The Witch's Trinity (26 page)

“She…” His eyes moved downward and I saw that his was no sharp mind to invent as Frau Zweig’s had. “She enticed me in the woods. She told me she would give her body to me. I agreed, but I had no thought that she was a witch. I thought we were only in the woods to keep eyes away.”

“You had no thought she was a witch?”

“No! Only a comely wench.”

“But you have just now said that she is a witch of such terror you cannot describe it.”

“Well, I am just understanding that now. After the testimony,” said Herr Kueper uncomfortably. He pressed his hands against his hips and they left clear dark stains. He was sweating like Hensel or Jost when the mill was working on a hot afternoon.

“Did you see her work magic?”

“Yes. I mean no. I only saw her open her legs to me.”

“Do you call yourself a witch?”

“Oh, no. Only a man helpless to the beauty of women.” He laughed and tried to get the friar to smile back. But the friar did not rut. Nor did our priest. The holy men of the faith did not do so. I watched the friar’s gaze swing from Herr Kueper’s face up to Irmeltrud’s. The thought in his head was visible.
Beauty?
Irmeltrud had once been handsome, but she was now warped by work and famine and the raising of children.

“So your only accusation against this woman is that she treated you as a husband.”

“Yes.”

“Sit down. Do we have any other accusers?”

I surveyed the villagers. All faces were tight and drawn. There was no infectious mad mood now. Everyone saw how easily those who spake had the accusation turned against them. Perhaps, like Alke, they wished to burrow close to the ground.

“Here is the evidence against Irmeltrud Müller. She has entered the home of the Zweigs, spoken the Mass backward, and changed their wine into piss. She has also unwholesomely embraced a man not her husband, and in fact the husband of another,” said the friar.

“Moreover, she has made free confession here today, that she formed a mockery of the Trinity and does call herself a witch. I find it in my wisdom that she, like her husband’s
Mutter,
is most fittingly to be put to death. May God find the good in these women’s souls and remove what is evil.”

I heard the loud sniffling of both children behind me.
Make no further sound and you shall be safe,
I thought.

The friar’s hands rose from his sides until he had assumed the position of the crucified Christ. Thus he remained for long moments while my heart pounded fast in my chest.

The inquisition was over for both of us. Now we had only the fire.

“What shall happen to me?” asked Herr Kueper. “Am I to be released?”

I inhaled sharply at his daring. The friar lowered his arms and then made the sign of the cross. “Since you will not confess, you shall be imprisoned in the Witch’s Tower to contemplate your deeds. You shall have your own trial.”

Herr Kueper nodded uneasily. I knew he would be offered the instruments of torture. He would smell the rank issue, sweat and urine and feces, of three women’s stay in the tower. He too would bury his expulsions in shame and count the stones of the wall.

“Come you down and prepare yourself for purification,” said the friar to Irmeltrud. She climbed down with the notary’s help. They gestured for me to stand beside her.

I did so.

“The first to be prepared shall be Güde,
Mutter
of Jost,” said the friar. “You shall be naked before God, as ever Eve did move her hands in shame to cover herself.”

I jolted. Already the time had come? I bent down and lifted the hem of my skirt. I felt the bulb of the
Pillen
and quickly used my tooth to bite against the stitches I’d sewed. I knew I did this act openly, with all watching, but if my skirt was taken from me, I’d surely not be allowed to touch it again. The cord was tough against my teeth and I felt the tug of the thread across my tongue. I bit at the thread but it did not break.

“Güde, let down your skirts!” commanded the friar. “What manner of frightful mischief do you make?”

My fingers pulled at the fabric of the garment, to aid my bite. I gnawed like a rat on hardened bread. Would that I had its sharp rodent teeth! The ones I had left were worn down from years of black bread.

Soon enough the notary’s hands were upon mine. I screamed as he tore the garment from my mouth.

“No, sir! No!” I screamed. “Only grant me one moment! One moment!”

“What is it she sought?” asked the friar.

The notary knelt before me and spread the stitches with his strong hands far enough that he could see inside the seam. “Two
Pillen.
”

I snatched at them, but he was far quicker. He slapped my hand smartly and I shrieked at the sting of it. He pulled the
Pillen
from the hem and backed away to show them to the friar. I ran and fell upon him, feeling that his body was still fleshy and firm, while everyone else in this village was nothing but bone. He clenched his fist to his chest, but I bit it until he dropped the
Pillen,
and then I swooped to the floor, quick as an owl, to grab one. I had it in my hand and my mouth was wide open to receive it. I clapped my hand to my mouth like a child astonished, but he was so fast, so fast with God’s work. He prised my hand away and scooped the
Pille
off my tongue even as my throat convulsed to swallow it. Like Künne, I was so terrified I had no spit within my mouth to move the
Pille.

We fought too for the remaining
Pille.
I threw myself across the floor for it, but his foot arrived first and he stepped upon it.

Pure, blank terror seized my heart when I saw his fine leathern boot come down upon the last hope for my salvation.

My twisted fingers dug around his foot, trying to lift it, and I bit at his ankle. He was unmovable. I looked up, up at his face looking down at me, compassionless.

“Please, sir, please,” I pleaded.

“This is a witch’s concoction,” said the friar. “Perhaps it lets her fly.”

“No,” I groaned.

“Perhaps she takes the
Pille
and flies out of our hands and away from God’s punishment,” the friar continued. “Hand them here.”

The notary gave forth the one in his hand and then bent, eye level to me, to slightly lift his foot. I grabbed when he grabbed, desperate, but could not match his speed.

The friar now held both, musingly turning them over in his hands and sniffing them.

I lay there upon the ground, panting, undone.

I thought of the fire and how hot it had been, even for one who stood away from it. Those flames had slowly risen and taken Künne’s body, burned every inch of her until she was black and only a pile of bones and ashes. I would feel that. I would feel that
this day.

