Elixa, page 19
part #0.50 of The Torcal Trilogy Series
Elixa swallowed the lump in her throat. It had begun to ache and reduce her ability to breathe easily.
‘Do you not believe in mercy?’ The Moor asked.
The monk scoffed. ‘Mercy is not for witches. I have my own thoughts on penalties.’
‘Nevertheless, I will make you a princely offer for her.’
‘You are a fool! She is a child of sin. She is a witch who prays to the moon. Beware for she would cast spells on you and your people.’
With each accusation, the monk’s voice rose. ‘She will send demons to haunt you. Turn the sheep away from the loving hand of their shepherd. No! I have a holy duty, Moor, and no amount of gold that you offer me will divert me from it. Now, I have been polite in answering your enquiries, but this fool’s talk keeps me from my work. I bid you farewell.’ Brother Grigori slammed the iron gate, spun around and marched away from the Moor.
The Moor’s thick black eyebrows pinched together, finally allowing his disgust at the monk to show. He shook his head and attached his veil back over his face. Elixa did not blame him for trying to mask the lingering smell. As he turned from the gate his men fell in behind him, and, together, they moved away, out of her sight.
Suddenly Elixa wanted more than anything for him to buy her. Better a slave, or whatever it was he wanted, than burning alive. She screamed out the window, ‘Wait! Here! Please come and save me!’
But the Moor did not return into view, and if he heard her he made no reply.
Clutching the bars, she exerted all her strength in trying to move them, even just rattle them, but they did not budge.
An abrupt dizziness filled her head. She slumped against the wall and sank to the floor where she sat in a daze for several minutes.
Then came the heavy thud of footsteps along the stone corridor.
A key clattered in the lock. Then, that horribly familiar voice issued a sharp command to the guards at the door.
‘Chain the witch.’
39
The two burly guards marched in and each grabbed one of Elixa’s arms, hauling her to her feet. They dragged her across to the wall. Although she tried to fight them, she was weakened from her ordeal, and in any case her strength was no match for either one of them.
They clamped one wrist and then the other in iron manacles. Next, they pulled her legs from under her, and she fell to hang from the shackles while they fettered her ankles.
One of the guards looked her up and down with lewd eyes bulging from their sockets. He glanced at his colleague, who gave an answering smirk, but as Brother Grigori entered the dungeon, their faces became stony again and they marched out, leaving her alone with him.
Although the monk’s sickening speech to the Moor echoed in her mind, Elixa wanted to believe he had changed his mind and that he was here to save her, give her some sort of chance.
‘Oh, Brother Grigori, I am so happy to see you!’ Tears pricked her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. ‘You have come to save me. We can explain that I am here by mistake, by some wrong accusation of heresy.’
Brother Grigori stood in front of her and folded his arms. ‘You have been convicted―’
‘Wait!’ she cried out. ‘I have not yet been tried. They will see that I am innocent of whatever crimes you accuse me of.’
‘Some heretics do not need to be tried. I have even seen you worshipping Satan,’ he shouted. Spittle flew out of his mouth and landed on her.
Her jaw dropped and she moved to protest but the chains held her tight. ‘I do not worship Satan!’
‘Do not try to fool me, Elixa. I am beyond your bewitchment,’ Brother Grigori sneered. ‘You may call him the Moon Goddess, but that is merely another name for the devil. Satan takes many guises to ensnare the foolish and wicked, as you would know had you paid attention to my sermons.’
Elixa shook her head. ‘No, no! You have this wrong, Brother Grigori. Please take me back to the abbey and we shall discuss this with Brother Luis. He can explain again what we witnessed, and you shall see that it was a miracle of God.’
Brother Grigori looked at her as if in thought. He strolled over to the door and said to the guards, ‘I am going to perform a prayer for this witch’s soul. As a man of God I will be protected from its force, but you may not, so leave me the keys and go to the guardroom. I will return them to you when I am finished here’. She heard the guards walk away down the corridor, and then the monk swung the door shut and returned to stand in front of where she was chained to the wall.
