Simon swallowed hard. He had not seen so many books since he was in the Premonstratensian monastery in Steingaden, and that was a long while ago. There was probably more knowledge stored here in Andechs than in the entire rest of the Priests’ Corner.
Slowly the medicus walked down an aisle of books, glancing at individual titles. He discovered Paracelsus’s Gro?e Wundartzney and, alongside it, a complete five-volume edition of Dioscurides’s Materia Medica. Simon began leafing through them randomly, but when he realized he wouldn’t find anything this way, he laid the heavy volumes aside and began wandering through the aisles again.
He was delighted when he came to the end of a row and found a rather nondescript little book at eye-level that evidently dealt with the history of the Andechs Monastery. While he was sure he would find nothing in it about glowing corpses, the events of recent days had made clear to him that this monastery kept more than one secret. Perhaps the key to all these strange events was to be found in the past.
After some hesitation, Simon took the leather-bound book from the shelf and settled down in an upholstered armchair next to a well-polished cherry-wood table. He couldn’t say himself why he picked out this book. It was written in ancient, somewhat overly dramatic, Latin, so it took a while for the medicus to feel comfortable with it. But he’d learned enough from his incomplete study at Ingolstadt University to read the book at least halfway fluently after a while.
Strangely, the chronicle began not as one would expect, with the founding of the monastery, but much earlier than that. Simon learned that at first there was a castle on the Holy Mountain belonging to the Counts of Andechs, a mighty family that ruled large parts of Bavaria and even southern Tyrol. At some point, however, the Wittelsbachs seized power in Bavaria and destroyed the castle.
The chronicle spoke in this connection of a “vile, cowardly betrayal” but had nothing more to say about it. Simon couldn’t help thinking of Count von Wartenberg, who had been sitting in the tavern the day before with the two Semers. Wartenberg was one of the Wittelsbachs-and hadn’t the fat cellarer said the count had the third key? Simon sighed. The more he dug into this, the more complicated it seemed.
A scraping sound startled him. The tall door had opened and the old librarian with the crooked back entered. When Brother Benedikt first caught sight of Simon, he seemed disconcerted, but then he settled back into his usual arrogance.
“What are you doing in here?” he snarled. “The library is for the exclusive use of the monks.”
“I know,” Simon replied in an apologetic tone. “But you do have an outstanding collection of medical works, and the abbot thought perhaps I might find a clue here. He permitted me to come here to write my report about the strange deaths.” That was clearly untrue, but the medicus guessed that Maurus Rambeck had other problems at the moment than to correct his little white lie.
And in fact the librarian seemed satisfied with Simon’s excuse. “The medical knowledge of the Benedictines is indeed unequaled,” the monk replied proudly. “It goes back to the ancient knowledge of the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks. We were the ones who preserved the knowledge about poisonous and healing plants and kept alive the knowledge of procedures and diagnoses for all these centuries. Surely you’ve seen the Naturalis historia of Pliny the Elder?”
“Ah, I’ll confess that I haven’t yet-”
“Ah, but see here… as far as I know, the chronicles of Andechs is not a medical work.” Brother Benedikt had drawn closer and suspiciously eyed the book Simon had just been leafing through.
The medicus’s smile was enough to melt ice. “Excuse me, but my curiosity just got the better of me. After all, I don’t often have the chance to visit such a venerable facility. How old is this monastery, by the way?”
“Over two hundred years,” Benedikt replied. “It was founded by Augustinian canons, but we Benedictines took charge soon afterward.”
“Is that so? I would have thought the building is much older. All the cellars, the weathered rock…”
“A castle and a chapel once stood here,” the librarian conceded, “but the little church that housed the three sacred hosts is long gone.”
“And where are the three hosts now?” Simon inquired, curious. “In a few days, they’ll be displayed to thousands of pilgrims.”
Brother Benedikt looked at him suspiciously again. “Safely stored away, of course, in the sacred chapel until Sunday, when they will be displayed to the pilgrims from the bay window of the church.”
“Isn’t it strange that these two dreadful murders and the other remarkable events are taking place just before the Festival of the Three Hosts?” Simon said softly. “It almost looks as if someone is trying to ruin this festival.”
“The festival will take place, you can count on that.” For a moment Simon thought he detected a bit of uncertainty in the old monk’s face, but then Benedikt regained his composure. “For hundreds of years, the sacred three hosts have been displayed to the people in a sealed monstrance on exactly this day,” he murmured. “They have survived fire, attacks, and the Great War, and they will also survive this damned witchery. No one can steal them, and certainly no one can make them disappear by magic.” He straightened up, and his eyes began to shine, as if he was declaiming an ancient spell. “Three keys are needed to enter the holy chapel, and only the abbot, the prior, and a member of the Wittelsbach family can open the room together. So don’t worry, the hosts are well cared for and no one will disturb the venerable ceremony.”
Simon cringed when he remembered what Magdalena had told him about her visit to the church.
A Wittelsbach has the third key…
Hadn’t Magdalena observed how upset the abbot had been during the mass? Then he had left with the prior and Count Wartenberg and disappeared upstairs in the relics room. Was there a connection between the murders and the sacred three hosts?
“I’m afraid you’ll have to put your medical studies off until tomorrow,” the librarian said, interrupting Simon’s train of thought. “I’m closing the rooms here now. In my opinion, you should be caring for the poor pilgrims anyway and leave it to the judge in Weilheim to take care of this satanic apothecary.” He shuffled over to the door. “Brother Maurus should have called the judge long ago and worried less about the gossip. We just can’t allow a sorcerer in our venerable institution. This is a matter that has to be attended to as quickly as possible.”
“Speaking of witchcraft…” Simon interjected, “Brother Eckhart said something about a golem. Do you perhaps have any books about that?”
The librarian stopped suddenly and turned around to Simon. “Didn’t I just say you need to care for the sick?” he growled. “But now that you ask-yes, there is a book about that here.”
“Aha! Could I perhaps have a look at it?”
Brother Benedikt pursed his lips in a narrow smile. “That’s not possible; the abbot himself has borrowed that book.”
Simon suppressed a slight shudder.
It is the book written in Hebrew on the abbot’s table, a book on conjuring up golems.
“You are right,” Simon sighed finally and rose with a shrug. “I must take care of my patients.” He decided not to tell the librarian anything about his remarkable discovery concerning the novitiate’s body. Something warned him not to trust the old man, or in this case, anyone. “The matter should be in the hands of a judge,” he confessed remorsefully. “I’ve taken up too much time with this. Nevertheless, thank you for your explanations.”
Without Brother Benedikt noticing it, Simon quickly hid the Adechs chronicle in his jacket and started for the exit. The librarian’s words had awakened his interest in learning more about the monastery’s past. He clenched his fists determinedly and put on a droll smile as he followed the monk out the door. Simon had the annoying habit of becoming curious about whatever he was told to stay away from.