The Witch of Cologne

‘Illuminate me, Juan: you are trying to tell me that Herr Müller has been murdered before I had a chance to secure a confession and, more importantly, information for the emperor?’ the inquisitor murmurs, his soft voice a chilling contrast to his physical outburst.

Juan, trying to control the welling tears of pain, nods dumbly. Carlos, frustrated, kicks at his legs.

‘How dangerous of them to thwart the duty of the Inquisition. Do they not know with whom they are toying? First the midwife and now this: it is insulting.’

The clerk hobbles to the desk. ‘Do you wish me to compose a response?’

‘Our response shall be with the sword not the quill.’

Furious, Carlos bangs the case of his viola da gamba and immediately regrets it.

‘You are going to challenge von Fürstenberg to a duel?’ the secretary asks incredulously.

Carlos looks at him sharply. ‘What makes you think it was von Fürstenberg? Do you have information I don’t?’

‘I…I…’ Realising he has been caught out, Juan stutters over his reply. Carlos’s hand lands a blow on the other cheek.

‘I have heard rumours that Müller was working for von Fürstenberg,’ the clerk manages to squeak.

The inquisitor walks thoughtfully to the window and

looks out at the neat orchard beyond the cloisters. He stares at a young peasant boy raking the grass, his mind a million miles away. His meditation is broken by the perilous journey of a small beetle across the inside of the glass window.

‘Excellent,’ he says softly, his whole demeanour shifting into cooler calculation. ‘So now we know more about our enemies. We shall bide our time, but I swear to you: when the moment comes I shall destroy the arrogance of this archbishop and with it his cousin.’

Carlos crushes the beetle with a sharp decisive pinch.

It might as well be a feast day, Maximilian Heinrich notes bitterly, watching the streams of palms and lilies being thrown from the windows of the houses lining the narrow lanes of Cologne. The archbishop, sombre in the purple ecclesiastical robe he adopts when in a judicial role, rides behind the open cart which carries the two prisoners. The bright spring sunlight seems to mock their shaven heads and bewildered faces. The white flowers fluttering down land in front of the rolling wheels to create a pathway of broken stems and crushed blooms as the parade of mounted guards and walking priests passes over them.

Heinrich looks up through the cascading petals. Some of the women hanging from the balconies and open windows are dressed in festive clothing. All the world loves an execution, he concludes, disgusted. For an insane moment he wonders whether he should organise an execution for a feast day. At least it would bring out the masses. Demoralised, he straightens his posture and tries to concentrate on the adulation of his congregation who cheer as he rides past.

The auto-da-fé was a sobering procedure, especially after the gruesome business of Müller’s murder, an event the archbishop had neither sanctioned nor been a party to. Von Fürstenberg is out of control, Heinrich thinks gloomily as a welling sense of panic stirs in his vitals. He had instructed the minister to eradicate the problem but a mysterious escape to one of the far colonies would have sufficed, not murder. Really, Wilhelm is a brute.

The trial presses heavily on his conscience. It was a mockery of justice with himself as judge. The city’s magistrate also sat on the bench, along with his two sheriffs, and finally the jury: a small panel of bürgers, each carefully picked by Solitario himself. The archbishop was loath to admit it but the Dominican had excelled in the task, meticulously recruiting merchants who had a trading relationship with Spain or England and were vehemently anti-Dutch after being affected by the North Sea war. The inquisitor even had the audacity to enlist Voss’s arch-enemy, a rival silversmith who had everything to gain from the bürger’s demise.

Humiliated, Heinrich had sat sweating in the packed courtroom, enduring the confessions which Solitario, acting as prosecutor, had beaten out of his witnesses. The inquisitor had even called the Dutchman’s mistress to the stand. A harmless harlot who went by the name of Frau Plum, she had tearfully confessed that one night van Dorf had levitated while lying upon her flesh. The poor woman, whose wrists bore some suspicious bruises, turned scarlet with embarrassment as the court howled with laughter. She could not bear to look her former lover in the eye as he stood tall in the dock, refusing to be humiliated, one bandaged foot missing several toes which had been ‘misplaced’ during his interrogation.

Voss and van Dorf had both pleaded for their cases to be taken to the Hochgericht, the high court, or failing that the Blutgericht, claiming that as taxpayers they came under the jurisdiction of local legislation as well as the broader ordinances of the empire. The prosecution had counterattacked by claiming that because the accuseds’ sorcery had affected the local citizens of Cologne, the merchants’ trial should remain under the jurisdiction of the Landrecht, the local imperial estate. It was an argument which appealed to the patriotic spirit of the bürgers but also to their anti-imperial sentiments: a reaction Monsignor Solitario had been astute enough to count on.

By the time the trial concluded, the screw, the rack and the ducking stool had served to encourage condemning statements by the accused and the inquisitor’s prosecution was complete.

The prisoners stand chained together, rocking against the sides of the cart as it trundles over the uneven ground, suffering the howls and mockery of the crowd as they pass by. Six guards from the cathedral follow on foot, behind them rides the archbishop. Flanked by the two von Fürstenberg brothers, the prelate feels hemmed in. Wilhelm, disturbed by the mob’s behaviour and fearing that his own French sentiments might be exposed by a careless insult, holds his portly form stiffly above his horse. He’s shitting himself, the archbishop notes with a certain satisfaction. Serves him right for encouraging me to get involved in the infernal mess to begin with.

Heinrich turns his attention back to the prisoners. Voss is just an old man who, like many others, has made some enemies along the way. This can be the only explanation for his arrest. It is unlikely the emperor would even be aware of Voss’s existence, although it was rumoured he had once passed poor silk to the empress without realising. The old merchant clings to the bars of the cart, trying to dodge the rotten tomatoes and turnips being thrown by the crowd. His face, now tongueless, is a decrepit landscape of smashed flesh and livid bruises. Sinking to his knees he clasps his hands above his head in prayer. His wife, her hair a wild grey thatch around a face swollen red with weeping, tears at her clothes as she stumbles after the cart.

Next to Voss, the Dutchman appears strangely resigned to his fate. Van Dorf probably believes this is his preordained destiny, the archbishop thinks, finding the man’s pragmatic attitude predictably Calvinist. A living example of their absurd belief that man is born with his destiny etched upon his soul. Heinrich deplores the philosophy. With a certain amount of pleasurable spite he wonders whether the Dutchman will be so dignified when he is hoisted up onto the pyre. A pox on both Luther and Calvin, the archbishop thinks as he waves benevolently to a row of cheering milliners.

Carlos canters up on a white mule.

‘God has sent us the blessing of fine weather, your highness,’ the inquisitor shouts above the mob—students, journeymen and drunken youths—running alongside the procession.

‘Indeed, but I fear that heralding in the spring with the burning of souls will not prove auspicious for the future.’

‘Ahhh, but the cleansing of vermin is always good. It prepares the house for Lent.’

The inquisitor is determined to engage Heinrich in conversation for as long as possible, conscious that his presence at the archbishop’s side can only improve his status with the populace.

‘But where is your cousin?’ he continues. ‘I would have thought it fitting that he attend as a novice inquisitor.’