To Detlef it feels as if he is gliding over the dew-covered grass. Not even the daisies appear to bend under his weight. He moves compelled by a greater force than rationality, than self-preservation, a force beyond his conscious mind. He is barely aware of his actions but knows that for the first time in his life he is acting out of a greater passion than self-love.
He pushes open the door; the main room is empty. A candle still burns on the table and a fire smoulders in the huge fireplace. A half-eaten apple stands on the table. He
feels as if he is not here, as if he is an invisible observer, an ethereal spirit that is being swept in with the wind and is able to watch unseen. Everything is vivid. Every detail in the room magnified. He can see the toothmarks left in the apple, he can sense the trail of scent, heat and fine dust Ruth has left swathed across the centre of the room. A great desire surges through him, painfully fused with an inherent sense of sorrow, as if he is unable to make one more move towards what he knows undeniably to be his fate.
Ruth is standing in the alcove that houses her bed. On the floor is a wooden bucket filled with water she has boiled on the fire. Naked from the waist up she leans over it, washing herself with a cloth. As she wipes her neck and breasts she finds herself thinking about the canon, how in the silence of that long coach journey she realised there is much that can be communicated without words, that it is possible to have a discourse of the mind with a man she would have expected to share nothing in common. She tries not to remember his beauty. She tries not to think of him as a man. She does not want to be distracted by a passion that cannot afford to exist even in imagination or unspoken longing. An impossible desire. An improbable love. Sighing, Ruth sponges the last of the soap away and in an instant becomes aware of being watched.
The man is standing in the centre of the room beyond. He is familiar and yet not familiar. She does not know the face, the hair, the attire or the dirty features beneath the hat, but there is something she recognises in his physique, in the way he holds his body, that makes her hesitant for one tiny moment. Then, screaming, she covers herself.
Before she can run he is there, holding her, his hands clapped over her mouth. ‘Ruth! Stop, please! It is me, Detlef,’ he whispers as he holds her struggling body close, the first
words he has uttered in over five hours. Deafened by the panic beating in her ears she does not hear him.
‘It’s Detlef, it’s me, Detlef, Detlef,’ he continues to murmur, trying to reclaim his action, this intrusion which is so foreign to his nature that suddenly he no longer knows himself. In the same instant Ruth hears him and stops fighting.
They stand suspended: the cloaked man with his arms wrapped around the half-naked woman. Then, to her surprise, the proximity of him, his maleness, his scent, the taste of salt and earth, the bulk of his long fingers against her tongue, awake within her a desire so long denied that she loses control. Her trembling limbs wind themselves around him, she presses herself against his hardening groin, her hands searching for his skin, tearing at the yellowed lace at his neck. Detlef, unable to hold back any longer, finds her mouth and lifting her up onto his hips, draws her face down to his. Hat and wig fall to the ground, the feather trailing in the bucket of water, as the intelligence of his tongue tames her kisses.
He drops to his knees and traces a path down to one nipple while teasing the other. Her body astounds him. It is not thin as he imagined, but slender with full breasts ripe with large dark areolae. Impatient for the rest of her, he unlaces her skirt and lets it fall to her feet. He is shocked at the smoothness of her skin. Ivory white, the fine down on it jet black. She tastes like cinnamon, the faint scent of lemon across her belly. She is so small that even kneeling his face is breast height. He runs his fingers down, caressing her high buttocks, feeling her quiver beneath his hands, then buries his face into the soft fur between her legs. She smells impossibly sweet. Parting her with his fingers he finds her centre between the folds of flesh, a tiny bead between his lips. Above he can hear her moan as her fingers weave through his hair trying to pull him up to his feet.
‘Please,’ she murmurs, ‘please, I am ashamed.’
But he persists, his own excitement growing with hers until he is so hard beneath his breeches that he is frightened his seed will spill. Finally she manages to pull him to his feet. He stands there, breathing hard, rigid against the rough cloth as she reaches down to release him.
‘But you are virgin.’
