The Witch's Trinity (29 page)

“Thanks be to you,” she said, stretching out a thin arm to him. She ate like a dog, moaning in the back of her throat as she gulped chunks down entire. Little pieces hit the sled floor and she grabbed these up quickly, as if one of us would sneak into her cage and take them first.

“Enjoy it, witch; it is surely better than child’s flesh,” taunted one of the villagers.

“At least you face your death with a full stomach,” sneered another.

Someone reached out and shook her cage, hard enough that she fell over onto her side. She did not sit up, but remained eating as she reclined. If she was a witch, she would have supped in the forest as I did. But she was famished beyond all reckoning.

Finally, there was nothing more for her to eat. And Matern, who had made a second trip into the alehouse, presented her with a mug of water. “Sit up,” he whispered.

Fearless child somehow. Perhaps his father’s return had bolstered him.

“Tell me now why you are thus trapped,” said the friar.

“I was in the woods following the men’s footprints, thinking they might have food to offer me. And when I came upon them, they seized me, saying I was of a dream. But I was only hungry, seeking a meal. I was never in anyone’s dream! And then they put me into the cage, saying I was the cause of all this village’s hunger.”

“And how was this determined?” asked the friar. “And, more importantly, by whom?”

“We called upon Ramwold’s wisdom,” said Lord Obermann, coming to stand next to him. “He read the runes, which told us that this woman had been our source of misery.”

The friar’s jaw tightened, and I winced. I stepped to the side so as to be better hidden. Only one of my eyes peered past the shoulder of the
Frau
before me.

“He
read the runes
?” the friar intoned.

The lord looked amazed at his anger. “Indeed,” he replied.

“The Church has soundly denounced such pagan and foolish means. Every time you throw down the heretical collection of sticks, our Savior suffers. You must cease this profanation instantly. You, sir, must pay special heed to make your confessions to God,” he said, pointing to Ramwold.

“We respect the church and its holy lessons,” said the lord. “But the runes have also spoken and we have listened. What further evidence do we need that this woman bewitched our harvest and sent all the animals far from here?”

“Interrogations are best left to the church. We have the most recent information; we have the
Malleus Maleficarum
to guide us in questioning women and learning of their deceit,” said the friar.

“But we are certain of our findings,” persisted Lord Obermann. “No sooner did we capture her than all manner of beasts presented themselves to our spears. We ate that night for the first time! And here we have brought back a feast’s worth, while she stays harmless behind the charm.”

“The charm?” asked the friar.

Lord Obermann pointed to Ramwold’s charm lying in the snow before the sled. The friar picked it up and cast it far beyond the crowd. It landed near Künne’s burying place.

A hiss rose from our village. I sank down, hearing the sound arise from the woman I cowered behind. Her child too offered what sound it could.

“Stop that!” yelled the friar.

But the hiss continued.

“Fetch it!” commanded Lord Obermann, and it was again Matern who jumped to do the bidding, racing through the crowd to retrieve the charm. Ramwold began a chant to counter Fronika’s malefaction, to counter her until the charm could put in place again.

“By God, stop that unholy sound!” yelled the friar.

Matern stooped at the friar’s robes and put the charm back into the snow. Then, praise God, he quickly buried himself into the larger, taller bodies of the crowd. I didn’t want the friar’s eyes on him, ever.

As soon as the charm was in place, the hiss ceased.

“I see you are all caught up in these pagan fears,” said the friar. “Let me interrogate the woman, as Rome calls for us to do, in a proper way. And then we may know for sure what danger she poses to the village and select the punishment that destroys her powers.”

“Burn her now!” screamed someone.

“Before our food spoils!”

“She may reanimate the beasts and they will run back into the forest!”

“Burn her! We have the wood ready!” And then the cry that made me put my fist to my mouth to bite: “This fool of a Dominican doesn’t understand that this woman cursed us!”

