As Lutz approached Dommerschulstrasse, an old beggar hobbled toward him. He snatched at Lutz’s breeches. “Bitte, a pfennig, just a pfennig for bread,” he rasped. Quickly, Lutz reached into the lining of his breeches, grabbed a coin, and tossed it at the man’s hand so he would have to release the breeches to catch it. As the beggar did so, Lutz noticed his eyeless socket, the clean lines of the scars indicating that the eye had been deliberately plucked out. Lutz drew back, wondering what crime the man had committed to warrant such a punishment.
Lutz hurried away from the beggar and maintained his quick pace past the Jesuit House. He’d gone there only once, just after his first consultation with Father Herzeim. The cool glances from the rector and the other Jesuits had made Lutz feel so unwelcome he’d never gone back. Which was what they wanted, he supposed. Now he always met the priest at his office at the university, and though it was late in the day, Lutz knew Father Herzeim would still be there. It wasn’t hard to understand why. On his single visit to the Jesuit House, Lutz had seen Father Herzeim’s stark room: a narrow wooden bed, a plain desk and chair, a single tallow candle, a small shelf for books, a crucifix on a wall the colour of mud, and little else, not even a window.
When Lutz reached the university, he proceeded through the arched gates into the inner courtyard, entered a tan stone building, and made his way through the empty corridors. His footsteps echoed off dark walls. Knocking softly on the door to Father Herzeim’s office, he heard a muffled, “Bitte, a moment,” then the stacking of books, quick footsteps, and the scrape of a chair or table. When Father Herzeim finally opened the door, he was breathing rapidly and his cheeks were pink. If Lutz hadn’t known him better, he would have suspected that there was a woman hidden somewhere in the office.
“It’s always good to see you, Lutz,” said the priest, “but what brings you here at this hour?”
Lutz surveyed the room, trying to discern what Father Herzeim had been doing. The tall shelves of leather-bound volumes were unusually neat. Tidying up? Remembering his mission then, Lutz laid his hat to the side. “The Prince-Bishop has appointed me to the Commission of Inquisition.”
Father Herzeim inhaled sharply. “I am sorry to hear that.” He sat down behind the desk, which was piled high with books and ledgers, all neatly stacked. “But it was bound to happen.” He gestured toward the wooden chair across from the desk.
As always, Lutz lowered himself gingerly, wondering if the rickety chair would support his bulk. “Maria is concerned, and fearful. We’ve never had any dealings with witches.” He thought briefly of their dead daughter and all the babies who’d never been born. “None that we know of anyway. What can we do to protect ourselves?”
Father Herzeim’s long fingers smoothed the edges of a leather binding that had begun to split. “Prayer. Faith. Confession. Daily meditation and examination of your conscience.”
“That’s it? What about consecrated wax and herbs? Relics?”
“None of that would hurt, but...” the priest shrugged.
“Aren’t you afraid when you go into their cells?”
“I believe it’s not so easy for witches to work their mischief as many men seem to think.”
“You believe, but don’t know? There must be something else you can advise us to do.”
“What could be more powerful than prayer?”
“I don’t know, but...” Lutz teetered on the chair.
“When is the first meeting of the commission?”
“Monday morning.”
His fingers still worrying the damaged binding, Father Herzeim scanned the corner of the room as if searching for something. “Three days. Not much time.”
“For what?”
“For you to familiarize yourself with the laws concerning witchcraft.”
“I already know more than I want to about witchcraft.”
Father Herzeim turned to Lutz, his dark eyes piercing, as if he could see into Lutz’s chest and examine his cowardly heart. “Would you allow innocent people to be condemned because you are afraid?”
Lutz picked up his hat and ran his fingers around its broad brim. The priest was right. Somehow he must summon his courage. “All right, Father. But my gut feeling is that people accused by known witches are almost certainly witches themselves.”
Father Herzeim’s lips curved into the crooked smile that had become so familiar to Lutz. “Your considerable gut may say they are guilty,” said the priest, “but my heart says that at least some of them are not.”
“And the commission will recommend release for those who are innocent.”
The smile faded. “There are some on the commission who are overly zealous to execute.”
