There Will Be Wolves (6 page)

Then Ursula remembered her book. Her healing book. She dropped her father’s arm and raced back into the house, ignoring the shouts of the people who were already collecting at the scene. The smoke was almost overpowering, but she ran for the stairs and pulled herself up them. The book was in a corner under her bed. Coughing, with tears streaming down her face, she reached for it. The whole wall beside her was in flames and the heat scorched her hand. She grasped the book and then almost fell back down the narrow stairway. As she staggered out the door, the floor of the second level crashed down behind her.

The whole neighborhood was awake by now,
and shouts were being raised all up and down the street. Men raced up carrying buckets of water from the nearby well and began to throw it on the fire, but the smoke was too dense, and the heat of the flames soon drove them back.

“Watch out! The roofs going!” Even as the shout was raised, the whole top of the house caved in, sending up a towering blaze that leaped for the sky. Now all the efforts of the dozens of people in the street were directed to wetting down the adjoining houses on either side in order to prevent the fire from spreading. Ursula could do nothing but stand, arms around her father, and watch as everything they owned in the world went up in flames.

By the time the first light of day began to streak through the sky it was all over. Their house was an empty, smoldering shell. Ursula stared at the wreckage. The houses on either side had been burned as well, but not extensively; by and large they had been saved. People were standing, staring, or sitting slumped in the street, silent and exhausted. Suddenly a shout startled them all.

“There she is! There’s the witch! Look—God has already laid his hand upon her!”

The women were back, but this time, ominously, they were led by the monks from the church of Great St. Martin’s. One of the monks, surveying the burned-out ruin, crossed himself and began to pray.

“God sent the fire!” shrieked Mistress Adelheid. “The fire that purifies! God sent it!”

“Yes!” cried another. “He’s burned the witch’s house—and now the
witch
must burn!”

U
rsula’s arms dropped away from her father and, instinctively, she tried to hide the book.

It was too late. The ever-observant Mistress Ingrid had already seen it.

“Look! She clutches the book. The devil’s book!” she cried. “Mistress Elke told me about that as well. It’s from that book she casts her spells!”

Ursula shrank back, but one of the monks moved toward her quickly.

“Give that to me,” he said. In contrast to the turmoil and commotion all around them, his voice was quiet, but it was a voice to be obeyed. Nevertheless, Ursula was not about to give in so easily.

“It’s mine,” she countered. She faced the monk defiantly, using every effort of will she could summon up to keep her voice steady. Her knees were weak, and the sickening pain was back in her
stomach, but her relentless grip on the book kept her shaking hands from betraying her. “It was given to me by a brother from your own order. He was my friend. He wanted me to have it.”

The monk stopped short, shocked. “Who? Who from among our community would give a book to you?”

“Brother Bernhard. Just before he died. He was a healer and he knew that I was one, too. He wanted me to have it.”

“Child, you are condemning yourself with every word you speak!” The monk turned pale. “If that is indeed Brother Bernhard’s book of healing, then you have committed an unpardonable sin. The book disappeared just before his death. It belongs to the church, to God. You have stolen from God!”

“I did not steal it! I am no thief!” Anger momentarily overcame Ursula’s fear. “He gave it to me. I would go and talk with him by the river below the church. He knew that I was a healer. He taught me many things.”

“Enough! You will give that book to me immediately.” The monk stepped forward and held out his hand.

Master William suddenly gasped, clutched his chest, and fell to the ground.

“Father!” Ursula reached for him and dropped the book.

The monk swooped down and picked it up in
one quick, hawk-like movement. He opened it carefully and looked at it; he then looked back at Ursula, crouching beside her father. “You will come with us,” he said.

“But my father—”

“The good people here will tend to him. He has no need of you. You will only do him more harm than good.” He turned his back on her and signaled to two other monks. “Escort her.”

“No!” Ursula cried.

“Escort her!” the monk ordered again.

The monks flanked Ursula on either side. They did not touch her, but it was clear that they could force her to move if she chose to protest. With one last, despairing look at her father, Ursula rose to her feet.

