It was time to continue my work with Martin. Gunnar walked me to the stables where we found Thies, who opened the carriage for me. Gunnar made himself scarce as Thies began to educate me.

‘You’ve already tried the preliminary methods,’ he said, holding a thumbscrew up for me to see in case I was too daft to understand his meaning. Men of medicine have a way of making you feel small, but at least it comes from their medical knowledge. With priests it comes from the authority of God. ‘You need to try something more daunting.’

‘I was going to use the legscrew next,’ I said, and Thies frowned.

‘You mustn’t copy the method I use for one witch exactly,’ he said. ‘Each witch is different. I brought out the legscrew for Bohdan because I could see that he was on the verge of cracking with the thumbscrews and he just needed a bit of a push on the same note.’

‘Cracking? Surely you mean that you were on the verge of forcing out the Devil with pain,’ I interrupted, and Thies’ frown became deeper and more furrowed.

‘Sure, Karl. But the point is that the same medicine won’t work on Martin, he’s made of sturdier stuff,’ Thies responded.

I nodded thoughtfully. Thies was saying that the pact that Martin had made with the Devil was stronger than the one that Bohdan had made back in Pilsen. With that in mind, I scoured the carriage for an appropriate device.

After some rummaging I eventually pointed at a large wooden table-looking contraption with cogs at its side. It was hidden away in the back corner of the carriage, probably due to its irregular use and large size, but Thies and I were able to extract it from the carriage and place it on the ground.

It had a metal frame and was nearly eight feet long.

‘The stretching rack,’ Thies said approvingly. I was cheating: Godke had said to use the rack and I was substituting his ideas for mine. It was worth it. Thies looked upon the device as a father looks proudly upon his son. ‘Martin’s hands go here, and his feet go here, and then you turn the ratchet slowly until you, uh, extract the Devil.’

‘Are witches human?’ I asked Thies. It was unprovoked and he looked startled for a moment, but he quickly composed himself.

‘Of course they are. That’s what makes their crimes so heinous: they’re betraying their fellow man.’

I remembered his anger at Gunnar kidnapping Sabina. ‘Does it make you sad that you have to cause people pain in order to extract the Devil?’

He frowned at that. ‘I don’t particularly enjoy it,’ he said, ‘but the Lord sends us challenges. As in the Binding of Isaac, sometimes we must do away with personal sensibilities and do what is right.’

I nodded, as that made sense. I knew the tale from Hurland’s teachings, and the metaphor for Isaac being asked to kill his own son seemed fitting. My father had used to say that God tested us every day.

The thought of my father stirred an anger inside me, but I quelled it. There was work to be done.

Thies and I carried the device to the witch house together and upon sighting it, Martin could scarcely pry his eyes away from it.

‘This is the rack,’ I told him, and still he did not speak. He did not even look at me. ‘Will you confess?’

Martin shook his head, and Thies shifted his bonds from those attached to the wall to those attached the rack. He turned the ratchet until Martin’s protestations were feeble and ineffective, and Thies checked that Martin’s limbs were all bound properly and unable to be freed. He nodded at me when Martin was bound to the rack and I began the exorcism.

I turned the ratchet several degrees to ensure that the pressure was mounting on Martin, and then I leaned into his face and told him to confess.

He refused, so I turned the ratchet another few times, pausing between each rotation to ensure that he had time to think about whether he should confess or not.

Eventually there was a loud popping noise from near Martin’s shoulder and he screamed loudly. The sound was grotesque and I nearly retched in horror, but I exerted as much self-discipline as I possessed and stayed true to the task at hand.

‘Confess! Confess!’ I shouted, but he did not respond.

Thies, who had remained during the procedure to watch his precious rack be put into use, sidled up to me and whispered to me.

‘One of the many benefits of the rack,’ he said, ‘is that the witch’s body is exposed. Instead of simply stretching him, you may beat him or whip him cut him or burn him.’

Sadly, the pop that Martin’s snapping cartilage had made had weakened me somewhat, and I divulged my doubts to Thies. He was, after all, a chirurgeon.

‘Maybe he is innocent,’ I said, quietly enough so that Martin couldn’t hear.

Thies just stared at me as if I’d suggested that the sky was pink.

‘He is a witch, Karl. Drive the truth from him and see for yourself,’ he said, and to assist me he handed me his blade, a small dagger he kept concealed inside his boot.

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I took the dagger and looked at it for a moment. Its blade was sharp and one side was partially serrated. I used the non-serrated edge to slice a small cut across Martin’s ribs. He was in considerable pain and I doubt if he even felt the blade, but I was coming to terms with what I was doing.

In fact, I’d say that it was at that moment, in Prague in 1621, that I realised that not all witches were aware that they were witches. Part of me considered that if they didn’t know that they were witches they may not have been, but the other part won out because it was easier to deal with, and after a few minutes of making only small, absent-minded cuts I began to wield the knife downwards.

I plunged it into Martin’s abdomen and his body convulsed. I think that he would have curled up if his limbs weren’t pinned at opposite ends of the rack.

‘Confess!’ I repeated after withdrawing the knife. It had been difficult to retrieve it from Martin’s body and I had been forced to use both hands to reclaim the weapon. ‘Confess!’

Martin did not, and I raised the knife once more. This time Thies put a hand gently below my wrist to stop me.

