I leap back, and Dieter shares my startled, shocked expression. “Ernst?” he says, closing the door behind him and stepping over to me. “What were you doing at my door?”
“I smelled smoke,” I lie. There is no quiver in my voice, somehow. “I thought you had left a candle burning, that maybe it tipped over…”
“All is well,” Dieter says pleasantly, as if he does not have a child trapped in the torture chamber behind him. Then his face falls, and he leans closer to me, his thumb rubbing the sensitive skin under my eye. His touch is a gentle caress. “You have stayed up all night long,” he says. “There are shadows under your eyes. And you have not joined the other men at the cathedral to celebrate our greatest purge yet.”
“There is much to be done,” I say. My words are a strangled whisper.
“And little time to do it in,” Dieter says, agreeing. “But you have earned this honor, Kapitän, and I will see that you relish it.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to refuse; he just walks toward the steps, expecting me to follow.Shit. I glance back at his door once—Wait for me,I think, even though I know Liesel cannot hear my thoughts, cannot know my silent vow to return to her. I traipse after the kommandant,counting the minutes in my head. I seriously consider just shoving Dieter down the iron stairs, but his absence would cause an immediate investigation. It would ruin the plan.
Tempting, though.
A priest prays at the altar in the church built below the hexenjäger headquarters. He stands when he hears our boots on the steps. Dieter motions him over.
“A blessing, father, please,” Dieter says, bowing his head. I emulate him as the priest intones a personal blessing under God, praising our holy work and making the sign of the cross over Dieter’s body.
The priest shifts to me, repeating the blessing. As he makes the sign of the cross over me, I look up.
I meet his eyes.
My jaw sets, and although I do not speak, I cannot keep the revulsion from my face.
God has no part of the hexenjägers’ plans this man blesses.
The priest’s voice trembles under my intense glare. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dieter turn to me, and I quickly duck my head, forcing my face into a mask of benign acceptance.
“God be with you,” the priest says in German, not Latin.
If He is with me, He is against you, I think.
“And now to business,” the kommandant says. He turns to the door that leads outside the church, expecting me to keep pace. I do, even though all I want is to flee to the tunnels. Dieter pauses before he opens the door. “Is there anything you want to tell me before we proceed?” Dieter asks me in a soft voice.
His strange, pale eyes watch me carefully, colder even than this December morning. Panic ignites in my belly—has he discovered my plan? Does he want me to beg for forgiveness?
“Youare lighting the fires of the biggest purge in Trier’s history,” Dieter prompts me.
“Thank you?”
A smile cuts through his shadowed face. “You’re welcome,” he says, clearly satisfied by my gratitude for such a treat. He swings open the door, motioning for me to follow him outside.
While Trier has had many pyres, I have never seen the streets lined with so many stakes. They start here, at the Porta Nigra, going down the street named for Saint Simeon before skirting the market and curving toward the archbishop’s cathedral. One hundred poles set into the center of the street, hay and fodder for each fire piled up below.
“It’s clever, don’t you think?” Dieter says. Before I can ask him what he means, he says, “You won’t have to light every single fire, you see.” He points to the way the dry straw links one pyre to the next, a sort of domino effect of flame. When I light one, the fire will spread to the next and the next and, as long as there’s no wind or a damp spot in the line, it will eventually light it all.
“Imagine the last person,” I cannot help but say. Whoever is tied to the last stake will hear the screams of the others the longest, will see the clouds of black smoke, smell the burning flesh, all the while awaiting their inevitable fate.
“Oh, yes,” Dieter says eagerly. “That’s going to be Fritzi.”
I dig my nails into my hand, focusing on the pain, keeping the rest of my body still, my face blank.
Dieter points to the distance. “The fires will start at the cathedral, of course.”
The archbishop gets a front row seat to the reign of terror he commands.
“And then will end here.” Dieter smiles fondly at the stake just at thebottom of the steps of the Porta Nigra, as if he can see Fritzi already tied to it. “Now to the cathedral. I know you’ve had a long night, friend, but I’m sure the archbishop would like to see you prior to the day’s duties.”
A different sort of panic twists inside me at those words. I spent too long in my office, intending to go straight to the tunnels. Dieter’s idle talk and the priest’s worthless blessing have eaten up precious moments when I could have been heading toward Fritzi. And if Dieter drags me to the cathedral…
