SATAN'S W***E

It's a nasty thought, but women have long been accused for their part in original sin and the Plague....

Auntie Martha scowled and spat at her jailer, who punched her on the face for her cheek.

She wasn't anyone's auntie really, but a weird assortment of relationships during an earlier generation's flibbertigibbet's love-life made everyone believe she was related to them all.

But that had very little to do with her current predicament.

A simple chain of events, starting with the big man at the Manor losing his eldest daughter to the plague and she being called in to heal her, and failing, a disaster that was swiftly followed by the Priest being caught in flagrente with her on the altar when he thought nobody was looking when that same Lord was, and her cat going missing during a full moon … seemingly unrelated things that rapidly became close cousins due to pressure from on high, and from high meant from the Manor.

No man likes to lose a daughter, not even a plain one like the minx at the big house. And no high Manorial Lord likes the idea of the Priest who should be firmly in his pocket having messy carnal knowledge of the local wise woman on or off the altar, and as for disappearing cats �" this one was black, and everyone knows what that means.

So the order was passed to the county's witch-finder for a witch, and who that witch should be, and there wasn't a witch-finder who wasn't firmly in half a dozen capacious pockets. So Martha, wise woman and healer of most sick (but, alas, not all) was declared to be a witch. She was tried at the ducking stool on a cold and miserable day, and survived (which was interpreted as a Satanic rescue, bearing in mind the weather) and so was clearly as guilty as the devil's Hell, and then someone said that the Necromancer himself was hovering in a cloud near the horizon with a ferocious expression on his evil face, and that did it for Auntie Martha.

This last observation made everyone grovel to the ground and wail, and there was no doubt about it: Martha was as guilty as hell and must suffer the consequences.

And the consequences involved a stake and kindling and a great deal of fire.

The villagers were to have a treat, though Martha didn't see it that way, which is why she didn't really mind being punched in the face by her jailer. Any pain was a preparation for the big one, she rationalised. She'd scalded her finger once, and knew how heat can hurt.

The day before the Burning (the Burning Field was already being prepared and all the children of the village were out collecting dry kindling from the forest which surrounded the village for endless miles in all directions) the Priest came to accept her recantations. He might have felt a bit shy at the prospect of hearing the last words of a woman he'd tupped a few days earlier, and (he knew it and she knew it) several times before that, whenever the need was on him, but he didn't show it.

“I suppose you'd like my dress over my head and my legs open?” she asked viciously. She could be verbally vicious, could Martha, even when it was a matter of death or death. She knew there was no chance of life, not in this mix, and not with this Priest.

“Satan's w***e!” he rasped, hoping the jailer would hear his words. The jailer grinned to himself. He'd heard her part in the exchange and knew the truth behind her words.

“Does God love me?” she asked, a glint in her eyes. Like everyone back then she knew too much about God for her own good, and she particularly knew there wasn't a sin so damning she couldn't be forgiven if she had access to a sufficiently weighty purse. The trouble was, she'd never accumulated wealth. Not that she'd had much of a chance. Healing women were paid with effusive gratitude, not coin

“God loves us all,” growled the Priest. “You know that much at least!”

“You told me at the altar mere days ago, with your flesh pummelling mine,” she replied. The jailer almost giggled when he heard that bit. This Martha was a card, all right. He almost regretted punching her in the face. Almost, but not quite.

“Say no more of it!” hissed the Priest. “Renounce your loyalty to Satan and I'll see what I can do!”

“It was the joy of your celibacy, if you could call it any kind of joy at all when the alter is so hard for a maiden's back” she reminded him, her eyes alight with ferocious blame. The jailer loved it.

“The devil take you!” snarled the priest, forgetting to keep his voice down, and the jailer actually giggled.

“I have no truck with devils!” squawked Martha. “They never pay their bills.”

“Then you will burn as will all sinners,” sighed the Priest, her words creating a momentary image in his mind, setting him wondering where he would find another willing concubine to conquer once this one was ashes. There were, after all, precious few around, and the big man from the big house had first choice on most of them any way.

“And God you say is love?” she asked.

“Is love,” he confirmed.

“Some love to accept such tokens as an innocent w***e's flesh turned to ash,” she sighed, and the thought made her pale. She didn't relish the idea of becoming ash and anyway she didn't look on herself as a w***e. W****s, after all, were paid for their services.

Tomorrow this Priest would pray her way to Hell, and as he was doing it she knew what she would do. She would conjure in her mind an image of his penis. At least that wouldn't be so difficult and would add a touch of irony to her death.

“God is love,” repeated the Priest, and Auntie Martha closed her eyes and focussed her recent memories, and made the image go insanely flaccid.