Page 41 of Night of the Witch
I’m lost in thought, visualizing the moment. “She had herbs too,” I add. “I could smell herbs in the smoke. Rosemary perhaps?”
“Herbs?” Dieter straightens, turning to face me fully. “Herbs, you say?”
I nod. “Is that important?”
“There are different types of witches, Otto. Some speak to animals. Some see visions in fires. Some use herbs to cast spells.”
“Huh.”
Dieter watches me closely. Fritzi—she means something to him.
“The other men have filled me in on descriptions of this witch,” Dieter adds, rattling off an approximate height and weight for Fritzi, as well as her hair and eye color. It’s mostly accurate, but also generic. “Can you tell me anything else about the girl?”
I pause. Silence and guilt go hand in hand. Before I can speak, though, Dieter adds, “A name, even? The men say that you spoke to the witch privately.”
Her name is Fritzi, I think.
I snort. “I spoke only to try to get the hexe to tell me the location of my half sister, so that I could find and arrest her too,” I say. “My threats fell on deaf ears. That witch had more spirit than any woman should, and no respect at all.”
For just a moment—a flash, barely there and gone again—Dieter seems to…smile. I narrow my eyes, and he, seeing my expression, quickly schools his face into a blank mask.
“The solstice burning shall be in two days,” Dieter says. “It will be a good purge. We have over a hundred.” He casts his pale, eerie eyes at me. “You shall have the honor, I think. To light the first flames.”
I duck my head, mutter my thanks.
“It has not escaped my attention that this honor has been denied you,” Dieter continues, turning his gaze to the sky. “I watched your training. You are an excellent fighter, a position that led you to patrolling the diocese more often than working directly in the city, and your literacyand intelligence have, of course, aided the archbishop’s decrees behind a desk.”
“I serve in any way God desires,” I say. I had not been aware that Dieter had watched me so closely. Has he realized that my patrols are always fruitless? Has he noticed the misfiled paperwork, the delays that have led to escapes? I had thought myself clever, my tracks covered, but…
“Your lineage aided your aspirations, but it is…wrong, don’t you think, that you not feel the heat of God’s love through a burning pyre?”
“It would be an honor,” I manage to say without choking on the words. “A hundred witches to burn at once.”
“And you with the torch in your hand.” He looks at me with lips curved up, but that is no smile. “The bigger the fire, the more souls saved. One hundred.” He says the number as if it is something to relish, something toenjoy.
I do not think about that number.
Instead, I focus on the other one.
Two days for me to realign my entire plan, for me to save them all.
And, hopefully, disrupting the largest burning of witches that Trier has yet seen will be enough to rattle the rest of the citizens, for them to throw off the shackles of fear and say, as one,no more.
That is what I hope for. I do not deceive myself, though. I may not be able to spark the revolution I desire. I may not be able to save all hundred.
A hundred and one, I remind myself—one hundred falsely accused witches and one real one.
“Yes, it will be a good day,” Dieter says, noting the smile toying on my lips. Schiesse. I had not meant to show any emotion. “Better, of course, if we can add that other witch to the flames. I have sent more men out. There are places she could hide in this city. But not for long.”
My stomach churns. “Perhaps she’s left the city?” I suggest.
Dieter barks in humorless laughter. “No,” he says in full confidence. “She has not left Trier.”
How does he know?
While Dieter stares placidly at the river, panic surges through me. Black dots dance in my eyes. I’m socloseto making my move, but if I fail now, more than a hundred lives hang in the balance.
Including my own.
