The Witching Hour (56 page)

Meantime Father Louvier, the great and triumphant inquisitor, was shouting hoarsely to the mayor that he should read the proclamation in his hands, and that “these proceedings must commence!”

A hubbub rose from all assembled, and the mayor cleared his throat to begin reading, and I then satisfied myself of what I had already seen but failed to note, that Deborah’s hands and feet were unbound.

It was now my intention to come down from the window and to push my way, by the roughest means if need be, to the very front of the crowd so that I might stand near her, regardless of what danger this might mean to me.

And I was in the act of turning from the window when the mayor began to read the Latin with torturous slowness, and Deborah’s voice rang out, silencing him and commanding that the crowd be still.

“I never did you harm, not the poorest of you!” she declared, speaking slowly and loudly, her voice echoing off the stone walls, and as Father Louvier stood and shouted for silence, she raised her voice even louder and declared that she would speak.

“Silence her!” declared the old Comtesse, now in a fury, and again Louvier bellowed for the mayor to read the proclamation and the frightened pastor looked to his armed guards, but they had drawn away on either side and seemed fearful as they stared at Deborah and at the frightened crowd.

“I will be heard!” my Deborah called out again, as loudly as before. And as she took but one step forward, to stand more fully in the sunlight, the crowd drew back in a great swarming mass.

“I am unjustly condemned of witchcraft,” cried Deborah, “for I am no heretic and I do not worship Satan, and I have done no malice against any being here!”

And before the old Comtesse could roar again, Deborah continued:

“You, my sons, you testified against me and I disown you! And you, my beloved mother-in-law, have damned yourself to hell with your lies!”

“Witch!” screamed the Comtesse de Chamillart, now in panic. “Burn her. Throw her on the pyre.”

And at this it seemed a number did press forward, as much out of fear as a desire for heroism and to draw favor upon themselves perhaps, or maybe it was mere confusion. But the armed guards did not move.

“Witch, you call me!” Deborah answered at once. And with a great gesture, she threw down the candle on the stones and threw up her hands before the men who would have taken hold of her but did not. “Hearken to me!” she declared. “I shall show you witchcraft I have never shown you before!”

The crowd was now in complete fright and some were leaving the square and others pressing to reach the narrow streets leading away from it, and even those in the viewing stand had risen to their feet, and the young Chrétien buried his face against the old Comtesse and again shook with sobs.

Yet the eyes of hundreds in this narrow place remained fixed upon Deborah, who had raised her thin and bruised arms. Her lips moved, but I could hear no words from her, and shrieks now rang out from some below the window, and then a rumbling
was heard over the rooftops, far fainter than thunder and therefore more terrible, and a great wind was gathering suddenly, and with it came another noise, a low creaking and ripping sound, which at first I did not know and then I remembered from many another storm—the old roofs of the place were giving up to the wind their loose and broken tiles.

At once the tiles began to fall from the parapets, raining down singly and here and there by the half dozen, and the wind was howling and gathering itself over the square. The wooden shutters of the inns had begun to flap on their hinges, and my Deborah screamed again over this noise and over the frantic cries of the crowd.

“Come now, my Lasher, be my avenger, strike down my enemies!” Bending double, she raised her hands, her face red and stricken with her rage. “I see you, Lasher, I know you! I call you!” And straightening and flinging out her arms: “Destroy my sons, destroy my accusers! Destroy those who have come to see me die!”

And the tiles came crashing down off the roofs, off the church and the jail and the sacristy, and off the roofs of the inns, striking the heads of those screaming below, and in the wind, the viewing stand, built of fragile boards and sticks and ropes with crude mortar, began to rock as those clinging to it shrieked for their lives.

Only Father Louvier stood firm. “Burn the witch!” he shouted, trying to get through the panic-stricken men and women who tumbled over one another to get away. “Burn the witch and you stop the storm.”

No one moved to obey him, and though the church alone could provide shelter from this tempest, no one dared moved towards it as Deborah commanded the door, her arms outstretched. The armed men had run away from her in their panic. The parish priest had shrunk to the far side. The mayor was gone from view.

