“My mother wasn’t a witch,” I said quietly as I worked. “She was a midwife who knew which herbs could help women when nothing else would.”That knowledge killed her. That and?—
I shook my head. I had work to do.
“Everyone says she cursed the Bishop’s sister during birth,” Greta whispered. “That’s why the baby came out twisted.”
I’d heard that story too—a dozen versions of it. In some, my mother had eaten the baby. In others, she’d coupled with the Devil himself in the birth chamber. The truth was simpler and sadder: the Bishop’s sister had been forty-three years old, her body worn from eight previous births. The baby had been turned wrong, already dead in the womb. My mother had saved the woman’s life during the birth, a brutal mercy twisted into evidence of witchcraft.
“Babies die,” I told her, adding hot water to the herbs. “Women die. It happens in the finest houses with the best physicians just as it happens in hovels with only frightened girls to help. But when a midwife loses a patient, she’s a witch. When a physician does, it’s God’s will.”
The mixture steeped, releasing bitter steam.
“Then why do you hide your face?” she asked.
I did not answer. Instead, I poured the tincture into a chipped mug and handed it to her.
Greta’s hands shook as she reached for the cup, then pulled back.
“Will it hurt?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered honestly. “Your womb will cramp and bleed. You’ll need to stay somewhere safe for a day and a night.”
“What if…” She swallowed hard. “What if God punishes me? What if this marks me as damned?”
I thought of all the women who had come to this meeting place before her, slipping through shadows with the same fears, the same desperation. Noble ladies who’d drunk my teas from golden cups. Peasant girls who’d paid with eggs when they had no coins. Even a nun once—young Sister Bertha—who’d wept through her confession of a moment’s weakness with a traveling merchant.
I tried not to think about how often I asked the same question.
“I’m no priest, but if God punishes women for surviving, then he’s not the God the priests claim to serve,” I said, pushing the cup toward her. “And if seeking my help damns you, well—you’ll have plenty of company in Hell. Half the women in Bamberg have knocked on my door.”
She took the cup with trembling fingers, then hesitated. “Aren’t you afraid? Every woman they burn, they question first.”
The truth was, I waited for it every day. Every time the Witch Bishop’s guards marched past, every time I heard screams from the Drudenhaus, I wondered if today would be the day someone connected the dots, remembered what had happened to that little girl forced to watch her mother burn. How she had been swept into a convent to toil and live a half-life. That the well house where secret remedies could be found was only a stone’s throw away…
“My mother held her tongue through three days of questioning. She never named a single woman she’d helped. Never confirmed a single accusation. That’s the real reason they burned her—not for witchcraft, but for silence.”
Greta drank the tea in three quick swallows, grimacing at the bitterness. I handed her a small vial of oil of cloves for the pain that would come and a cloth bundle of clean rags.
“When it begins, don’t fight it,” I instructed. “Let your body do what it needs to.”
She started sobbing again, and despite my reservations, I pulled her against my chest. She was so small, still a child. My grip tightened as anger burned in my heart—that she was the one forced to pay the price for the actions of horrible men like Herr Braun. My fingers curled into her shift as I began to shake, the faint smell of smoke filling the air.
“What—about—next—time—” She tried to speak between hiccuping sobs. Yes, next time. This was her husband, after all.
“Did your mother teach you how your fertility works?” I asked. She shook her head against my chest. I sighed.Of course not.Not necessarily her mother’s fault—she might not have known herself. I explained the monthly cycle to the girl, which days she should abstain to prevent pregnancy.
“He…he never leaves me alone. He won’t stop just because—” She sobbed into my chest again. I closed my eyes briefly, steadying myself, then eased her back and reached for my basket of herbs.
“There’s another way,” I murmured, pulling out a small bottle of tincture I’d prepared weeks ago, though I’d hoped never to use it. “Valerian root, mostly. With a touch of poppy.”
Greta’s eyes widened. “To kill him?”
“No.” I pressed the vial into her hands. “To make him sleep. Deeply. On the nights you’re most fertile, or when you simply need peace.”
She stared at the amber liquid. “How much?”
“Three drops in his evening ale. No more.” I gripped her shoulders, making her meet my eyes. “Listen to me carefully, Greta. Three drops will make him sleep like the dead until morning. Five drops, and he’ll sleep for a full day. Ten drops…” I paused. “Ten drops and he might not wake at all. The line between sleep and death is thinner than you think.”
“Would anyone know? If I?—”
