Page 29 of Night of the Witch
They need something louder than the roaring flames to spur them into revolt.
But for now, fear holds the resistance back. The archbishop was smart in that. Divide the people, make them feel alone. Make them know that if you do not conform, you are called a witch.
And you are burned for it.
I have seen the truth of it from the start, from the moment my mother was cast screaming into the flames.
But I had thought that perhaps others—even in the hexenjäger units—were merely swept up in the panic and ignorant of the truth. That is why, I had assumed, the units cast boys into the roles the men could not stomach. Easier to radicalize the young, easier to expect obedience.
Hilde understood this. And, bless her, she had pleaded with me in the cottage before her arrest not in an attempt to save herself, but to try to save the others. To make the hexenjägers see—not only was she innocent, theyallwere.
But Bertram clearly knows the truth. Despite being told of witchcraft, he never believed before.
And he lit the fires anyway.
“I wonder if she’ll burn differently from the others,” Bertram says idly, simply curious.
I glance at him from beneath my cloak’s hood. “If you knew all along that the witches burned were not truly witches, why do you still wear the cloak?”
Bertram shrugs, the black cloth over his shoulders rippling. “It’s a job,” he says.
Bile rises up my throat.
I have seen evil—Kommandant Kirch did not rise to the top of the units without knowingexactlywhat he does. The executioner flaunts the wealth he’s gained from working the witch trials; he knows what he does; herelishesthe cruelty that profits him. The archbishop—he may be the most evil man I know, orchestrating it all.
I have seen evil.
But until this moment with Bertram, I had not realized how often it wore the face of apathy.
The city of Trier rises to the west, spires of churches pointing into the midmorning sky, gleaming in a veneer of holiness behind the city walls.
The bridge over the Moselle leads straight to the city wall on the eastern side, and it’s where the heaviest flow of traffic into and out of the city is. There are buildings beyond the city wall, though, some made of crumbling stone from centuries before, others wooden structures that weren’t built to last.
And then there are the Roman ruins.
Rather than head toward the city gate by the bridge, I direct our caravan off the main road, winding toward the eastern side of Trier, outside the wall. The vast remains of ancient Roman baths, partially debris and rubble as people scavenged stone blocks from the structure, rise up to our left.
Our city is built on the bones of a fallen empire.
Giant stone blocks tower over the side of the road, creating an entrance I veer the caravan toward. I hear a thump and a curse from the prisoner’s cart as Fritzi is tossed around inside the rough wooden box.
I circle my horse back to the tail end of the caravan, waving offJohann, who’d been riding in the rear. The hexenjäger unit moves with practiced ease. We have, all of us, even the youngest, been a part of prisoner transports here.
The Romans killed the Celts for sport after enslaving them to build the amphitheater in the first place. There are mocking stories of how the gleaming, armed gladiators strode into the arena with polished metal weapons shining as they faced starved, abused Celts armed with nothing but sticks and rocks. Sometimes the Romans captured bears or worse, wild boar, and let nature kill the nature-worshipping tribal members.
Sport.
I wonder if those Celts would think their deaths better than the ones we offer to their witch descendants today.
I dismount, tossing my reins to one of the boys. I wave the others off as I approach the wooden prisoner cart. My boots thud as I mount the little step, using the iron bars in the only window as leverage so I can stand and peer into the box.
The witch—Fritzi, I remind myself—is backed into the farthest corner. Slants of light cast her in shadow, but even from the darkness I can see the fierce rage in her eyes. Recognition flashes across her face as she realizes which hexenjäger is peering down at her.
It is quickly replaced with hatred.
I had not been sure of what I would do until I see her now. I had the idea first when she snapped at me about not caring as long as I had a witch to imprison. She’s right—Idoneed a witch to imprison. But still, I debated it all this long morning. Witnessing her hate now gives me the resolution I need to act.
I joined the hexenjägers after they burned my stepmother. Not because I believed in them.