‘You mustn’t kill the witch before he confesses,’ he advised me, and I realised that I had to be careful.

‘More stretching!’ I declared in an attempt to look confident, and I immediately turned the ratched a half-rotation.

This was accompanied by a cacophony of grotesque popping noises as Martin’s cartilage and ligaments were snapped from being overstretched. He screamed again, but more feebly this time, as if his very life force were being drained.

Or as if the Devil was being drained from him.

I told myself to press on, that I was very close to extracting the Devil from this man’s body, and I turned the ratchet even further, stretching the man almost to the limit of the rack.

This time he did not scream, and I looked at his face to see that it was motionless.

‘Thies…’ I murmured.

Thies stepped up to the rack and took the man’s pulse. He looked at me while his fingers were against Martin’s neck, and I was fearful. This was mere minutes after he’d told me not to kill the witch before he confessed.

‘He’s dead,’ Thies said, and I was shocked. I had only stabbed him the once, after all, and with a small blade.

‘W-what happens now?’ I asked. I was scared. Had I failed?

‘I wouldn’t worry too much, Karl. Godke will sort this out,’ Thies told me. He directed me to wait in the cell while he retrieved Godke and so I stood there, a bloody knife in my hand and a corpse before me. My bruised nose hurt where Jaromil had struck me, and for a moment I felt as if I deserved it. This man had died at my hands, and he didn’t even confess to witchcraft. Perhaps he wasn’t aware that he was a witch, or maybe he wasn’t a witch, but either way this was a new moral dilemma for me. Bohdan’s death had been democratised by the townsfolk, sanctioned by the aristocracy, and legitimised by his confession.

This was akin to murder.

When Godke arrived I was crying. I wanted to go back to Metz. I liked France, and Metz particularly had reminded me of Bielefeld, probably because of all the Germans living there.

Godke did not hold me, nor did he pat my back. He simply spoke to me, as a man, though I was only fourteen.

‘Do not worry, Karl,’ he said. ‘Thies tells me that he must have been injured before you started your interrogation by Wallenstein. Otherwise he would have stopped you before you killed him.’

‘I killed him,’ I repeated.

‘It’s okay Karl. If he wasn’t a witch, he wouldn’t have been able to endure that much pain,’ Godke told me and for the first time I looked up at him.

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Godke smiled. ‘He was definitely a witch. We just need to convince Wallenstein that everything was legal and we should get our reward.’

A brief smile crossed my face and Godke knew that I’d be okay. Thies began to dismantle the rack and Godke took me away from it, away from the witch house, to talk to Wallenstein.

This time, Wallenstein was to be found in the marketplace. I don’t know why he was there, but when we found him he was standing before a cart of fruits.

‘Wallenstein,’ Godke said, making our presence known.

‘Ah, Godke and Karl,’ he replied, turning away from the vendor. ‘Good news I hope.’ Before we could respond Wallenstein, who seemed to possess a high level of empathy, looked to me and sighed. ‘I gather not.’

‘The witch died during interrogation,’ Godke explained, and I bowed my head in shame. But then I raised it again as Godke continued, ‘thankfully he confessed before he died.’

I frowned, and Godke brandished a signed confession. Wallenstein’s darting eyes scanned us for a short time before he took the confession from Godke. He looked down at the signature and sighed.

‘This is forged,’ he said, and my frown intensified. Why hadn’t Godke told me that he was going to forge the witch’s signature and lie to Wallenstein? Wallenstein continued, ‘the man was wealthy, and I have personally seen several contracts that he’s signed.’

Though he was only a few years older than Godke, I got the sense that both of us shared the feeling of having disappointed him. He crumpled the paper in his hand and eventually, when Godke said nothing, he spoke again. ‘You’ll recall that I hired you to provide me with a legal reason for the man’s death,’ he said and I bowed my head once more. ‘As you have failed to do that, I shan’t be paying you. In fact, to show that I am not the mercenary brute Mansfeld, I should arrest you for murder.’

I suddenly was very afraid. I’d never before met someone who exuded power so casually. Even Mansfeld, who had stunk of unadulterated power and ambition, had put his power on display, but here Wallenstein was simply powerful without having to do anything to show it.

For some reason, however, Godke was not afraid. I doubt if we could have evaded the city guards, as Godke and the warband had many times before I’d joined them, due to the sheer size of the city. Despite this, Godke seemed disappointed only that we weren’t being paid, and not scared that we would be imprisoned or executed. A few seconds later, Wallenstein continued and I realised that Godke had probably been in this situation before. What kind of man was he?

‘But I won’t,’ Wallenstein said, turning back to the fruits. ‘I suggest that you leave before someone discovers what has happened.’

Godke stared at the back of Wallenstein’s head for a few seconds before decided that he concurred. He grabbed me gently by the wrist and led me back to the tavern. On the way I asked him why he lied to Wallenstein.

‘Martin was a witch,’ Godke said. ‘He was going to die one way or another. Wallenstein should just have accepted the forgery.’

I screwed up my face as I pondered that proposition. Sure, Wallenstein had saved himself some money by recognising the forgery and denying us payment, but I was more concerned with why Godke hadn’t told me that he was going to forge Martin’s signature. I didn’t ask him why he’d kept it from me.