After the forest, p.31
After the Forest, page 31
A grave covered in windflowers and a single, hateful word. HEXE. Greta was certain then that Herr Tritten’s hand had carved it.
“She knows of such things, my wife,” Herr Tritten said rather proudly. “She was born in Bamberg, you see, and was there for the trials.”
“Indeed,” Herr Biermann said. “Go on.”
“Well, one only has to look at Greta Rosenthal to know she’s a witch. She’s poison-pated. Red hair is a sign of the Devil, and no mistake.”
“That is true,” Herr Biermann mused, with a glance at the tangled lengths of Greta’s hair. “Red is the Devil’s favorite hue.”
There was a stirring at the Rathaus doors. A figure clad in brightly colored velvet—rose and blue and forest green—had entered the great room, surrounded by scarlet-cloaked men-at-arms of the Hornberg. Fizcko was free of his cage, the danger to his person presumably over now that Mathias had been captured. He waited patiently while one of his guards commandeered a chair then took a seat, smiling up at Greta all the while.
“And then there was that business with old Frau Elma,” Herr Tritten was saying. He had found his rhythm now, the words flowing like good wine after harvest. “You might remember her, sir, seeing as you were here for the trial.”
A wave of faintness passed over Greta. Of course. This was the man who had sentenced Frau Elma to burn, almost five years before. She closed her eyes and clutched tight to the rail before her.
“Didn’t Fräulein Rosenthal wail when the old witch was set alight? Didn’t she beg for her life? Why would she do that, if not to save one of her conspirators? I tell you Greta Rosenthal was a witch five years ago and she is a witch still. She called down a storm that same year and ruined our harvest. She cursed Herr Drescher’s spelt so it withered and died. Not two days ago she helped Frau Casser plant her fields. That very night an ungodly storm came to this valley. It ruined our crops and destroyed Frau Casser’s fields—the very fields Fräulein Rosenthal had worked that day!”
Herr Tritten stepped down, and another took his place, then another. They spoke of Greta’s baking, how it caused the villagers to crave it, dream of it, until they were forced to sate their gluttonous desires by parting with their precious pfennigs. They spoke of the bear, how Greta had tried to hide its presence, and how sad she had seemed when the hunt had gone out to kill it. She had seemed troubled, too, when news of the beast’s capture was revealed to her in the Rose and Thorn. Indeed, was it not that very moment that the wind began to rise and the storm to blow?
Herr Hueber himself spoke of Hans and Ingrid’s betrothal, when he had succumbed to a strange and gruesome sickness. Frau Casser described the damage to her fields, the bitter cold that lingered, even now. She spoke tearfully of her baby, born amid the storm, tiny and malformed.
“Greta Rosenthal touched my belly,” Anna-Catherine said. “She breathed her poison into me and killed my child.”
On and on it went, until Greta understood she would not escape. The villagers’ hatred was too strong, the kommissar too practiced. He weaved their tales together, fashioning a rope that grew longer and longer, binding her tightly to the witches’ pyre. He had, she remembered, done the same with Frau Elma.
Another disturbance at the Rathaus doors: Rob strode toward the dais, flanked by Conran’s band of sell-swords. His face was dark with fury. For a moment Greta thought he might leap onto the dais and take Herr Biermann by the throat. But Dieter Abendroth and the other watchmen leapt forward, barring Rob’s way. He stood, mute with rage, glowering up at Herr Biermann through a cluster of raised pikes.
“Tell me about this book of yours,” Herr Biermann asked Greta, when the room had settled. “It is a grimoire, is it not? A witch’s book,” he added, for the benefit of his audience, “containing all manner of spells and enchantments. Who gave it to you?”
Greta said nothing.
“Who gave it to you, fräulein? Was it the Devil?”
“No.”
“Was it his gift to you, when he took the form of a black bear and you met with him in the woods? When he caressed your naked body with his claws and spilled his cold seed inside you—”
“That is enough!” Rob Mueller’s roar shattered the rapt silence. “I have stood by and let this farce endure. But by this light, I can do so no longer! You will not speak to her so!”