“So you still believe that Frau Basser was innocent?” said Lutz.
“I do.”
“But the Church teaches that God protects the innocent.”
“Ja, it teaches that.” Father Herzeim put a hand to his chin and pinched his bottom lip between a thumb and forefinger. “But could it be that God protects the innocent by moving the truly faithful to search out the truth? It is your duty to the accused, and to God, to pursue truth. Despite whatever fears you have.” He stood and went to the window. “I do not fear witches, Lutz, because I am doing God’s work: offering these lost souls comfort and consolation, bringing them back to God.”
“The commissioners are doing God’s work as well.”
Father Herzeim turned to Lutz. “You will be doing God’s work if you are as zealous to protect the innocent as to prosecute the guilty.”
“I will try, Father.” Lutz studied the hard angles of the priest’s face and hoped that his friend’s strength and fearlessness would help him find whatever fragments of courage lay hidden within his own heart.
“We say God is love,” said Father Herzeim, his hand over the cedar cross that hung near his heart. “Yet the world is consumed by hate.” He looked as if he were in pain. “Catholics and Protestants hate each other, both hate witches, and both imagine that God hates with them.”
“Surely God hates evil.”
“The sin, but not the sinner. I believe God wants the sinner brought back to him, not killed.”
In the silence, Lutz could hear the soft coos of wood-pigeons outside the window. “What is it I need to learn?” he said.
“More than you can imagine.” Father Herzeim started pulling books from the shelves. “Let’s start with the recent opinion from the theologians at the University of Ingolstadt.”
“I have given that some thought,” said Lutz, “and despite what Hampelmann says, I do see some problems with accusations made by condemned witches. It is quite reasonable to assume that they’d want to do additional harm by denouncing innocent people. It also brings up the legal difficulty of allowing testimony from a testes infamis, a disreputable witness.”
“There’s more than that. Much more.” The priest’s face was animated as he flipped through a leather-bound volume. “You must raise those questions, and also the question of evidence, corpus delicti. Where is the evidence that a crime has been committed? Particularly for Frau Rosen and Herr Silberhans. There is absolutely no evidence but hearsay. By law, that should not be admissible at the hearings.”
Father Herzeim glanced up from the book. “You must get them both released, Lutz. I am convinced they are innocent.” As if it were a mask, the excitement dropped from his face, replaced by a look of profound melancholy. “The cases of the beggar, the maidservant, and Frau Lamm are... more complicated.”
10
19 April 1626
Holding her breath, Eva sipped the rancid broth. The jailer’s wife was right. Eva and Katharina had begun to eat the food, even though the smell of it made them gag. Twice a day the woman brought them thin greasy soup and hunks of stale bread. Katharina whined for the loaves from their own bakery. Warm barley bread and cherry jam. Just thinking of it made Eva’s mouth water.
She set down the empty bowl and allowed herself to take a deep breath, then put a ha
nd over her nose. There were times when she believed she could bear the stench not one moment longer. Everything reeked: the spoiled food, the dank stone walls, the foul slop bucket filled with their own wastes, the soiled straw, her own body. Even Katharina smelled of piss. When it rained, the dampness made the stench even worse; it hung so heavy Eva could almost see it, a grey-brown fetid haze.
Eva tried to conjure pleasant smells: baking bread, freshly laundered linens, lye soap, hay that had just been scythed, beeswax candles, wild pink roses. And for just a moment she could catch the fragrance, just a whiff, before the stench intruded. She had asked the jailer’s wife to open the window, but they’d grown so cold during the night, Katharina shivering uncontrollably, that Eva had had to ask her to close it again.
During those long nights, Eva held her daughter, and while the girl slept, tried to think of why Frau Basser had accused her. Always she came to the same conclusion: the witch had denounced her out of sheer malice and evil. The commissioners would realize that as soon as they questioned Eva. They had to. The priest believed in her innocence. Eva had seen that in his eyes, heard it in his words. You must insist on your innocence. No matter what they say, no matter what they do, you must insist on your innocence. But what if Katharina told them of her strange visions?
