return.”
    Baumgartner looked at him in astonishment but then hurriedly put the coins back in his purse.
    “What do you want to know?”
    “You’re the mason up the Saint Lawrence Church, aren’t you?”
    “Indeed,” Baumgartner replied. “That’s where I took a fall from that damned scaffolding.”
    Jakob Kuisl pulled out his tobacco pouch and began slowly and carefully to fill his pipe.
    “What are they building up there?” he asked.
    “Well…Actually, they aren’t building anything,” Baumgartner said with