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it within the borders it has attained so far. But the events of the past few years have taught this poor soldier of God that often what appears to be an evil can, in the great design of the Supreme one, be transformed to good. The marriage between heretical faith and the German princes is such that the former can no longer be dislodged by the latter, or by the alliances that they will seek to forge. They may reveal themselves to be our best allies against the Emperor, and even now one frequently encounters French envoys and ambassadors along the roads of the German moorlands. Certainly it is premature to expect the princes to go into battle against Charles right away, but neither would it be deranged to imagine such an occurrence in the future. I believe, my lord, that our calculations will reveal themselves over the course of time to be all the more acute and premonitory. If, therefore, the vicissitudes of the war in Italy turn to the advantage of the French, Your Lordship will be able to console himself with the thought that a few years hence Charles will risk seeing his own eastern territories crushed between the Turk and the Lutheran princes. Then his power would really start to look uncertain.

But there is a subtle evil creeping upon this unfortunate earth, about which I am about to bring you tidings.

The past few weeks have seen this city shaken by the suppression of the so-called Anabaptists. These blasphemers take to their extremes the perfidious doctrines of Luther. They refuse the baptism of children, maintaining that the Holy Spirit can be accepted only by the will of the believer who receives it; they reject the idea of ecclesiastical hierarchy and are united in communities, their pastors being elected by those same believers; they fail to recognise the doctrinal authority of the Church and consider the Scripture the only source of truth; but — and in this they are worse than Luther — they also refuse to obey the secular authorities and claim that they are the only Christian community to accomplish civic administration. Furthermore, they abhor wealth and all secular forms of worship — images, churches, holy vestments — in the name of the equality of all the descendants of Adam. They wish to subvert the world from head to toe, and it is not insignificant that many of those who have endured the peasant war have sympathised with them, espousing their cause.

The authorities have a hard task ahead of them repressing these men seduced by Satan, who convened here in Augsburg last month for a general synod. Fortunately, within a few days almost all of their leaders were imprisoned. They did not number among them men of the stature of Thomas M�ntzer, and nonetheless the danger that they represent is more serious than their actual numbers would lead one to imagine. Their heresies, in fact, seem to be spreading throughout the whole of South-Western Germany with extreme ease and speed. They prefer the lower classes, mechanical workers, still infected by the hate that they nurture with regard to their superiors. The populations of the countryside, ignorant and discontented, often participate in their rituals in the woods, yielding to the spell of Satan. Precisely because they are not chained to any civil or religious ordinances, these Anabaptists, who refer to each other as brethren, are able to propagate their own plagues more easily and rapidly than even Luther has been able to do in recent times; it is easy to predict that their numbers will grow, and that Anabaptism will soon enter the confines of this city. Wherever there is a discontented, hungry or ill-treated peasant or craftsman, there is a potential heretic.

That is why I shall not cease to collect information and to follow as closely as possible the fates of these unbelievers, to supply Your Lordship with new material to evaluate.

I have nothing further to say except that I kiss Your Lordship’s hands, imploring one to whom I owe such unbounded respect, to let me continue to lend these poor eyes to the cause of God.

Augsburg, the 17th day of September 1527

Your Lordship’s faithful servant,

Q.

Letter sent to Venice from the imperial city of Augsburg, addressed to Gianpietro Carafa, dated 1st October 1529.

To my most eminent lord Giovanni Pietro Carafa, in Venice.

My most honoured Lord, this servant’s soul is filled with gratitude and emotion at the possibility of appearing in Your presence. Do not fear that I might miss this appointment: peace has made the streets of Lombardy safer, and this fact, along with my urgent desire to see my lord, will make me speed my way as far as Bologna. My heart weeps to learn that His Holiness Pope Clement has concluded such a wretched deal with Charles, granting him this official coronation in Bologna; the victory over the French in Italy and now this pontifical acknowledgement will elevate Charles V to the rank of the greatest Caesars of antiquity, despite the fact that he does not possess a drop of their virtue and rectitude. He will command Italy at his whim, and in my opinion this union will see the Italian states, and this Pope above all, as impotent onlookers of the Emperor’s decisions. But that is enough: Vae victis, no more for the time being, in the hope that merciful God will grant such devoted souls as Your Lordship’s the grace to be able to thwart the arrogance of this new Caesar.

It is with regard to this very subject that I shall also permit myself to be as frank as Your Lordship has so generously allowed me to become accustomed to being, given that the free wandering of my thoughts, unbiased enough to prompt my lord’s wise smile, leads me to observe that today the enemies of Charles are three in number: the king of France, Catholic; the German princes, of Lutheran faith; and the Turk Suleyman, an infidel; and that if they were capable of making their common anti-imperial interests prevail over the diversity of faiths, striking the Empire in unison and concord, there would be no doubt that it would topple like a tent in a whirlwind, and with it the throne of Charles. But these eyes have been ordered to watch events in Germany and not throughout the whole world, hence the need to be silent in impatient expectation of meeting Your Lordship in Bologna, and to be able to refer in person to the situation in Germany, and in particular to those Anabaptist heretics that Your Lordship will remember me mentioning several times in the past.

