Chapter 19
Katharina
It had been nearly a week since Mass at the cathedral, and I had not seen…
Heinrich…since. I had busied myself in the sick ward with any task that Sister Margareta could provide me, barely sleeping.
What little sleep I found was plagued with nightmares of shadowy hands and eyes that glowed with hellfire.
Every evening, I visited the well house, and more and more women arrived, as if the increased burnings were driving more to my door rather than fewer.
Fear had a way of doing that. But my mind echoed with his words: You save one woman at a time while hundreds burn.
How long will you keep playing this game?
It was early morning, and I was back in the sick ward. I prepared a tincture for Herr Holtzmann’s final comfort—poppy for the pain, sage for the spirit—when the doors burst open.
The sound echoed through the quiet space. Several patients cried out in alarm.
The Schergen filled the doorway, their black cloaks stark against the soft morning light. There were four of them, though their number didn’t really matter for all the resistance anyone could offer. Behind them stood Wilhelm’s mother, her face twisted with grief that had transfigured into rage.
I knew what was coming next. I steeled myself, ready to run or fight—I wasn’t sure which—when Sister Margareta stepped in front of me.
“There!” She pointed at Sister Margareta, her finger shaking. “She is the one! She gave my son potions, spoke words over him in the Devil’s tongue!”
The ward fell silent except for a few rattling breaths.
Every eye turned toward Sister Margareta, who straightened slowly from Herr Holtzmann’s bedside.
She set down her basket of medicines, as if it were any other morning, as if black-clad guards were not already moving toward her with chains in their hands.
Her face remained calm, but I saw her fingers tremble slightly as she folded her hands before her.
“Frau Bauer,” she said gently, “your son was beyond any earthly help when he came to us. I gave him only comfort in his final—”
“Witch!” She spat the word like poison. “You cursed him! I heard you chanting over him, calling the Devil in.”
My breath caught at the accusation. The song had been just as much to comfort me as Wilhelm. Another kindness twisted into condemnation.
I stepped forward, my heart pounding against my ribs. “Frau Bauer, you are mistaken. The good sister spoke only—”
Sister Margareta’s hand shot out and gripped my wrist with surprising strength. Her fingers dug into my flesh hard enough that I flinched, and when I looked at her, her eyes met mine with a warning.
Stay silent.
I opened my mouth to protest. I could not let them drag her to the Drudenhaus for simply speaking in a different tongue, but her grip tightened until I nearly cried out.
“Yes.” She turned back to the guards. Her voice did not waver. “I spoke over the boy, to give him comfort in his final hours.”
“Witchcraft.” The guard’s voice was flat. “You will come with us.”
“Sister Margareta has been healing the sick for forty years,” I said, desperation cracking my voice. “She saved little Marie just this past week, and the blacksmith’s wife before that—”
“Through dark arts!” Frau Bauer’s grief had transformed into something uglier now, something that needed violence to satisfy itself.
“How else does one child live while another dies? How else does she choose who will be healed and who will perish? She let my son die because I could not pay her price!”
It was madness. We charged no price—our work was charity, offered freely to any who needed it. But I could see in her eyes she was beyond any reason. She needed someone to blame for her son’s death. She needed someone to suffer so that her own suffering might have meaning.
And Sister Margareta had just offered herself up for sacrifice.
“I will come willingly,” she declared, her voice steady. “But allow me first to instruct Frau Katharina on the care of these patients. They should not suffer for my supposed crimes.”
The lead guard hesitated, then nodded curtly. I assumed he simply did not want to be responsible for more deaths should the sick be left untended.
Sister Margareta turned to me and began speaking quickly, clearly, about which patients needed what care.
She moved over our baskets of medicines as she spoke, pointing to the different vials, while her other hand grabbed something I didn’t quite see.
I listened to her words, but her eyes said something else entirely.
Don’t be foolish.
“It’s lucky that I have been doing this so long—everything is in order.” Her voice was low, only for me. “I know my patients will be in good hands.”
“Margareta, don’t let—”
“Youth, always in such a hurry.” She gave me a sad smile. “Don’t give up on them.”
“Yes, Sister,” I managed, my voice barely a whisper.
Then she did something that nearly broke me. She cupped my face in both her weathered hands—tenderly, the way my mother used to when I was small and frightened of the dark. Her thumbs brushed away the hot tears trailing down my cheeks.
“Care for them well, child,” she murmured. “God sees all, even when men do not. They fear us because the work we do is powerful. It frees those they would keep under their thumb. They fear how brightly we would burn if they did not snuff us out. Don’t let them, Katharina.”
She dropped her hands and walked toward the guards with her head high, her steps unhurried. She moved as if she were processing to Mass rather than to the Drudenhaus. As if she had chosen this path herself, which perhaps, in a way, she had.
One man raised the iron manacles to snap around her fragile wrists.
“Is that really necessary, my boy? Do you think a nun as old as myself could outrun you?”
The Schergen exchanged glances, then lowered the chains, letting Margareta walk between them.
At the door, she paused and turned back.
“Frau Bauer,” she said softly, and her voice held no anger, no accusation, only gentle sorrow. “I forgive you. Your son is with God now. I pray that you find peace.”
Frau Bauer flinched as if she’d struck her across the face. I saw doubt flicker in her eyes. Then her jaw hardened again, and she turned away.
They led Sister Margareta out into the morning light, and the door swung shut behind them with a horrible finality.
I stood frozen in the center of the sick ward, my hands clenched so tight that my nails bit into my palms, carving crescent-moon wounds. Around me, the patients moaned and muttered, lost in their own private sufferings, unaware.
But all I could see was Sister Margareta’s straight back disappearing through the door.
Another innocent who would burn. Another mother, sister, healer reduced to ash while God watched in silence. And once again, I had stood by and done nothing.
You knew, the voice from my dream whispered. You have always known.
Yes. I had known. I had known since I watched my mother burn that the world was not just. I had known since Heinrich’s hands first touched mine that I was reaching for something forbidden.
I had known since the first woman came to me weeping and desperate that the Church’s mercy was a lie told to keep us obedient.
I had known, and I had done nothing. I had kept my head down. I had prayed. I had hoped that if I was good enough, quiet enough, useful enough, the flames might pass me by.
And now Sister Margareta would burn, for a crime that should have been mine. I had allowed the Devil into me, into my very soul. Yet it was never I who paid the price.
Margareta.
My mother.
Heinrich.
They had all fought for me and been condemned.
At the window, a swarm of bees buzzed, and I felt the fire and rage building inside me just as it had all those years ago.
Do not give up on them.
The fury bled out of my heart, and the buzzing ceased.
I would not stand idle, not this time. But I would do it without him. I would find a way. I would devise some way to free Margareta, a human way. I just needed a bit more time.