THE WEEPING CHILD

A young girl having to face consequences...

Maria was sick in the morning. It came on suddenly and it made her feel wretched, and it can't have been the wine because she hadn't had any the night before - or the night before that come to think of it, either. With a widowed father who needed to work miles from home and consequently didn't come to their house sometimes for days on end, there were few people around to give her wine.

She knew why she was sick, though. She'd seen her mother like this, when she'd been expecting a baby, the one that had killed her and that had also died in the process, the murdering scrap of meat. That day, a couple of years earlier, had dawned with one woman and had ended with two corpses. It had been a nightmare, one that she was unlikely to forget no matter how long she lived. It had given her a fresh perspective on life.

In her head, like the knell of doom, rang the message that pregnancy led to death, and not just any old death. Her mother had spent her last hours on Earth in the most terrible agony, had screeched and howled and the neighbours' wives had come to help her, but no matter what anyone did she screamed and screamed and screamed. And then, weak and exhausted, she had died, and with her the wretched child.

Now, in Maria's head, this was going to happen to her.

It hadn't crossed her mind when she'd been playing the naughty games with her soldier Captain, or taunting any of the other soldiers with smirks and flashes of flesh. Of course it hadn’t. She was too young, she had told herself, too young to get caught, girls her age could surely have a bit of fun when the rabbi was at his devotions and unlikely to call on a house where only a child like her might be found. And now here she was vomiting into a bucket like Ma had.

When the sickness passed she wandered outside. She knew she looked pale, that her retching will have been heard by just about anyone (there was no such thing as total privacy when there was no glass in windows), but she needed fresh air.

She leaned on the wall next to an old wounded and crippled soldier.

He knew all about her. He'd seen the story unfold, had noted how the Captain of the Roman forces billeted in their town got his way with the poor girl, had heard the sounds of his conquest in much the same way as he'd just heard the sounds of her sickness.

He knew the facts of life. He knew about pain, and death - he'd been all-but kicked to death himself years ago, when the Roman Army was an unwelcome sore on the side of this pathetic society and some yobbos had laid in wait for him.

“You shouldn't have let the man do it to you,” he growled to the girl.

Maria looked at him, contempt in her eyes.

“It was fun,” she said, “and he'll be back so that we can have the same fun again!”

“I heard him. Said you were to tell everyone if you got caught that it was an angel. I ask you: an angel, when there's no such thing outside of your old stories and daft religion!”

“It was an angel!”

“So a Roman Captain is an angel, is he? When the night before he was probably snuggling up to a young centurion with a hard c**k, doing what no man should ever do to another! Unnatural, it is, but then what do ordinary folks know when a man's got no woman for months or years on end? They turn to each other, and then, for a real treat and when they've climbed high enough to get a bit of freedom, they get to bed a child like you! Let me see: you are a child, aren't you, and not a woman?”

“I'll be thirteen next birthday!”

“As I said, a child, and in the family way! I was here, sitting against this wall, when your poor Ma passed on. I heard it. Her dying. And it was that same Captain as did for her!”

“It was my dad!”

“Nah, child, it was that same Captain. I'm the eyes that see and the ears that hear, I am. I was around when he did for the mother, I heard her squeal her pleasure, legs pulled around him and believing every promise he made, and now he's done for the daughter, and I heard that too. I dared say you'll be asking me what you should do about it?”

“I don't need your advice!”

“Then I won't give it!”

There were moments of silence. She didn't want to speak or it might mean tears when she wanted to show strength, and as for him, he'd had enough of the uneducated locals, spitting at him, offering him mouldy crusts when he was hungry, and laughing when he puked. He could do without their ignorance. He’d known better times, better places and better people.

Then, when Maria couldn't hold it in any longer, it all boiled over and spilled out in a single question.

“What should I do then?” It was almost weeping, but not quite.

“You want my advice?”

She nodded. Sometimes a girl can't trust herself to words.

“Go away. I know a village where there's an Inn, and the Innkeeper's wife is good at undoing the sort of problem you've got yourself into. Get that carpenter chappie of yours to take you. Don't tell him the angel nonsense unless you really have to, though, or he’ll be suspicious and start wondering... and for Heaven's sake don't mention sons of god or any nonsense like the Captain made up with you. Get rid of it, and come back as if nothing had happened. You'll have to make quite sure that carpenter of yours thinks it's his and that he'll face a life of shame if it lives, doing what he believes he must have done to a poor child like you when he should have waited. And then, when everything's over and done with, settle down with him and be a good girl! You can't be shagging every horny Roman as comes your way without finding a great deal of trouble in front of you!”

“But...” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“Jo-jo. How can he be made to believe it's his when we haven't … done it? He wouldn't believe me! He knows I have a gentleman … visitor … more than one … though he thinks it’s because they feel sorry for me, a girl on her own and all that, he doesn't know what we do.”

“So I've noticed. I gather he's a bit on the simple side. Are you trying to say there are any number of men you've done it with?”

“No! What kind of a girl do you think I am! It's only been the Captain. The others pay for me to do things to them ... I don't like to say.”

“Then don't. I know enough about us men to know exactly what you mean! But it gives me an idea that might help, at a pinch … tell your woodworker that he must have pulled himself off when he was all on his own and feeling horny, and then left something on the chair, a smear, a little pool, something … and you sat on it - a daft story but it could save your honour. He'll think back and remember a time, a moment, something he's done that might have smeared on a chair, and take it from me, he'll believe you. He's got to for his own peace of mind, and he won’t want to cast the first stone to break you. Well, off you go before seeing you standing there makes me horny, and with a shattered body like mine I can't do a damned thing about it!”

“I'll do what you say, then.”

“And be convincing. The Inn I mentioned is in Bethlehem. D'you know the place?”

“Jo-jo will.”

“Go to the Inn, the man's wife will know what to do, for a sesterce or two. Tell her I sent you. Say it was the wounded soldier. She knows me. We've got history!”

“Yes, sir.”

Maria went back into the house. The old soldier smiled ruefully.

“Silly little tart,” he muttered to himself. “It almost serves her right...”

© Peter Rogerson 12.11.12, revised 22.11.16