At Witches' End

by Annette Oppenlander

  “Did you hear?” Bero said.

  “What?”

  “Schwarzburg…he mentioned my sows. He had them killed… I always assumed it was Ott.”

  My mind returned to the barn where two years ago I’d found Bero half dead among his pigs. Had it not been for Luanda, I’m convinced he would’ve died. The heat I’d felt earlier, that burning flame of fury rekindled. But instead of providing energy it drained me to the point I could hardly lift my arms.

  Bero kept mumbling to himself. “Why…why my sows? They did not hurt anyone.”

  I shrugged. It was just one more thing gone wrong, one more atrocity. I placed an arm over my eyes to shut out my friend and everything else in this damn medieval world. Not that I needed much to cover my face. Other than an opening in the wall to the hallway, we had no light source. A stone grave for two.

  “You are giving up?” Bero said, after a while. I didn’t answer, tears pushing against my closed eyelids. Let the jerk talk. I wanted to pass out and forget my misery.

  “When you first showed up,” Bero said. “I mean, when I met you in the forest two years ago, you were the dumbest lackwit there was. But then over time you did a lot of brave deeds. You healed my sister, helped the Lord. You even pretended to be a knight. No matter you spoke like a boil-brained hedge pig—still do—you went anyway. Even taught Ott a lesson. I still think you should have finished him off, though.”

  I lay still. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t shut out Bero’s voice which was strangely soothing and infuriating at the same time.

  “When we became squires, I thought you were the bravest lad I ever met.” Bero paused, letting me focus on the scattering of tiny feet. Our rat cellmates had joined us.

  “What happened to you?” he finally said, his voice jagged with anger. “Your valor, your recklessness, your passion for quests—where did they go? Who is this yielding fearful malt worm? It surely cannot be Max Nerds. My friend.”

  The cell turned silent.

  My ear on the ground, I focused on my rat friends. Judging by the dead ones I’d noticed in the street, they had to be the size of house cats.

  “I’m tired,” I said into the stillness. “And thirsty.”

  “So? I am tired and thirsty. No reason to lie around like a girl.”

  “Shut your hole,” I suddenly shouted. “You don’t know how it is. Nothing has worked out. Nothing.” I grabbed a handful of straw and flung it against the opposite wall. There was no sound.

  Pathetic.

  I wanted to throw big things, break glass bottles and hurl pottery at the wall. I wanted to yell, stamp my feet, burn something. Anything but sit here, think about this ridiculous game and listen to Bero the idiot. “I told you not to come.”

  I squinted at my friend who sat unmoving, his eyes hard in the gloom.

  “I thought that is what friends do,” Bero said quietly. He slumped into the straw and turned his back.

  I rolled away to face the opposite wall, both of us quiet, neither of us sleeping. I wanted to grab Bero, tell him we’d find a way. That I was glad he was here with me. But I was too damn mad and miserable to move.

  I must’ve dozed off when I heard scraping near the door. Two stone mugs and a few chunks of soggy bread were shoved through the opening. I sniffed. It was some kind of weak beer, not the strong booze the soldiers drank, but it was wet and I didn’t care. I drank slowly, forcing myself to wet my mouth first, swallow a bit, put the mug down and do it again. It took every shred of willpower not to empty the cup in one guzzle.

  Bero munched the bread, taking loud gulps. Our cell turned black. Nighttime.

  I tried remembering when I’d last peed. This morning at Hanstein. I still didn’t have any urge, imagining that my kidneys shriveled and I’d simply die in my sleep. But I remembered from my ordeal in Schwarzburg’s dungeon that you didn’t die this easily and fast. That it was a slow and excruciating decline.

  “You’re right,” I finally said into the darkness. “I’m sorry.” I was feeling slightly better, my headache at the base of my skull a distant pounding and my tongue almost normal size. Bero didn’t answer.

  “I’ve been stupid, thinking I’d get inside the inn and steal back my stuff. I just need it, that’s all. Maybe if we work together we’ll find a way out. Something.”

  Still Bero didn’t speak, but I knew he was listening by the way he was lying still. “Truth is I’m over my head. We have no money for bribes. And we’re below ground with no way to dig out of here.” I touched the wall. “It’s solid rock. Nobody even knows where we went. And Werner has disappeared.”

