Deliverance (Knights of Black Swan Book 12) Read online

  In 1484, just thirty years after the founding of The Order of the Black Swan, a painfully maladjusted German Catholic priest was granted a papal bull that launched an Inquisition to prosecute people believed to be practicing witchcraft. The first trial staged didn’t even reach a conclusion before the author, Heinrich Kramer, was written off by his local bishop as ‘senile and crazy’ and thrown out of Innsbruck. Other clergy, apparently, had no trouble seeing through his aberrant sexual preoccupations, which was why he was censured and dismissed, literally and figuratively.

  As everyone knows, religious zealots deal with penile stirrings by blaming their body’s response on the woman who was found attractive. Following that historical pattern, Heinrich was positive that he was doing God’s work and would not be deterred. After all he was on a mission to promote his views on the subject of witches and mount arguments to refute claims that witchcraft did not exist. For reasons that were partly indignation, partly self-justification, and partly revenge against early reception of his trials, he wrote an entirely fictional flight of fantasy, The Witches’ Hammer, and presented it as a clergyman’s academic treatise on witchcraft.

  Word spread from town to town that every manner of difficulty, from disease to poor crops, could be blamed on someone local practicing witchcraft. The notion appealed to the worst in human nature and the idea caught on. There’s little doubt that it made the hard lives of ordinary and uneducated people even harder.

  Women were afraid to practice the age-old skills of midwifery for fear that the birth of a handicapped or stillborn child would draw accusations of witchcraft, along with torture or execution. Likewise, they began withholding herbal remedies and folk advice on treating sickness, which left farmers and villagers without health care of any sort.

  By the late sixteenth century, Kramer’s book had found a home in the politics of secular courts. It did, in fact, become a manual of sorts, a justification for the exploitation of women and the darkest practice of all, the eroticization of torture.

  The accused were female herbalists or midwives, but sometimes they were widows with enviable land or holdings, who were powerless to disprove claims that they practiced witchcraft. Customarily, the only conclusive proof of innocence was death, after which the widow’s land and possessions came under the management of a local councilman, presumably for caretaking.

  Witch hunting hysteria was aided by both Catholic and Protestant demonologists whose views about witchcraft were aligned in the belief that witches were linked with demons. Sexually. In ways that stimulated a purely prurient response.

  It was an age of sexually deviant perspectives that resulted in abject cruelty and insanity. At that point, since society’s understanding of the underlying problem was supernatural, The Order branched out and added both research and record keeping to its vampire hunting directive. It took on demonology and its own brand of “witch hunting”.

  As so often happens, truth can be found in the opposite of what’s presented by authorities to be true. Almost all the victims of the age were fully human, but some actual witches were swept up by the net cast by evil men posing as good men trying to rid the world of wrongdoing.

  CHAPTER Five SIXT

  Centuries had passed since her childhood, but Sixt remembered it as well as if it had happened recently. The reason for her unusual name was known only to her family and they were good at keeping secrets.

  She had the characteristic auburn hair and blue eyes that often ran in families of her strain of hereditary witches, along with a few little girl freckles on her face and an extra helping of talent. Her gift revealed itself early, enabling her to make physics an arrangement of guidelines more than laws.

  The Lichterketten family farmed, just as humans do, but in addition to food crops, they also cultivated certain species of rare mushrooms and raised medicinal herbs. There were a few plants that were so magically sensitive they would grow only when sung to by female witches. Those had to be wild crafted by moonlight and handled with great care, but they were worth the extra trouble because their healing properties were practically miraculous.

  Like the great healer, Pan, Sixt’s mother could give the ailing dreams on how to heal what afflicted them, but it came at a price. Gatherings of humans left her debilitated to the point where it would take weeks to recover. During cold winter months, she would weave while Sixt’s father and brothers carved furniture with elaborate murals of the hunt or the heroes of Teutonic and Norse sagas, legends, myths. The result was a marriage of form and function, useable art that enhanced the quality of life.

  Family members took turns reading by firelight while the rest occupied themselves with mundane chores. Her mother used to say, “Idle hands gather no good.”

  In the spring of her eleventh year, Sixt’s father and two brothers left to take potions and dried herbs to the village on market day as usual. When they heard that the Schultheiß was questioning villagers about witches, they were alarmed.

  The blacksmith pulled them aside. “I’m not saying you are or you aren’t. I am saying that questions are being asked and you shouldn’t be in the town.”

  “Is this happening in other towns?” Sixt’s father asked the smith.

  “All other towns so far as I know. No place is safe for one practicing the old ways,” the smith said.

  When the smith began to describe the tales of horror he’d heard about the witch trials, Sixt’s father took the warning seriously. He and his two sons left through the back of the smith’s shed and hurried toward the cover of forest.

  Sixt lay in bed that night and listened to her parents discussing what to do.

  Her father said it felt strange to be afraid. Even more strange to be afraid for their children. She didn’t understand all of what was being said, but she understood worry.

  The next morning, Sixt woke to the sounds of the family packing what could be packed. She was wrapped in quilts and set aloft a wagon as her mother, father and two older brothers set off. Their destination was a hundred miles south to the Black Forest, which was mountainous and densely treed. Both characteristics were amenable to defense. First, there was not a lot of traffic through the region.

