The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, May 3, 1638 – Fire

 The sky above Goslar shimmered with dryness. It was early May, yet the wind carried dust and smoke. No rain had fallen in weeks, and the town was as parched as parchment. The streets echoed hollow beneath my boots, as if even the stones wished to flee from what was to come.

Gese Schraders.
A woman of forty. Daughter of a weaver, widow of a brewer. She lived by the Gose, near the bridge, in a house that smelled of herbs and yeast. Her name had long drifted through the whispers of the town. They said cows went lame when she looked at them, that children took fevers when she anointed their heads, that she spoke with cats by night. I had seen her once or twice at the market, bent forward, a basket of linen on her arm. Not a woman who joined in talk. Not a woman who smiled.

Her arrest was no surprise. I had heard her name whispered in the pews since Candlemas. When the child of Councillor Witte died of convulsions, all glances soon turned one way.
And the Council... the Council was taut as a bow. Times were restless. In the south the war still raged, soldiers roamed the Harz like wolves in search of prey. The town needed an example. A cleansing.

She was brought to the Ulrich Chapel on April 28. The cells there are damp, cold, heavy with the scent of centuries. I was present when they chained her to the wall. She said nothing. She only looked at us — with eyes in which I saw no guilt. Only weariness. And waiting.

The first day she refused to speak.
The second — the rack.
The third — thumbscrews and water-drop.
On the fourth day — the tongs. Wounds on her back, raw, red, open.

She confessed.
She gave names — scattered, without sense: Anna Hasenbein. Trineken Kuhfuß. Two other women already listed in the files.
Whether they truly worshipped the devil together upon the Brocken, no one knows.
Whether she smeared flight ointment on her legs and flew upon a broom, no one knows.
But the Council declared: “Burning is just.”

This morning she was led to the Brandplatz by the Hochgericht.
I walked ahead. The people already lined the streets, their eyes fixed upon her back. She stumbled more than she walked. Her feet were cracked. Her hair was loose, her face pale.
Around her neck: a small pouch of gunpowder — a trace of mercy, that death might come quicker when the fire reached her.

On the square the pyre stood ready. My men had built it as I had ordered: dry oakwood, with bundles of straw beneath. It smells sweet, that straw, when it burns — as if death disguises itself as spring.

I spoke to her as I fastened the rope around her waist and tied it to the stake.
“God have mercy on your soul.”
She looked at me. No fear. No anger. Only a whisper, barely audible:
“Thank you.”

The preacher read a verse from the Psalms. No one listened.
I gave the sign.
The fire was lit.
The flames rose swiftly. Within half a minute they reached her feet. I saw her body stiffen, her head fall back, her mouth open. No cry.
Silence.

Perhaps she screamed inwardly. Or the pain had stolen her voice.
When the powder exploded — a short hiss, a jolt — her head dropped to the side.
The crowd watched. Some crossed themselves. Others drifted away without a word.
The smoke rose straight up. As though even the wind dared not touch her.

That night I could not sleep.
I lay in bed, listening to the creak of the house, to the quiet breathing of my wife beside me.
But I still felt the heat. The scent of her skin. The ash on my boots.

I dreamed of her.
She stood in the Ulrich Chapel, unscathed, upright. Her hands unbound, her eyes clear.
She looked at me and said:
“I am innocent.”

I woke in sweat.
The room was dark.
And I did not know whether the fire had truly consumed her —
or whether something of her, something that does not turn to ash, had remained within me.