“Yes,” Stroban answered. “Why should we not?”
“Indeed. Tell us what happened to change your mind?”
Stroban felt his stomach twisting with the pain of memory, and yet he was on the brink of finding justice. It was up to him, his word, his saying what was right and true. He must be exact.
“There was a quarrel between Korah and Anaya, the accused.” He avoided looking at her now. “I didn’t know what it was about at the time…”
“Korah will tell us,” the Prosecutor assured him. “Please go on.”
Stroban obeyed. “A few days later there was a more serious quarrel. That same evening Anaya said that if Bertil did not do as she had told him to, then the barn roof would cave in and kill him.” He could barely say the words. The scene was carved indelibly in his mind, Anaya standing in the kitchen, her hair wound in a copperred ribbon, the sun warming her face, the smells of cooking around them, the door open to the yard beyond and the lowing of the cattle in the distance. It was another world from this. They could not then have imagined the horror that awaited them.
The court was silent, faces still with fear.
“And how did Bertil reply to her?” the Prosecutor asked.
“He said she was wrong,” Stroban whispered. “My poor son! He had no idea.” His voice caught in a sob. “He didn’t believe in witchcraft.”
There was a shudder around the room. People shifted in their seats, closer to loved ones.
“But you do?” the Prosecutor insisted.
Stroban was angry, and afraid. He looked at the Judge and saw anger in him too, at the stupidity of the question, perhaps? Then he saw something else in the high-boned, curious face, passionate one moment, ascetic the next. It was a long, breathless moment before he understood that it also was fear. He had tasted the power of sorcery, and he knew there was nothing to protect ordinary men except righteousness, and the exact observance of the law.
But if the Judge knew that, really knew it, then there was hope for them. He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Of course I do! But I know that just men, obedient men, can defeat it!”
There was a murmur of admiration around the room, like a swell of the tide. Faces turned to the accused, tight with hatred and fear.
“Had you ever thought before that the barn roof would collapse?” the Prosecutor asked.
“Of course not!” Stroban was angry. “It rests on a great post, thick as a tree trunk!”
“Was anyone in the barn when this happened, apart from your son?”
“No, just Bertil, and one of the oxen.”
“I see. Thank you. The Defender may wish to ask you something.”
Stroban turned to face the young man who now rose to his feet. He was a complete contrast to the Prosecutor. Far from being arrogant, he looked full of doubt, even confused, as if he had no idea what he was going to say or do.
And indeed he did not have. The whole proceeding was out of his control. When he had spoken with Anaya earlier he had believed her when she had said she was innocent. Now he did not know what to think, nor did he have any faith in himself to achieve a just trial for her. Perhaps the Judge would help him? But when he looked at the Judge, his long, pale face seemed as utterly confused as he was himself.
The Defender turned to Stroban, cleared his throat and began. “We are deeply sorry for your grief.” He hesitated. He must say something to the point, but what? “Where was the accused when this tragedy happened?”
Stroban’s face was a mask of anger, his voice high-pitched. “You say ‘tragedy’ as if it were a natural happening! It was witchcraft! She made the roof fall in, exactly as she told him she would, if he did not submit to her lust. But he was a righteous man, and he refused, so she killed him!”
There was a shiver of horror around the room. People reached for amulets.
The Defender turned to the Judge for help, but the Judge did nothing. He seemed just as lost and overwhelmed. The Defender turned back to Stroban. “I asked you where was she?”
“I don’t know,” Stroban said sullenly. “Out in the fields somewhere, she told us.”
“Not in the barn?”
“Of course not! She didn’t need to be there to make it happen. Don’t you know anything about sorcery?”
“No, I don’t. Perhaps you would be good enough to instruct me?”
Stroban’s cheeks flamed. “I know nothing either! What do you think I am? But it is powerful and wicked, and all good people who love truth and the law must fight against it with every strength they have. We must see that justice is done. It is our only protection.”
There were nods of agreement, a mixture of fear and an attempt at assurance.
The Defender knew he would accomplish nothing with Stroban. It would be better to wait for his wife.
But when the Prosecutor called Enella she echoed exactly what her husband had said, almost in the same words. The Prosecutor sat down again, wholly satisfied.
The Defender rose. “You agreed that the accused was very fond of your son,” he began, not quite sure where he intended the question to lead. He glanced at Anaya, and saw a strange kind of peace in her eyes. He turned back to Enella. “In what ways did she show this?”
Enella was confused. “Why… the usual ways, I suppose.”
“And what are they?” he pressed.
“She… she talked with him easily, comfortably. She made him laugh, without telling the rest of us what it was about.”
“You felt excluded?”
“No! Of course not!” Now she was confused as well. She had been tricked into saying something she had not meant to.
“Why not?” he asked. “It sounds as if you were excluded.”
She looked at Stroban, then away again. “It was exactly as my husband said, she wanted him for herself, in spite of the fact that he was married to her dead husband’s sister, whom she should have loved and honoured. It was because of Korah that Bertil took Anaya in in the first place. Only a wicked woman would be so ungrateful!” Enella was afraid of uncertainty. She liked order. It was the only way to be safe.
“It sounds from what you say as if Bertil also liked her,” the Defender pointed out. “Are you certain that she was not merely responding to him? After all, he was her host, so to speak. The head of her household.”
Enella was afraid. Stroban was not helping her. She looked at the Judge.
The Judge leaned forward over the bench, his face tense and unhappy. He stared at the Defender. “I cannot see where you are leading. Stay on the known path, if you please.”
Enella relaxed again. The Judge was a decent man, a fair man. There was no need to be afraid after all.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” the Defender apologized. He was confused again. He looked at Anaya where she stood perfectly still. Her face was white, as if exhausted by plunging from hope to despair, and back again. Her shoulders drooped, as if the courage of a few moments ago had slipped from her. He had promised her that he would do his best, and so far he had been pathetic. He must do better.
He took a step towards her, waving his hand. “We have heard that Anaya,” he used her name self-consciously, “liked to make Bertil laugh. She helped him in his work, because she was clever, and inventive. Is that true?” He knew that Enella would agree that it was, her husband had already said so, and she would never contradict him.
“Yes,” she said unhappily.
“She made new suggestions for efficiency and skill, things that had not been done before?” he pressed, beginning to see a tiny light of hope.
There was only one possible answer, to have denied it would have been ridiculous. “Yes.”
“So she was cleverer than Korah, or than any of you?”
“Well…”
“Or you would have thought of them for yourselves, before she came?”