  Second, it was rumored that the region was friendly to witches. Not the sparse inhabitants so much as the land itself, the water that ran through it, the trees that grew upon it, and the rocks that sat quietly observing as millennia passed.

  TheLichterkettenfamily hoped that if the rumors proved true, they would be able to infuse wards into the cottage they would construct, as it was built, to make it virtually impenetrable and invisible to humans.

  Sixt’s family had never practiced dark craft. Like their lines before them, they had turned away from such activity. They chose to use their talents to heal or enrich. Still, extranormal occurrences, including the appearance of creatures thought to be mythical, were both normal and frequent for them. In truth, the fairytale reputation of the Black Forest was, in large part due to the fact that half a dozen families of witches had taken up residence deep within the forest and claimed it as sanctuary from persecution.

  They built their cottage and made do for a time, but eventually they needed supplies. Strasbourg was an arduous journey because of the terrain, but it was only twenty or so miles away. In 1631 it wasn’t a village, but a city with a cathedral, a fine university, and, most importantly, crowds. They reasoned that they could slip in unnoticed, gather the things they required, and, with the help of a simple spell, leave without being remembered. It didn’t seem too great a risk for Sixt’s parents and older brothers. But they decided it was too great a risk for their little girl, who’d never seen a city or a throng of humans.

  She cried as they explained, and begged to be taken along, but in the end, she found herself in the cellar with a cot, enough candles, food, and water to last for two weeks and clear instructions to stay put until their return. It never occurred to her to disobey. As parents, German witches were strict and no nonsense.

  Si
xt’s father brought two dozen rocks and told her to practice turning them into apples and pomegranates along with studying reading, writing, and French. She clung to him, willing him to change his mind, but eventually he pried her away.

  During the eleven days when Sixt was alone in the cellar when she was eleven years old, she became quite good at turning rocks into fruit. She improved her reading and writing of French, if not her speaking. She listened with her whole being for a sense of sound coming from above or outside. And she emerged, when her family returned home, vowing to be a person who would never be left alone and in utter silence again.

  Hereditary witches age as humans do until they reach their early to mid-twenties, then for most, aging slows to a ratio of a year of aging for the passage of every hundred years. Or so.

  By the time Sixt reached the appearance of adulthood she was well educated and accomplished as a witch, but innocent of the wiles and deceits of humans and ignorant of the rules that bind societies together. For that reason, when she declared that she was leaving, her parents insisted that her brother, Hans, who was seven years older and had spent time in the towns, go with her long enough to make sure she learned how to fit in and appear human.

  “Very well. I’m going to Paris. If Hans wants to come, he can come.”

  For all her sounding put out, Sixt was mightily relieved that she would have company.

  “Paris,” Hans breathed with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Your duty is to take care of your sister, Hans. Your fun is secondary to that,” said their mother.

  Their father added, “Always secondary to that.”

  Hans nodded at their parents and smiled at Sixt as if to say he approved of her choice.

  It took twenty days to walk from the Black Forest to Paris. During that time Sixt and her brother got to know each other quite well. He prepared her, as much as possible, for the sights, sounds, and crowds of city living along with a litany of warnings about the untrustworthiness of humans.

  As it turned out, no amount of verbal description could adequately prepare Sixt for the experience of Paris.

  One of the first realizations was that, while she could read and write French perfectly, her accent caused people to stare. She used magic to make an adjustment so that she would blend in and not be noticed. Hans nodded his approval as he went about looking for a suitable place for them to stay. Although the idea of Sixt not being noticed was farfetched, because her beauty was the sort that drew attention.

  Hans procured a residence above The Café Procope. Two rooms. No kitchen. But that was alright because neither he nor Sixt had any interest in cooking when they could get food from street vendors or cafes.

  He strongly suggested changing her name to something French.

  She settled on Simone Guerre des Fees.

  “What do you intend to do?” he asked one day as they were walking along the Seine.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re not going to just exist.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not satisfying.”

  “No? What is?”

  “Work.”

  She laughed. “You sound like our parents. Paris is full of people who don’t work.”

  “Noble people, you mean. Arses. Every one.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t need to work. I can use magic to get what I want.”

  Hans seemed a little perplexed by her attitude. “That’s not the point. There’s more to life, Si… Simone. We used to earn money by helping them, you know.”

  “Them? You mean humans?”

  He chuckled. “Yes. I mean humans. We used to grow plants and make medicines that eased pain and illness.” She frowned. “Alright. You’re not a farmer. I can see you have no interest in that. But there must be something else you can do that would be of service. If we’re no better than the worst of humans, how can we claim superiority?”

  She laughed. “Hans. Is claiming superiority important to you?”

  Scowling at the effrontery of her laughter, he said, “No. Claiming superiority is not important. But behaving in superior ways is. Important, that is.”

  “I don’t mean to be giving offense. I just don’t see…”

  Hans followed her line of sight to a shop window where pastries were set out in tidy and mesmerizing rows of sugary perfection. He studied her as she stood in front of the offerings, unable to take her eyes away.

