The Dark Monk: A Hangman's Daughter Tale by Oliver Pötzsch;Lee Chadeayne

Author:Oliver Pötzsch;Lee Chadeayne
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thrillers, Mystery & Detective, Templars, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780547807683
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 2012-06-11T17:00:00+00:00

The bishop up there seemed to be staring directly into her soul with his unpleasant piercing eyes.

She hesitated.

Something about the painting irritated her. Was it the black, almost impoverished look of the cloak? The cold gaze? The surprising youth amid all these old men? As she looked closer, she realized what it was, but it took a while to accept it.

Around the bishop’s neck hung a golden chain with a cross—with two crossbeams.

Just like the one the monk wore!

Magdalena almost cried out loud. Thoughts raced through her head, but she had no time to organize them—the monk had finished praying. He stood up, crossed himself, and bowed now. Finally, he headed for the cloister and disappeared through an ancient stone doorway. He hadn’t once turned around. Casting a final glance at the young bishop above her, Magdalena took off after the stranger. She felt as if Bishop Sigismund Franz’s eyes were boring right through her from behind.

Just after the first cockcrow, there was such a loud pounding at Jakob Kuisl’s door that it sounded as if he himself were being summoned for execution. Outside, it was still the dead of night. Kuisl lay in bed alongside the soft, warm body of his wife, who turned, blinking and groggy, to her husband after the visitor had pounded on the door a third time.

“It doesn’t matter who it is…Wring his neck,” she mumbled and buried her head under a down pillow.

“You can bet on it,” the hangman groaned, swinging his legs out of bed, almost falling down the stairs when the knocking began again a fourth time. In the next room, the twins woke up and began to cry.

“All right, all right,” the hangman growled, “I’m coming!”

As he stumbled down the ice-cold stairs barefoot and dressed only in his nightshirt, he swore to himself he would, at the least, apply thumbscrews to this disturber of the peace. He would probably also shove burning matches under his fingernails.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

Jakob Kuisl had had a strenuous night. The little ones had a terrible cough and couldn’t be calmed down, even with hot milk and honey. Once Georg and Barbara had finally drifted off to sleep, Kuisl rolled around in bed for hours thinking about the second gang of robbers. He was brooding about the mysterious fourth man when he’d finally fallen asleep.

Only to be awakened what seemed like five minutes later by this fool trying to break down his door.

Furious, Jakob Kuisl ran down the steps, threw aside the bolt, tore open the door, and shouted at his visitor so loudly that the guest almost fell over into a large snowdrift behind him.

“What is God’s name do you think you’re doing, you stupid clod, coming here in the middle of the night…” Too late, he noticed it was Burgomaster Karl Semer standing there. “Confound it…” the hangman muttered.

The hangman stood a full head taller than the burgomaster, and the patrician looked up at Kuisl in terror. There were dark circles under Semer’s eyes, he was pale, and his left cheek was badly swollen.

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