But my heart had a taste for the forbidden, and I’d never been good at resisting.
1 New International Version,1 Cor 13:4-5
Chapter 4
Heinrich
The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. George loomed before me, a monument to earthly power masquerading as divine glory. I climbed its steps slowly, each one heavier than the last, knowing what awaited me within. The Witch Bishop held court here and had transformed this holy place into a courthouse where the verdict was always the same: guilty—burn them.
Johann Georg II Fuchs von Dornheim sat at the far end of a long mahogany table. The Vatican itself—the apex of divine rule—had ordained him both Prince and Bishop. The title meant he was Bishop first, his loyalty always to God and the Church above all else. In my short time here in Bamberg, I’d often wondered whether he felt loyalty to anyone other than himself in his quest for power.
His gold silk robes pooled around him in a way that made me think of King Midas. Fitting, for his touch was equally a curse upon his people—the people he was meant to protect, to guide into God’s light. His face was plump with wine and food that so many lacked after more than a decade of war. When he smiled at my entrance, it reminded me of the jester masks I’d seen above a theater stage, mocking and mirthful.
“Father Heinrich,” he said, not offering me a seat. “I have heard whispers you doubt the validity of my trials.”
“Your Grace,” I began carefully, “I would never doubt your divine judgment. But I come to speak for mercy. The people are terrified. Yesterday, three more women were taken. One of them had just given birth. Her infant cries for milk in the streets.”
“The infant is fortunate,” the Bishop replied, examining the rings that sat too tight on his swollen fingers. “Better to starve than to suckle from a witch’s teat.”
My hands clenched behind my back. “These women are not witches. They are mothers, daughters, Christians who?—”
“Who have been named by multiple witnesses under righteous questioning.” His pale eyes fixed on me. “Are you suggesting the testimony extracted in the Drudenhaus is false, Father?”
The trap was obvious. To say yes would confirm these “whispers” of my doubt in the Bishop’s authority, perhaps even mark me for investigation. But the condemned’s screams echoed in my dreams, mingled with prayers that fell on deaf ears. How could I not try to make him see reason?
“I am suggesting,” I said slowly, “that Christ preached forgiveness. That perhaps confession and penance might serve better than flames.”
The Bishop stood, his height dwarfed by my own. “Christ also said, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Evil must be burned from the root, Father Heinrich, lest it contaminate the entire garden.”
“That was Moses, Your Grace, not Christ. And the translation?—”
“Do not presume to lecture me on scripture.” His voice turned to ice. “You’ve been here two years. You didn’t see what I saw before the trials began. Crops failing. Children born twisted. The Devil’s hand was clear.”
“The war—” I stepped forward before I could stop myself. “The war brings famine, disease—not witchcraft, but soldiers stealing grain, fields burnedby armies?—”
“Enough.” He returned to his table, dismissing me with a wave. “See to your flock, Father Heinrich. Offer them comfort in their final hours if you must. But do not question God’s work being done through my hands.”
I bowed stiffly and left, my boots echoing through the vast nave.God’s work.I passed a fresco of the Last Judgment—Christ separating the sheep from the goats—and wondered when we’d decided we knew better than the Almighty who belonged on which side.
The walk back to my chapel was a blur of faces—parishioners who crossed themselves when they saw me, who clutched at my robes begging for prayers for their starving households or condemned loved ones. Frau Meyer pressed a half-loaf of bread into my hands, payment for the last rites I’d given her sister. The bread was hard and flat. I took it anyway. These people gave what they had, even when they had nothing.
By the time I reached the chapel, my soul felt raw. I had been tasked with serving these people, guiding them as a shepherd guides his flock. But how could I do that when I could not even guide myself? I collapsed onto the floor before the altar, my knee protesting against the cold stone, and tried to find God in the silence.
I was a man of God. A holy man. I knew this. I’d dedicated my life to the Church at the age of nineteen. It had been a particularly rainy fall, and my family had lost much of their apple crop. But I’d found one on the tree, still firm. I ate it greedily, desperate for something sweet after weeks of thin barley soup.
The fever came within hours. I writhed on the ground, certain I was dying—my punishment for taking what little remained. The apple had been rotten inside. I should have known from how easily it came away from the branch.
In my delirium, I saw an angel. Not the gentle creatures of church paintings, but something terrible and beautiful, with too many eyes and wings that hurt to perceive. It spoke without words, pouring meaning directly into my burning skull.
Your family hoards food while neighbors starve. You take the last apple while children cry for bread. Is this the love Christ taught?
I tried to protest—we were poor too, we had so little—but the angel’s presence scorched through my excuses.
Give what you have. Serve those who have less. Or be consumed by the rot that already grows in your heart, as it grew in that apple.
When the fever broke, I was changed. I convinced my family to share our remaining stores, worked our neighbors’ fields for nothing until my hands bled. I entered the seminary to serve others rather than myself. That angel’s terrible mercy had saved me from becoming another grasping, desperate man clutching at survival while others drowned.
I was a holy man—that was, until I laid eyes on her.
