The Witch of Cologne (33 page)

Frustrated by her reticence, the minister leans forward.

‘He has wronged you, Madame, both as a man and a confessor. I have reason to believe that he is sheltering the midwife…’

The logic of von Fürstenberg’s statement hits Birgit like a hammer. Suddenly jigsaw pieces of Detlef’s behaviour slot into one another to create a complete puzzle-picture which horrifies her in its clarity: his first distraction, his morality…How could he have risked so much for an insignificant Jewess, Birgit wonders, surmising that the midwife’s persecution must have awoken the idealist within him.

‘You lie.’ She tries unsuccessfully to control the anger in her voice.

Von Fürstenberg, sensing that he has secured his prey, takes her arm eagerly.

‘Madame, he shelters her at this very moment at the estate of his brother.’

‘No, it would not be at Das Grüntal, but somewhere nearby. A place I know well…’

‘Then you will assist us?’

Birgit nods, trying to hide her tears behind a stiff dignity. But already the men have begun to whisper amongst themselves.

As they continue their strategising, Birgit gazes into the grains of black coffee at the bottom of her cup, despairing at the thought of what her life holds without Detlef.

The monk and the canon sit side by side in the stone athenaeum. The bibliotheca is empty apart from themselves. The walls are covered with shelves of books, their spines a medley of languages, from Latin to Portuguese, English to Greek, Persian to Hebrew. It is mid-afternoon and already the spring rains have begun.

Detlef writes in a painstakingly slow hand, his calligraphy elegant but deliberate. He is recording the proceedings of the last month. Each entry is written down, a day’s events captured in a succinct statement:
Baptised baby Hermann Kuller same day I buried his uncle. The lacemakers’ guild protested to the city council over the levy imposed on Belgian lace. Merchant Knoff accuses hopmaker Franz Hausen of watering down his beer.

As he finishes each page he hands the loose parchment to Groot, who is waiting with his inks and brush. Happily the assistant begins the caricature for that day’s observation. Three strokes of black ink and there is the robust baby squalling beside a font of holy water, struggling in the arms of
the canon, an elongated figure, his forehead a magnificent bundle of frowns.

It is at these times that the symbiotic relationship between servant and master is at its zenith: each content to be assisting the other, entirely absorbed in the task at hand, politics forgotten. It is at such times that Groot remembers why he chose to apprentice himself to Canon von Tennen rather than another older and more learned cleric: it was Detlef’s distinctive humour and irreverence for authority that attracted him. No other priest maintains a day book like Detlef, and although he insists that it is for posterity only, Groot suspects the canon keeps it for his own amusement. ‘Tis a great pity, Groot thinks, that his master should be so expert at human observation yet so naive in his strategies.

Secretly devising plans for his own promotion, the assistant places the fresh cartoon to one side to dry then reaches for the next leaf. Their labour is interrupted by a cough.

‘Please, Canon.’

A young novice steps out from a stone arch. He is followed by a roughly dressed farmer stinking of horse, his feathered hat clutched between two huge hands reddened by labour, the carrot beard and whiskers streaked with mud from riding hard through the rains. The peasant steps forward and reaches out to Detlef. The young priest, fearing an assault, speaks hurriedly.

‘Please, sire, he insisted he knows you.’

‘Indeed he does. Joachim.’

For a moment the two men grasp hands, the canon’s pale soft skin, the mark of the scholar, dwarfed in the farmer’s huge paw.

Detlef’s heart has leapt at the sudden appearance of Hanna’s brother but conscious of Groot’s steady gaze the canon portrays nothing but the demeanour of a magnanimous overlord.

The novice, relieved, returns to his chamber, leaving Groot to wonder how Detlef could know such an unlikely figure.

‘Joachim, this is my assistant, Father Pieter Groot. Joachim is the brother of my housekeeper in the country.’

‘Sire, we must hurry back. Hanna made me swear that I would bring you with me directly. There is trouble at the house.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘That she would not tell me, but you know Hanna, she would not ask unless it were serious indeed. I have been riding for a day straight, sire, and that through dangerous country.’

