Dancing in the Palm of His Hand

by Annamarie Beckel

  Lutz was sorely tempted to grasp at the hope she offered. He guessed, however, that Frau Brugler would be removed from her position, and perhaps even arrested, before she ever got a chance to help another prisoner.

  She wagged a gnarled finger at him. “Eat that broth. You’ll be needing your strength. And remember, Herr Lutz, from now on, it was the demons.”

  42

  3 May 1626

  Every jolt and bump of the wooden wheels over the rutted road caused pain, but it was an exquisitely welcome pain. She was here, not there. Hay still covered her, but Eva had cleared a small circle around her eyes so she could study the sky, the beautiful blue sky, so wide above her. There were still moments of terror, especially when she heard riders coming behind them. She prayed then to the Holy Mother to shield them from the Prince-Bishop’s bailiff and his men, and if she could not, to at least give Eva the means, and the courage, to kill herself and Katharina before they could take them back to Würzburg.

  This morning, though, Eva was not afraid. She could hear cathedral bells ringing, calling people to mass. Neustadt, the driver had muttered when she asked. They were passing through Neustadt. She had never been so far from home, and she longed to sit up and gawk at everything. But she dared not.

  On this rare morning, Katharina sat up beside the driver. She wore a chemise and gown they’d found tucked in the corner of the wagon. A bright kerchief covered her shaved head. She chattered away excitedly, talking to the horse and describing people, buildings, and other sights, so that her mother could hear. The driver answered the girl’s questions with guttural grunts.

  A wary man, he rarely spoke. He’d not even told them his name, nor asked theirs. He wasn’t old, but deep lines of worry creased the ruddy skin around his mouth and eyes. Eva could see that he was suspicious of her, never laying a hand upon her, even to help her into and out of the wagon.

  When they’d stop on the road to eat and rest, the driver’s eyes would dart all around. He was especially watchful when they stopped in the forest, alert for the bailiff and his men, as well as for brigands hiding among the trees. While he watched for danger, Katharina would gather herbs and roots and set them to boil, then bathe Eva’s hands in the cooled broth. She would make a poultice of comfrey leaves, all the while telling Eva about comfrey and hellebore, about the bark of willow and elm.

  How did Katharina know all that? Who had taught her that wisdom?

  When Eva was afraid, Katharina would comfort her, telling her, in her childish certainty, that no one could hurt them. The white dog was with them. Eva wanted to believe Katharina, to believe that the white dog her daughter saw was a good thing.

  Eva was no longer sure what she believed. But she still prayed. Not to God, but to the Mother of God.

  The bells rang out, lovely and clear, a chiming through the morning sky. Eva lay still and tried to imagine herself at mass. Safe. Her lips could hardly form the word. Had she ever been safe? No one was safe, not any longer. Even now, they might be torturing Herr Lutz and Father Herzeim. Friedrich. A fresh grief stabbed at her heart.

  She folded her damaged hands on her chest. Mother of God, she prayed, please protect them. Please reward the goodness of their hearts.

  43

  4 May 1626

  Lutz turned the shackles to ease the rawness on his wrists. He’d been there three days, three long nights, and it was more dreadful than he’d ever imagined: the stink and filth, the black rats, the same dull grey stone, the rancid broth, the loneliness. And the terrible grief for Maria. And fear.

  Why hadn’t they questioned him again? Why hadn’t Freude come to strip and shave him?

  He could hear commotion outside the tower: voices calling out, horses snorting, monks chanting that the end of the world was near. He’d heard a dozen swift footsteps pass on the stairs outside the door.

  Lutz turned toward the sound of metal scraping on metal. The door opened, and as he expected, it was the new jailer’s wife, hefty and gruff, and as silent as Frau Brugler had been talkative. For two days now, she’d brought his food, emptied the slop bucket, changed his straw, and hardly said three words. Lutz had begun to wonder if the woman was deaf.

  She carried a broom and a basket in her beefy arms. Setting down the basket, she gestured for him to stand, then, with wide strokes of the broom, began sweeping up the soiled straw.

  “Any news of Frau Rosen?” said Lutz.

  Silence.

  “Have they found her?”

  Her coarse face darkened. “Why ask about witches?”

  “Please, just tell me. Have they found her?”

  “Leave me alone,” she muttered, her round chin trembling. “I can’t talk to you.”

  “Just a word,” he pleaded.

  She kept her head down and continued sweeping. “Nein,” she whispered.

  “Nein what?”

  “They haven’t.”

  Was it possible they’d made it safely to Nuremberg? Oh God, let it be so. Lutz opened his mouth to thank the woman, then clamped it shut. It wouldn’t be good to seem pleased that Frau Rosen had escaped. “That’s terrible,” he said. “Chancellor Brandt and the other commissioners must be furious.”

