The Witch of Cologne

by Tobsha Learner

  ‘Gerhard!’

  Blearily the count turns his head. In the dim light he can just make out his brother’s profile as he leans over to light a candle. The flame flares up and, as Detlef crosses the room again, Gerhard can see that he holds a naked blade in his hand. The aristocrat tries to swing his leaden legs off the bed but finds he cannot move.

  ‘Are you to kill me?’ His words, slurred, hang in the stale air.

  ‘I tried but found I could not. To do so would reduce me to as lowly a creature as yourself.’

  The count labours to pull himself upright. ‘How predictable of you to hide behind that moral superiority of yours. It is all you have ever done your entire life, Detlef. You never had any sense of reality, always hiding behind the skirts of the church, only emerging to play the noble crusader. Well, what real morality lies in your actions? Have you truly examined your soul? You have betrayed both your race and your title.’

  ‘I have betrayed nothing. I am guilty of nothing except following the logic of my heart.’

  ‘Idealistic fool. You have no idea, have you? They are threatening to take the lodge, our lands, the von Tennen title. Three hundred years of ancestry obliterated, just like that. And all because of your stupidity!’

  ‘You would sacrifice your own brother?’

  ‘There is no sacrifice, all they want is a public repentance. Besides, the family is more important than your paltry ethics. The lineage must go on.’

  Witnessing the unquestioning conviction of the zealot that makes ugly his brother’s face, Detlef has to muster all his strength to stop himself attacking Gerhard there and then. Instead he takes a shuddering breath.

  ‘I forgive you your ignorance and pray that one day you may find enlightenment.’

  A sudden thud is heard downstairs, then the sound of running footsteps as soldiers burst into the house. Detlef glares at Gerhard with absolute disdain before bolting for the door.

  The moth, a stubborn creature with inky-blue wings that are barely distinguishable from the soot that covers the walls of the prison, crawls slowly but with immense determination from the great cold outside through the narrow hole between the granite blocks. It emerges from the tunnel, its furry antennae waving blindly. Delighted to discover a draught of warmer air, it takes off, fluttering around the prison cell until it alights for a moment upon the grimy hand of a man.

  Detlef, gazing down, wonders if the fragile creature might live longer than himself, and if, by some wondrous sorcery, it might squirrel him out through the minuscule crack to freedom.

  My love,

  My foolishness has landed me in this hell. My brother has betrayed me, and with this treachery I fear he has bartered my life.

  Forgive me my impetuosity. This trait has led me to tragedy, but also to great joy for without it we would never have come together and I would never have found my soul’s work.

  My dearest, I pray that you and our child have crossed safely into the sanctuary of the Netherlands and that soon we shall be reunited. I know not what my future holds but I take solace in my belief that they cannot dare to execute a Wittelsbach. The worst I fear is a forced conversion—they will ask me to betray my new faith. Yet there must be some means of escape…

  ‘Canon?’

  Groot peers through the prison bars. His old master is staring at the wall, mouthing a silent missive.

  Detlef whirls around at the voice. Despite the long hair and the peppering of a new beard, Groot recognises him immediately.

  ‘I am a plain pastor now, Groot. The title canon does not apply.’

  ‘So the rumours are true, you are now a follower of Calvin?’

  ‘I am a preacher with the Remonstrants. I travel the Low Countries with a simple sermon.’

  ‘You married the witch?’

  In a second Detlef’s lean form is against the bars, his hand thrusting through grabs Groot’s throat. ‘Respect, my good sir! She is my wife.’

  Groot’s eyes bulge as he chokes under Detlef’s steel-like fingers.

  ‘My apologies…’

  Detlef drops him. Stumbling, Groot claws at the neck of his cassock, loosening it. Detlef pauses then steps back to get a better view of his old assistant.

  ‘You look well, Groot. You have become a substantial man.’

  The cleric, older and more portly than Detlef remembers him, regains his composure.

  ‘Herr von Fürstenberg treats me with respect. But honour and ease are seldom bedfellows.’

  ‘I know the proverb, but of the two I would choose honour.’

  ‘Maybe, but it is you who are now on the wrong side of the bars. They will kill you, Detlef.’

