The Witch of Cologne

‘But you have no jurisdiction here, she is a Jew!’

‘Rabbi, your daughter was baptised.’

Horrified, Elazar stumbles back, then collects himself. ‘What is your evidence?’ His voice cracks with fear.

Carlos reaches into his robe and pulls out the affidavit; leaning over he thrusts it before the old man’s eyes. The rabbi reads it then collapses in shock.

Two yeshiva students immediately rush to the old man’s aid and lift him to his feet. Held up, Elazar’s haggard face stares at the gaol cart as it drives off towards the Rhine and Cologne.

– CHOCHMA –

Revelation

Das Grüntal, The Von Tennens’ Hunting Lodge February 1665

The beautiful young actor, a Grecian robe buckled around his slim waist, rouge circles painted high on his whitened face, dark eyes lined with kohl, stands in front of the seated guests holding a terrified lamb against his fake cleavage and clutching a golden staff. From behind the varnished backdrop painted with an idealised landscape of Mount Olympus but looking suspiciously like the Tuscan hills, the other members of the troupe make bleating sounds. Suddenly a man wearing the massive head of a bull, his muscular torso gleaming with oil, his loins covered only by the briefest of kilts, the added absurdity of a small Ottoman cap pinned precariously between the ears of his bull-mask, jumps out from behind the screen. The young shepherdess swoons as the bull advances.

‘The rape of Europa!’ Count Gerhard von Tennen yells from the front row of the audience. He stands and bows to polite applause. Dressed in scarlet silk hose and pantaloons, his narrow chest squeezed into the tightest of embroidered waistcoats, the count holds the mask of Pan up to his face and addresses the revellers.

‘There is of course an added subtlety. Behold the loathsome insignia of the hated Ottoman!’

The actor playing Zeus lowers his head so all can see the Turkish cap pinned between his furry ears.

‘And the colours of our poor ravaged Bohemia!’

At this, Europa cheekily throws up his skirts and bending over reveals bloomers adorned with the emperor’s double-headed eagle, each head strategically placed over a buttock. Delighted, the onlookers howl with laughter.

Detlef, his face covered with a sinister wolf-mask, leans towards his mistress. Birgit, wearing a satin headdress and mask resembling the head of a white peacock, and clothed in a creamy-white ball gown of ducape, its stomacher of matching silk bows embroidered with seed pearls, is the pinnacle of opulent splendour and utterly conscious of it.

‘Do we assume that the young royal is amused?’ Detlef asks wryly.

Birgit glances across to where Prince Ferdinand, the nephew of Emperor Leopold himself, sits sandwiched between Count Gerhard von Tennen and his gamekeeper, Hermann Wolf, a colossal Prussian who is rumoured to inhabit the count’s bed as well as his hunting lodge.

The prince is an ailing pimply youth who has been sent to the Rhineland to recover his health and, more importantly, to remove him from the corrupting influence of the Viennese court where, at the onset of adolescence, the only precociousness he displayed was a healthy appetite for both sexes.

The seventeen year old is an unlikely guest for the older count, but welcomed as a chance to win favour with Leopold. The count’s controlled façade is betrayed only slightly by a twitch as he recalls the humiliation he experienced at the hands of the young emperor on his last visit to the Viennese court. Leopold had promised an audience but postponed the meeting four times, then finally failed to show at all, leaving the count mortified before the arrogant Viennese courtiers. So when, months later, the royal messenger arrived at Das Grüntal with the request that Prince Ferdinand be invited to attend the count’s winter hunt in an attempt to improve his health—the prince suffered constantly from an old jousting injury—Gerhard was understandably relieved. Here was the golden opportunity to redeem himself in the emperor’s eyes and to make it perfectly clear that his alliance lay with the Hapsburgs; unlike Maximilian Heinrich whose attention wavers to the south-west, towards France.

Yawning, the young Austrian nobleman appears bored, but after a tap from his courtier smiles politely and raises both hands to clap. ‘Droll, very droll, Count von Tennen. What is the name of the delightful Europa?’

‘Alphonso, your highness.’ The count lowers his voice: ‘And he is most amenable.’ He taps his fan and on cue the young actor curtsies and smiles brazenly at the prince before skipping off behind the screen.

Birgit returns her attention to Detlef.

‘Your brother has mastered the niceties of the Viennese court well. But pray where is the countess?’

‘My brother’s long-suffering wife resides permanently in Bonn now. She draws comfort from the companionship of her ward, Fräulein Drecker. As you know, the marriage was a convenience, a bloodless and heartless affair.’

Detlef wonders whether Merchant Ter Lahn von Lennep realises that his own marriage could be defined as such.

Birgit nudges her husband who is busy devouring a leg of glazed duck with obscene relish. An obese man in his sixties, afflicted by an acute awareness of his own lack of sophistication, he guiltily wipes the poultry gravy from his chin then pulls down his mask. It is in the unfortunate shape of a rooster—his wife’s choice.

‘Prince Ferdinand sets an example to the rest of us provincials,’ Birgit continues, running her hand up Detlef’s thigh under the table. ‘Of course, such manners are in the blood. Such breeding cannot be purchased.’

Meister Ter Lahn von Lennep, now scarlet with embarrassment, belches into his napkin. Detlef, feeling sorry for the ridiculous costume the long-suffering merchant has been made to wear, comes to his rescue.

‘There are many who would disagree. If absolution is to be bought, why not nobility?’

‘The canon is right. It is even rumoured that Leopold himself had a chambermaid for a great-grandmother.’