He grabs her wrists and holds them for a minute, trying wildly to collect his thoughts. In lieu of a reply she leans forward and buries her face in his chest.
Moaning softly he drops her wrist and allows her to reach down into his breeches and pull him free. For a second she looks at his sex in wonderment. Forgetting who she is or even what she is, she drops to her knees, caressing the velvet head caught so neatly like a pearl in its own case. She touches him, caressing him backwards and forwards, her touch deceptively deft. Detlef cannot believe that these are her hands encircling him, that these are her eyes staring up at him, watching him lose himself. Now, as his orgasm begins to mount, climbing up gloriously behind his balls, in the pit of his stomach, behind his eyes, he pushes her to the ground, throwing his hand between her legs. Finding her wet he pulls her beneath him and enters her with one hard thrust. She screams, pushing her face deep in the abandoned clothes as, forgetting everything in her tightness, he enters her over and over until they cry out in ecstasy.
She is in his arms, her head cradled between his shoulder and chest. They have been lying like this for hours. She will not sleep for fear that she will wake and find she has been dreaming. She could not believe, while he gently sponged the blood from her thighs, kissed her over and over between her legs until again the pleasure rippled up from her belly, that physical love could be so naturally married with the emotional; how such an act could rid her of all sensible thought and render her future suddenly meaningless without him; how she could ever have considered a life without this utterly human deed which has imbued her suddenly with renewed faith.
‘Shall I be there too, fresh-wounded, your latest Prisoner—displaying your captive mind—/With Conscience, hands bound behind her, and Modesty, all Love’s other enemies, whipped into line,’ she whispers softly in Latin.
‘Ovid, from the Amores?’
She nods, smiling slightly.
‘Where did a woman like you learn Ovid? He is not a poet for chaste women, even philosophising women like yourself.’
‘Spinoza always said a woman like me should not marry or bear children for I have a man’s mind trapped in the body of a female.’
‘Is sex so separate, Ruth? I for one do not consider your ambitious spirit to be unfeminine.’
Ruth, her fingers curled into his hair, her body singing in a way it has never sung before, smiles.
‘This shall be the ruin of us,’ she whispers, hoping that he might not hear her.
But Detlef, savouring her pleasing weight upon him, his loins deliciously emptied, hears everything. He reaches down and tilts her face up to his.
‘We are already ruined, for I have ruined you and you I.’
‘Am I your first woman?’ she asks, a sardonic smile playing across her mouth.
‘In an unfathomable way.’
‘To be condemned by our communities, all that we are governed by…’
He watches her, trying to read what lies behind her eyes.
‘Ruth, if you desire, you can close your eyes and I will depart. It will be as if nothing happened. As if I were a ghost, a spectre who has merely slipped through the looking glass.’
She leans over him, her breasts soft against his chest.
‘No, that shall not be.’
‘Then let me protect you. For I fear the inquisitor will find a way of avenging himself.’
‘I cannot leave my father.’
‘I beg you—’
‘Then beg no more. We have the moment, let us not waste it in idle fantasy.’<
br />
And she pulls him into her arms, as if trying with her slender body to shelter them both from the outside world.
Later, as he watches her sleep, he finds the parameters of his universe have been flung open in a way he could never have imagined, as if a great furnace has finally melted the gaol he built so carefully to protect his heart, mind and faith. The mystery of her transfixes him; banal simple things: her bosom as it rises with every breath, the exotic thickness of her pubic bush curling up the curved belly which, to his surprise, he longs to fill, the taste of her and the taste of her and the taste of her.
A finger of pale blue light begins to creep across the scrubbed stone floor. The first smoke of the early morning fires lies on the air and he knows that he must leave.
With his hat pulled low Detlef makes his way back across the bridge towards the town. This time he has made sure that his boots are well soiled and that he walks with the limp of the homeless.
