Why accuse Lisl of killing the legate's elegant deputy? Just because she and Kuno were alone in the bolted chamber where he bled to death? A mystery, certainly, but no proof she was a murderess!

    Lisl's glance could stun a rat or set a tom yowling—the cause of her trouble in the first place—but not kill a man. She may not even have disliked Kuno. Many females, including Bettina Hckerling, the grain merchant's handsome widow, had found him charming.

    What diabolical act led to Lisl's being at the scene of the crime? Motherhood! In spite of her years, she had brought forth young. It is well-known to learned men that a black cat who survives seven winters and bears kits, dead or alive--Lisl's were stillborn-- creates basilisks with glances so horrible they strike dead anyone they gaze upon.

    Besides, this cat was the property, or familiar, some said, of Franz Kalbermutter, scribe to Erasmus of Rotterdam. For the sake of the town's young, the council would have to vote a thorough investigation. Mechelen was having enough trouble with the weavers' guild. It didn't need any more from the original theological mischief-maker in their midst. It was no time for witchcraft to rear its head.

    My master, who had a habit of holding himself above the fray, showed no interest in his friends' concern that he would be denounced, once the tale of the birth was aired. Personally, I didn't worry about him. Erasmus always knew just how far he could go without losing his skin to the flames. A man to survive.

    Although he was cautious in Mechelen, avoiding attention and forbidding me to associate with local people, we both knew our days in the town were numbered. So far the emperor's soldiers hadn't given us much to worry about, even though Charles' well-armed men were everywhere in Mechelen. The council was nervous, it was true, having Erasmus close by, with all the doctrinal frenzy around.

    The Pope's legate, with his confessor-deputy, Kuno, had been raging through Holland and Flanders, bring down the staff of Rome on the erring populace, screaming heresy and burning any heretic they could catch. Brother Martin, was tantalizingly close, though safe enough in Frederick's keep, issuing pronouncements as he pounded on anything that would bear his heavy first. The emperor was dispatching his legions to root out deviation in every hamlet and half of Germany was blaming Erasmus, who was in Mechelen, a stone's throw from his printer, Grund, acting as if he had nothing to do with any of it.

    The tale of Lisl's devilish birthing spread fast enough, though. Erasmus meant to ignore it. I finally confronted him in his study and made him listen to the tattle about basilisks and the town's youth.

    "They mean to harm my Lisl," I told him.

    "Very likely," he acknowledged.

    "She hasn't hurt a soul!"

    "Not yet," Erasmus offered in that lofty way of his. "I suppose that's why the inquisitors will examine her."

    "And you in the bargain, perhaps," I suggested.

    He could easily be accused, along with Lisl, of palavering with the Devil.

    "Understand, Franzi," he said, raising his eyebrows in droll peaks. "Mechelen can't let a black cat escape after such a begetting. If the councilors were of a mind to disregard this prodigy, the Church would be hard on the town."

    He sighed and arranged some papers lying on his table, something in Greek.

    It was all very well for him to be sarcastic. It wasn't his cat.

    As was usual, Town Hall didn't act with any great haste.

    The whole thing might have blown over if Kuno hadn't returned from his canonical purging to find an old pox: Sorcery!

    "Seize the witch!" he ordered immediately he heard of the fiendish birth.

    Lisl was no sorceress. She just had a loving nature and bad judgment where friendly toms were concerned. I have heard they hung a pig in Rouen for having seven spots on its spine and I can believe it of the French, and even in Basel, in my father's time, they burned a black rooster of seven years for laying an egg.

    They weren't going to burn my Lisl! In her prime, she endeared herself to me as the finest mouser a man could want and I loved her, in spite of her fickle heart.

    After I'd heard about the deputy's pronouncement, I confined Lisl in our storeroom, allegedly to watch the flour barrels. Erasmus might dislike her being in our house all the time but he didn't question her abilities with mice. I left her ribbon and bell, so she would have something to play with if she didn't feel like mousing.

    My precautions did no good.

    When Kuno's men came round to our house, they had no trouble, outside of a few scratches, finding my cat, and seizing her. It was all done behind my back, Erasmus keeping me busy at my copy table when he had news of the guards' approach. By the time I found out, Lisl was gone. Nothing was left of my darling but her ribbon and bell. I raged into Erasmus' study and demanded to know where she was.

    "Kuno had her caged and brought to his house to wait trial by the Hoge Raad," Erasmus informed me.

    "Why didn't you hand me over, too!" I screamed.

    "Franzi," Erasmus tried, soothingly. "I wouldn't allow you to be harmed after we have been through so much together."

    "But you would abandon Lisl!"

    "Your cat isn't in the flames yet."

    Erasmus really wasn't unkind, simply experienced with authority. I calmed down and considered his comment. "What do you have in mind, Stupor Mundi?"

    "Nothing that would return her to your arms. A bribe and a tiny piece of poisoned fish to forestall her suffering."

    Much as I hated the idea, it was possible.

    Better than burning," I conceded, as I fondled Lisl's little ribbon.

* * *

    Before there were any arrangements for Lisl's easy passing, Kuno was freed from his earthly bonds, his bloodless corpse left white as an alpine winter day. No one else was in his room, except the witch herself, perched on the mantle, her cage door open and dangling.

    You'd think, with the host of enemies Kuno had acquired it would be logical that some embittered foe had murdered him. None, however, was on the scene. Kuno's retainers, who had solid alibis appeared blameless, too, when the captain of the Spanish guard questioned them. They vanished as soon as they were released and there was no one left to punish, except the witch.

    The town officials threw Lisl in Mechelen's dungeon and the high court condemned her to the stake, the execution to take place when Legate Aleander came to say the funeral Mass over his confessor. It would be a week's time at least, a little long to delay a burial in warm weather, but no dignitary could come by carriage over the rutted highways. The ceremonies would have to wait for favorable conditions by water. Such a boat as bore the legate would sail the canals, with the tides.

