Flamestaken

France, 1487.

“Release the latch! Please, I mean no harm!” Banging and rattling echoed from the enormous, arched egress of The Church. The entire lobby was empty. A few clusters of candlesticks that surrounded honorary alters was all that breathed.

“PLEEEEAASE!!” The voice began to beg.

Suddenly, wish granted. The large, oak doorways creaked and groaned open in slow motion. A young man, pale and anxiously confused, appeared from the edge of the door, white knuckles clutching the wood just below his chin. Before he could utter a word or steal a glimpse, a gust of wind past him as he slowly returned the large doors to their original locked state.

“My deep and sincere apologies, Inquisitor.” He turned around cautiously to see a young maiden curtseying as low as her trembling muscles would allow.

“No fret, fair lady.” The monk carefully reached for her fragile, ivory wrists, highlighted with a stripe of bright red and dark purple. His heart sank, quickly adverting his gaze to her saline, soot splotched face that somehow still appeared as one of those exquisite works by modern painters like Jan Van Eyck and…what was his name? Levinchi? Davincheo? He could not remember.

“They would not cease till I in their hold!” The lady cried, clutching his pure white robes, scuffing them lightly with dust of the Kingdom grounds. He only would have minded this had she not been a specimen of perfection.

“Take a breath, M’lady. We shall spruce you back to life then discuss what’s happened.” He wore a warm, gentle smile and secured her slightly wobbly frame under his arm, guiding her to the medical wing.

“Sister Madigan.” He smiled “We have a surprise guest in need of healing.” Whilst relaying the recent events to Madigan, as the two holy folks eased the maiden into a cot, the stranger hissed excruciatingly.

“My back. Please Sister…” she whimpered, leaning away from the mattress with desperation. The Sister peered past her dark green kirtle and under her cream slip, seeing ridges of raw flesh. Moreover, she could smell the yellowish puss forming at the very edges. The rouge of malodorous copper. Sister Madigan cleared her throat in the least combination of horrified disgust, letting her gaze slowly rise to the young monk.

“Brother Aldread, please. Give us a moment.” The whites of her eyes were bright, flaming with angst; two little rat pellets for pupils. A foreign expression of Sister Madigan.

“Y-Yes, Sister.” The man held his head in a deep bow whilst turning, to abandon the strange maiden. Upon entering the main hall, a howl echoed through the halls. He winced. Frozen. A sound he had never heard.

Before he could grow entranced by this grisly symphony, a figure materialized from darkness; one of the many archways leading into what seemed to be oblivion. The figure held a scroll who only bothered to look up from when the parchment crumpled against Aldread’s chest. Aldread stared.

“Brother Aldread! You have just passed my thoughts! O, how The Lord works in mysterious ways.” He sighed blissfully, gently rolling the document, simpering up at Aldread with half-moon eyes, as if there were not the wails of a woman echoing through the nave.

“Indeed…” Aldread’s expression remained bland and straight. “We have a guest, Brother Elisha. Do you hear?”

Elisha blinked once. Twice. Peering over each of Aldread’s shoulders.

“I thought I heard…something?” His lips curled into a lowercase ‘n’ of curiosity. His droopy eyes searched Brother Aldread for some sort of answer.

“We are nearly finished, M’lady.” Sister Madigan rushed back and forth from the cot’s side table to the maiden’s leather-whipped wounds. The last alcohol-rinse trickled down hedges of flesh, sizzling white foam gathered in the lips of gashes. A sort of healing topical was carefully dabbed upon the throbbing red worms. Madigan cocooned the woman in a corset of gauze, allotting her to lie down for the first time in days.

The stranger sighed “Th-Thank you, fine Sister.” Madigan sat beside the woman and caressed her mud-colored waves. Though, the longer she gazed upon the tortured girl, her expression contorted into concavity. Eyes darkening as she leaned closer to the patient.

“I know what you are.” Sister Madigan hissed.

