The Witch of Cologne

by Tobsha Learner

  Heinrich glances at the Spaniard. The proximity of the last few days has allowed him the luxury of observation: now he can see the hues and subtleties of the man. There is some buried tragedy which has scarred this man, the archbishop muses, having found that in discussion he always hits the same immovable spot in the inquisitor’s soul: a boulder of hate that, like a hostile coastline, defines his character.

  ‘Indeed,’ Heinrich responds. ‘However, my personal astrologer is more optimistic than the hacks who make money foretelling doom and disaster. He predicts a hot summer and a good harvest—that’s enough future for me. We cannot choose the times we live in. Just as, sometimes, we cannot choose whom we love.’

  ‘Of such secular matters I know nothing. My only love is for Jesus Christ, our Good Lord who died on the Cross for our sins,’ the inquisitor replies with the taint of the prude in his voice.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think the nature of faith is love and love of the goodness in man. Hate is not Christian; it is a toxin that can only fester like a canker, do you not think, Monsignor?’

  The sun is now a throbbing crimson lip pushing up over the muddy vineyards. The inquisitor turns from the archbishop feeling like a crab which has been stripped of its shell. Torn between the temptation to unburden his heart and the terror of his constructions and beliefs being dismantled, Carlos hesitates and stares directly into the ascending ball of fire. A grey cloud has begun to race across the edge of the orb. It is like Apollo himself, the friar fancies, imagining that the thin wisps of vapour are the fiery steeds, with the beautiful young god, his golden hair streaming behind him, his naked body a muscular arc of honed grace, following the stallions in his chariot of spun gold. Shall I ever be that brave, Carlos thinks; was I ever that rash? Frightened of the answer that is forming deep within him, he turns back to Heinrich.

  ‘I have faith and love for my mission, your grace. It is not an easy task and often requires me to harden my heart. Righteousness is not to be confused with hate,’ he finishes, his shell now firmly clamped back around him.

  Disappointed that he has failed to liberate the man within the inquisitor, Heinrich gestures to the waiting monks. With silent decorum they place the seven bottles of wine—each with two wine glasses beside it—on the table before the two men.

  ‘I have arranged a little tasting for our pleasure, Monsignor Solitario. Seven bottles for the seven stages of Christ’s life. It is a beloved allegory of mine that I have been meditating upon for many years. I hope you will appreciate it.’

  The Dominican cannot help but smile at the gleeful gleam in the prelate’s eye. ‘Indeed, I am honoured.’

  The archbishop takes up the first bottle. He pours out two glasses then lifts one up against the sunrise. The wine shines a pale yellow.

  ‘This is for the baptism of our Lord by John the Baptist. I think of the Galilean, infused with belief but still uncertain of his calling, up to his knees in the clear water of the River Jordan as the fervent words of his black-eyed and wild-haired cousin stir his soul. The wine is a simple innocent white, a youthful Chasselas from Alsace, a favourite once with the English playwright Shakespeare. Still green but dry, soft and gently fruity, laced with tremendous promise—just like our young Lord, and ourselves once upon a time.’

  He goes to the second bottle, this time pouring out a dark red.

  ‘The temptation of Christ in the wilderness. Satan’s manifestation, every sinful seduction whirling before our Lord’s eyes.’

  Heinrich glances wryly at the Spaniard, searching for a glint of recognition, having sensed that the sins of the flesh might be the inquisitor’s weakness. Carlos’s face remains an expressionless mask.

  ‘Christ’s torment is the anguish that strikes every young monk once he resigns himself to his vocation. After all, are we not all men under the robe?’

  Heinrich laughs but Carlos remains ominously silent. Shrugging off the inquisitor’s sudden frostiness, the prelate turns to the wine, lifts a glass and sniffs it.

  ‘Naturally I have chosen a red wine from the Benedictine vineyards at Savigny-les-Beaune. A vineyard once owned by the Knights Templar, who themselves were guilty of succumbing to all sorts of temptations, accused of buggery and many other profanities by King Philip IV. So this wine has a dangerous history of temptation—satiated and otherwise. Wickedly full-bodied, it lingers on the palate like a lascivious dream.’

