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magic formula: «Has Sagadà, Artemisia.»

      The window swung open, a bolt of lightning entered the hall and set fire to the contents of the glass. A greyish smoke rose, with the bad smell of burnt flesh, reminiscent of the smell of the witch burned at the stake four centuries earlier. The smoke modeled itself and took the form of a woman who, circling and dancing, reached Aurora and merged with her body. Now Aurora was Artemisia and Artemisia was Aurora. Larìs was helplessly witnessing this phenomenon. When the last thread of smoke disappeared, absorbed by Aurora’s body, and the contents of the chalice had completely disappeared, the two women fell into a deep sleep and had a vision of what had happened four centuries before. Aurora lived the scene first-hand, in the role of Artemisia, while Larìs lived it as a spectator, mixed with the crowd who witnessed the witch’s torture.

      Artemisia was tied to the pole, bundles of pruning of the olive trees had been placed under her feet, and then larger logs of pine and fir resinous wood. Everything had also been sprinkled with lamp oil. Her four companions, Viola, Emanuela, Alessandra, and Teres, were tied to other four poles, which had been arranged in a semicircle behind her, and faced toward the spectators. The latter was also called “tomboy”, as she had been surprised several times while lying with other women, she had even been accused of being a hermaphrodite, a person in which male and female sexual organs lived together. She was a woman with a clitoris so developed that it simulated a small penis, capable of also achieving an erection. These last four women would not be burned, even if some bundles had been placed at their feet. They had confessed their faults and had indicated Artemisia as their “spiritual guide”, therefore they had been tied to the stakes, both as a warning to the local population, and to witness closely the torture of their inspirer. Why was the execution going to take place, since the Doge of Genoa had vetoed the Inquisitors of the Church, assuring women that he would not allow, in those modern times, a sentence to such an atrocious death? The Doge was proud of the fact that one of his fellow citizens had discovered, not even a century earlier, a new land, America, putting an end to that dark period that had been the Middle Ages. He would therefore never have allowed the Church, through the Inquisition, to burn these women alive, even if they had been found guilty of witchcraft, heresy, mingling with the devil, crimes against God, the Church, and men. Everything had started a year and a half earlier, in the autumn of 1587, when the Podestà, Stefano Carrega, and the local parliament, had indicated the witches who lived in Ca Botina as the main perpetrators of the serious famine, which had for some time fallen all over the area, and they had asked the Bishop of Albenga to institute a trial of the alleged witches so that their wrongdoing could be ended with exemplary punishment, the condemnation to the stake. Two inquisitors had arrived in the village, two Dominican friars dressed in black, one was the Vicar of the Bishop, and the other the Vicar of the Inquisitor of Genoa. The “crows”, as the locals called them, arrested the five witches living in Ca Botina, who, under torture, accused many other women of the country, not only of peasant origins but also belonging to the noblest families. At one point the inquisitors had come to arrest about two hundred alleged witches and the Council of Elders, also considering that two women had already died, one from the torture inflicted, another falling from a window following an attempted escape, decided to turn to the Doge of Genoa, to put an end to the process and ensure that only the real witches, those of Ca Botina, the group linked to Artemisia, were sentenced, thirteen women in all and a 13-year-old girl. The Genoese government, therefore, not entirely convinced of the regularity of the trial in Triora, decided to look better into it. A few months passed in which, while the Doge of Genoa and the Bishop of Albenga did not find an agreement on the competence to proceed, the women remained in prison at the mercy of jailers who did not spare them humiliations and even sexually abused them. In the following month of May, the Chief Inquisitor arrived in Triora to visit the women in prison and ascertain the situation. After subjecting them again to the torture of the fire, he confirmed the accusations for the thirteen women and let the girl free. The women were tried on charges of crime against God, trade with the devil, murder of women and children. The trial ended in August, with the death sentence for Artemisia and the other four women closest to her: Emanuela Giauni, known as Emanuela la Capricciosa, Viola and Alessandra Stella, and Teresa Borelli, known as Teresa the Tomboy, for her habit of wearing short hair, dressing male clothes and lying with other women. When it seemed that the execution of the sentence of the five women, by hanging and incinerating the remains, was now imminent, the Inquisitor of Genoa intervened, asking that his office be respected, until then ousted from the process. It was for him, in fact, as representative of the Inquisition of Rome, to judge the crimes of the witches. So, the five condemned were transported to Imperia and from there, onboard a ship, to Genoa, where they were locked up in government prisons, as the Inquisition did not have enough room and kept company to other alleged witches from other towns of the area. Everything seemed to be going well, as the Doge had promised he would make sure, now that they were under his protection, to save their lives. He would keep them in prison for a period, then, when the population had forgotten all about them, he would have let them free, with the agreement not to return to their village of origin. But the evil, under the mortal remains of the Podestà and the head of the Council of Elders of Triora, put his hand in there. It was not difficult, for the henchmen hired by the two illustrious characters, to bribe the jailers with a few silver coins, to replace the five witches with as many corpses of poor women, who died of illness or the hardships due to the famine that still raged in the mountains of the upper Argentina Valley, and bring the five witches back to Triora for an exemplary public execution.

