The clouds gather above him like clenched fists. He had warned them all – warned them what would happen to those who turn to evil.
And though that woman had been condemned for making some unholy concoction that killed a young girl and her unborn child, the evil itself had not been destroyed. After her conviction, they had realised how far her heinous deeds had gone. With his whip and his red hot iron tongs, the torturer had drawn the accounts from her flesh, of her evil doings and the Devil’s schemes. She had even confessed to marking bones with runes – those blackest of symbols – and it must be true though they haven’t found any such bones in her home or among her things.
Others may have been surprised to hear the witch confess such things, but not he. He has heard it all before; he has read accounts of the most diabolical doings that have been brought to light. In Germany they use torture even before the accused have been convicted. And they have witches there who confess that they have turned people into werewolves, sold unbaptised children to the Devil and called down plague and pestilence on towns and parishes.
The rain washes the soot from his forehead. It’s almost as if he can smell the cleansing of the air around them, now that the pyre has burned down and yet another witch have been banished from God’s green earth.