But the danger of the insult was quickly dispelled by numbers, for many more added their words. “Didn’t Rome tell you how to recognize a witch?” and “The runes let us eat! We would still be starving with your stupid book!”

“You ridiculous idiots!” shouted the friar. “The runes are no better than asking the snow! You are heretical fools to pay heed to sticks with symbols on them. Christ’s very jaw drops in horror for this village. Only a proper, Christ-ordained interrogation can demonstrate this woman’s guilt.”

“The runes told us to gather the hunters’ party! If we had not been in the woods, we would not have met our foe! The runes helped us twofold,” argued Lord Obermann.

“You dare to argue with a representative of His Holiness the Pope?” asked the friar. His face was red with rage. I did not know how the lord continued to stand there fearless. As they stood there with their backs turned to the cage, Herr Baum opened it. Fronika screamed as he pulled her out, but the sound was quickly swallowed by the village’s roar. The friar and Lord Obermann heeded the hue and cry not, still passionately arguing, their arms flailing and smoke gusting from their lips in the cold of the day.

They pulled Fronika so fast that her feet didn’t touch the ground. I thought of the first time I’d seen her, how she’d hovered with her feet near my head, above me. But this was the kind of hovering a human woman might do as her man hustled her too quickly.

The villagers continued to roar and suddenly my hiding space was gone as the woman in front of me surged with the crowd to move toward the burning place. I was forced then to move with her, to keep myself away from the friar’s sight. Quickly, running, we moved to the two stakes that had been erected in the ground with the carefully piled faggots around them.

They had been meant for me and Irmeltrud, but if I could remain invisible, I might not serve my time with the flames.

“Pray your last backward prayer,” taunted Herr Baum.

“No, God, no,” Fronika was screaming. “I believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost! I am no witch! No, God, please!”

The village entire was united in extreme fury. They were like wolves upon a rabbit. This was the sort of crazed anger I’d feared I would face. I couldn’t believe the noise; it was a calamity of shouts. As Fronika was staggering, forced by men’s longer legs across the snow, I stayed with the woman ahead of me and over her shoulder I saw the face of her tiny babe, staring at me, screaming with all abandon. I put my hands over my ears but then took them away. I needed my hands to keep my skirts above my feet so I didn’t trip on them. If I fell, I’d surely be stepped upon like a stone in the mud.

Now there were five men surrounding Fronika, shaking their fingers in her face and screaming at her such that she shrank down into a crouch. They tried to push her up onto the pile of wood. The baker produced rope by undoing the cord of his britches. “Let me have her before we burn her!” he yelled. She twisted her body sideways away from him. He grabbed her waist and began to gather up her skirts.

“No!” cried one of the other men. “Don’t foul yourself! A witch can murder by her contaminated fluids!”

All the same, they had to push him back. Finally he gave up. His wife, Frau Bäcker, was on her knees in the snow, gagging. He did not even notice.

They succeeded in pushing Fronika up to the stake, and they used the baker’s rope to tie her to it. She screamed for her very life and I wished that I might stop all of this, all this madness, and restore order to the village, put kindness back in everyone’s face, but this was an impossible thought. I could only take care for myself now, huddling behind the woman afore me and making sure I caught no eye.

For it did not escape my notice that there were two stakes up there.

And Fronika took only one.

17

We have often learned from the confessions of those who we have caused to be burned, that they have not been willing agents of witchcraft.

—M
ALLEUS
M
ALEFICARUM

T
o cover all of her hair, they put a rabbit pelt over her cap and pushed the stray locks under it. I touched my own stubbled head. How was it that in the matter of hours we had switched fates?

“Any last words?” asked Herr Baum as he stood next to her with a torch. He was not the only one. In the late afternoon dimness, a dozen or more held fire, eager to touch it to her skirts.

