“Yes?”
Benedikta put on her sweetest smile. “We’ve ridden a long way to see this famous monastery. It would be a great honor for us if the abbot-”
“Abbot Bernhard is not available now. Go over to the tavern next door, and perhaps tomorrow-”
Sticking his foot in the crack, Simon pushed the door open a bit. The monk stepped back, startled.
“My companion has come all the way from Paris to view the famous Wessobrunn Prayer,” the medicus said in a commanding tone. “Madame Lefèvre is not accustomed to waiting, especially as she is considering a substantial donation to the monastery.”
Benedikta looked at him for a moment in astonishment, then joined in the game. “C’est vrai,” she mumbled. “Je suistrès fatiguée…”
For a moment, the monk looked confused, then finally ushered them into the vestibule.
“Wait a moment,” he said, disappearing through a doorway.
“A substantial donation?” Benedikta whispered. “What were you thinking? I don’t have anything substantial to give.”
Simon grinned. “It won’t necessarily get to that point, Madame Lefèvre. All we want is to see this prayer. I do believe we shall have to leave tomorrow in a great hurry. Compris?”
Benedikta smirked. “Simon Fronwieser,” she whispered, “it seems I’ve underestimated you until now.”
At that moment, a side door opened on a tall black-robed monk with penetrating eyes. Breadcrumbs still clung to his mouth, which he wiped with his sleeve. His Excellency had clearly been disturbed at supper.
“I am Abbot Bernhard Gering,” he said. He was at least two heads taller than Simon. Looking down, he asked, “What can I do for you?”
The abbot raised his eyebrows as if he were examining a bug in the monastery kitchen. Obviously, Father Bernhard was hungry and thus rather ill-disposed. His pronounced nose reminded Simon a bit of Jakob Kuisl’s.
“Ah,frère Bernhard,” Benedikta sighed, extending her hand. “Comme c’est agréable de faire la connaissance de l’abbé de Wessobrunn!”
Father Bernhard hesitated, then smiled wanly. “You come from France?” he asked in a much softer voice as he shook her hand.
Benedikta smiled back. “De Paris, pour être précis. Business matters in Augsburg have brought me to your beautiful isolated region.” She pointed to Simon. “My charming guide offered to show me the way to your monastery. In Paris, I heard of your…comment dit-on…Wessobrunn Prayer, and now I am dying to see it.”
Suddenly, the abbot perked up. “Paris, you say? I spent part of my younger years in Paris! What a wonderful city! Parlez-moi de Paris! J’ai appris que le Cardinal Richelieu a fait construire une chapelle à la Sorbonne.”
Simon closed his eyes and said a quick prayer. Hearing Benedikta speak the purest Parisian French with the abbot, he opened his eyes again. Father Bernhard nodded and smiled, and now and then posed an interested question. He suddenly seemed years younger, as if he’d fallen under a spell.
After just a few moments, Bernhard Gering led them to his private quarters, where excellent French wine and tender chicken awaited them. The medicus grinned. It was astonishing how a foreign language could open doors. Then he feasted on the coq au vin.
Outside the monastery gates, two monks huddled in a niche against the biting winter wind. A blizzard was brewing again and tugged at their black cowls. A thin layer of snow had fallen on the backs of the horses standing next to them. These men were not Benedictines like the monks of Wessobrunn, and though they would never admit it, they despised their brothers inside the monastery. The Benedictines prayed, ate well, and drank. They spent their tithes on stucco and gold leaf and honored God by reveling in pomp and splendor. They’d lost sight of what was sometimes necessary-a strong hand to free the rose of God from the rampant weeds.
These two monks belonged to an order that thought of itself as Christendom’s elite. For centuries, these brothers had been on the frontlines of the war against the heretics. Other monks quietly tended their cloister gardens and decorated their churches, but these monks were destined for higher things! Their third man had returned to Augsburg, and now they were waiting here in the cold, as they had promised not to let the two busybodies out of their sight. As God’s watchdogs, they followed their master undeterred through storms and snow.
They didn’t notice that they themselves were being observed.
“Up here?” Simon glanced up a steep staircase leading to the clock tower attic. Wind was whistling through the stairwell and shaking the entire roof truss, so that more than once the physician reached out and frantically grabbed hold of the railing.
“Just a security measure,” the abbot remarked, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. “During the Great War, we took all the monastery’s books up here. It’s the safest place around here. The tower is ancient and as solid as a fortified castle.”
Groaning, he continued upward, followed by Simon and Benedikta. The medicus examined the unplastered walls in the light of their lantern. The walls were several feet thick and interrupted only by the occasional narrow embrasure.
During the meal, Benedikta had repeated her wish to Abbot Bernhard to see the Wessobrunn Prayer. Her father, who came to Paris from Germany, had often told her about the oldest prayer in the German language, with its simple yet stirring words. When she found it necessary to travel to Augsburg on a business matter, she decided to take a detour to Wessobrunn and make a donation to the monastery to support the library. The prospect of a pending windfall made it easy to convince the abbot to show them the prayer that very night.
After a few more turns on the clock tower’s spiral staircase, they finally reached the attic. A trapdoor opened on the area directly under the roof. Simon peered in, moving the lantern around in a circle, and saw mountains of books and boxes scattered amid timber, trunks, and moth-eaten bundles of cloth, completely filling the attic.
With a barely suppressed cry of excitement, the medicus rushed to the first pile and began leafing through the books there. The first one was a yellow, faded copy of Seneca’s De vita beata, and next to it lay an illuminated edition of Paracelsus’s Großer Wundarzeney filled with detailed engravings and brilliant initials. Simon examined the books. Digging through the pile, he found a huge illustrated Bible and, right after that, the collected works of Aristotle, something he hadn’t held in his hands since his days as a student in Ingolstadt. This was no cheap printed copy, however, but handwritten, with marginalia in an elegant script. When he took it in hand and opened the ribbon, a cloud of dust swirled up. He had to sneeze, and the light from the lantern flickered.
“Careful with the fire,” murmured the abbot, who had disappeared behind some tall crates in a corner. “One false move and all of Western culture goes up in flames!”
Simon gingerly set his lantern down atop a pile of books and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, immersed himself in the world of letters. He felt neither the cold nor the wind whistling between the loose tiles of the roof.
It was Benedikta who shook him by the shoulder and roused him from his daydreams.
“Forget the books; we don’t have time!” she whispered. “Once we have the treasure in hand, you can buy all these books, for all I care, and lock yourself up with them for the rest of your life. But come now!”