The girl wrinkled her nose, then set down the bowl, most of the broth uneaten. She wrapped her thin arms around her knees and bowed her head, her eyes open and staring.
A prickling chill crept across the back of Eva’s neck. The night before, Katharina had seen them again: angels in golden gowns, orange flames at their feet, the Devil, with his red eyes and leering grin, crouched against the wall. Eva had seen nothing, and as she listened to her daughter’s whispers in the darkness before dawn, Eva’s heart beat against her chest like a wild bird, trapped. “Don’t listen to him,” she’d said. “No matter what he offers, accept nothing...from him or the angels.”
“But they’re beautiful, Mama. Why don’t you like them?”
“You are not to speak of them,” she’d said. “To anyone. Ever.” Then Eva had hugged Katharina to her chest to quiet her own heart.
Now, in the morning light, Eva studied the huddled girl, so pale and listless. The Devil was tempting her daughter. It was just as their parish priest had warned: the Devil took advantage of misery. And if witches could appear in the guise of the righteous, surely the Devil could conjure images of angels. He’d been one himself.
The cathedral bells rang out. Eva’s eyes filled. She longed for the comfort of the morning mass, with Katharina sitting safely by her side. She and her daughter had not missed a Sunday in more than a year, and now their seats would be empty. Hushed whispers would fill Saint Kilian’s, passing from mouth to ear, mouth to ear. Everyone would know, even those who’d not seen them dragged through the streets.
Eva heard the familiar scrape of the key. Katharina crawled into Eva’s lap as the door swung open and the jailer’s wife stepped in. The bony jailer or one of the guards came every day to check that Eva’s shackles were secure, but it was always the jailer’s wife who brought their food, emptied the slop bucket, and changed the straw.
The woman crossed herself, looked long at Katharina, then rubbed her thumb and middle finger together. A sign she’d been paid the two gulden? She reached for the bucket. The keys at her waist jangled as she lugged it across the floor. When she’d locked the door behind her, Eva relaxed her grip on Katharina. The jailer’s wife had not taken her away.
Eva picked up Katharina’s hand and traced a long line in her palm with her forefinger. “We’ll work on your letters today.”
“But it’s Sunday, Mama. We can’t.”
Eva had not forgotten the day, but time had no meaning in this place. “We’ll recite Psalms then,” she said. “The first verses of Psalm 5.”
Katharina rattled off a sentence. “O Lord, rebuke me not in thy indignation, nor chastise me in thy wrath. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for–”
“Nein,” interrupted Eva, “that’s Psalm 6.”
The girl tipped her head to the side, finger to her chin. “When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me.”
“Nein, that’s Psalm 4.”
Katharina’s pale brow furrowed. “A hint?”
“Give ear, O Lord, to my words–”
“I know it, Mama. Give ear, O Lord, to my words, understand my cry. Hearken to the voice of my prayer, O my King and my God. For to thee will I pray. O Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear my voice. In the morning...” Katharina chewed her lip.
Eva finished the verses. “In the morning, I will stand before thee, and will see: because thou art not a God that willest iniquity. Neither shall the wicked dwell near thee. Nor shall the unjust abide before thy eyes. Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity. Thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie.”
Eva had purposely asked for Psalm 5. It comforted. Thou art not a God that willest iniquity. God would protect them. Eva clasped her shackled hand around her rosary. “Mother of God,” she prayed, then stopped. Could the Mother of God hear her in such a place?
11
One man lights the pine torches on the wall. One by one, the other men step down into the chamber. Their fingertips move from forehead to chest, left shoulder to right. They slide silently onto wooden chairs set round the curved table. The young Jesuit records their names, all seven. The men believe there must be seven at this meeting, just as they believe there must be thirteen when my disciples gather.
They are soldiers of God. They have come here to do battle with evil.
They wear masks of calm, but flinch at the sound of skittering mice. I wave a hand just to see them cower when the flames flicker, crack my knuckles just to hear their sharp gasps. Under the table, where their bouncing knees are hidden, their jittery feet dance a tarantella.
