The Witch of Cologne

She pushes herself further into the feather pallet and begins to fall back to sleep. Detlef lies for a time imagining the son he has sired. Will he be healthy? Sharp of mind and vigorous of body? How will they protect him, this hybrid creature, both Jew and Christian?

In the far distance a wolf howls. Detlef, restless, gets up to make water. As he urinates into the chamberpot he notices a letter peeping out from his mistress’s abandoned bodice. The Dutch seal is unmistakable.

‘Ruth.’ He gently shakes her awake, holding the letter before her. ‘Who is this letter from? You know how dangerous it is to receive mail here.’

‘It is from Benedict Spinoza. I wrote to him for words of comfort and he has replied.’

‘This was unwise.’

‘Please, Detlef, I must rest.’

‘Don’t you understand the peril we live in here? It would take just one peasant, someone my brother has wronged, to betray us.’

Drowsily she sits up.

‘Who was your messenger?’

‘Hanna has a brother who is to be trusted.’

‘I know the man, but no one is to be trusted. There is famine throughout this land, one Reichstaler would buy our lives.’

‘He does not know what he carries. He thinks it to be news from Hanna to her Dutch cousin.’

‘It must stop, do you understand? We have to be careful for only a little longer, until the child is born.’

‘And then what?’

‘I have a plan.’

‘What plan?’

Detlef falls silent. In truth he has not allowed himself to think further than this secret parallel existence, her waiting for him in this simple sanctuary, a paradise away from his other life.

‘I suppose I am to continue as your mistress, a plaything you keep stored in your closet to take out at your leisure,’ she says, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.

‘Ruth, pray let us not argue. Please, trust me.’

In the thickening silence an owl hoots in the distance.

‘Forgive me the indiscretion, but I needed some consolation, some wisdom to carry me through this dark passage.’ She reaches over to caress his hand.

Detlef stares down at the page: the distinctive calligraphy speaks to him of a realm that transcends the limitations of orthodoxy, a place where man can dream of democracy, a belief that places God everywhere—in the calling bird outside, in the impenetrability of his loved one—a belief in which the body is the outward form of the soul.

He looks at Ruth: that she is deemed worthy to share discourse with this man who so intrigues him, inspires him immensely. She is the key to a world in which he might rise above all the restrictions his birth and career have placed upon him. Forgiving her, he begins to read the scroll.

‘Is there no end to the decrees, legislations and proclamations I must sign? What have you and the evasive Herr von Fürstenberg been doing these past months? Supervising the miracles of the Magi?’

Maximilian Heinrich, resplendent in a new robe tailored especially for his glorious return, sits at a large wooden desk. Grouped around him are several clerics, the von Fürstenberg brothers, Detlef and Groot. The archbishop, craving the usual hilarity from his entourage, looks expectantly at his audience—far fewer in number due to the pestilence—but the hol

low-faced young clerics are silent, some looking at the ground. Ravaged by misery and disease, the archbishop notes not entirely without sympathy.

‘If ever there was a time Cologne needed miracles, this was it. I am afraid much of our time was taken up with funerals, your grace. Then of course there was the enormous task of administering the last rites, to a mere ten thousand at last count,’ Detlef responds, looking up from the open ledger in front of him. Disgusted by his cousin’s tardiness in returning to the city after it has been officially declared plague-free, he finds it hard to remain courteous.

Heinrich, pausing to calculate his response, watches the reaction of the clerics, several of whom peek admiringly at the fervent canon. Detlef really is becoming a liability, the archbishop thinks, I shall have to patronise Wilhelm after all.

‘Indeed, it has been a grave time. A period of great spiritual reckoning and introspection. Which is precisely why we need a festivity to celebrate all those who have survived.’ He turns to the corpulent minister, a smooth smile hiding his disgust. ‘Do you not think so, Wilhelm?’

Von Fürstenberg, who has spent most of the disease-ridden summer at the residence of the Countess of Marck, thirty miles out of the city, nods gravely.