“That’s also what Benedikta assumes,” Simon replied, shrugging.
“Nonsense.” From a flask under the table, the hangman poured something strong into his cup of herbal brew. “This Templar sold the property. Why would he want to be buried there? Anyway, such a noble gentleman has certainly found a better place to bide his time until Judgment Day than in our dilapidated Saint Lawrence Church, of all places.”
Neither Simon nor Magdalena could argue with that.
“Whatever the case,” Simon continued, “what’s down there is certainly the grave of a Knight Templar. That old fart Koppmeyer finds it, talks too much, and suddenly he’s dead.”
“Probably poisoned by the three men that Magdalena and I saw in the church yesterday,” Jakob Kuisl grumbled. “They were looking for something there. What the hell could it be?”
“In any case, these men are still around here somewhere,” Magdalena added. “They have been wandering about here for days, talking in Latin with each other in the tavern.” Once more, she told them what she’d learned in Altenstadt. “Strasser, the tavern keeper, thinks they are monks,” she said, “refined, educated people. One of them stank of perfume, he said, like a whole gang of Frenchmen.”
“Damn! What was I thinking?” Jakob Kuisl said, slapping himself on the forehead. Then he pulled out the bit of cloth he had brought back from the crypt.
“I almost forgot. This is a piece of the cloak I tore off one of the thugs in the Saint Lawrence Church. I’m sure it’s from the same bastard who visited Lechner in the castle that morning. He nearly ran me down.”
“Are you quite sure?” Simon inquired.
“Just as sure as I am that the devil has a cloven hoof. It was the same perfume. Nobody can tell me different!” He kneaded the scrap of black cloth in his hand, as if he were trying to squeeze out its fragrance.
“Lechner-a part of the conspiracy that cost the fat priest his life…?” Simon shook his head skeptically. “The clerk may well be an unscrupulous schemer, but this doesn’t sound like him at all.”
“Anyway,” Kuisl grumbled, “he ordered me to stay out of this. As of tomorrow, I’ll be leaving to catch the gang of robbers in the Schongau forest.”
“You? Why you, Father?” Magdalena stood there with her mouth open.
“Because Lechner thinks I’m the only one who can do it. And because that way he can get rid of me.”
Jakob Kuisl told them briefly what the clerk had demanded of him.
“He wants to get me out of the way-that much is certain,” he grumbled. “But I can’t be put off that easily. I’m going to find the bastard who did this to me as sure as Jakob Kuisl is my name.”
Simon swallowed hard. He didn’t want to think about what the hangman would do with the three assassins if he actually caught them.
“Until the hunt’s over, you’ve got to be my tracking dog around here,” Kuisl said, turning to Simon. “I don’t give a damn about Koppmeyer, but now they’ve gone too far. Nobody locks the hangman inside a coffin, no one, and certainly not bums and beggars like these!”
With a sweeping gesture, Jakob Kuisl pulled out the marble slab, which he’d kept under the bench until this point.
“The solution is right here somewhere,” he said, tapping the slab with his bandaged finger. “This smart-aleck knight hid something while he was still alive, and we’ll find it if we can solve this riddle. I’ll bet my fat ass on it.”
“But maybe it’s just an inscription, an epitaph, and nothing more,” Simon objected.
“Not at all!” The hangman was adamant. “The assassins were interested in the slab as well; in any case, it was no longer in the coffin. The solution is right here before our eyes!”
Once more, Simon looked at the strange inscription.
And I will tell my two witnesses to prophesy. And when they have ended their testimony, the beast that arises from the depths will fight, conquer, and kill them.
He racked his brain trying to figure out what these words might mean. If it referred to a place, then it had to be somewhere they knew about, and if there was ever a chance of finding it, it had to still exist today, three hundred years later.
Two witnesses…a beast that fights them and kills them…
Images passed through his mind, only to vanish again: warriors, knights, monsters, dragons. Suddenly, a new image came to mind, and this time, it stuck.
Two witnesses…A beast…
“I have it!” he shouted suddenly. “It’s so simple when you know. It was always right in front of us.”
“What do you mean?” Magdalena asked.
Simon hopped excitedly around the table. One of the cups fell over, spilling herbal brew across the table. The hangman, too, gave Simon a bewildered look.
“Come on now, tell us,” he said. “And please don’t act like the incarnation of Beelzebub.”
Simon paused, but he didn’t sit back down. “First…first, I have to check something,” he said gasping for breath. “Do you have a Bible here in the house?”
Jakob Kuisl stood up, went to his room, and came back with a well-worn book.
“God also has a place in the hangman’s house,” he growled, tossing the Bible to Simon. The physician leafed through it until he found the page he was looking for.
“Here!” he said, pointing triumphantly at a passage. “The Revelation of Saint John, Chapter Four. Here’s the verse!” He began reading the line out loud: “I will tell my two witnesses to prophesy…” He looked at the two of them excitedly. “The two witnesses are Enoch-the son of Cain-and the prophet Elijah! When they arrive to fight the beast, the Day of Judgment is close at hand!”
Magdalena shrugged, obviously bored. “Nice that you’re so well versed in the Bible. But where can we find these…witnesses? I, for one, have never seen them here in Schongau.”
Simon grinned broadly.
“Not here in Schongau, actually,” he said. “But you can see them magnificently portrayed over the portal to the basilica in Altenstadt. I think we should pay a visit to this beautiful church today.”
When they saw the relief above the portal, they were surprised they had not noticed it earlier. Directly above the entrance, it depicted a knight fighting a dragon with a shield and sword, as well as a second man who was being devoured by the beast. How many times had each of them passed under this relief on entering the basilica?
“I have seen images like this in other churches,” Simon muttered. “A priest in Ingolstadt explained to me that it at one time stood for the approaching Judgment Day.”
“Then Judgment Day has been a long time coming,” Magdalena said. “After all, we’re still waiting for it.”
“You were never in a war,” Kuisl said, pondering the dragon’s claws and wings, its foaming mouth, “or else you would know that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been among us for a long time.”
“Stop this silly talk, Father,” Magdalena said. “Just help us figure this out.” Then she turned to Simon. “So here are the two witnesses. And now what?”
“There has to be a clue somewhere here,” Simon said softly, “in or around the basilica. I suggest we separate. You, Magdalena, look around the outside of the building, and your father and I will go in.”
Jakob Kuisl headed toward the portal, with Simon close behind. On entering St. Michael’s, a shiver ran down his spine, as so often before. The Great God of Altenstadt was looking down on him benignly from a huge cross more than nine feet tall. Now, in the late afternoon, they were almost alone in the church except for a few old women fingering their rosaries with arthritic hands. There was a strong smell of incense in the air. Simon forgot for a brief moment why he was here, and folded his hands to pray. Comparing the splendid new buildings at the Steingaden Monastery with the basilica here in Altenstadt, he had the feeling that this was God’s true home.