The Ravens’ Banquet (30 page)

At this, the two of them pushed back their benches, got up, and walked slowly over, their hobnailed boots tramping on the wooden floor like the tattoo at an execution. They neared me, smiling, tankards in hand.

“Oh, aye, the
women
. They were taken too, at least those that were taken alive,” said the pot-bellied gaoler who had answered me before, one hand tucked into the belt of his greasy buff jerkin. “The town guard that brought them in says that they all be witches.”

“And what would you venture to say about that?” asked his companion, a lanky assfaced Hector who wore an overly large and torn doublet of grey silk that had obviously been the suit of someone else, some unlucky miscreant in circumstances much similar to my own.

“I know not of what you speak,” I replied. And I shuffled backwards into my cell to lean against a wall. I had been too sheepish in my entreaties to Rosemunde to leave the forest. Now the coven was destroyed and I knew not who lived and who did not. If I had only dragged her out alone – she, me and but one bag of silver – then even now we might be away north, safe from the enemy. But the harsh music of my leg irons mocked me for the bufflehead that I was.

The gaoler with the bursting paunch chuckled. “My comrade here… Lothar,” at which the other gave a nod with a pull of his crumpled felt hat, “he says he reckons you were with them just for the rutting. And good sport by the looks of the ones I have seen kept below. The only cock among all those Devil’s hens.” And they both laughed again.

“But as for me,” continued the fat one, “I reckon you is one too. Be you a witch,
arschloch
?”

“I am no witch,” I said quietly.

“And you’re not from hereabouts either, are you,
arschloch
?”

At his taunt I said nothing. He grinned and then tossed the contents of his tankard into my face.

“When the magistrates are finished with you my friend, you’ll be anything they want you to be.”

He shook his head in disgust. He was right to. I was in that moment a most wretched creature: dirty, unshaven and now dripping with stale ale.

“I think that you’re mistaken,” said Lothar. “He’s no
Hexer
. He’s hardly even a man.”

And then they left me to return to their little table and their gaming and toping. They paid me no further heed and as the hours passed I grew a terrible thirst and begged them for a drink. They mocked me again but, after a time, the fat one brought over two buckets, one empty and one half filled with brackish water.

“One be for shitting and pissing, the other for drinking. Have a care lest you mix them up.” And this set the skinny one off again with laughter from across the room.

The day rolled on and as night came down, I grew chilled laying on the stones. My gaolers came and went, ignoring me in the main, and I suffered through the long night sleeping only for what seemed a few fitful moments before gasping into wakefulness again.

The next morning, my gaolers brought me a bowl of cold cabbage soup and half a loaf of dry bread. I set upon it as if it were the Lord Mayor’s table, consuming all to the last drop and crumb. Seated on the stones, palms on my knees, I thought about Rosemunde. I feared whether she was still alive, whether she might be tied on some machine of torture down below, whether I was in her thoughts as she was in mine. Why had she not listened to my counsel when time was with us?

And Christoph. By Christ’s Blood, our little partnership had unraveled fully and in so doing had sealed both our fates. But
his
before mine, it did seem. That he would have betrayed all – and his share of the treasure – out of blind jealousy for me and Rosemunde, confounded me. He was bad to the bone, but he had been no fool in the long year that we had soldiered as comrades. He had saved my life from Samuel’s mad hand and in the end I had taken his. Maybe Christoph would yet have the last laugh. Already my thoughts had turned to what would befall me, accused of witchcraft in this place. Sweet Jesus, when I was a boy at home they had hanged some poor goodwife in Somerset for casting spells and abusing townfolk with her shrewish tongue. Here, in the German lands, I would face the stake and the fire.

My thoughts for Rosemunde quickly changed instead to thoughts of my own fate as my mind played more and more on what the future held for me. And the fear ate away at me, a ravenous beast that I could no more hold at bay than the coming of night.

