The Dark Monk Read Free Page A

without another word, he had run through the snow back to Altenstadt.
    Simon had been lying in bed, as usual at this hour, his head still aching from the Tokay he drank the previous night at the Goldener Stern Inn, but his father had yanked him out of bed, swearing vilely, and sent him on his way with nothing to eat.
    Again Simon broke through the crust up to his hips and had to fight his way out of the drift. Despite the dry cold, sweat was pouring down his face. He grimaced as he pulled his right leg out of the snow, almost losing his boot in the process. If he didn’t watch out, he’d soon have to doctor himself! He shook his head. It was crazy to tramp all the way to Altenstadt in this weather, but what could he do? His father, the city doctor Bonifaz Fronwieser, was busy caring for a fabulously wealthy alderman suffering from gout; the barber surgeon was bedridden with typhoid fever, and old Fronwieser would rather bite off his own finger than send the hangman to Altenstadt. So he sent his wayward son…
    The scrawny sexton was waiting for Simon at the door to the little church located a little way out of town on a hill. Gedler’s face was as white as the snow around him. He had rings under his eyes and was trembling all over. For a moment, Simon wondered if Gedler, and not the priest, needed treatment. The sexton looked as if he hadn’t slept for several nights.
    “Well, Gedler,” Simon said cheerfully. “What’s troubling the priest? Does he have intestinal obstruction? Constipation? An enema will do wonders for him. You should try one, too.”
    He was heading for the rectory, but the sexton held him back, pointing silently toward the church.
    “He’s in there?” Simon asked with surprise. “In this weather? He should be happy if he doesn’t catch his death of cold.”
    He was heading into the church when he heard Gedler behind him, clearing his throat. Just in front of the entrance, Simon turned around.
    “Yes, what is it, Gedler?”
    “The priest…he’s…”
    The sexton lost his voice and looked down to the floor without saying a word.
    Seized by a sudden presentiment, Simon opened the heavy door. He was met by an icy wind a few degrees colder than the air outside. Somewhere a window slammed shut.
    The medicus looked around. Scaffolding towered above them along the interior walls on both sides, all the way up to the rotting balcony. A timber framework higher up under the ceiling suggested that a new wooden ceiling would be installed there soon. The window openings in the back of the church were chiseled out so that a steady, ice-cold draft swept through the nave. Simon felt his breath on his face like a fine mist.
    The priest was in the rear third of the nave, only a few steps from the apse. He looked like a statue hewn from the ice, a fallen white giant struck down by the wrath of God. His entire body was covered in a thin layer of ice. Simon approached carefully and touched the white, glittering cassock. It was as hard as a board. Ice crystals had even formed over the eyes, which had been wide open in the throes of death, giving an ethereal look to the priest’s face.
    Simon wheeled around in horror. The sexton stood at the portal with a guilty look, turning his hat over in his hands.
    “But…He’s dead!” the medicus cried. “Why didn’t you tell me that when you called for me?”
    “We…we didn’t want to make a big fuss, Your Honor,” Gedler murmured. “We thought if we said anything in town, everybody in town would know about it at once, and there would be gossiping, and then maybe trouble with the remodeling here in the church.”
    “We?” Simon asked, confused.
    At that very moment, Magda, the housekeeper in the rectory, appeared at the sexton’s side, sobbing uncontrollably. She was the polar opposite of Abraham Gedler, round as a barrel, with fat, bloated legs. She blew her nose into a white lace handkerchief so large that Simon could see only part of her puffy, tear-stained