Fifteen minutes went by, though, had felt more like twenty to Aldread when Sister finally entered the main hall with what he hoped was news. Good or bad, he had not considered, for his curiosity had the best of him. The woman’s yelps ceased ten minutes ago but, Sister’s face of horror had not.

“Sister?” Aldread approached her in a scurry, reaching for her hands endearingly “Who is that girl? Why has she come so troubled, Sister?” A pale, thirty-six-three-year-old hand suddenly waved past his face.

“Silence.” She muttered, gracefully passing both men who had been quarreling over what verse they might study that approaching Sunday. While Elisha watched bewildered, Aldread stared attentively at the woman, as if aware she withheld a great fact. With her back to the Brothers, she gazed forward in a way of might but also desperate fear.

“The Lord challenges us daily, does he not?”

“Why, of course, My Sister!” Aldread said matter-of-factly but also in an encouragingly pitying tone she knew all too well.

“Indeed.” She was in fact discouraged. Her black and white headdress fell to the sides of her glowing cheeks, peering down her long, straight nose, at the crimson beaded rosary weaved throughout her tapered fingers. “I may have recently faced my most strenuous challenge yet.’” Before she could finish, Aldread gasped, flashing forward to clutch the hem of Sister Madigan’s sleeve.

“Has she left us Sister?”

She ominously craned her gaze back to the monk, looking into his worrisome chocolate eyes.

“She claims to be a Witch…”

Disbelief deafened Brother Aldread. His black velvet, pointed-toe slippers wound a top the cold cobblestone.

Had he really allowed a Witch into the Temple?

His white and accented-red cloak whipped into the cloud of darkness that is the arch Brother Elisha had emerged only a half of one round ago. Sister Madigan did not pursue halt of him. She understood his distress.

Elisha, unconscious enough to remain beside Sister, discussed what Aldread might be doing. As well as asked her what verse she thought they ought to study this Sunday.

Inside a dim, candle lit room the monk sat upon his bed’s edge, hunched over, head in hand. He appeared as the big white tapestries that hung beside The Son in the Chapel, his limbs swallowed by the Holy Fabric. He pondered; self-damning for not withholding more willpower. Had she not been lovely. His mind spun with nerves of paranoia aged four centuries old; Maybe she is a Witch! I so rapidly grew interested and…

“Come along, you.” A deep voice commanded.

“I tell you! I am no Witch!!” She cried, tossing herself side to side between two strong clergymen, in attempt to break free. Her hairdo coming further undone the more she was handled.

“Secure her in a holding cell.” Sister Madigan demanded of the two Brothers who wasted no time dragging the woman like a straw ragdoll. Off to another torture chamber, she thought to herself. No. She screamed to herself. Oh, what a life to be a lovely maiden.

Brother Aldread had sapped himself with so much paranoia causing a nightmarish cold sweat, journeying the depths of Hell with the lovely mystery-maiden. Tiny globules of sweat rumbled down his temples and cupid’s bow. The stick he lit every night was barely tipped with an ember in a puddle of ivory wax. It took no time to remember the last twenty-four hours, or lack thereof. The woman. The screams. Sister Madigan’s face. O, her face. He took no mind of rinsing with Holy Water or chanting his morning prayers. Why, he was too distracted by their guest. The Lord would understand…would he not? A question that had haunted Aldread since a child.

Sprinting, his slippers whispered against the cobblestone hallways, almost certain of where to go, Sister Madigan’s words echoed between his ears:

She claims to be a Witch … She claims … She claims to be a Witch…

She, he thought. Why on Lord’s good blue earth would a Witch approach a Holy place…confessing her Craft? This concept quickened his pace into the dungeon where they held their “Unsure Citizens” as Sister Madigan always put it. He quietly flickered down the seemingly endless one-way antechamber of barred rooms with nothing more than a few sheets folded into a bed and a wooden bucket to desecrate in. Aldread had been here only once, many years ago.

