The next morning, word came the city of Leer in East Frisia that a witch needed to be hunted and the town officials were unable to prosecute her themselves. Godke had been keeping track of the deteriorating political situation within the Empire, and he was uncertain that we should go. I didn't want to go because I felt an obligation to help Konrad, but on the other hand the warband was poor – I especially so, due to my purchase of the leather armour and the fact that I was feeding two mouths. Fleur had yet to find a suitable trade to pursue.
‘East Frisia is worryingly close to the conflict between the Spanish and the Dutch,’ Godke cautioned us. ‘And large numbers of armed Protestants have been reported in the area.’
In the end, we had little choice. Our poverty created an unspoken consensus among the warband. And so, in the summer of 1623, I piled my possessions into Ros’ carriage and Grane’s saddlebags, and gave Fleur a boost into her saddle. I certainly wasn't going to leave her in Metz to bear the brunt of Melchior's retaliation.
We were going witch hunting in East Frisia.
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We travelled north for five days. Due to the fact that money was tight, we slept on the side of the road and we took turns keeping watch. None resented Fleur’s presence, in fact Gunnar often said that she was better conversation than most girls her age. I, of course, took care of her expenses out of my own pocket.
I was on the verge of destitution by the time that we arrived in East Frisia. Godke led us to the town of Leer, and in the hours we spent trekking through the county I was appalled by the destruction that the region had seen. Many buildings had been razed to the ground, and there were hundreds of beggars in the streets. In some areas there were wooden carts full of fly-infested corpses. People were too caught up in their own strife to clean their community, and I felt that it would be a long time before this place would look like anything but a war zone.
‘The county is part of the Empire, but it is full of Dutch refugees,’ Godke explained. ‘So the burghers are German Catholics, but the people are Dutch Calvinists.’
But even Godke did not know the whole story. We were given a new perspective on the matter when Godke took me to meet the burgomaster of Leer.
‘You are the leader of this town?’ Godke asked him, as he was dressed rather plainly for an aristocrat.
‘I am burgomaster Friedrich of Leer,’ the man responded, which I took to be an answer in the affirmative. His clothes were clean at least, though he looked underfed and his cheeks had a tinge of yellow to them. ‘I apologise for the state of my village, it will take many years for us to recover fully.’
‘Tensions between Catholics and Calvinists?’ Godke asked.
Friedrich shook his head. ‘Even the Dutch could scarcely fathom such an atrocity. No, this was the work of a German by the name of Count Mansfeld, and though he is in the employ of the Dutch they would not condone what has happened here.’
Mansfeld did this? I thought and was surprised. Though I was interested and even glad to know that he was still alive and leading armies, my juvenile brain could scarcely fathom that the confident, leaderly commander who had taken Pilsen would have decimated East Frisia like this.
‘Ernst von Mansfeld?’ I asked, and to my dismay Friedrich nodded his recognition. ‘Why would he do this?’
‘Mansfeld’s army is one of mostly mercenaries,’ Friedrich said. ‘And mercenaries need to be paid. So he took their pay from us.’
It was then that I realised that two great and powerful men could be extremely different in character and in morality. I recalled that at Prague, Wallenstein had spent most of his time poring over treasury documents and visiting the city mint, and had offered us a legal payment for our services. He had preferred more legitimate and bureaucratic means of funding his campaigns. Clearly, Mansfeld had a different approach, and the people of East Frisia were suffering because of it. I had been a mere child of twelve when I met Mansfeld outside of Pilsen, and the accounts of the people of Leer severely challenged the memories of my perception of him.
‘The witch?’ Godke said, bringing the conversation back into relevancy.
‘The witch,’ repeated Friedrich, before continuing. ‘You can find her in the witch house across the road from the church. Two people saw her cast a spell on a farm pig.’
‘A farm pig?’ I said. ‘What were the effects of the spell?’
Friedrich looked at me as if I’d just asked him the colour of grass. ‘We burned the beast. We couldn’t risk someone eating flesh tainted by the Devil’s magicks.’
‘These witnesses have signed their statements?’ Godke asked and Friedrich nodded. ‘Well then, she is a witch. Do we have your permission to execute her once we obtain a confession?’
‘Yes, execute her in the town square. The people here could use something to cheer about.’
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Godke agreed to those terms and, after Friedrich gave us the keys to the witch house, we met up with the rest of the warband. Two witnesses was the legal threshold to imprison someone for witchcraft and now all we needed was to make our execution acceptable to the villagers and the law was a signed confession.
Godke ordered Gunnar to keep watch on the witch house while we did our work. I let Fleur wander as she wanted – the townsfolk looked too disheartened to try anything with her. Thies had gathered his torture equipment and he led the way. Jacob was holding his rosary beads and as we neared the witch house I saw him kiss them. While it was not an un-Christian thing to do, it was an odd practice for Jacob.
