The Witch of Cologne

by Tobsha Learner

  Tap-tap, something brushes against his leg. He looks down to see a dirty fleshy stump being held up for his inspection. A cripple, probably a war victim, squats in the gutter begging for alms. Heinrich, feeling anything but charitable, knocks the pewter jug out of the man’s hand. Coins go flying as the archbishop continues his excursion.

  His two assistants hurriedly collect the scattered money and placate the wheedling beggar with a few Reichstaler of their own, while several onlookers watch disapprovingly.

  Heinrich pushes open the wooden door of the chapel of Saint Severin. A simple place of worship, devoid of the baroque trappings of the Church of the Assumption or the Gothic ambition of the cathedral itself, it is Heinrich’s personal haven. The small chapel has an asceticism which appeals to his Bavarian sensibility: its white walls, plain wooden pews and unadorned altar speak of humility and an honest spirituality which Heinrich secretly craves.

  He nods at one of the nuns and swiftly makes his way towards the altar-piece, a plain wooden carving of the crucifixion. Heinrich particularly likes this depiction of Jesus: the face is the most realistic he has ever seen, carved with the heavy Germanic features he feels his own visage mirrors. This is a man he recognises, a man who, like himself, has been confronted with the complex and compromising politics of his time, but through spiritual enlightenment has transcended and triumphed. It is a comforting allegory the archbishop returns to often.

  He crosses himself then kneels carefully, delicately balancing his gout-ridden knee on the cold stone. Resting his elbows on a low rail he presses his hands together in prayer. The light streams across his shaved pate and a cloud of incense smoke hangs for an instant above him, suspended.

  An hour later he is still there. Awed, his two assistants whisper with the nun at the back of the church. They have never seen their master so observant. In reality the venerable archbishop, lulled by the tranquillity of the chapel and the rare winter sun falling on the back of his neck, has fallen asleep.

  He dreams that he is talking with the Lord Jesus, Our Saviour. The Galilean, dressed rather confusingly in Parisian court clothes, is advising him to stop worrying about loaves and instead place his faith in blood. Heinrich is moved to tears by the profundity of the statement, which, just a little too late, he realises he has absolutely no understanding of at all.

  Confused, he looks up and is struck by the radiance surrounding the Saviour’s head. It is not the complex light he had always imagined, but a light he recognises from his early childhood: the luminosity of his mother’s breast as he was feeding there, or perhaps the light shining through the skin of her womb while he lay waiting to be born; whatever the source, it distracts him completely and he forgets to ask Jesus the exact meaning of his parable, despite the twinkle in the Galilean’s eyes.

  ‘Your highness?’ The wheedling tone of his assistant jolts the archbishop rudely awake.

  ‘What now?’

  Heinrich stands, wrestling with the pain which shoots through his body as he shifts his weight.

  ‘The father of the midwife, the chief rabbi, is waiting. He begs for an audience.’

  The archbishop glances at the chapel door and glimpses Elazar hovering outside, his apprehensive face peering into the shadows. Dressed in traditional robes he looks like the archetypal Jew banned from the Christian temple. Heinrich can only imagine the humiliations the rabbi must have experienced to travel unaccompanied from Deutz into Cologne. Even from this distance Heinrich can see his prayer shawl is muddy and that the old man is fighting exhaustion.

  ‘He won’t take no for an answer,’ the priest adds unnecessarily.

  Sighing, Heinrich hobbles to the entrance. He knows the rabbi will not cross the threshold, out of respect and superstition. As the archbishop moves between the pews he tries to compose a rational explanation for the arrest of Ruth bas Elazar Saul.

  Over the years he has grown to admire the rabbi’s dry wit and gift for strategy. The old man is also a potential ally. His Dutch colleagues are strong supporters of William of Orange—all Jews are royalists, Heinrich reminds himself. This makes the two of them bedfellows, admittedly strange ones. He is unaware that this is an illusion Elazar has been quick to exploit.

  ‘My poor dear man.’ Heinrich grasps the rabbi’s trembling hands. ‘You must be freezing. Come, come.’

