The Witch's Trinity (10 page)

“For all the frowning that you do, your wrinkles will be a hundredfold.”

She slapped me.

I pulled away from her arms and rose to my feet. How bleak this day was, compared to the delicious, secretive dream I had had!

“I want to sleep again,” I said.

“Might as well. You sleep until I rouse you for Künne’s unbinding,” she said.

I slumped onto my straw and began to weep.
That
was what she had meant by preparing my farewell. It had been three days, and today they would unbind Künne’s arm to see if she had been burned. Everything I touched was harsh. The fronds of the hay poking me, the roughness of my linens, my own skin. I wept silently, wishing something in my life were soft.

Jost came home with no food. The traps were empty.

He came over to my bed. “Why are you yet sleeping, Mutter?” he asked.

“I cannot bear this day,” I said.

He nodded. “I wish I had some food to offer you in your sorrow. Do you wish to stay home when we go to the church?”

I closed my eyes to consider that possibility. How wonderful to drift along on this hay, to try to forget what mischief the day held for such a good woman. “I cannot,” I said. “Mine will be the only kind face she sees. Mine and yours. I must go.”

“You will do her some small bit of good,” he said. “Where is Irmeltrud?”

The church was full to brimming. Those who hadn’t come to Künne’s inquisition had heard of the boiling kettle trial and came with frank eagerness to see what lay under her bandages. When Jost and I arrived, Irmeltrud and the children were already there, standing in front.

Frau Zweig’s eyes glowed as if her waist were thick with child instead of her heart with hatred. She twisted her hands with excitement. Next to her, Herr Zweig looked miserable.

Künne sat again on the lofty stool, like a thin bird on the worst branch. Her eyes were uncovered, yet no one could accuse her of casting the evil eye, for she only looked down into her own lap. Her bandages were dingy and browned. Her quarters in the tower must have been foul to so quickly taint the pure white. The kettle was yet on the stove. I did not need to peer into its depths to know there was one spiteful pebble still sitting on the bottom. The door opened, and in the swirl of snow the friar appeared. He paused like the queen of May Day accepting all the lovers’ admiration, then strode to the foot of Künne’s chair.

“Good people,” he said, “today we see if the test was passed. Frau Himmelmann was not able to gather the three stones of the Trinity, but if God sees a soul worthy of salvaging within her, he will keep her flesh unblistered. If, however, he detects in her the promise she made to the Prince of Darkness to serve him and abandon all that is holy, we shall see the ugly burns upon her skin. For just as her fetid heart is ruined with boils and pus and black sores, so shall her skin show the same rudeness.”

I shuddered when he said “black sores.” Hensel’s face flashed before my eyes, and I remembered that one horrible mouse-sized sore that burgeoned in his neck, that was purple as a cabbage and caused him such torment. And the horrid surprise of the treacle within it, when it finally burst and fluid seeped forth.

“Shall we pray?” asked the friar.

All heads quickly bowed, though Frau Zweig still wore a secular grin.

“Our Father in the remotest height of heaven, who observeth our every deed and passeth judgment, we beg your hand to guide us today in rooting out evil and restoring piety to this village. Your Son died for our sins, and in sure confoundment of his purpose, we find sin increasing and spreading. We see that women are become wicked and in love with wrongdoing, that when they can no longer bring children to the earth they instead bring malevolence. We ask your guidance in breaking the spell that has kept Frau Zweig’s womb empty when it was many times clearly filled. We beg you to return sense to the hen, that she may give the eggs that are her earthly duty. If we have wronged Künne Himmelmann in our accusations, leave her flesh as untouched as the snow that drives outside. But if we are right in our surmise that she traffics with the devil and his demons, let the flesh speak for itself. We proceed upon your blessing. Amen.”

The friar stepped onto a block so that he could reach Künne’s arm. He lifted it out of her lap, and it was so limp it was as if she were fever-struck or lay in the plague cart.

How I longed to see unburned skin beneath! What joy it would be to laugh in the Töpfers’ faces and to shoot Frau Zweig a shaming look. Künne would climb down from that stool and Jost would carry her home, where I’d feed her…I didn’t know what I could feed her.

I would press a kiss to that smooth skin and thank God for saving her. All day I would rub that stretch of arm and marvel.

Künne made no grimace as the friar unwound the cloths, and the hope began in my heart. Should she not be twisting in pain if blisters were beneath the bandages? Yet she calmly sat as if no further sensation came than that of a housefly crawling her arm.

The Lord is merciful,
I thought.
He knows she has not bewitched anyone and he will set her free.

I grasped Jost’s hand. The friar continued pulling on the cloth. And then, suddenly, his efforts were curtailed. The cloth was stuck. He pulled harder and Künne shrieked and tried to pull her arm away. We could all hear the tearing of the flesh as it clung to the cloth. Künne writhed and bit her lips to keep from screaming. The friar did not try gently, but ruthlessly yanked with all his strength, pulling his arm out to full length like a woman measuring cloth for a garment.