      Tied to the pole, Artemisia retraced with her mind the main stages of her life, starting from her initiation, when, little more than thirteen, she found herself at the center of the magic circle, created by her mom, her grandmother, and other followers of the sect, near the Fonte della Noce, a fountain located under a large walnut tree. Even then she had perceived the strong presence of the Evil, a negative force outside the circle, who wanted his victims to assimilate his powers and become unparalleled in his evil power. The teachings transmitted by her mother and grandmother, the acquisition of the powers of clairvoyance, and the use of touch and sight to perceive and heal the evils of body and soul, had always been used by her for good. She had learned the healing powers of herbs, becoming skilled in producing potions that lowered the fever and removed the pains, which helped women giving birth during labor. She had learned to use, in the right doses, poisonous mushroom spores, to be applied on infected wounds to make the purulent secretions regress. She had learned to make talismans, to recite the ritual magic formulas, to perform invisibility spells, to form protective magic circles. But she had never used her powers for evil purposes, ever. Yet, in the end, she had been held up as a witch and, together with her four most trusted companions, Emanuela, Viola, Alessandra, and Teresa, she had been imprisoned and tortured with the rope, with the fire, and with the water. At the beginning of the summer of 1588 the Podestà, Stefano Carrega had arrived in her cell, he was the one who had started the witch hunt and, at that moment, Artemisia had understood that it was he who represented the evil, the great threat that loomed over her and her friends. Already weakened by torture, she was stripped naked and her hands and feet were tied to two wooden poles arranged to form a cross of Sant’Andrea so that she had arms and legs spread wide. The jailers shaved the hair of the genital area, then left her alone with the Podestà who approached her raising his tunic and showing a large member already erected. There was no possibility for Artemisia, tied as she was, to escape sexual violence, but she was aware of having to be strong in that situation, of not giving in to pleasure, otherwise, with the sexual act, the man would have then subtracted all her powers and knowledge, taking them on himself. She came out victorious. As she felt the hot ejaculate penetrate her bowels, she arranged her mind to be as far away from there as possible, to wander the woods dear to her, and her body not to feel even a shudder, not even a gasp. The Podestà, having failed to achieve his goals, became furious.

      «Worse for you, witch! You and your companions will die at the stake, and the power of the flames will transfer your powers to me.»

      The fact of having won that battle had given her a glimmer of hope and when, despite the sentence of the inquisitors, she and her four companions were transferred to Genoa, she thought that the danger had gone away. Of course, after the sexual intercourse with the Podestà, the monthly cycle had not come to her. It was evident that she was carrying a child, or rather, as she could perceive, a daughter. She refused to admit that she was

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