THE TEMPTATION OF MARIA.

In a future or maybe a past time a devout nun is on a useless pilgrimage

It was noon and the sun beat down. It had within its fiery heart a scorching quality that seemed to eat into the woman’s flesh as Maria struggled along. She was in the Great Desert, and on a pilgrimage.

She was going to the Stone of Goth, a great slab of granite that had lain where it now was since the gods had placed it there many lifetimes ago, and it was the duty of everyone in her order to visit the Stone at least once in their lifetimes, and genuflect before it, and whisper sacred prayers.

She paused as she trudged along, and wiped a trail of perspiration from her brow. The heat was all but unbearable. It scorched down from a slate blue sky and the great orb of the sun seemed like a gigantic eye that pierced to the very depth of her soul. And her soul - she knew the frailty that lay in there, all right. She would have to use the scourge on her own back when she returned to the convent. She had entertained impure thoughts, and that deserved the very worst of punishment. Or the best. Worst or best, the punishment was the same, it was just the perspective that was different. The pain would be the same, too, and the blood and torn skin.

But she had contemplated removing her heavy black habit for a few moments and let the tiniest cool breeze that teased her cheeks brush against her naked flesh, and cool her down. But it was forbidden.

Of course it was forbidden! Nobody could tell, nobody could know, when a man would pass within eye-shot and see the curve of her ankle, the turn of her legs, the smooth softness of her stomach or the tilted mounds of her breasts. And having cast his eyes on any one of those he would become as a wild beast and cover her with his beastly breath and use her nakedness for his own vile purposes.

She had been told there were vile purposes, but she had no idea what they might be, just that they had something to do with the fabled distinction between daughters of the Almighty (such as herself) and the bestial brutes that were half of the population.

And the sun still beat down, it’s gross eye boring deep into her, and she felt as weak as a tiny creature might feel were it to be on the point of death under the sun. She knew she needed water to drink, but she had none. There would be enough at the Stone of Goth when she got there. Then she would be able to quench her thirst until it was sated, and even more.

In the distance she saw something fluttering in the occasional breeze and her heart almost froze. What if this was some trick of the men she had been warned about. What if one of the accursed creatures with hearts of pure evil had set a trap to ensnare her so that he could perform evil on her sacred flesh? She pulled her thick black habit, which was getting heavy with the weight of her own perspiration, about her and tried to merge with shadows that weren’t there.

Whatever it was, she had to continue that way, and if it was a trap so be it: she would have to work out the puzzle when she got to it and avoid the sin of a man’s flesh being close to her. Maybe she should punish herself now, in preparation. She had a small barbed tawse in her bag. Maybe she should draw blood with that, and feel the pain, and be rewarded for it when her time came. But no: she felt weak and knew deep inside her selfishness that she might die if she lost too much more blood: she had already chastised herself several times on the pilgrimage. Sinful thoughts came easily under this cruel sun and needed assuaging.

When she arrived at the fluttering something she saw what it was: a habit like her own, but torn to shreds and faded, and within it the hideous skeletal remains of some creature. There were bones there, lots of bones, and some of them formed a hand and within that hand was the handle of a tawse very much like her own. All nuns in her order carried one of those, for temptations could be found everywhere, and she realised what manner of creature the bones had once belonged to. They had been the essence of one from her convent, most likely one of those who set out on a pilgrimage, never to return.

And the tawse told the rest of the story. Some evil, some temptation, had come along, and the poor soul had succumbed to it. Then, even as the wretched creature had died she had been thrashing her flesh and opening up punishing weals. No doubt she had been faced with a force that had ultimately defeated her.

Maria sat down next to the collection of bones with their fluttering habit, needing to rest before she concluded her journey across the desert, and the sun still beat down malevolently, scorching her to the depths of her soul. She glanced at the skull that lay in the midst of the bones and shook her head. Its blind eyes would see no more, she knew that much, and the Stone of Goth was no doubt the one thing they had dreamed of looking on in life. It was the one thing all righteous women would want to gaze on, and once they had seen it they could gladly die. It was her own earnest wish. Everyone in the convent dreamed of it. They talked about it all day and every day, the greatness of the vision of the Stone of Goth.

“You ought to take that great black cloak off,” said a sudden well-modulated voice. “This heat’ll get to you and be the end of you, that’s for sure, like it was for the daft woman just next to you.”

Her heart froze inside her, and she looked up.

It seemed that the man had come from nowhere. He was tall, had fair hair and a wispy beard, and was dressed in short pants and a loose top shirt. The sight of him alarmed her in two distinct ways. Firstly, she dreaded him because he was a man and would perform evil and dreadful deeds with his unclean flesh and secondly, and this was hard to admit with the tiny corner of her mind that thought it, she needed the company of someone, anyone, to remove the dread the pile of old bones had started to inspire within her.

“Who…?” she asked.

“I am Davey,” he replied, grinning, “and I am off to the mines to work.”

“The mines?” she asked.

“Yes: the mines. Just down the path here there’s a great rock, and we’re reducing it to gravel for the roads in town. It’s good granite and makes hard-wearing gravel, and the work pays well enough.”

“The Stone of … Goth?” she asked, dreading the reply.

“Yes, that’s what they call it!” laughed the young man. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ll be off to work, but if I were you I’d take that thick black coat thing off and cool down before this sun burns you to a crisp!”

And he was off. Round the bend, he sauntered, and out of sight.

“I am sinning,” she thought as she contemplated following his suggestion, and she sighed wearily, and pulled the barbed tawse from beneath her habit. Then she pushed it up inside her single sweat-soaked garment and pulled the cruel barbs against her buttocks before lying back, exhausted and in unbelievable pain, next to the pile of old bones and weathered rags.

The sun beat down on her, cruelly, malevolently, and she lay still, like only the dead lie still. The Stone of Goth would have to wait.