    Grund and the rest of Erasmus' friends found the trial of a cat very funny but they managed to convince him that the legate would be glad to spread the blame to the Gadfly of Christendom, if he were handy. They got a boat, so we could leave before Aleander arrived to officiate at St. Rombaud's church and the auto-da-fé.

    "I'm fortunate to have those who care about me," Erasmus told me. "You had better pack our chests quickly, Franzi."

    "And let Lisl burn? No!"

    None of them cared about me or my cat but Erasmus couldn't leave me behind.

    He tried to frighten me."Aleander will be delighted to find the witch's master still in town."

    "I suppose that's so," I agreed.

    "He'll make you confess to anything he chooses."

    "It won't take long," I told him.

    "I thought Swissmen were brave," he twitted me.

"That's true, Brother Erasmus, almost as courageous as they are sensible."

    That was the part that bothered him. He didn't want to think about what I might say on the rack. They'd go easy on the scribe who talked about his many years with the master penman. I knew things that would send Harlequin to the stake, to say nothing of a man who'd taken vows.

    My service went back to an irreverent prank Erasmus played while he was still in the monastery at Steyn and I was a bound student running from my bacchant. I was poor enough to let Erasmus bribe me to put offal among the sacred relics of St. Bertholda, where the sillier of his brother monks were befouled when they kissed the holy bones. The tale had brought many a chuckle since and no one ever found out who was behind it.

    There were other events in both Church and State that the legate would like to hear about, a mission to copy profane books in a synagogue, bits of my master's private writing about the questionable sagacity of princes, and overheard conversations with known heretics that would place him in more danger than Brother Martin had been at Worms.

    I wasn't sure just how much I would say but I have no more stomach for martyrdom than did Desiderius Erasmus. I only put off leaving because I had hopes of effecting Lisl's rescue or easing her suffering. Erasmus' friends threatened to chain me in the clumsy little boat they'd got to sail their illustrious friend down to Amsterdam.

    I had the answer for that. "I'll come back the minute I get free."

    "Be glad they've condemned a dumb beast!" Erasmus fumed.

    "Your adage about the dangers of letting ignorance triumph comes to mind," I mocked.

    The barb annoyed him, as I knew it would. "Less ignorant men than Mechelen's judges might think the cat has cast a spell over you, Franzi, risking your life for her pelt," he threw back.

    "Love's a charm, it's true," I admitted, with a sigh.

    "Should I plead such a case to the legate when he gets here?"

    "Just help me free my Lisl."

    "Mechelen's dungeon's strong as Rome," he pointed out.

    I had one more hope. "Then calculate who should be in chains for this murder behind a latched door."

    Erasmus was known for his curiosity about puzzles, although the work of appeasing his interest usually fell on my shoulders. Margaret of Austria credited him with finding a fine book that had been stolen from her; I was the one who slept in the alleys of Frankfurt, behind the booksellers, until it was offered for sale. I wrote the letter to Rome that proved the Margrave of Cambrai himself, not his court Jew, collected usurious fees from the merchants of the town's great fair. Let me run from castle to hut, seeking out bits and threads of some riddle and Brother Erasmus was always there to weave them together, proclaiming a solution.

    Erasmus did have a talent for exposing an evildoer. So, I told him how Kuno had died behind a bolted door, with no one but the cat inside with him, and his men-at-arms keeping watch outside the chamber.

    It made him inquisitive as . . . a cat. His eyes were half closed but I could see him studying me under those heavy lids. He didn't raise the wide brows even once, to indicate I had piqued his interest, nor change the solemn lines at the corners of his broad, curving lip. It didn't fool me. Neither did the contemptuous flair of the nostrils in that long nose.

    He was intrigued.

    His only response was criticism, of me. "For a man so beloved of the accused, you've done little to find out who else could have murdered this priest, Franzi."

    I gave him the best reason for that. "I would have gone about asking questions if you weren't so afraid of attention."

    There was really little cause to skulk. Everyone knew where he lived. If Erasmus spoke no heresy on the church step, led no mob of Flemish weavers on Town Hall, Mechelen wouldn't bother him until the legate came up from Antwerp.

    I made for that wheel hub of knowledge, the fish market.

* * *

    I had to pass close to a Spanish wagon standing on the heights above the canal, almost blocking our lane, an ugly token of the emperor's power. It held many kegs of powder, part of the two thousand barrels that had arrived on barges and been stored near the bridge of the Zandpoort Vest. The cargo was meant for Germany, the Spaniards claimed, in case Brother Martin raised any considerable following. Mechelen's Flemings had other ideas. Their suspicions appeared well-founded when the soldiers filled the great wagon with munitions from the store, hitched it to a team of six oxen and pulled it into the main part of town. Two draft horses with a cannon followed.

    It had taken three days of careful maneuvering to haul the rig from the quays to this strategic spot, where it had been stationed, with its wheels blocked, overlooking the canal and a number of houses, including ours. It was so wide it had scraped along the steep, narrow lanes, loosening bricks and breaking off householders' door latches. Some Flemings had threatened to explode it where it stood but that would do little but break up cobbles and rain debris down on the townspeople. Erasmus was sure that he had been the reason for its presence. I doubted it. The wagon's final position was right across from the weavers' guildhall.

    I knew better than show any interest in the wagon or its cargo, a strategy that didn't help me that morning. The Spaniard on guard was bored, standing there all day, and found pleasure in challenging anyone who came along.

    "Where are you off to, Pedro!" he yelled.

    I pointed at the market a few streets away. "My master has a taste for fish tonight."

    He eyed the purse hanging from my waistband. "You got the price of an eel in there?"

    "Oh, no.," I said. "A herring or two. Small ones."

    "They can be a bit smaller," he told me.

