Bless me, mother

They are coming for me. I can hear the villagers shouting, crying out for my blood. My time has come to an end, and you are the only one I can tell my story to. Perhaps you will bring me justice, one day.

I am to be burned this morning, did you know? The square will have been swept clean, and the viewing stand built for the nobility. Goddess forfend they should be touched by the rough hands of sun or wind. They will sit behind sheer curtains and watch me die. The common folk will have to stand wherever they can find room. There will have been some there since before dawn. Maybe they even spent the night. People will come from leagues around to watch. There will be men selling meat pies, wine, apples and tarts. There will be women selling less filling, although equally fulfilling wares.

In the middle of it all will be the stone stack. A tree gave its life that I may burn upright, bound to the remains of the trunk sunk deep into the stones and surrounded by faggots and brush. I felt him fall, days ago, a Father-Tree, Oak. Good stout wood, that. He knew why he fell, and wept, but there was nothing to be done. He will bear me up when my legs fail, even as his branches are among the pieces that choke my lungs with smoke and char my flesh with flame. He dies with me. I mourn him, but welcome him at the same time. No one wants to die alone.

They thought to burn my cat with me, but they could not catch her. She is a wily mouser, half-wild even with me. I found her when she was just past her kitten year, torn up by dogs. She mended nicely, with care, and returned the favor by keeping my home free from rats. When we heard them riding along the road, I sent her off, although I hardly needed to. The wild ones know when death comes, and they run if they may. Although the God-men searched high and low, they couldn’t match the wit of one small cat. I am glad. I didn’t save her only to be the death of her.

So I will burn with the sacred tree.

They are closer, now. I wonder if I will be able to keep my silence, when I feel the flames licking up my legs. I know that most of those burned die long before they burn, from the smoke. I wonder if anyone will try to slip me a potion. I have not yet been offered a last meal. It is usual to let the condemned meet their fate on a full stomach, although I can’t think why. Dead empty or dead full, I will still be dead. I wouldn’t mind some water, though. I have been thirsty for days. I wonder if they are drying me out to burn better.

Will I curse them? I don’t know. Many’s the condemned who have gone with a curse on their lips. Those curses don’t amount to much. I still think silence is the best course. They curse themselves, really, by allowing this. They have no idea what they set in motion today. Oh, my death will be so much more than a Witch burning.

They caught me because I let them. Don’t believe me? It’s true. Of all the people taken by the God-men, I am perhaps the only true Witch. I had to let them take me, though, or watch the whole coven burn. I was the distraction. The God-men were so interested in me that the others slipped away. They are long gone, long safe, and I may go now to meet my fate with a proud head. I gave the God-men nothing. Three times they put me under The Hammer, and three times I let them take me to the abyss and hang me there before confessing. Three times did I recant my confession. My body was broken, but not my spirit, not my purpose. After the third time, they must release you, did you know? If you can endure it all thrice, they have to let you go. They will make much of you, send you to recover in a God-house, call you innocent, but all the while…all the while, they are scheming. They set little traps for you, try to trip you up. I could have had my freedom, but the coven wasn’t safe yet. I had to let it come to this. They are safe now, but there will be no reprieve for me. Once you fail the God-house test, you are branded and done for.

They will make me walk to the fire, I see. Well, perhaps see is too ambitious a word, for my eyes were put out long ago, almost when I was first taken, but you don’t need eyes to view the world. There are other ways. They have brought no wagon, for me. They wish to show the people what happens to the Devil’s pawns, make them afraid. I would laugh if they’d left me a tongue. They burned it from my head with hot pincers the second time under the Hammer. The last thing I ever tasted was my own cooking meat. I wish it could have been an apple. I did love a crisp apple.

Without a tongue, they feel I am no danger to them. I could still scream, I suppose. They left me a voice, anyway. But without a tongue, I cannot speak of what I know. I cannot tell the villagers about how the God-men, who are supposed to be chaste and pure for their work, liked to rape me. They poked me whenever they felt the urge, which was often enough. When they were tired of poking me with their little, ineffectual...selves, they’d have fun with their brands, pokers, and irons. No need to worry about a child if I had escaped their tender mercies in the end. Once the tongue was gone, the womb soon followed. I guess it’s acceptable to fill me with their seed if it can’t take root. So, they think I cannot tell their secrets. My ears are scarred lumps of cartilage, now, but I can still hear them talk. They accused me of making bargains with the devil, but they are the ones steeped in evil. Oh, the things they said, the schemes they schemed, knowing that what I heard would never be repeated. Or so they thought.