The kommissar stared at Rob. “Herr Mueller, I presume,” he said at last. “I have it on good account that you were once friend to the accused’s father. And that you are a decent man. Even so, if you do not desist I will have you forcibly removed from this hall.”
“Can no one here speak but you?” Rob demanded. “Can no one defend her?”
“You wish to defend her?”
“I do.”
“You understand it is evidence of witchery to speak in favor of a witch?”
“I do,” Rob said. “And yet I could not forgive myself if I did not seek to help her.” He glared around the hall. “And what of the rest of you cowards? You who call yourselves good, God-fearing folk? You have turned against one of your own and thrown her to this crow, who has grown sleek and fat by gorging on the misfortunes of others. Who dares to call himself a soldier of God—”
The room erupted. Men rose up and shouted, defending their honor and their piety. The kommissar ordered the watchmen to seize Rob. Rob in his turn raised his fists and goaded them all on, before the sell-swords dragged him, struggling and cursing, outside.
“The bear is the unholiest of God’s creatures,” the kommissar said thoughtfully when peace had returned. “He is dark as the Devil and clothed in the colors of Hell. He walks on two legs, a mockery of man, of God himself. For this reason he is the Devil’s favorite guise.” He gazed around the room. “But there is no need to fear. For does the Bible not tell us, too, of young David, and how he killed the beasts threatening his father’s sheep? Bravely did he vanquish the bear, saving the innocent flock—”
A third distraction at the open doors. Panicked screams and agitation as the crowd seethed and parted, leaping up from benches, stumbling over skirts, pushing and crushing each other as they scrambled to get away from eight long, low shapes arrowing through the Rathaus.
Wolves.
* * *
Many things happened at once, then, and though they happened fast it seemed to Greta that they moved as slowly as a dream.
Swaths of people scrambled for the double doors, even as the night watchmen stationed outside struggled to get in, pushing against the press of terrified bodies. The wolves came on, heads low, aiming for the platform at the head of the room where Greta and the hexenkommissar stood. Everywhere was chaos, people screaming, flailing, falling.
“These are the Devil’s own hounds!” Herr Biermann shouted. “Kill them! Kill them, I say!”
The night watchmen guarding Greta leapt forward, pikes and muskets ready. Axel Lutz ran for the large reddish wolf, his pike raised. The wolf turned on him, snarling and leaping, pushing him down. There was a high, gurgling scream, and Axel went still.
More watchmen flowed into the room. They were joined by Fizcko’s men, a wall of red and black breaking through the crush of fleeing villagers.
The roar of the watchmen’s muskets, the acrid smell of gunpowder. Smoke filled the room, drifting over the carved walls and high ceiling. Through the haze Greta glimpsed Fizcko moving to the doors under the protection of his guards.
The wolves pushed on. Rob reached the dais first, while three more wolves snarled at the watchmen who tried to protect the hexenkommissar. The Devil’s own hounds, the kommissar had said, and they looked the part.
“Kill them!” he shrieked, in terror and rage. “Kill them!”
Rob leapt at him, jaws wide, eyes yellow and wild. They crashed into the table, spilling ink and gingerbread. Herr Biermann went down, screaming, sputtering, beneath the wolf’s fury. In moments he was naught but a mound of fine black brocade, twitching gently. Rob flowed up the polished stairs to Greta, briefly pressed his head against her side. The warm, wolfish weight of him was a wonderful comfort.
At the foot of the platform, a grey wolf snarled at a Hornberg man-at-arms and received a blow in the muzzle from a musket stock. Blood and cracking bone. Two more wolves took down the man, teeth sinking into his fine red cloak. More shots, more screams.
“Time to go, Täubchen.” In the smoke and confusion Rob had flicked off his pelt. He crouched at Greta’s side, half-hidden by the railing separating her from the rest of the room. With a deft twist of his knife he broke the lock on her wrist cuffs, yanking on the chains and freeing her.
“Put this on,” he grunted, thrusting something coppery into her hands. It was her fox pelt, glistening with remnants of magic and shape-salve.
“You cannot leave me here!” the book cried. “They’ll burn me! Destroy me!”