“Follow me,” the monk commanded.

Ursula forced her feet to move. Her whole body was shaking now so badly there was no longer any hiding it. She began to walk. Just at that moment she saw Bruno turn the corner into their street. Samson trotted down to meet him, tail wagging.

Bruno stopped. Then, taking in what was happening, he rushed forward but was prevented from reaching Ursula by the crowd. Pandemonium broke loose. The women, who had fallen silent when Master William collapsed, burst into noise again as they surrounded him. Above the din one voice rang out.

“Now we’ll see justice done!” shrieked Mistress Adelheid. “Now we’ll see the witch pay for her sins!”

  *  *  *  

When Ursula awoke the next morning she lay for a moment, confused and disoriented. Cocks were crowing outside, as usual, but everything else was wrong. No light filtered in through the oiled sheepskin-covered window at the foot of her straw pallet as it ordinarily did. The blanket covering her was thin and scratchy and smelled sour. She almost panicked—then she remembered. The monks had brought her to the nuns at St. Maria Lyskirchen. She had been shut into a narrow, windowless cell and left there for the rest of the day. Except for one nun who had brought her some bread and a bowl of thin gruel that she hadn’t been able to eat, and another who had come to empty the pail that stood in the corner, she had seen no one. They had let her have a wick floating in tallow for a light. As long as that lasted, she had paced the room restlessly, waiting, expecting something, but not knowing what. Finally, when the wick had flickered out, she had given up and thrown herself down onto the pallet in the corner. Even then she had lain awake for hours, going over and over in her mind what had happened. From one day to the next—so
quickly—her whole world had been overturned. And her father—what was happening to him? At last she had fallen into a restless sleep, but it seemed only a very short time until the cocks’ crowing awakened her.

A hesitant knock at the door startled her. It opened, and the young nun who had brought her the food the afternoon before came in. She carried another bowl of gruel in her hands, with lumps of sodden bread floating on top. Her eyes were downcast; she wouldn’t look at Ursula.

“What’s happening? How long am I to be kept in here?” Ursula deliberately made her voice harsh. Although she was afraid, no one was going to know it.

The nun didn’t answer. Before Ursula could question her further she slipped back out the door, closing it behind her. Ursula heard the sound of a bar being dropped across it.

As the day progressed, a small amount of light found its way in through cracks and gaps in the walls near the roof. At first Ursula resumed her pacing. Frantic with fear and impatience, she stared at the door, willing it to open and let in somebody—
anybody
—who would tell her what was happening. The waiting—the not knowing—was unbearable. But the hours passed, and no one came. Finally, she threw herself back down onto the pallet and buried her face in her arms, trying to block out what was happening, trying to
make her mind blank, to stop the images, each more horrible than the one before. They burned witches. Surely they couldn’t really believe she was a witch. Surely they couldn’t prove it.

But that, too, became unsupportable after a while. The straw stank, and it was filled with fleas. Ursula finally leaped up, scratching furiously at the bugs and the red welts that were coming up all over, until her skin was raw and bleeding. She started pacing again. She began to think she might go mad.

At the very moment when she could stand it no longer and had flung herself at the door, beating on it frantically, the bells of Cologne’s churches began to peal. The bells of St. Maria’s joined in, right over Ursula’s head. The noise was horrendous. She clapped her hands over her ears, wincing with the pain of it, and huddled back into the farthest corner of the room.

It was two days before she saw anyone except the nuns who attended to her needs. In all that time, not one of them uttered a word. Ursula had thought of escape. In her desperation she had dwelt on the possibility of overpowering the young nun who came in the mornings. It would be easy, but it was unthinkable to strike a nun. That would damn her for certain. And if she did manage to get out of the church, where would she go? Where could she hide? Her father was ill, and she had no way of knowing how he fared or even
where he was. No one else in this city would take her in, except possibly Bruno, and she would not put him in such danger.

On the third day, at the break of dawn, the light tap came at her door as usual. Ursula hardly bothered to look up. She was startled into awareness, however, by a stern male voice.

“You are to come with me now.” A monk was standing behind the nun.

