~Destined To Burn~
by C L Rayner
They would scream as they burned
and he would smile, knowing he had served his god well.
It
was raining the day she walked into the village, soaked to the skin and mud
splattered, yet she did not react to the cold. She simply asked for food - and
from that moment she was destined to burn.
Springtime had been warm and full of
promise. Primroses quivered in the hedgerows; crops swayed tall and green in
the gentle caress of a breeze. Pigs grew fat.
Now mud ran in thick torrents along the countryside,
sucking at feet and bogging down wagons. The flowers were gone: battered into
the dirt by relentlessly rain, saplings torn to shreds by the wind. And livestock fell sick.
Destined
to burn.
They
watched her from the damp protection of their homes, for the village was little
more than a scattering of hovels. None would take her in, and she had known
they would shun her. Their welcome was as warm as the bitter wind; expressions as
ugly as the rain clouds.
To the east the church loomed into the sky:
a tall superior master looking down on the poverty of its parish; graves spread
around like pox.
Mud sucked at her feet as she slowly pressed
against the wind. Lashing rain stung her upturned face. She would not hang her
head. Her eyes were cast to the grey stone of the church, where mud ran in
rivers between crooked crosses. And there she waited, in the grave yard, a grey
sky overhead, grey-brown mud beneath. The air smelt of sewage; of fetid decay.
The graves were flooding.
She cast her eyes to a
place beyond a rough cobbled wall, not marked by crosses; a place where no stones had been set to speak the names of the countless girls buried
beneath: charred bones shovelled into a pit; skulls smashed beneath boot heels.
There had been no blessings or prayers – grave diggers had spat and pissed on
the remains. That was their service.
She heard the screams of young girls, some little more than children,
felt the weight of foul river water press into her lungs; tasted blood and
vomit and excrement. The reek filled her nostrils. Hot iron scolded her skin as
flesh was flayed from her body.
They
approached her warily: men in crude dull armour and mail, pointing chipped blades.
The holy man had not come.
Rough hands gripped her arms and shackled
her, pulled her so she fell to her face in the mud. Boots kicked at her back.
She was numb from the rain and cold. She felt no pain.
There
would be no trial for her. Others before her had admitted their sins, repented
their evils and begged for forgiveness before going to the fires.
They had been young, weak servants of Satan, this one was strong, so the holy man had told them. This one had demon in her.
They had been young, weak servants of Satan, this one was strong, so the holy man had told them. This one had demon in her.
Burn, burn, burn burn!
The chant was spat from mouths contorted with anger and hatred.
Rocks and mud skimmed across the bars of the
cage as horses pulled the wagon to the pyre.
She stood, as best she could, gripping the
bars, unflinching against their hatred. Her face was covered with mud, fingers
bleeding where stones struck them; knuckles bruised by boot heels. She stunk of
them; her ragged clothes stained with blood and filth and urine.
The abuse of the crowd was deafening in her
ears and it filled her till she could feel their hatred. It seeped into her
head like the cold; sluiced against her body as the rain had. The rain had
ceased but the sky remained an ugly stain, black on the horizon.
Strong hands pulled her roughly from the
cage. She lost her footing and fell, pelted with small stones and rotten food.
She had not eaten in a week. Children spat at her, kicked at the mud so it flew
up into her eyes. They knew only hatred; had forgotten all else.
She was dragged to the pyre. They clamped
her hands into shackles; chained her to the thick charred stake where
countless women had been chained before. She could hear their tears above the
clamour of voices, felt them, scolding against her cheeks; felt the anguish
flow from the ground at her feet. The ash of their flesh lay sodden beneath
her.
Wood was piled on. Her nostrils filled with the
smell of oil.
Then he stepped before her and the crowd was
instantly silent.
‘You
are found guilty of the crime of witchcraft.’ His face was pink and well fed; lips
running with spittle. ‘You have brought
sickness and disease upon our holy soil, and for your crimes your body shall be
burned slowly in the purifying fires, till your soul sinks back to the hell
from whence it came.’
Her eyes fell upon him. They were grey as
the sky, and they churned like a storm.
‘I will not burn,’ she said simply. Her words
were barely above a breath, yet every soul in the village heard her.
The priest’s eyes widened. ‘I have burned a
hundred witches before you,’ he shouted, saliva flying, ‘and I shall burn one hundred more!’
The crowd roared. The horses harnessed to
the wagon, reared suddenly and charged away, terrified by the sudden upsurge of
noise.
‘A witch cannot be burned.’ It was a
whisper, lost in the wind, but the holy man heard her words and doubt flickered
behind his eyes. ‘Today you will see that you have never before brought a witch
to this pyre.’
Behind him the villagers were frenzied,
yelling for the fire to be lit.
She raised her eyes to the sky and rested
her head against the stake, waiting. ‘You are all going to die.’
When
the flames rose about her legs the priest cried out in pain and looked down,
confused. In the crowd a woman screamed as her skirts ignited and she ran, trailing
fire behind her. A chunk of flaming wood
exploded from the pyre and crashed against a guard’s armour. He fell to the
ground with a startled yell then thrashed wildly in the mud as his body inside
the armour began to burn. The other guards backed away. People screamed; their
cries of hatred now turned to terror. They tried to run, tendrils of fire slithering
from the pyre to chase them, igniting their legs.
The
priest could not run: as though chained to a stake himself, he stood with a
rigid back while his clothes smoked and his skin slowly blackened.
In
his ears rang the screams of every girl he had burned.
He felt
the weight of foul river water press into his lungs; tasted blood and vomit and
excrement. The reek filled his nostrils. Hot iron scolded his skin.
He
opened his mouth but the inhuman sound that burst from him was the pained scream
of a hundred young women.
Water spat from his charred lips as his body
pitched face first into the mud.
Above the church the sky turned black and
lightning skewered its steeple, shattering it.
The mud spat and popped like boiling water, sinking slowly away beneath
the foundations, sucking down graves.
The heat of the pyre was intense. It raged like
a sun, whips of flame lashing around it till the very air burned.
The witch was an aura of light in the pyre. The
chains melted in the heat and dripped away from her, shackles falling into the
ashes.
The fire parted and she stepped into the
mud.
Her eyes were no longer grey. They were
black as the storm cloud; like glass, reflecting the fire so she seemed to burn
inside. She did not wait to watch the remains of the church sink into the
ground; she did not glance even at the body of the holy man.
Without expression she walked away, while
the village and its people burned.
~
