The Fifth Servant (36 page)

           
But no one had ever improved on good old-fashioned iron and fire. Who could resist the beauty of the smelter’s fire, its orange glow reflected on the brawny chest of a good Christian as he forged the weapons of God’s truth? It was a wondrous sight. But the punctilious lawmakers, safe in their velvet-cushioned armchairs, had stipulated that the hot irons were only to be used as a last resort, when it would have saved everyone a lot of time if the examiners were allowed to
start
with them.

           
So they had to go through the motions while the court scribe dutifully wrote it all down.

           
“All right, cut her down,” the bishop ordered. “It’s time to try the girl.”

           
The girl let out a muffled cry as the correctors seized her.

           
“Now, that’s more like it,” one of the correctors said through his mask.

           
The bishop conferred with the official observers—the two archpriests and the scribe—who were reading over the transcript of the previous session.

           
“Did you notice how she didn’t even shed any tears?” asked Zeman.

           
“None but a Jew could show such unnatural stubbornness,” said Popel.

           
But it was worse than that—it was a clear indicator of the presence of witchcraft.

           
“We will have to continue questioning her later,” said the bishop. “Right now, the correctors need a break in order to recover their strength. Send for a pair of able-bodied replacements.”

           
“My lord, there are no replacements at the ready,” said Zeman.

           
“Why not?”

           
“Because it’s the day before Easter, we didn’t think we’d need a second shift—”

           
The girl let out a high-pitched wail as she was dragged before the engines of persuasion.

           
The bishop turned. “Quiet down over there. Can’t you see we’re trying to talk?”

           
“Sorry, sir.”

           
They stuffed a rag in the girl’s mouth.

           
He turned back. “Witches are to be questioned on the feast days, and on the fast days, and even at the hour of the solemn Mass. The Devil takes no holidays, and neither should those who fight against him. I need men around me who would hold witch trials on Easter Sunday itself to protect our citizens from this scourge.”

           
Both priests agreed wholeheartedly, and Zeman volunteered to go and fetch some replacements.

           
The bishop reached inside his robes until he felt the reassuring crunch of the salt crystals that the archbishop had blessed on Palm Sunday, effectively doubling their protective powers. Then he crossed himself and approached the girl with a confident manly stride.

           
Her eyes were brimming with tears. Or at least they appeared to be genuine tears. Then she reached out to him with her bound hands.

           
He stepped back, for an Inquisitor must never let an accused witch lay a finger on him.

           
“Bind her arms, for God’s sake.”

           
“Right away, sir.”

           
It was just a precaution, but he needed to determine what class of witch he was dealing with before any contact was made. Such was their command of the black arts that certain witches had the power to render the whole cross-examination legally useless through some confounded manipulation of the senses. And all it took was a simple touch.

           
They tied her arms to the Up-Yanker’s blood-sodden rope.

           
“Your mama really bled a lot for such a small woman,” one of the correctors said, close to her ear.

           
The girl jerked away, and a sound came through the cloth that was little more than a muffled animal howl.

           
“And take the gag out of her mouth.”

           
“Done, sir.”

           
He faced the girl directly. She was deathly pale, and visibly shaken from having spent the night watching them question her mother. He hoped this would make his task easier, but he harbored no illusions about the compliancy of witches. It was sometimes easier to exorcise a devil than it was to convince a witch to speak the truth.

           
He decided to probe delicately before he cut to the heart of the matter.

           
“You are charged with using magical charms to threaten innocent Christians.”

           
But her throat was so parched that she could barely speak.

           
“Give her some water.”

           
The correctors were surprised by this request.

           
“I said give her some water.”

           
They did as they were told. She had trouble swallowing.

           
“Now, speak.”

           
“Yes, yes, I’ll speak,” she said, gulping down the water. “Just promise me—that you’ll let—my mother go. Please.”

           
Her words poured out in quick, shallow breaths, as if she were truly about to faint. And she was already perspiring. Bishop Stempfel leaned in a bit closer, his nostrils twitching as he took a deep, practiced sniff. Good. It was the sweat of fear.

           
“Do you still maintain that you did not use magical charms?”

           
“What charms are those, my lord?”

           
“You know very well what charms.”

           
“No, I don’t. I swear.”

           
“
Stuck!
Read back the charges.”

           
“Yes, my lord.”

           
The scribe flipped through the court record, and read out the exact words of several eyewitnesses, all of whom testified that the accused did most brazenly and egregiously shout strange curses at a group of God-fearing Christians.