Each time under the Hammer is three days. Three days of careful ministrations designed to bring the body maximum pain, horror, almost death. At the end, if there is no confession, they must let you rest. If there is confession they let you rest, too, but they care for your hurts. Then, they wait until you are mostly whole before demanding that you confess again and sign the paper. If you recant, it starts again. If there was no confession, it starts again. The first time is bad, but not the worst. It’s after, when you know what to expect. They break bones over and again. It will hurt to walk to the pyre. Perhaps I will welcome death's respite.

Ah, one of the women who serve the church is coming, now. She has a basket. Bread, wine. I can’t really chew, without my teeth, but I can suck the crust a little. The wine isn’t what I want to drink, but I will drink anyway. There is no potion. No one remains who is brave enough to ease my passage. I will have to endure. Knowing that the others are safe, though, is worth it.

I wonder, will they notice it, at first? The slow death of their farms, their orchards and vines? The fouling of the water that was once so sweet? The fire that burns only where it is not wanted, gobbling greedily at their lives and livestock? Will they notice the disease that creeps in? The hunger that gnaws at them? Will they realize that when we lived, their babies lived, their children thrived? Or will they only complain about the withering of life and the tiny headstones without thinking about why things have come to be this way? Tell them, if you dare.

I won't eat the bread, after all. The woman has spit on it, wiped her filth on it. With my stump of a nose, she thinks I won’t smell. How limited she is. I wish I could teach you the other ways of knowing, but there isn’t time. Perhaps you are better off. I won't drink the wine. She’s spit in it, too. So it’s hungry and thirsty I go to my end. I do wish they would hurry up. Now the head God-man is making speeches. He dares to ask his god to have mercy on me. I wouldn’t like to be him, come his reckoning.

I wish you could have seen me as I once was. I was comely, they said in the village. More than one young man sought me out for the Beltine green-wooding. More than once, I knew the pleasure of the Great Rite. I was worshiped as a living Goddess when my belly swelled; they celebrated the birth of my blessed babe. She is safe, too, long past weaning and old enough to remember me as Mother. Losing her hurts more than going under The Hammer, but the God-men don’t know that. To save her life, I would endure it all a hundred times more.

Listen, the crowd grows restive. They will come and bind me in iron, now, make me walk to the square. They will offer me absolution, a chance to die clean with confession. If I confess, now, I may not recant, but I will be killed quick with a sword as a mercy. I won’t confess. I will be silent. I will die slow.

Now you are alone in the cell, and I am here. The chains are gone. They have bound me with ropes soaked in pitch. Nothing forgotten, nothing spared. There are minstrels, jugglers, cutpurses. It is a festival. The high-born are safe in their lovely cage. The poorest people are in front, closest to me. There, the smell is the worst, and a person risks being spit upon by the angry witch. Only I am not angry. I do not fight, or spit, or scream, or curse. The crowd is unhappy. I am not giving them a show. Ah, well. I refused confession, refused mercy. That gave them some satisfaction, and it will have to do. I feel the Father-Tree behind me, beneath me. He is angry for me, and now I must sooth him, take his spirit into me, send it on to the next world. No reason he should feel the pain. His blessing echoes in my mind, even as they touch flame to tinder and set me alight. Ah, the smoke, the smoke, it is a caress, and I welcome it. Good bye, good bye, fare thee well…

Bless me mother, for I come now to you. Your daughter comes; blowing on the wind, she comes. Bless me mother, for I come now to you. Your daughter comes; dancing in the flame, she comes. Bless me mother, for I come now to you. Your daughter comes; flowing in the currents, she comes. Bless me mother, for I come now to you. Your daughter comes; in the dust and ash, she comes. As you bless my coming mother, I bring my blessing away with me, to sanctify no more this place. Dark mother, take me quick, that I may sooner know you, and return to life. Bless…