    Flicking up my purse with the muzzle of his musket, he inspected its contents and grumbled.

    "Don't know what the emperor wants with a bunch of peons in a mud wallow like this."

    He surprised me by taking only half the money and pushing me on my way. He wouldn't have been so generous if he had known what I had in my boot.

    When I reached the canal and the market, there was no problem—for a price—finding those who would talk about the Kuno's death. Fishermen, mongers, beggars and the tallyman on the wharf added pieces to the story I'd heard of the murder.

    A peddler of mackerel was the richest source of information. He knew every nook of the priest's house, from hall to cellar, and could describe the corpse in detail. I guessed he was one of the servants who had quit the scene after the murder, finding it safer to sell fish. The mackerel seller's account, and the other merchants' reports, cost me my purse, the coins I had hidden in my boot, and my last piece of morning sausage. For the tally man, who claimed he could read, I gave up a copy of one of Signore Boccaccio's stories I had kept in my doublet, hoping for a sale.

    After I'd paid my pipers, I threw out the ridiculous, separated wheat from chaff and thought I had a picture worth the morning.

    I failed just once, when I tried to find out what two old women were whispering about. Too bad. It had something to do with Kuno. Their cackles carried the hint of something truly naughty

* * *

    "Four holes in his wrist and four gaping slashes up his arm," I told Erasmus when I got home. "His wounds wouldn't have killed him, if he'd had the sense to tighten a band 'round his elbow."

    Erasmus kept right on working but I thought he was pondering the matter. My assumption proved out when he probed the mackeral seller's contribution a few minutes later.

    "There was a jug on the hearth?" he asked.

    I nodded. "Roman pot. Broken."

    "So, we can credit Italian wine with His Excellency's lack of good sense."

    "Sometimes the sight of one's own blood makes even a sober man faint," I suggested.

    Erasmus went back to the provocative latched door. "The chamber was shut tight?"

    "According to all. It took an axe to break through when Kuno didn't answer his servants."

    "No visitors?"

    "He admitted only one person to the room that evening, Vrouw Hckerling."

    Erasmus nodded. "She must have missed his companionship."

    "After so long an absence, I'm surprised she waited the day, before she paid him a visit."

    Bettina wasn't used to being lonely, according to tales I had heard. She had taken her previous lover, Erasmus' printer and associate, Fabius Grund, soon after her husband's death. Grund, being no fool, although a man without much humor—which is often the same thing— withdrew when Bettina showed a penchant for Kuno. He was no match for the deputy's pleasing curls, Italian ways, great coach and shining men-at-arms. Kuno's sharp eye, casting about for Flemish heretics, might have had something to do with Grund's retreat, too.

    Although I would have rather Bettina than Lisl be the murdress, I saw no reason Erasmus should suspect the widow.

    I added to the story. "They say she stayed only minutes and Kuno was laughing the whole time. He had a curse for none but my Lisl, as he bolted the door after his lady."

    "Fortunate for Vrouw Hckerling he was alive when she departed," Erasmus reflected.

    I had a sudden thought. "She's a friend to many on the Raad. She might put in a word for Lisl. A burgher with granaries ought to be a friend to mousers."

    "She may be inclined to think this particular mouser is responsible for her lover's demise."

    "Or grateful," I pointed out

    He considered it. "She could hardly reward the beast publicly."

    "You think she sees it as witchcraft?" I asked.

    "I have never met the lady," Erasmus admitted.

    It gave me another idea. "Grund could introduce you. You have made him richer by far and you haven't sent over the preface to your colloquy on the Germans yet. He'll be willing with favors until that's on his press."

    It was the last work Erasmus could provide Grund for some time and the printer was anxious to set the type. Grund had been generous in the past, getting us our house at Dutch prices and lending his cart and Flemish groom, Diet, who was a storehouse of local knowledge, second only to the fish market. It had been Diet who had told me of Grund's affair with Bettina, a piece of information I used to taunt my master when he praised the printer's virtue too highly.

    A Fleming and a Protester, Grund admired Erasmus' scholarship, though he was no great friend after Erasmus had failed to support Luther.

    Erasmus agreed to ask him for an introduction to Bettina, not with any hope for Lisl, but to satisfy that curious circumstance that nagged him. "Who knows? She may have a simple explanation for the murder behind a latched door."

    He rolled up the papers that introduced the colloquy Grund was waiting for, as an excuse to call on the printer.

    "A visit to Widow Hckerling might take further persuasion," he worried.

    "A gift would be in order," I suggested.

    "It would. The lady fancies works of art for her fine house, according to Grund's groom. I would be glad to get rid of that ugly charcoal Durer did of me. It appear to be a portrait of an elderly sweeper. She may not like the drawing but it has a nicely carved frame."

    I thought the Durer portrait a good likeness of Stupor Mundi but I agreed with the rest of the sentiment. "The very thing."

    Erasmus took our old horse down to the printer's. He had made that transport a habit when he wanted a favor from someone. He felt they would see him as a poor religious and feel sorry for him. He certainly was a sorry sight on the nag, the way his skinny legs hung down from his cossack and those big feet dangling. He sat the beast like a sack of oats.

    We had agreed that there would be no hint that he had any prurient curiosity about the lady who had been Fabius' former partner in the sheets. Unlike some other gentlemen, who would see it as a compliment, Grund liked to give the impression he was a sober fellow. Although Erasmus wasn't above teasing when it came to mocking a burgher, he respected the printer's pose.

    Grund was pleased to get the first pages of the work he had been waiting for, although disappointed not to have the whole of it in his hands. As for Erasmus interest in visiting Vrouw Hckerling, he had no reason to suspect any other motive than the scholar's wish to meet one of the most influential townspeople. He granted Erasmus' request. He was sure Vrouw Hckerling would like the art work, too. His groom would see that Erasmus, his scribe and the gift arrived safely at the lady's mansion.