  With an imperious wave the archbishop dismisses the curious town guards who have followed the old Jew through the icy streets. He ushers Elazar into a small chamber behind the chapel and after helping the old man into a chair sends the nun out for a jug of ale.

  Elazar, his long nose purple with cold and the rest of his face shining a ghostly white, cannot quite believe he has made the journey. Anger and desperation have driven him to this place, but now that he is actually here the long supplications he has composed during the dark days since his daughter’s arrest abandon him. He is speechless. A huge shudder passes through his frail body.

  Heinrich, ever observant and in a particularly benevolent mood since his celestial discourse, again takes the old man’s long pale hands between his own.

  ‘Rabbi, we may be of different faiths but we are both spiritual men. I suggest that we pray together—a prayer for clarity and control in a difficult situation over which even I have no jurisdiction.’

  And with that both men lower their heads and begin two prayers: one in Hebrew, the other in Latin; one an entreaty for leniency, the other for political grace. The two ancient tongues curl around one another in a strange onomatopoeic dance, then float up to the ceiling to settle between the carved rafters like sacred smoke.

  The nun returns and, intimidated by their meditations, leaves the two pewter jugs of ale on a side table and glides silently away. The aroma distracts the archbishop and makes his stomach rumble most irreverently.

  ‘Amen,’ he hurriedly finishes, fearing that the Hebrew litany might drag on. Elazar opens one eye and, taking the archbishop’s cue, cuts short his devotion.

  ‘Between you and me, I fear that God is deaf,’ Heinrich whispers conspiratorially as he hands the rabbi his beer. But Elazar is beyond humour.

  ‘With all due respect, he may not be deaf but from my side of the Rhine he definitely does not understand Hebrew,’ he replies with barely a smile.

  There is a pause. Heinrich, marvelling at the renewed sense of faith he is experiencing since his metaphysical encounter, is inspired to extend his benevolence once again.

  ‘Many, many apologies, my friend. The arrest was beyond my control. Even the archbishop of Cologne has a higher power to answer to. I am so sorry.’

  Elazar, frightened by the unusual warmth and familiarity Heinrich is displaying, begins to shake so violently that he spills ale on his tallith.

  ‘She is my only child, sire, the last light of my life.’

  ‘And a good midwife, I hear.’

  ‘Too good. If she had kept to her own this would never have happened.’

  ‘If the charge were less serious—bribery, theft, perhaps—I could talk to the bürgermeister, but sorcery…’

  ‘She is innocent!’

  ‘Do you doubt the wisdom and judgement of the Grand Inquisitional Council as well as that of the Holy Emperor Leopold himself?’

  Elazar hesitates, sensing a trap.

  ‘It would not be my place to query such a venerable institution, but my daughter is not a witch.’

  ‘Of that I am sure, Herr Saul, but as I indicated before, the matter is out of my hands.’

  Heinrich stands, signalling that the audience is over, but the rabbi does not move.

  ‘Listen to me, your highness, I have an offer.’

  ‘Forgive me, rabbi, but you are in no position to make offers.’

  ‘There is money owed.’ Elazar is unable to keep the desperate tone out of his voice.

  Immediately Heinrich sits back down. The loans the archbishop has taken out with Herr Hossern, the Jewish moneylender, are confidential and have gone towards funding his secret efforts to re
instate the Rhineland aristocracy. They are also substantial.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Herr Hossern is prepared to waive the full five hundred Reichstaler in exchange for my daughter’s release.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘I give you my word of honour. All the debts will be void; more than that, there will be no talk of the debts prior to the exchange or afterwards.’

  Heinrich, tempted, watches Elazar’s hands twist in his lap. The cancellation of the monies owed would save him a great deal of potential embarrassment. Although he hates to be accountable to the Jews, an annulled debt would be a straight barter and that notion is very attractive. Swiftly he runs through the possible ramifications: the inquisitor is determined, of that there is no doubt, but perhaps he can override him and make a direct petition to Vienna.

  ‘Please, Archbishop, I appeal to your humanity. My daughter is everything to me.’