The sky is streaked with a red sunrise struggling to shine through the clouds. In the distance a young goatherd prods his reluctant animals with a stick as they bleat their way to the new day’s pasture, bells ringing. Detlef walks on into the sleepy town, not daring to lift his eyes to the young wives dressed in the twin-horned cap of the Jewess who shout to each other as they throw their laundry over balconies, the guttural sound of Yiddish floating down. A fetid-smelling cart winds its way slowly along the road as the night-soil man—a dwarf in a makeshift uniform of dark purple breeches and a top coat of black—runs to each household to collect the stinking pails. He hurries past Detlef without noticing him.
Detlef takes comfort in the normalcy of the panorama. This is where Ruth began her life, where she was conceived and nurtured. He finds it impossible to believe that he, a Catholic who has had sexual congress with a Jew, could be at great risk of arrest. Just as he finds it impossible to believe that he is trespassing as he walks along these very streets. The naturalness of his happiness seems to preclude the possibility of danger. And so distracted, he barely notices the intense young rabbi leaving the house by the temple, a bag strung across his back.
But Tuvia, as he climbs into the morning coach bound for Maastricht, spies the tall stranger. Something about his elegance of gait, the nobility of his features, seems odd to the young rabbi, by nature suspicious. The man is obviously not a Jew. In which case, what is he doing in the centre of Deutz’s Jewish quarter at five a.m.?
Disturbed, Tuvia watches through the window of the coach as the intruder strides towards the Rhine.
My dearest Ruth,
What has happened between us is irreversible as the Dawn which, as I write, threatens to expose us as turncoats of Love. If you will not come under my protection then I shall do my utmost to protect you from Cologne itself. But, my dearest heart, I fear there is only so much I can do. The inquisitor will eventually find a way to prosecute and Maximilian Heinrich will be forced to sacrifice your life. This I believe to be only a matter of time. I beg you to reconsider your decision.
Trust that as I watch you sleep, I leave half my soul here in this cottage. Ours is a union that will suffer no restrictions, no ignorance, no borders. I have no idea how I shall be able to walk back towards the Rhine without you, and I vow that nothing—no law, no army or faith—will keep me from your side.
In love and admiration,
Detlef von Tennen
Ruth lies there, his letter pressed against her face, the urgency of the day filtering in through the thin parchment. She should get up. Open the heavy wooden door. Let the early morning sun warm the cold stone floor. Feed the geese, pump water. Instead she stays sprawled across the bed, revelling in the lingering weight of his body echoing across her skin, in her loins. The taste of him, his sweat, which remains faintly palpable. She rolls over and, curling up, reaches across to the slight indentation in the pallet, still warm. She buries her face into the space where he lay, breathing his scent as deeply as she can.
She cannot believe his visit was real. That, despite geography, social mores, tyranny and huge danger, he came to her. She finds it difficult to fathom how an emotion which she was previously unable to define has become so clear, so overwhelming that it has pushed away all other concerns.
Outside she hears Miriam knocking at the door. She slips Detlef’s letter between the bed base and the pallet then, frightened that her young assistant might guess the real reason behind the strewn clothes, she leaps up—only to catch sight of her naked body in the looking glass. To her amazement she appears exactly as the day before. It is as if she had expected the loss of her virginity to transform her, to leave a mark. The absurdity of the thought makes her break into delighted laughter before she covers herself.
Carlos bravely places the morsel of stuffed pig’s intestine into his mouth and tries not to gag. Grimacing, he washes it down with a mouthful of wine, thankfully imported from the Mediterranean.
‘I see the good priest is having difficulty with our German peculiarities?’
Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg smiles. Upon seeing the inquisitor splutter he pours him another glass.
‘It is true that we lack the spice and flavour of the south, and we can be a little inflexible in our choice of vegetable. However there are many ways to prepare a cabbage, don’t you agree, Monsignor?’
