Suddenly she burst into tears. “The officers took it away.”
“Where was it brought?”
“Where you’ll be brought too, you foreign witch,” said a woman. “To the tower.”
“You’ve betrayed our trust, you witch,” sobbed Lena.
Shocked by the violent reaction and the spitefulness confronting me all of a sudden from people I had experienced on my arrival in spring as friendly and helpful, I was at first too surprised and confused to grasp the whole significance of their accusations. Herbaria—well, all right, that was what herbalists were called. I would speak before the city council and ask for the return of my belongings, would serve up my story about the apothecary in Amsterdam in whose service I collected seeds and herbs for medicines and tinctures. But the word “striga” had been uttered. To be accused of black magic was a massive and serious charge. Who had put that word in the mouth of those simple people? Who had confiscated my chest and for what reason? I had to sort this out immediately.
I lifted my saddlebags onto Buridan’s back and was about to head to the city hall when two officers showed up to arrest me. Either word had spread quickly that I had returned to the city or a denouncer had rushed straight to the authorities to inform them. I was brought to the Trankgasse gate and taken into custody. My belongings and my mount were confiscated.
I gave Buridan a pat.
“Find a good home for him,” I implored them.
They pulled him away.
I was permitted, at least, to wash up and pick out fresh clothing from my bundle and have a meal. After that I awaited the next day with confidence. It would surely be easy to clear up the misunderstanding. My departure would scarcely be delayed.
But the next day nothing happened, nor the day after and the one after that. I received my meals—for which I would have to pay in the end—and waited with increasing impatience for someone from the city council to deign to summon me. I assumed that the reason for the delay was that they were snooping through my botanical samples and examining them before my interrogation—and were puzzled by harmless rye, barley, and wheat kernels, flower and grass seeds, dried blossoms and rootlets. That ought to have proved my innocence, but things did not seem to be going my way—as indicated by the fact that on the fifth day I was brought from the Trankgasse gate to the prison tower known as the Frankenturm.
* * *
“TRI-TI-CUM DI-COC-CON,” STAMMERED the short, particularly zealous expert, shaking his head. “Wheat? That’s no wheat!”
“You know it as emmer,” I replied. “Emmer is a type of wheat.”
“Never!” he cried, giving his colleague, who was one and a half heads taller than he, bald, and pale-complexioned, a questioning look.
I gave no response, for it was hopeless.
“Sor-bus do-mes-ti-ca. What is that supposed to be?” he asked, sniffing the brown seeds.
“It’s also called a sorb tree,” I replied.
“Ha! Sorbus designates rowanberries. The fruit of the mountain ash.”
“The sorb tree is related to the mountain ash…”
“Related? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They’re very similar, even though the fruits look more like small, mealy pears. They have a common ancestor. That’s why they’re related. They’re cousins, so to speak.”
The expert frowned at me as if he suspected me of pulling his leg; then he burst out laughing.
“Have you ever heard such rubbish, Herr Collega?” he asked the bald man, who screwed up his face and shrugged.
The short man turned back to the table and my collection.
“These are fava beans. Quite clearly,” he said, shaking them back and forth in his cupped hand and then bending nearsightedly over the label. “Vi-cia fa-ba. Faba—yes! But not Vicia, not vetch!”
“It’s a species of vetch…”
“So you claim. But that’s simply nonsense.”
Anger welled up in me in the face of so much ignorance and smugness.
“What’s this here? Phy-sa-lis al-ke-ken-gi,” he read off the label. “Unquestionably a cherry.”
“Here it’s known as Jews’ Cherry.”
“Correct. So what’s with the silly Latin double name?” he probed.
“It serves the purpose of classifying the plant precisely.”
“Ha!”
“Classifying?” asked the other expert, bowing his bald head; for the first time he showed mild interest.
“And what’s this here supposed to be?” cried the short man, yanking open another canvas pouch and strewing the contents—spikes with tiny pale violet flowers—carelessly across the table. “An-arr-hi-num bel-li-di-fo-lium?”
“The plant is also known by the name daisy-leaved toadflax,” I informed him.
The short man ground one of the spikes between thumb and forefinger, sniffed it, and nodded pompously.
“And what do we have here? Dra-co-ce-pha-lum ru-yschi-ana?” he sounded out, picking out another pouch from the heap of my samples. He then yanked it open and scattered small wilted bluish purple petals across the table.
“Dragonhead, as the name says, sir. As a doctor or apothecary you must have a command of Latin, I assume. And please don’t pour the seeds on the table. You’re mixing up my samples.”
He paused and looked at me, taken aback by my presumption, with narrowed eyes.
“And what does ruyschiana mean?” the bald man rasped.
“That must be the name of the discoverer, I assume.”
“Of the discoverer?” he repeated uncomprehendingly, shaking his head with bewilderment.
“Ridiculous!” the other seconded caustically.
Oh, holy Carolus, help me! So these were the authorities of the local university. What boastful arrogance, what know-it-all ignorance! The self-importance of these pompous “experts” disgusted me. But, I said to myself, how could these people have an inkling of the ingenious system of botanical classification that Linnaeus would not develop for another three hundred years?