    "I expect you'll be quitting Mechelen as soon as your manuscript is safe with me," he added, "and it will be a good thing to leave acquaintances who might speak on your behalf. "

* * *

    Before Grund's groom, Diet, stopped at our door, Erasmus had me put on my Frankfurt coat and saw to it that his own robe was brushed clean. He made sure my boots were clear of his hems on the way to Vrouw Hckerling's fine house. A good thing. The lady's doorman, a fine big fellow, was dressed somewhat better than both of us.

    Betje was a clever Holland woman as tall as I, and I'm a long Swissman, a head above Brother Erasmus. She hadn't been considered much of a beauty as a maiden, though she had long, green eyes and flaming hair. She had been lean, with sallow cheeks. In her middle years, she had got herself a fine belly and learned to use the rouge pot. She had grown rich, too, the Hckerling business prospering after her husband's death, her granaries and stores rising all along the quays. She acquired a fine, new house. The burghers of Mechelen lay it to the lady's wit, equaled by a temper few were willing to challenge.

    Vrouw Hckerling liked the portrait Erasmus presented. She exclaimed in delight as she traced the carving on the frame.

    When Grund introduced my master, ignoring me as he always does, though I am his scribe and no servant, I could see Fabius was back in favor.

    "I am pleased to meet the most learned among us and I am sorry you must leave because of a cat," Betje said.

    She spoke Dutch, the tongue she and Erasmus shared, and he did likewise. It tickled me because Erasmus was forever saying that Dutch was no language for either scholarship or polite conversation. He could hardly answer his hostess in Latin, as was his preference.

    "We share that regret," he responded.

    "Now tell me why you're dallying and worrying your friends, with the legate on his way," she went on.

    Grund provided an excuse. "Erasmus is finishing something for my press."

    Erasmus got to the meat of the matter. "And I would like to solve the riddle of Father Kuno's death behind a locked door before I catch the tide."

    The lady didn't pretend to be saddened by the event. "He was spry enough on the couch. A surprise he died so easily, vile dung though he was."

    Grund stiffened, frowned and bit his lip, whether at the reference to Kuno's prowess in bed or at Bettina's insult to an important--and dangerous--man.

    "I thought you counted him a friend, madam," Erasmus said, lightly.

    "No longer!" she exclaimed.

    Erasmus urged her on. "It is hard not to tremble before such awesome power,"

    "He didn't frighten me! I'm pleased to say I told him so the very night he died. He actually thought I would stay and have wine with him. After the way he treated me? There's one Italian who learned some new Dutch words."

    Erasmus pandered. "I'm surprised that even he threatened Vrouw Hckerling,"

    "Threatened? No, insulted! Ridiculed!" she shot back

    Betje's cheek flushed under her rouge, a really becoming hue. Whatever Kuno had done had been a serious matter. Too Italian quick at the game? Another mistress? If the printer wasn't preparing to take up where he'd left off with the lady, and Lisl wasn't so in need of me, I'd have been glad to do her service, in Amsterdam, Basil, Rome or Mechelen.

    Grund cut in sharply. "I took Vrouw Hckerling to his house myself so that she could transact a piece of business."

    Betje went on, to Grund's dismay. "And the wretch thought I would stay and drink with him. After the way he Insulted me!"

    "He paid most fearfully," Erasmus said.

    Betje mocked the notion. "Spelled by a basilisk's look? It saved someone a gory dagger."

    Erasmus revised his estimation of the cause. "Under the beast's claws, they say, not her glance."

    I put in my bit of information. "He died when his blood ran out from gashes on his wrist and arm."

    I couldn't be sure if it was my intruding into the conversation of my betters but something made Betje's green eyes cloud. She had me spin the whole tale, as I'd heard it in the fish market. I told her all about my Lisl, too, though that was disappointing. She didn't like cats, even good mousers.

    "I saw the ugly thing clawing at her cage when I came into Kuno's chamber," Betje said. "She gave me a hiss."

    "You were lucky that was all she gave you," Grund said.

    Vrouw Hckerling thought a moment before remarking, "She should have been grateful. I'm the one freed her."

    Erasmus tried to hide his probing into the event by commenting, drolly, with a wave of his hand, "Even witches must show appreciation for an act of kindness."

    "An accident. I would have kept her as far from me as possible. I want no cat around my skirts." She added, with amusement, "Fitting I gave her the opportunity to act as Kuno's executioner."

    I intruded again. "Not my Lisl!"

    Betje was annoyed at my defense of the obvious suspect. "I'll wager some servant saw it and frets he'll be accused of the witch's taint if he admits it," she said.

    I shook my head. "No one saw Father Kuno die. I asked all around in the fish market."

    "Visit his house and you'll likely hear another tale," Betje argued.

    "I mean to go there," I said.

    Grund didn't like that, especially after the lady became distraught, putting a kerchief to her mouth, as if she were ill. Grund excused her and himself. Erasmus could only offer his farewells and beg forgiveness for entering at a difficult time.

    I was angry at Erasmus for not asking Vrouw Hckerling to plead with the judges for Lisl but his eye was bright beneath those heavy lids and I could tell he was pleased with the way things had turned out.

    Grund's cart, with Diet at the reins, was waiting in the drive. When Erasmus stumbled a bit, going down the step, as if he'd had too much to drink, the groom had to help him up onto the seat. It gave the great scholar cause to speak in a familiar way to him, without discomforting the servant. It was the reason for the clumsiness, I was sure.

    His voice had a slightly drunken tone. "So, Diet, you find yourself in Vrouw Hckerling's stable yard more often, now she values your master's friendship again."

    Erasmus shouldn't have bothered with the stumbling act. The groom wasn't the least bit nervous about conversing with Stupor Mundi.