  ‘I am cousin to the archbishop. They would not dare.’

  ‘It would have served you better not to blaspheme so loudly. You have become too noisy a critic to go unheeded.’

  ‘Groot, help me…for the sake of our friendship.’

  ‘You would beg?’

  ‘All pride is false modesty. I am a father as well as a husband. I want to live.’

  Groot stares at him, noticing a new humility in the aristocrat’s eyes.

  ‘I will pray to my God for you. Perhaps he will be more forgiving than your gaolers.’

  He turns and walks slowly back down the dim corridor.

  ‘Groot! Groot!’

  ‘Please address me by my new title: Canon Groot,’ the priest announces to the shadows, too frightened to turn around for fear his old master will see his tears.

  Seated with the archbishop in his carriage, Carlos watches as the narrow crowded streets give way to muddy lanes on the outskirts of the city and then to neat cultivated fields, all still within the walls of Cologne: chequerboards of yellow and green, cabbages growing next to wheat. So there is natural beauty here, Carlos concedes reluctantly. A growing excitement fills him despite his inherent misanthropy. They have the renegade preacher incarcerated. A few turns of the screw and the witch shall be his. The notion thrills him to the marrow. He has agreed to the forthcoming encounter only as a courtesy to the archbishop. He has discovered that he has developed a begrudging affection for the drunken buffoon, helped greatly by his delivery of the heretic canon, of course. The meeting is a mere formality, the inquisitor reassures himself. Once over, he will be able to interrogate the criminal preacher and then finally Sara’s daughter will be his. By the time the driver pulls up outside a rambling farmhouse built a good few centuries before, Carlos is swept up in a reverie of exhilaration.

  The truculent farmer leads the two clerics to an ancient barn, its ivy-covered exterior deceptively innocuous. Inside, beyond a row of stalls filled with restless cattle—a deliberate line of concealment—the floor of the barn lowers dramatically into a gambling pit. To Carlos’s amazement, over a hundred men are assembled there, all of them gamblers. It is here that the archbishop has brought him to meet with the count.

  Gerhard von Tennen pushes his way through the crowd, watching all the time for the archbishop and the inquisitor. ’Tis a strange place to rendezvous, the count thinks, but knows he is in no position to protest.

  In the straw-covered pit a badger squats growling, its long elegant snout twitching with terror. It runs back and forth, unable to escape for its tail is nailed to a heavy plank of wood.

  ‘Ten Reichstaler on the pug!’ the pit-master shouts, pointing to a small bull terrier snarling at the end of its owner’s chain.

  Gerhard shakes his head. Turning, he catches sight of Maximilian Heinrich, who in the dress of a merchant is barely noticeable amongst the spectactors, a motley gang of bürgers, students and journeymen united by one obsession: the love of the wager.

  The count sidles up beside the archbishop. ‘I did not know whether you would meet with me.’

  ‘Gerhard, you are my brother in blood and faith. Of course I would grant you an audience.’

  ‘In such a strange place of worship?’

  ‘Ah, but I chose the place for you. The joy you take in gambling is legendary, cousin.’


  The peasant beside the archbishop throws off his hood to reveal the sombre visage of the inquisitor.

  ‘Good day, sir. It promises to be a fine competition. The creature with the torn ear, they say, already has three badger pelts to his name.’

  Gerhard glances over at the small snarling pug whose squashed face is a battlefield of fighting scars. The dog, having caught the scent of the badger, is almost delirious with fury, snapping and growling at all who approach, while the badger, larger but with a disposition that is only vicious when cornered, has edged as far away as it can given the bleeding flesh of its tail.

  ‘I shall back the badger. I have seen these creatures fight, their tenacity is not to be underestimated.’

  Gerhard throws three gold coins into the badger’s corner then turns back to his companions.

  ‘But tell me, how fares Detlef?’

  Heinrich reaches into his pocket and holds out a signet ring with the von Tennen crest engraved upon it. The count, with a sharp inhalation, recognises it as Detlef’s.

  ‘He is experiencing the hospitality of the cathedral’s dungeon while awaiting trial. But he is in good spirits, so they say,’ the archbishop tells him, sorry for the obvious dismay that fills his cousin’s face.