 He had not remembered it being so dark. Stone walls damp with leaks. An invisible cloud of rancid sewer water, ammonia, vomit and scat. He tried not to retch, using his large, dove-wing-like sleeve as a barrier.

He felt physically weighed by the stench.

“M’Lady?” He hissed a whisper, wavering his gaze to each cell. Most of them were empty apart from an old man curled into a corner. His index fingernail had been tapping and ticking at the stone for so long, a small oval of crimson darkened the cobble. In another; Holy Grace! Is that a child??

“O, kind sir!” She whispered also; in the quietest shout she could manage. She hooked her arms to the bars’ exterior, right-side-bone of brow and cheek pressed to the cold metal “O, kind Holyman, have you come to assist me?”

Aldread may now understand Sister Madigan’s horrified expression; though, be it a completely different reason. Her left eye completely battered, swollen and purple. Once porcelain arms now looked like his nightly candlesticks. Lord knows what more she had endured.

He suddenly clutched the woman’s hand that white-knuckled the cold, rust-peeled bar.

“I am so sorry…” He glued himself to the cell “I shall repay your pain and extract you.” The man promised. He stole a gentlemanly kiss upon her worn, now cherry knuckles.

Five days had passed. After every meal, prayer and choir, he visited the woman. The Inquisition was quite unwilling to set even a possible Witch free. He had heard a few whispers that even if she was not a Witch, tis presumably favorable to keep her down there; she was likely a wench if nothing else, they had said. Of course, they had not spent every possible waking moment The Lord disposed of him, with her.

 If only they knew how lovely Kolfina was.

“I’ve brought you some bread and warm milk, M’lady.” As he approached her cell the fourth time that day, the naïve man grinned down at the tin plate; the joy of helping the damsel clouded his usual proper straightforwardness. Brother Aldread was suddenly snatched from his bready daydream when her bony, less bruised hands grabbed his wrists

“You must hurry, Brother.” Though the swelling in her left eye had simmered down some, Aldread observed new bruises and burns every night.

Eyes grew widely, rapidly with concern. Hands slipped through the cold bars and ever so gently cupped her cheeks. His touch almost nonexistent, for her jaw could crumble if embraced too lovingly.

“They plan to burn me. Tonight.” Her bony fingers dug with horror into the masculine veins of his inner forearms.

“Lords, Ladies and Kin! Tonight, begins a thrillingly long-awaited Stake Circle! Be welcome and comfortable in this celebration, for we only salute The Holy and The Right! Now feast! Mingle! And let The Stake Circle commence!”

This was Father Benedict’s twenty fifth year of hosting The Stake Circle.

He milked every single commencement.

Brother Aldread looked up through the tiny lockbox sized window provided to each prisoner, giving them a view of the dusty grounds. The muffled announcements and cheers of The Circle clouded his thoughts.

“You will not burn, my dear.”

He disappeared in a wash of white and trail of crimson. My dear? Kolfina watched the man until she could no longer. That had been the first time he addressed her of his possession. She grinned into the darkness at the end of the prison hall.

The Stake Circles always start at seven o’clock. Seven is perfection. The soles of his slippers padded, tapped upon the stone faster than ever before, scampering through different archways and bodies of clergymen with their default dumbfounded expression. Suddenly without so much as a knock or ‘Good Evening, Sister.’ Aldread pummeled into the woman’s office. His usually innocent doe eyes had turned a blaze. She had never seen the young man this way, so angry he physically trembled. For the same I-just-saw-The-Devil face she wore before, expunged the rouge from her cheeks.

“You shall release Kolfina!!” He rumbled fists down upon her large, firm oak desk “She is no such Witch! She is a petrified common maiden! This is a house of God! He would never stand for such atrocity!!” Brother Aldread’s soon-to-be-bruised flesh mallets hammered her oak-top once more before being hurled into the air; his large sleeves making the movement utterly thespian.