  “We can at least try,” Bero said quietly.

  I smiled grimly. It was good to hear my friend’s voice.

  Chapter 13

  When the door opened three days later, I thought against all hope that Schwarzburg had changed his mind. We’d been discussing escape, bribing the guards and digging a tunnel.

  None of our plans had gone any farther because we realized we were trapped without the chance to get coin, tools or at least someone on the outside to help. That someone had to be pretty powerful and nobody, not even Juliana knew we were here.

  We marched upstairs, back to the foyer, but this time we entered the door across from Schwarzburg’s office.

  To my consternation dozens of faces turned our way. Along the back wall, a raised platform held a fifteen-foot table, draped in chocolate brown cloth. Behind it, facing the audience, three men sat in silence, their eyes somber, their mouths turned down as if they hadn’t smiled in a long time.

  One of them wielded a feathered quill and was scratching something on a role of parchment. The remaining space was filled with benches, now loaded with an assortment of colorfully dressed men. Most of them seemed to be merchants and wealthy citizens of Heiligenstadt who had come to view a spectacle.

  Bero and I were led to a wooden seat in front, our arms chained and secured to an iron ring in the floor.

  The doors slammed shut. A servant across the aisle banged a staff on the floor. “Rise.” The mumbling in the audience stopped as everyone scrambled to stand. “His holiness, Vicarius Freudenberg of St. Martins Church, Lord Thiele von Westhausen and Duke Heinrich von Schwarzburg.”

  The guard next to me yanked the chain and we straightened as a man in flowing velvet robes of white and red and a hand-sized gold cross entered the room, followed by a short wiry man, dressed completely in black leather and velvet with a black and gray streaked beard, reminding me of a raccoon. Behind them walked Schwarzburg who’d donned a fur-trimmed surcot of red velvet with the yellow and blue crest of his house.

  As they took their seats behind the table on the platform, the spectators followed suit. The room grew quiet. My own breath rattled the stillness, mingling with the occasional clink of our chains.

  “We have gathered here to examine the abominable actions of two godless men who entered a pact with the devil,” Schwarzburg said. “Heretics who committed crimes of witchcraft to bring ruin to the good people of this town. As provisory of Rusteberg, decreed by his holiness, Archbishop Adolf II von Nassau of Mainz, it is my duty to pass judgment and protect those who are under my care. I have been asked to act as inquisitor, to bequeath justice and stop the offenses and conjuring of criminal elements.”

  The bench trembled and I peeked sideways. Bero’s cheeks were so pale, they matched the white-washed walls behind us. He sat absolutely still, except for a tremor in his thighs that reminded me of the tiny vibrations of an engine.

  “Such criminal elements have made it into our midst with a cunning and immorality I have rarely seen. Bring forth the witnesses.” Schwarzburg waved at the servant by the entrance.

  I blinked twice, not believing my eyes. In rushed the medicos, black robes flying like Professor Snape entering potions class, the same man who’d almost killed Lady Clara.

  He bowed low in front of the podium. “Your Lordship.”

  “Tell us your claim, good man,” Schwarzburg said.

/>   The medicos shot me a loathing glance before recounting his meeting with us in Lady Clara’s chamber.

  “He claims to be a healer,” the medicos said in a tone as if I’d used a chainsaw to perform surgery on Lady Clara. “Took credit for my success with My Lady and purposely lied to Lord Hans.”

  His voice turned to a whisper. “He used magic and conjured foul-smelling fog he forced on the Lady. He spoke in a strange tongue. He is a sorcerer, most certainly.”

  “Your testimony is duly noted,” Schwarzburg said, while the scribe furiously wrote on his parchment. “Next witness.”

  In came the fat barkeep from the Klausenhof Inn who’d stolen my cape. He wheezed as he hurried toward the front where he attempted to bow. It looked comical as his bulging stomach nearly pulled him over.

  “Tell us about your quarrel, Meister Sewolt.”