  She bobbed her head, but said nothing more. She quickly swept the straw into the basket and left. Never once had she actually looked at him.

  Lutz sat down on the bare wood floor. She was afraid, he thought. Of me. What have they told her?

  The clamour outside the window quieted. There was only the murmur of the monks’ chanting. Suddenly, loud shrieks broke the silence. The midwife. Where had the woman found the strength? She’d been close to death when Lutz saw her last.

  Her screaming denials rang out through the clear morning air.

  Where, in God’s name, had she found the courage to recant, knowing she’d be burned alive? Could he ever find that kind of courage within himself? Lutz lowered his head into his shackled hands. The woman’s screams pierced his heart. Maybe he’d been wrong all along. Maybe Frau Lamm was innocent, too.

  He stood and ran his fingers along a crevice between the cold grey stones, a crevice he could reach even when shackled. That’s where he’d hidden the razor. It would be there when he needed it.

  44

  4 May 1626

  Hampelmann stared at the grey stones. The sins of the father. That’s why he was here. That’s why he suffered. He closed his eyes to bring the words of Moses clearly to mind: The Lord is patient and full of mercy, taking away iniquity and wickedness, and leaving no man clear, who visitest the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

  He heard distant screams from outside the city walls and knew, by their pitch, that Freude had kindled the flames. He’d soon be assaulted by the dreadful hexen gestank. Why had the witch recanted? More proof that Der Hexenhammer was right. Witch midwives surpassed all other witches in their wickedness. She’d not only burn here, but for all of eternity.

  He put his shackled hands over his ears to shut out the screams. He would not think about the midwife. He would meditate on his own innocence. He was suffering for the sins of his father, but he, himself, was innocent. Therefore, God would send them a sign, just as he’d sent a sign to show him that Eva was innocent.

  He tried to recall the details of that night, concentrating on remembering exactly how he’d done it, but everything was fragmented and hazy, as if he’d acted in a dream. When he first went to Eva, he’d felt the presence of something strange and ethereal in the cell, but it was not demons. Katharina was not possessed. Hampelmann knew that. It was God’s hand that had guided him, not the Devil’s.

  He had a vague recollection of whisking them out of the tower, past Frau Brugler and the guard, who were distracted with their beer and cards. He’d handed them over to an old man and woman disguised as beggars. How much had he paid the couple to hide them? He wasn’t sure, but he did recall, with pleasure, the wistful longing on Eva’s face when he’d had to leave her.

 
On his way home, he’d encountered the wutenker, who were searching for him, furious that he’d freed an innocent. He’d been terrified, but God had protected him.

  Hampelmann’s plan was for Eva and Katharina to remain hidden until he could convince the commissioners to declare them innocent. All of them knew Eva was innocent. He’d only done what every man among them had wanted to do. But no one else had had the courage.

  Why had Lutz spoken up?

  It could only be envy, Saint Thomas’ fourth deadly sin. Lutz had always been jealous of his noble lineage, his membership in the Upper City Council, his position of power and authority in the Malefizamt. And now, the weak-willed lawyer envied him in being God’s faithful servant in the rescue of Eva and Katharina. Lutz wanted to claim that honour for himself.

  Hampelmann dropped his hands. He’d never allow Lutz to lay claim to what was rightfully his.

  He’d acted with courage in saving Eva and Katharina, and God would reward him. God would protect him the way he’d protected Eva. He would walk free, and then he would find her. And she would love him.

  They would love chastely, in the way God intended.

  Hampelmann looked at the shackles, and smiled. These were the very same shackles that had embraced her wrists, the very same walls that had witnessed her holy gaze. That, in itself, was a sign from God. A sign that, in this place where Eva had dwelt, he had nothing to fear from the Devil.

  45

  Nothing to fear from the Devil. But everything to fear from the men who sit at the table.

  His fear will conjure me. He will see me in the cell. He will see me in the chamber. He will see me in the night, a dark man with glowing red eyes and a huge cock. His fear will torment him, for he does not know I dwell within, not without. I am with him always.

  Like the tall Jesuit and the fat lawyer, he will talk and talk and talk. He and the priest and the lawyer will use different words, but the men at the table will hear none of them. Their fear stops their ears.

  In a strange and wondrous alchemy, their fear hardens their certainty.

  46

  4 May 1646

  He sits in Maria’s garden, a wool coverlet over his bony knees. He’s a thin man now, with the look of an ascetic. His hair and beard have long since grown back, as white as before, but his bright blue eyes have faded to the colour of clouded ice. When he closes them, he sees it all again. So he keeps them open and takes in the colours all around him: blue forget-me-nots, pink cherry blossoms, shiny yellow buttercups, purple violets, deep red blooms of bleeding heart. He wills himself to forget, but his heart remembers, and bleeds, and at odd moments, he weeps uncontrollably. He no longer tries to contain his grief. The effort is beyond him.

