The Witch of Cologne

‘Thank you, sire.’

Detlef swings back to his audience.

‘For the benefit of the jury, Meisterin Brassant, I would like you to describe what you saw Fräulein Saul do to the child after the birth.’

‘But she cannot. I had administered a draught to stop her pain,’ Ruth interjects, now worried that she might become victim to the woman’s fictions.

‘Despite the opiate I saw what happened.’

‘And what was that?’ Detlef gently asks, trying to coax both witnesses into a friendlier discourse.

‘My child was born blue and lifeless. I saw with my own eyes the witch holding the poor thing up by its feet. It was dead. It was then that I started screaming.’

‘The child was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck, Canon. It is not an uncommon occurrence. I had to cut the cord and peg it while the babe was still emerging in order to save both mother and babe. I also knew that if I untangled the cord quickly enough and brought air into its lungs, the child would live.’

The jurors, captivated by the sudden flourish of activity, sit up as Ruth gazes pensively at the misshapen parody of a baby lying before her.

‘Fräulein Saul, would it be possible to demonstrate just how you brought the child back to life?’

Ruth tentatively picks up the stuffed doll.

‘As the baby’s head hung from the matrix I manipulated it to free the cord. I pegged it in two places and cut so as to save mother and child from bleeding to death. I then moved the babe so I could free the first shoulder until the rest followed easily, as is the custom in birth. After it was freed, I placed my mouth over the nose and mouth and sucked to clear the passages for breath. I then spat out the birthing fluids and again covered the babe’s mouth, this time to breathe air into the tiny creature.’

‘What happened then?’

‘The child finally breathed life into itself.’

‘There was no witchcraft nor magic used?’

‘Canon, I am a midwife. I use only the practices of my art and some medical knowledge I have learnt in the Lowlands.’

‘But I saw something,’ Abigail Brassant blurts out. ‘There was a circle of ashes and a talisman, a witch’s thing she had hung at the foot of the bed…’

Meister Brassant pushes his wife back down in her seat. ‘Hush, woman, you are full of such fancies!’

‘I am not! I saw Lilith, I swear! Satan’s dame herself, floating before me, one long leg—the leg of a screech owl—reaching out for me with the shining bell of Hades caught in its claw!’

‘She’s right, but it was not a leg of Lilith that Meisterin Brassant saw, rather an instrument of scientia nova which she mistook while under the influence of the opiate I administered. It is an object I use to listen to the heart beating beneath the flesh, a wondrous device sent to me from Holland. I needed to follow the life force in mother and child.’

Detlef watches the jury as Groot hands to the first bürger the device made from a single length of cow gut with a small cap of brass fastened to the end. The merchant, a portly tailor, sniffs the brass cap, sneezes, then places it on his wrist.

‘The end is placed in the ear while the small cap goes over the chest,’ Ruth explains, anxious that the object should not be misinterpreted.

Amused, the tailor puts the end of the tube in his ear and places the cap on the chest of the bürger beside him, a scrawny undertaker. Shocked by the deafening heartbeat which suddenly fills his head, the tailor tears off the listening device.

‘’Tis indeed wondrous!’ He turns to the undertaker, ‘Wim, for a cadaverous slip of a man you are thunderously alive.’

The instrument is eagerly seized by the other members of the jury who, one by one, listen to each other’s heartbeat.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ Detlef shouts over the clamour. ‘As you see, it is definitely scientia nova not the black arts that makes Fräulein Saul an eminent and highly successful member of her profession.’

‘’Tis true,’ exclaims the third member of the jury, a robust ruddy-faced sailor in his twenties from the influential guild of fishmongers. ‘She delivered my Maria of twins and both were bonny and very healthy. It would be a crime to wrongfully execute such a valuable midwife. I say we acquit her with no more ado,’ the young man finishes forcefully, repeating with naive sincerity the line Detlef rehearsed with him barely two hours before.

The other bürgers, thankful for the prospect of liberation from the unbearably stuffy chamber, join in with eager yeas.

Confident of a victory Detlef glances at the judge, who winks back. Lifting the hammer, a veritable mallet in his tiny hands, the magistrate slams it down onto his lectern. ‘Silence in court!’

Immediately the merchants cease their chattering. The magistrate, immensely pleased now that he has managed to flex his authority, pulls up his shoulders and adopts a fierce visage which fools no one.