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

by side in silence. Simon looked over at Benedikta Koppmeyer as she took her horse by the bridle and led it through the deep snow. She seemed lost in thought, obviously completely absorbed in grief over her dead brother. Simon did not dare to speak to her. Magdalena was silent, too, her eyes fixed straight ahead on the road. Simon tried to cheer her up once or twice, but her responses were surly and monosyllabic, and at last he gave up. What was wrong with her? Had he done something to offend her? He loved this girl, even if he knew that a marriage with the dishonorable hangman’s daughter was out of the question. His father kept trying to convince him to pursue a rich burgher’s daughter in Schongau. Simon was popular with the women in town. He dressed in the latest fashion, maintained a neat appearance, and always had a charming compliment on his lips. Women could overlook that he was a short man, only five feet tall, and he had had liaisons with a few of them in barns around town. Since he had met Magdalena, however, things were different. He was fascinated by this woman’s temperament, but also by her education and knowledge of medicinal and poisonous herbs, even when Magdalena’s stubbornness and occasional angry outbursts complicated their far-too-infrequent trysts.
    On the other hand, what woman was simple?
    After a short while, the forest gave way to open fields. Beyond that, the Lech River appeared like a green ribbon winding its way through the snow, and high on a hill, with the clear winter sky as a backdrop, stood the city of Schongau with its towers and walls. Simon felt relief as they passed through the city gate with its two sleepy guards. Benedikta, walking next to him, seemed more than exhausted. She had decided to seek quarters at the Goldener Stern Inn until the matter of her brother’s death was cleared up. The medicus wanted to talk her out of it, but a glance from her silenced him. The merchant’s widow did not look as if she would tolerate opposition.
    Simon’s thoughts returned to the crypt and the inscription on the coffin.
    Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam…
     
    Where had he seen these words before? Was it at the university in Ingolstadt? No, it wasn’t that long ago. In Schongau, then? In the city there were really only three places to find more books than just the Bible and a few farmers’ almanacs. The first was Simon’s bedroom, namely in a chest next to his bed, where he also liked to while away the hours during the day. The second was a small room in the executioner’s house where Jakob Kuisl kept a cabinet of books on herbs and poisons, but also writings about the latest therapies. The third, finally, was the heated library of the patrician Jakob Schreevogl, a book lover who had become Simon’s friend after the murders of the children last year, when the medicus had saved the life of the patrician’s daughter.
    Schreevogl…library…
    Something clicked in Simon’s mind.
    Without waiting for the women, he ran through the city gate, startling the two constables who had dozed off.
    “Where you going, Simon?” Magdalena called after him.
    “Have to…take care of…something…” Simon blurted out as he ran. Then he disappeared around the next corner.
    “Does he do that often?” Benedikta asked Magdalena as she walked along beside her.
    The hangman’s daughter shrugged. “You can ask him yourself. Sometimes I think I don’t really know him.”
    Simon ran down the Münzgasse, past the town hall. In the square behind that were rows of elegant patrician homes, three-story buildings with ornate balconies, stucco work, and colorful murals attesting to their owners’ prosperity. The city may have suffered during the Great War, but the city fathers had managed to keep themselves afloat in a new era. Payment of an exorbitant ransom had just barely managed to save Schongau from destruction by the Swedes. Enemy troops had burned down buildings on the