  The rabbi reaches out and grasps a fold of the archbishop’s robe, a gesture full of humility. Heinrich is suddenly embarrassed for him.

  ‘Give me a week. In the meantime I promise I shall find every imaginable excuse to prevent the Spaniard beginning his pitiful “interrogation”.’

  Heinrich walks Elazar to the door.

  ‘God bless you in all your endeavours.’ The old rabbi clasps the archbishop’s hand but declines to kiss the proffered ring.

  ‘And may he bless you too, Elazar ben Saul.’

  Dear Benedict,

  You describe yourself as the apostle of Reason, but here it is difficult to see any reason in my fellow men. You have portrayed the fear of Hell as the greatest fallacy of all—a profound lie which cripples the destinies of men and keeps them fearful of taking their lives into their own hands. Here now I see that the life we lead is Gehenna. I exist in it now; there is nothing left to me but the act of grappling with my fears and the incessant inhalation of breath, yet despite all deprivations I keep living.

  Remember when you told me that you were expected to reject Reason the very same way the Inquisition forced the rabbis who excommunicated you to reject their Judaism? Now I am expected to reject my beliefs and my heritage and choose a compromised life over a truthful death. I will choose death. Is this rational?

  If God is all things—Nature itself—am I not just choosing to dissolve back into nothingness, a nebulous substance that is even less than a soul without a body?

  As you see, my doubts have become my demons. My frailty appals me. It is easy to theorise when one is not confronted with the rack, or worse. My guard has told me that even the Inquisition cannot stomach my persecutor’s inhuman appetites. I can but hope that when the torturer begins his hideous art, my mind and conscious body will leave me.

  Pray to your reasonable God for me.

  In living faith, your good friend,

  ‘Felix van Jos’

  The corridor of the dungeon is a hellish jigsaw of long sinister shadows. Above, bats shift uneasily in their baggy leather skins. Like dazed lunatics the nesting creatures squeal as the moving torches beneath illuminate the hidden corners.

  It is a sombre procession. The dignified priest leads the way, his white robes and solemn face suggesting an office of great importance. A cleric follows, an ancient tome tucked beneath his arm, the quill of the scholar hanging from his neck in a goatskin pouch. A page trails behind, struggling with a viola da gamba, its polished chestnut body glowing in the candlelight. Bringing up the rear is a very different monster, a squat muscular man wearing a rough barras jerkin covered by a barvell. His gnarled forearms are bare and scarred as if he has seen service in the Great War. Could he be a soldier? A blacksmith? Or a bondsman of some exotic guild? The leather apron suggests that he needs to protect himself from something. Fire? Hot oil? Scalding water? And why is he hooded, his eyes barely visible through the neatly stitched slits?

  A mysterious procession indeed. One could almost think it funereal, except the corpse is living, a terrified human being, half-dragged, half-stumbling between two guards.

  Ruth can barely feel the stones beneath her naked feet. Terror has loosened her bowels and overridden both shame and pride. To stop herself fainting she recites a prayer her father taught her as a child. It flaps around her mind like one of the prison’s maddened bats, but the sounding of the words gives her courage and keeps her from collapsing.

  The guard on her right glances nervously at his comrade. He fears that the mumbled Hebrew is an incantation and he shall be struck down by a dreadful curse which will render him lame or deaf or, worst of all, blind. But his companion, older and well seasoned in the eccentricities of the condemned, seems oblivious to the Jewess’s wild-eyed dread. The lad, pressed into service by dint of poverty, straightens his back and tries to dispel his own qualms by concentrating on the authoritarian stride of the Dominican walking before him. If she has been arrested by the church, then it must be just, he thinks. And so with new confidence he supports Ruth’s impossibly narrow shoulders with his own broad frame as they frogmarch her to the torture chamber.

  They arrive at a heavy door. Beyond it is a low cellar with a vaulted ceiling. Sawdust is scattered on the floor, some of it rusty with dried blood. Hanging from the ceiling in the centre of the room is an iron cage with metal straps to wrap around the torso. A large wooden rack stands in a corner with a vertical wheel, a good nine feet in diameter, next to it.