The men dare not look at the shadows cast upon the stone walls, shadows broken and dismembered by shelves filled with ropes and birch rods, gouges, pincers, and thumbscrews. The grey walls bear silent witness, storing up, like sacred confessions, the screams they have heard. The porous floor hoards the rain of tears and blood.
The men mutter prayers and touch the balls of wax and herbs at their throats. As if mere wax can protect them from my charms.
Their fear smells of sour sweat and fevered breath.
It is their fear that brings me here, their fear that sustains me. Alone, I can do nothing. In their belief, all things are possible.
12
20 April 1626
The men sat around the rough pine table set opposite the door leading to the narrow spiral staircase and the prisoners above. They waited patiently as Father Streng recorded Chancellor Brandt’s answer to Herr Doktor Lutz’s most recent question. Hampelmann shifted on the wooden chair, careful not to let his elbow nudge Judge Steinbach, who sat to his left. Hampelmann could hear the judge’s wheezing breaths in the stillness of the cramped chamber.
The wooden floor of the cell above them creaked. Judge Steinbach swallowed, the noise from his throat audible. A furtive mouse, its bright eyes reflecting the yellow flames of the torches, scrabbled over the thumbscrews, its nails clicking on grey iron.
Holding his spectacles on his nose, Father Streng frowned in concentration as he wrote. Clarity of vision. Hampelmann wondered if he should consider getting spectacles. Then again, that might be thwarting God’s will. Perhaps God had blurred his vision so that he might see more clearly what lay beneath the obvious.
The obvious and what lay beneath. Hampelmann surveyed the men at the table. Judge Lorenz Steinbach: old and fainthearted. The burgomaster slept through every city council meeting, but here, in the Prisoners’ Tower, he was alert and watchful. He sat hunched at the centre of the curved table, twitching like a nervous hare every time the torches flickered. He might wear the judge’s black robes and hold the gavel in his gnarled hands, but, as always, it would be Hampelmann, Father Streng, and Chancellor Brandt who would actually conduct the hearings.
/> Chancellor Johann Brandt: forceful and crafty. He sat across from Hampelmann and the judge, calmly studying the report prepared by the Malefizamt, his eyebrows a thick dark line. Hampelmann didn’t particularly like the man, or trust him, but he respected his authority. A gold medallion bearing His Grace’s coat of arms hung from his neck. He’d been the Prince-Bishop’s chancellor for nine years, and he knew how to prosecute witches.
To the right of the chancellor, Father Streng: irritatingly brilliant and zealously devoted to the cause. The diminutive Jesuit was a true soldier of God, militare Deo. The young priest scribbled furiously while the quaking judge looked on from across the table, sliding the gavel from hand to hand.
Herr Georg Freude: disgusting in his vulgarity, but skilled at his profession. He sat at the end of the table nearest the tools of his trade: hemp ropes and birch rods, eye gougers, pincers and thumbscrews, leg vises, a large wooden wheel attached by a rope to a pulley on the ceiling. The executioner combed his fingers through his scraggly dark beard, searching out lice, which he pinched between his thumb and middle finger. His forefinger was missing. Hampelmann surmised that Freude had been a thief before he came to his current profession. Or, thought Hampelmann, he could have lost the finger in a botched execution rather than as punishment for petty theft. Hampelmann found the man’s scarred pockmarked face revolting and wished that he wore his black mask during the hearings as well as the executions. Hampelmann tried to keep his distance from the executioner, who always stank, carrying about his person the sour miasma of a beggar. There were also his lice to consider. And the way the man scratched at his crotch, he no doubt had crabs as well.
To the right of the executioner and the left of the judge, Herr Doktor Hans Lindner: thick-headed, boorish, and ridiculous looking with a fringe of sandy hair ringing his bald head and a face dotted with freckles. He was here only because, by law, a physician must be present at the preliminary inquisition. He had the authority to stop the torture from going too far, but Lindner, a pompous buffoon, overestimated his importance, and his knowledge of witches. Thick arms crossed over his broad chest, fat lower lip thrust out, the physician appeared relaxed, but Hampelmann could feel the vibrations from his bouncing knee coming through the table.
Dancing in the Palm of His Hand Page 7