Lycanthropos

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  Louisa began to walk back and forth in the cell, shaking her head and saying, "I just don’t understand what’s happening to the world, I just don’t understand. When I was born, just as the war was ending, everything seemed bad, terribly bad...my mother used to tell me about it...my father died in the war, you see, fighting against the French..."

  Blasko and Kaldy exchanged glances. Louisa seemed upset to the point of incoherent rambling. "Donna..." Blasko said gently.

  "But when I was growing up, things were...well, things were...things made sense. Blasko, they made sense, but nothing makes any sense anymore! I mean, look at the people who are running our country! Look at the people who are running all the countries! Look at the things they are doing! The world is turning into a madhouse!" she moaned, sitting down on an empty stool.

  "It has always been a madhouse," Kaldy said kindly."It is simply that you have never before lived in one of the wards. "

  She looked at Kaldy and asked, "Do you remember anything of the past, anything beyond what the hypnosis brought to the surface?"

  "Oh, I remembered my first meeting with my good friend Blasko quite well before the hypnosis, Madam. Your husband’s ministrations served merely to afford my memories an immediacy they might not otherwise have had."

  As before, Louisa was struck by the dignified intelligence of Kaldy’s manner of speech. "And your memories of things prior to that?"

  He shrugged. "As I have said, my memory is clear enough back to the late eighteenth century. Before that, before the French Revolution released me from prison, I remember next to nothing."

  "Do you remember kindness and civility?" she asked, tears once again welling up in her eyes. "Do you remember a time when people were not cruel, heartless, inhuman swine?"

  He smiled sadly. "I remember very little kindness, Madam, but I remember much cruelty. I fear such behavior is endemic to the human condition."

  She looked into his dark, sad, weary eyes. "Are you an educated man, Herr Kaldy?"

  He shrugged once again. "I have no idea, Madam."

  As Louisa von Weyrauch was calming herself with conversation and as Janos Kaldy and the Gypsy Blasko were helping to settle her nerves by their very presence, in another part of the Ragoczy Palace Nathan Rabinowicz was fast approaching the moment of his death.

  Rabinowicz had been born and raised in Poland, in that area which under the Tsars had been referred to as the Jewish Pale of Settlement, that area which had become part of the Republic of Poland once the government of Tsarist Russia had collapsed under the duel assault of military defeat and Bolshevik revolution. He was an average man, neither stunningly good nor appallingly bad, and he had lived the thirty-six years of his life in a totally conventional manner for a man of hisstation and his means. He had been a watchmaker, as his father and grandfather had been before him, and he had earned an adequate, if modest, living at his trade. He had been able to give his wife Rachel and his two daughters, Sonya and Esther, a relatively comfortable life for a while.

  That had been before September of 1939. After the German conquest of Poland, everything changed. Rabinowicz had been able to take his wife and daughters east, ahead of the German armies, into that area of Poland which was in the process of being annexed by Germany’s ally, the Soviet Union; but this brief security was shattered in 1941 when the Nazis turned on their Communist associate and invaded Russia, with Poland once again the invasion route, as it had been in 1914 and 1812, as it had been during the Middle Ages; and the Jews of Poland were then totally under the control of the German Behemoth. For Nathan Rabinowicz, that had meant transportation to the Lodz Ghetto, and then transportation to Auschwitz, and then transportation to the RagoczyPalace.

  He was now trembling with fear as he looked at the cold, impassive faces appraising him clinically, and he wondered where his wife was, where his daughters were. They had been separated when the family was taken to Auschwitz, and he prayed that they were still alive in that hell hole. He did not know that Rachel had long since been gassed and reduced to soap. He did not know that Sonya and Esther, after having served for a time as Leidenträgerinen, corpse carriers at the death camp, had been gassed the night before.

  All of which he was certain, as he looked into the faces of Helmuth Schlacht and Joachim Festhaller and Petra Loewenstein and Gottfried von Weyrauch, was that he was facing the end of his life.

  "An adequate specimen?" Schlacht asked Petra.