Overhead the very sky had gone dark, and people were fighting and cursing and falling in the crush, and in the fierce rain of tiles the old Comtesse was struck and slumped over, losing her balance and vaulting down over the bodies writhing in front of her, onto the very stones. The two boys clung to each other as a shower of loose stones broke upon them from the facade of the church. Chrétien was bowed under the stones as a tree in a hail storm, and then struck unconscious, falling to his knees. The stand itself now collapsed, taking down with it both boys and some twenty or more persons still struggling to get clear.

As far as I could see, all the guards had deserted the square,
and the pastor had run away. And now I beheld my Deborah move backwards into the shadows, though her eyes were still on the heavens:

“I see you, Lasher!” she cried out. “My strong and beautiful Lasher!” And she vanished into the dark of the nave.

At this I ran from the window and down the stairs and into the frenzy of the square. What was in my mind I could not tell you, save somehow I could reach her, and under cover of the panic around us, get her free from this place.

But as I ran across the open space, the tiles flew every which way, and one struck my shoulder, and another my left hand. I could see nothing of her, only the doors of the church which were, in spite of their great heaviness, swinging in the wind.

Shutters had broken loose and were coming down upon the mad folk who could not get out through the little streets. Bodies lay piled at every arch and doorway. The old Comtesse lay dead, staring upwards, men and women tripping over her limbs. And in the ruin of the viewing stand lay the body of Chrétien, the little one, twisted so as it could not have had life in it.

Philippe, the elder, crawled upon his knees to seek shelter, his leg broken it appeared, when a wooden shutter came down striking his neck and breaking it as well so that he fell dead.

Then someone near me, cowering against the wall, screamed:

“The Comtesse!” and pointed up.

There she stood, high on the parapets of the church, for she had gone in and upwards, and balancing perilously upon the wall, she once again raised her hands to heaven and cried out to her spirit. But in the howling of the wind, in the screaming of the afflicted, in the falling of the tiles and the stones and the broken wood, I could not hope to hear her words.

I ran for the church, and once inside searched in panic for the steps. There was Louvier, the inquisitor, running back and forth, and then finding the steps before me, leading the way.

Up and up I ran after him, seeing his black skirts high above me, and his heels clacking on the stones. Oh, Stefan, if I had had a dagger, but I had no dagger.

And as we reached the open parapets, as he ran out before me, I saw Deborah’s thin body fly, as it were, from the roof. Reaching the edge, I peered down upon the carnage and saw her lying broken on the stones. Her face was turned upwards—one arm beneath her head, and the other limp across her chest—and her eyes were closed as though she slept.

Louvier cursed when he saw her. “Burn her, take her body up to the pyre,” he cried, but it was useless. No one could hear him. In consternation he turned, perhaps to go back down and
further command the proceedings, when he beheld me standing there.

And with a great look of amazement on his face, he regarded me helplessly and in confusion as, without hesitation, I pushed him with all my might, squarely in the chest, and backwards, so that he went flying off the edge of the roof.

No one saw this, Stefan. We were at the highest point of Montcleve. No other rooftop rose above that of the church. Even the distant château had no view of this parapet, and those below could not have seen me, as I was shielded from view by Louvier himself as I struck the blow.

But even if I am wrong as to the possibility of it, the fact of it is that no one did see me.

Retreating at once, making certain that no one had followed me to this place, I went down and to the church door. There lay my handiwork, Louvier, as dead as my Deborah, and lying very near her, his skull crushed and bleeding and his eyes open, in that dull stupid expression that the dead have which is almost never approximated by a human being in life.

How long the gale continued I cannot tell you, only that it was already falling off when I reached the church door. Perhaps a quarter of an hour, the very time the fiend had allotted for Deborah to die on the pyre.