Some time about midmorning, they took me away. They said nothing to me, only unshackling my leg and taking me down the spiraling steps and out of the tower. There was a party of Goslar’s town guard awaiting to escort me. My heart pounded so hard in my chest I thought it would leap from my mouth. The fat gaoler put my hands in irons and off I was led, a partizan blade at the small of my back and half a dozen more at either side.

Goslar was but a dream as it passed by me on either side. The tall walls that girded this old Free City of the Empire, reminded me of Münden, as did the great houses. But all of this was but little taken in by my senses so sad broken was my condition. It took all my strength to refrain from shaking. We came to a waterwheel and mill, churning madly at a swift white bubbling stream, and then over a stone bridge where we entered the heart of the town. Burghers stopped and watched as our sad procession came through. Some shouted and taunted, some whispered, others scurried away as we marched up the High Street and into the marketplace. And suddenly the street opened wide, and we were in the square, a mass of shouting people, braying animals, and cartmen. But even they gave way as we came through, parting like water before the prow of a ship. All their eyes were upon me, the prisoner. My ears heard “
Hexer
!” out in the crowd whereupon the Guard closed in about me and redoubled their pace, the point of the partizan pricking my backside as I stumbled upon the cobbles.

A tall, red-stone, double-towered church rose up before me, the guardian of the market, and ringing the square stood bright whitewashed houses and shops, shutters cast open wide for business. The great turret and clock on the guildhall belted out the quarter hour, its little dancing mechanical figures of silver miners high above us paying no heed to my spectacle. We headed straight for a long porticoed building at the foot of the great church and entered it upon the square, climbing its steep steps to the double oaken doors.

The guards shoved the slower townsfolk from our path with a few deft flicks from the hafts of their halberds, and we entered into the Town Hall of Goslar. The sergeant banged thrice on the heavily carved black door of the inner chamber. And we waited. The door slowly opened inwards and I and my escort entered.

In spite of my agitation, I know my mouth gaped and my eyes widened as I entered the council chamber for I found myself in the presence of Jesus Christ and all the Saints. Every wall, yea the ceiling too, came alive with splendour. There before me were the Three Holy Prophets, the Magi, and the Evangelists, and in front of me the Saviour Himself at the Temple. Above me, a heavenly host of angels blew their horns from billowing clouds. All the scenes of the Good Book played out there for the beholder to see and wonder.

Here was I to be judged for consorting with the Devil and his unholy agents of the Harz. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes at my confusion, my fear, and my shame.

Against the far wall a long table blocked entrance to the Holy Temple of Jerusalem painted on the wall behind. A dozen burghers sat in array, all attired in black. Some wore skullcaps, others more conventional black broad-brimmers, but all were long-bearded, hard of face, and grim. Other burghers stood or sat at either side of the chamber: guildmen, aldermen, or judges I knew not. But they stopped their chattering as I was led in and turned their eyes to my pathetic form.

The Town Guard remained, flanking me, while others took up stations near to the high table.

The chief magistrate (for that is who I assumed him to be) waited until all footfalls had ceased and only a few scattered coughs could be heard from the assembly. Then he spoke.

“Prisoner, state your name and your trade!”

I tried to speak, but my tongue clove to my mouth such that I could barely mumble who I was. I tried swallowing again and rasped out that I was a soldier.

The magistrate’s neck shot forward like a pigeon’s. “That was inaudible. Speak louder and be quick about it!” he said, much annoyed, his little curling goat’s beard waggling.

I coughed to clear my throat and spoke again. “My name is Richard Treadwell and I am a poor soldier.”

“Is he a foreigner?” asked the magistrate loudly, turning to the colleague at his right. And before this gentleman could answer he erupted again, shouting across the table to the guard. “You there, Captain! I say, is he a foreigner? Doesn’t he speak our tongue?”

“The officer stepped forward, slamming the butt of his halberd onto the floor. “Yes, my lord, we believe he is a Dane.”

“Well, prisoner, can you make yourself heard?”

The old man had a bad squint and as he addressed me I found it difficult to know just which eye that I should be looking into. Best, I thought, to look askance. I asked for some water to be given to me.

The magistrate leaned back in his chair and waved his hand, again much annoyed at the slow start to the proceedings.