  "Yes, he’ll do," she replied. "He’s relatively young, not more than forty, I’d say, and his condition is good enough under the circumstances."

  Schlacht noticed the appalled, horrified look on Weyrauch’s face, and he struggled to contain his amusement at the minister’s weakness as he asked, "Is something troubling you, Gottfried?"

  "N…no, Helmuth, no…" he stammered.

  "Good. Then let us begin."

  Schlacht nodded to the two guards who were standing beside the captive Jew, and they proceeded methodically to prepare him for the experiment. Rabinowicz was seated in a wooden chair and his hands were tied behind it as his feet were bound to its legs. Rabinowicz’s face showed confusion through his fear as loop after loop of heavy chain was wrapped around him, chain into the links of which had been inserted dry and withered plants. When the S.S. guards were finished they stepped back from the prisoner, as Schlacht nodded to Petra.

  The young woman went to the surgical table which had been standing in one corner and took a hypodermic needle from the metal tray. She picked up a stethoscope and held it out to Weyrauch, saying, "Doctor? If you would?" Weyrauch walked over to her and took the instrument from her hand, wiping his brow and swallowing hard.

  As Petra thrust the needle into the arm of the terrified man, Weyrauch donned the stethoscope and placed the end upon Rabinowicz’s chest. Petra depressed the plunger and the synthesized enzyme poured into the prisoner’s blood stream.

  Thirty seconds passed. The observers watched the prisoner intently, and Schlacht’s lips narrowed with irritation as nothing seemed to be happening. But then Rabinowicz shrieked as a sensation of incredible burning exploded in his chest and abdomen, and he tried to double over in pain. The ropes and chains prevented him from moving, and so his poisoned body merely rocked and shook and shuddered. His eyes widened as the toxin which was already wracking his body penetrated his brain, and spasms of involuntary muscle contractions caused him to slam his jaws tightly shut, catching his tongue between his teeth. The edge of his tongue sheared off and splattered onto the floor as a river of blood began to pour from his mouth. His body shuddered and wrenched against its bonds. And then it ceased to live.

  Weyrauch stumbled backward away from the still trembling corpse, and he repressed an urge to vomit. "His heart...has ceased beating."

  Schlacht walked forward and, leaning over, stared into the face of the dead man. Rabinowicz’s eyes were wide and staring madly, and his bloody mouth was frozen open in a final, unvoiced scream of excruciating agony.

  "Damn!" Festhaller muttered.

  "It appears that the chemical ratio was incorrect," Petra said calmly. "I had feared as much. As I pointed out, there were so many steps involved in the analysis that I was not confident that the correct mix would be arrived at on the first attempt."

  "Apparently, your suspicions were correct, Fräulein," Schlacht agreed. "Gottfried, I think that an autopsy is called for. Fräulein, return to your laboratory, and Herr Professor, arrange for the shipment of more test subjects from Auschwitz." He seemed troubled, harried. "We simply must nail this down!"

  Weyrauch lost the battle he had been waging with himself. He turned his face away from the scene before him and vomited copiously.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Can you hear me, Kaldy? Do you know who I am?"

  "Yes, Herr Doctor. I know who you are."

  "Where are you now, Kaldy? What year is it?"

  "I do not know the year, Herr Doctor. It is...it is before I was imprisoned."

  "Are you in Hungary?"<
br />
  "No...no, France. I am in France."

  "Are you being imprisoned now? Are they taking you to prison now?"

  "No...no...yes...no, not to prison. I am being taken into a courtroom."

  "Is Claudia with you?"

  "Yes."

  ‘"Is she being taken into court with you?"

  "Yes...yes, she and three others."

  "Three others?"

  "Yes."

  "Are they...are they...like you and Claudia?"

  "They are accused of werewolvery. We are all accused of werewolvery. Yes, yes. I remember it now. I can see it all now. It is the Inquisition. We are being taken before a court of the Inquisition."

  "And all five of you are werewolves?"

  "No. I am a werewolf. Claudia is a werewolf. The others are madmen...all of them...all of them...the prisoners, the judges, the mob...madmen." He paused, and then added softly. "No...no, one sane man is there... just one..."