I began to pray to God, in a hoarse, frantic voice. “Dear Lord, deliver me from the pain of this punishment. Dear God, make the flames bright but not hot.”

The friar laughed. “Our Savior made his very Son suffer,” he said. “Why would he spare a woman who has mocked his sacraments and allied herself with his enemy?”

“I never did,” I sobbed. “I didn’t sign the book. I worshiped God and I do to this day. Why would I turn to him in prayer if I did not steadfastly believe?”

“Stand up,” he said.

I could not, by my wits. The notary roughly pulled me up.

“Whatever you wanted of these
Pillen,
” said the friar, “they shall not do their work.” He walked to the stove at the side, the one that had boiled pebbles for Künne’s grasp. He briefly turned his head to look at me, then threw the
Pillen
into the fire.

Into the fire!

I sagged, and the notary pulled me upright again. I saw the green light the
Pillen
made as they flared into flame. He nodded and walked back to me.

I looked all around, in a trance of despair. The world was a blur I could not focus on. And then I blinked and the tears flew onto my cheeks forcefully. I could not release myself to my tears; I had to keep my eyes clear. If there was any path out of here, I would not see it through the film of sorrow. I blinked again and looked at the folk around me. There was Irmeltrud, and the look on her face moved me not. The various neighbors, their wives, the Zweigs. A small boy hid his eyes behind his fists. I listened and heard not a sound. No one breathed.

“We will recommence where we once started,” said the friar. “Undo her garments and render her ugliness to God.”

The notary pulled my skirt past my hips. Then he knelt and lifted each leg in turn to free it. I was like a child that can do nothing for itself. He took off my boots and my woolen stockings. He undid the laces of my bodice, pulled the kirtle off, and looked at disgust at my dugs, now visible under the thin fabric of my chemise. He tugged that off above my head, roughly.

“Stand on your own,” he said and stepped away.

All eyes traveled down my body. The gray, gaunt skin. My bones so apparent I was like an ancestor in the grave. I looked too and resumed my weeping. Why was I not yet dead?

“I wish to preserve our congregation from an unholy sight,” said the friar. “Since Künne freely confessed to her witchcraft, we did not shave her to look for the devil’s mark upon her. And thus we saw a fearsome spectacle as her hair burst into flames. I do not wish to repeat this.”

I didn’t know why it mattered at all, a whit, but I wanted to keep my hair. “I had the devil’s mark upon my brow,” I said. “It has healed, but the notary recorded it.”

“Shave her,” said the friar. “Perhaps she has more
Pillen
secreted upon her person.”

The notary removed my cap, then took a huge knife and pressed it to my temple. He cut a chunk of my hair and tossed it to the ground. Gray and wavy, it looked like a ruined cobweb. He cut again and again until my head felt like a stubble field in autumn. Then he turned the knife sideways and shaved the remainder. I felt the cuts he made, for he was clumsy and the knife dull, and knew that spots of blood must be seeping from my head.

He stepped back and looked at his results.

Between my thighs was thin gray thatch. He picked up the knife again. Half the congregation turned from the sight, but the friar hungrily watched as the notary sheared even this from me. He made me lift my arms and took that hair too.

I bleakly watched the blood run down my body.

“You are perfectly ready now to receive God’s fiery embrace,” said the friar. “And so too shall be your son’s wife.”

I shivered with the cold and with the knowledge of the wood that waited outside for me. Like Eve, my hands crept over myself to cover the most shameful parts. One hand cupped the bleeding remnants of my womanhood and the other arm stole across the sunken purses that had once funneled milk into Jost’s mouth.

Irmeltrud brushed away the notary’s hands, took off her cap, and undid her braids herself, silently releasing the twists until her hair was majestic upon her shoulders. Few had ever seen her like this: her children, Jost. Her fingers moved to her skirt but froze as she heard a faint shout outside the hall.

As of one accord, all of our heads lifted. It was as if a prayer had ceased, releasing us from its holy spell.

“—are you?” came the call. “All in the hall? Where are you?”

I screamed so strong my throat nearly burst. And all around me the women screamed too, at the limits of their ability, an obscene din like wolves howling at the moon. It was a terrifying sound, such as souls may make in eternal damnation, as Satan prods them with his pitchfork. I screamed until no breath existed in me, and then I still managed to move my limbs, to join the crazed press to the back of the hall, to the oaken doors that everyone was traveling through with haste born of hope.

And onto the snow I trod with my bare feet, leaving a little bloody passage as I went, running, to the group of men bewildered at seeing the entire village race out to them.

The hunters had returned.

16

Very often men who are not witches are unwillingly transported bodily over great distances of land.

—M
ALLEUS
M
ALEFICARUM

W
e ran to them wailing our joy. If there had been birds in our forlorn skies, they would have flitted off, sore afraid of the din below them.

And suddenly the running was stopped by men and women lunging against each other, as if only a candle and not the full sun watched their fierce embrace. The men were much changed, ruddy with their marching and—so fine to see!—bodies
plumpened.
The gaunt scratches famine had drawn down their cheeks were gone.

I marveled at Herr Schmidt, bending down to kiss his little
Kinder
with his belt again snug at his belly, and Herr Jaeger whirling his
Frau
around as if they danced, laughing as one can laugh only when one has eaten. But I lingered not and continued looking for the one face I prized over any other. I was bumped by Herr Abendroth as I passed him and he faltered and set down Frau Abendroth. His eyes were wide and his mouth wider. “What on earth has happened to you, Frau Müller? Why do you stand unclothed and with your head…?” His voice ran down and he reached out a tremulous hand to touch my shorn head, but his wife slapped his hand away and pulled him from me, whispering quickly into his ear.