The castle of the Andechs-Meranier?
Simon shook his head. In the gloomy light of the forest, his imagination was already playing tricks on him. Some of the boulders had seemed like petrified gnomes, towers, or dragons. Exhausted, he passed his hand over his dirty brow, cursed, then moved on.
Why did he have to get lost? By now the bailiffs had surely reached the knacker’s house and found Magdalena. What would they do with the daughter of a man wanted for burglary and possibly murder? Surely the men had more in mind than to politely ask questions and let her go. The two Semers, in any case, were itching for revenge after the knacker and the hangman’s daughter had shown them the door during their recent visit.
Simon hurried along, turning southward where he suspected Erling had to be. Unfortunately progress along the path in this direction was especially difficult, and he often had to fight his way through knee-deep piles of leaves, bushes, and dead wood. It almost seemed the thorny branches of the thistles and blackberry bushes were reaching out to grab him and hold him back.
Simon cursed and was trying to tear himself once more from thorns when he looked up and suddenly saw an especially impressive boulder towering above him. The huge stone was at least forty feet high with a gnarled linden tree growing on top. Not far from it was a circle of stones looking almost like the remains of a huge castle stronghold. There was a faint odor of smoke in the air.
The medicus held his breath. Fire meant that people were nearby-perhaps the Andechs hunters or highwaymen looking for an easy target to rob here near the monastery. In any case, Simon hoped to avoid them.
He listened intently but couldn’t hear anything suspicious, just the twittering of the birds and the constant rustling of the treetops.
He was about to move on when he suddenly heard a strange noise that sounded neither human nor animal in origin.
It was a sad melody coming from a music box, a long-forgotten love song echoing strangely from the cliffs in the middle of the forest.
Astonished, the medicus stopped in place. This was the same sound he’d first heard a week ago in the watchmaker’s house, the same song Magdalena had told him about. She’d heard it while walking along the path in the forest below the monastery just before she’d been shot at. It was the sound of the automaton.
Simon stood still for a while before daring to move. The soft sound seemed to coming from behind the column of rock. With bated breath, he crept along the wall until he finally came to an entrance to a cave. In front of the cave were the smoking remains of a fire, a dirty wooden bowl, and a clay cup, but nothing more. Simon listened.
The sound clearly came from inside the cave.
His heart began to race. Was it possible? Had he in fact found the entrance to the subterranean passageways beneath the castle? And what should he do now? He was on the way to warn Magdalena, but this was presumably the hiding place they’d been seeking for so long: the sorcerer’s hiding place.
The hiding place where Brother Laurentius was turned into a piece of charred flesh.
Simon hesitated. He was alone; if anything happened to him, there would be no one to help. Certainly it would be better to go to Erling first and look for his father-in-law. They could come back here together and…
And if I can’t find the hiding place again?
Simon stared ahead, weighing the options. The fire had burned down and seemed not to have been stoked for several hours. The person guarding the cave must have left some time ago. This would probably be a good time to at least have a quick look.
Carefully Simon pulled a half-burned branch from the fire to light his way into the cave. The entrance wasn’t large, just a yard or so wide, and empty except for a few piles of dirty, smelly straw. He stooped down and stepped inside for a closer look.
He groped his way through a corridor, damp and blackened by smoke, looking for anything suspicious. In one corner lay a crumpled and tattered woolen blanket, and on his right, at eye level, there was a small, faded picture of the Virgin Mary. Finally, on one of the piles of straw, Simon found a crucifix made of two twigs tied together and a chain with shimmering pearls, which seemed strangely out of place in this squalid setting. Was this cave a sort of chapel? Who lived here? In the darkness before him, he heard the sad melody of the music box again, much closer now than just a few minutes ago.
As he held his makeshift torch out in front of him, he could make out the entrance to a tunnel through the rock in the back wall.
That’s where the melody was coming from.
With a pounding heart, he entered the narrow passageway. There was no straw underfoot now, just hard-packed soil, and the ceiling was so low he had to stoop. Soon he came to a place where worn steps led downward. Simon decided to go only a few more yards and then turn around and look for Kuisl. His assumption had been correct-this was in fact the entrance to the ancient castle catacombs.
He couldn’t resist a smile. The hangman had cursed him for falling asleep at the bedside of the dying Laurentius, but now he could show his father-in-law that he was useful after all. He would guide him down here, and together they would-
It took Simon a moment to realize what had interrupted his stream of thought.
The music had stopped.
Now, he heard shuffling footsteps approaching from down below.
“Is… someone there?” he called hesitantly into the dark passageway.
For a while there was only silence, then a hoarse laugh. Simon squinted, trying to make out something. He realized too late that, even though he was blinded by the light of his torch and couldn’t see more than about fifteen feet in front of him, he himself was quite visible.
At that moment, there was a whirring sound and something bored into his neck. Horrified, the medicus dropped the torch, but before he could pick it up again, he felt the ground give way beneath him like quicksand. The corridor expanded into some enormous space, and his legs collapsed beneath him like thin, rotted twigs.
He didn’t even feel the back of his head hit the hard ground, though from the corner of his eye, he could see two mud-spattered leather boots walking toward him. The stranger kicked him hard in the head, opening a large wound over his eyebrow. The world slowly closed in around him as blood ran down over his eyes like a red curtain.
Behind that curtain was nothing but darkness.
The sorcerer bent over his victim and tested the artery in his neck. Hearing the calm heartbeat, he stood up, astonished at how differently people reacted to poison. Judging from the medicus’s small stature, he’d expected the man to die at once, but this sliver of a man from Schongau had an astonishing constitution. The stranger knew now he’d need at least twice this dose for the hangman.
But perhaps that wouldn’t even be necessary.
The sorcerer smiled. The medicus falling into his trap hadn’t been part of his plan, but he was glad that from now on he would have to deal only with the executioner and his daughter. And he’d already made sure those two wouldn’t get in his way any longer. His helper had set the plan in motion.
Stepping out in front of the cave, he looked up at the heavens. On the western horizon, clouds towered up, forming gigantic castles in the sky. Then there was a vibrant whirring sound in the air that he knew only too well.
The right moment was at hand; now his waiting would finally be over.