The Witch of Cologne

He runs his finger along the straw pallet: here the canon must have lain with the witch, how many times? As many as the days in a year? Carlos, both fascinated and sickened, suddenly has to leave this room of vice.

Out on the landing he retches then leans his burning face against the cool stone wall. It is then that he hears it: a soft wailing, like an animal or a baby, vibrating through the stone beneath the noise of shouting soldiers and crashing furniture.

Alert with renewed hope, the inquisitor stares down the corridor, assessing which room the faint wail might have come from. He walks across the wooden boards and into the first room. Empty now, it was once a library and several of the bookcases are still piled high with ancient manuscripts. A stately woman stares down from above a small desk; she bears a slight resemblance to the canon. Carlos, unable to tolerate the noblewoman’s supercilious gaze, jabs his short hunting knife into the canvas which rips loudly. He slashes at the eyes, the arrogant face, over and over. Finally, satisfied that the chamber is concealing nothing, he leaves.

Back in the corridor he falters as confusion overwhelms him. Several doors present themselves like the riddle of a maze: which one are they hiding behind, which one? Bewilderment and nausea rise up in him, piercing his brain alongside the insistent acrid odour of brimstone.

‘Lilith,’ Carlos speaks the demon’s name. ‘Show me the right way. Help your loyal servant,’ he continues in Aramaic, knowing the incantation will be incomprehensible if overheard. The smoke from the bonfire the soldiers have lit outside curls up the staircase creating a fog. Carlos, sensing something more, stares into it. At its misty edge the shape of the fiend appears, a curvaceous phantom of vapour; one graceful arm of swirling grey lifts and points. Following its direction, Carlos approaches a door barely visible beneath a low arched beam. Bending his head he turns the handle and enters.

The chamber is deserted. The purifying smoke seems more intense here, Carlos can smell nothing but amber, brimstone and salt petre. There is a neatly rolled-up pallet in the corner, a washing stand and a rosary hanging over it. The housekeeper’s sleeping quarters, he guesses. A small window is framed by a lip of thick slate and glows with the sunset. The inquisitor reaches across and lights a candle. The flame leaps up and illuminates the wood panelling of the walls. Nothing seems amiss but he cannot allay his suspicion.

Inside their hiding place Ruth and Detlef hold themselves statue-like as they listen to Carlo’s creeping footsteps and laboured breathing. The sleeping baby is on the breast. The bloodstained rags are pressed between Ruth’s legs, crusty with afterbirth. Suddenly the child stirs. Detlef reaches for him but Ruth stays his hand; both stare down at the wrinkled crimson face, willing the child to keep his peace. Oblivious, the babe innocently shifts his weight, snuggling closer to Ruth’s breast. Again Detlef reaches for his blade.

Outside Carlos is convinced he can hear faint rustlings behind the wall. He freezes, waiting for another sound, a sign that will reveal his prey. On the other side of the panel, inches away, Ruth runs her fingers over the raised hennaed hex on her now slack womb and prays.

In that instant Carlos is distracted by the miaow of a cat. Looking down he sees that a small kitten is rubbing itself against his legs. It miaows again, sounding remarkably like a baby. The friar picks it up and ruefully carries it out of the room.

Inside the alcove Detlef’s blind fingers find Ruth’s face; her cheeks are wet with tears. He pulls her and the baby into his arms. They lie with her head curled against his chest, the sleeping babe at her breast. To Detlef it seems as if this darkness is beyond fear, beyond time and space, perhaps beyond mortality itself. Feeling the weight of Ruth’s slight body against his, and the extraordinarily soft flesh of this tiny mortal which is now his child, he suddenly understands love in a way he has never experienced it before, as if tendrils of his very being have intertwined with this woman to make a new soul. Part of him remains in wonderment at the circumstances that have led him to this moment: this instant of great danger yet great hope.

Aware of a new, raw creature emerging from within him, unfurling like the tentative blossom of a poppy, translucent damp petals reaching out of a spiky bud of cynicism and disbelief, Detlef is both exhilarated and exhausted by the abundance of possibilities his future now holds. Weary beyond terror, he finally closes his eyes and lets his head rest against Ruth’s shoulder.