In the hope that I will not be a single day late for our appointment, I kiss Your Lordship’s hands and submit to your grace.

Augsburg, the first day of October 1529

Your Lordship’s faithful servant

Q.

PART TWO

One God, one faith, one baptism

Eloi

(1538)

The 4th day of April 1538

Being imprisoned� in Vilvoorde & condemned to death as Justice decrees, Jan van Batenburg, who, clinging most obstinately to heresy, could never bring himself to confess the holy faith, but determined to die in his perversity.

For the horrible Massacres and Homicides for which he has shown no repentance, but� indeed satisfaction and diabolical boasting, he is condemned to death by the severing of his head, then to be burned & his ashes thrown to the wind.

Signed by the witnesses present:

Nicholas Buyseere, Dominican

Sebastian Van Runne, Dominican

Lieven de Backere

Chrestien de Ridder

For Rijkard Niclaes, Commissioner

Chapter 1

Vilvoorde, Brabant, 5_th__ April 1538_

To you, Jan. To your merciless butchering. To the baying mob spewing forth humours of all kinds as the cart passed through it leading you slowly in chains towards the place of execution. To the vomit that rises in my throat and the fever that burns my bowels. To the Babylonian Whore as she drowns the mad David to whom she has given birth in his blood and the blood of his brothers. To the never-ending horror that has devoured our flesh. To oblivion, which has erected this tower of death beyond the sky. To the end, a pitiful end, a vicious end, an ordinary end and a definitive one. I have forgotten.

To you, Jan, brother, bloody, wicked man, your swollen face confronting hatred and the blows that come from all directions. To you, demon shat out by innumerable orifices, your ragged clothes drenched in blood, a shapeless blood-clot where an ear should be. To you, pig to be flayed for the feast day, I hide and see you laying your head on the block, yelling once again the final insult: FREEDOM!

I have struck, plundered, killed.

The crowd would quarter you with their own hands, the executioner knows it and spins the axe around in a little dance, tests the blade, leaves time for the thirst of blood that rises to submerge everything in an unearthly noise.

I have destroyed, plundered, raped.

Everyone is an executioner here, and everywhere else. Everyone is insulting a son or a brother who has had his throat slit by the devil Batenburg and his Sword-Bearers. That’s not how it is, and yet it is the truth. I have forgotten.

He raises the axe, sudden silence, he strikes. Two or three times.

A flood of vomit sullies the shoes and coat in which I drag myself bent double, the roar goes up once again, the dripping trophy is raised, sins cleansed, the vileness can continue.

They will kill me like a dog. What was the point, what, what was the point? Cold, in my mouth, cold, the cold of abandonment. I’ve got to get out of here, I’m dead already. Coughing, my left hand is burning madly above the wrist, down to the elbow, I’m dead already. What I had to do.

The crowd disperses, light rain, cowering among baskets piled up against a wall. Arse perched on unsteady heels. What.

They’ll hang me from a pole, I’m finished, all the people I’ve ever been are calling for my death. Or I’ll be kicked and knifed to death in a shitty dark street, away for the love of God, my strength ebbing from me. To England, far from this blood-puddle, maybe to England, crossing the sea, or going to sea and escaping the fate of the relic I’ve become. My names, the lives. Jan, bastard, come back here, you murderer. Bring those lives back, or else take what little remains.

‘Start loading up!’

By daybreak I’m a drenched pile of rags, paralysed inside a basket of fat sticks with a little straw on the top.

‘I’m going to settle the horses for the night, then I’ll be back.’

I can’t move, I can’t think, the fire that got rid of the brand is burning, burning. Is this how it ends?

‘Hey, what the fuck, ragman, shit, you’re scaring me, get out of here.’

I don’t reply. I don’t move. I open my eyes.

‘Bloody hell, this one looks like a corpse… Fuck, I’ll turf him out, poor fucker… Christ.’

A tall youth with a beardless baby face, powerful arms, turning away slightly so as not to look at me. He stops.

‘I’m dying. Don’t let me die here.’

He gives a start. ‘Jesus… What the fuck did you say? What? So you’re not dead, but you scare me anyway, pal, you scare me.’

‘Don’t let me die here.’

‘You’re crazy, I can’t load you on. My boss’ll have my bollocks, I’m fifteen years old, what the fuck am I supposed to do now…’

He stares at me.

‘Aaron! What the fuck’re you doing, are you asleep? Move yourself please or how the fuck I’ve got to tell you yes in the latinorum of the priests

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