    "Better than her bouncing along in that Italian's big, mean coach. She'd had enough of him, even before he took himself off to Romem," he reported.

    "How generous of her to call on him, if she was no longer fond," Erasmus slurred.

    Diet corrected him. "No wonder and no generosity!"

    He laughed at some piece of tattle but offered nothing else.

    I urged him on. "I heard she had business."

    Erasmus scowled at my entering the conversation. It annoyed me that my master had thought he was as clever as I in getting a common man's tongue wagging, just because he could call on princes and speak Hebrew like a rabbi. I wouldn't let Diet's exclamation pass. If he was hesitant about telling the tale, it held the promise of being worth notice. Erasmus must have thought so, too, because he made a show of dozing and let me handle it.

    The groom accepted that my master wasn't listening and appeared delighted that I hadn't heard the whole story. While we drove through town, he passed along the rest of the gossip.

    "Business? Yes! Kuno didn't mind talking about it before he left Mechelen and Vrouw Hckerling was fussing about it herself, as I wouldn't think a woman would want to."

    He paused, either to enjoy the memory or out of concern for my mouth.

    "No one would believe any tale I tell," I assured him, in case that might be a worry.

    He accepted it.

    Before the priest had departed for Rome, Diet confided, he'd had several strong fellows fit Vrouw Hckerling into one of those leather and iron belts that discourage love-making.

    Shaking with laughter, he elaborated, " . . . so no one would sample his wares while he was away from the shop. And him with the only means to release her."

    "The key," I guessed.

    Diet implied it was general knowledge. "And the secret of using it, they say. Turn it the wrong way and the thing just gets tighter. Kuno kept it on a golden chain, hanging from his waistband, like a sacred talisman."

    No wonder the two old biddies in the fish market had a giggle at the mention of Kuno. I had a hard time controlling my own mirth.

    "A friend like Grund must have been as angry as Vrouw Hckerling when he heard about the belt."

    "Or found out some other way," Diet said, slyly.

    Grund seemed a likely suspect when I considered it. "Enough to make any man murderous."

    Diet put that to rest. "Maybe, but he wasn't in that room. Vrouw Hckerling made him stay in the cart when she went into Kuno's house that night. For the unlocking!"

    "She must have been in a rage, obliged to go to the villain," I realized.

    Diet nodded, tears of merriment streaming down his cheeks. "And Kuno laughing when he unlocked her made it worse. You could hear him through window and door."

    "Grund must have found it hard to wait outside," I hinted.

    Fabius rushing in and slashing the Italian was still a satisfying thought.

    "She got back to the carriage quick, Vrouw Hckerling did, before Grund could hop out," Diet said. "Had that thing dangling on her arm."

    "The belt?"

    "The same. She kept it all next day, yelling about how mean the Italian was."

    Erasmus was suddenly awake. "What happened to it?"

    Diet finished the tale, with a final snicker. "Gave it to her woman to throw away but it's still around and comes out when the wine pot passes. Some say the cook's got it."

    Erasmus didn't say a word about Kuno's murder, not until he had finished the last crust at supper that evening, and sat staring at the hearth.

    "You know, Franzi, this may be a complicated matter to unravel before high tide Friday."

    Time for flattery. "Not for you, Stupor Mundi."

    I usually made a joke of his self importance but, just then, for my Lisl, I said it sincerely.

* * *

    He was right about the tides. Friday was the last one we could make before Aleander arrived with crosier and cudgel. After that, with boats navigating the mud flats only at high tide, we couldn't run the Dijle. Erasmus, no sailor, canal or salt sea, worried more than a Dutchman should about travel by water.

    He knew I wasn't going to be put off, though, and began to speculate. "We had better make sure Kuno's chamber is as we have heard. Some little window where a murderer could slip in and use his knife. Judges could be swayed by the thought of an assassin loose in Mechelen."

    "Even an ample flue in the chimney should make them wonder," I said. "A man can fit through a hole not much bigger than a cat needs."

    "It had better be looked into," my master decided.

    I brought in the obvious problem. "We may not find as generous a welcome at Father Kuno's house as at Vrouw Hckerling's."

    "We need to know the features of that room."

    I taunted him, even though I knew he hadn't been considering any such expedition for himself. "I should think Erasmus would want to see the locus of a bewitching with his own eyes."

    "Not as much as I would like to see that chastity belt," he corrected.

    I knew about such things because I had lived in Mainz. I'm not sure why my master was so informed.

    "I don't think any of Vrouw Hckerling's household will hand it over to a holy man such as yourself," I told him sarcastically.

    "The kitchen yard will be like any other. My purse, thin though it is, should have some weight. Your task is the room where the Italian died."

    "Since you're taking the high road to Vrouw Hckerling's, you might offer to dedicate your new colloquy to her, in return for a favorable word about Lisl," I suggested.

    "She wouldn't find it a reasonable trade. Besides, I wasn't intending to disturb the lady at all."

    "Nor lose Diet his employment?"

    "No reason for that, either, if everyone watches his tongue."

    Next morning, he sent a boy along for Diet and the cart, brash considering the mission he had in mind. I didn't think he'd accomplish it and I didn't have much hope for myself, either.

* * *

    When I started up the lane on the next day, I had the feeling I was being followed. Was the Raad sending spies to watch Erasmus' scribe? More likely some rascal was after my purse at the early hour, a sly fellow, remaining out of sight. For safety's sake, I thought of taking a little boat on the canals to Kuno's, floating quietly beneath the shadow of the embankments. It was a round-about route and would take a long time, though. The priest's house was on the main canal but reached much more quickly by Begijenstraat and the streets that branched from it.

    Climbing to the markets, as I had several days before, passing the Spanish wagon, with its powder kegs and its cannon pointing toward the heart of the weavers' guildhall, I was happy to see the guard asleep. Cobbles clinked as I hurried on. Glancing back, I had time to see someone's sleeve slip behind the cannon.