Greta glanced at Rob. His gaze was fixed on the melee unfurling in the heart of the Rathaus. He had not heard the book. Its voice was for Greta and Greta alone.
“Please, dearie. Please!”
She hesitated. Both the book and the gingerbread hearts were within reach, on the floor beside the broken table, the fallen kommissar.
“Please!”
There would be time later to decide if saving the book was right. For now Greta lunged across the platform, scooped up the book and as much of the gingerbread as she was able, and tucked it all into her apron pocket.
“Any time, now,” Rob muttered, throwing on his pelt.
“Sorry.” Greta settled the fox pelt over her shoulders. Magic rippled across her back, her hair, her skin.
Sharp of claw, wild of thought.
Follow me, came Rob’s voice in her mind. He leapt down the dais steps, the-fox-who-was-Greta close behind. The other wolves saw them and came too, their sleek forms twisting through the melee until they burst as one into the snow-covered square. Greta blinked in the harsh sunlight. The Marktplatz was a maelstrom of panic and fear, crowded with people—some running from the Rathaus in terror, slipping and sliding in the slush and snow, others moving toward it, charging headlong at the steps with muskets, pikes and spears. Herr Auer was among them, clutching his boar spear.
Christ, one of the wolves muttered in Greta’s head. There was a confused wash of oaths and questions and directions. Rob, it seemed, was in control. The others deferred to him, quietening as he told them what to do. Greta looked around, searching for Conran. There was no sign of the black wolf.
Greta, Rob said. Run to the east gate and out to the forest now. Mira will be waiting. We’ll meet you both there.
There was no time to question Rob’s command; the men of the watch and the baroness’s guard were coming, bursting from the Rathaus, streaming across the square, while all around the villagers closed in. Greta threw herself forward, ducking and weaving, relying more on the fox’s instincts than her own, now desperate to escape. Around her screaming and growling, the explosion of muskets and the ringing scrape of blades. A watchman thrust his pike at her and an iron-grey wolf leapt at him from the side, bearing him, shrieking and flailing, to the snowy cobbles. Greta shivered as the wolf spat out a mouthful of glistening flesh.
Go, it snarled at her and she obeyed, twisting through the forest of boots and breeches, her paws slipping on the cobbles, until she was at the eastern side of the Marktplatz. She was about to slide down an alley that would take her to the eastern gate when a furious howl tore across the square. Turning, she saw the black wolf—Conran—tearing through the battle. For a heartbeat she was relieved—here was help for the outnumbered wolves. Then she saw that Conran was running not at the men, but at Rob. He snarled, lips curling in fury, and threw himself at the lighter wolf. Rob, who had been avoiding Herr Auer’s boar spear, went down hard, and the two wolves tumbled and slid in the snow, scrabbling and growling. Greta watched, horrified, as they battled, heedless of the fighting going on around them.
Run, Täubchen, Rob threw at her, before he fell, struggling, beneath Conran’s jaws.
Greta waited until he had regained his feet and plunged bravely against the black wolf, then ran on. The sounds of screaming and musket shots followed her. She kept moving, heart bursting, breath rasping. She did not see the horse, not until the flat edge of a sword had already struck her, sending her tumbling along the snowy road, a mess of magic and fox and woman. She came up hard against a wall, dazed and winded, the pelt a puddle of red on the slippery cobbles.
The scarlet cloak of the horseman who had hit her blurred against the sky. There was a rumbling sound and the clop of many hooves. A shadow blocked the sun: a gleaming carriage. The door creaked open to velvet darkness.
“Hello, Rose-Red,” said Fizcko pleasantly. He kicked the pelt away from Greta’s reaching fingers and leaned in close. “Leave that; I never did like foxes much.”
He signaled to his men and they closed in. The last thing Greta heard before she was bundled into the carriage was the high, desperate whining of a wounded wolf, rising over the square, then falling into terrible silence.
* * *
“So serious,” Fizcko said, when the carriage was rocking gently out of the village. “Anyone would think this was a tragic moment, instead of a happy one.”
