Here the road switchbacked up the face of a stern mountain and they could see the silhouette of the monastery several bends away. They did not speak, slowly tramping through the snow until they rounded the final curve and broke off onto the path leading to the black structure. The road fell away on the side overlooking the town, the moon so bright they made out the alehouse, the town walls, and the mountains they had journeyed through.

To their left the monastery wall terminated in a cliff face that rose up into its own shadow, nullifying the need for additional fortifications on that end, and to their right the barrier skirted the drop-off on the other side of the natural shelf and blotted out the view of Rouseberg below. The keep abutted the sheer mountainside, and a wide gap between the edifice’s right flank and the encircling wall indicated the monastery grounds continued behind the looming central structure. Ignoring the small wooden buildings annexed along the wall, Ennio stepped forward and cupped his hands around his mouth to hail the monks when Hegel boxed his ear.

“Keep that hole shut,” shushed Hegel.

“Where’s the churchyard?” Manfried whispered.

“Eh?” Ennio glanced from one to the other.

“The cemetery,” said Hegel. “Boneyard? Graveyard? Burial ground? Like a potter’s field, only with markers.”

“A necropolis?” Ennio’s chestnut eyes narrowed to almonds. “What business have you there?”

“Our own,” Manfried shot back.

“But what could we find in such a place?” said Ennio with a shudder.

“All questions are answered in the grave,” Hegel sagely stated.

“I do not know where it is,” Ennio said. “If it was once a castle they might have a crypt in the cellar.”

“That’s a risk we gotta chance,” Manfried said, seeing the concern on Hegel’s face. The witch-chills had returned to Hegel, stronger than what he had felt in the town.

“Maybe we oughta just call it done,” Hegel said, peering around nervously.

“First we must check the door and try to gain the inside,” said Ennio, relieved Hegel had sided with him. Sane men do not poke around graves in the best of times, let alone under a full moon in a suspiciously vacated town deep in the winter-gripped mountains.

“Rot,” Manfried snarled. “We check the back, see if it’s there. If it ain’t, then we pry a window and find the cellar. Don’t forget yourself on me, Hegel Grossbart.”

Hegel’s resolve strengthened at hearing his full name. The spoils were waiting and he had suggested leaving them for the dirt. He shoved past Ennio, reckoning the man’s cowardice had rubbed off on him.

Ennio sullenly followed the Grossbarts, cutting between a wooden building and the side of the monastery proper. They were in shadow again, the outer wall and the side of the abbey conspiring to blot out the moon, the crunching snow the only sound. Emerging back into the moonlight, they were in another large courtyard with a single outbuilding set against the rear of the wall where the fortification curved back into the cliff. The trio made for a small doorway in the wall beside the building.

A warm breeze chilled their nerve at the door, a fetid wind blowing from behind. Turning as one, they saw nothing but the rear of the monastery and their own footprints trailing off into darkness. The pungent stench burned their eyes, and all three instantly knew it to be the odor of rotting meat. The draft faded but the stink remained. Ennio had taken a step toward the abbey when Manfried whistled softly.

Beyond the small wooden door a churchyard stretched along the stone shelf, cliffs rising up on one side and dropping from the other until the tapering plateau faded into the face of the mountain. Crosses and other markers jutted out of the snow like wreckage in a flood, and several pale hummocks towered beside the largest mound. To anyone else it would have appeared another vague lump in the powder but the Grossbarts instantly recognized it for a crypt. They hurried through the cemetery, banging their boots and knees on submerged tombstones, Ennio stumbling after.

The stone door had clearly stood undisturbed for ages, and Ennio leaned against it. He covetously watched Hegel withdraw a bottle from his bag and take a pull, then pass it to his brother. Manfried swigged it and planted it in the snow at his feet. While the Brothers inspected the door and counseled in their private dialect Ennio retrieved their schnapps in what he hoped appeared to be a casual manner and crouched in the snow rather than sit on a tomb.

Taking a long pull of the drink, Ennio thought of a certain lady in Venezia who would make him forget all about mysterious towns, strange passengers, and frigid necropoli. He thought of her olive skin and green eyes, of the sweet way she would tease him when he pretended to have left his purse at home. Then he saw Hegel remove a prybar from his bag and jam it into the door of the crypt, and Ennio choked on his drink.

“What you do this?” Ennio coughed.

“Pipe down,” said Manfried.

“Ain’t doin,” Hegel muttered, red-faced and white-knuckled.

“You mean to enter it?” Ennio gasped.

“Course we do,” Manfried said, digging the snow out from the bottom of the door.

“Got it?” Hegel asked, setting down the prybar.

“Yeah,” Manfried sighed, “but they got us good, too. What you make a this?”

Hegel hunkered beside his brother. Thick stones and masonry sealed the bottom of the door. The Grossbarts had encountered worse. They dug in their bags while Ennio paced, staring aghast at them.

“What could the inside tell us of the town? Or that stink by the gate?” Ennio demanded.

“Nuthin,” Hegel said, pulling out Manfried’s hammer and chisel.

“Less than,” said Manfried. “Inside a graves only tell the future, not the past.”

“Common misconception,” Hegel agreed, setting the chisel in place.

“What?” Ennio’s head swam. “What nonsense are you speaking?”

“Well,” Manfried said, raising his hammer. “The content a this here stone-house’ll tell us what’s to come. If it’s full a riches, then we’s rich, and if it ain’t, we ain’t.”

“Course there’s a deeper meanin,” Hegel said, pulling his own chisel out and using the flat end of his pick in lieu of a hammer. “And even if it’s empty we’s needin all the practice we can get fore hittin up them what the Infidel’s got. Heard they’s specially tricksome to get into.”

Both struck at the same time, the metal ringing out in the stillness. They shared a smile, the familiar sound a balm to ward off the chill of weather and witch alike. A faint echo returned, and at this they struck again, stone splintering off the crypt.

Ennio let fly a string of foreign curses, then remembered himself. “You intend theft from the dead? You’re defilers of graves!”

“Ennis-” Manfried began.

“Ennio,” Hegel corrected, smashing more masonry.

“Ennio,” Manfried continued, “even a half-wit knows it ain’t stealin if they’s dead.”

“Like rape won’t take away virginity,” Hegel said excitedly, sure his violation at the hands of Nicolette qualified.

“Exactly.” Manfried’s hammer fell again.

“You damn yourselves!” Ennio spluttered. “This sin cannot be undone!”

“We tithe,” Hegel explained.

“Doin Mary’s Will.” Manfried blasted off more stone.

Ennio turned. “We part paths here and now. Sleep in there, for we will not permit you to enter our shelter.”

“You’s drawin lines,” Manfried said, not looking away from his task.

“Never smart,” Hegel grunted, struggling with an obstinate piece of stone.

“Cause then we gotta cross’em,” Manfried finished. Many years had passed since the mortar was laid, evidenced by the ease with which it splintered. Further proof of Her Grace.

Ennio cursed them as he tramped toward the monastery gates. The tolling of their iron made him wince. Fifty paces from the door to the abbey grounds, Ennio saw the wooden gate swing inward. No wind followed yet the stink again permeated the calm air and he paused, peering into the black hole in the wall.