‘Now, where were we? Ah, you were asking me to take you back to the abbey. There is no chance of that, and no way for you to escape, as you can see,’ he scoffed, obviously finding this a humorous notion.
‘But . …’
Brother Grigori waved her silent with an angry flick of his skeletal fingers. His veins throbbed visibly, like corded snakes. ‘I saw you perform witchcraft on that old hunter.’
‘That was a miracle from God. The stone―’
‘God does not send stones to perform miracles. If He had wished the hunter’s eyes healed, He would have simply made him see again. Do you not see that God sent milk to that sinful old man’s eyes as divine justice? It was not your place to meddle with that, by using witchcraft.’
‘But―’
‘Why can you not perceive your sins and repent? Why must you continually question and argue? You have committed idolatry and bewitched those around you, as I felt you try to bewitch me.’
The hatred pulsing out of him almost scorched her, as if he was physically beating her.
Brother Grigori calmed himself and his sneer returned. ‘Perhaps you need to understand more of what awaits you. We have been studying this most diligently, you know. It has become a study of human endurance under fire.’
The monk paced in front of her.
‘As the heat of the flames cooks your flesh, as it blisters and melts and its fat roasts you, you will have perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes before you die, to know the agonies of eternal fire to which your witchcraft damns you.’
Elixa tried in vain to shrink backwards into the cold, damp stone wall as Grigori leant in closer, but the manacles bit into her wrists and held her where she was.
He was speaking softly now. ‘We do not do this out of hatred, Elixa, we do it out of love for your immortal soul. We wish you to feel the flames of Hell about you so that, in those last few earthly moments, you may truly repent and pray that God will take mercy upon your soul. A few minutes of agony is surely a small price to pay for that.’
Elixa’s eyes had shut and her breath came in ragged gasps. She could not believe he was talking this way. He was a man of God. Men of God should be kind and caring like the abbot.
‘What has happened to you, Brother Grigori, that you can talk this way?’ Hot, angry tears slid down her cheeks. ‘These are God’s people you speak of burning.’
‘No! They are not,’ he hissed, bearing his teeth. ‘They are the spawn of the devil and our mission here is to learn better ways of rooting out this corruption and heresy.’ His eyes bulged. ‘And fire purifies, after all. As you shall soon know, for you will in fact have the honour of being the first woman ever to be put to death in this manner.’
His eyes were deranged.
Elixa turned her head so she would not have to look into them.
He laughed. ‘Oh, yes. The Lord’s work that we do here is hard, and not all have the stomach for it, nor the strength to see it through. That is why we are so far away from towns and villages on this remote bit of coast. Where there are no prying eyes, and nobody can overhear.’
He stopped pacing and again moved closer. His hand, like a dreadful hairy spider, stroked her body. She tried to flinch away, but the chains allowed her no movement.
‘No! Please―’
He raised his hand and shouted over her protest, ‘For too long the protectiveness we feel for our womenfolk has allowed witches to shelter among them, free from the justice their heresy demands. We have been remiss, weak in our kindness, but no more! A great and holy purge is coming. Indeed, you may have the honour of being the first to taste its might.’
Grimacing, Elixa turned her head so she would not have to look at the power he held over her at this very moment.
The monk’s hand continued to slide over her, cupping first one breast and then the other before creeping behind her to grasp her buttock in a cruel pinch. ‘Ah yes. The feminine appeal to which even the holy such as myself are vulnerable. This innate kindness which is in man has been exploited for too long, allowing women to practice their witchery and sin unpunished. It must end Elixa.’
Desperation racked Elixa’s mind, and it shrieked its protest at the wrongness of all that the insane monk had said.
Clawing for any escape, she suddenly remembered the man she had seen Grigori talking to earlier. ‘But what of the Moor? I heard him say he wished to buy me. He would take me away and no one would know. You could say I had died in this dungeon. Would his gold not be of more value to you than my death?’