  Carlos lifts the wine to his face. The aroma is rich and pungent and, tickling the back of his nose, reminds him of something. Blushing furiously he realises it is the smell of the sex of a woman. Heinrich, watching, winks knowingly at him then turns to the next wine.

  ‘On a happier note, the next bottle represents Christ’s miracles. After much thought, the wonder I decided upon was the wedding feast in Cana when our Lord turned the water into wine. A difficult decision, but I imagine the wine to have been of a light festive nature, symbolising the rejoicing by his flock at the recognition of our Saviour as the Messiah. So I have chosen a Mosel-Ruwer wine, a Maximin Grünhäuser—this grape would be from the Abtsberg at the centre of the slope. A delicate drop, unbelievably fine yet with an aroma and flavour of an intensity I believe would be impossible from such stony ground without God’s intervention, and a little help from our Benedictine brothers.’ As he speaks he pours the light red fluid into the handmade glass goblets, then moves on to the next bottle.

  ‘After that we have the Last Supper. Imagine the atmosphere, a poignant mixture of quiet joy and sadness: joy at what Christ and his disciples had achieved so far and sadness caused by his announcement that one of them is to betray him. For this I chose a sober wine with a poetic background: a red from St Emilion. The town is a medieval labryinth, itself a matrix of spiritual complexity. The wine has a limpidity, almost a grief, that undercuts its darkness. You can imagine Christ holding up a glass and speaking those immortal words: This is my blood.’

  He lifts the glass; a ray of sunlight streaming through the dark liquid casts an ominous burgundy shadow across his eyes. For a moment Carlos has the uncomfortable sensation that he himself might have been Judas at that immortal table. The spell is broken by a shepherd’s horn sounding out in the valley below. Heinrich replaces the glass on the cold marble.

  ‘Next we move on to the most pivotal event in the history of Christianity: the crucifixion. Our most Holy Father’s sacrifice of his son, martyred for his love of mankind. When I imagine the crucifixion I always think of the elation of spiritual enlightenment through intense physical suffering and pain. That moment of utter exhilaration Jesus must have felt when he surrendered both his spirit and his life. In honour of this I have chosen the wine of Madeu near Perpignan in Roussillon. The grapes are so rich and the wine so opulent that I like to think there is some divinity in its sweetness.’

  He pours two glasses of the rich red. The fragrance drifts over and Carlos finds himself salivating. Heinrich smiles at him as if guessing his thoughts.

  ‘Patience, brother, we have two events to go.’

  ‘The resurrection and the ascension,’ Carlos murmurs, now swept up in the corpulent German’s narrative.

  ‘Exactly. For the resurrection, what would you have chosen?’

  Carlos pauses, imagining Christ’s wrapped corpse lying peacefully in the cave covered from head to toe with its shroud, then the slow, magical rippling movement of life as warm blood begins to pump through the stilled heart.

  ‘A white perhaps?’

  ‘My thoughts exactly. The Spirit would be fresh and pure, an embodiment that floats above the ground. For this I chose a silky white from the Liebfrauenstift, in commemoration of the joy of Our Lady upon meeting her resurrected son. The vineyard surrounds the Church of Our Lady in Worms and the wine is both gentle and lively. And lastly, for the glory of the ascension?’

  ‘Red?’

  ‘Red, full-bodied and extraordinary. A bold declaration that rings out over cities, bells tolling, angel horns blowing, yet illustrating the simplicity of
Jesus’ ascension into the arms of his Father. The 1540 Würzburger Stein from Würzburg on the Main—the history of the vintage itself is miraculous. That year the Rhine dried up and wine was cheaper than water; consequently they stored the vintage for over a hundred years in casks in the cellars of the Archbishop of Main, who himself sent me this as a gift.’

  ‘I am doubly honoured.’

  ‘Indeed you are, but not as much as you might like to think—I have several more bottles in storage.’

  With a smile he pours out the last two glasses of wine in front of the Dominican. Now the sun has risen, a blood-red orb that has turned the clouds above a glorious amaranthine. Carlos, turning back to the table, counts seven glasses of wine poured out for him to taste. The desire to shout out, to laugh, to celebrate the glory of the unknown the new day brings, sweeps through him.

  ‘What next?’ he asks, his breath a faint mist in the chill morning air.

  ‘Next we drink,’ the archbishop replies, grinning hugely.

