Dancing in the Palm of His Hand (27 page)

Katharina lifted her head. “Will God stop those awful men from hurting Mama?”

“The truth will stop them. And innocence.” The priest's words lacked conviction, as if he did not believe them himself.

Eva touched his black sleeve. “
Bitte
, confess me, Father.”

He scanned the cell. “What sins could you have committed while confined in this place?”

“Wicked thoughts.”

Father Herzeim placed one hand on his breviary and the other on her bowed head.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have been weak. I have been guilty of losing faith, and I have doubted God's love and protection.” Eva paused.

“Is there anything else you wish to confess?”

“I have thought wicked things about the commissioners...and about my daughter.” Eva took a hiccupping breath. “I have blamed her when the fault is not hers.” She began again to cry. Had she not wept every tear within her?

“
Let the day perish wherein I was born
,” she whispered, feeling Job's curse in the marrow of her bones. “
Let darkness, and the shadow of death cover it, let a mist overspread it, and let it be wrapped up in bitterness
.”

She felt his hand cup her chin. “
Nein,
Eva
, nein
. Do not lose faith. There are those who will be punished, severely, in the eternal life to come, but you are not among them.”

“But what of this life, Father?” She looked up and saw a tear threatening to spill onto his own cheek.

“You are forgiven,” he said. “Everything.
Ego te absolvo, in nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti
.”

Fraulein Spatz stared at her damaged hands. The mutilated thumbs made Lutz cringe. Herr Hampelmann was wrong about them feeling no pain. Lutz and Father Herzeim had visited the midwife earlier that day, and she'd been nearly out of her mind with pain, both arms useless, pulled from their sockets. The visit had been brief, very brief. Frau Lamm had spat at them only one word:
schwein
.

Fraulein Spatz talked to herself as she rocked back and forth. “I'm dead...dead. They'll burn me. Lies. All of it. I never did those things. The midwife never did those things. Why didn't God protect me? I must be wicked. I must be guilty.” She turned to Father Herzeim. “What can I do?”

Lutz stepped toward her. “When you are questioned again, you must retract your lies. You must insist on your innocence.”

Father Herzeim grabbed Lutz's arm and spun him away from Fraulein Spatz. “Don't do this,” he whispered. “If she has truly confessed, it is done. If she withdraws her confession, they'll torture her until she confesses again. Doing what you ask will only prolong her agony.”

“But if she's put to the test and maintains her innocence, they'll have to believe her.”

The priest grimaced. “You saw Frau Lamm. Do you think this girl can withstand that? And there is more Herr Freude can do, much more. He has only begun with Frau Lamm. Because of Fraulein Spatz's confession, the commissioners have all the evidence they need to proceed to the third degree. The girl would never survive it.”

“But if she's innocent, God will help her. He protects the innocent. Doesn't he?” Lutz could hear the pleading in his own voice.

Father Herzeim put a hand on his cedar cross. “Do not encourage her to retract her confession. That will only make it worse for her...and more dangerous for you.”

“But what can I do?”

“Nothing. She is my responsibility now.”

Stunned, Lutz stepped back. Nothing? He could do nothing? He brought his pomander to his nose. The scent of hartshorn was unpleasantly sharp, but it kept him from fainting.

“What can I do?” said Fraulein Spatz, echoing Lutz's question.

Looking older and more haggard than Lutz had ever seen him, Father Herzeim knelt down beside the girl. “Unless you truly believe you can withstand more torture, do not retract your confession to the commissioners.”

“No more,” she mouthed. Tears made dirty trails down her cheeks and dripped from her chin.

Lutz felt hollow, impotent, useless. He had failed, utterly, to protect this girl. Why hadn't God protected her?

“You must confess your sins,” said Father Herzeim.

Fraulein Spatz bowed her head, tried to make the sign of the cross, then cried out in pain. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I lied to the commissioners. All of it lies. Frau Lamm will die because of me,” she wailed. “They're right. I am wicked. And evil. I am a murderer.”

“
Nein
, child, you are not evil. And if you are a murderer, it is only because they have made you so. It is their sin, not yours.” Father Herzeim's words were hard and bitter. He made the sign of the cross over her. “
Ego te absolvo, in nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti
. All of your sins are forgiven, Fraulein Spatz.”

