"What did you find, Larry?" Jones stood and peered over his friend's shoulder.
"This. Look here. 'Friedrich von Spee: a poet, opponent of trials for witchcraft . . .' He sounds like a pretty good guy. I think we need to find him."
"Um." The sound came from von Spee.
The two Americans looked at him. He came forward, and as he did so, they noticed he was shaking.
"May I please see that book?" Von Spee's voice quavered, and he took the book from Mazzare.
He looked at the cover, then he turned to the page Mazzare had been reading from, and read haltingly aloud.
"Friedrich von Spee. A poet, opponent of trials for witchcraft, born at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, 25 February, 1591; died at Trier 7 August, 1635." Friedrich swallowed heavily, and kept reading. " . . . During the storming of Trier by the imperial forces in March, 1635, he distinguished himself in the care of the suffering, and died soon afterwards from the results of an infection contracted in a hospital. He was one of the noblest and most attractive figures of the awful era of the Thirty Years' War . . ."
He looked at Mazzare and Jones.
"It . . . it is not every day that a man gets to read the judgement of history upon him," Friedrich said.
The two Americans sat, staring at him.
"I am sorry not to have properly introduced myself last night, Father Mazzare," he continued. "I am Friedrich von Spee."
* * *
Friedrich von Spee crumpled up the letter he had started to write so few days before. He went to the window and stared out of it, at nothing.
"Not my will, but thine, almighty Father," he said to himself, softly.
He returned to his desk, took out a new piece of paper, lifted his pen, and began to write.
"AMDG. Father Friedrich von Spee, of the Society of Jesus, to His Excellency, Mutius Vitelleschi, Father General of the Society," he wrote. "It is with a chastened heart that I accept your rebuke, Father General. I did not intend the Cautio Criminalis to be published. But, with respect, Excellency, I must tell you that nothing in the work is false. I have attended the confessions of over two hundred witches up to now, and I have never heard one confess except after torture and the rack.
"I have just returned from the new town of Grantville, which I am certain you have heard of by now. I am now convinced that all of the witches I have seen burned have been completely innocent.
"I have brought back with me to Würzburg copies of some books that were given to me by Father Mazzare, the priest in Grantville. They have a marvelous machine that flashes a strong light at the pages of a book and produces an exact replica without a printing press. Father Mazzare showed me the workings, and explained them so far as I was able to understand them. It is an entirely mechanical device, and nothing of witchcraft. Father Mazzare himself is a scientist and artisan, I believe. I have put together a package of some of these copies to include with this letter.
"I am asking for your permission to publish the Cautio Criminalis in my own name, and with official imprimatur. I am certain that your permission will be forthcoming once you have read these books.
"Father General, I beg you to permit me to continue as I have begun, for as a priest of God, and a theologian, I can do no other."
The Three R's
Jody Dorsett
Bishop Comenius put down the page of the book he was working on. Swedish was not his best language, and he had to be very precise in what he was doing. He hoped that writing textbooks for the Swedes would pay his way, and the Church desperately needed more money to help the Brethren scattered across Poland and the rest of Northern Europe. Since the publication of his work Janua linguarum reserata several years before he had received many requests for his time. Now that he had recently been elected bishop of the Unitas Fratum he hoped those contacts would help him save the Church.
That effort consumed much of his time; more still was taken up earning a living. He had barely enough time for his personal work, the Didactica magna, a revolutionary concept of universal education. He had no way of knowing when, or if, he would get it published. His fear of the Brethren fading away occupied his every spare thought. These works were the beginning of what he was slowly coming to accept was a long-term vision. The planting of seeds.
His ruminations were disturbed by a knock at the door of his study.
"Bishop?" The young minister quietly asked, interrupting as gently as he could. "There is a man here to see you . . . Jan Billek?"
"Deacon Billek? Here? By all means, send him in Timothy, send him in!"