  “Your Lordship, I found this here intruder in my cellars at the inn.” The barkeep squinted as he pointed a stubby forefinger at me. “He was no guest and I had seen him acting suspicious before. I never forget a face, and this meddler had been in my inn”—here the barman scratched his grizzled chin with great care”—no doubt, casting his spells on my good customers and my hard-working servants.”

  The crowd mumbled in the background as I watched in mute astonishment. These people had no shame accusing others of falsehood when they themselves were the liars.

  “To make matters worse, the intruder tried to burn my inn to the ground, conjuring a spell and nearly killing me and my brave guards.” The proprietor nodded eagerly, making his layered chins jiggle.

  “And how do you know that, good man?” said Schwarzburg’s sidekick in white and red.

  “Your Holiness.” The barkeep attempted to bow again, but gave up and just lowered his head. “I took this here witchery from him.” He crossed himself before pulling open a leather pouch and carrying it to the table with shaking fingers.

  It was my lighter.

  “He used it to cast an evil curse, even admitted it. I saw it with my own eyes how he made fire in his hand.”

  A low rumbling spread across the room as the spectators tried to catch a glimpse of the offending item now resting at the edge of the table. The men behind it glanced at my lighter as if it were alive and ready to explode.

  “I do not see any fire,” the vicarius in the white and red robe said. He carefully bent forward, his eyes never leaving the lighter, which sparkled unnaturally green on the dark-brown velvet.

  “It is inside,” the barkeep cried. “A spell only he can summon.” The man’s jowls quivered as he nodded toward me.

  “Inside this?” The churchman carefully touched the lighter with his forefinger.

  Schwarzburg leaned toward him and whispered something I couldn’t understand.

  “Let the accused come forward,” the vicarius said. The guard next to me sprang into action and unhooked my chain.

  I approached the platform, zeroing in on the lighter.

  “Repeat your magic,” Schwarzburg urged. The men along the table leaned backward to put more space between them and the perilous enchantment. I wanted to laugh about their idiocy, but my heart was filled with panic. If I refused to show how the lighter worked, maybe they’d drop the charges against us.

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about.” I pushed out my chest.

  “I command you to show us.” Schwarzburg’s voice had an edge of forged steel. I kept standing as if I were deaf. Only my knees quaked, but Schwarzburg couldn’t see that from his high and mighty seat.

  Schwarzburg stood up and nodded at the soldier next to Bero, his voice dripping with anger. “Guard. I don’t suppose Squire Bero will need his hands. Cut them off.”

  The guard looked shocked, but went into action. The metallic rasp of a sword being pulled from the scabbard echoed from the walls. Every eyeball in the room including mine, followed the blade.

  “Hold out your hands,” Schwarzburg said.

  Bero’s arms shook so hard that the chain on them jingled like bells. My legs were positively on their own, my knees knocking and my feet tapping.

  “Wait! I’ll do it,” I shouted. “Please don’t hurt him.”

  I grabbed the lighter and spun the wheel. The spark caught, its hiss clearly audible, unleashing a one-inch flame. Schwarzburg and his men wrenched backwards in their seats, visibly shaken. Men shouted and jumped up in fright. Others crossed themselves. Several ran for the exit.

  “Sorcery!” someone cried. “Heresy,” someone else said. “May God have mercy.”

  This was my chance to escape. I still held the lighter. It might just work. But then my gaze fell on Bero who sat frozen on the prisoner bench. Though the guard had lowered his sword, Bero kept his hands balled as if that would keep them from being cut off. He stared at me, an expression of panic and a glimmer of something like acknowledgment.

  “Silencium,” Schwarzburg shouted into the mayhem. He strained to appear calm but I knew better. A tiny muscle pulsed below his left eye. “I will have silence.”

  Slowly the noise faded, the doors closed and the guard next to me took hold of my chain. The opportunity for escape had come and gone.

  Schwarzburg’s coal eyes came to rest on me. “You engage in unlawful healing practices. You control fire, a black art and proof of sorcery. It is devil’s work which must be punished, snuffed out by the root, so it cannot spread,” he boomed. He leaned toward the man in white and red and whispered. The other man, dressed in black, nodded and glanced at Bero and me. Schwarzburg got to his feet and made a cross in front of his chest.

