The Witch of Cologne

Detlef whirls around at the voice. Despite the long hair and the peppering of a new beard, Groot recognises him immediately.

‘I am a plain pastor now, Groot. The title canon does not apply.’

‘So the rumours are true, you are now a follower of Calvin?’

‘I am a preacher with the Remonstrants. I travel the Low Countries with a simple sermon.’

‘You married the witch?’

In a second Detlef’s lean form is against the bars, his hand thrusting through grabs Groot’s throat. ‘Respect, my good sir! She is my wife.’

Groot’s eyes bulge as he chokes under Detlef’s steel-like fingers.

‘My apologies…’

Detlef drops him. Stumbling, Groot claws at the neck of his cassock, loosening it. Detlef pauses then steps back to get a better view of his old assistant.

‘You look well, Groot. You have become a substantial man.’

The cleric, older and more portly than Detlef remembers him, regains his composure.

‘Herr von Fürstenberg treats me with respect. But honour and ease are seldom bedfellows.’

‘I know the proverb, but of the two I would choose honour.’

‘Maybe, but it is you who are now on the wrong side of the bars. They will kill you, Detlef.’

‘I am cousin to the archbishop. They would not dare.’

‘It would have served you better not to blaspheme so loudly. You have become too noisy a critic to go unheeded.’

‘Groot, help me…for the sake of our friendship.’

‘You would beg?’

‘All pride is false modesty. I am a father as well as a husband. I want to live.’

Groot stares at him, noticing a new humility in the aristocrat’s eyes.

‘I will pray to my God for you. Perhaps he will be more forgiving than your gaolers.’

He turns and walks slowly back down the dim corridor.

‘Groot! Groot!’

‘Please address me by my new title: Canon Groot,’ the priest announces to the shadows, too frightened to turn around for fear his old master will see his tears.

Seated with the archbishop in his carriage, Carlos watches as the narrow crowded streets give way to muddy lanes on the outskirts of the city and then to neat cultivated fields, all still within the walls of Cologne: chequerboards of yellow and green, cabbages growing next to wheat. So there is natural beauty here, Carlos concedes reluctantly. A growing excitement fills him despite his inherent misanthropy. They have the renegade preacher incarcerated. A few turns of the screw and the witch shall be his. The notion thrills him to the marrow. He has agreed to the forthcoming encounter only as a courtesy to the archbishop. He has discovered that he has developed a begrudging affection for the drunken buffoon, helped greatly by his delivery of the heretic canon, of course. The meeting is a mere formality, the inquisitor reassures himself. Once over, he will be able to interrogate the criminal preacher and then finally Sara’s daughter will be his. By the time the driver pulls up outside a rambling farmhouse built a good few centuries before, Carlos is swept up in a reverie of exhilaration.

The truculent farmer leads the two clerics to an ancient barn, its ivy-covered exterior deceptively innocuous. Inside, beyond a row of stalls filled with restless cattle—a deliberate line of concealment—the floor of the barn lowers dramatically into a gambling pit. To Carlos’s amazement, over a hundred men are assembled there, all of them gamblers. It is here that the archbishop has brought him to meet with the count.

Gerhard von Tennen pushes his way through the crowd, watching all the time for the archbishop and the inquisitor. ’Tis a strange place to rendezvous, the count thinks, but knows he is in no position to protest.

In the straw-covered pit a badger squats growling, its long elegant snout twitching with terror. It runs back and forth, unable to escape for its tail is nailed to a heavy plank of wood.

‘Ten Reichstaler on the pug!’ the pit-master shouts, pointing to a small bull terrier snarling at the end of its owner’s chain.

Gerhard shakes his head. Turning, he catches sight of Maximilian Heinrich, who in the dress of a merchant is barely noticeable amongst the spectactors, a motley gang of bürgers, students and journeymen united by one obsession: the love of the wager.