The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, 20 March 1637 — Summons to the Council

 

Today I was called to the town hall. A messenger came early in the morning, before the light had touched the courtyard. His knock on the door woke not only me but Anna as well. She looked at me from the bed, her eyes already full of worry before I had put on my boots.
“What do they want from you?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“What they always want. More confessions. Less time.”

It was cold on the marketplace. The stalls were empty, the stones gleamed with a thin film of morning moisture. The Council of Goslar meets in the great hall above the old town hall, where light falls through tall windows but warmth never enters. The floor creaked beneath every step, as if it resisted the judgement of men.

They were already gathered inside. Mayor Henning Cramer at the head of the table, as always with his hands folded before him, as if he were always praying but never listening. To his right sat Secretary Kleine, a thin man with eyes that take everything in and betray nothing. On the left two councilors, Zeidler and Friese, each with the resigned look of men who know too much to be startled.

“Master Kruse,” Cramer began without looking up from his papers, “we have read your report on the trials of Gunda Meinhof and Ilse Paeckers. The interrogations take too long. The confessions are thin.”
Thin. As if truth were a sausage one could weigh on scales.
I bowed my head, out of duty more than conviction.
“The women are strong-willed. And the facts are sparse.”
Cramer looked up, his eyes cold.
“Strong will is a sign of pacts with evil.”

I had heard this before.
I have learned the formulas, the sounds of belief in a system that knows its guilty before there is any talk of guilt.
I said,
“Pain brings words, but not always truth.”

After my words a heavy silence fell. Only the scratch of a quill on paper sounded as the town secretary took minutes that no one will ever read. Then the secretary spoke, his voice flat, almost gentle:
“The truth is what we deem necessary.”
There was no doubt in that. No hesitation. Only function.
Truth is not what is — but what must be.

I knew what had to be done.
A small pile of documents was pushed toward me. On top lay the order for torture. The forms were already largely filled in. Only my signature was missing. My seal. My assent.
I signed.
What else could I have done?

As I rose to leave, Cramer said one last line:
“The town relies on your decisiveness.”
I nodded. But I felt nothing but emptiness.

Outside the light had brightened. The sun stood low, the shadows long. Two children played with a wooden wheel in the square — they laughed. I wondered how long they would be allowed to play free. How long their words would remain free of pain.

At home I found Anna in the garden, pruning the rosebush that never truly blooms. She looked up, her hands full of thorns.
“What did they say?”
I did not answer at once. Only after I had taken off my cloak did I speak:
“They asked for truth. I gave them paper.”

That night I lay awake long by the fire. In my hand the seal, still red with wax.
My children slept.
Tomorrow I begin again. Not to know. But to do what is asked of me.




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