“You were asked a question,” the tower master bellowed, looking up for the first time. “Kindly answer!”
“I already said: The name of the discoverer of the plant. And please see to it that these gentlemen don’t make a muddle of my plant samples. I’ve spent the entire summer collecting and identifying them.”
“Identifying?” asked the short man. “What is there to identify?”
He went on yanking open my pouches, sniffing the contents, and strewing them across the table.
“With all respect for your erudition, Professor, you don’t seem to understand that much about plants.”
“It … it is incredible!” he cried, trembling with rage.
“Another insubordination and I’ll have you locked in irons!” the tower master grumbled.
The bald man gave an impatient wave and asked again, “What sorts of designations are those? Who taught them to you?”
“Where I come from, they’re common. That’s where I learned them.”
“And where is that?”
“Rome.”
“Rome? Never! I would have heard of it. Besides: In your so-called botanical collection are plants that no one in Rome, or anywhere south of the Alps, could even know about, because they grow only here in the north.”
Oh, holy Carolus, he’s right, I said to myself. But why shouldn’t anyone know about them there? Just because they don’t grow there?
“She’s lying!” said the short man.
The tower master nodded gravely and gave the transcriber a sign. The quill scratched across the paper.
The bald man disregarded his colleague’s interjection. “There seems to be some system behind it,” he murmured thoughtfully, placing his forefinger to his lips.
Yes! I would have liked more than anything to shout. An ingenious system! Fundamentum botanices duplex est: dispositio et denominatio, gentlemen. But I am not permitted to explain it to you!
“Who devised it?”
“Never heard of him. A Jew? A Muslim?”
“A Swede.”
“A Swede? Impossible! A physician?”
“A quack,” the short man broke in.
“No, a royal physician.”
“She’s lying.”
“Young woman, if this were a Christian system, I would know about it,” the bald man declared with dignity.
“I’m of the opinion, Herr Collega, that it is an unchristian one. Possibly a devilish system. Witches’ secrets…”
The tower master nodded. “My lords, I’m breaking off the interrogation,” he said, furrowing his brow morosely. “If a suspicion of that sort exists, then a theologian or a lay judge of the archbishop must be present.”
* * *
THE PRIEST WHO attended the next interrogation two days later was an unappealing young man with close-set eyes, which excluded the possibility of farsightedness for optical reasons alone. He was dean at St. Maria im Kapitol and obviously a zealot, probably a fanatical adherent to the doctrines of Albertus on witchcraft. I could tell by the hate-filled gaze of his dark little eyes that he already saw me branded as a striga. My spirits sank as I became aware of what a dangerous situation I was on the verge of sliding into.
“What were you planning with the herbs?” he asked slyly with his drawn-out Swabian dialect. “Black magic? To poison the fields and the livestock? To brew pernicious potions, or what?”
“A great deal of the collection consists of rye and barley kernels; the cores of apples, pears, and other fruit; seeds and blossoms of all sorts of flowers; and the like,” the bald professor corrected him. “There are a few herbs as well, but I cannot find any with which any damage could be done.”
“We will soon determine that. She will certainly reveal to us what mixtures can be prepared from them that take diabolical effect under a magic spell,” the priest replied.
The physician gave an impatient wave.
“Nonsense,” he murmured. “Will you allow me to continue the questioning, dean? You can interrogate the woman later, if you harbor further suspicion.”
“Certainly.”
“You claim that this system according to which you have arranged the plants was devised by a Swede.”
“Carolus Linnaeus is his name, royal physician in Uppsala.”
“Where did you meet him? Where did he teach you this system? Are you traveling at his behest?”
“No, I never met him. I’m traveling…” I began, and taking a deep breath I went on, “I’m traveling at the behest of the Holy Father.”
The dean started like a roused cobra. “She’s lying! She said at the time of her arrest that she was traveling at the behest of a physician in Amsterdam. That’s in the transcript.”
“The physician in Amsterdam serves the Holy Father as well,” I asserted.
“What incredible infamy!” he said venomously. “The Holy Father would never take anyone like you into his service and charge them with the task of rummaging around in God’s Creation, where everything has its fixed place in accordance with His wise will. Why should anything be rearranged that the Lord long ago arranged splendidly? That’s a blasphemous presumption! A heresy!”
“Oh, no! You’re mistaken. It’s about the knowledge of the order in God’s Creation,” I replied.
“You’re better off leaving that to the authorities who understand something about it.”
“Well, the Holy Father has enlisted me to work for a Rinascita della Creazione—”
“What a brazen affront to His Holiness!” cried the dean, his face red with anger. “She is an impudent, lying whore. She is of the devil!”
“Control yourself!” the professor barked at him.
“Calm down!” admonished the tower master, realizing with annoyance that this case was becoming too much for him.
Why had I played that card? What was I expecting it to achieve? What was I hoping to gain? Perhaps I wanted everything of relevance to my case to become too much for them, so that they wouldn’t dare to pass judgment and I would buy time. I had brought the highest authority into play—and yet told nothing but the truth.
* * *
AGAIN DAYS UPON days passed without anything happening. In the meantime, it must have already been November. Finally I was again brought before the tower master.
