“I’ve been thinking,” says Claus. “Now I understand. About my errors. I ask for forgiveness. I ask for mercy.”
“Did you do what this woman said? Lead the Witches’ Sabbath, did you do that?”
“I thought I was clever,” the miller says with downcast eyes. “I overestimated myself. Expected too much of my mind, my stupid intellect. I’m sorry. I ask for mercy.”
“And the black magic? The ruined fields? The cold, the rain—was that you?”
“I helped the sick according to the old way. There were some I couldn’t help. The old remedies are not so reliable. I always did my best. I was paid only if it helped, of course. I read the future of those who wanted to know it in water and bird flight. Peter Steger’s cousin, not Paul Steger, the other one, Karl, I told him not to climb the beech tree, not even to find treasures, don’t do it, I said, and the Steger cousin asked: A treasure in my beech tree? And I said: Don’t do it, Steger, and Karl said: If there’s a treasure there, I’m going up, and then he fell and smashed his head. And I can’t figure out, even though I think about it all the time, whether a prophecy that would not have come true if I hadn’t made it is actually a prophecy or something else.”
“Did you hear the witch’s confession? That she called you the leader of the Sabbath, did you hear that?”
“If there’s a treasure in the beech tree, then it’s still there.”
“Did you hear the witch?”
“And the two birch leaves I found.”
“Not again!”
“They looked like a single leaf.”
“Not the leaves again!”
Claus is sweating, he is breathing heavily. “The matter confused me so.” He reflects, shakes his head, scratches his shorn head, rattling his chains. “May I show you the leaves? They must still be in the mill, in the attic, where I pursued my foolish studies.” He turns around and points with a chain-rattling arm over the heads of the spectators. “My son can fetch them!”
“There are no more magic materials in the mill,” says Dr. Tesimond. “There’s a new miller there now, and he won’t have kept that junk.”
“And the books?” Claus asks softly.
Dr. Kircher is unsettled to see a fly land on the paper in his hands. Its little black legs follow the course of the letters. Is it possible that it’s trying to tell him something? But it’s moving so quickly that you can’t read what it’s writing, and he must not let himself be distracted once again.
“Where are my books?” asks Claus.
Dr. Tesimond gives his assistant a sign, and Dr. Kircher stands up and reads out the miller’s confession.
His thoughts turn again to the investigations. The mill hand Sepp readily told how often he found the miller in a deep sleep during the day. Without a witness to such states of unconsciousness, no one can be convicted of witchcraft, there are strict rules about that. The servants of Satan leave their bodies behind, and their spirits fly out to distant lands. Even shaking him, shouting at him, and kicking him wouldn’t have done any good, Sepp testified, and the priest too heavily incriminated the miller: I curse you, he cried as soon as anyone in the village angered him, I’ll burn you to death, I’ll cause you pain! He demanded obedience from the whole village, everyone feared his wrath. And the baker’s wife once saw the demons he invoked after dark on the Steger field: she spoke of throats, teeth, claws, and large genitals, slimy figures of midnight. Dr. Kircher could hardly bring himself to write it down. And then four, five, six villagers, and then another three and then another two, and more and more, described in detail how often he brought bad weather down upon their fields. Black magic is even more important than unconsciousness—if it is not witnessed, an accused can be condemned only of heresy but not of witchcraft. To ensure that there was no error, Dr. Kircher explained to the witnesses for days the gestures and words they must have noticed. Their minds work slowly, you have to repeat everything, the curses, the old spells, the Satanic invocations, before they remember. Indeed it turned out thereafter that they all heard the correct words and saw the correct gestures of invocation. Only the baker, who was also questioned, was suddenly no longer certain, but then Dr. Tesimond took him aside and asked him whether he really wanted to protect a warlock and whether his life was so pure that he had nothing to fear from a thorough investigation. Then the baker remembered after all that he saw everything the others saw, and then nothing more was needed to lead the miller to a confession in a severe interrogation.
“I sent the hail onto the fields,” Dr. Kircher reads aloud. “I carved my circles into the earth, summoned the powers below and the demons above and the Lord of the Air, brought ruin to the crops, ice onto the earth, death to the grain. In addition, I acquired a forbidden book, written in Latin…”
At this point he notices a stranger and goes silent. Where did he come from? Dr. Kircher didn’t see him approaching, but if the man had already been among the spectators before, with his broad-brimmed hat and the velvet collar and the silver cane, he would surely have caught Dr. Kircher’s eye! Yet there he stands, next to the balladeer’s wagon. What if he alone could see him? His heart begins to pound. If the man were here only for him and invisible to the others, what then?
But as the stranger now comes forward with slow strides, the people step aside to let him pass. Dr. Kircher heaves a sigh of relief. The man’s beard is cut short, his cloak is made of velvet, a feather bobs on his felt hat. With a solemn gesture he takes off the hat and bows.
“Greetings. Vaclav van Haag.”
Dr. Tesimond stands up and bows himself. “An honor,” he says. “A great pleasure!”
Dr. Kircher too stands up, bows, and sits back down. So it is not the devil, but the author of a well-known work on crystal formation in limestone caves—Dr. Kircher read it at some point and retained little in his memory. Questioningly he looks at the linden: The light wavers as if everything were an illusion. What is this expert on crystallization doing here?
“I’m writing a treatise on witchcraft,” says Dr. van Haag as he straightens up again. “Word has spread that you have apprehended a warlock in this village. I ask permission to defend him.”
A murmur goes through the spectators. Dr. Tesimond hesitates. “I’m certain,” he then says, “a man of your erudition has better things to do with his time.”
“Perhaps, but nonetheless I am here and ask you for this favor.”
“The Procedure for the Judgment of Capital Crimes prescribes no advocate for the condemned.”
“Nor does it forbid advocacy, however. Administrator, will you permit me—”
“Address the judge, dear colleague, not the administrator. He will announce the verdict, but I will judge.”
Dr. van Haag looks at the administrator, who is white with rage, but it’s true, he has no say here. Van Haag briefly tilts his head and speaks to Dr. Tesimond: “There are numerous precedents. Trials with advocates are becoming more and more common. Many a condemned man doesn’t speak as well for himself as he would certainly do if he could only speak well. For example, the forbidden book that was just mentioned. Wasn’t it said that it was written in Latin?”
“Correct.”
“Has the miller read it?”
“Well, for God’s sake, how could he have read it?”
Dr. van Haag smiles. He looks at Dr. Tesimond, then Dr. Kircher, then the miller, then Dr. Tesimond again.
“So what?” asks Dr. Tesimond.
“If the book is written in Latin!”
“Yes?”