The Inquisitor's Tale

Scene III

"Name?" asked the Inquisitor.

"Anja," said the woman.

"Profession?"

"I keep the books for my family's shop."

The Inquisitor looked at the woman in surprise.

"And who is your family?" he asked.

"Was," she said. She paused, as if for breath. "My father and mother both worked in our tailor's shop. My brother joined the Crusade last autumn. We haven't heard from him since."

"No husband?" asked the Inquisitor.

"No," said Anja. "No husband."

The two sat quietly for a moment, as if sizing each other up. The Inquisitor had noticed that the young woman was beautiful when he entered the cell. Even through the mud caked to her clothes from the journey from Chaswick and dark rings of sleeplessness he could see that. But it went beyond that. Her manner was charming. Her eyes were bright and welcoming. The Inquisitor wondered... but he stopped himself.

"What can you tell me about the plague outbreak in Chaswick four days ago?"

Anja met the Inquisitor's eyes.

"You think it was witchcraft, don't you?" she said. "That's why we're here, me and that friar and the miller? You have no Jews or gypsies to burn, so you've decided one of us cast a spell to slaughter our neighbors for the Black Goat? Is that it?"

"Yes," said the Inquisitor. Anja frowned at him.

"Well," she said, "I'm not a witch. That miller believes in a number of very odd things, but witchcraft isn't one of them. And for all his sermons about witches and devils I doubt that friar believes a word of it either. He seems mostly interested in drowning himself in the communion wine."

"He said the dark woman was behind it."

The tailor's daughter turned pale. She looked suspiciously at her interrogator.

"What do you know about her?" she asked.

"Little," said the Inquisitor. "Tell me more."

"She's," Anja hesitated, glancing around the room as if searching for eyes and ears in the chinks of the walls and ceiling, "she lives in the forest. Everyone in our village has seen her at some time or another, passing between the trees or standing in the fields. They don't talk about it much, but the older people remember a time when the benandanti would fight to keep her from the village in the night. She used to kidnap children and replace them with goblins from the forest wearing their skins."

"Have you seen her?" asked the Inquisitor.

"I have," said Anja. "I've seen her under the trees in the evening, watching the village. She's tall, and old, older than any woman I've seen. She walks the fields in autumn and leaves her footprints in the snows of winter."

The Inquisitor stared at Anja. She smiled at him.

"You don't believe me," she said. "You'd rather believe in the cruelty of men than of night-devils and witches."

The Inquisitor shifted uneasily in his seat. They never got to him like this.

"You went to Allé, about a week before the plague came to Chaswick," he said, flipping through the papers the novices had left on the table.

"I did," said Anja.

"Why?" said the Inquisitor, avoiding her eyes by pretending to engross himself in the documents.

"I'd heard a man from Allé had returned from the Crusades. One of the men that came through when my brother joined them. I wanted to talk to him."

"Why was that?" said the Inquisitor. He sensed she was on the defensive, and that gave him confidence again.

"To see," said Anja, uncomfortably. "To see if he'd seen my brother, before he left."

"And had he?"

Anja's face hardened.

"He'd been executed," said Anja bitterly, "for trying to desert at Orea. They'd arrived to find the city's gates shut to them and were ordered to make siege. My brother hadn't joined the crusade to make war against other believers, so he left. A mercenary saw him trying to leave the camp and cut him down where he stood."

Anja's eyes met the Inquisitor's. They burned with hate.

"The priest in their camp absolved the mercenary, and denied my brother a holy burial. For the crime of refusing to kill other believers in cold blood, my brother was damned."

The Inquisitor tried not to break his gaze. He was afraid of the tailor's daughter—afraid as he had never been of professed witches and sorcerers. She had been used cruelly by others, and, he feared, was the type to repay cruelty in kind.

"There was a plague outbreak in Allé, less than a month ago," said the Inquisitor.

"Well, Inquisitor," said Anja. "I'm not ill."

The Inquisitor couldn't deny that. Anja looked remarkably well, considering all she had been through.

"Did you bring the plague back with you from Allé?" The Inquisitor surprised even himself with the question.

"I said I'm not ill," said Anja, looking suspiciously at the Inquisitor.

"That's not," said the Inquisitor, slowly, "what I asked."

Anja stared at the Inquisitor. He met her eyes, but it was painful. He had never wanted so much in his life to get up, leave the room, close the door behind him, and pass off the inquest to another. But he did not. He waited.

"Did that friar tell you I was a witch?" said Anja. "That I cast some spell over Chaswick? Is that it? You think I used black magic to kill my own parents and friends?"

"Did you bring the plague back with you from Allé?" repeated the Inquisitor, disguising the trembling in his voice as well as he could.

"No," said Anja. "No, I sacrificed my parents to the dark woman and cursed my own village out of spite. That's what you inquisitors want to hear, isn't it? You won't stop digging until you find a witch to tie to the stakes in the yard."

She waved her wand vaguely in the direction of the burning yard, where seven tall, charred stakes stood with heaps of ashes at their base. There had been five burned as witches the week before.

"I only want to know," said the Inquisitor, "if you brought anything back with you from Allé."

"I did not," said Anja. She folded her arms. "But burn me as a witch if you like. I'll confess. I'll say I cast any spells and communed with any powers you please. Damn me like you did my brother."