Carlos glances at the portly minister. His obsequious verbosity is irritating. He trusts him even less than the canon, whose views are at least always transparent, but this man, Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg, has to be the real manipulator in the shadows. Suspecting him of having great influence over the archbishop, and possibly the prime architect of Heinrich’s dealings with the French, the inquisitor wonders why von Fürstenberg has invited him to eat at this palatial dwelling, a luxurious mansion on the outskirts of the city by the river’s edge belonging to his mistress, the wealthy widow, Countess von Marck.
Von Fürstenberg must want to strike a deal. But what kind of deal? The internal machinations and politics of this provincial city are beginning to irk him greatly, the Dominican thinks, suppressing a burp. He has been doubly thwarted in his persecution of Ruth bas Elazar Saul by that idiot Emperor Leopold and Maximilian Heinrich. It was a mistake to go to the vineyard, he was seduced by the archbishop’s cheap trick when he should have remained in the city to witness that sham of a trial. But he is determined to find the Jewess guilty, even if that means suffering the further indignity of German hospitality. A greater calling is at stake: the annihilation of the unholy, the purging of an evil seed which, unchecked, could infect an entire population.
‘A cabbage is a benign plant whereas a swine…’ Carlos continues von Fürstenberg’s allegory, hoping for more clues to the diplomat’s opaque proposal.
‘A swine can be slaughtered by various means.’ Von Fürstenberg’s tone suddenly becomes very serious. ‘Wild boar is particularly tasty because it has to be hunted and, being an intelligent animal, is able to conceal itself in many ways. You are naturally discouraged by the turn of events.’
Still unsure whether the conversation might turn into an ambush, Carlos hesitates over another glass of wine. The best way for enemies to unite is over another foe, he reflects before replying.
‘Naturally.’
‘I think perhaps we could be of service to one another. The archbishop’s cousin has undergone a rather unpleasant transformation, becoming a fanatic since his encounter with the Jewish witch. His newly found enthusiasm for the bürgers and even the serfs is a cause of concern to both the archbishop and myself.’
‘How much of a concern?’
‘The canon and the midwife would not be missed if they should mysteriously disappear. As you may appreciate, the Jews of the Rhineland have some economic value and our communities maintain a delicate relationship which is easily unbalanced. They have no wish to create difficulties any more than we do…’
‘But what of the royal pardon?’
‘Now that the prince is cured and safely back in Vienna I doubt wheth
er the emperor will remember how to pronounce the name Ruth bas Elazar Saul, if he ever did know how to prononounce it. The pardon has all the hallmarks of Samuel Oppenheimer’s intervention.’
‘It is true that the Court Jew is powerful.’
‘Not powerful enough. And far too fond of his own status to rock the boat for such a small fish.’
‘The Grand Inquisitional Council would be most grateful to the Holy Keepers of the Magi for such a favour.’
‘And what pleases Aragon pleases Cologne. But tell me, does the Inquisitional Council really care that much, or is this more of a personal quest, Monsignor?’
Carlos’s silence confirms von Fürstenberg’s suspicions.
‘In that case, Monsignor, you have my sympathy. I understand what it is to be thwarted over generations.’
‘Of course, we all experience the blindness of familial ties. Even the archbishop in all his wisdom seems to favour blood over talent,’ Carlos, his face rigid, fires back.
‘Heinrich, despite his appearance, is a sentimental man but his affection for his cousin is being tried by the canon’s behaviour.’
‘Which in the long term augurs well for other potential heirs—like yourself, perhaps?’
‘Indeed.’
‘I am curious: who really courts King Louis—the archbishop or yourself?’
The stuffed pig’s intestines are replaced by a dish of fowl: a goose baked whole with a glaze of black cherries. Von Fürstenberg pushes the dish towards Carlos. ‘You must try the fowl, it is a French recipe sent direct from Versailles.’
Having received an oblique answer to his question, the friar, always frugal in his consumption, leans back, overwhelmed by the extravagance of the meal. He still finds himself questioning the German’s motives.
‘I believe the midwife has returned to Deutz.’ Von Fürstenberg bites into a wing, juice dripping down his chin.
The Witch of Cologne Page 29