Read Online The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman's Daughter Tale by Oliver Pötzsch - Free Book Online Page B

the ceiling—a genuine rarity from the land of the pyramids, by the way.”
    The medicus looked up to see a wingless green dragon with a long tail hanging from a cord and turning slowly in a circle. The monster’s glass eyes looked down at him indifferently.
    “My God,” Simon mumbled. “Where are we? At the entrance to hell?”
    Someone laughed. “Rather to paradise. Science opens doorsundreamt of by those who don’t close their eyes to them. Come a bit closer so I can see with whom I have the pleasure of speaking.”
    Simon groped his way forward in the dim light until he saw the outline of a person on his right. Glad to have finally found the strange owner of the house, he turned and reached out his hand.
    “I must say, you gave me quite a shock…” he started. But suddenly he stopped and his heart skipped a beat.
    The figure in front of him was a woman. She was wearing a red ball gown, and had put up her blond hair in a bun as had been the fashion at court several hundred years before. Though she smiled at Simon with her full red lips, her face seemed lifeless and as white as a corpse. Suddenly her mouth opened wide and from somewhere inside her body came a soft, tinny melody.
    It took Simon a while to realize what he heard was a glockenspiel. Tinkling and jingling, invisible hammers played the notes of an old love song.
    “You… you… are…” he stammered.
    “An automaton, I know. I’m sorry I can’t offer you the company of a real woman. On the other hand, Aurora will never turn into a cranky old shrew; she’ll remain forever young and beautiful.”
    At this point a little man stepped out from behind the life-size doll. Startled, Simon realized this was the same crippled monk who’d been arguing with Brother Johannes just a few hours ago. Simon tried to remember the monk’s name. The abbot had mentioned it in the abbot’s study. “What was it? Brother…?”
    “Brother Virgilius,” the little hunchbacked man replied, reaching out one hand while supporting himself with the other on a walking stick decorated with ivory and a silver knob. A shy smile passed over his face. “Haven’t we met before?”
    “This morning in front of the apothecary’s house,” Simonmurmured. “I was there to pick up some herbs for my wife: anise, artemisia, and silverweed for stomach pains.”
    A shadow passed over the face of the wizened little man. He was probably over fifty, but everything about him seemed as delicate as a child. “I remember,” he said in a monotone. “I hope Brother Johannes was able to help your wife. He’s no doubt a good apothecary, just a bit… short-tempered.” Again a smile spread over his face. “But let’s talk about something more pleasant. Do you speak Latin? Are you perhaps a friend of the sciences?”
    Simon introduced himself in a few words, then pointed to the strange devices all around. “This room is the most fascinating place I’ve ever seen. What is your profession, if I may ask?”
    “I’m a watchmaker,” Brother Virgilius replied. “The monastery gives me the option of pursuing my profession and at the same time… uh… experimenting a bit.” He winked at Simon. “A few moments ago you were the unintentional witness of a reenactment of von Guericke’s Magdeburg hemispheres experiment.”
    “Magdeburg hemispheres?” Simon looked at the little monk, puzzled. “I fear I don’t quite understand.”
    Casually, Brother Virgilius pointed to a soot-stained copper globe the size of a child’s head resting on a charred table behind him. “The fascinating power of a vacuum,” he started to explain. “In an experiment carried out at the Reichstag in Regensburg, the inventor Otto von Guericke put two halves of a hemisphere together and pumped the air out, forming a vacuum. Sixteen horses weren’t able to pull the hemispheres apart again. It’s not even possible with the destructive force of gunpowder.” He sighed.
“Quod erat demonstrandum.
My lily-livered