“Someone fetch this wretch a drink that we may finally begin this examination!”

A soldier unlocked my irons and then thrust a jack into my shaking hands and I drank deeply.

“Now then, from whence do you come?”

The jack was wrenched from my grasp and I felt a push at my back from a guardsman.

“I have come from England and have been in these lands nigh on one year,” I replied, my voice sounding like the croak of a frog.

“Are you a deserter?” asked a skull capped burgher at the magistrate’s side. “Perhaps from Lord Mansfeld’s army? How did you come to be on the Kroeteberg where you were taken?”

“I was lost.”

My answer was received with such an outburst of laughter from the spectators that the chief magistrate had to slam his fist on the table to regain some order.

“Enough! We have established that the prisoner can speak and be understood. Captain, bring in the woman that we may establish the nature of the crimes.”

Looking on Rosemunde again was to see a different creature entirely. I had never seen her amid the surroundings of civilisation, only in the dark green halls of the forest. Her presence discomforted me as greatly as if a wild animal had been led into the room. She belonged not to the world that we now found ourselves in. The very sight of her filled me with confusion and dread. Her presence was almost an unnatural one, made more manifest by the symbolic company of the Saints and the Lord of Hosts who she had so openly spurned.

She crossed my path and our eyes found each other. The look she gave me was the same I had seen many times: a puzzling mixture of warmth and detachment. But I had longed to see unquestioning love in those green pools. But it was not there. I could not take my gaze from her as she was led across and to my left, some ten paces away from where I stood. She was half in profile to me and it appeared that her face was more bony and hollow than I had noticed before. Her honey-red hair was unkempt and wildly astray, her kirtle torn and covered in stains. Her milky white legs and feet were bare and bruised but she stood firm, firmer than I, her feet placed squarely apart, her arms loosely at her sides. She did not turn back to glance on me.

The ripple of voices that worked through the chamber, whispers magnified by the numbers that witnessed these proceedings, became so loud that the chief magistrate again angrily called for silence, enforced by the captain of the guard.

As silence prevailed, the first salvo of the magistrates echoed around the room.

“Woman, you stand accused of witchcraft, blasphemy, and of causing murder to those who were sent to apprehend you in your unlawful occupation of the lands of the Duke. This tribunal is tasked with gaining your confession and the names of your accomplices.”

And Rosemunde laughed. She laughed full and hearty without a trace of fear or doubt.

“Foolish, proud
men
!” she cried out, “To think that you can extinguish Holda’s fire by taking me and my sisters! The White Lady scorns you through me, her willing vessel!”

My knees had begun shaking again and my stomach turning over and over such that I thought I should cast up what little was still in my belly.

A tall and gaunt commissioner stood and thrust out his finger at her.

“Silence, witch! Your threats have no power here. You will address the questions put to you.”

She smiled back at the old man. “So, your dead god is to protect you, is he? All these dainty paintings here at your backs. I spit upon them – and you!”

A guard seized her by the arm and threw her hard upon her knees. But she shook his grip off and tried to rise. He knocked her aside with the haft of his weapon.

“That is enough!” cried the chief magistrate. “Restrain her if she gives cause for disturbance again. What she says is near upon good enough of a confession but we shall carry out these proceedings according to the Law. That she consorts with the Devil will soon enough be established.”

Rosemunde’s voice was half a cry. “That is a damned lie! I be no worshipper of the Devil. You seek to make me what I am not!”

“See how she contrarily dissembles, my lord,” said another commissioner. “Tis proof enough she seeks to confound our efforts.”

The chief magistrate nodded. No other motive could have entered his mind, that was clear enough for me to see.

“Let us move to questioning the soldier that we may find if he is witness only or accomplice.”

And it now became clear what my role was to be in this dark play that I found myself an unwilling actor in.

The chief magistrate looked over to me. “Listen, fellow, and attend well. It is stated in article forty-four of the
Constitutio Criminalis Carolina
, that the offer to teach magic, or to threaten others with magic, is
maleficium
.”