The Witch of Cologne

by Tobsha Learner

  ‘I repeat: am I not to stand trial?’

  ‘Not before interrogation.’

  ‘In that case, I have nothing to say except that I am innocent.’

  Her declaration hangs defiantly in the air for a second before being blown away by a hurricane of panic. She is amazed at her courage, but at the same time knows that any confession will condemn both her family and her people.

  The inquisitor gestures to the guards who march her over to the dunking bench.

  So it is to be the water, she thinks, and bites her tongue in an effort not to scream or betray herself with pleading.

  They strap her to the wooden stool attached to the end of the plank. Swinging it out, they hold her precariously above the vat of icy liquid. Ruth stares down and sees her pale oval face reflected back: it is so blank with terror that she does not recognise herself. Instantly she is plunged in.

  Breath is knocked out of her and a violent pain like the stabbing of a thousand knives jabs at her skin. The back of her brain is pierced by an ice-cold tongue of steel. She knows this is just the beginning, the glacial water rushing through her body. Blindly she struggles against the ropes, her eyes wide and staring up to the surface at the burning light beyond. Her lungs squeeze out the last remaining air but she dares not open her mouth. It feels as if her chest will explode with the agony of wanting to breathe. Somewhere in her half-conscious mind she knows that if she does she will drown.

  Carlos reaches for his viola da gamba. With exquisite slowness he draws the bow across the cat-gut and begins to play a cantata once loved by Sara Navarro.

  ‘You wish to take on the interrogation of the Jewess yourself? What on earth makes you think you have even the remotest qualification to become an inquisitor?’

  Maximilian Heinrich leans back in his chair with a certain smugness, enjoying his cousin’s uncharacteristic vulnerability.

  Detlef has eyes only for the large timepiece behind the archbishop, the hour hand of which stands at just before sext. He is surprised at this compulsion to act. Heinrich is right. What is it about this woman that makes him feel as if he has embarked upon a crusade? As if she is the key that could liberate his world? The clock chimes, jolting him back into the moment. A sympathetic guard has told him that the midwife’s interrogation started fifteen minutes earlier and Detlef, painfully aware of passing time, tries to concentrate on the archbishop.

  ‘I am a canon, I can take confession. I am innately capable of recognising evil just as I am of distinguishing innocence.’ He finishes his appeal with just the right amount of sincerity.

  Heinrich arches one eyebrow, disbelieving. ‘Indeed, I am told that the pious Meisterin Ter Lahn von Lennep is often seen at your confessions, and I have no doubt that the penance you prescribed her has saved her soul—on more than one occasion.’

  The archbishop, pleased with his own wit, leans back—a gesture the surrounding entourage takes as permission to laugh. Detlef, ears burning, struggles to remain calm.

  ‘Your excellency, I beg you: I have reason to believe that the inquisitor’s motive is personal. The woman is still a German, even if she is a Jew and the daughter of a Spanish converso. I cannot believe she poses any threat to the Holy Empire as I truly do not believe she is a sorceress—but she is undeniably an obsession of the good monsignor. Unfortunately it turns out that the woman was baptised, a legality that has allowed the Inquisition to make their arrest.’

  ‘Detlef, your logic has become faulty. I have never known you to be politically simplistic. Perhaps the rabbi’s daughter is a sorceress. Perhaps Monsignor Solitario is not the only man obsessed.’

  Again Detlef has to suffer the humiliation of ridicule as several of the younger clerics conceal their mirth behind their long sleeves. The hour hand shifts slightly across the clock face. Desperate now, he decides to gamble on how much the archbishop actually knows about Ruth bas Elazar Saul.

  ‘Your highness, both you and I realise that the Sephardic community in Amsterdam is not without royal connections. I have heard that the young woman’s mother was persecuted by a younger incarnation of the notorious friar and fled to the safety of the Netherlands. I have also heard rumours that she was held in high esteem within that community. The Jews in Amsterdam will not take kindly to her daughter’s martyrdom—and neither will their moneylenders.’

  Heinrich flinches. Detlef seizes the opportunity and slams a further wedge into the crack.

