The Witch's Trinity (11 page)

“He will build the fire higher if I let it stand,” she said. “I want to die quickly, not feel the flames halfway licking my feet.”

I could not believe her boldness in speaking of this, with everyone breathing softly to catch our every word.

“Mutter, you should say your last to Künne,” Jost said.

I had no idea what I could say. I raised my eyes from the blackness of her skirt up to the raw meat of her boiled arm, crooked in midair as if she held a basket on her forearm, up the sturdy cast of her bodice to the face I knew better than my own, for I had only seen mine reflected in still water, and water was never still in our village. I gazed up at her as if I were a child begging for the comfort of a lap. And her face did comfort me, all the kindliness of the wrinkles earned by living, the broad cheeks I had kissed endlessly over the years.

“Güde, my dearest friend,” she said. “My dearest and most beloved friend. My heart wrenches to think of how sweet has been the life I lived with you.”

I clenched her skirts in one hand and pressed my forehead against her knee.

“I remember well,” she continued loudly, “how you counseled me against the witchcraft. How I wish I had listened to you! I scorned your concern and did as I pleased. Had I only listened to the pure words of Güde, who despises any device that turns a soul against God! Güde, who pulled me to my knees and prayed with me, all for naught.”

Her leg was quivering. The cloth scratched against my forehead. I listened to these words and marveled at them, in great consternation. Had I counseled her? I could not remember such a thing.

“With your great affection for Frau Zweig, you urged me to cease my unsavory craft, but I was too hateful to stop. I hope Frau Zweig knows the travails you went through, to try to move me otherwise.”

I heard her voice change a bit. “Jost, your
Mutter
is a wondrous, humble soul. Be ever grateful that she and Hensel had instruction of your morality as you grew, for they are truly those whom God favors for their service.”

“Hensel Müller died with crusted sores on his body!” called Herr Töpfer. “Is that how God favored him?”

“We know good and wrong perished equally in that scourge,” said Künne. “Lift your head, Güde, and give me one final kiss.”

I was dazed with grief. Could I not find words to succor her? Would I sob rather than speak, dumb when I most needed speech? I attempted to say something, but there was no breath in my throat.

“It’s all right, Güde,” she said. “Don’t think for a moment that I went to my death not knowing the love that has sustained us through all life’s misery.”

I did lift my head and she leaned down to kiss me, bent almost double. She held the burned arm to the side to keep it away from contact. As my lips pressed the soft dough of her lined cheek, she whispered urgently into my ear, “Bring me the herb that hangs on the back of my door. It will deaden my suffering.”

Then, too soon, she was straightening again and my lips pressed only air.

“We have long counted you as family,” said Jost, and Künne nodded. He pulled me away.

“Your time of humility commences,” said the friar. “We will strip you, to see that no amulets for protection have been fastened to your skin.”

The friar’s notary stepped forward to help Künne down. She stood unevenly, as if she would faint. I noted again the rustling of the congregation, as if the merest bit of caution kept them from rushing to Künne and burying their teeth in her flesh. First, he took off her cap. He undid the ribbons of her bodice and pulled it from her shoulders. She screamed once, briefly, as he pulled the fabric off over her arm. Then he undid her skirt and it toppled to the ground, stiff with whatever filth she’d endured during her imprisonment, and removed her kirtle. She stood now only in her chemise. Everyone stared at the looseness of her flesh visible through the sheer cloth. He pulled it down over her breasts, as a lover would, but this was no ravishment.

Her breasts were as loose as pigs’ bladders deflated on slaughter day. The nipples were like pendants hanging on a thin necklace. She was gaunt, as all of us were during these years of crop ruin, but her stomach protruded to show the surfeit of food she had once had.

I look like this,
I thought.
Her breasts are my breasts.

He wasn’t finished with her. He pushed the chemise down past her hips and now she was naked but for her woolen socks and stout leather shoes. I sensed that everyone was horrified. They all thought of the rosiness of their own skin and hoped it might remain so forever. Then even her feet were bared.

This was the sight in the holy house of God: a woman stripped of everything, shivering in the cold, depraved as Eve.

Everything about her was gray but the bright red of her arm.

“Don’t shiver,” said the friar. “God’s love will soon warm you.”

He turned and walked out the side door of the church, and the notary gestured for Künne to follow. Her buttocks were so sunk from hunger that I saw the bones under them as she walked.

I knew I had to slip away to Künne’s cottage to search for the herb she asked for. If the boiling water had caused her such torment, what would bare flames do to her?

Everyone was filing through the small side door, and I waited until Jost was attending to Matern’s tears to move as quickly as I could to the front entrance. I was going the wrong way, fighting the forward thrust of everyone else. “The stake is in yonder yard,” said Irmeltrud.

“Can’t bear to see it, old Güde?” the baker asked me with a wink.

“It’ll be a tremendous thing to see her cured of her evil,” said his wife. “For that one it’s been a long time God was waiting to punish her.”

I sobbed and pushed past them. I looked to the sky for snow. If it fell heavily enough, they wouldn’t be able to start the fire. But all I saw was the impenetrable gray of a skillet. I hurried along as fast as my body would allow, afraid someone would call out and deter me. Although I traveled at a mild enough pace, considering how slowly my feet found purchase in the snow, I was soon winded. A cloud issued from my mouth with every breath. Behind me I heard the voices of the villagers; the commotion had all the laughter of a feast day. My neighbors had forgotten the goodness of Künne. They saw nothing in her but wrinkles and a quavery voice, and had not more feeling for her than one has for a beetle that has plumbed its way through your flour. None of her family yet lived to defend her. I was lucky I had Jost.