Already coming loose, her dark hair mingled with the gray of the rabbit’s, an odd sight. Strangely beautiful. Her lips were full red and lush in the white zone of her face. Had she only not been so thin and strange, living in the woods, she might have been the beauty of any village. The one who the men wished to partner with, her small hand gripped as the dancers honored the grain mill, her skirts flouncing with the kick and twirl. She might have been the one they all winked about as they threaded the ribbons of the maypole, her virginity they craved.

How different her lot would have been if she and her sister had not had to fend for themselves in the woods.

“I will say one thing,” said Fronika.

Herr Baum waved the torch impatiently.

“I brought nothing ill upon your village,” she said simply.

A unified shout from the crowd greeted her words. “Wicked liar!” they were all saying. “Bitch with a twisted mouth!”

“And do you pray to God?” asked Herr Baum quickly. A cinder from his torch drifted down onto his arm and he smacked at it with a swear.

“I pray to God for my salvation, in this realm or the heavenly one,” she answered.

Herr Baum nodded and without an instant of hesitation put his torch to her skirts. They didn’t catch instantly, as she was wet and cold from snow seeping into her cage, but in a moment a dry fiber caught and the skirts began to smoke.

The other torchbearers either climbed the pile of wood or leaned up onto their toes to touch fire to Fronika’s new trap. She screamed at each blaze, even though she couldn’t yet feel them. I felt the people on my right press into me, smashing me. They were making room for someone who was entering the crowd.

“Stop!” cried the friar. “You are not observing proper Roman protocol!”

Herr Baum, still standing next to the shrieking Fronika, whirled his torch toward the friar. “Fuck your Roman protocol!” he snarled. “We are Germans!”

The friar drew himself up and even from behind I could tell he wore the face he had when he showed me the pear. A face with all the compassion of an ice-blasted field. “Shall I make the report to Rome that this entire village relies on the reading of runes? Shall I say you reject Christ’s teachings and embrace heretical pagan beliefs?” he asked. “Do you understand that the holy army would quickly descend upon this village?”

“You create trouble that doesn’t exist!” cried Herr Abendroth, the kind man who had stopped hugging his wife to ask why I was naked and shorn. “You come here and get the young women pointing fingers at the old ones!”

I heard my name spoken throughout the crowd. Güde…Jost’s mother…she was no
Hexe
…. I lowered my head, frightened. Nor Künne…nor Irmeltrud…none of them were
Hexen
….

The woman before me turned her head and nodded. I heard only a snatch of her words, “Good Güde, who—” The baby peeped out at me, his face solemn.

“Do you dare to—” the friar began, but he got no further.

“Set those robes afire!” screamed Herr Kueper. It was the first time I’d seen him since the hunters had returned. He grinned in the flickering light of Fronika’s fire like a demon himself.

They seized the friar. He was fast, running and darting between them, but it was the length of his robes that undid him. It was child’s play for them to grasp the voluminous folds and bring him to an abrupt stop. Soon enough, they hoisted him up onto the second pile of logs, flailing and threatening them with the Pope’s vengeance, but they laughed at this crudely. Fronika was now burning in earnest, writhing as the hairs on her arms caught fire. She twisted on her pole with the agony of every inch of her in torment, and she screamed, a wail no human voice should utter. Her eyes were open wide and her mouth a black void such that I saw the pinkness of her throat beyond. She blinked in terror, her face moving through a dozen expressions within a mortal moment, screaming and crazed with anguish as her body transformed to smoke.

Next to her, the men worked to tie up the friar, tearing a sashlike strand from his robe to make a rope. The smell clogged my throat again, the smell of human flesh rendering to oil and then to ash. I couldn’t stand it.

“God will favor you, Fronika!” I screamed to her, but she was not possessed of reason anymore. She was a flame, a scrap of something fluttering in the wind, bright and flickering and somehow, although no longer human, creating the most damnable shriek one could ever hear. Irmeltrud was suddenly at my side. She had Alke and Matern’s hands in each of hers. I could tell by the sharp profile of her knuckles that she was clenching the children’s hands so hard it hurt them.