  Carlos leans against the huge wine press, the rich scent of hundreds of vintages ingrained into the oak pores of the ancient machine seeping out into the damp afternoon air.

  ‘She was a creature not of the flesh but of something far more refined, undefinable. Her beauty, in every aspect: musically, the grace of her gestures, the soaring heights of her wit; all of this was not of this world but one far more devious…’

  He pauses, wondering why it suddenly feels as if the wine press has begun to tilt to one side. Heinrich, noticing the Dominican’s hesitation, immediately fills his wine glass again. It is late in the day and the two have been drinking solidly since the dawn toasting. However, Heinrich, blessed with a liver steeled by decades of drinking, is far less intoxicated than the frugal Spaniard—a situation the archbishop foresaw and has every intention of exploiting.

  ‘You really believed she was of the Devil?’ He leans forward to steady the swaying Dominican with one strong arm.

  ‘Oh, absolutely. Once during a musical recital I swear I saw her feet hovering at least half an inch from the ground. Not to mention the way she bewitched me with her breasts, her perfume, the fluttering movements of those long pale fingers—all sorcery.’ Carlos demonstrates, swaying his own hips in imitation.

  Just another idiot who thought with his cock, Heinrich muses privately, but adopts an air of genuine sympathy.

  ‘It must have been terrible for you, barely a novice, to have to wrestle with such demonic forces. But Monsignor, I think you won then, for you have managed to cleanse this world of her evil family. Surely it would be Christian of you to forgive the daughter and let her disappear back into the Jewish swamp of Deutz. After all, would the emperor really notice since we have burnt the other two accused?’

  ‘I cannot let her go free,’ Carlos announces loudly from where he has climbed on top of the wooden press.

  ‘Cannot…or will not?’ the archbishop insists, sensing an opportunity.

  The Dominican, the world a giddy collage of spinning parts, peers down. The archbishop appears as a tiny figure at the end of one of those new-fangled inventions by the Italian heretic, Galileo: the telescopio.

  ‘I will not! I have my duty to God and country!’ he cries out then topples off the press in a drunken faint.

  Clucking with disapproval, Heinrich walks over. He stares down at the sprawling friar, now snoring loudly, his habit flung about him. What a waste of a good man, he thinks, how obsession can decay and corrupt the heart. Then, just in case the condition could be contagious, reaches for his rosary.

  The onlookers are gathered in the small wood-panelled courtroom with its elaborate ceiling divided into carved reliefs, each crowned with one of the shields of the guilds of Cologne.

  The two witnesses fidget in the railed witness box. Merchant Brassant, painfully aware of his belly straining against his tight velvet doublet, his high-standing collar stiffened with buckram chafing his chin, and his groin itching beneath the new French breeches his young wife has insisted he wear, is unbearably uncomfortable. Beside him, in a cream dress made of poplin, hair hidden beneath a white cowl, with gold at her waist and neck, stands Abigail Brassant. Defiant, she clutches her baby, who, sleeping, is blissfully oblivious to the proceedings.

  Opposite is the jury: a small panel consisting of four bürgers and two representatives of the higher council, all sympathetic and well rehearsed by Detlef. Next to them sits the magistrate flanked by his two sheriffs. The magistrate, Heinrich’s puppet and a grossly overweight bantam of a man, is infamous for the amount of ale he can consume at one sitting. An insufferable pedant when sober, his colleagues try to keep him constantly intoxicated to avoid lengthy legal proceedings. Now, squeezed into the austere Gothic judge’s chair, his feet encased in ridiculously ornate embroidered Turkish slippers dangling a good four inches above the ground, he appears to be entirely drunk.

  Below the podium, seated on hard wooden benches, are the onlookers. At the front, with grim faces, sit Elazar ben Saul and Tuvia; behind them the few curious relatives of the jurors, and in the very back row, fully veiled, Birgit Ter Lahn von Lennep.

  Determined to discover the source of her lover’s recent detachment, Birgit’s inquisitiveness has driven her out of her normal Lent retreat and back into the city. From behind her veil she watches the canon take his place before the court, Groot beside him.