Nevertheless, I put it to the back of my mind as we entered the witch house. In this case, the witch house was a makeshift shack with missing wall panels and an iron bolt barring the door. I fumbled with the keys Friedrich had given me and then I opened the door and met the witch. Her name was Anneliese, according to the guard who let us into the building, and she had short black hair that drew attention to her wide eyes. Jacob began by leading her in a rendition of the Lord’s Prayer. Her recital was accurate but her speech was tainted by odd, humorous mannerisms. It was as if she didn’t take her situation seriously.
Jacob placed the rosary beads over her head and Godke asked her if she confessed to being a witch.
‘Witch. Witch! Witch witch witch!’ She shouted in response and Godke looked at me. The lady was clearly simple. This presented less of an issue to me, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief. The Devil had addled her mind, and there was no saving her from that. Her execution would be a mercy killing, and that thought steeled my resolve.
Wanting to preserve my reputation as being skilled at taking advantage of people’s mental states, I knelt beside Anneliese and began to speak to her in a soft, clear voice.
‘Hello Anneliese,’ I said, forcing myself to smile. ‘I have a little piece of paper that I want you to sign. Do you think you could do that for me?’
‘I like paper,’ she said noncommittally. ‘Paper has pictures!’
‘Yes, paper has pictures. But this paper has words. Do you think you could sign at the bottom of the words for me?’
For some reason she was suddenly silent, and I produced the document from the inside pocket of my coat. With the death of Hurland the task of writing up legal confessions had fallen upon me. Gunnar could not read, and Jacob and Thies were unwilling, so Godke assigned the task to me. Often the task of an acolyte is to carry whatever burden does not fall squarely on someone else’s shoulders, and I was glad that I’d taken the time to learn to read and write in Metz, though I was still slow and found some words difficult. I handed Anneliese the document and directed her where to sign. She looked in my eyes for a moment and I endeavoured to hold the eye contact as a sign that I wasn’t hiding any ulterior motives. After a moment she seemed satisfied and she read her own name out loud as she signed it.
‘Thank you, Anneliese,’ I said to her as I took the document out of her hands and gave it to Godke. He perused it briefly and smiled.
‘Another bit of good work, Karl,’ he said.
It was then that Jacob stepped forward to Anneliese and, in the process of retrieving his rosary, uncovered a cross necklace of silver hidden by the lady’s blouse. He pulled it off of her neck and she didn’t seem to notice that he was doing it.
‘Why would a witch wear a cross?’ Jacob asked.
‘Do not let it linger in your mind,’ Thies said. ‘Sell the necklace.’
Jacob looked doubtful about something, even though we had a signed confession. He disappeared while Godke and I visited burgomaster Friedrich to arrange a time for Anneliese’s public execution.
We scheduled it for one hour after dawn the next day and he paid us the humble but pre-agreed sum. When Godke began to divide it and pay the individual members of the warband that afternoon just before sundown, Gunnar noted that our services were worth more than Friedrich had paid us.
‘Haven’t these people been through enough?’ Thies asked. Jacob nodded in silent agreement, though it would have been hard for any of us not to notice the gesture.
Thies was met by a terrifying glare, though he didn’t seem to be frightened or startled by it. Thankfully Godke stepped in before the conversation could become a disagreement.
‘We shall, of course, find the keep that we have earnt,’ Godke said. ‘From the burghers.’
That was a compromise. Godke was saying that we could seek compensation from only those who did not need the money. This satisfied neither Thies nor Gunnar and both left in opposite directions.
I decided to look around for Fleur instead as I didn’t want to be seen as taking a side. After about half an hour I found her near the witch house, and asked her what she was doing there. She pointed at the church across the road and and nodded in understanding. Though I was usually satisfied with my prayers being secrets except to God, Fleur preferred to visit churches in the Catholic tradition. She’d probably been in there for hours.
However, she had an odd expression across her face.
‘What is it?’ I asked, and she made the sign of the cross. ‘The church?’ I asked, but she shook her head and made a motion over her shoulder. After several repetitions I realised that she was imitating self-flagellation.
‘Jacob?’ I finally asked and she nodded and pointed at the church.
It took me a second but I suddenly realised what Fleur was saying. Jacob was in the church and Jacob never went into churches.
Except when he’d tried to hang himself.
My eyes widened and I turned from Fleur and ran into the church, pushing the metal-reinforced doors open with my shoulder. It appeared to be empty, but Fleur was behind me and urged me on. I ran to look behind a few large stone pillars but to no avail, when I noticed the wooden confession confessional booth against the wall of the chuch.
There was a sense of inevitability as I crossed the width of the chapel and swung open the door with such force that it made a loud banging noise as it reached the limit of its arc but I did not care for Jacob lay inside the confessional. His body was covered in blood and his eyes were distant and unmoving. His wrists were adorned with deep, messy slits clearly created by the small knife in his idle left hand. Fleur began to cry behind me but I was unable to look away as I realised that he’d finally done it.
Jacob had taken his own life.