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

the medicus in disbelief. “Is it true?” she whispered. “Andreas is dead?”
    “What does this mean?” Magdalena asked now, too. “Simon, explain yourself!”
    Inwardly, Simon cursed the tactlessness of the dour, boneheaded hangman. He had seen him behave this way many times, yet Simon was always irritated by his coarse behavior, which was so unlike that of the Jacob Kuisl he knew who would spend hours poring over books or playing catch in the yard with his seven-year-old twins, Georg and Barbara.
    After some hesitation, the medicus began to recount the morning’s events. As he spoke, the priest’s sister seemed to get a hold of herself again. She listened intently, with clenched fists and a look that showed Simon that this elegant woman had dealt with other tragedies in her life before this.
    “I don’t know what’s going on here,” she said finally. “But it at least explains the letter my brother sent me. He wrote of a strange discovery and that he didn’t know whom to turn to. My brother and I”—she hesitated for a moment and closed her eyes briefly, her lips tightening into two narrow lines—“were very close, and this is not the first time he asked me for advice in an important matter. He always listened to his little sister,” she said, forcing a smile.
    “May I ask when exactly you received the letter?” Simon asked in a soft voice.
    “Three days ago…And I left at once.”
    “Where are you from?” Simon replied.
    Benedikta Koppmeyer looked at him in bewilderment. “Haven’t I mentioned that? I come from Landsberg, farther down the Lech River. My late husband had a wine business there, which I have been managing for several years.”
    And apparently not badly, Simon thought as he studied the elegant clothing of the merchant’s widow. Once again, he was struck by her delicate features, which were beginning to show the first signs of age. Her mouth was slightly austere and hard—this woman was accustomed to giving orders—but at the same time, her eyes exuded an almost childlike charm. The cut of her clothes befit the latest French fashion and her whole appearance exuded noblesse, something that Simon all too often missed in Schongau.
    He straightened up. “I assume you’d like to see your brother again,” he said.
    The merchant woman nodded, straightened up, and pulled her red hair into a bun. Finally, she followed the medicus outside. “ Évidemment, ” she whispered as she brushed past Simon in her flowing dress.
    The medicus was thrilled. The distinguished lady from Landsberg not only dressed in the French fashion, but she also knew how to speak French! What a remarkable woman!
    Magdalena hurried after them. If Simon had turned around, he would have noted the somber expression on her face. However, the medicus was still lost in thought about the elegant, urbane stranger.
    After a good hour, the three set out on their way back to Schongau. They had laid out Koppmeyer’s corpse in the charnel house next to the church, and Simon and Magdalena left his sister alone with her brother for a while. When Benedikta Koppmeyer returned, she still looked pale but had pulled herself together again.
    Jakob Kuisl had left, which didn’t surprise Simon very much. Many people had problems with the gruff, sometimes offensive nature of the executioner, but Simon knew him well enough by now to overlook that. He imagined that anyone who had hanged, beheaded, and quartered dozens of criminals in his lifetime just couldn’t ever be a humanitarian, too. Simon still had a clear memory of the last execution a little less than a year ago. One of the mercenaries responsible for the brutal murders of children in Schongau had met his end on the wheel. Jakob Kuisl had broken every bone in his body and then waited two more days to garrote him. During the whole procedure, with all the shouting, screaming, and crying, Kuisl had not shown a bit of emotion. No flinching, no trembling, nothing.
    They walked side