Semer turned and headed for the tavern, where presumably his son, and perhaps the Wittelsbach count, as well, awaited him. Despite his corpulence, the burgomaster had a spring in his step now.
Suddenly the medicus had lost his appetite.
After darkness descended like a dark shroud over the monastery and quiet finally returned to the little streets, a large figure crept toward the watchmaker’s house. The man wore a monk’s habit and, in his right hand, held a lantern, which he’d covered so only a small slit of light fell on the ground. He looked around one last time in every direction before pressing his fingers carefully against the charred door, which opened with a soft creaking sound.
The hangman nodded with satisfaction. The monks were so afraid of this supposedly haunted place that they’d apparently made no effort to close up or lock the house pending further investigations. Perhaps, though, this oversight was due to the remarkable events taking place now in the monastery. Kuisl hoped to find something in this house that would bring all these events together-the theft of the hosts, the murders, and the disappearance of the watchmaker and his automaton. Kuisl believed he now knew who’d stolen the relics from the chapel, but the motive was still unclear. Something deep inside him told him the solution was hidden in the watchmaker’s house. It was a strange tickle in his redoubtable nose that always gave him direction when his subconscious mind was a step ahead.
Now, too, his nose was itching terribly.
Quietly, the hangman snuck inside the house, moving the lantern shade just enough to cast a faint circle of light around the room. At first glance, everything appeared the same as four days ago when Simon and Magdalena had found the dead watchmaker’s assistant here. Tables and chairs lay on the floor, some of them broken, and shards of broken glass from test tubes and blackened metal parts were strewn around everywhere. The severed doll head stared up at Kuisl from a corner.
A creaking sound startled the hangman and caused him to look up at the ceiling. Above him, hanging from a string, was the stuffed creature Simon had told him about. For a moment, the hangman and the crocodile eyed each other like two like-minded beings-ugly, mythical creatures that evoked terror in men and inspired grisly stories.
What did you witness from up there, you silent monster? Kuisl wondered. What in hell happened here?
He turned the lantern in a circle until he found the burn marks on the door where the young watchmaker’s assistant had met his horrible end. Another large burned area in the middle of the room indicated where the fire had eaten down into the wooden floor, and the boards creaked ominously as the hangman walked across them. Squinting in the dim light, the hangman tried to reconstruct what had happened.
Someone had poured phosphorus over the poor fellow. He’d run to the door, trying to flee, but then suffered the fatal blow to his head. That’s what must have happened, but where was the automaton, and what had happened to his master? Was he dead?
Kuisl groped carefully through the dark room, looking for some clue. On the back wall wind blew in through a large, smoke-stained fireplace. To the right of that, Kuisl found another room with a small bed, presumably that of the assistant. And nearby, a stairway led up to the second floor, the watchmaker’s quarters, Kuisl guessed.
The hangman climbed the narrow, worn steps leading to a corridor with two doors at the end. Behind one was a bedroom with a stool and a chamber pot. The other room was more interesting: it contained several shelves of a well-ordered private library.
Kuisl whistled softly through his teeth. Though he had an impressive library in his home in Schongau, his were primarily works dealing with the healing arts. The books here seemed to be more of a technical nature.
The hangman pulled out some of the precious tomes and casually leafed through them. There were works by Greek authors-Heron of Alexandria, Homer, and Aristotle-written on parchment and translated into Latin, but also more recent works by Descartes, Cardano, and a certain Salomon de Caus.
The works by the latter were especially well thumbed-through, with many passages marked in red. Leafing quickly through the text, Kuisl learned that Salomon de Caus experimented with steam engines and believed that technical apparatuses could be powered in this way. The hangman regretted now that he’d never had a chance to chat with Brother Virgilius, who seemed to be an interesting man.
Or to have been one, Kuisl thought. Anyone dealing with such heretical knowledge quickly makes enemies in a monastery.
The hangman thought about this as he placed the book back on the shelf and took the narrow stairway back down to the first floor, unsettled by the feeling he’d overlooked something. Once again he looked around at the destruction in the room-broken chairs, shards of glass, the puppet’s head in the corner, the monster dangling above him and seeming to grin at him…
What the devil is wrong here?
The hangman was startled now by the sound of footsteps approaching the house. Quickly he extinguished the lantern and leaned against the wall of the laboratory, completely enveloped in shadow.
The steps were moving straight toward the door when suddenly they stopped. The stranger seemed to hesitate.
For God’s sake, what an idiot I am, Kuisl thought. I left the door ajar; it’s half open.
For a while, there was silence outside; all the hangman could hear was the sound of his own shallow breathing. Then, after a while, he heard the steps receding down the gravel path, moving away from the house faster and faster. Someone was running away.
The hangman rushed to the door, tore it open, and stared out into the night, but there was nothing there now except a cat that turned and hissed at him from atop a wall. In the darkness he could hear someone running over the compact clay soil. A shadowy figure disappeared around a corner, and then there was nothing but silence.
With a suppressed curse, Kuisl stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind him, and headed home. How had he been so stupid as to have revealed his presence there? Kuisl was sure someone had the same thought as he had, and intended to look for a clue in the watchmaker’s house. But who? The real sorcerer? A curious monk? A young local lad looking for a thrill? Now Kuisl would probably never find out.
Grimly he stomped down the dirt path to Erling, while two cold, evil eyes shined eerily in the darkness, watching him leave. Then their owner turned away, too, and vanished into the night.
9
ERLING, THE MORNING OF THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1666 AD
The coach from Weilheim came sooner than expected.
Shortly after ten o’clock mass a procession of three coaches came up the valley through Erling. A half dozen soldiers with muskets sat atop the first one, looking down pompously at the villagers. Behind them, drawn by two black stallions, came an imposing, well-sprung enclosed coach escorted by four musketeers on horseback on the left and right. The third coach, however, was a simple oxcart with a solid wooden cage nailed to the top, large enough for a man.