“Further incriminating factors have come to light for which the council lacks authority,” he informed me, looking at me grimly. “Your case has been taken over by the episcopal judge. Should the suspicions be confirmed, things look bad for you, young woman. Because of your herbs and the magic potions that might be prepared from them, I would have condemned you as a venenata, a maker of poisons, or as a lamia well versed in black magic, forced you to renounce all vengeance, and banished you from the city. But now there is evidence that you are capable of entirely different things as well.”
The tower master crossed himself.
“What things?”
He ignored my question. “You are herewith transferred to the jurisdiction of the archbishop and the episcopal prison on the cathedral square. There you will be dealt with further.” The tower master gave the cancellarius a sign to conclude the transcript with that remark, and then pure fear overcame me for the first time.
“What sort of evidence is it?” I asked.
But the judge had already turned away and left the room. The officer, who had up to that point been taciturn toward me but not unkind, now seized me with a firm grip, turned me around, and led me out.
* * *
THE HATE-FILLED DEAN of St. Maria im Kapitol, whom I had already met in the council’s court, seemed now to have set himself up as prosecutor. The episcopal judge, a corpulent gray-haired clergyman enthroned behind him, seemed more interested in his fingernails and the heavy ring on the middle finger of his left hand than in my case. His assistant, a young clergyman of about thirty, displayed a simpler nature but abject servility, and he was—in a manner that bordered on miraculous—capable of anticipating the reaction of his master instinctively or perhaps based on his body language and of nodding or smiling a split second before the man himself. Thus he secured the advantage of agreement.
“Incipit confessio strigae,” said the dean to the cancellarius.
The judge raised his eyebrows with astonishment, for it was up to him to officially open the trial, and not the task of the prosecutor.
“A question, Reverend Father,” I broke in. “The prosecutor calls me a witch. Have I already been found guilty of witchcraft?”
“That won’t be long in coming!” the dean cried spitefully. “You’re as good as convicted.”
“Oh?”
The judge nodded to the cancellarius and opened the questioning. “We shall now hear the confession of Domenica Ligrina, born by her own account in Rome, suspected of witchcraft, black magic, and preparation of poison as well as knowledge of the future, witches’ flight, and liaison with the devil.”
I was dumbstruck. How did they arrive at those crazy suspicions? On what did they base those accusations? Did they plan to extract a confession through torture in order to “prove” the outrageous claims? That had indeed been the method of some inquisitors in later eras. The middle of the fifteenth century was, according to Falcotti, a safe, tranquil time—at least he had assured me of that. The great plagues were over, and the witch-hunts still lay almost half a century in the future. The Hammer of the Witches, the Malleus maleficarum by Institoris and Sprenger, would not appear until the end of the century, but that ill-fated specter was apparently already stirring in the heads of the zealots and agitators. It would take little more than an order from on high to unleash them and sanction their rage. The seed that had been carelessly sown was sprouting.
“You seem to have been rendered speechless,” the dean said triumphantly.
His little eyes, between which his narrow nose barely found room, flashed maliciously. What had I done, for heaven’s sake, to incur his hatred?
“You do believe that witches exist, don’t you?”
That was, of course, a trick question: To dispute the existence of witches was already regarded as heresy and was thus punishable by death.
“I have never seen one before,” I replied.
“We didn’t ask you whether you’ve seen one, but whether you believe in witchcraft or not. Answer the questions you are asked!”
The judge nodded.
“People have convincingly assured me that things of that sort exist. However, no one has ever revealed themselves to me to be a witch or a wizard,” I replied.
“You must think you are one of the especially clever ones?” the dean asked angrily. “Who taught you such rhetorical tricks?” he went on slyly. “Other witches … or … perhaps even…?”
If he expected that to fool me into unthinkingly uttering the word “devil,” then he was mistaken. I wouldn’t let this religious hothead outwit me.
“I don’t know any witches. I said that already,” I insisted.
“Always flew alone? Never in the company of other witches? That’s unusual.”
“Flew?”
The dean unrolled a document. “This is the statement of a respectable, devout, God-fearing woman of this city. Her name is Lena Bittner. She is the widow of the former master baker Gotthelf Bittner, residing on Holzgasse. During her interrogation she testified that you told her it was possible to fly in two hours from here to Rome,” he said, presenting the document pompously to the judge.
Oh, Lena! I might have guessed that she had been pressured and threatened with the dungeon or worse. At some point I had blabbed over a beer. When she learned that I was from Rome, she had longingly confessed to me that it was her greatest wish to make a pilgrimage to the holy city, but the journey was arduous and took a whole year. And unthinkingly I had mentioned that in five hundred years people would be able to fly from Cologne to Rome in two hours.
“Well?” my inquisitor asked sneeringly. “Do you wish to dispute that?”
“I never said that I had flown from Cologne to Rome, but that in a distant future—perhaps in five hundred years—people might well be able to fly from Cologne to Rome in two hours.”
“In five hundred years!” repeated the dean, cackling with pleasure and casting a glance over his shoulder to the judge, who for the first time showed mild interest.
The Cusanus Game Page 54