“That brings up another matter. Those daggers of yours, they are especially made for throwing, aren’t they?”
“Yes. I can generally kill a rat with any dagger or knife, but I never miss with these.”
“And I bet I could name the man who made them for you. He lives in Milan, doesn’t he?”
“He does. I met him in my youth. Freddy and I delivered him enough Flemish wine to make the whole city drunk. He saw me throw at a rat in his kitchen. I pinned its back leg to the floor. He said I could do better with a well-balanced dagger and he made me one. I’ve had him make me a half dozen more since. He’s a craftsman.”
Mandeville concurred and added, “He made my sword.”
It was perhaps well for Alain that his mind was absorbed with pleasant thoughts of Louise when he called on Eugene Latteur. He had scarcely entered the house when Eugene’s young wife Denise burst into the room and said, “Alain Schram! I knew I heard your voice!” She turned to her husband. “He is just the man to kill that rat in our pantry.”
Eugene, thirty and more years older than his wife, responded slowly but with increasing agreement. “It’s a wily rodent,” he said, “only moderate in size but with teeth that cut their way through two inches of wood in half an hour. We chased him away from the flour box a dozen times, but while we were at dinner yesterday he gnawed through and had a dinner for himself.”
They rose and headed for the back door, Denise chattering spiritedly and leading the way, Eugene following slowly. The pantry was a small shed behind the house. It was windowless, so Denise threw the door wide open to let in as much as possible of the orange light reflected from clouds overhead.
Alain walked to the entrance and peered in, giving his eyes time to become accustomed to the dimness. Denise pressed close behind, leaning against him and pointing to the right. “That hole is where he gets in,” she said, “and the chest farther on is where he does his thieving.”
The chest had been repaired, but even as he watched, Alain could hear the splintering of wood. “He’s at it now,” he said. He drew and balanced his dagger.
Two steps freed him from Denise’s body. A third step and the rat scooted from behind the chest and made for the hole. It got not quite halfway there before Alain’s dagger struck it.
“He killed it!” Denise shouted, moving in and blocking out most of the fading light.
Alain picked up the rat, removed and cleaned his dagger, and offered the dead rat to Denise. She quickly moved out of his way and called to her husband, who stood watching from the back doorway of the house.
Husband and wife congratulated Alain and they went in to celebrate.
Denise went into the kitchen, made sure the servants were proceeding properly with the dinner, and then ran upstairs. She came down with her three-year-old son and the duenna who had been with the Latteurs as long as Alain could remember. While Alain and Eugene talked, the child walked over to his father and climbed up on one leg. Eugene bounced him with a measured and steady beat. “We’re worried,” Eugene said. “Witches have been covening by the spring on Friday nights. First they killed chickens, then pigs. Last Friday night it was a goat. They’ll kill a child soon. Friday after next is the thirteenth. They’ll steal a child before then and sacrifice it. We’re worried.”
Thus Alain learned about the witches.
The women sat with several items of Eugene’s clothing piled before them. As the men talked, the women searched the coats and breeches for tears and holes. On finding any, they proceeded to mend them. From time to time they would find dead fleas in the garments. These they would carefully shake into a large basin placed between them for that purpose. It was a cozy domestic scene. The men should have been talking about weather, crops, and business. Instead they grappled with dark fears and ominous forebodings.
“Why doesn’t the bailie take some men up to the spring on a Friday night and seize the witches?” Alain asked.
“The bailie? You wouldn’t find Pierre going near that spring with an army. And he couldn’t raise an army in Liege to fight witches. I wouldn’t go and I guess I’m as brave as any man hereabouts.”
“I’ve seen a few witches burned in Italy. They were poor old women. They babbled and people said they were talking in Satan’s tongue. I don’t know. Most of them just seemed to be short on wits. Before they died some of them were grinning and waving to the crowds. They seemed to enjoy the attention they were getting. I doubt that anyone had paid any attention to them in a long time. Frankly, they seemed to be harmless.”
“That’s in the light of day. At night they change shape and Satan gives them power to fly through the air and enter locked rooms and steal children or bewitch healthy people so they die.”
“There is one more Friday night before the thirteenth. This Friday let’s go to the Spring of Beelzebub and watch for them. If there’s a coven of witches meeting there, we’ll grab them and bring them to the bishop for trial.”
Eugene was astounded. “You’d never do that,” he said. “They anoint themselves with magical potions so they can become invisible at will. Or they could change themselves into a cat or an owl. Anyway, you’ll never get me or any of the other citizens of Liege to go with you to a coven on a Friday night. Satan himself might be there!”
Alain looked at the women. The duenna had stopped sewing and was staring at him as if he had suggested going to hell and fighting with the demons. Denise continued sewing, her eyes intent on her work, but her usually cheerful face was ashen. The young child had left its father’s knee and gone to clutch its mother’s skirts.
Alain turned back to Eugene, but at that moment a servant entered. Supper was ready. Plans for putting an end to the witch scare would have to be postponed. And then it would be to Mandeville that he talked.
They settled at table as two servants brought in the first course: Flemish wine and veal pasties, black puddings and sausages.
Once the subject of witchcraft is brought up, it does not die easily. Eugene might shy away from discussing plans for going after witches, but he was willing to elaborate on the danger witches posed to the community.
“We want to protect our son,” he said, “but how do you guard against a force of evil which cannot be kept out by locks or frightened away by dogs?”
Alain temporized. Like most of the rest of the world, he had been brought up with a lively fear of those who practiced the black art. But as a merchant he dealt with men on all levels and he observed that the best educated held witches in contempt. Sir John Mandeville in particular felt pity rather than fear for them.
“What precautions have you taken?” he asked.
“The only one I know,” Eugene replied. “I keep arrows smeared with hog’s blood and hellebore within easy reach. It’s the only thing that can kill a witch. If I see one, she’s dead. But their power to become invisible is what defeats me.”
“You seem to have done all you can do. You have a crucifix above the boy’s bed?”
“Naturally.”
At this point the second course arrived: hares in civey, pea soup, salt meat, and a soringue of eels.
When conversation resumed, it centered on the harm witches do. To Alain’s relief, it moved away from the killing of children at witches’ Sabbat and dealt with their charms and spells.
“The floods which devastated this country in my youth were generally considered the work of witches,” Eugene said. “And once a young woman was accused by the priest of St. Denis of trying to take holy bread away from the Mass to desecrate it. The weavers’ guild rose to her defense since her husband was one of their leading members. The bishop was won over and the woman was not harmed.”