The Witch of Cologne

‘These are unpredictable times. There are friends who once sat with us who have already been martyred. I would like to salute the imprisoned, the exiled and those individuals who, despite great personal danger to themselves, have risen above their traditional upbringings to find faith and love through belief born out of the experience of life itself. For to do so is to truly realise the celestial within us,’ the philosopher concludes, looking directly at Detlef and Ruth.

The coach rolls to a halt outside the narrow red-brick house. The coachman, glancing at the number painted above the brass knocker, snorts derisively and pulls up the horses. What his elegant German passenger wants in such a humble abode one can only imagine; whatever it is it is bound to be sinful, the coachman thinks, winding the reins around the wooden rail of the carriage and wondering at the strangeness of the times in this uncertain Holland.

With a flourish he opens the door. His passenger stares in dismay at the surrounds, a perfumed handkerchief pressed to his patrician nose. Thanking the coachman in bad Dutch, he alights, trying carefully not to soil his kid boots in a gutter awash with mud and swill.

The count gazes up at his brother’s house, humiliated that a von Tennen could demean himself thus. There is only one saving grace, he thinks: a beggar is cheaper to buy off than a duke.

As he steps across the cobbled pavement he notices that the front of the house at least is immaculately kept, with a pot holding a rose bush on either side of the oak door. Through the large window on the ground floor he can see the bowed head of his brother illuminated by the dull golden light of a lamp. On Detlef’s lap sits a child, a small blond-haired boy who immediately reminds the count of his brother at the same age.

I cannot afford sentimentality, Gerhard thinks, reminding himself that this child, half-Jew, is an abomination, a travesty of the von Tennen lineage. Nevertheless, as he leans on his cane, a distant recollection he thought he had long buried streams through him: Detlef aged six being presented to his father in his first military uniform. The child, fearing the old viscount’s disapproval, had stumbled over the miniature sword they had thrust into his sash, then wept at the angry shouts of his father. Gerhard, a youth of eighteen, had done nothing to protect the young Detlef from the irrational fury of the viscount; anger Gerhard had later understood as the embittered frustration of an aristocrat forced to watch his land being carved away section by section.

There was a constant unspoken battle between their mother and her husband. Gerhard had watched the arranged marriage slowly calcify, any façade of happiness disappearing when the old viscount took to keeping a mistress openly in Bonn while his wife retreated into the sanctuary of religion. The viscount, hardened by battle and politics, could not stand the piousness of his Bavarian wife and so when Detlef fell increasingly under his mother’s influence, his father penalised him for it, finding the young boy’s temperament and physical resemblance to Katrina von Tennen insufferable. As the older brother I was culpable, I should have protected Detlef more, the count thinks regretfully. Tucking his cane beneath his arm he marches up the four stone steps and raps sharply on the door.

Ruth looks up from her sewing but Detlef is already on his feet. ‘Esther, kindly answer the door,’ he instructs the maid, determined not to open it himself. The maid puts down her sewing and hurries out.

‘Girl, there is no need to stand on ceremony. Let me in, it would be unsafe to loiter on this step any longer,’ the count commands in German.

The Dutch maid, not understanding a word, steps aside. Behind her the count hears Detlef’s distinctive laugh.

‘Gerhard

, what do you fear? The pickpockets or the whores?’

‘Both, you scoundrel.’

Stepping out of the shadows Detlef welcomes his brother. Spontaneously the two men embrace with genuine affection. Once released, the count totters for a second, surprised at the passion of the reconciliation. He had forgotten how much he actually misses his brother.

Handing his cape and cane to the maid, Count von Tennen peers into the dimly lit entrance hall which also doubles as the living room. Behind Detlef he can barely make out Ruth standing stiffly, the child in her arms. The count, sensing her disapproval, bows formally. ‘Fraulein.’

‘Frau Tennen. We are both officially Protestants and married now.’

‘So I have heard. Detlef, you should have notified me, I would have sent gifts.’

‘We managed,’ Ruth replies, acutely conscious of the circumstances of their last meeting, two lifetimes ago at Das Grüntal when she was called to minister to the young Prince Ferdinand.

His brother has grown old, Detlef observes, there is a sadness about his features, a new humanity…or is he merely imagining such things?

‘Esther, wine for the count, he needs fortification after such a long journey. I trust that the tavern I recommended suffices?’

‘It is very civilised. It is true what they say about the Netherlands, they really are the apex of the New World. Today I saw fruit and spices I have never seen before. For example, a fruit that resembles a love apple yet is hard on the outside, while inside are many sweet red seeds like gemstones. They tell me it is the fruit that Persephone ate in the underworld, to the delight of her husband Hades.’

‘A pomegranate, that is the name for this fruit,’ Ruth interjects sharply, still distrusting the count’s enthusiasm.

‘I see you are as learned as ever, sister-in-law.’

The count turns back to Detlef. ‘You look well, brother, this new life suits you.’

‘It suits every man to be living honestly and within his own moral skin. But you, sir, there is a sadness I have not seen before…’

‘I am alone, Detlef. Two winters ago I lost my dear companion, Herr Wolf. My new solitude has left me with little appetite for life or many of the blood sports I did so enjoy.’

‘There is little that stirs the soul in comparison with the machinations of the court.’

‘I thought you had abandoned the political life for the elusive pleasure of being a zealot?’

‘Zealot? No, I am a Remonstrant.’

‘One of those new-fangled Calvinists,’ the count remarks wryly.