Straightaway, I began to question those I met as to why there was such a great pyre set in the very middle of the open place before the cathedral doors, and why the peddlers had set up their stands to sell their drinks and cakes when there was no fair to be seen, and what was the reason for the viewing stands having been built to the north of the church and beside it against the walls of the jail? And why are the four inn yards of the town overflowing with horses and coaches, and why are so many milling and talking and pointing to the high barred window of the jail above the viewing stand, and then to the loathsome pyre?
Was it to do with the Feast of St. Michael, which is tomorrow, the day that is called Michaelmas?
Not a person to whom I spoke hesitated to enlighten me that it had nought to do with the saint, though this is his cathedral, except that they had chosen his feast the better to please God and all his angels and saints, with the execution tomorrow of the beautiful Comtesse who is to be burnt alive, without benefit of being strangled beforehand, so as to set an example to all witches in the neighborhood of whom there were many, though the Comtesse had named absolutely none as her accomplices even under the most unspeakable torture, so great was the devil’s power over her, but the inquisitors would indeed find them out.
And from these sundry persons who would have talked me into a stupor had I allowed it, I did learn further that there was scarce a family in the vicinity of this prosperous community who had not seen firsthand the great powers of the Comtesse, as she did freely heal those who were sick, and prepare for them herb potions, and lay her own hands upon their afflicted limbs and bodies, and for this she asked nothing except that she be remembered in their prayers. She had in fact great fame for countering the black magic of lesser witches; and those suffering from spells went to her often for bread and salt to drive away the devils inflicted on them by persons unknown.
Such raven hair you never saw, said one of these to me, and ah, but she was so beautiful before they broke her, said another, and yet another, my child is alive on account of her, and yet a fourth that the Comtesse could cool the hottest fever, and that to those under her she had given gold on feast days, and had nothing for anyone but kind words.
Stefan, you would have thought I was on my way to a canonization, not a burning. For no one whom I met in this first hour, during which I took my time in the narrow streets, riding hither and thither as if lost, and stopping to talk with any and all I passed, had a cruel word for the lady at all.
But without a doubt, these simple folk seemed all the more tantalized by the fact that it was a good and great lady who would be committed to the flames before them, as if her beauty and her kindnesses made her death a grand spectacle for them to enjoy. I tell you, it was with fear in my heart of their eloquent praise of her, and their quickness to describe her, and the glitter that came over them when they spoke of her death, that I finally had enough of it and went on to the pyre itself and rode back and forth before it, inspecting its great size.
Aye, it takes a great deal of wood and coal to burn a human being complete and entire. I gazed on it with dread as always, wondering why it is that I have chosen this work when I do not ever enter a town such as this, with its barren stone buildings, and its old cathedral with its three steeples, but that I do not hear in my ears the noise of the mob, the crackling of the fire, and the coughing and gasping and finally the shrieks of the dying. You know that no matter how often I witness these despicable burnings, I cannot inure myself to them. What is it in my soul that forces me to seek this same horror again and again?
Do I do penance for some crime, Stefan? And when will I have done penance enough? Do not think I ramble on. I have a point in all this, as you will soon see and understand. For I have come face to face once more with a young woman I once loved as dearly as I have loved anyone, and I remember more vividly than her charms the blankness of her face when I first beheld her, chained to a cart on a lonely road in Scotland, only hours after she had seen her own mother burnt.
Perhaps if you remember her at all you have guessed the truth already. Do not read ahead. Bear with me. For as I rode back and forth before the pyre, listening to the stammering and stupidity of a pair of local wine sellers who boasted of having seen other burnings as if this were something to be proud of, I did not know the full history of the Comtesse. I do now.
At last, at perhaps five of the clock, I went to the finest of the inns of the town, and the oldest, which stands right opposite the church, and commands from all its front windows a view of the doors of Saint-Michel and the place of execution which I have described.
As the town was obviously filling up for this event, I fully expected to be sent away. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that the occupants of the very best rooms on the front of the house were being turned out for, in spite of their fine clothes and airs, they had been discovered to be penniless. I at once paid the small fortune required for these “fine chambers,” and, asking for a quantity of candles, that I might write late into the night as I am doing now, I went up the crooked little stair and found that this was a tolerable place with a decent straw mattress, not too filthy all things considered and one of them being that this is not Amsterdam, and a small hearth of which I have no need on account of the beautiful September weather, and the windows though small do indeed look out upon the pyre.
“You can see very well from here,” said the innkeeper to me proudly, and I wondered how many times he had seen such a spectacle, and what were his thoughts on the proceedings, but then he went to talking on his own of how beautiful was the Comtesse Deborah and shaking his head sadly as did everyone else when they spoke of her, and what was to come.
“Deborah you said, that is her name?”
“Aye,” he answered, “Deborah de Montcleve, our beautiful Comtesse, though she is not French you know, and if only she had been a little bit of a stronger witch-” and then he broke off with a bowed head.
I tell you the knife was at my breast then, Stefan. I guessed who she was, and could scarce endure to press him further. Yet I did. “Pray continue,” I said.
“She said when she saw her husband dying that she could not save him, that it was beyond her power … ” And here with sad sighs he broke off once more.
Stefan, we have seen countless such cases. The cunning woman of the village becomes a witch only when her powers to heal do not work. Before that, she is everyone’s good sorceress, and there is nary the slightest talk of devils. And so here it was again.
I set up my writing desk, at which I sit now, put away the candles, and then betook myself to the public rooms below, where a little fire was going against the damp and dark in this stony place, about which several local philosophers were warming themselves, or drying out their besotted flesh, one or the other, and seating myself at a comfortable table and ordering supper, I tried to banish from my mind the curious obsession I have with all comfortable hearth fires, that the condemned feel this cozy warmth before it turns to agony and their bodies are consumed.
“Bring me the very best of your wine,” I said, “and let me share it with these good gentlemen here, in the hopes that they will tell me about this witch, as I have much to learn.”
My invitation was at once accepted and I ate at the very center of a parliament who commenced to talk all at once, so that I might pick and choose at different times the one to whom I wished to listen, and shut all the others out.