‘I thank you for your loyalty.’

‘I seek not gratitude, just that you will do what my sister commands.’

Groot waits until Detlef has departed then takes up his brush again and in the margin of the sheet for today sketches the portrait of a lascivious she-demon, equipped with breasts and a scaly tail which is wound around the small figure of a priest with a patrician nose remarkably like Detlef’s.

Closing the volume, the cleric begins a long and thoughtful walk through the cloisters towards the chambers of Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg.

T
he acrid smell of amber,
salt petre and brimstone taints the air, obscuring all other odours. Ruth, now labouring, has had Hanna smoke both the house and the grounds for fear of pestilence. With the birth imminent she finds herself in the grip of an irrational terror that she will suffer the same fate as her mother and die in childbirth. For two days Hanna has been running around executing Ruth’s instructions to protect against any unforeseen circumstances, and most of all to ward off the possible intrusion of the demon herself, Lilith.

Now the housekeeper, with a thin willow stick dipped in henna, traces the last of the Hebrew letters in thick red paste across Ruth’s white stretched skin.

‘Have you completed the three names?’

Ruth, her nightdress pushed up to her breasts, tries to peer over her huge shiny belly. Hanna sits back on her haunches.

‘I’ve copied them exactly like your drawing but I’m no artist.’

‘As long as the lettering is correct they will work as protection.’

‘With this much quackery soon not even the daylight will be able to get through,’ Hanna says, glancing around the room. Hanging on all four walls of the bedchamber are talismans against Lilith and her demons: here the Shield of David, there the three angels, Snwy, Snsnwy and Smnglf, covered from wing to tail with kabbalistic scrawlings. Pinned above the bed is a Hebrew prayer for safe delivery, while another amulet is wrapped around Ruth’s wrist.

‘But this amulet is tattooed on my very flesh. Whatever happens Lilith will not be able to penetrate there,’ Ruth mutters through clenched teeth as a contraction suddenly grips her. Frightened that the young woman might be becoming delirious, Hanna touches her forehead. She is hot but not unnaturally so.

‘Why such a fear of the devil’s grand-dame?’ Hanna asks.

Groaning, Ruth props herself up. ‘She took my own mother when she was birthing with her second child. Both died.’

‘That will not be your fate, Fraülein. I am sure of it.’

Sighing, the housekeeper wipes her hands and returns to a stone bowl she has resting in the corner. She starts to stir, mixing a concoction of pellitory, sanicle, chamomile, melilot, green-balm, red-balm, white mullein, mallow, betony, marjoram, nipp, march, violet and mugwort with three pints of white wine—which she now splashes in liberally. She sniffs the mixture, grimaces, then pours out a glass of the foul-smelling liquid and holds it to Ruth’s lips.

‘Not again,’ Ruth groans.

‘It’s your own recipe, three times a day you instructed—to bring the child forth.’

‘And now I feel pity for my poor patients.’ Ruth manages to smile despite another spasm.

Hanna wipes her brow. ‘There was a woman in the village who was birthing for four days.’

‘Did she live?’

‘She did, both her and the child. Big baby it was, the length of three hands.’

‘Who was the midwife?’

‘They sent for one from Bonn, but she got here too late. Was Mother Nature in the end—and your Hanna. So, you see, you should not fear.’

Ruth reaches out and grasps the sturdy forearm of the housekeeper, the skin greasy from the oil of violets she has been using to massage Ruth’s womb.

‘I’ll try not to, but I am impatient for the child to come.’

She rests her head a moment on the bosom of this sturdy countrywoman who has become mother, friend, nursemaid and now midwife to a midwife.

Ruth has been in labour for a day and a night and knows from the opening of her womb that the baby will not be hurried. But still she cannot stop the dread which has been eating into her ever since her waters broke. Narrow like her mother, she knows it will not be an easy birth. The memory of Sara perishing from a haemorrhage after the birth of her still-born son is deeply engraved within her. Will this be her fate too? Or will all the amulets and prayers ensure that it is not so? Still her trepidation has grown until she had to summon Detlef to be by her side.

