Lechner.
He scrutinized the midwife’s body inch by inch, checking under her armpits, on her behind and between her thighs. Martha Stechlin kept her eyes closed. Even when the clerk poked his fingers into her genitals she did not weep. Finally, Lechner stopped. “The mark on the shoulder blade seems to be the most suspicious of them. We shall do the test. Hangman, the needle!”
Jakob Kuisl handed him a finger-long needle. Without hesitating the clerk pushed the needle deep into the shoulder blade. Martha Stechlin’s scream was so shrill that Jakob Kuisl winced. They were starting and there was nothing he could do about it.
Johann Lechner observed the point of entry with great interest. Finally he smiled, satisfied. “Just as I thought,” he said, returning to the desk and sitting down behind his writing implements. He started to write, speaking aloud as he did so: “Defendant’s clothes removed. I stuck her with a needle myself and discovered a point from which no blood flowed-”
“But this is no evidence,” Jakob Schreevogl objected. “Any child knows that hardly any blood flows across the shoulder bone! And furthermore-”
“Juryman Schreevogl,” replied Lechner, interrupting him. “Did you notice that this mark is at the exact same spot where the children had their marks? And that this mark, if not exactly identical, nevertheless looks very similar?”
Jakob Schreevogl shook his head. “A birthmark, nothing more. Never in a lifetime will the Elector’s secretary let you call this evidence!”
“Well, we’re not done yet after all,” said Lechner. “Hangman, the thumbscrews. This time we’ll take the other hand.”
Martha Stechlin’s screams rose from the torture cellar through the narrow windows of the keep into the town. Anyone in the vicinity briefly interrupted their work and crossed themselves or prayed a Hail Mary. Then they continued whatever they had been doing.
The burghers were sure that the witch was receiving her just punishment. She was still obstinate, but soon enough she would spit out her nefarious doings to the honorable aldermen, and then it would finally be over. She would confess her whoring with the devil, and the wild nights with him when together they drank the blood of the innocent little children and branded them with the mark of the devil. She would tell of the orgiastic dances, and how she had kissed the devil on his backside and had done everything the devil asked. She would tell of the other witches who had ridden with her through the air on their brooms, excited by pungent witches’ salve that they had smeared on their genitals. Wanton wenches, all of them! And many a good Schongauer was salivating at the mere thought of it. And many a Schongau housewife could well imagine who these other witches were: the neighbor with the evil eye, the beggar woman over in the Munzgasse, the maid who was pursuing the good, unsuspecting husband…
At a stand in the market square, Bonifaz Fronwieser was just biting into his warm pastry when Martha Stechlin’s screams could be heard coming from the dungeon. Suddenly the meat tasted old and rotten. He threw the rest to a pack of dogs running about and then headed home.
The devil had entered Clara and wouldn’t let go of her. The girl threw herself from one side to the other on her bed of brushwood. Cold sweat stood on her brow; her face was waxen like a doll’s. Again and again Clara mumbled in her sleep and at times cried out with such force that Sophie had to hold her mouth closed. At that moment the devil seemed to be very close to her again.
“He…he’s gotten hold of me. No! Go away! Go away! Hellish claws…the heart from the body…it hurts so…so much…”
Gently Sophie kept pushing her little friend back on her bed and wiped her hot brow with a wet rag. The fever had not let up. On the contrary, it had become stronger and stronger. Clara was glowing like a little oven. The drink Sophie had given her provided only temporary relief.
Sophie had now watched over her for three nights and four days. Only rarely did she go outside to gather berries and herbs or to pilfer something edible from one of the surrounding farms. Yesterday she had caught a chicken, killed it, and at night made hot soup for Clara. But she was afraid that someone would see the fire and soon went back inside. Her fears were not unfounded. She had heard footsteps in the night. They had passed very close to her hiding place and then had left again.
One time she had gone to the raft landing and had asked a boy to tell the alderman Schreevogl that his foster daughter was well. She had considered that a pretty good idea at first. But when that physician showed up in the forest, she cursed herself for it. And all the more when the devil himself appeared, coming as if from nowhere. She dropped quickly into a ditch covered with shrubs, and the man with the bony hand ran past her, toward the physician. Since then she did not know whether the young physician had been killed or had gotten away. She only knew that her pursuers were very close.
Last night she had considered several times whether to go into town and tell the whole story. Perhaps she could tell it to the physician, providing he was still alive, or to the hangman. They both seemed to be on her side. She could tell them everything, and Clara would be rescued. Perhaps they would only clap the midwife in the stocks, or her foster parents would have to pay a fine because their ward had gotten involved with things that were none of her business. Perhaps she would get away with a good spanking and nothing more. Perhaps everything would still be all right.
But that certain premonition of things that she’d always had, and which had made her the leader of the other children, told her that she wouldn’t be believed, that things had gone too far already, and there was no way back now.
Next to her, Clara cried out again in her sleep. Sophie bit her lip and tears ran down her face, which was smeared with dirt. She no longer knew where to turn.
Suddenly, she heard shouts from far away, laughter and shouting that could be heard way down here in her hiding place. Sophie kissed Clara on her forehead and moved to a spot with a good view over the forest.
Shadows were flitting among the trees. Dusk had fallen, and at first she could not distinguish the individual figures. Soon, however, she heard dogs barking. Carefully Sophie pushed herself up a few inches higher. Now she recognized the men. They were peasants from Altenstadt, Franz Strasser, Johannes’s foster father, among them. The big dog he was holding on a leash was pulling him toward the hiding place. Quickly Sophie crouched down and crawled to where she could no longer be seen. The voices of the men had a strange echo, as if coming from the far end of a long tunnel.
“Let’s stop now, Franz!” one of the men called out. “We have been looking all day, and it will be dark soon. The men are tired and hungry and want to go home. Let’s continue looking for this hiding place tomorrow.”
“Just wait a moment! Just look here!” shouted Franz Strasser in reply. “The dog smells something!”
“What do you think he smells?” the other one said, laughing. “The witch? He’s smelling Sepp Spanner’s bitch. She’s in heat. Can’t you see how it pulls him off?”
“You dumb ass! This is something else. Look, he’s going completely crazy…”
The voices had come closer. Sophie held her breath. Now they were directly above her. The dog started to bark.
“There must be something around here,” murmured Strasser. “Let’s search the area around here, and then we’ll let it be.”
“All right then, just around here. The dog is really acting crazy…”
Sophie heard shouting and hooting. The other peasants were becoming impatient. She heard steps above her, pacing back and forth on the gravel. The dog’s panting sounded as if he were about to choke as he obviously was straining on the leash so hard that he was almost strangling himself.
At this moment Clara began to scream again. It was a long scream of fear, as once again she was overcome by the shadows of darkness that were scratching her soft young skin with long fingernails. As soon as Sophie heard the scream she threw herself down quickly next to Clara and closed her mouth with her hand. But it was too late.
“Did you hear that?” asked Strasser excitedly.
“Hear what? Your dog is panting and barking. I can’t hear anything else.”
“Damn cur, be quiet, will you!”
Sophie could hear a kick and then the dog’s whimpering. The dog was finally silent.
“Somebody did scream. It was a child.”