    My footpad again? He would be disappointed in my purse, if he did manage to catch me in some shadow.

    I kept to the middle of the street, away from doorways, even after I got to the wide course of Begijenstraat. It led straight from the fish stalls to Groot Markt, where it forked, one avenue with fine houses like Vrouw Hckerling's, where Erasmus was bound that day, and the other past Saint Rombaud's and its great tower, where I was heading.

    I hadn't walked many minutes before I heard sounds of the carpenters and masons repairing the belfry where, to save her soul, Empress Margaret had added more bells. No one expected work to stop in Mechelen, just because of murder and sorcery.

    The great front doors were open while cleaners swept the vestibule. I paused to admire the soft afternoon light outlining the vaulting arches and marble. That was before I thought of Kuno's body lying under the alta. My stomach heaved. Saint Rombaud's has a very long nave. Still, odors carry well in towns along canals and I was as glad I wasn't one of workmen.

    If that stealthy tracker were still following me, I could hope that the smell of Kuno's remains would reach him.

    The priest's house was a hundred paces from the church, a splendid mansion. It had fine big doors on the street. I didn't know who would answer, even if I did knock, and it wouldn't help Lisl if I joined her in the Raad's dungeon. I showed no interest in the place while a four horse cart passed, then abandoned the direct approach.

    I circled the place and found another tall house joined on one side, a walled courtyard on the other, and a stable yard in back, separated from the canal by a misty slope. Windows and doors, high and low, were barred. The Spanish deputy who had lived in the house before Kuno, wasn't the most popular man in town, hence the added protection. Walls and bars hadn't helped. Although the Spaniard had been known to swim like a cod, his corpse had been discovered floating under one of the stone arches of the Hoge Brug.

    The back yard was fenced, with iron pickets topped with spikes, and a tall gate. A rag picker, holding a dirty sack and swaying on her rheumy legs, peered through the bars at a scullery boy dumping garbage by the cellar door. Hoping for a few scraps, the old woman was trying to raise her nerve to signal the lad with the bent poker she was using for a cane.

    I moved over beside the wretch. "Give me your bundle and staff and you can have my fine hat."

    She looked at my attire suspiciously, until I handed her my old coat and new hat, with it's little side plume, to prove my intentions. It overwhelmed the hag. She didn't say a word, just dropped her poker, flung me her sack and hobbled away as fast as she could, before I changed my mind.

    Without examining my part of the trade too closely, I rubbed dirt in my hair and on my shirt, heaved the filthy pack on my shoulders and made ready for a second bargain. I would have done that for no other other except my Lisl.

    When I ran the poker across the bars and the scullery boy turned around, I held up the last attractive piece of apparel I had, the collar I had bought just before Erasmus and I traveled to Mechelen. The lad glanced up at the house, down into the cellar and hesitated. As a breeze off the Dijle rippled the Flemish lace on the collar's edge, he threw caution to the winds and sidled to the fence, pulling along a garbage bucket.

    "Good big piece of fish left," he told me, with a nod at the filthy mess in the pail.

    I shook my head. "I want a look at the room where the Italian was killed."

    "Give me the collar, thief, or I'll call the porter!"

    He didn't look as if he expected the threat to work. He did want that collar, though. I let him know it could end up with another. "Maybe the porter would like a piece of lace."

    The boy was annoyed but he didn't leave.

    "Everybody in Mechelen wants to know about Master Kuno. I saw the very spot where he was bewitched. Give me the collar and I will tell you about it, like I did the others."

    "I want to see the place. You should be able to slip another interested fellow through the cellar, to ogle a bit, as you did others, who paid a lot less than a fine piece of linen and lace like this."

    When I stuck the prize behind my back, he took a hesitant peek at the house. "Little harm in it."

    Opening the gate, he pointed to the cellar door. He was less pleased when I wouldn't let go of the collar until he had brought me to the priest's chamber itself. So he could claim thieves had broken in, he left the gate ajar before we hurried through the stable yard.

    He guided me through musty, dark stores and along a black tunnel, where I tripped over an obstacle that felt like a bucket. At the end was the bottom of a flight of narrow steps, the servants passage to the upper floors, I guessed. From there, we crabbed upward to other stairways, all empty and still as death. Not a soul was around, although I heard footsteps behind us after we reached the top of a final stair well. My lad cringed against a wall, then took heart and led me the last few paces to a door.

    "In here," he whispered. I lifted the latch and pushed open the door. He pointed inside the chamber, to the long, black smear on the hearth stones. "That's where he died, in his spilt wine and his blood."

    An odor of rot wafted from the room. Not surprising. A table standing before the hearth held the decaying remains of a supper. I guessed it was the one Kuno had meant to share with Vrouw Hckerling. Two chairs, with velvet cushions, waited in place, for the absent diners.

    The empty cage where my Lisl had been held captive was still on the mantle, above a broken wine jug that lay glued in the hardened pool on the hearth stones The only sign that anyone had begun straightening the chamber was a drapery that had been flung onto a satin couch.

    The slops boy didn't enter the room, just snatched his reward from my tunic and ran off.

    The stain he had pointed out was so dark I couldn't tell grape from gore and so thick I couldn't see the ridges of the rough hearth-stone beneath. I guessed I was looking at most of Kuno's blood. The household must have thought little of their former master to leave the decaying food of his final meal, as well as the congealed fluid from his veins, without so much as the swipe of a rag.

    The stench from the rotten stuff on the table would have been enough to send me on my way, if the inspection hadn't been so important to Lisl.

