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disappeared in the darkness of the apothecary’s house. With a shrug, Simon followed,entering a low-ceilinged room illuminated by a half dozen tallow candles. A narrow shaft of light fell through the shutters onto a huge cupboard on the opposite wall, which contained innumerable little drawers all identified by tiny hand-painted parchment labels. There was a bewitching odor of herbs—sage, rosemary, marigold, and chamomile. But he thought he detected a sweet scent, too, that briefly made him feel sick. It smelled almost like…
    “Tell me again. What did you say you needed for your wife?” Brother Johannes asked abruptly. “Silverweed?”
    “Yes, and anise,” said the medicus, turning again toward the ugly monk. “She has stomach pains and feels sick all over. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
    “God forbid. Now, let me see…” Brother Johannes set an eyepiece to his right eye, making his already frightening face just a bit more so. Then he walked over to the cupboard, paused a moment to think, and finally opened a drawer at eye-level. In the meantime he seemed to have forgotten his quarrel with the little monk. “Silverweed is really an excellent medicine for stomachache,” he mumbled, taking out a bundle of herbs, “though I actually prefer liver compresses and a mixture of gentian, centaury, and wormwood. Do you know the doses to use with the herbs? Always remember:
dosis facit
—”
    “Venenum.
The dose makes the poison. I know.” Simon nodded and stretched out his hand in a greeting. “Excuse me if I haven’t introduced myself yet. My name is Simon Fronwieser. I am the bathhouse surgeon from the little town of Schongau on the other side of the Hoher Peißenberg. I lecture my patients almost every day with Paracelsus’s words about the correct dosage.”
    “A bathhouse surgeon who speaks Latin?” Brother Johannes smiled and shook Simon’s hand cordially. The monk’s grip was firm, as if he’d been swinging a hammer on the anvil all his life.With the ocular in his eye, he looked like a misshapen cyclops. “That’s rather unusual. Then are you familiar with the
Macer Floridus
in which the eighty-five healing plants are listed?”
    “Indeed.” Simon nodded and crammed the dried herbs into his leather bag. “I studied medicine in Ingolstadt. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a position as doctor. The… circumstances were not favorable.” He hesitated. The monk didn’t have to know he’d gone broke because of his gambling debts and the money he spent on fancy clothes.
    The medicus cast an approving glance around the dimly lit room. Everything here was exactly the way he wished his own office to be. The large pharmacy cupboard, heavy wooden shelves along the walls lined with pots and tinctures. A low entryway led into another room that evidently served as a laboratory. In the dim light, Simon could make out a stove with a few pieces of wood glowing inside and on the mantelpiece, some sooty flasks. In front of this, a huge marble table supported something long and misshapen, partially covered with a dirty linen cloth.
    At one end of the cloth a single pale foot protruded.
    “My God!” Simon gasped. “Is that—”
    “My assistant, Coelestin,” the Brother sighed, rubbing the sweat from his forehead. “Some farmers brought him to me shortly before sunrise today. Last night, the unfortunate fellow went to catch a carp for me in the pond down by the woods. And what does the dolt do? He falls off the walkway and drowns like a little cat. And then this charlatan Virgilius comes by and…” He broke off, shaking his head as if trying to shake off a bad dream.
    Carefully Simon stepped into the laboratory and sniffed. Now he could explain the sweet odor he’d noticed yesterday.
    The body was starting to decompose.
    “May I?” the medicus asked hesitantly, pointing at the corpse beneath the shroud. Simon had always had a strange fascinationwith dead people. Stiff and lifeless, they were like