  ‘It would be impertinent of me to suggest that the cathedral could possibly be beholden to a Jewish moneylender, but if such a rumour should somehow be made public…’

  There is silence as the archbishop toys with the idea that Detlef has, for once, overstepped his rank. But expediency supersedes pride. Heinrich stands heavily and walks over to the window. The afternoon is drawing to a close and shortly he must make his way by coach to Bonn. All roads seem to be leading to the same path. He wonders if there might be an elegant way of appointing Detlef as prosecutor and appeasing the emperor and the wretched woman’s father. Really, all this fuss over a glorified Jewish peasant—it is so exasperating. The gout in his leg suddenly flares and he winces.

  What advantage is Detlef seeking through the release of the Jewess? There must be a hidden stratagem he has not perceived. Surely Detlef cannot be acting out of genuine sentiment. Perhaps the rabbi’s daughter is more than she appears. If so, what might be the political advantage—or disadvantage—should the archbishop choose to thwart the inquisitor? Heinrich’s instinctive wisdom suggests that he play it out and see what happens. He will always be able to reinstate Solitario later if necessary.

  Staring at the clock Detlef tries to control his increasing agitation.

  Heinrich suddenly remembers his dream in front of the crucifix at Saint Severin. Christ instructed him to have faith in blood and stop worrying about the loaves. Suddenly all becomes clear: as his cousin, Detlef is blood. Could the loaves be Vienna—the inquisitor and all the other ‘dough’ he has to answer to?

  ‘I shall arrange for you to take over the interrogation of Ruth bas Elazar Saul for one month only and I shall challenge the Inquisition on their jurisdiction over her as the daughter of a conservo and Spanish citizen, even if she is baptised. My argument shall be that of nationhood: as a denizen of Cologne, the woman has the right to be tried here by Germans. It is a thin justification and will stall the zealot only temporarily but I have a plan to remove him entirely during the trial. Luckily for us, the roads from here to Vienna are still badly war-torn and the good Lord only knows what perils a messenger might face along the way.’

  Heinrich crosses himself piously. There is a rustle of starched linen and silk as his entourage follows suit.

  ‘In that case, my good lord, I need your testimony immediately. Monsignor Solitario is this very moment at his handiwork and I fear the Jewess may not survive her first ordeal.’

  Surprised, Heinrich glances across at his assistant who nods. The archbishop claps his hands and a page runs forward with a quill and scroll. Pressing the document against the kneeling boy’s back, Heinrich scrawls a hurried note and completes it with the flourish of his distinctive signature. After waving the ink dry and sealing it with a blob of crimson wax, he hands it to Detlef.

  ‘Go, and God speed. I will not have the cathedral soiled by the blood of an innocent,’ he adds theatrically, relishing the role of moral campaigner.

  But Detlef, not quite believing his easy victory, has already tucked the scroll into his cassock and is hurrying to the door. Groot follows, flushed with the exhilaration of his master’s triumph.

  Burning. White splinters of pain. Somewhere the sound of muffled music. Ruth is about to surrender. She wants to stop hurting. Her body screams for release. Blinking, she peers up through the pale green light. The tender features of her mother push through the surface of the water, smiling down at her like the carved prow of a drowned ship. Sara is beckoning her: one breath and you are with me…come…come. Memories of her scent, her soft voic
e, the warmth of home, dance seductively across Ruth’s mind. Just as she is about to breathe in, daggers of glass pierce every inch of her torso. The cold is so severe that she cannot think, her mind squeezing down into the last thread of basic instinct: do not breathe…do not breathe…For how much longer? Again her mother’s face appears, a strand of Sara’s hair slips from its cowl and spirals down towards Ruth, a shimmering ebony in the darkness. It is like Jacob’s ladder. Ruth knows that if she can only reach out and take hold of it she will climb out of this pain, out of the cold and the darkness, into the safety of her mother’s arms. All she need do is surrender, breathe in oblivion. Suddenly a congealing blob appears, floating suspended below her. As Ruth stares at it the mass reveals itself to be a knot of slippery eels writhing around each other in a frenzy. A white hand snakes out from the contorting fish. Lilith. Ruth twists wildly in her ropes but it is too late, the demon’s face follows the hand, her huge eyes glowing, her fingers reaching for Ruth, grabbing at her flesh. Her mouth snaps open, teeth glistening, and she lunges for the bound woman.

