Chapter 179 - Slaying Blind Pigs

Filling her lungs with air, the matron lady cried,

"How can I know what happened there, if not for the reports of others? And throughout the girl's narrative, she was always calm about those horrible things! And she seemed to know so much! I was convinced that she had bewitched everyone!"

"I believed myself to be bewitched by her, so kind and so beautiful!" confessed Cordelia. "I was scared and after the attack of ghosts that tried to choke me, ... right after I was in Alexa's company, ... I started to be afraid of her too. I started to think she wanted to kill me! I was wrong, but I was afraid! Judge me for that, but not for being a witch! I can't stand the horrible dreams and whispers of the dead anymore!" Her sobs interrupted her confessions.

"But you stole Alexander's body!" Gutard accused.

"YES! But it was not as it seems. I was taking him to the chapel! Ludovica said that he was under a demonic spell and that he was the source of all evil in the castle. But because I grew up in the convent and thought she was a good person, I thought Sister Ludovica was right, at first. She was always involved in my life! But ... She set the prince's room on fire. She was angry and adamant! That was the day after Prince Alexander's wedding! How could I know at that moment that she was indeed a witch, and that she was with the witches who attacked me in the villa? How could I imagine that the person I trusted had plans for me? How could I know Ludovica was an aide to your Dead First Wife, a Cultist, and a Sorceress? And I didn't know it yet, but people who took part in the whole Ludovica's plot to use me as a pawn in the villa would be burned in the public square! I decided to save the prince from death… I didn't believe he was demonic as she said!"

"SHUT UP, BITCH! You don't stop spewing lies!" Gutard snapped, his eyes bloodshot with hate.

"Allow her to speak, father! Please!" Lex wanted to go through with Cordelia's justifications. Turning to her, The Second Prince accused her,

"And you killed that person on the stairs, and even assumed that!"

"YES!" Cordelia screamed her confession so loudly that the Prince's ears even hurt. Soon after, she burst into crying, and babbled, "It was an accident! He saw us arguing with Ludovica! She was trying to take Alexander's body from us!"

Gutard lifted her off the floor, shaking her by her clothes, and slapped her so violently that she knocked her down again.

She swallowed the crying this time, but begged, speaking in an almost inaudible voice, "I was so scared! I was so scared! When I realized who Ludovica was! When Catalina disappeared, after Father Agnello! So she threatened us, and revealed her plans! She said that she had made me the Holstein's Princess, and that she would take everything my family and I had! She threatened to curse us to eternal damnation! And promised to give our souls to the hounds of hell if we betray her! She proclaimed us her slaves! She then decided to kill the couple, who she said was plotting against 'us'! That's when I really realized it was her biggest fear! And I realized they could help me out of this, they could help me redeem myself! Ahhh! I was wrong, there is no salvation for me!"

Cordelia's mother shrieked desperately and struggled to see her precious daughter with a bleeding face and sobbing softly, at the feet of her attacker,

"My daughter! He doesn't want to listen to you! He knows you aren't guilty, but he doesn't want to listen to it! Why would we have joined such a wicked person as her if we knew she was a witch beforehand?! She deceived us, and used us for her satanic purposes! I helped her! I listened to her and made my daughter obey her plans." Greta de Wits came out of a submissive state for fierce defense, continuing,

"But I had no idea that she was the real demon! I had no idea that she was behind the attack on the village, until it was too late!!!" her cries came in a crescent, and Cordelia's mother's voice failed for a moment. Then she pleaded, looking at the witnesses around,

"The Holy House of God must hear us! The Bishop must listen to us! God is a witness that we were tools! We have been deceived and used, but the merciful God knows our hearts. I do penance, I assume my crimes. But my daughter was just an unconscious pawn to her plans! I will confess my sins, my life and my fortune are from now on in the Church..."

" Lying viper… "Alexa snarled, knowing that that woman was no innocent. And treacherously, Greta tried to remind Gutard that her family's fortune should not be foolishly lost. "What do you want? Buy your forgiveness with gold?!"

"What could we want from you, von Wuttenfals? We have the gold you need! And you never refused it! Greedy lying wolves with pretty faces! The von Wuttenfals are no better than de Wits. They wanted to suck our fortune, they sold their pride as p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.es! I refuse to be judged by you, false Christians, murderers, prevaricators! May the Church and its earthly proxies judge my crimes! My mistake was to have believed that Prince Magnus would have some honor! And we were used for the witch's evil purposes, which she justified as vindication for what you have done in the past!"

Greta's harsh words reached the pride of von Wuttenfal in full, Alexa realized. Even Alexander at her side seemed to be fueled by anger, and he spoke,

"The Church can judge your crimes against God. But you are a common killer too! You ordered Alexa's murder when she left for England! You did! You killed the maid Nerissa yourself, with your hands! What is your justification? Were you forced by 'sister' Ludovica to do this with your hands, too?!"

This information, which was perhaps minor in view of the crimes in which she took part, seemed to stun her. Or perhaps the notion that their common crimes could be the justification for their condemnation, without Church's interference. If before she had hoped to get to the Church and royally pay her way to redemption, Greta de Wits realized she had underestimated the murder of an anonymous servant.

"What?! The maid?!"

"Yes, Nerissa, the maid," Gutard passed Cordelia and went towards her mother, taking her jaw with one hand and squeezing it in a display of hatred, 

(CONTINUES)