“What are we doing here?” asked Karl skeptically. “Do you really believe this woman can help us in any way? If you ask me, she’s nothing but a befuddled old hag who—”
“She saw me in her dreams,” said Johann. “And now I’m standing in front of her. I find that warrants at least listening to her.”
The walls inside the hut were so blackened by smoke that Johann felt like he was entering hell. The room stank of soot, feces, and sulfur, the only vent being a tiny hole in the middle of the roof. The red embers of a small fire below were the only source of light. There was no table and no chair but a wealth of crucibles, old sacks, and colorful wooden boxes stacked along the walls. Some pelts on the hard dirt floor served as a seating and sleeping place. The old woman signaled for them to sit down on the skins. Johann saw how hordes of lice crawled through her matted hair. Her entire appearance was so delicate and wrinkled that he couldn’t help but think of an ancient earth fairy.
“I only hope she doesn’t offer us anything to eat or drink,” muttered John. “Brr! I shudder to think what’s in those jars.” His eyes went from dried bunches of herbs to snakeskins and finally to a mummified newt dangling from the ceiling on a leather string.
The old woman looked around warily, as if she was afraid someone invisible was in the room. She walked to the entrance and used her cane to draw a pentagram onto the dirt floor, then she sat down among them. She started to speak in her throaty language again, and John listened intently, his expression growing darker the longer she spoke.
“What’s she saying?” asked Greta, who sat beside John with her legs crossed, holding his hand.
“My Breton really isn’t very good,” said John. “But she seems to believe that the devil is haunting these lands again, like he did a long time ago.”
“Gilles de Rais,” whispered Johann.
John nodded. “It sounds unbelievable, but apparently this woman is the daughter of a girl who, at just ten years of age, managed to escape from the clutches of Gilles de Rais and his henchmen. The name of that girl was Marie, and this woman’s name is Étienne. Marie often told her daughter about the terrible events from back then so they wouldn’t be forgotten.”
“Gilles de Rais died in the year of the Lord 1440 at Nantes—about eighty years ago,” said Karl. “That means Étienne here would have to be very old for this story to be true.”
“But it’s possible.” Increasingly agitated, Johann turned back to John. “What else is she saying?”
“Étienne’s mother, Marie, watched some of Gilles’s helpers back then, and the midwife believes that those helpers—just like Gilles de Rais—never died.” John lowered his voice. “The devil made them live on—the devil and the children’s blood they’ve been drinking. They lived in the woods with the wolves for several decades, but for a few years now they’ve been more active again in this part of Brittany. Étienne calls them ‘the wild hunt.’”
“Chasseal loened gouez!” said the old woman, nodding vigorously. “Chasseal loened gouez!”
“The wild hunt.” Johann shuddered. He rubbed his eyes, reddened from the smokiness of the hut. “It’s a term that often appears in myths. Ancient, evil gods who chase through the air or the woods hunting humans. They say that he who beholds them is doomed to die.” A thought struck him. “Does she know the names of any of the helpers?”
John turned to Étienne, who listened and nodded. With her face twisted into a grimace of disgust, she counted the names on her fingers.
“Poitou, Henriet, La Meffraye, and Prelati, the priest,” translated John. “She said everyone around here knows those names. They are like monsters, like the ogres folks use to frighten small children. Although Poitou hasn’t been seen in a long time.”
“Poitou?” Johann flinched. “I know him!” He looked at Karl. “Do you remember the big fellow in Nuremberg, Tonio’s helper? I met him at Nördlingen for the first time when I was still traveling with Tonio. He made me drink the black potion back then!”
“Poitou . . . yes, I suppose you’re right.” Karl nodded slowly as he remembered. “You killed him in Nuremberg. You really think she’s talking about the same man?”
“Apparently, La Meffraye is the worst of that sinister bunch,” said John, concentrating to understand the old woman’s words. “No one knows what her real name is. Her nickname stems from l’effraie, the barn owl. She would use sweets to lure small children into the woods, where Poitou and Henriet would capture them with nets and take them to Tiffauges and other castles in the area—Champtocé and Machecoul.” John shuddered. “The most gruesome scenes must have unfolded there. I’m glad I don’t understand everything. And it seems like it’s all starting again from the beginning.”
“What about that priest?” asked Johann. “That Prelati?”
The old woman made the sign of the cross when she heard the name. Then she continued to talk.
“He . . . he must have helped Gilles de Rais invoke the devil at Tiffauges,” said John after he listened for a while. “The two of them were something like a . . .” He shook his head in disgust. “A couple. Étienne believes that Prelati is back there now.”
“The steward’s new priest,” breathed Greta. “Albert spoke of a priest.”
“And Gilles de Rais?” Johann’s voice was trembling now, his facial muscles twitching uncontrollably. “Does she know if Gilles de Rais is also at Tiffauges?”
The old woman nodded as if she’d understood the question. “An