    I saw that the decaying victuals had become a feast for a pair of brown rats. Disgusting . I held my nose as I examined the room. The sort of heavy grating that blocks the chimneys of all rich men spanned the cavity above the hearth. The high windows were latticed, and as solid as they appeared from the outside. Not even a small cat could have slipped through the molded iron fretwork. I ran my eyes around the walls but I didn't see any other opening. The door had a latch that would come down on the inside, unless it's chain was hooked up on the ring. It was as the mackeral seller in the fish market had described it. I gave everything a last look and found nothing of interest in the chamber until I noticed a gray hand, with fingers outstretched, protruding under the edge of the drape on the couch.

    I gagged but didn't let go of my opportunity. I lifted the covering and had a look at the cadaver.

    The Household's failure to tidy the room was the least of the neglect. The chamber's owner hadn't got any attention either. Kuno's corpse hadn't been readied, much less carried and laid out at Saint Rombaud's. No one had bothered to clean the four punctures and the gashes that Lisl was supposed to have raked from wrist to elbow, no more than they had swabbed the gory hearth. Blackened marks trailed up Kuno's rigid arm like splayed furrows in a field. A patch of caked blood lay atop a great lump on the side of his head, something no one had mentioned. The master's retainers hadn't bothered to close his eyes. I could look right into them.

    Kuno must not have seen the claws of the witch or anything else that frightened him. He stared at me with no particular fear nor terror. The merry mood Diet had said his mistress installed was no longer there but neither was the horror a basilisk's gaze would have left.

    "Lisl might not have cared for the look of you right now, though, Signore," I said.

    I left without covering him. If the household hadn't taken the time to show his corpse any more respect than a heave on his couch and an old curtain for a shroud, they ought to breathe in the stench and look on his face one last time.

    At least the man who would come to put him in his coffin for the funeral would get a start, maybe a turn of the belly, too, if Kuno's fellow rats got tired of the feast on the table.

* * *

    Neither scullery boy nor higher minion was in sight when I left the room. I didn't remember exactly how I had got to Kuno's chamber and I could hear someone in the great hall below, so my heart began slapping against my chest like a mill paddle. Footsteps ahead? I thought so, but it was no wonder on a dark stair. My days as a wandering schütze, living on stolen food, always let me imagine things. I made for the cellar, tiptoeing down until I smelled the cellar's must and stepped into blackness.

    There was nothing to do but follow my instincts to the outside door. Feeling my way along the stone walls, my fingers found slime, a web and the spider, and moving bits I couldn't name. What must have been midway through, I touched cloth too warm for such a place.

    "I've got no more lace or linen, boy, only a little dirk that serves me well," I informed my companion.

    A blow struck my head above my ear, a dizzying jolt. I had the sense to jump out of range instead of fighting back. My attacker didn't try for another whack. The thud of fleeing footsteps, beating a retreat along the wall, gave me the courage to make a staggering run for it myself. When I reached the door, it was open and swinging, with no rascal waiting on the other side.

    A trickle of blood was running down my neck. I wiped it off with my sleeve and felt the side of my skull, to see how big a wound I had got. Nothing of much importance. Whatever the weapon, it had been wielded clumsily, or with no intent to do more than knock me out.

    I wasted no time heading home, breathing hard by the time I reached the groot markt where I met Erasmus, afoot.

    "Grund's cart was needed elsewhere," I guessed.

    "Once Diet named the people he knew had handed the belt around, I saw no reason he should be further involved."

    "Just as well, though he didn't seem worried about gossiping."

    I kept Erasmus to my uninjured side, not because he would have been unduly worried about my Swiss head, which he always claimed was solid as Alpine rocks, but because I wanted to talk about the sack he was carrying.

    He wasn't shy about it. "The trophy. It cost me dearly, though not what I would have paid if the key was in it. It's lost."

    Instead of rebuking him, as I was inclined, I reported my inspection of Kuno's chamber, saving the part about the priest's remains until last, so I could savor his repugnance. I was disappointed. He wasn't surprised Kuno's household had left his corpse to rot, nor about its appearance, except for the lump on his brow."

    When I started on the wounds to wrist and arm, Erasmus described them perfectly. "Four great punctures and tracks that drained the gore," he said.

    I didn't question how he knew. I was confident anyone would see how ridiculous it was to accuse a little cat. "Do you think I can visit the court and convince the learned judges that Lisle's little claws couldn't have made such gashes?"

    "No, we're calling elsewhere."

    "Where " I asked.

    "To visit Vrouw Hckerling."

    I could see no earthly good in that. "She wouldn't do anything for Lisl before and she certainly wouldn't now, if she has heard that the learned Erasmus has been prying into the tale of the belt."

    "If the lady is more easily embarrassed than forewarned I would agree with you."

    He wouldn't explain what the warning might be and I was even more confused when glorious Betje had her doorman admit us the moment we arrived.

    Betje began the visit with an examination of the bump over my ear and a straightforward declaration. "Fabius' fist was only meant to warn this scribe of yours to close his mouth about the looks of Kuno."

    "Fist!" I exclaimed.

    Erasmus acted as if he had just noticed my injury. "Franzi has a habit of interfering in others' affairs."

    The widow accepted it, as if the attack had been altogether deserved. "Grund lost me once. Now I'm in his bed again, he means to see me come to no harm from this fellow's mouth."

    "How could I harm you, Vrouw Hckerling?" I asked.

    "By placing Kuno's death at my door."

    It seemed foolish, since I had seen the wounds on the corpse, and knew her departure had been observed.

    Erasmus understood. "Some would honor you for it, if you had been responsible."

    The widow accepted both parts of his statement. "I didn't know I'd done it, until you came to see me and your scribe said the wretch died of wounds, not glares. I still wasn't sure until you bribed my steward for the belt."

    Erasmus corrected her supposition. "Much lower. The steward's loyal,"

    Betje accepted it. "Vrouw Wyk , I imagine. Nothing I can do about it. She's the best cook in Flanders."

    "Trustworthiness is important but it no more than the oven," Erasmus conceded.