As I neared her cottage I saw underneath the most recent layer of snow the tracks of many men. The snow had been volleyed about—some had run, some had kicked in fury or dragged objects through it. Her
Hütte
was the size of ours, but Künne’s husband had cut decorative panels that hung from the roofline, so rather than being straight it had a pleasing curve to it. I saw the now pink puddle of blood where they had slaughtered her goat. I stood over it for a moment, thinking of the meat I’d eaten in the forest. My fingers clutched at my skirts, then I forced them to pull her latch. I had no time for mulling over my strange thoughts.

But inside, I found myself still again. It was amazing what they’d done the night the goat was killed—they had knocked every crock off her board and made tiny shards of them, torn down her herb bundles and garlic strings that had hung from the rafters, overturned all the furniture and scattered her bed. There was not a stretch of ground without straw upon it. They had even pawed through her garments, no doubt hoping for a buried coin, and these lay tossed asunder, as if Künne herself had been wearing them and strewn them as she stripped.

I would not allow myself to cry. It was cruel, I reasoned, but she never saw it. And wouldn’t, I thought with a pang.

I rubbed my head and tried to remember why I was in Künne’s cottage. Was I to milk her goat? I righted her bench and then sat upon it. I stood again to brush off the straw. Had Jost sent me on a task? The goat had made a fair mess of the cottage. Amazing what ill handiwork such a small body can do. I looked around me at the clutter but saw no pail for milking. It was odd that Jost had sent me out like this. He should have milked the goat himself. I wondered where Künne was. She would be sore distressed at the state of her worldly goods. Well, there was nothing to do but look for the goat. I went outside. Foul weather, the kind of cold that is like a shout. Not three steps from the door, I saw blood in the snow and I remembered. Why was my mind such a traitor? Künne had asked me for an herb to ease her suffering and I must deliver it! I hastened back inside. She had said it was hanging on the back of the door.

But there was nothing there now.

The pillaging men had spilled it on the floor with all of her bounty. I looked about wildly. How might I recognize the herb? I had oft sat with Künne as she bundled plants for drying but had not bothered to learn their names or properties. They likely had her tied to the stake by now. There would be one long, final prayer, but I too had a long walk ahead of me to return to the church. I stooped and picked up one bundle of a yellowish dried plant with tubelike blossoms. Could this have been on the back of the door? I sniffed it. It was mildewy-smelling. I picked up five more plants from the floor, distinct from each other. They were all I saw. My arms full of them, I ran through the door and into winter again.

I cried out at the foolishness of the task. Would I stand there in front of the village and one at a time hold up the bundles until she nodded at the right one? And somehow secretively place it in her mouth without anyone stopping me?

And I was not unaware of the danger to myself if I was observed helping her foil the punishment.
I must choose,
I thought.
I must decide which is most likely and crumble its blossoms into my hand and roll them into a
Pille
that I might slip to her unseen.

I retraced my steps back to the cottage. I flung down the plants and sought a crock to prepare the paste in. There was one in the corner, broken, but still with its base intact. I lit a candle to heat the wax and went to regard the plants again.

Perhaps they had already lit the tinder under her feet.

As I looked closer, I saw that one bundle was nothing more than flowers chosen for their comeliness. I flung it behind me. The remaining four plants were very similar; in fact, three were exactly the same. I tossed the replicas away. Now there were two.

“Ah, God, guide me,” I beseeched. I knew of no way he could show me other than by making the herb jump into my hand, so I closed my eyes and prayed. “God, let my right hand fall upon the proper herb. Let me bring succor to Künne, for she has in no way betrayed you.”

I let my hand fall as it would, and it seized upon the herb with bell-shaped flowers and dark, dried berries.

But perhaps I had betrayed God, and he would punish me through Künne?

They said in the forest that I had signed the devil’s book and I could not say if I had or not. Perhaps God would send me to the wrong bundle in vengeance?

Why had she not sent word from the Witch’s Tower prior to this day, so that I might gather the herb before the men threw it from the door? I had to make a decision.

“Lord, I honor you and your unending goodness,” I said. I tore off the heads of the plant God had urged me to select and put them in the crock. My fingers flaked them until they drifted like ash to the bottom. Then I held the candle sidewise over the crock until a few drops of wax fell in. I quickly rolled a hot ball of the blossom dust and the wax. I made three of these, which were easily hidden in my palm.

Then, scarcely bothering to blow the candle out, I hied my way back to the church.

When we gather wood for our home fires, we stack twigs and branches. We are not permitted full logs: those belong to Lord Obermann. I have heard some tell how much hotter the lord’s fire is, with the thick logs burning for hours in his great hall. Yet here, for the village’s use, were logs.

They were arranged in a circle in the yard of the church. They had a pattern to them, as they met of equal lengths and turned the corner, as if someone truly cared how the pile pleased the eye. In the center was a tall post, the height of a May Day pole. As I approached the grouping of my villagers and kin, I saw Künne lying on the ground. The notary was slapping her.

“She’s dead,” I heard someone murmur. “The devil already took her soul. She would have woken up by now.”