  He rarely goes out. Even more rarely does anyone come to the house. No man trusts a lawyer who is still, twenty years later, rumoured to be a defender of witches. No matter. He cannot write contracts anyway. His writing is hardly legible, and his thumbs ache with the effort. His circumstances are much diminished. But there is still the garden with its lovely colours and scents. He would bury his nose in green grass, in earth dampened by dew.

  Maria still fusses. She takes him to Saint Kilian’s every Sunday. He keeps his eyes open there as well. He studies the crucifix, the Son’s suffering. And wonders about God the Father.

  He did not go to see Hampelmann burn. He’d tried to defend him. But failed. Yet again.

  True to her word, Frau Brugler kept to her story, even when tortured. But neither she nor Lutz could save Father Herzeim, who refused to recant his heresy. Addled by demons, Lutz was no threat. They were willing to release him. But they knew the Jesuit was dangerous.

  Lutz went to the execution. He would give his friend one kind face to look upon. It hadn’t been hard for Father Herzeim to spot him. Lutz had stood at the front of the jeering crowd, empty space all around him. No one would stand near to a man who’d been shaved of his hair and beard, a man whose thumbs had been mutilated and smashed.

  He didn’t turn his eyes to the ground this time. He watched. He still sees the terrible look of resolve, even of exultation, on his friend’s face as the flames caressed his bare feet. Then there was the exquisite look of agony.

  A month later, when he thought he could bear it, Lutz went to the priest’s office to claim his breviary. And found the manuscript. At his own expense, he arranged to have it smuggled to Nuremberg and published. It was the least he could do.

  It has ended. Finally. But not before nine hundred women, men, and children burned. Lutz went to every execution so there would be one kind face for innocents to look upon.

  It has ended. It ended when Prince-Bishop Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg and Chancellor Johann Brandt were themselves accused. Just a year later, King Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedish troops marched into Würzburg, and His Grace fled.

  It has ended. But Lutz still smells the stink of burning flesh clinging to the city like an invisible foulness that cannot be washed away. He keeps the razor tucked away in his doublet.

  There is but one memory that can make him smile: Eva Rosen. The Prince-Bishop’s bailiff never found her. Lutz did not fail them all.

  47

  It has not ended. Their fear conjures me yet. Their fear keeps them dancing in the palm of my hand.

  Acknowledgements

  I am deeply grateful to members of Northern Writers – Tom Joseph, Michele Bergstrom, and Phil Paterson – and to Pat Byrne of Memorial University of Newfoundland for careful readings of and insightful comments on all versions of the manuscript, from rough draft to final copy. I appreciate their unstinting support and enthusiasm for this project.

  I also thank my editor at Breakwater, Tamara Reynish, for her careful and sensitive editing of the manuscript. She was a joy to work with. Thanks go to Rhonda Molloy as well for designing the cover and manuscript so beautifully and appropriately.

  Thomas Mallon, Carolyn Cooke, and Mira Bartok at the 2001 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, as well as Elizabeth McCracken and Eric May at the 2002 Stone Coast Writers’ Conference, offered perceptive comments and advice on the novel. Laurel Yourke at the University of Wisconsin-Madison provided thought-provoking discussions about point-of-view.

  I cannot thank enough the wonderful librarians at the Minocqua Public Library who obtained for me, through interlibrary loan, all the arcane research materials I needed to complete this novel.

  I also thank Katra Byram for her invaluable translation of Christel Beyer’s Hexen-leut so zu Würzburg Gerichtet, and Hans-Peter Baum of the Stadtarchiv in Würzburg for so generously providing information on seventeenth century Würzburg. All errors, however, are mine.

  Bibliography

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  Bodin, Jean. De la Demonomanie des sorciers. Paris, 1580.

  Boquet, Henri. Discours des sorciers. Lyons, 1602.

  Delrio, Martin. Disquisitionum Magicarum. Louvain, 1599.

  Institoris (Kramer), Heinrich and Jakob Sprenger. Malleus Maleficarum. Cologne, 1486.

  Remy, Nicolas. Demonolatreiae. Lyons, 1595.

  Weyer, Johann. De Praestigiis Daemonum. Basel, 1563.

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  Beyer, Christel. Hexen-leut so zu Würzburg Gerichtet. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1986.

  Brauner, Sigrid. Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews: the Construction of the Witch In Early Modern Germany. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995.

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  Hinckeldey, Christoph. Criminal Justice Through the Ages. Trans. John Fosberry. Rothenburg: Mittelalterliches Kriminalmuseum, 1993.

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  Kors, Alan C. and Edward Peters. Eds. Witchcraft in Europe 1100-1700: A Documentary History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972.