  ‘But can you guarantee a fair tribunal?’

  ‘The Inquisition is always just for it acts according to the will of God,’ Carlos answers, pushing between the two men. Ignoring him, the count continues to direct his appeal to the archbishop.

  ‘Heinrich, promise me he shall suffer nothing more than a forced conversion, a signed confession of repentance. Surely that will satisfy Rome, Vienna and the Inquisition?’

  Heinrich avoids the count’s eyes. ‘I can speak only for Vienna.’

  At a nod from the inquisitor the dogkeeper holds up the animal. Carlos reaches over and with an expert hand assesses the muscles in the canine’s forelegs.

  ‘Tell me, count, what would you wager for your brother’s life?’ The inquisitor looks up from the beast.

  ‘Nothing that I have not already gambled.’

  ‘Come now, I have heard you are a bigger gamester than that.’

  The count glances at the badger, it is larger than the pug and on close inspection already bears the marks of previous victories across its striped furry back. For a moment it seems to stare back at the aristocrat, a surprising intelligence gleaming in its bloodshot eyes. Gerhard looks at Heinrich: there is nothing in his face to hint that this might be a game. Is this what Detlef’s life has been reduced to, a mere wager? Suddenly the enormity of his treachery tumbles down upon him. He is worse than Judas, he thinks, and a seeping dread begins to sicken him.

  ‘You promised there would be amnesty for a Wittelsbach.’

  The archbishop turns away.

  ‘Look, the fight is about to begin. Make your wager. Detlef von Tennen’s life if the badger wins.’ Carlos’s soft voice cuts under the shouting punters.

  The count glares at the inquisitor, every muscle in his body flexed for revenge. Should he accept the wager or simply run the inquisitor through here and now? But what would that achieve? They have Detlef at their mercy.

  Despite himself, the rising adrenaline of the gambler surges up, a pounding excitement that battles his logic. Just one win and they will defeat both church and state together, himself and his brother, free to begin a whole new chapter. Should he play? What choice does he have? The badger looks strong and fierce, it will defeat the pug—the creature is half its size. The wager will be easily won.

  Gerhard throws ten coins into the pit.

  ‘A further ten on the badger, for my brother’s life.’

  Ten minutes later the dogkeeper holds up the severed head of the badger amid cheering and booing. To the count it is as if he is holding up the head of Detlef himself, the neck still trailing purple arteries. Transfixed, the count sees the eyes suddenly fly open. Snarling, the head turns to gaze upon its brother.

  The nightmarish fantasy is broken by a tap on his shoulder. Carlos, grinning, holds out his hand. ‘You owe me one hundred Reichstaler.’

  The count looks down at the friar’s creased palm then spits into it. Furious, he pushes his way through the celebrating revellers. Heinrich follows.

  ‘Gerhard!’

  The count pauses, dizzy with revulsion and anger. Heinrich, breathing heavily, catches up to him.

  ‘I promise you, your brother will keep his life.’

  ‘The word of a Wittelsbach?’

  ‘The word of a Wittelsbach.’

  Detlef’s body, naked except for a grimy loincloth thrown over him for the sake of decency, is stretched to its absolute length. Each joint shines pale bone through the stretched mottled skin. Leather thongs are lashed around his wrists and ankles where they are fastened to the wooden cogs of the stretching rack, the skin chafed and bleeding. A wide iron band is strapped around his head, a screw bolted at each side of his eye sockets. His face is an ivory mask of anguish but his eyes are defiant.

  Carlos, inches away from Detlef’s face, gazes along the length of the tortured limbs—as he had envisaged, still beautiful in extremis. There is a nobility to flesh under duress that cannot be mimicked, the inquisitor observes silently. It is as if the spirit rises to the very limit of the physical self and shines out before finally departing. This is how our Lord must have looked on the cross. Beauty, spirit and agony incarnate.

  The inquisitor puts a finger to Detlef’s wrist. The German twitches at his touch.

  ‘Another turn of the screw and this bone will pop out of its socket. Then it will be your knees, then your ankles, then your thigh bones will tear out of the hip sockets. Unless, of course, I decide to destroy your eyesight first.’

