Andreas, the young Shield-Brother he had met earlier, was sitting on his right, embroiled in an elaborate tale that involved an earnest amount of arm waving and making faces. The young man caught sight of Raphael and his broad face lit up. He waved Raphael over, elbowing the man seated next to him to make room.
Raphael began to apologize to the man who had been so unceremoniously moved, but the lean villager, catching sight of the sword on Raphael’s hip, shook his head and scooted ever farther away on the bench.
Andreas shoved a half-empty tankard in front of Raphael. “It is not a bad brew, my brother,” he said. “And the stew is as hearty as it is bland to the tongue.” He whistled shrilly, catching the attention of the nearest tavern maid. He pointed at himself and Raphael, and the young woman nodded before she vanished into the crowd.
Raphael sat and inspected the contents of the tankard. “You were telling a story before I arrived,” he said. “Pray continue.”
“I was just telling these attentive listeners tales of the Crusades,” Andreas said.
Raphael glanced shrewdly at him, assessing his age. His face was still youthful beneath his blond beard, though he was beginning to collect lines beyond those engraved in his face by years of raucous laughter. Which Crusade? he wondered. Surely he was not at Damietta?
As Andreas continued his story, Raphael opted to not ask such an indelicate question. He raised the tankard of ale and drank. His eyes strayed to the far side of the room, and as he watched, one of the two doors opened and a bevy of servants filed out, their hands filled with empty serving trays. In the room beyond, he caught a glimpse of two men, seated at a table. The magistrate and the inquisitor, who was eating vigorously.
Raphael wondered if the inquisitor would remember him.
Gerda was stirred from her reverie by a loud belch from the inquisitor. His chair scraped on the floor as he pushed himself back from the table, and when she turned her head slightly, she saw his leather boots. A thin metal band wrapped around the heel of each, bound across the instep and sole of the boot with leather ties. As the inquisitor shifted in the chair, she spied a short spike jutting from the back of one of the bands.
“Tell me about this woman,” the inquisitor said, and Gerda flinched, curling more tightly about her bound hands.
From behind her, she heard the thin, raspy voice of the town magistrate reply. “I thought you wanted to wait until tomorrow before…”
The inquisitor waved the magistrate silent. “My inquiries are not a mummer’s play for the rabble. She will be judged by me and God. We do not require an audience for our work. Nor do I require anything more of you than to simply speak when I tell you to and to answer the questions I ask.” The inquisitor tapped his fingers on the table. “Or is there someone more capable in this bewitched town to whom I should be addressing my questions?”
“She is Gerda. Her husband is-was-” The magistrate cleared his throat nervously. “He was a woodsman named Otto, as was his father before him.”
“Otto? Am I to understand that his head was found on her doorstep?”
“Yes, Father, Your-Your Grace.”
“And the body?”
Gerda heard the magistrate gulp noisily. Her hands tightened into fists, her ragged nails digging into her palms. She had somehow convinced herself that Otto might still be alive, even though she could not imagine how his body might have survived being separated from its head.
“The body has not…we do not know where it is. Though we did find-” The magistrate sighed, gathering his courage.
“We found blood and…”
Unwanted, an image surfaced in Gerda’s mind-the vision of Otto’s headless body lying in the woods, ravaged by wild animals-and she whimpered as she banged her head against the floor in a vain effort to drive the image from her being.
“And?” the inquisitor prompted. “Come now. Is there more to tell, or do I need to drag you and the woman out to this spot in the woods? Was there more than blood?”
“No, Fa-Your Grace. I mean, yes, Your Grace.”
“Which is it?”
Gerda started when the inquisitor slapped his palm against the table, rattling the numerous dishes set before him.
“The Devil walks among your citizens, Magistrate. It is my duty to flush the insidious serpent out, to drive evil from the hearts of all good Christians. He wants you to be fearful of him and the actions of his agents because, when you are, you are more liable to forget your Christian duty to fear God.” The inquisitor slapped the table again.
“Fear me, for it is my judgment, my duty, to destroy this blight upon your community. Wherever it may dwell.”
The magistrate gulped again. When he spoke, his voice was breathless and he stuttered. “There were signs that he had been…cleaned.”
“Cleaned?”
“Like a rabbit.”
Gerda tried to hold back the terror that had been building inside her, but at the magistrate’s words, she lost control. Her back arched and her mouth opened wide as her grief and fright tore out of her in a great wail. As her lungs emptied, her body began to shake uncontrollably.
“God help me,” the magistrate cried. “She is possessed.”
“Possessed by despair,” the inquisitor snapped. “Hold her still, you fools.”
As Gerda felt hands take hold of her legs and shoulders, she lashed out. She felt the wooden cuffs of her shackles connect with someone’s head, and the impact emboldened her even more. She sat up, eyes wide open and staring, filled with a sudden, desperate resolve. There were four men standing over her, men she did not know and whom she knew to be in the service of the inquisitor. As they tried to restrain her, she fought back savagely.
The woman’s scream brought an immediate reaction to the men in the common room. The babble died in an instant, leaving the weak voice of the minstrel as he fumbled to the end of his verse. Both Raphael and Andreas were already on their feet, shoving their way through the crowd toward the door that led to the private room. Andreas reached the door first, yanking it open; Raphael crowded right behind him.
Inside, they found several of the inquisitor’s men wrestling with a frenzied woman on the floor while the inquisitor and the magistrate looked on from behind a long table. The magistrate was leaning back, almost out of his chair, and as the Shield-Brethren entered the room, the inquisitor leaped to his feet.
“How dare you!” the inquisitor thundered, and because he had not clarified to whom he was speaking, everyone froze, thinking he was referring to them. Except for the woman, who continued to struggle. One of the inquisitor’s men sat across her body, his broad hands pinning her manacled hands to her stomach.
“Pardon us, Father,” Andreas said, bowing slightly to the inquisitor. His hand fell, not altogether accidentally, on the hilt of his sword. “We heard a scream and thought you might be in distress.”
The inquisitor’s face darkened at the suggestion in Andreas’s words, but he managed to choke back his initial response. “This is a private tribunal of the Holy Roman Catholic Church in matters of heresy and witchcraft,” he sputtered. “It does not concern men such as you.”
“No?” Andreas countered. “My companion and I are members of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, a holy order that has been officially recognized by the Church in matters martial and judicial. Are you certain the sanctity of these proceedings would not benefit from the eyewitness accounts of two Knight Initiates?”
The inquisitor stared over Andreas’s shoulder, his blue eyes blazing. “I know of your order,” he said icily, regaining his composure, “and it has no authority over matters pertaining to the Inquisition.”