           
“We never did any such thing, my lord.”

           
The bishop was pleased, for there was no surer sign of guilt than this obstinate and insistent profession of innocence.

           
“Show her the record.”

           
“Yes, my lord.”

           
The scribe stepped into the circle of glowing firelight, and showed the girl the place in the transcript where a terrified witness had been coaxed into sounding out the dreadful syllables of the Jew’s curse.

           
She was a little slow to react, so one of the correctors grabbed a fistful of her hair, jerked her head up, and directed her gaze at the writing.

           
She tried to pretend that it was nonsensical.

           
“
Aer…reff…räaff
…?”

           
“Yes. What does this mean?”

           
“I don’t…Oh,
eyrev rav
—!”

           
“Stop her tongue!”

           
The corrector clamped his hand over her mouth.

           
Good Lord, that was a close one. Where on earth was Zeman with those replacements? The men were getting careless.

           
The girl tried to speak, so he warned her that if she spoke improperly to him again, he would have her hung upside down and cut in half, groin-first, with a two-handed saw.

           
It was the worst punishment they had, even worse than burning at the stake. It was usually reserved for sodomites, but he could always make an exception. Witchcraft was such a heinous crime, the prosecutors routinely suspended the usual rules of evidence and coerced confessions in such cases.

           
The girl writhed and tried to shake her head, but it was tightly secured between the corrector’s fists.

           
He gestured for the corrector to release her mouth.

           
“Mind what you say, love,” said the corrector, loosening his grip.

           
“Tell me,” said the bishop. “Are you not a virgin?”

           
“What does that—?”

           
“Answer yes or no,” the corrector advised her.

           
She spoke very cautiously, another clear sign of guilt: “I don’t understand. Are you asking if I
am
one or if I’m
not
one?”

           
“Don’t get smart—”

           
The bishop waved the corrector off, and stepped closer.

           
“Are you a virgin?”

           
“Yes, my lord.”

           
He looked her over, slowly and carefully.

           
“And so no man has known you?”

           
“Yes, yes, it’s true, so help me God.”

           
She certainly portrayed the virgin convincingly enough.

           
“Then tell me the truth about the curse words.”

           
“They aren’t curse words. It just means common riff-raff. It’s in the Bible.”

           
“There are no such curses in the Bible,” Popel said, spitting the words out.

           
“Perhaps she means the Bible in Hebrew,” the bishop suggested.

           
“Yes, yes, the Bible in Hebrew.”

           
“Where in the Bible?”

           
She didn’t know exactly. She just knew that the words were used to describe the masses of poor Egyptians who joined the Israelites on the road from Raamses to Succoth. It was somewhere in Exodus, or so she claimed.

           
“So, if I follow what you’re saying, it isn’t a curse, which we all know is a form of witchcraft, but rather, it’s some kind of code word used to secretly invite non-Jews to join you in a flight from the authority of the Church, which is heresy. So which is it?”

           
Popel stood in rapt admiration of the Inquisitor’s mastery of the art of interrogation.

           
“Are you encouraging non-Jews to join you in a flight from authority?”

           
“No, we’re not! I swear it!”

           
“Then it
is
a curse.”

           
“No—!”

           
The bishop turned to the scribe. “Be sure to note how she constantly alters her statements and contradicts what she said before, which is why we must start all over again.”

           
Now
that
upset her.

           
“They’re just words! Harmless words—”

           
“Harmless words? Do you deny that God brought the world into being through the
power of words
?”

           
“But that’s the word
of God
—”

           
“Of course the words are harmless
by themselves
. But in the mouth of a witch, they become commands to all the devils in hell to come forth and do their evil bidding. What words do you use to conjure these devils? What are their names?”

           
“Their
names
?”

           
“Answer the question, Jew,” Popel interjected.

           
“We do not call on any devils, we call on God alone.”

           
“Aha, now we’re getting somewhere. So you admit that you invoke the name of God to perform this sacrilegious magic?”

           
“It’s not sacrilegious.”

           
“But it
is
magic,” he said, pressing her.

           
“We believe in
miracles
, which come from God—”

           
“Then why can’t you tell us what the names are? Why are you keeping them a secret?”

           
“Because it’s forbidden to say the name of God out loud.”

           
“That only refers to the Ineffable Name. What about all the other secret names that you employ for your magical ends?”