I could see the mottled pink of her burned skin and the trickles of blood arising from the torn flesh. Künne whimpered, and thankfully the friar was soon finished. The bandage was a ghastly sight, brown with dirt on one side and stained with blood and mess on the other. The friar held it in the air, dangling, like an important scroll.

Künne tried to set her arm back down onto her lap, but it was too painful. She held it hovering in midair, staring at the cloth in the friar’s hands as if she hated it.

“The spot of murderer is upon you,” said the friar. “You have killed young babes who were not yet of this world.”

“Murderer!” screamed Frau Zweig, and she stood up to point at Künne. “You owe me for the souls of three!”

And all was suddenly mayhem, with the few benches knocked over as people jumped to their feet and pulsed forward, everyone shouting, all in a frenzy to denounce Künne. They advanced upon her giant stool and would have torn her from it if the friar hadn’t stopped them.

“We will not abuse so crudely,” he said in a low voice that somehow still penetrated through the clamor. “We will send Künne to a higher judge in a goodly manner, not like pups attacking the runt. Step away from her.”

It was done. His words had as much power as a prince’s. There was a respectful ring of space around Künne.

“To cleanse this soul to return it to God, we must burn the malefaction from it.”

I heard an intense wail of anguish, which was abruptly stopped when Jost clamped a hand across my mouth. The rest of the villagers moved from foot to foot, restless, barely containing themselves from seizing Künne. She sat as a stone, the burned arm still hovering, too painful to rest on any surface.

“We must make a holy fire,” said the friar. “A parishioner today gathered the wood and received bread for her sacred task. I have blessed the pyre and the stake, hewn from the tallest tree found in an hour’s walk, and carefully stripped of its bark and made smooth for its task.”

My saliva went bitter at the thought of who might’ve cut such wood. Which of us had been such a Judas?

The friar turned his back to us and addressed Künne. “Are you prepared to purify your soul to return it to God?”

She made no reply.

“It will be a joy to you, Künne Himmelmann, to feel the heat of forgiveness cleaning your bones. Renounce your promise to the devil and you shall be relieved of that obligation to the Lord of Darkness.”

“When?” she asked. Her voice was a mere croak.

“Now.”

A half-suppressed chortle came from Frau Zweig. She had her revenge.

“Sir,” whispered Künne. Her voice was but a reed. I saw her swallow and try to gain power. “I renounce the devil now. I am sore ashamed for my deeds.” She paused. Her blue eyes fixed on the friar’s face. She was earnest, her eyebrows raised and her hands clenched in fists. She swallowed again, dropping her gaze, and continued. “I wish I had never, out of jealousy, kept the babes from Frau Zweig. I renounce that and beg her forgiveness. Can I not prostrate myself before you and God and keep my place on earth, to toil in humble servitude to those I have wronged?”

“The best toil you can make now is to give God your base self,” replied the friar.

“I will never forgive you!” shrieked Frau Zweig.

Künne looked down at her arm, the betrayer of her entire body. “Our mighty God has blessed me with herb knowledge,” she said. “I look at my own arm and know I may pack it with herbs and in a moon’s phase heal it. I know too that I may make a pessary for Frau Zweig that will help fasten her husband’s seed in her and later ease her in childbirth. I will remove the hex from the hen and she will lay again. I will make my potions that everyone in the village relies on, to lessen a fever or bring the humors to their proper balance. I will be a slave to this good village, devoting all my labor to undoing my treachery.”

“She never will!” screamed Frau Zweig.

“God has given
you
herb knowledge?” asked the friar. “We all live and die according to his mandate. It is his will that we burn in fever or rise from the sickbed. You are blasphemous to think you have such power!”

“But you say my herbs had the power to cause Frau Zweig to expel her babes. Is that not blasphemous as well?” She faltered through this short speech, and I groaned as I heard it. I knew what she had just spoken had sealed her fate. Silence reigned, then Künne began to cry. I sank onto my knees and Jost put his hand on the crown of my head. The friar adjusted his robes and when he raised his head again his face was filled with fury. He reached over and, incredibly, used his fingers to prise open Künne’s mouth.

“Is there not a forked tongue in here, flickering behind your teeth, to speak such vile lies? I would bind your mouth, but for the fact that fire will silence you far more profitably!”

I heard the strange gags as his fingers plied her throat.

“I command you to silence,” he said. “Let that besmirched speech ring for all eternity as your final words.”

“Every prisoner that is condemned deserves to say their last farewells,” spake Jost loudly.

“Who has interest in what farewells a
Hexe
may give?” the friar replied.

“She has the right,” maintained Jost.

“Approach,” said the friar.

Jost’s hand moved to my elbow to guide me. I walked like a newborn goat, my legs crumpling beneath me, staggering under the weight of movement. The top of my head reached her knees. I stared at her skirt, black with filth. What had they done to her in the tower?

“We have never believed this of you,” said Jost.

I heard a commotion behind us in response.

“Did you not just hear me confess?” she asked.

“You spake to bend his charity but held no sway. Your last words should be to claim your innocence,” he said. “Do not let this false testimony stand.”