  The guards lower Ruth gently into a large chair in the middle of the room. She stares at the outlandish iron and wooden contraptions: dormant, they look strangely innocent, like huge deviant toys thrown carelessly into a corner by a giant two year old.

  ‘The flaying wheel, the torture rack, the iron maiden, the dunking bench,’ she whispers to herself in Latin, as if by naming each instrument she may strip it of its power.

  Although she knows of these tools of horror, she has never seen them before. She recalls the mumbled stories she heard in the past from the broken visitors her father sometimes received in his parlour. He would stroke their maimed hands paternally while, beyond sentiment and in shock, they recounted in emotionless monotones the atrocities that had been inflicted upon their bodies. They came seeking some kind of redemption from the rabbi, in the desperate hope that with his blessing the memories would miraculously vanish from their mutilated minds. Now it is she who is faced with an interrogation that she knows will alter her for ever.

  Suddenly Ruth notices that her knees are shaking violently. She rolls her fear up into a tight ball and pushes it down into the pit of her stomach, where it is sickening but somehow controllable.

  The inquisitor draws up a chair very close to her face. She can feel his breath upon her skin, a revolting mixture of cloves and indigestion. He stares straight into her eyes. His long reddish nose displays the bulbous damage inflicted by syphilis, each pore visible, white hair curling out of the nostrils. His neat goatee beard is streaked with grey and a cut from a shaving blade is visible on one side of his chin. The dark red scar on his cheek is beaded with tissue and his small dark brown eyes have a curious yellow aura around the pupils. They are eyes that speak of absolutely nothing and it is this gaze that makes her feel violated, as if he is trying to penetrate her physically. She realises that he is utterly convinced of the integrity of his mission and for a reason she cannot fathom this revelation fills her with shame. Finally she turns away.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’ The Dominican thrusts an old leatherbound book before her.

  ‘Obviously a manuscript of ancient origin.’

  Ruth uses sarcasm in a vain attempt to keep fear out of her voice.

  ‘Indeed, a most valuable manuscript: a set of instructions on how to uncover the hidden evil in the daemonissa. Written by two learned ecclesiastics—fellow Rhinelanders, I believe—the book is called Malleus Maleficarum…’

  ‘The Hammer of the Witches,’ Ruth automatically finishes. Her Latin, taught to her by her father and then Franciscus van den Enden, is flawless.

  ‘Exactly, and
it has proven most enlightening during the interrogation of your fellow prisoners. We have already extracted a confession from the Dutchman and Meister Voss is on the brink of redemption.’

  ‘If he had a tongue to redeem himself with,’ the hooded man adds with a guttural laugh.

  ‘I believe you have not been formally introduced to Herr Bull?’

  The man makes the politest of bows, its grace a striking juxtaposition with his muscular body.

  ‘Herr Bull is a master craftsman. He has worked on both sides of the North Sea and was, I believe, in the employment of Cromwell during the occupation of Ireland. Naturally he has no political or spiritual allegiances. He also has mastered some Spanish—’

  ‘El potro and la garrucha, the rack and pulley,’ Herr Bull interrupts proudly, his Spanish a thick-accented abomination. Carlos smiles patronisingly then turns back to Ruth.

  ‘You are a lucky woman to be in the hands of such a cultured professional.’

  ‘Fräulein, be assured that I am infamous for bringing a man to the very brink of death then resurrecting him only to take him to further ecstasy. Of course there have been a few mistakes, but in the main I can guarantee a long and arduous journey that will leave your very innards twitching.’ With another bow Herr Bull steps back into the shadows.

  ‘A poet not of the tongue but of the screw; but let us not dally any further. Juan, please begin.’

  The secretary removes a small scroll from his sleeve, unrolls it and reads aloud.

  ‘Ruth Navarro, you stand accused of one count of consorting with the devil and the demon Lilith, two counts of murder with the use of witchcraft, and five counts of sorcery. Do you have anything to say in your defence?’

  ‘This is most unorthodox. Am I not to stand trial?’

  ‘An interrogation gives you the benefit of redeeming your soul before you have to go to trial. It is a natural sequence of events.’