Ursula leaped to her feet. “Where are we going? What is to happen?”

“You are not to question. Just come with me.”

At last! Was she to be released? She dusted herself off as best as she could and followed the monk out the door.

The brilliant sunlight outside struck her painfully. She threw a hand over her eyes to shield them and stumbled over the cobblestoned courtyard. The monk strode briskly ahead of her, forcing her to trot blindly to keep up. As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, she realized they were heading toward Great St. Martin’s. A cold knife of fear suddenly twisted inside her chest. It was in the courtyard at St. Martin’s that criminals were tried—
sentences
handed out. It was in the courtyard of St. Martin’s that witches were burned.

As Ursula struggled to keep up, she realized just how filthy she was. The hand shading her eyes was encrusted with dirt. The woollen shift she was wearing was stained and reeked with the
smell of her own unwashed body. Her fair hair was matted, dark, and greasy. She, who had despised most of her neighbors for their uncleanliness and their stink, now stank worse than any of them. She dropped her hand from her eyes and began to run her fingers through the mess that was her hair, trying fruitlessly to tidy it. She brushed, uselessly, at the dirt on her shift.

By the time they reached St. Martin’s, she was exhausted and panting. Three days of imprisonment with very little food had weakened her more than she would have thought possible. When the monk suddenly stopped, she almost ran into him. He stepped aside distastefully. Ursula looked up and saw what waited for her beyond him.

The courtyard was thronged with people. The noise of their excited voices rose in a tremendous swell as they caught sight of her. She stared around, trying to find a familiar face, but, in her shock, she couldn’t make out one from another. Then her eyes were drawn to the far end of the courtyard. There, seated behind long trestle tables under the spreading branches of an ancient, red-leafed blood oak, were the monks of St. Martin’s. The monk who had taken her from her house was seated almost in the middle, but what stunned Ursula to the point where she momentarily forgot to breathe was the sight of the figure sitting in the exact center: the archbishop of Cologne himself,
resplendent, with shards of sunlight glinting from the gold and jewel-studded robe that fell around him. The archbishop of Cologne! He only judged the most serious cases of heresy. Frantically, Ursula looked around, desperate to see if there was anyone else to be judged here, but she stood alone.

“Step forward, my child.” The archbishop’s voice was kind, almost pitying, and for a moment Ursula felt hope.

The hope soon died. One after another, the townspeople rose to testify against her. Mistress Elke, recovered from childbirth and more virulent and poisonous than ever, was first.

“She cursed me! She said I carried a demon!”

In vain Ursula tried to deny it, but she was not allowed to speak.

Mistress Ingrid was quick to confirm it, swearing that she had heard the curse with her very own ears. Ursula knew that to be impossible, but by now the woman had fully convinced herself of the truth of what she was saying and she believed it implicitly.

“She turned herself into a cat. Only a witch can do that,” Mistress Elke ranted on. She was flushed and sweating. The day was warm and her weight, in addition to the weakness from the recent childbirth, was beginning to tell. She staggered and would have fallen if one of the bystanders had not rushed to bring her a stool.

Sympathetic murmurs for her obvious distress began to rise, while increasingly hostile glances were directed toward the bedraggled, filthy Ursula.

“I saw that.” Mistress Elke’s maidservant ran to fan her mistress and add her lies to the rest.

“That’s not true!
Nothing
of what they’re saying is true!”

“That’s enough, girl. It is not for you to speak, except to beg God’s forgiveness for your sins.” The archbishop’s tone was sharper now.

Others rose who had nothing specific to say, but who testified that Ursula was “prideful,” or thought herself better than ordinary people.

“She boasted that she was a healer,” said one. “A
healer!
How could a mere girl be a healer?”

“It was because of that book,” said another. “She was always reading in that book.”

“And how is it that she
can
read?”

With a sinking heart, Ursula recognized Britta. The girl’s face was malevolent; she was obviously relishing the opportunity of taking revenge for past snubs, real and imagined. “I can’t read,” Britta went on. “None of us can. How can she?
That’s
the devil’s work, if you ask me!”