The Witch of Cologne

‘You are dreaming, my love. You are imagining that you are writing a letter to me and that I am still in the living world.’

Startled, she jumps to her feet and for the first time notices that she is wearing her wedding gown. But the plain velveteen dress which she wore when they stood in the small Calvinist forest chapel near Nijmegen, before a minister they knew would not ask questions, is now miraculously embroidered with silver thread and beaded with pearls.

‘Am I still in the living world?’ she whispers, terrified of the answer.

‘Your spirit is at the gateway, but it is time to join with me.’

She looks over to the window set high in the wall of her small study. Outside it is brilliant sunlight, yet inside all is shadow.

‘Which last rite would you administer, my love? And which afterlife do you promise, as I have faith in neither?’

‘But you have faith in me?’

‘Always. I always did, Detlef, and forgive me if I ever faltered or questioned your love, for I know now that it was merely fear.’

‘I loved you anyway,’ he replies with that characteristic shyness she recognises from the first time he ever uttered those words.

Then she takes his mouth to hers and tastes him. Remembering their lovemaking, desire bolts through both of them, weaving their spirits together again.

‘Then this shall be our eternity,’ he whispers, his voice rippling like heat.

Ruth, her body drenched in sweat, tosses in the filthy bed. The air is rank, the curtains drawn, the window bolted. A bloodstained towel lies tossed on the floor beside a pail filled with soiled bedclothes. In the corner is a bucket of vomit.

Jacob lies sprawled across the foot of the bed, his arms wrapped around Aaron’s sword. He has been asleep for hours after keeping vigil for three days, sword in hand, beside his dying mother.

Outside in the streets of the Hague a distant roar rises up from the direction of the castle. It grows louder as the cacophony rolls towards their lodging. Jacob wakes and immediately swings the heavy sword in the air, ready to defend his mother. He glances over at her and reaches out to touch her face. She feels cooler, as if the fever has broken. Momentarily frightened, he places a hand on her chest…a heartbeat is faintly perceptible.

Don’t die, you can’t, not yet. Not before I am grown and can look after us both, Jacob thinks, staring down at her grey face. I shall build a house with a garden, and there shall be an orchard with a river running by it, and a bridge. And we shall live there together, warm and well fed. There shall be geese in the yard and a forest for me to hunt in. You shall never have to work again and shall wear a new dress every week.

The boy’s ramblings are broken by the noise of a crowd approaching, running, shouting, the banging of drums, all building until the roar beats against the windows and walls.

Jacob pulls open the shutters. A torn flag of the Republic covered with human excrement bobs madly up and down below him.

‘Down with the Republic! The de Witts are dead!’

The shout rises up from the street.

The boy leans out to see a mass of people, flushed with excitement, many with blood spattering their clothes, singing and dancing, drunk with power and excitement. Women with their breasts hanging out, dishevelled drunken soldiers waving the Orangists’ colours, red-faced youths pushing violently through the throng, blowing loudly on horns.

The horde winds into the narrow lane like a demented snake, filling it until there is little room to move. Packed shoulder to shoulder, the crowd becomes as one, waving bloodstained strips of cloth, flowers torn from passing stalls, ripped flags, rocking from side to side, drinking from casks handed from man to man.

An object is lifted high above the crowd, impaled on the end of a pike. Jacob realises with dismay that it is a body, the stomach split open, its entrails spiralling out like macabre ribbons, the eyes white, the mouth screaming. Just as suddenly a second body appears beside the first. It is a puppet show of dancing horror as the corpses, blood flying from them, bounce absurdly past the window. Despite the blackened cheeks and missing chunks of hair, Jacob recognises the two men instantly.

‘The pensionary and his brother are dead! The de Witts are finished!’ someone shouts, only to be drowned out by a huge cheer.

A loud scratching sound causes Jacob to swing back to the room. Crouched in the corner is a gigantic raven, its shimmering purple head crammed up against the ceiling. It turns one glistening black eye to the boy then arches a huge claw towards the feverish woman on the bed.

Jacob slams the window shut and, lifting his sword, moves slowly towards the immense bird of death. A grating rustling fills the bedroom as the raven ruffles its wings, indifferent to the child. Ruth moans very softly. The massive spectre cocks its shiny head and slowly a huge grey scaly foot emerges from the blue-black feathers. The claw descends cautiously to the floor, the long yellow nails scratching against the polished wood. With a loud thump the colossal bird hops once towards the bed.

‘No!’

Jacob rushes the raven, sword aimed directly at its breast. To his amazement, the blade runs right through as the apparition breaks up with a deafening caw, only to manifest again, this time perched on the end of the bed itself.

‘You can’t take her! You can’t!’

Moaning, Ruth opens her eyes and lifts a feeble arm towards Jacob. As he leans down she pulls him to her.

‘My child, promise me you will always remember who your parents were…You must fight tyranny always, live for the freedom of belief…the freedom of thought. This is our gift to you…’