“Forgiven?” She did not lift her head. “Even Frau Lamm's death?”

“Forgiven.”

“Will I burn in hell?”

“If you have confessed the truth now, you will not burn in hell.
Ego te absolvo, in nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti
.”

“Will I burn here?”

Father Herzeim laid a hand on her shoulder. “If you do not retract your confession to the commission, you will be beheaded or strangled first.” His voice cracked.

She slumped against the wall. “Thanks be to God.”

Shifting on the hard wooden bench, Lutz glanced around the crowded cathedral. His own thoughts buzzed so loudly he could hardly hear the priest's droning voice. He could not remove Fraulein Spatz from his mind. He had little doubt now that she'd confessed the truth to Father Herzeim. She'd been terrified for the fate of her soul.

Lutz rubbed his temples, trying to ease the throbbing. Would he ever know such torment that beheading or strangling would seem a mercy? That he'd be grateful to God for such a mercy?

How could Father Streng be so certain the young woman was guilty? Lutz craned his neck, looking for the young priest, who sat near the front of Saint Kilian's with the other members of the Cathedral Chapter. Father Streng also claimed it was the Devil who helped Frau Lamm, not God. How could he be so sure? As a Jesuit, did he have some secret knowledge that Lutz wasn't privy to? But Father Herzeim was a Jesuit, and he and Father Streng couldn't be further apart on the question of who was helping the midwife. Father Herzeim had even made Lutz doubt his own certainty about Frau Lamm's guilt.

He felt a shiver of fear go through him. Was it possible that he – and Father Herzeim – were being deluded by the Devil into believing the accused were innocent? Perhaps that's why God hadn't helped them. They were guilty. Or was the Devil, with all his powers, deluding the other commissioners into believing that innocent women were guilty? Either way, the Devil won.

Lutz had thought himself into a tangle, a maze with no escape. He felt as if his head would explode, as if he were living a nightmare. One huge unending nightmare that had encompassed them all. Where was truth?

He looked up. It seemed wrong that the sun should stream through the stained-glass windows and warm the cathedral with cheery rainbows of light. Everything should be in black and shades of grey.

Maria elbowed him in the belly. Lutz moved to his knees, folded his hands for prayer, and tried to listen to the priest, but his thoughts – and his gut – churned, bringing a burning pain to his chest and throat. He stared at the crucifix. Where was God in all of this? Lutz had seen the doubt in Father Herzeim's eyes, heard it in his voice. The priest didn't believe that God protected the innocent. At least not in this earthly life. Why were the commissioners so certain he did? Lutz studied the suffering figure of Christ. His own son had been innocent, and God hadn't even protected him.

Lutz bowed his head. Dear Father, he prayed, forgive my doubts. Forgive my weakness. But please give me a sign. Show me your will. Grant me the strength and courage to do whatever it is I must do. If they are truly innocent, help me to protect Frau Lamm and Frau Rosen. If they are not, help me to know that.

Maria touched him lightly on the shoulder, her concerned face close to his. He looked around. No one else was kneeling. He slid back onto the bench and scrubbed his face with his hands. He hadn't slept at all the night before, tossing and turning, tangling the bed linens, soaking them with sweat. Maria had wondered aloud if he were ill. Perhaps he was. For the first time in his life, even the thought of food was revolting.

Maria slipped her hand into his. He forced a smile. He wanted desperately to talk with her about the hearings and about his doubts. And his fears. He wanted her reassurance that he was
not a monster. But Maria was already afraid. Twenty times a day, her hand fluttered like a bird across her chest, making the sign of the cross. Every morning, she came to Saint Kilian's to light candles and pray. Telling her anything more would only add to her terror.

“St. Augustine himself has written,” shouted the priest from the raised pulpit, “
that he most firmly holds and in no way doubts that not only every pagan, but every Jew, heretic, and schismatic will go to the eternal fire, which is prepared for the Devil and his angels, unless, before the end of his life, he be reconciled with and restored to the Catholic Church.”