  “Would you like to try one of these?”

  Without looking away, she said, “I’d like to try all of these.”

  Chuckling, he took her arm and led her into the shop.

  Paris 1701

  Three years later, Sixt had completed training as a pastry chef as the result of her brother bewitching the master of palace desserts, himself. The idea of training a woman would have been unthinkable, but Hans could cause anyone to do anything and believe it was their idea. Sixt had come to understand that having him for a brother was a very useful addition to her bag of tricks.

  In truth, she had undergone the pastry training only because it was a prerequisite to learning her real love. Chocolate.

  In 1732, she opened a small shop in rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, close to the Comédie-Française using money generously “donated” by benefactors who wouldn’t miss being shed of a few livres. There was a tiny apartment above the shop, but it was enough because Hans had long moved on toward bigger, more exciting, and more westerly adventures.

  For simplicity’s sake, she hired a handsome, charming, debonair womanizer name Francois Debussy to pose as the owner and threatened him with castration should he ever reveal that the true owner was not he, but the shop girl. Wealthy patrons began to frequent the store as much to interact with Francois as to experience the delights of Mademoiselle Guerre des Fees’ delectable treats.

  Occasionally she would acquire a steady new patron who happened to be afellow witch. They would exchange a brief knowing look, but that was the extent of mutual acknowledgement. It seemed that witches had a weakness for chocolate and couldn’t stay away.

  Eventually Sixt came to understand that Hans had been right. There was little gratification in existing without purpose, but there was satisfaction in work even when the recognition went to an imposter. Her chocolates were infused with the kind of magic that imparted an overall feeling of well-being. It was healing in its own way.

  “Monsier Debussy, how do you do it?”

  He would smile and say, “A touch of magnificence, a kiss of magic,” while Sixt smirked behind his back.

  Sometimes she distributed chocolates to a worn and haggard street vendor, or a prostitute who would have loved to be anyone else, or an orphan scrounging to keep soul with body. She didn’t have it in her power to help them all. But she gave them the relief of hope, the pleasure of luxury, and the sensation of a smile, if only for a time.

  She never felt completely alone because the city was a constant hum, night and day. Nonetheless, the witch gods must have decided she needed company because one evening, when she left the door to her tiny balcony open, movement caught her attention. She jerked her head toward the balcony in time to see a black cat jump down from the railing and saunter into the apartment as if she paid the rent.

  Sixt had been sitting at her table doing bookkeeping tasks, a mundane chore that wasn’t necessary, but she found she rather liked looking after numbers. The cat jumped into her lap effortlessly, curled up, and began to emit such an intense purr that her entire body vibrated.

  Sixt chuckled under her breath. “Well, well. My mother had a cat like you.”

  At that the cat raised her head and looked at Sixt with heavy-lidded eyes as if to say, “There is no other cat like me.”

  “Hmmm. I wonder if you can pull magic.” Sixt began absentmindedly petting the cat. “Would you like to be my familiar?”

  At that the cat stood on hind legs, placed her paws on Sixt’s chest and licked her earlobe with a rough tongue.

  Sixt laughed ou
t loud. “Alright. We’ll see. Meanwhile, I wonder if you’re hungry.”

  The cat leapt down and trotted into the tiny kitchen with her tail high in the air.

  Sixt followed. “I wonder what I might have that a cat would like. Oh! Just the thing. Cats like cheese, do they not?”

  Noting the conspicuously intense way the cat stared at the cheese, Sixt said, “I shall take that as a yes.”

  She cut a square of cheese into small bits, laid them on a saucer, and set it on the floor. Even though the cat was dainty and fastidious in her approach to eating, she made short work of the cheese, licked her mouth, rubbed her paw against her own cheek, and gave Sixt the laziest blink imaginable.

  Sixt chuckled under her breath. “Cat satisfaction. You’re quite pretty,” she observed. “I might keep you. Especially if you can pull your own weight. Magically.” The cat fell over onto her side and lazily twitched her tail back and forth while looking at Sixt as if she understood every word. “I think I’ll call you Ashes.”

  The cat looked away, but her tail continued to twitch like it had a mind of its own.

  When Sixt went to bed that night, the cat jumped up and stretched before seeming to take a watch post at the foot of the bed.

  “What a curiously strange animal you are, Ashes,” Sixt said in German, feeling almost immediately drowsy even though sleep was sometimes hard for her. “But I’m glad you’re here.” Sixt doused the lamp flame and stared at the ceiling. As she was dozing, she whispered, “Don’t tell anybody, but I hate to be alone.”

  The cat made a sound so soft it was almost inaudible, then reached out a paw to touch Sixt’s foot. Sixt knew others might not agree, but she took it as a response.

  CHAPTER Six THE MADAME

  Sixt woke during the night. It was a three-quarter moon, enough light to be startled by a figure sitting in the Bergere chair by the bed. The feeling was disconcerting and foreign because witches don’t tend to startle easily. If anything, it was even more disturbing that the figure did not move, but appeared to simply watch her fumble for the curved brass handle of the candleholder that sat on the bedside table.