  Detlef licks his lips, trying to find the spittle to form speech.

  ‘What do you want from me, Monsignor Solitario? A confession? Penance?’

  ‘Tell me where the Jewish witch and her bastard are and you shall be freed, maybe even pardoned. Make a public declaration of the error of your ways and you could even be reinstated as canon. One word, Pastor von Tennen, and the pain will vanish magically. Freedom, respectability, how sweet that must sound…’

  ‘Never.’

  Detlef’s whisper is barely audible.

  Carlos nods and the torturer turns the wooden handle languidly, lovingly. The cogs creak as they rotate slowly. It is a sound Detlef has grown to loathe in the last four hours.

  His sinews stretch tauter and tauter until there is a loud popping sound as his left wrist disengages from his hand.

  ‘Ahhh!’

  ‘She is a witch, a succubus, the whore of the devil! I have the evidence. Her mother was the same, as were the whole Hebrew brood that spawned her. She knows the ways of the kabbala, she has used them against the church, used them to bewitch you, my friend. The child is not your child, you have been deceived. He could be any man’s. She has lain with many—I know it!’

  ‘She is my wife!’

  ‘She is a child of Lilith!’

  The cogs turn again, this time the other wrist cracks and a kneecap shatters. Detlef is close to fainting, he can no longer hear himself screaming. Instead he hears the haunting sound of his son singing a nursery rhyme over and over, his clear young voice sweetly resonating around the stone walls of the dungeon.

  The inquisitor’s seductive voice is an insidious whisper underneath.

  ‘Repeat after me: I have seen with my own eyes Ruth von Tennen of the Navarro family performing unnatural acts, rites of the black arts…’

  Detlef shakes his head. The minute movement causes a huge ripple of pain across his bloody brow. Carlos, losing patience, taps the iron band bolted around Detlef’s head.

  ‘Canon, you will at least save your sight if you tell me where they are.’

  Again Detlef refuses. Staring up at the vaulted ceiling which is blackened with smoke, as if the screams of the dying have burnt their way into the very stone, he thinks only of Ruth…her naked form steppin
g out of the river the first morning he knew she was pregnant, the sunlight catching her long hair, water gleaming on her pale skin, her womb rounded, and how then he knew she would be his salvation.

  Salvation. Save me, save me, my love. The words float through his mind like a cooling balm. The image of her appears. Throwing back her black hair, her long white arms reaching out to pull him to her breast. She is smiling. The look in her eyes is so incredibly familiar that it is as if Detlef is looking at a reflection of himself, all his aspirations, dreams, hopes and joys encapsulated in that one glance, as if his soul already resides in her.

  My teacher. My lover. My wife.

  And then, over the stench of shit and blood and burning tar, comes Ruth herself, the fragrance of her hair, her skin, the music of her laughter scattering like dew over the screaming.

  The inquisitor, seeing that Detlef’s spirit has begun to withdraw, looses the screw at his temple. Panicking he leans over him, spittle flying.

  ‘Listen to me, you cannot leave now! I am so close to destroying the last of the Navarros, of holding within my grasp Sara herself, that witch! Detlef von Tennen! Are you listening? You cannot die now!’

  But Detlef, his cold flesh twisting with the acrid smoke, no longer hears him.

  My pain. My lover. My wife. The taste of her, the love of her I fought for, the life within her I gave.

  Carlos, watching Detlef’s eyes roll back into his head, grabs a bucket of water and throws it over the prostrate figure.

  ‘Wait! You must tell me where she is! For your faith alone!’

  But Detlef has already left to be with his family.

  There they are in the kitchen, he thinks, seeing them clearly in his mind’s eye. I am standing beside the linen cabinet. I can see Jacob, he is on the ground by the stove playing with his tin soldiers. She has her back to me, she has not seen me yet. I gesture to Jacob to be quiet. ‘We are playing a trick on your mother,’ I whisper then I step up behind her and put my hands over her eyes.

  At a signal from Carlos, the man in the black hood tightens the iron band. Detlef’s eyeballs bulge like reddened hen’s eggs then burst out of his head.