  How long had it been since he had seen their faces, the face of the sad, tired young man, the face of the sad, tired young woman? Had it really been forty-five years? Could it possibly have been forty-five years? He had been eighteen years old when he saw them dragged before the tribunal, and now he was in his sixties, old and worn out and ill and ready to die. But they! They had not changed, they had not aged, they looked exactly as he remembered them.

  Michel de Notre Dame, savant, alchemist, scholar, astrologer, court physician to His Most Catholic Majesty Charles IX, shook his head as he stared into the faces of the two people who stood before him. This is impossible. It cannot be they.

  The old astrologer remembered that week back in 1521 with the clarity which old age often imparts to memories of one’s youth. He was eighteen years of age, his Jewish family now Catholic for a scant nine years, when he was sent by the Monsignor to observe the proceedings then being conducted at Poligny by the Dominican Friar, Jean Boin. It was not that the Monsignor had any reason to mistrust Boin; indeed, Monsignor Pierre d’Avingnon did not even know Boin. But d’Avignon mistrusted the Inquisition for a very simple and, to him, logical reason; anything invented by Italians, conducted by Dominicans, and enthusiastically supported by Spaniards, had no place in France.

  And so young Michel de Notre Dame, young Michael of Our Lady, was dispatched on foot to make the long journey from Paris to Poligny so that his benefactor might have an eyewitness report of the investigation into these charges of lycanthropy. Michel had accepted the task willingly. He was a good student, a source of joy to his teachers, but he yearned to see people and places outside of the abbey, he longed to explore the world as all young men long to explore the world; and while Poligny was not Kambaluc or Thule, not Novgorod or Bagdad, it was new to him, and thus it was welcome.

  He stood among the other spectators in the large open courtroom, waiting for the proceedings to begin. A thick, wooden railing separated the spectators from the court proper, and it was only the special letter of authority given to him by Monsignor d’Avignon which had enabled him to move to the front of the crowd, and even that only with the assistance of the soldiers. The customary loud, boisterous, intoxicated banter of the morbid curiosity seekers who spent their time waiting to see people tortured and hanged was today subdued and nervous, for this was no simple witchcraft trial, no simple inquiry into heresy or apostasy, no common trial for murder or theft or rape. Everyone in the room had seen the mutilated corpses lying in the mud in the town’s street, had seen the jagged wounds where the inhuman teeth had ripped flesh from bone; many of the people present that day had heard the screams of their neighbors and the roars of the beasts on that night not three weeks before. The onlookers, like the officials, knew that werewolves were prowling about Poligny, and they were shaking with anger and fear.

  Michel de Notre Dame leaned forward over the railing to get a clear view of Jean Boin, monk of the Dominican Order and Inquisitor General of Besançon, as he entered the room from the side door. He was flanked by two other monks who were carrying large, impressive tomes of learning and law. Boin’s face was hard and serious, his eyes quick and small, his body thin and ascetic. He was a man who knew his duty to God, the Church and the King, and had every intention of doing it to the best of his ability, even if Satan and all his demons were to oppose him. Boin mounted the short, narrow stairs which led to the seat behind the judicial bench and all voices in the room fell silent as he intoned, "I open these proceedings in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Bear witness to the truthfulness of Your servants, O Lord God, and grant to Your judges the wisdom to do Your will." He looked out over the crowd and continued the ritualized words which served to open an Inquisitorial Court. "Know ye, Christian subjects of our dread lord and sovereign King Charles IX, that I, Jean Claude Louis Marie Boin de Menier, serve as Inquisitor General for Besançon by the will of our lord the King and by edict of our Holy Father Pope Leo X, Successor of Saint Peter and Vicar of Christ. May the Lord God bless these proceedings and be with this court."

  The invocation being thus completed, Boin seated himself in the large wooden chair and said to a soldier who stood near the side door, "Present the prisoners to this tribunal."