The monk laughed again. ‘What makes you think I have need of his money? I already have a bag of coins hidden in the cellar at the abbey that weighs five times as much as your head.’
Despite her predicament, Elixa inhaled in sharp fury. She spluttered, ‘You? You stole the alms collection? A man of God stealing from his own church? And you blamed it on me!’
Grigori’s face hardened. ‘What I did was not stealing from the abbey. I took the money to prevent it from falling into the hands of that weak, wine soaked, fornicating abbot. Torcal should be an abbacy that wields its power far and wide, that supports the faith and that punishes the sinners, the witchery that even now festers like a boil under that abbot’s careless watch. And so it will be when it is mine. There will be no studies of Moon Goddesses. People will know their place and be devout in their worship’.
His leer returned, and she tried to squirm away from its malevolence.
‘And there will be no harbouring of whores in the kitchen or anywhere else.’
Before she could stop herself, Elixa cried out ‘No!’ So her death would not even spare Brother Luis or Mamá.
The monk smirked with satisfaction.
As Elixa sobbed it seemed to mellow Grigori. His hands moved up her body to hold her face. ‘Elixa, as I have said, this hard task that we perform here is done out of love. So that your soul may repent in time and save itself from an eternity in Hell. Yet to me, it seems a terrible waste,’ he pulled her head towards him and kissed the top of her head. A caress. As if from a loved one.
She cringed away.
‘Yes, your death will be a waste, for God has blessed you with such beauty and vitality. I cannot believe he would wish this to be your end. He seeks only your repentance and your contrition. Your submission.’
As he said this last word he grabbed her hair and shoved her head back. Leaning forward, he ran his tongue down her neck. ‘So the question is, what would you do for a reprieve?’
She had believed him insane, but also somehow acting in a way he thought was true to his warped faith. Now, though, she perceived him clearly for who he was. He had no morals, simply a burning need for power, and he would steal and even murder in homage to that need. She wanted to spit out that she would offer him nothing, never accept anything from him, but no words came.
Grigori seemed to misread her reaction. ‘Ah, I see you are finally becoming submissive, and how well it befits you, Elixa. Will you hear my offer?’
Hating herself for it, but hearing in her mind the voices of those she loved and even her Moon goddess telling her to survive this, and glared at him.
He could not suppress a gleeful cackle. ‘Elixa, I have the power to set you free. I can take you away from here.’
Her eyes stayed fixed on his. ‘Back to the abbey?’
‘No, not there. Somewhere far away. Somewhere private, for you to earn your reprieve by doing my bidding.’
A sudden thought struck Elixa. ‘Where is Brother Luis? Where is Mamá? Do they know I am here?’
Grigori wagged his finger at her. ‘No one knows. Only me. They saw you being taken away, but they have no notion of where the men took you.’
She blinked and shifted her feet. ‘Will Mamá come to this place too?’
‘No, foolish child! Do you really not understand my meaning?’ He leered and lifted his habit up over his hairy knees.
The memory of him in the cellar with his feet on the wine barrel, his robe pulled up and his head rolling around on his neck came back to her. In an abrupt moment of understanding, she suddenly knew what he had been doing.
The memory sickened her, as did the thought of what had been running through his mind when he did those things.
His eyes bulged and she could see a vein throb at his temple. ‘I should perhaps give you a demonstration now. My lessons may at times be harsh, but if you learn to be repentant for your sins, you may come to take pleasure in your punishment.’
He grabbed at her breasts, squeezing them. ‘And it may be that you will find my hand far gentler than that of the hidalgo. Yes indeed! Much better that you be mine first, rather than his and only then a shared enjoyment between us. Perhaps you remember Rosa?’
A snake of dread slithered up Elixa’s spine at the mention of her lost friend, Rosa.