Greta flinched as a long, low howl rose from the Marktplatz. It was joined by another, and then another, until it seemed that the entire pack was howling as one. Whether it was in grief, or in triumph, she could not say. Her only means of knowing—the fox skin—remained on the cobbles in Lindenfeld. She pushed at the carriage window, at the shining handle on the door, but both were locked fast. No way to look back. No way to see if Rob was the wolf who howled in victory, or Conran.
“Be still, now,” Fizcko said lazily, sinking back into the cushions. “You are as flighty as a strumpet on Monday.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“You know where.”
This close Greta could see that the magician was younger than she had first thought; the skin about his eyes was smooth and youthful, an odd contrast to the whiteness of his brows and long, thick beard. In his splendid velvets he was jeweled and glossy as a king.
“Isn’t it nice to be free of that cursed dungeon?” he asked. “Those tiresome peasants? Never liked witch trials much, myself, but needs must and all that.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was the only way we could get to you,” Fizcko said with a shrug. He stroked one finger along the polished paneling beside him. “What with that meddling bear and those pesky wolves…”
The terror that had taken hold of Greta when his men had seized her had settled, to be replaced by a cold dread. Mathias had been right: the baroness and Fizcko did want her. Now the question remained: Why?
“It was you and the baroness,” she said slowly. “You summoned the weather and froze the crops.”
“How kind of you to notice.”
“You caused the landslip!”
“Indeed, although I cannot take all the credit.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Did you like my storm?”
“That was you?”
“Who else would it be?”
“I thought the baroness…”
“No.” His face darkened. “My poor Lili has not cast for years. Not since…” He shook his head. “It hardly matters, now. All will be as it should, soon enough.”
“You—” Greta swallowed, forced herself to speak. “You killed Anna-Catherine’s baby.”
Fizcko shrugged. “I told you, dear Rose: needs must.”
“But why?” she demanded. “What do you want with me?”
“Well, that is the question, isn’t it?” Fizcko slid from his seat and pulled himself up on the cushions beside Greta. She caught the scent of expensive soap and spices. “My. You are a pretty red fox, aren’t you? A rose indeed.”
Rose. Why did he keep calling her that? She shrank away as he touched her hair, rubbed the strands between his fingers. She itched to beat against the door, to escape his keen eyes and keener magic. Curses and trickery, greediness and cruelty rolled off him like oil. But she needed answers, and soon. With every passing moment the carriage was drawing closer to the Hornberg, and she had no idea what she would find when it arrived. Her life, and the lives of Hans and Mathias, might very well depend upon what Fizcko told her now.
“Perhaps you and I will have a little celebration of our own tonight, when the festivities are over.” Fizcko smiled in a way that reminded Greta of Herr Hueber.
“The festivities?”
“Oh, yes. It’ll be quite the evening. Lili has it all planned. Feasting and dancing. Perhaps a little bearbaiting. And you, of course, will be our special guest.”
The rhythm of the carriage changed as the rough road became cobbles once more. Greta looked out the window and saw the familiar streets of Hornberg, the houses rising grandly, their rooftops and window frames covered in snow. High above, Schloss Hornberg reared into view, its towers glowering through banks of lingering cloud. The half-timbered turrets were painted a fresh white, the patterned curves of the timberwork a merry red. Blood against snow.
The driver flicked his whip and the horses lowered their heads, pulling their heavy load around the forested hips of the mountain. The wintery rooftops of Hornberg were soon lost behind a wall of misty, snow-clad pines.
Fizcko swore as the horses stumbled on the slippery road, jolting the carriage. Greta would have been thrown against the window had he not steadied her. He moved with surprising speed, his arms and chest thick with unexpected muscle.
“Surprised?” He winked at her. “You should see the rest of me.”
She pulled away from him, but he held her fast.
“You smell like cinnamon, you know, beneath all that blood and fear,” Fizcko told her, inhaling. “Cinnamon …and honey. I will so enjoy becoming better acquainted with you.”
And then as abruptly as he had left his seat he returned to it, settling back into the cushions. “You should rest now, dear one. You’ve had quite the day, and you will need your strength tonight.” He closed his eyes, giving every appearance of drifting into an easy doze.