  It was at that moment that young Michel first laid his eyes on the two people. Five prisoners were led into court that day, each chained heavily upon wrist and ankle, and it was only later, after the sentences had been passed, after the horror had begun, that he realized the significance of that first view of the young man and the young woman; and years were to pass before he began to suspect that it had been the hand of God and not the will of Monsignor d’Avignon that had led him that day to the court in Poligny.

  Friar Boin crooked his finger at the prisoners, who then shuffled forward toward the bench. "We will first make certain that your names have been correctly recorded," he said, and as he spoke one of his fellow monks spread a sheet of clean white linen paper out onto the surface of the bench. As the second monk dipped his quill into a pot of ink, Boin continued. "When I indicate to you that you are to speak, you will state your name, your place of residence, and your age. Is that understood?" Three of the prisoners nodded eager, cooperative affirmations. The other two, the young man and the young woman, did not respond. No one seemed to notice this fact, other than Michel de Notre Dame. It was from that moment onward that he paid a closer attention to those two than to the other three prisoners.

  "You," Boin said, pointing to one of the prisoners.

  "P-P-P-Pierre Bourgot," the prisoner replied. He was a tall, husky peasant with a plain, simple, honest, trusting face. "Pierre Bourgot," he repeated, apparently determined not to stammer. "I live in Poligny, in this village. I am thirty years old."

  Boin glanced to his left to make certain that the scribe had copied it all down, and then nodded at the second prisoner. "You," he barked.

  "I am Michael Verdung, also called Michel Udon," the second man replied. "I am a native of Strassburg, currently living in this village. My age is twenty-nine." Unlike Bourgot, Verdung seemed quite calm, though his fat, work-hardened fingers twitched as he spoke and the thin moustache upon his sallow face was glistening with the drops of perspiration which it had captured as they dripped from his brow.

  "You."

  "May it please you, I am Philibert Mentot of Poligny, age nineteen." The young boy’s eyes radiated a naive certainty that he would survive this entire terrible experience if only he would continue to be cooperative and polite. As he spoke he glanced at the spectators, many of whom were his friends and relatives. His smile faded when no one smiled back at him.

  "You."

  No response.

  "You," Boin repeated.

  No response.

  A soldier slammed the blunt end of his lance into the prisoner’s stomach and shouted, "Answer the Inquisitor General when he addresses you!"

  Michel de Notre Dame furrowed his young brow when he saw that the prisoner’s face seemed not to reflect any pain from the blow. Instead he simply
said in a soft, melancholy voice. "I am called Janus Chaldian. I am not French. I do not know my age."

  Boin nodded as the information was copied down. It was not at all uncommon for a peasant not to know his age. "He appears to be around twenty-five years old. Note that," he said to the scribe. "And from whence do you come?"

  Janus Chaldian shrugged. "I do not know who my people are. "

  The third monk leaned over and whispered into Boin’s ear, and the Inquisitor General then said, "It is sufficient for our purposes to know your last residence."

  "I have been wandering," Chaldian said.

  "Yes, yes, no doubt," Boin said with irritation. "Tell us where you last lived for any length of time."

  "I sailed five years ago to the southern coast of Francefrom Wallachia."

  Boin’s eyes went wide. "You are a Turk?"

  "No," Chaldian said, "I don’t think so."

  "Are you a Christian?" Chaldian shrugged and did not reply. "Well, we’ll see soon enough." Boin turned to the woman and said, "You."

  "I am called Claudia," the woman said, her large dark eyes and white skin burning themselves into the mind of Michel de Notre Dame. "I do not know my age. I have been with Chaldian for as long as I can remember."

  "Perhaps we will be able to assist you and your friend in improving your memories," Boin commented, making no effort to mask his annoyance. He sat back in his chair and said, "Pierre Bourgot. Step forward..."

  The scribe took copious notes as the interrogation proceeded, but Michel did not need to commit any of his impressions to paper. Monsignor d’Avignon was not interested in receiving a verbatim report, but merely an evaluation of the validity of the proceedings. Michel formed his opinion early in the day, and nothing which was said during the following days served to alter his impressions, for he became quickly convinced that the zeal of the inquisitors, the feeblemindedness of the accused and the superstitious fears of the general populace had combined to produce a carnival of nonsense.