‘It be almost two days since my brother left, they’ll be here before sunset,’ Hanna remarks as if reading Ruth’s thoughts. ‘Master Detlef’s a good man, for all his dangerous ideas. He reminds me of my mistress, his aunt, when he talks like that, filling the air with fanciful notions.’

Another contraction begins, rippling from the base of Ruth’s spine, sending out waves of intense pain. Immediately she starts breathing deeply.

Hoping to distract her, Hanna wipes her brow. ‘Mind you, dreams like his could get a man killed—just like his aunt. I
used to say “Master Detlef, ‘tis a good thing no one can hear you except the wind else we’d both be hanging.” He was a lovely young boy, handsome as the day, always thought he was wasted in the church.’

She waits until Ruth has stopped thrashing then straightens the robe around her sweating torso.

‘The child will be beautiful, despite the poor bastard he is.’

Ruth, her eyes wide, stares up at the ceiling and tries to breathe some relief into her pain-racked body. Hanna pulls her up so that her back is resting against the wall. She places a goblet of water against Ruth’s bitten, swollen lips.

‘Drink, you need to keep drinking.’

Exhausted, the two horses trot into the overgrown courtyard then invigorated by the scent of their home meadows toss their manes impatiently as Detlef and Joachim slip wearily out of their saddles, thighs and buttocks burning from the long ride. Detlef looks up at the house. Seeing a light glowing in the master bedroom, he fears that he might have arrived too late.

‘I’ll leave you here, sire, as is Hanna’s wishes. If there’s anything else you need, I’ll be on the farm with the wife…’

‘Could you take my mare? There is better eating for her over your way and she deserves a good feed.’

Joachim nods but Detlef is already running towards the house.

He pauses in the corridor, he can hear the soft murmuring of Hanna’s voice as she hums an old folksong. The heavy scents of the birthing herbs float under the closed door. For a moment Detlef hesitates, unsure whether he should enter a domain that is for ever the realm of women, until he hears Ruth call out his name.

The mounted soldiers wait in the cover of the trees, their green uniforms blending in with the low branches and bushes. Beyond, on the other side of an open meadow, lies the house, a low stone building so ancient and well masked that it takes the eye a few minutes before it is able to focus on the dark thatched roof, the grey walls that merge into the shadows of the forest. It is only with instruction from Birgit Ter Lahn von Lennep that they have been able to approach the estate from this angle. Any other direction would have caused them to completely miss sight of the building.

Carlos slides gingerly from his mount. He has been riding for hours, struggling to keep up with the soldiers who are all experienced horsemen. Doubled over with pain the inquisitor hobbles towards the captain who silently hands him the eyeglass. The friar, mouth dry with anticipation, peers through it. Instantly his backache disappears and all regret for the agony of the journey evaporates as he sees the burning light, almost hidden under the eaves, on the first floor of the low farmhouse.

‘The rat is in his hole,’ he whispers to the captain, who smiles back, his olive face split by the white of his teeth.

‘Monsignor, we will catch your rodent. If we surround the house, there will be no escape. The forest is too thick and if he runs across the open meadow he will be like a duck on a shooting range.’

‘I want them both alive. I will have them tried and make them a public example. They are no good to me dead.’

The captain nods then signals to his men. The ten guards slip off their horses with the practised stealth of the mercenary, as indeed some of them are. After silently tying their horses to trees, they unhitch their heavy chainmail vests and drape them
expertly over the saddles. Then armed with short swords, their plumed helmets glinting in the sun, their tunics blazing with the Hapsburg double-headed eagle, its talons arching proudly over sceptre and sphere, the men glide noiselessly through the waist-high grasses of the meadow like a huge emerald and silver snake whose twisting mass catches the sunlight only now and then. Moving in short bursts, each soldier is an extension of the captain as they follow his signals with razor-sharp precision. Ten feet into the tall grass the soldiers halt.

Carlos, sweating heavily under his cassock, squats beside a clump of wild wheat. Pollen and seeds sting his eyes as he struggles not to sneeze. Beneath his foot something—probably a toad—squashes down unpleasantly. To console himself the inquisitor holds in his mind the image of the German canon mortified, his head hanging in shame at the great public auto-da-fé Carlos plans to conduct in the city square of Cologne.