The soldiers crouch beside the roaring fire. A chaotic mountain of broken tables, mirrors, paintings and ornaments waits alongside to feed the blaze. The young guards’ faces, stained with grime and dust, are flushed with the wine they have raided from the cellar. One of the chevaliers sings a mournful Basque melody as he throws a leg of the broken virginal into the flames. The bonfire flares up, throwing light onto the façade of the house, silhouetting a sinister shape that rotates at the end of a rope.

The inquisitor and the captain stand some distance away beside the tethered horses.

‘Monsignor, with all due respect we have explored both the cottage and the grounds. I fear the accused and his accomplice escaped before our arrival.’

“Tis strange for I sense that they are still nearby.’

‘My men have searched everywhere—the barn, the pig sty, the servants’ quarters, even the chicken coop. And you won’t be getting anything out of the housekeeper now.’

Carlos looks over to the raided house, the oak door swinging open, the smashed china, the tapestries scattered on the ground, the wooden shutters banging in the wind. Violated, it is a shattered reflection of its former tranquility.

‘He will be at his brother’s estate. I am told it is thirty miles east of here.’

‘My men will not ride at night.’

‘They must and they shall.’

The captain stares briefly into the determined face of the inquisitor. The officer has taken this commission reluctantly; if he had his way he would be fighting the Ottomans for the glory of the Hapsburg Empire, not chasing an errant canon and his Jewish mistress. But his colonel allowed him no option. If the Spaniard wants to be at Count von Tennen’s estate before dawn, so be it. Let the zealot Dominican deal with the disgruntled chevaliers. The captain spits into the mud.

‘In that case, my good Monsignor, perhaps it would be more appropriate for you to announce your intentions to the men yourself. They are weary in body and spirit but I am confident your rhetoric shall be pretty enough to inspire them to new spiritual heights and maybe even back into the saddle. And if not your rhetoric then your purse will suffice. Good luck to you, sir.’

With a smile he saunters back to his troops.

An hour later the small platoon, exhausted but fortified by thoughts of the extra one hundred Reichstaler the inquisitor has promised them, ride out of the courtyard and down the narrow tree-lined lane.

A huge yellow moon transforms them into a mass of benign silvery phantoms whose pensive silence is broken only by the clinking of their brass stirrups and the whisper of the plumes on their helmets. The only witness to their departure is a solitary bull, made restless by the scent of a cow in heat four miles away. The creature paws at the ground, nostrils flaring at the aroma of horse and man. But even he knows better than to bellow.

The point of light slowly grows to a slim crescent. It travels across the cracked wall grimy with ancient dust, suddenly hitting a glint of gold which, as the light becomes stronger, reveals itself as blond hair. The bar of light continues its path down the creased forehead, over the closed orbs fringed with long dark eyelashes that open and blink for a second as the pupils, swimming in the centre of a deep sapphire, dilate and focus.

Detlef stares into the sliver of dawn sunlight. As the feeling slowly needles back into his cramped limbs he remembers where he is. For a moment he panics—is she safe? Where is the babe? Terror fills him until the warm weight of Ruth’s body makes itself apparent. He looks down: she is curled up asleep, her head resting against his chest. The baby, wrapped in rags, one arm extended, still stained wit

h blood and mucus, fist clenched resolutely, lies at his mother’s naked breast, eyes screwed shut, mouth pursed in concentration. For a moment Detlef fears the child has died in the night, when suddenly his eyes blink open and the perfectly formed baby boy stares up at his father with a wide and fearless gaze, as if challenging him on the very reason for his existence. Detlef, caught between wonder and amusement, stares straight back. He reaches down and caresses the soft furry blond down which covers the small head. To his amazement he can cup the whole skull in one palm.

My child, he thinks, allowing the thought to become a solid truth, my own flesh and blood. A wave of emotion surges through him, leaving him wanting to use all his powers to cast a circle of protection around his new family.

Just then Ruth wakes and immediately the babe nuzzles blindly into her breast.