    "As does sympathy. You see how it happened, don't you?" Betje asked him.

    "Yes," Erasmus told her.

    "I knew you would understand, if you did find out. Grund wouldn't believe you would."

    "So he had to dent my skull!" I complained.

    Betje defended herself, to my master. "You can see why I was enraged, Brother Erasmus. Kuno laughed! Even after he turned the key in the contraption! Why did he have to laugh on top of ridiculing me!"

    "Father Kuno should have known there were limits," Erasmus sympathized.

    "I swung the belt at his head to shut him up. Even drunk, he was quick as a rat and kept away from me. That's how I freed the cat, breaking her cage door when I missed his head."

    "Too bad she didn't get away," I said.

    "She got to the mantle and knocked the jug to the hearth. His best wine! When he came after me to bolt the door against her escape, I laid into him. There was blood this time," Betje said with relish.

    "I'm surprised he didn't take vengeance," Erasmus said.

    Betje was still savoring her success. "He was too busy with the cat, cursing her for breaking the jug. I would gladly have hit him again if he had come after me instead! The only thing I regret is leaving him with his skull intact."

    I was pleased to tell her that had been broken, as well. "He cracked his own head, chasing the cat."

    Erasmus elaborated. "The hearth-stone did the deed, when he slipped in the spilt wine. Franzi described the lump and the place he was found. He breathed his last in the wine puddle."

    Betje tried to picture it. "From my blow?"

    Erasmus hesitated before he explained. "Not the major cause, at the end. A man can neither walk nor stay the flow of his blood if he lies dumb."

    "The wounds I gave him didn't kill him, then," Betje mourned.

    "It takes time, they say, for a man's body to drain itself," my master observed. "A bad slip and a heady wine to keep him senseless so long."

    Betje appeared reluctant to give up her contribution to the demise. "The wine no stronger than my blow."

    Erasmus conceded it, without reservation. "A tribute to the arm that struck it."

    "Grund heard the gossip about the wounds, the same as your scribe, but he didn't tell me what they looked like," Betje said.

    Something still bothered Erasmus."Why take the belt with you?"

    "If Diet so much as smiled I was going to beat him with it, too! Oh, they all knew, from scullery to hall!"

    I still couldn't see how Erasmus had guessed so much until he drew the chastity belt from his habit and lay it on the table. It was an ugly thing, a leather harness with iron fittings, hinges and a bulging lock in back. Four spikes protruded from the forepiece, great spurs that could only have been concealed by the fullest skirt and would have stopped the most impetuous of lovers. They would fit the holes in Kuno's wrist.

    "Best to hack it up and throw it into the canal," Erasmus advised, "so no one will gaze on it and wonder."

    Betje nodded."I think the Raad will go on seeing the claws of a basilisk. Better they burn the cat than me."

    "No!" I shrieked. "I'll shout the truth from the rooftops!"

    It was a risk, considering Betje hadn't dismissed her burly doorman and might well have called Grund, who was certainly outside, listening.

    "I am sure, if Vrouw Hckerling and I put our minds to it, we can find a way to convince the judges the Devil has been routed," Erasmus said.

    I was ready to do battle if he offered no more assurance of saving Lisl than that, but he gave me one of those looks that hold a promise. I trusted him, that's all I can say. I set out quickly when he sent me home to pack the chests and tell the boat skipper we would sail with the tide.

* * *

    Erasmus' relieved friends saw us off from Grund's wharf and we made the tide that night. It was rainy and slow going, with boatmen already in the canal for next day's market, many anchoring under the bridges to keep dry, and us with no lantern showing.

    When the first misty light appeared and the bells in St. Rombaud's tower chimed morning in Mechelen, I was almost frightened out of my wits. There were no pursuing shouts on the water behind us, nor horses galloping toward the bridges ahead. Except for a few sparrows on the gables of quayside houses, nothing stirred.

    We had a few anxious moments when we found the channel blocked by barges that had sought shelter under the bridge below the great market. Our boatman sounded his horn to summon help, the blast bringing the brugwachter, who yelled down boisterous jokes to the barge men and shook his staff. The humor worked better on the Flemings than the wand of authority and we soon had passage.

    The mist ended beyond the stone basin that separates the town from the grand canal and we slipped down from Mechelen in morning sunlight.

    Trees and windmills rose off shore, the sweet smell of grain filled the air and the tide carried us high enough to see the Flemish farmers winnowing seed and gathering stalks in the flax fields. The mud flats that had worried Erasmus were well under water. The surface shone like gold in our wash. Reeds, with glistening beads of dew, bent and bobbed in our wake.

    It was a fine day! I didn't risk opening Lisl's basket until we were far out on the Scheldt and raising sail, in sight of blotches of smoke from the chimneys of Antwerp.

    My darling was thinner but very beautiful to me, all black satin in the sunshine. I kissed each paw, as one would adore blessed relics, and fed her the cream Grund had given me for Erasmus' breakfast. Revolted, my master joined the boatman at the tiller. It gave him an excuse for being sick at the sight of food, as he always was on water, whether sea, lake or canal.

    I was sorry he was dyspeptic after he had performed so well in Mechelen's dungeon.

    Along with several prominent townspeople, who had been allowed to visit the demon and judge her powers for themselves, he was the one who had seen the cursed cat turn into an ugly black roach. In the excitement, according to the tale already being spread by the jailers, the famous scholar had stepped on the bug and squashed the witch.

    Erasmus of Rotterdam had avenged the murder of the high priest Kuno!

    Neither jailor nor judge questioned the bulge under Betje Hckerling's ample bosom, as the grand company left the dungeon. Lisl, naturally, was much too canny to make a sound.

    The next year, in Freiburg, my darling ran off with a tom. I never saw her again but I am sure she lived an even longer life and may have had another kit or two to bewitch others as she did me.