As if in answer to her thoughts, the monk drawled, ‘The hidalgo broke her in so thoroughly.’ He blew out a puff of stale breath. ‘By the time I had my turn she could no longer speak, only look at me with those big, dark eyes.’ The monk smiled and shook his head as if lost in some happy memory.
Finally finding her tongue, she gasped, ‘Rosa. You took Rosa? What have you done to her? She is alive?’
Grigori laughed. ‘Oh, yes. And a fine beauty she turned out to be. Just like you. Another who uses her wiles to taunt the righteous. Or at least she would have done, if the hidalgo had not trained her differently. Of course, she eventually ceased to amuse, and I believe Mendoza recently sold her to some Moor for a handsome profit.’ He leaned in closer. ‘Covered in ugly freckles he was, and moles like beetles crawling over his right cheek. I imagine he is enjoying―’
Letting out a scream of fury, Elixa lunged at the monk.
Startled, Brother Grigori stepped backwards, almost tripping over her privy bucket. Some of it splashed onto his leather sandals. With a look of thunder on his face, he cursed and kicked it across the cell. The cloying stench of urine filled the chamber.
Staggering back to her, he grabbed her throat and held her firmly in front of him. ‘I am offering you this reprieve, but I would only have you submissive. I shall not force you, that is below my morals.’
She shook herself free and continued yelling and thrashing against the chains that held her. When he tried to grip her head, she snaked round and bit his hand, drawing blood. Several times he tried to speak to her, but she drowned him out with inarticulate shouting.
Shaking with anger, he slapped his palm across her cheek. Her head spun, her cheek stung, but still she would not stop.
Finally, he stepped back, furious but also defeated, and he shouted at her, ‘Very well. Then you shall burn at the stake in Hell!’ He stalked out, sucking on his injured fingers.
Elixa yelled for some minutes longer, but eventually the inner fire that had sustained her weakened and in its place came a tidal wave of sorrow. For Rosa, for Brother Luis, for the Luna Goddess, whose wonderful gift would lie, mistrusted and unclaimed, until it seeped away into the dry earth. And finally, for Mamá and the little golden-haired girl she had worked so hard to nurture and protect.
The girl who would now become the first woman to be burned at the stake.
40
An hour or so after Brother Grigori had been driven away from her cell, the guards came for Elixa.
Tears still rolled down her cheeks as she sobbed for Rosa. She had not stopped trembling at the thought of the ordeal her friend, always so happy and caring, had been put through by these sickening men. And as much as for that, her tears were for her own helplessness to try to find Rosa, or in some way make recompense for the wrong that had been done her.
The guards unlocked the manacles and, limbs numb, Elixa toppled to the floor. One guard knelt and held her there, while the other tied rope around her wrists and ankles. With all her limbs bound, he wrapped another around her neck and chin, almost to her mouth.
Without thinking, she bit his fingers.
His hand shot out and whacked her across the cheek so hard that blue stars spun across her vision.
‘One more and you’ll get a boot in the head, the same as last night.’ He snarled, as his companion looked on with an amused smirk. ‘To teach you a lesson, you’ll get a smoky pyre. They die slower that way.’
They dragged her, her tightly-bound feet skittering over the stones, down the dimly lit tunnel and suddenly out into the piercing light of day.
Elixa glanced up. The sun was at its zenith.
An arm shot out.
Elixa started in surprise as an old woman stepped in front of them. Had God answered her prayers? But why would He send an old woman? She could never overpower the guard. Nor any of the other men surrounding the courtyard.
The guard snorted. ‘What do you want?’
‘She must have a painted face. Just like the witch she is.’
Elixa’s stomach turned.
Her prayers were not to be answered.
The guard nodded his assent and held her still as the woman reached up and smeared coloured oils over her eyes.
He scoffed, ‘No one will even see that. She is to have a hood over her head.’
‘God will see under the hood. And He will know she is painted with the markings of the Devil.’
Tears swelled in Elixa’s throat, causing a lump, but this time, they did not reach her eyes. She had no more tears to shed.
She was hollow.
Empty and bereft.
