‘A good medic? That’s exactly what I need.’
‘The best in the region.’
‘So why haven’t I heard of her?’
‘Perhaps because she is a Jew,’ the count replies smoothly.
Alphonso, removing his tongue from the prince’s ear, enters the conversation with a cheeky audacity. ‘In that case she must be the best.’
Intrigued the prince stops running his hands through the actor’s long hair. ‘So where can I find her?’
‘Sire, the said medic is currently incarcerated in the cathedral dungeon under the loving care of Monsignor Carlos Vicente Solitario. I believe the unfortunate woman is accused of sorcery.’
‘Solitario is a sanctimonious oaf who would happily trade lives for promotion. But he has caught my uncle’s ear at a particularly pious time. We are all victims of the emperor’s sudden virtuousness.’
The prince petulantly knocks a bone off the table. One of the hunting dogs lurking beneath lurches up and grabs it.
‘The diocese of Cologne is always happy to accommodate the wishes of the Grand Inquisition,’ Detlef replies diplomatically, sensing a trap.
‘Naturally, Canon, everyone accommodates the Inquisition. Come, my lovely Europa, we shall lead the next quadrille.’
Ferdinand escorts Alphonso across the marble floor, the actor’s Grecian robe trailing behind them. The dancers part and wait for the royal cue as the two young men take their places centre stage. The goddess’s glistening golden eyelids and scarlet mouth are infused with a raw dignity. The prince, for once looking regal, lifts Europa’s hand high and they wait, poised, before the musicians begin.
There is an air of vulnerability about them. It is because of their youth, Detlef finds himself thinking, as if instead of prince and actor they are simply two youths in love at the brink of their lives.
The violinist sounds his first notes, Europa flicks her fan shut and the dance begins.
Dear Benedict,
I write to you in darkness. I am confined in the bowels of the prison of Cologne, a guest of the Inquisition awaiting a reception of horror. They have charged me with witchcraft and heresy. Is it heresy to believe but not in the accepted creeds? Is it sorcery to use one man’s herbs and another’s faith? If so, I am guilty of both.
Here it is perpetual night. Here there is but a wisp of candlelight which flickers precariously beyond the bars of my gaol. I have stared at it for so long now it has become the sun, God and the embodiment of all my hope. I know from the sliver of light it throws across the wall that there is much damp in here and, amid the filthy sawdust, God’s own rodents. They smile at me with long yellow teeth. Strange, but I have no fear of these creatures. There is one in particular, a motley mangy beast, who appears more decrepit than the rest. He is the Solomon of the rat kingdom and will partake of me for hours. In my madness I wonder if he is not the spirit of an ancient ancestor returned. It is such meanderings that have kept me sane. There is no light for me to mark time so I have slipped into a delirium of eternity. The only fellow human I have seen is one prison guard who brings me a thin gruel to eat and who takes out the slops. I have tried to converse with him but the creature appears to be a mute with limited intelligence.
To further my humiliation they have stripped me not only of my freedom but also of my clothes. I cover my nakedness with a hessian sack; I am reduced to the bare bones of my soul. Despair lurks at every twist of the mind, longing to drag me down into an abyss. My anger saves me. Perhaps it shall be my redemption. It keeps me warm and quietens my starving belly. They shall not see me broken. My physical body shall surrender the spirit before the will. But oh, how I long to hear a friend’s voice, anything to remind me that I am not so completely alone…
A shifting light which appears behind her shut lids causes her to break concentration. She clears her mind of the letter she is composing and contemplates whether she should open her eyes and let harsh reality annihilate her imagined liberation. Before she has a chance to decide, the reddish glow grows stronger. It is a dancing pinpoint that beckons her seductively: open up, open up…
Tentatively she lifts her eyelids and immediately senses that she is in the presence of the unknown.
Oh terror, where are you? she wonders, amazed at the tremendous tranquillity which has placed all of her six senses into suspension, for before her sits a ghost.
He is a tall youth with jet-black hair and black eyes ringed by circles of exhaustion in a narrow face. He sits on the edge of the straw pallet gazing morosely into space. His feet are manacled by heavy chains and his arms and wrists bear the mark of torture. Like her, he is a prisoner in the gaol, but unlike her he has no sense of another’s presence.
‘Aaron?’ she whispers but is not surprised when he does not turn, merely exhales deeply, a sigh of complete resignation. He shifts slightly in his chains; to Ruth’s astonishment there is no rattle. It is as if the only sounds she can hear are those which emanate from the ghost himself.
‘Have they not executed you yet?’ she whispers again, her heart leaping with painful love. ‘Aaron?’
She waits, half-elated half-petrified that the wraith might vanish at the sound of his own name. But absorbed in his own domain he shows no sign of being aware of her existence.
‘Ruth, forgive me,’ he whispers to himself and buries his face in his hands. The fragility of his thin adolescent wrists, the desperation in the narrow shoulders, the lock of unruly black hair falling across his bruised knuckles, release a wave of recognition deep within her. It is as if the memory of him is buried within her very tissue and now this simple gesture has unlocked it, and with it a deluge of grief.
She moves towards him, to touch, to hold, to shelter that unassailable soul.
The rattle of keys breaks the moment. Ruth turns to the sound then swings back. Aaron’s ghost has vanished.
Again the jangle of metal startles her. It is the loudest thing she has heard in four days. She cowers against the straw as a shaft of bright light travels across the floor, highlighting the piles of filth, old rags and dank sawdust. It settles on Ruth, who is entirely blinded as she squints to see who waits beyond.
‘Midwife, to your feet!’