The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,164

dying Comte spoke it, to clear his conscience as it were, and the old Comtesse, having read the Demonologie of the inquisitor, found in it the proper descriptions of all the strange things which she and her grandsons had long seen.” He gave a great sigh. “And I shall tell you another loathsome secret.” And here he dropped his voice to a whisper. “The Comte had a mistress, a very great and powerful lady whose name must not be spoken in connection with these proceedings. But we have it from her own lips that the Comte was terrified of the Comtesse, and took great pains to banish all thoughts of his mistress from his mind when he entered the presence of his wife, for she could read such things in his heart.”

“Many a married man might follow that advice,” I said in disgust. “So what does it prove? Nothing.”

“Ah, but don’t you see? This was her reason for poisoning her husband, once he had fallen from the horse, and she thought that on account of the fall, she might not be blamed.”

I said nothing.

“But it is known hereabout,” he said slyly, “and tomorrow when the crowd gathers, watch the eyes and upon whom they settle, and you will see the Comtesse de Chamillart, from Carcassonne, in the viewing stand before the jail. However, mark me. I do not say that it is she.”

I said nothing, but sank only further into hopelessness.

“You cannot imagine the power which the devil has over the witch,” he continued.

“Pray, enlighten me.”

“Even after the rack on which she was cruelly tortured, and the boot being put on her foot to crush it, and the irons being applied to the soles of her feet, she confessed nothing, but did scream for her mother in torment, and cry out: ‘Roelant, Roelant,’ and then ‘Petyr,’ which were surely the names of her devils, as they belong to no one of her acquaintance here, and at once, through the agency of these daimons she fell to dreaming, and could not be made to feel the slightest pain.”

I could listen no more!

“May I see her?” I asked. “It is so important for me to gaze with my own eyes upon the woman, to question her if I might.” And here I produced my big thick book of scholarly observations in Latin, which this old man could scarcely read, I should say, and I babbled on about the trials I had witnessed at Bramberg, and the witch house there, where they had tortured hundreds, and many other things which impressed this priest sufficiently enough.

“I’ll take you to her,” he said finally, “but I warn you, it is most dangerous. When you see her you’ll understand.”

“How exactly?” I inquired, as he led me down the stairs with a candle.

“Why, she is still beautiful! That is how much the devil loves her. That is why they call her the devil’s bride.”

He then directed me to a tunnel which ran beneath the nave of the cathedral where the Romans had buried their dead in olden times in this region, and through this we passed to the jail on the other side. Then up the winding stairs we went to the highest floor, where she was kept beyond a door so thick the jailers themselves could scarce open it, and holding his candle aloft, the priest pointed then to the far corner of a deep cell.

Only a trace of light came through the bars. The rest fell from the candle. And there on a heap of hay I beheld her, bald and thin and wretched, in a ragged gown of coarse cloth, yet pure and shining as a lily as her admirers had so described. They had shaved even the eyebrows from her, and the perfect shape of her bare head and her hairlessness gave an unearthly radiance to her eyes and to her countenance as she looked up at us, from one to the other, carefully, with a slight and indifferent nod.

It was the face one expects to see at the center of a halo, Stefan. And you, too, have seen this face, Stefan, rendered in oil on canvas, as I shall clarify for you by and by.

She did not even move, but merely regarded us calmly and in silence. Her knees were drawn up in front of her, and she had wrapped her arms about her legs, as if she were cold.

Now you know, Stefan, that as I knew this woman, there was the