The Witch of Cologne

The winter moon hangs low in the sky like a huge yellow portal into a better world. The soft light radiates down, lengthening the still shadows. The air is filled with the heavy scent of musk and great swathes of rosemary and lavender are scattered across the cobblestones. Birgit looks like a magical bird of paradise, the feathers of her mask shimmering in the moonlight, her cleavage transformed into the breasts of a ghost. It makes her lover want her; the clandestine nature of their actions excites him too. But it is not only the danger of discovery that intoxicates Detlef, it is also the pagan revelry: the beating music, the clouds of smouldering incense, the rush of the heavy red wine. It makes him want to surrender to the primal, to give himself over to his loins and cock, driven by a violent urge to pound out all the artifice, the machinations, the suffocating stratagems that constantly surround him.

He pushes her behind one of the pillars and takes her mouth into his own. He knows that two steps away on the other side, Peter Ter Lahn von Lennep is discussing the effect of the North Sea war on trading. The thought of discovery makes Detlef harden. Removing his mask, he bites down on one nipple and pushes up her petticoats. Now there is little between them, no history, no familiarity, just the instinctive desire to plunder each other’s body. He pulls both breasts over the top of her dress, playing with her as his mouth travels across her flesh. Then kneeling he pulls her gown over his head.

Underneath her scent is mingled with the rosemary and lavender and her own perfume, a musk of civet and myrrh known as Aphrodite’s tears. Birgit’s silk stockings are rolled up to the top of her thighs. Detlef runs his hands up to her golden bush and, parting her, strums her until she is erect. Pushing his full lips against her, he finds the small hardened organ with his tongue then takes her into his mouth, teasing and sucking gently.

Birgit moans and steadies herself against the pillar. On the other side her husband thinks he has heard a cat. Pushing her breasts back into her bodice, she allows Detlef to propel her towards the open balcony. There she stands, her lower half concealed, fanning herself and smiling mysteriously at her husband through the open portico. Under her skirt her legs are spread wide as Detlef, concealed, pleasures her in the way she has taught him, orchestrating the contractions of pure bliss until they burst into uncontrollable spasms. Birgit concentrates fiercely on the form of her husband, his portly figure absurd in the tight fashionable clothes, his hands waving around with absolutely no grace. At this moment she hates him. She recalls how as a young woman she was forced into the arranged marriage as a means to save her father’s estate from ruin. It was easy barter: her nobility for Peter Ter Lahn von Lennep’s money. No matter that he was thirty years older, or that Birgit found his openly mercenary manner an affront to the refined discourse into which she had been indoctrinated; no matter that on the wedding night she lay weeping as the old man pounded into her. It is these memories she holds on to, her flesh trembling under her lover’s mouth and fingers, until all the unhappiness, futility and tedium is released in a rush of pure pleasure. Overwhelmed, she lifts her mask and rests her hot face a moment against the cool moon-drenched wall.

On the other side of the pillar the merchant finishes his conversation, smug in the knowledge that he has secured yet another patron for his goods. Upon seeing his wife framed in the open window he thinks she looks like Venus herself, so lovely and flushed is she, and for the hundredth time that evening he congratulates himself on his choice of bride.

Detlef wipes his mouth with his fingers then surreptitiously sniffs them before reaching for another goblet of wine. Around him the carousing has become more frenetic. The dancers swirl wildly in the candlelight, their masks transforming them into half-human, half-animal beings. He is reminded of an ancient cave drawing he saw in France, as if the revellers have devolved back to long-buried primordial states of worship. Leaning back in his chair he marvels at the sight.

‘Brother, we must have words.’

Pan’s hairy goat’s face suddenly appears before him. Disembodied, it seems to float before a backdrop of glistening naked limbs. The count’s muffled laughter jolts Detlef into some semblance of reality and he stands to greet him.

Smiling enigmatically Gerhard slips his perfumed arm through his brother’s and Goat and Wolf make their way between the circling dancers whose movements have become drunk with abandonment. Stepping carefully around the flailing arms and legs they move towards Prince Ferdinand and his sycophants, who are conducting a race between two live cockerels amongst the silver platters piled high with glistening carcasses of fowl, half-picked bones and peeled fruit, the remnants of a feast.

‘The inquisitor Solitario is an intriguing individual,’ the count murmurs. ‘I have heard rumour he is an extraordinary musician but one with no heart. What heart will he show over the fate of the two merchants, I wonder? What do you make of these arrests?’

‘Mere blackmail. As long as the bürgers’ anger is contained, Heinrich need not fear.’

The two brothers arrive at the table and Detlef is forced into a chair by a jester dressed as a monkey adorned with a huge pair of plaster breasts.

‘If only it were that simple; alas, I fear it is not.’

The jester holds up tw

o live roosters—one red, one black—and calls out for wagers. The count pledges ten Reichstaler on the red bird while Detlef places five on the black. After throwing the coins down the count leans towards Detlef.

‘The three Christian merchants arrested are not as they appear.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Voss has had direct dealings with the French court for years, and Müller…’

The count’s gamekeeper holds up an ornamental hunting knife for the count’s approval, the handle of which is a ram’s horn carved in the shape of a penis. Placing his own gloved hand around the man’s thick brawny wrist, the count pulls the knife towards him and with deadpan ceremony kisses the tip of the handle for good luck. The prince’s entourage roar their approval but Hermann waits, his huge handsome face impassive. The count, his gaze locked to his gamekeeper’s, gives the thumbs down. With two swift cuts Hermann slices the head off each rooster. Amid screams of laughter the headless chickens, blood spurting over the linen cloth, scurry madly down the centre of the table in a macabre race while the gamesters shout encouragement.

The count turns back to his brother. ‘Müller’s real name is Metain. He has been acting as a courtier for Heinrich and is a personal favourite of King Louis.’

‘Next you will tell me that the Dutchman is also a spy.’

In lieu of a reply the count shrugs and flicks a feather off his lace sleeve.

The black rooster stumbles and keels over, the last of its blood pumping over the tablecloth. The red cockerel races on, as if trying to outpace death itself. It reaches the edge of the table and for a second flies blindly up, then plummets dead as a stone.

The revellers cheer and whistle as the count calmly sweeps his winnings into the palm of his hand.

‘Really, Detlef, I am disappointed in you. Heinrich should keep you better informed; after all, you are his heir apparent. Or has the affable Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg now inherited that dubious honour?’

Detlef, noticing the gleam of cynicism in the count’s eyes, wonders whether his brother has ever had any real affection for him at all. Or does he regard him merely as an irritating pawn in the endless game of chess he is forced to play between church and state, bishop and prince, in order to maintain his power in the patchwork of different allegiances between which the von Tennen family estate lies?

‘Not yet. But pray, illuminate me, why the arrest of the Hebrew woman? Surely she is utterly unknown in Vienna?’

‘Naturally. I believe she is a personal obsession of the Dominican, however the oily Spaniard is in bed with both Leopold and the Grand Inquisitional Council. ‘Tis a pity—I hear she is a talented medic as well as a midwife.’

‘So they say.’

The young Prince Ferdinand, his face smeared with carmine kisses from the actor Alphonso, leans drunkenly towards the count.