The Witch of Cologne

‘His Highness Maximilian Heinrich to you.’

Groot bows low again, muttering apologies as he backs out of the chamber.

‘And pray reduce your bulk to a shadow as you leave these premises!’

Detlef slams the door shut on the intrusive cleric. For a moment he leans against the painted wood. Groot’s aspirations irritate him; aware that he would trade loyalty for advancement Detlef realises the cleric knows too much. But there will always be a part of the canon that is exhilarated by the possibility of betrayal.

Danger is an aphrodisiac; Detlef is more decadent than he would care to admit and far more of a free thinker than Groot could ever imagine. He thinks of the revolutionary treatises he has hidden in his chambers: papers from Holland containing the latest philosophical and religious debates which, if discovered, could see him burn as a heretic.

A proverb of his father’s floats back into his memory: information is the gunpowder that both builds and destroys empires. The old viscount, addicted to the battlefield, had drummed the saying into his second son, whom he always regarded as stupidly idealistic. It would be wise to keep a record of the youths Groot favours, the canon reminds himself, should the ambition of his assistant render him untrustworthy.

Birgit moves up behind Detlef and winds her arms around his waist, pressing her breasts against him through the thin calico.

‘Who is the inquisitor?’

‘Some zealot Emperor Leopold has thrust upon us. Probably another bloodhound for the nervous sovereign who is worried about Maximilian Heinrich’s lax French manners. Leopold fears that the archbishop—like a typical Wittelsbach prince—is in bed with King Louis and plans to cuckold him behind his back.’

‘Is Heinrich such a coquette?’

‘Maximilian Heinrich is a politician.’

‘Is it a contradiction to be both politician and a man of God?’

‘Nay. But Heinrich sees no difference between campaigning for God and campaigning for his Parisian friends.’

‘And yourself? Be politician for me,’ Birgit murmurs seductively as she runs her fingers across his torso then moves down to bury them into his soft fleece. She loves to reach for him blind like this. Taking him between her fingers, marvelling at the way he always blossoms under her touch.

This time he does not move away. Reaching over his shoulder he lifts a strand of her hair.

‘You wish for me to usurp Heinrich?’

He curls the lock once around; it tightens but he does not yet pull.

‘They say the emperor’s nephew, Prince Ferdinand, will be visiting the count your brother this hunting season…’

‘And you want me to speak to the prince and secure a title for you and your impotent bürger?’

He keeps winding the hair around as she continues to caress him.

‘You forget that I was once a von Dorfel, a rank equal to—nay, above—any Wittelsbach.’

Her voice detached from her actions only excites him further. He closes his eyes for a second, standing perfectly still as tendrils of pleasure burn up his body.

‘Birgit, you are mistaken. Your loyalties are misplaced, they belong to the old world. The future is the new world which belongs to the bürgers and the plain men of Luther.’

Instead of answering she frees him from his gown. With his sex between both hands, pressing herself hard against his back, she imagines that his body is an extension of her own, that the throbbing organ between her palms is part of her own flesh. Oh to be a man, to have all fortune’s paths laid out before one: what she would have done, could have done, she thinks. Allowing love to delude her, she imagines this is what they are: one being. Irrevocably bound by both ambition and destiny. For a moment she cleaves to him like this.

‘Why, Detlef, could you be a heretic?’

‘Unfortunately I lack the passion. We differ, Birgit. You are passionately ambitious, whereas I have passion only to forget what I have become.’

‘Grant my husband and me our title and I promise I will reinstate your faith.’

She strokes him faster, sensing his climbing pleasure. He laughs dryly, his voice catching in his throa

t.

‘Do you think that by overthrowing Heinrich and being elected archbishop I should find my vocation?’