  The viola da gamba clasped between his knees, Carlos watches impassively as a bubble of blood breaks the surface of the dark water. He glances at the hourglass on the walnut table beside him: the sand ran out a full twenty seconds before. His bow trembles in the air before swooping down to begin another stanza.

  Juan stares at the floor, watching a cockroach nibble at a clump of human hair with a fragment of skin still attached. It is his way of avoiding witnessing the dunking. A superstitious man who, despite bouts of promiscuity, takes the spiritual aspects of his vocation extremely seriously, the clerk is anxious for his soul. Will he be condemned for partaking even passively in such unholy investigations? He glances up for a second and is relieved to see Carlos finally signal to the torturer.

  Herr Bull pushes down on the heavy wooden plank and Ruth’s bound form bursts from the vat of freezing water. Rivulets run from the crown of her head and her long black hair is plastered down, her skin is a bluish-white and blood streams from her nostrils and ears. Her violet lips pull down in a grimace of pain as she breathes in a heaving gasp of air then vomits out a clear stream of bile. With the nonchalance of the professional, the torturer throws a bucket of warm water over her which sets her off in a convulsion of shivering.

  The inquisitor thrusts a piece of parchment at her. ‘Confess, Ruth Navarro, and your soul shall be redeemed. Your agony will cease. Do not hide behind the nobility of silence; you are too intelligent to die for some misplaced loyalty. The evidence is indisputable. Why suffer any longer when I promise you not only salvation but sanctuary?’

  ‘Sanct…sanct…’ she stutters. Bowed over, each sound is a gasp between spasms of pain as more bile heaves through her body.

  Carlos grabs hold of her wet slippery hair. It feels good to his touch, like cold silk. Her fragility, emphasised by the light weight of her skull, excites him. He yanks her head back.

  ‘You are a witch, girl. Sign your confession.’

  Ruth merely stares blankly at him. Her pupils dilate as she wills herself away. Far away from this room filled with ugly men, far from the screams which she finally recognises as her own.

  Disgusted, the Dominican lets her hair go. Her head slams forward but she is still conscious.

  ‘Dunk her again.’

  Herr Bull glances at Ruth’s limp figure with a professional eye. ‘Sire, given the weight and size of the subject it would be advisable to wait five minutes for recuperation—’

  ‘Dunk her!’

  Herr Bull shrugs; the little friar’s hysterics are beginning to irritate him. If they lose her now it’ll serve the weaselly Spaniard right. There is an art to these things and it annoys him when his clients allow their emotions to interfere with his craft. Nevertheless, flexing his massive forearms he pushes down the plank. Ruth, still strapped to the chair at the other end, sails up into the air. The torturer swings the whole contraption back towards the vat and, with a swiftness that belies his control, again immerses the chair in the freezing water.

  Carlos watches as Ruth’s hair and tunic sink slowly after her, then turns the hourglass over.

  The young guard who has been thinking about supper—a mutton stew spiced with caraway and chestnuts waiting for him at the house of his new lover (the wife of his landlord)—watches the water splash over the side of the tarred barrel. If the sorceress dies he will have to stand as witness when they make an official report back to the archbishop, which will take a couple of hours longer. The vision of the steaming stew being handed to him by his mistress, her plump bosom pushed up over her smock, becomes more and more distant. To his amazement he finds himself secretly praying that the witch will survive the interrogation.

  The inquisitor takes the hourglass and cradles it in his lap. Through the crystal at the top he can see the granules of sand gathering and shifting as ripples of the moving mass beneath suck them into the vortex. Fascinated, he meditates on the instrument, musing how it is the perfect illustration of life. So many of man’s actions appear to have no immediate consequence but, concealed, do their work until finally all catches up and forms a complex web of cause and effect—like this very instant, in which time and events have meshed so that he now holds in his hands the life of the daughter of the woman who almost destroyed his reason. Destiny is a thing of great elegance, he thinks, watching the last of the sand form a shallow pool, which becomes a sharp incline and finally a vacuum as the last grain tumbles through the narrow glass neck. But power is the greater aphrodisiac, he concludes.