Detlef strokes Ruth’s damp hair which hangs in ribbons down her back. The nightdress stuck to her sweating flesh barely conceals the heavy breasts, now laced with a filigree of pulsating veins, above the enormous sphere that is her belly. She breathes in short pants, her fingernails digging into Detlef as Hanna probes between her open thighs.

‘What do you sense?’ Ruth gasps over her pain.

‘The crown of the head is at the lip. It won’t be long now.’

Hanna withdraws her hands and washes them in a basin of water which quickly becomes bloodied. With Detlef’s help Ruth pushes herself up so that she squats supported by the birthing stool.

‘My love, promise me that if there is any danger you will save the child first,’ Ruth whispers as she wraps her arms
around his neck, drawing him to the rich fecundity of her scent.

Detlef has never seen a woman so naked and so undone. And to his amazement, he still finds beauty in the swollen flesh, the struggle in her body and in her face. But birthing is women’s business and the midwife’s doubt of her own survival fills him with an ancient dread.

‘My love, this is demons speaking, there will be no danger to either you or our child.’

But before she can answer him she is swept away by another spasm.

Suddenly there is the sound of heavy banging at the door below. Detlef, his face blanching, stares at Hanna.

‘What is that? Do you hear it? Or is it the pounding in my own head?’ Ruth murmurs.

Detlef races to the bedroom door but the housekeeper is already standing before it.

‘Let me pass!’

‘No. ‘Tis better I go, but first hide yourselves.’

‘Where?’

‘Follow me, there is a secret passage.’

Quickly she bundles up some rags and the birthing stool while Detlef picks up Ruth, now delirious with pain, in his arms. Again there is the sound of fists drumming against the door.

‘Open up! This is the emperor’s men!’

The captain’s voice rings out as a rain of stones hits the side of the house, smashing a window.

Hanna, running, leads them back out into the corridor, past the wide staircase, past two abandoned rooms and then into her own small bedroom tucked into a corner under the rafters. She pulls aside a wooden panel to reveal a small alcove and pushes them into it. Then she slides the wooden panel closed, pulling the tapestry over it so it is as if the alcove does not exist.

As the housekeeper clambers back downstairs she quickly composes herself, adjusting her cap and throwing off the bloodstained apron. Taking a deep breath she strides towards the oak door that is shaking violently with the guards’ pounding. Just before she slips the huge bolt open she crosses herself, muttering a quick prayer to Saint Martha, the patron saint of housekeepers, and Katrina von Tennen, her former mistress, to fortify herself with courage and wit.

The housekeeper stands on the threshold, hands on hips, legs apart. The casualness with which she surveys the soldiers with their swords at the ready, their chests heaving in patriotic excitement, confuses Carlos who thinks for a moment that they might have raided the wrong estate.

The captain, also momentarily bewildered by the sight of this motherly figure, glances back at the friar whose hood is pulled low over his sunburnt face.

‘What do you boys want?’ The housekeeper is flippant in her enquiry, as if confronting a group of errant farmhands, not the guard of the emperor.

‘Not you, mother!’ one cheeky soldier yells out and a few of the others grin sheepishly.

Carlos, sensing a lull in the momentum, steps forward. He pushes back his hood and reaches into his cassock. Speaking in Latin he begins to read out a charge of immoral behaviour against Canon von Tennen by the Holy Roman Empire and the Grand Inquisitional Council.

Hanna listens, not allowing one sign of terror to creep from under her irreverent expression.

‘Good sir, I don’t understand the tongue of priests. Speak plain German.’

‘In plain German, Madame, we are here to arrest your master Detlef von Tennen on two charges of misconduct: congress with a Jewess and wizardry. Now move aside.’

But the housekeeper does not budge.

‘I know not this gentleman.’

‘Then, Madame, you are both a liar and an accomplice.’

Carlos nods to the captain, who calmly knocks the housekeeper to the ground. She lies gasping for breath as the soldiers, stepping over her, pour into the house.