From the shadows of the church foyer, I saw the square finally emptied, the very last climbing over the bodies that now blocked the side streets. I saw the light brighten. I heard the storm die away. I stood still regarding in silence the body of my Deborah, and saw that the blood now poured from her mouth, and that her white gown was stained with blood as well.

After a great while, numerous persons moved into the open place, examining the bodies of the dead, and the bodies of those who were still living and weeping and begging for assistance; and here and there the wounded were picked up and carried away. The innkeeper ran out, with his son beside him, and knelt down beside the body of Louvier.

It was the son who saw me and came to me and told me in great agitation that the parish priest had perished and so had the mayor. The son had a wild look to him, as if he could not believe that he was still living, and had witnessed such a thing.

“I told you she was a great witch,” he whispered to me. And as he stood beside me, staring at her, we saw the armed guards gathering, very shaken and bruised and fearful as, at the command of a young cleric with a bleeding forehead, they lifted up Deborah and looking about as if they feared the storm would come again, though it did not, they took her to the pyre. The
wood and coal began to tumble down as they climbed the ladder propped against it, and they laid her gently down and hurried away.

Others gathered as the young cleric in his torn robe, and with his head still bleeding, lighted the torches, and very soon the thing was set ablaze. The young cleric stood very near, watching the wood burn, and then backed away from it, and weaving, finally fell over in a faint, or perhaps dead.

I hoped dead.

Once again I climbed the steps. I went out upon the roof of the church. I looked down upon the body of my Deborah, dead and still and beyond all pain, as it was consumed by the flames. I looked out over the rooftops, now spotted all over where the tiles had been ripped out, and I thought of the spirit of Deborah and wondered if it had risen into the clouds.

Only when the rising smoke had become so thick and odoriferous from the coals and wood and pitch that I could no longer breathe the air did I retreat. And going to the inn, where men were drinking and babbling away in confusion and peering out at the fire and then backing away from the doors timidly, I gathered my valise and went down to seek my horse. It was gone in the melee.

But seeing another, in the charge of a frightened stable boy, and in readiness for a rider, I managed to buy it from him for twice what it was worth, though in all likelihood it was not his to sell, and I rode out of the town.

After many hours of riding very slowly through the forest, with much pain in my shoulder, and much more pain in my mind, I came to Saint-Rémy and there fell into a dead sleep.

No one there had heard of the trouble yet, and I rode out very early on my way south to Marseille.

For the last two nights, I have lain on my bed half sleeping, half dreaming, and thinking of the things I saw. I wept for Deborah until there were no more tears in me. I thought of my crime and knew that I felt no guilt, but only the conviction that I would do it again.

All my life in the Talamasca, I have never once raised my hand to another man. I have reasoned, sought to persuade, connived and lied, and done my best to defeat the powers of darkness as I knew them, and to serve the powers of good. But in Montcleve, my anger rose, and with it my righteousness, and my vengeance. I rejoice that I threw that fiend off the roof of the church, if this quiet satisfaction can be called rejoicing.

Nevertheless, I have done murder, Stefan. You have in your possession my confession of this. And I anticipate nothing but
your censure and the censure of the order, for when have our scholars gone forth to do murder, to push witch judges off the roofs of churches as I have done?

All I can say in my defense is that the crime was committed in a moment of passion and thoughtlessness. But I have no regret of it. You will know this as soon as you set eyes on me. I have no lies to tell you to make it a simpler thing.

My thoughts are not on this murder, as I write now. They are on my Deborah, and the spirit Lasher, and what I saw with my own eyes at Montcleve. They are on Charlotte Fontenay, the daughter of Deborah, who has gone on, not to Martinique as her enemies believe, but to Port-au-Prince in Saint-Domingue, as perhaps only I know.

Stefan, I cannot but continue my inquiry into this matter. I cannot lay down my pen and fall on my knees and say I have murdered a priest and therefore I must renounce the world and my work. So I, the murderer, continue as if I had never tainted this matter with my own crime, or my confession.

What I must do now is go to this unfortunate Charlotte—no matter how long the journey—and speak to her from my heart and tell her all that I have seen and all that I know.