  ‘Sire, the girl will perish,’ Juan ventures nervously.

  The inquisitor snaps out of his reverie and realises that all present, even the guards, are staring at him. The page, his young face blank with shock, is doubled over in a bout of trembling. Carlos ignores him.

  ‘She will not, her blood is stubborn. Trust me, I know her lineage.’

  ‘What is she—superhuman?’ Herr Bull interjects, abandoning all protocol. ‘Because if she isn’t, and you want me to do my job, we fish her out now else we’ll be rolling in the coffin and the priest.’

  ‘We wait.’

  All turn back towards the glistening black water: the young guard worrying about his receding supper; the page trying not to shit himself; Juan, who wonders about Detlef’s reaction when he hears of the Jewess’s drowning; Herr Bull, appalled at the inquisitor’s waste of a good craftsman; and the older guard who knows it will be he who must drag the corpse out of the barrel later and clean the vat.

  If the Almighty wills it, she shall live. If he does not, she shall die, Carlos consoles himself. Part of him furtively longs for the spirit of the mother to appear to rescue the daughter. See, Sara, see where your child is now! Carlos, eyes closed, imagines the face of the Spanish woman as she gazes down at the floating black hair, her beauty wiped away by horror.

  There is a pounding at the door. Before the inquisitor has a chance to gather his wits, several guards burst in followed by Detlef and Groot. For a moment the intruders stumble to a halt, overpowered by the stench of shit, urine and blood and the underlying smell of fear.

  Detlef, peering into the shadows, thinks he must have arrived in a manifestation of Hell. The darkened chamber with its instruments of cruelty, the guilty look stretched across the inquisitor’s face as if he has been caught indulging in some covert transgression, combine to disorientate the young canon. He stares frenziedly around the cell, wondering where they have hidden the midwife. It is only when Solitario steps in front of the dunking bench that Detlef, with a sickening lurch, realises she is completely submerged.

  ‘Release her!’

  ‘On whose orders?’

  Detlef knocks the Spaniard to the ground, then with one heave pushes down the dunking lever so the chair lifts up from the vat. Immediately Herr Bull and the guards rush to his aid. Together they untie the prostrate figure and lay her out on the wet stone floor. Her head flops sideways.

  ‘Bring a torch!’


  Under the flare Detlef sees that the woman is lifeless, her eyes rolling back into her head. He clasps the slender shoulders, unable to believe she could have perished so easily. Not this spirit, he prays. Desperate, he tears open her tunic. The pallor of her breast is an appallingly poignant sight, a stark reminder of her youth. The nipple a large purple bud on white. Detlef places one hand on her chest and starts massaging her heart. Nothing happens.

  Groot, kneeling beside him, picks up her limp wrist to find a sign of life. ‘Sire, the midwife’s spirit has fled us.’

  But Detlef, refusing to hear him, keeps thumping on her chest, a dull thud which resonates through all of his senses again and again. As if all that matters is made manifest in this one gesture: the absurd scale of his huge hand across her narrow chest; the wet flesh which, like clay, gives with each blow; the mud streaking the skin coating his fingers, linking her degradation with him.

  Let her live, he prays to his God. If you are to grant me anything, grant me this.

  Groot, frightened by his master’s tenacity, tries to pull him away as bruises begin to blossom across Ruth’s mottled skin. But the canon, rigid in his determination, continues to pound over and over.

  Suddenly, miraculously, her chest heaves and she coughs. Water streams from her purple mouth.

  ‘Sire, she lives!’ Groot cries out in amazement.

  Detlef rolls her onto her side. Sweat beads on his face despite the freezing air. Only as he watches her shuddering ribs expand does he realise that there is life beneath his hands and for the second time in his existence he is infused with faith.

  ‘So the midwife lives to face another interrogation.’

  Carlos’s voice rings out in the momentary silence and punches Detlef back into the room, to the paper-white faces of his startled audience.

  ‘Perhaps it would have been kinder to let her perish,’ the friar smirks.