The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,158

which is tomorrow, the day that is called Michaelmas?

Not a person to whom I spoke hesitated to enlighten me that it had nought to do with the saint, though this is his cathedral, except that they had chosen his feast the better to please God and all his angels and saints, with the execution tomorrow of the beautiful Comtesse who is to be burnt alive, without benefit of being strangled beforehand, so as to set an example to all witches in the neighborhood of whom there were many, though the Comtesse had named absolutely none as her accomplices even under the most unspeakable torture, so great was the devil’s power over her, but the inquisitors would indeed find them out.

And from these sundry persons who would have talked me into a stupor had I allowed it, I did learn further that there was scarce a family in the vicinity of this prosperous community who had not seen firsthand the great powers of the Comtesse, as she did freely heal those who were sick, and prepare for them herb potions, and lay her own hands upon their afflicted limbs and bodies, and for this she asked nothing except that she be remembered in their prayers. She had in fact great fame for countering the black magic of lesser witches; and those suffering from spells went to her often for bread and salt to drive away the devils inflicted on them by persons unknown.

Such raven hair you never saw, said one of these to me, and ah, but she was so beautiful before they broke her, said another, and yet another, my child is alive on account of her, and yet a fourth that the Comtesse could cool the hottest fever, and that to those under her she had given gold on feast days, and had nothing for anyone but kind words.

Stefan, you would have thought I was on my way to a canonization, not a burning. For no one whom I met in this first hour, during which I took my time in the narrow streets, riding hither and thither as if lost, and stopping to talk with any and all I passed, had a cruel word for the lady at all.

But without a doubt, these simple folk seemed all the more tantalized by the fact that it was a good and great lady who would be committed to the flames before them, as if her beauty and her kindnesses made her death a grand spectacle for them to enjoy. I tell you, it was with fear in my heart of their eloquent praise of her, and their quickness to describe her, and the glitter that came over them when they spoke of her death, that I finally had enough of it and went on to the pyre itself and rode back and forth before it, inspecting its great size.

Aye, it takes a great deal of wood and coal to burn a human being complete and entire. I gazed on it with dread as always, wondering why it is that I have chosen this work when I do not ever enter a town such as this, with its barren stone buildings, and its old cathedral with its three steeples, but that I do not hear in my ears the noise of the mob, the crackling of the fire, and the coughing and gasping and finally the shrieks of the dying. You know that no matter how often I witness these despicable burnings, I cannot inure myself to them. What is it in my soul that forces me to seek this same horror again and again?

Do I do penance for some crime, Stefan? And when will I have done penance enough? Do not think I ramble on. I have a point in all this, as you will soon see and understand. For I have come face to face once more with a young woman I once loved as dearly as I have loved anyone, and I remember more vividly than her charms the blankness of her face when I first beheld her, chained to a cart on a lonely road in Scotland, only hours after she had seen her own mother burnt.

Perhaps if you remember her at all you have guessed the truth already. Do not read ahead. Bear with me. For as I rode back and forth before the pyre, listening to the stammering and stupidity of a pair of local wine sellers who boasted of having seen other burnings as