Eternal fire
. Lutz had never given it much thought before, but now he wondered. Would all those people, whose only sin was to believe the wrong thing about God, really be condemned to burn? It would be heresy to voice that question aloud. Lutz searched the cathedral for Father Herzeim. The Jesuit's face was unreadable even as he listened attentively to the priest. Damn, if in nothing else, his friend was right in one thing: people ought to be allowed to debate and discuss, to give voice to their doubts without fearing for their very lives.

“Indeed,” the priest intoned, “one has only to look at the evidence to see that the poor harvests and pestilence now plaguing Würzburg are the wages of sin. And sloth.” He dipped his head toward Prince-Bishop Philipp Adolf, who sat at the very front of Saint Kilian's in an ornately adorned cubicle. Lutz imagined the deep scowl the priest's words had brought to His Grace's face. Wages of sin and sloth. The Prince-Bishop must be seething.

“In his forty years as Prince-Bishop,” continued the priest, “the great Julius Echter approved the execution orders for hundreds of witches. In the year before he died, 300 were beheaded and burned. And Würzburg knew peace and prosperity.”

The priest lowered his voice, almost to a whisper, yet his
words resonated through the cathedral. “But then came Prince-Bishop Johann Gottfried. In seven years, less than a dozen killed.” His lip curled. “Apparently he had no interest in witches.”

His voice grew louder, its pitch higher. “And that is why Würzburg suffers today. The wrath of God is not diminishing in this age of wars, privations, and pestilence, as the world goes through its agonizing death throes approaching the end-time. Instead, God's wrath grows fiercer everywhere, because all manner of sins and vices are gaining the upper hand in this Godless world.”

The priest raised his arms in a sweeping gesture toward the Prince-Bishop. “But now His Grace is putting things to right. Despite the grave dangers to his own person, he is pursuing the Devil's agents with utmost zeal. Würzburg shall once again be a city of the righteous, a city of God.”

Lutz imagined the Prince-Bishop's scowl relaxing into a broad smile.

How many of those hundreds put to death had been innocent? And who was responsible? The Prince-Bishop or the commissioners? Or God himself, for allowing the deaths to happen, for not protecting the innocent? Lutz thought of Father Herzeim's book, the one he kept hidden.
But when the great searcher of hearts shall appear, your wicked deeds shall be revealed, you tyrants, sanguinary judges, butchers, torturers...the truth you have trampled under foot and buried shall arise and condemn you
.

Where was truth?

Lutz felt as powerless and inconsequential as one of the motes floating in the rainbows of light, moved hither and thither by unseen forces.

God or Satan? What force was moving him?

Judge Steinbach tapped the gavel, startling Hampelmann, who'd been paging through his ledger, but thinking about his father. And Eva. Together. It made his stomach turn.

“We've lost another one,” said the judge. “Fraulein Spatz is dead. Her throat slit.”

“Oh my God,” said Lutz. “That poor girl.”

“Poor girl?” Father Streng threw down his quill. “This is exactly what I feared. We stopped the questioning too soon. Now the Devil has killed our most valuable informant.”

“How can you be so sure it was the Devil?” said Lutz.

“It's just like Frau Bettler,” said the priest. “The Devil kills them before they can reveal anything more.”

Lutz's face took on its customary look of befuddlement. “But if the Devil can come into the jail with a knife,” he said, “why doesn't he just slit the throats of the guards and free the accused?”

Behind his spectacles, Father Streng rolled his eyes. “Herr Lutz, surely you must realize that God himself assists us in our work. He does not allow the Devil to liberate witches who've been arrested. Nor does the Devil want to free them. They're of no use to him once they've been revealed as witches. He wants them to die before they can escape from him by obtaining pardon from God through sacramental confession.”

Hampelmann had heard these arguments before, but he wasn't entirely convinced that the deaths of witches in jail were always the work of the Devil. There were times when he suspected Frau Brugler of having altogether too much pity for the
accused and of smuggling to them the means to take their own lives. It always amazed him that, even with all their contact with witches, so many jailers and guards failed to comprehend just how dangerous they were. Only a few months ago, the Prince-Bishop had had to order the execution of a guard who'd helped an accused witch to escape. That was part of their menace: witches could so easily seduce or deceive unwary or stupid people into helping them.