  “God almighty, let us judge in your stead and fulfil your wishes, let us stop evil and send it from this world. Help guide us to be just and merciful.”

  Schwarzburg was going to be merciful, that was a start. We’d get a year in jail. I lifted an arm as if I were in my high school class.

  “The prisoner wishes to speak,” the guard next to us said.

  “Let him speak,” a voice came from the audience. “Let us hear him,” several more yelled. Curiosity and fascination had won out. They wanted to see more of the guy who made fire in his hand.

  Schwarzburg nodded. “Let Max Nerds make peace with God. Will you confess?”

  I ignored the question. There was nothing to confess. I was using a lighter available at every gas station and grocery store, used millions of times every day by modern-day humans.

  I cleared my throat as dozens of faces zoomed in on me. “My Lord,” I began, adding a polite bow, “let me assure you that I don’t wish to offend you or anyone else here. I have simply used a common tool available to all my fellow men where I come from.”

  “And where do you come from?” Schwarzburg said. “I seem to remember that I asked you this question before and you conjured a tale of lies and deceit.”

  I paused. If I said I’d traveled through a computer game six-hundred years into the past, they’d for sure declare me a lunatic. “I’ve come a long way—from a land where men travel many times faster than horses, where we take to the sky, where hot water streams from pipes in our homes and you can keep food as cold as ice.”

  I peeked over my shoulder. Every man ogled.

  “In such a land it’s easy to create fire, it’s natural to hear and speak to a person many miles away.” Not to mention watch TV, Skype and fly to space. In front of me, Schwarzburg’s mouth clamped shut. His eyes squinted with loathing. His chest heaved as if he were breathing through a straw.

  At that moment, I realized that no matter what I said, no matter how I pleaded, I’d go to my death. Schwarzburg hated me because two years ago I’d been involved in helping his crush, Lady Clara, escape from his bony clutches.

  I struggled to keep my voice steady, terror spreading from my gut to my throat.

  “I ask that Bero, the squire, will be spared. He had nothing to do with my actions and only was along by chance. He is innocent and knows nothing about me.” I looked at my friend who quietly shook his head. “I beg you,
My Lord. Let him go.”

  Schwarzburg stood up again. “The prisoner has spoken. It is apparent he has refused to ask for God’s mercy, only for that of his companion. I shall therefore declare judgment for the heretic acts of the prisoner.”

  As I walked back to my seat panting, mumbling ensued at the judge’s table. The terror I’d felt a second ago was joined by anger so hot, my chest hurt. For the first time I understood how it was to truly hate someone. I hated Schwarzburg with every cell in my body.

  I wanted to climb on that platform and punch the man in his beak, pummel his stomach until he had cramps and kick his scrawny behind out of the courtroom. Be honest, Billy the Kid’s voice reverberated through my head. You want to blow him away.

  He was right. Oh, what I would’ve given to have Billy here now.

  Instead I stood motionless, the guard holding me by a chain like a dog. The mumbling behind the table continued, Westhausen whispering to Schwarzburg, the vicarius nodding along.

  Behind us the audience began to murmur and something cold crept up my back, like a breath from the grim reaper.

  Schwarzburg smacked his gavel. “It appears Max Nerds refuses to confess.” He waved at a guard who immediately rummaged in a wooden chest. The bench beneath resumed to vibrate. This time my legs wiggled along with Bero’s. What was Schwarzburg going to do now?

  “Max Nerds, confess or we proceed to force a confession.”

  I gulped air as my brain tried to process Schwarzburg’s words and the guard shoved my thumbs into… what was that?

  The one thing I’d always feared the most was about to happen.

  Torture.

  The bench below me came alive as my legs began to shake violently.

  “Proceed,” Schwarzburg said. A hush fell over the room.

  I looked at my thumbs squeezed between two metal plates… thumbscrews. It was as if these hands, these arms did not belong to me. This was somebody else’s body, someone else’s life. It couldn’t be me living this nightmare.

  Until the screws tightened and the metal pressed against my thumb knuckles. The pain was immediate, sharp and so intense that my brain seemed to sizzle, as if the nerve endings of my entire being were attached to my fingers. Tears appeared in my eyes. How could such a small instrument cause so much agony?