“Mama! The garden! I want to see the garden.”
“The… garden?” She looked at her son blankly. His face was as black as coal and he was coughing, but she didn’t see any burns on his body. On the contrary, the three-year-old seemed almost cheerful. Carefully she set her husband down on the ground and examined the locked door.
“Which garden do you mean?” she responded.
“The garden with the jolly stone man who spits water,” he said excitedly. “It’s behind this door.”
“You mean the… the monastery garden?” Suddenly she realized how the boys had been abducted. Virgilius must have lured the two from the garden into a hidden passageway there. Anxiously, she examined the weathered wood but couldn’t find a handle or a keyhole. The hinges were massive.
“Damn,” she hissed. “Another of the crazy watchmaker’s infernal objects.” She kicked the door, but it felt like solid brick. Nervously she looked back down the steep, slippery corridor from which clouds of smoke were still rising.
“If we can’t think of something soon, we’ll suffocate here like foxes in a burrow,” she mumbled. In vain she examined the rock walls for hidden cracks or holes. Finally, she turned helplessly to Simon, who was lying on the ground behind her.
“Simon, can you hear me? We’ll suffocate here. Wake up. I need your help.”
Simon groaned and struggled to move as if he was in great pain; finally he managed to turn on one side and sit up. He was panting hard; clearly that little movement had caused him unbelievable effort.
Torn between hope and despair, Magdalena stared at her husband, whose paralysis was slowly beginning to wear off. Would it happen fast enough for him to help her? She doubted that, and in any case, she didn’t know what she expected him to do. Snap his fingers and make the door open? The little medicus had so often come up with an idea that saved the day. She prayed now he would be able to walk and speak again as soon as possible. Tears welled up in her eyes when she thought of the unavoidable fate that awaited them both.
Suffocated to death on the wrong side of a door leading into a blooming garden.
“Mama, when can we leave?”
Magdalena awakened with a start from her dark musings and smiled wearily at her son. “We… we can’t go, unfortunately, Peter. Father is sick and I don’t know how to open this door.”
“But all you have to do is press on the stone.”
“What?”
She jumped up-she’d almost forgotten that Peter had been here before. It was possible the boy had observed how the door was opened.
“Which stone, Peter?” She took him up in her arms and looked him directly in the eye. “Listen now. This is very important. Which stone do I have to push?”
Silently Peter pointed to a square stone about as large as a fist, which protruded a finger’s breadth from the wall. Magdalena hadn’t noticed it before among all the other irregular stonework, but now it really stood out. The image of a laughing face, etched into its surface, seemed to jeer at her.
“This stone?” she asked cautiously.
Peter nodded, and Magdalena pressed the square button. Silently the stone slid back into the space behind it, and there was a click as the heavy wooden door opened a crack. Heavy rain could be heard now on the other side, accompanied by thunder and lightning that lit up the passageway for a moment.
“You… you are wonderful, Peter,” Magdalena laughed. “For this, you can have honey cakes, as many as you can eat. But first I have to get your father out of here. Come, the fresh air will surely do him some good.”
When they turned around, Magdalena was relieved to see Simon had already gotten onto his knees. He swayed like a reed in the wind, but he didn’t fall. Breathing heavily, he reached out to his wife.
“I ccccaaaan… wallllk all by myyyself,” he croaked. “By myyyself…”
Magdalena ran to help him before he could fall. “That’s what you think,” she replied, pulling him up and guiding him carefully to the door.
When the door opened all the way, they found themselves staring into another cave.
Magdalena uttered a brief cry of disappointment. She was sure they’d just entered another underground passageway, but then she felt the wind on her face, heard the rain coming down, and smelled the flowers in the garden. She realized they’d entered the artificial grotto the abbot had shown her just two days before. In the middle was the basin with the statuettes of the Greek gods. The door through which they’d entered the grotto was covered with gray plaster so as to blend in perfectly with the rock.
Peter had already run into the garden and was climbing jubilantly onto one of the little walls as the rain drummed down on him, washing the soot from his face. He waved to his mother cheerfully, seeming to have survived the recent terror unscathed.
Magdalena felt a lump in her throat when she thought of her younger son. Where had Matthias taken little Paul? Was he even still alive?
She was startled by something pressing against her shoulder. Simon was propping himself up against her. “I ccccaaaan… wallllk all by myyyself,” he stammered again.
Simon let go of her and tottered like an automaton into the garden.
The medicus had walked only a few yards when they heard a mighty rumbling. At first Magdalena thought it was thunder, but then the earth beneath their feet began to shake and large rocks came rolling down the hill into the garden. An especially heavy boulder crashed directly in front of her, burying the basin with the Greek statuettes.
Behind Magdalena, a rumbling could be heard in the passageways below, sounding as if hell had in fact opened its gates. Instinctively the hangman’s daughter threw herself down onto the damp lawn and watched as the little grotto behind her finally collapsed.
Hic est porta ad loca inferna…
The green fire had finally reached the cesspit below.
Jakob Kuisl and Virgilius held their breath as the footsteps on the creaking staircase approached the belfry. The steps were slow and calm; whoever was groping his way up evidently had time on his hands. Or was he too tired and old to move any faster?
Finally a black hood appeared in the opening. The figure continued climbing until he’d arrived at the landing, his torch bathing the belfry in flickering glow. At last his thin, arthritic fingers pulled back a scarf that had been obscuring his face.
Virgilius shouted out with surprise.
Before them stood the Andechs abbot. His face was as deeply furrowed as parched earth, and his thin tonsure as white as snow. Maurus Rambeck seemed to have aged years in the last few weeks.
“Maurus,” Virgilius said. “What are you doing here?”
“Trying to prevent you from causing any more harm,” the abbot replied firmly. “If that’s still possible. Let the child go.” Pointing to the small crying boy, he walked slowly toward the watchmaker.
“Never!” Virgilius shouted. He drew back and held the struggling child over the stormy void. “Stay where you are, Maurus. Even you won’t stop me from bringing back my Aurora.”
“You’re sick, Virgilius,” Father Maurus said softly. “Very sick, and this is the end. Accept that; put yourself in God’s hands. Don’t bring any more sins down on yourself or this monastery.”
“But… but you helped me,” Virgilius pleaded. “You yourself wanted Aurora to come back to me.”
“I never wanted that,” replied the abbot, his voice rising. “I wanted all this madness to end. Yes, to save you, but also to save the monastery. I see now that was an error.”
When Kuisl stepped out of the darkness, the abbot noticed him for the first time. Brother Maurus raised his slim eyebrows in astonishment, and his tired but intelligent eyes flashed with emotion.
“You’re here, too?” he asked. Then the monk regained his composure and a faint smile appeared on his weathered face. “I should have expected as much. Your burgomaster is right; you really are an annoying snoop. But what does it matter? It’s all over now.”