“SILENCE! How dare you speak of God’s wishes!” She flicked her black dress, whipping around the corner of the desk. Her face mere inches from the man’s. “I know you have been visiting her. I know the foul thoughts you have manifested.” She sibilates at him wearing a disgusted scowl that smelled of onions, rinsed down with milk. “Just look at you Aldread, propelling yourself about! You have always been proper! She must be a Witch seeing how enchanted you have become.”

She shook her head in shame, suddenly smacking his temple with all her might and boy, did she have a lot of it. His sleeves veiled him in a protective, child-like manner, his frame trembling. Back under her thumb. A grin twitched on the corner of Sister’s rosy thin lips looking down at him.

“I AM NOT A SINNER!!!”

Before she could react, the man used his once confining sleeves as large brooms of purity taken to her desktop, sweeping everything off in one enormous howl.

“MY HEART YEARNS. MY SOUL FEELS. THE LORD GIFTED THIS TO ALL, SISTER MADIGAN! INCLUDING YOU!!”

Aldread had snapped. He was running out of time.

The woman never fathomed he had a set of loins to uphold himself. When his hand encased her neck, he leaned even closer than she had; their nose tips met.

“You shall never know the pains I endure within these walls, Sister.” He growled through clenched teeth, saliva spraying her face with each word. His eyes even leaked a little. After a good long three minutes of kicks finally settling, her face turned plum purple and eyes became bloodshot.

A familiar screech billowed through the village.

An inhuman smirk slowly stretched across each of Sister Madigan’s hollow cheeks. Her teeth seemed larger than usual. More square and yellow than usual, where a low chuckle slowly began to drone through.

With a shudder he finally released with an aggressive jerk causing her to collapse flat on her back against the cold stone. Stepping back carefully, he stared down at her plum face. Blood tears. That yellow smile which began laughing hysterically.

Another cry from The Circle.

Brother Aldread stumbled backwards, oddly unable to tear his eyes away from the horrid sight that was now Sister Madigan.

Not much time had passed since Kolfina pleaded for sanctuary. Now, only a few yards from that first day, the maiden appeared to levitate upon a large wooden cross. Unfortunate for onlookers she was not levitating but in fact had been forcefully tethered with heavy twine, like swine ready to be rotated.

Before, his ears had been in doubt. Now, his eyes.

The flames had been set. The oceanic heat waves already toasting her calves. Her petite body jerked and twisted inside the tight constraint of scratchy twine.

She even succumbed to pleading down at a little girl who was celebrating. Surely children were of softer heart, Kolfina had thought, before having an exceptionally soft tomato thrown at her face causing it to splatter and leak little seeds down her face. This made her scream louder than the heat that now licked her knees.

“ALDREAAAAD!!”

The drinking, laughing and mocking nearly drowned her every sound into the echoes of the clouds. Dropping her head in exhaustion, she began to weep. Her mere existence physically ached. Her hope swiftly spoiling to ash as the rest of her. When, to her surprise, movement vibrated through the ropes.

“Tis I.” A voice hushed her.

Teary eyes slowly fell upon Brother Aldread.

He kept his promise. A weak smile slowly quivered across her full, crimson lips. Before realizing her arms had fallen to the sides or heavy twine shed from her hips, she collapsed among the rotten food. Along with junctures of other torture, Kolfina had been tied to the cross for three straight hours. Her body was feeble.

The young man quickly raises her from the plank of gushed food and cradled her across his forearms like a large infant. Her head toppled heavily into the Brother’s chest of his once pure-white cloak, now speckled with dust, tomato seeds and a dash of blood; from Sister’s slap or Brother’s choke, he would never know.

All the celebrators engrossed by gayness and drunkenness, so much so, were unaware their motive had been cut free. Assumed she was an early burner. The Stake Circle celebrations could go on for days, depending on the nature of the case. Today had been quite the special celebration, for it was rumored that this Stake Circle’s performer was known as the most sought-after Hag of the month.

Hapless for townsfolk and The Church, being victims to their superstition, had, as usual, persecuted the wrong one.