  Detlef exudes an air of authority. Feeling Birgit’s gaze he glances briefly to the back of the room. Her presence irritates him. Does she not trust him, he wonders, finding his mistress’s sudden possessiveness less than alluring. Dismissing her, he turns his attention to the rabbi.

  Elazar ben Saul stares at Ruth as if trying to will her his strength. The canon cannot help but be affected by the obvious affection between father and daughter. Ruth herself, a diminutive figure in the dock, looks around fearfully. All her previous bravado and determination have vanished, making the manacles on her thin wrists appear an absurdity.

  Just then the cathedral minister enters the court, followed by his secretary. What is von Fürstenberg doing here, Detlef thinks. Heinrich had promised no onlookers, no spies. The archbishop himself is not even in attendance. Perturbed, Detlef shuffles the pages of his interrogation notes, hoping that the artifice of the paid jury will proceed smoothly.

  Heinrich, determined that the trial should go exactly how he wishes, has removed the Spaniard to take him on the promised tour of the vineyard at Kloster Eberbach further up the Rhine, thus freeing Detlef to conduct the sham tribunal unhindered. But before his departure the archbishop issued strict instructions to both the magistrate and the canon ordering them to arrive at a verdict of innocence within a week. It was his suggestion to hold the trial during Lent, a time when most of the populace were fasting and in prayer, and so distracted would pay little attention.

  Von Fürstenberg would be wise not to intervene, Detlef muses, knowing that it will be difficult enough to prove the midwife’s innocence without his meddling. As if reading his thoughts the minister nods to Detlef, his portly face grim.

  The air in the windowless court is foul. It is the perfect atmosphere for discomfort, which is precisely why Detlef insisted on this particular chamber, knowing the participants will want to conclude the trial as soon as possible, if only to escape their soporific surrounds. He glances over at the jurors. One of them, a middle-aged blacksmith from the powerful metalworkers’ guild, is already dozing, head rolled back, his velvet cap slipping down over one eye.

  ‘Good Meister Brassant, is it true that Fräulein Saul delivered your wife of a child on January the thirty-first of the year of our good Lord 1665?’ Detlef begins authoritatively.

  The merchant glances across at Ruth. Struggling to hide her fear, she looks tentatively back. Abigail Brassant will not meet her gaze but Meister Brassant smiles at the midwife, embarrassed by her humiliation. He motions to the sleeping baby. ‘It is true. If it were not for her, we wouldn’t have little Franz here.’

  ‘It w
ere either her or magic,’ Abigail Brassant interjects, widening her blue eyes dramatically at the word. Her husband snorts derisively.

  ‘I care not a pox whether it were hocus pocus or not. The child lives and is healthy, that’s all that matters.’ He turns to Detlef. ‘Forgive my wife, she is young and the young see demons in mud. She was my housekeeper’s daughter before I married her and she is still new to her station.’

  A smattering of laughter around the court brings a blush to Abigail Brassant’s cheeks. Belittled, she scowls at Ruth. ‘I know what I saw.’

  ‘In that case you should see what you have sleeping in your arms and be thankful,’ Brassant retorts curtly. ‘I’m sorry, Canon, but I have lost five children before this one and as far as I am concerned it is good to be thankful for miracles. For miracles are miracles, wherever they come from.’

  Nervous about estranging his key witness, Detlef adopts a paternal tone which he hopes will calm the jittery wife. ‘I believe that is what we are here for: to deduce whether it was scientia nova or indeed something of a more supernatural nature that saved the child.’

  ‘But she used amulets! I saw them!’ the young woman shouts out. The court falls silent. As Ruth turns pale, Detlef struggles with his prosecution, mentally fishing for the right angle to continue his questioning.

  ‘Is this true, Fräulein?’ he asks Ruth sternly, praying she will not drop her humble demeanour.

  ‘I used everything I thought fit to save both child and mother,’ Ruth answers in a small voice.

  Perfect, Detlef notes, she continues to appear the martyr. From the corner of his eye he can see von Fürstenberg whispering to his secretary who is frantically scribbling notes. The notion of betrayal begins to gnaw at the edge of his focus.

  ‘Did you use witchcraft to harm anyone?’

  ‘I swear I did not.’ The midwife lowers her burning face.

  Elazar, outraged, tries to stand. Tuvia tugs him back into his chair, stroking the old man’s hand to calm him.