Lady of the Flames

by Bestia Mortale

fiction

We had scarcely bread enough, and very seldom ale in those days. But it was a good year the hunters came, and I can’t blame hard times for what followed.

It was the summer of my sixteenth nameday. On that nameday I set out, as was the custom for the men and many a woman of our village, to do a week of service to the Lady Thraxton. I walked alone down the lonely river path toward the tower where she kept.

In a poor county like our own, there are no great lords or ladies, only a few knights of bare tables and few servants. On the whole, we counted ourselves lucky that our Lady taxed us little, for we couldn’t have paid a great deal more. As for the week of service, that she asked only of those who were willing.

I walked slowly through the reeds, for I had heard fearful things about the old woman. My grandfather told how she brought down lightning on a band of cutthroats who had kidnapped his aunt, killing all of them. I’d never seen her, for she left her tower seldom, and generally only on the occasion of childbirth or death.

Though this service was at will, we felt it an obligation, especially for the men. My sweetheart, Sarah, a year my elder, said she’d not have a man who refused it. And so I went. Also because I was curious, for no one spoke much of it, except with a grin and a wink.

I approached the stone tower, on the side that lay in ruins, and the path seemed to stop. I saw no door, nor sign of habitation, but I heard not far off a person singing softly, and went toward the sound. Around the tower, I came on a girl of about my age tending flowers among the stones.

She was dressed in ruby-red rags like a tinker’s daughter, but when she turned, I saw her face was clean and… her cheeks, her lips, her eyes, her hair. I forgot why I had come.

“Good morning,” she said with a smile, evidently seeing my confusion. “What is your business here?”

“I am come to offer my nameday service to the Lady Thraxton,” I stuttered

“You are Tom, then. The Lady remembers, for she assisted at your birth sixteen years and eleven days ago today. Are you here then, of your own free will?”

“Yes, and at my sweetheart’s behest.” I had no idea why I said such a thing, for I would have admitted it to no one in the village.

She laughed merrily. “Your Sarah is practical, and will make a good wife, I think. Let us see, then, what sort of husband you might become.” With which she came boldly forward and gave me a kiss upon the lips.

Though the kiss was light and chaste, I felt myself catch fire. All in an instant, I found the blood pounding in my ears, my mouth dry, and my cock so stiff it ached in my britches. Nothing like had ever happened to me in my life. I wanted to tumble her then and there, though I’d met her but an instant before. I wanted to tear off her rags and like a beast run my fingers over every inch of her, smell her skin, do I know not what.

I tried to speak, but my tongue had lost the feel of words. I put out my hand to her, hoping perhaps she would guess my desire and that hers would answer, as in a dream. Even so, I knew one so beautiful could choose any man, no matter how she might be dressed, and had no call to dally with one such as I, who could offer neither looks nor money nor station.

“What?” she asked, still smiling, “You want another kiss?”

I thought then of my purpose in coming here, and of Sarah, and the sweet things we had said to each other, as young lovers will.

Though I could hardly breathe and could in no way lower my eyes from hers, I forced myself to speak. “Lass, you’re pretty. I wish I was your match. Still, I’m come to offer a week’s service, and it would be wrong to keep the Lady waiting.”

“I think you’ll not see the old lady while you’re here, Tom,” she said. “But your manners are good, and it is time to begin your service; for the green grass is growing warm in the sun, and a week is short for all you have to learn.” Saying which, she began to untie my shirt.

Indeed, a week was short, and I returned to the village with no regret, yet with sweet memories and a debt so great I could not dream of settling.

In the high summer of that year came the two foreigners to Ardsley, the market town some miles off, to inquire after the matter of witches in the countryside. With ale and threats, they gathered many suspicions and accusations, among which I suppose the Lady’s name figured.

When I heard of it, I paid little heed, thinking it of no consequence to our village. Sarah and I being newly wed, my thoughts at the time were elsewhere.

Then in the fall, a handful of the king’s soldiers came to our village, and one Sunday a witch hunter from the South preached in our small church about the great dangers of witchcraft in our midst. He told of enquiries and trials to come, and the need to burn those who could not be saved.

This filled us with fear, for stories had come from other parts about how, once the hunt began, many tried to save themselves from torture and death by heaping their neighbors on the flames, so that whole villages burned in the end.

Already this looked to be starting among us, for the witch hunters spoke to the weakest and least reliable first, and we could imagine what foolish stories they told. And indeed, the soldiers rode forth to bring Goodwife Lakely to the question, on the grounds that she made love spells for maids to use in binding their sweethearts.

As Mary Lakely told me later, the witch hunters with their soldiers were at the very door of her mother’s house when a girl appeared in the yard. “You know the one,” said Mary, “the Lady’s maidservant.” Dressed in rags as always, she told the hunters she would deliver to them the greatest witch in all the countryside, if only they ceased thereafter to disturb the people of the village.

At first, the hunters paid no heed, but as they spoke with her they seemed to forget all else. She exacted from them a great oath in the end, and they forebore to hold or torture her, though it was surely in their minds. She skipped away, and they rode forth to the tower.

Three days after, on Sunday, they built a great pile of logs in the square before the church, and after evensong they brought the Lady in a cart, her hands bound behind her. She was covered in a black cloak with the hood pulled forward, so we could not see her face until they took her out and dragged her to the bonfire.

She was old, older and more wrinkled than the most ancient crone I’d ever seen. A torn white wrap scarcely covered her thin limbs, and all her mottled flesh was covered in blue bruises and red wounds that bore witness to fearsome torments. Yet her eyes scanned us as we watched, settling on each in turn, clear and knowing.

I dreaded their settling on me, but I could not find a way to turn away. What I saw in those old eyes I cannot say, but I know I cried out in protest like many in the crowd. The soldiers stood unmoved between us and the great unlit bonfire while the hunters bound her roughly to the stake.

Then the first of the hunters, a tall thin man with a crooked nose, spoke to us. This, he said, was the most horrible witch he had ever questioned. Even before the torments began, she confessed willingly to the most foul and unspeakable crimes he had heard in twenty years of burning witches, and after, even in the greatest agony his skills knew how to produce, she never showed the least repentance. And thus, he said, she must burn.

And, he said, she would only be the first from our village, for it was evident that a very great evil had long been among us, and to eradicate it would be the work of years. He started to expound on this further, when behind him the Lady spoke.

“No,” she said. Her voice was not loud, but neither did it sound old, and it was unnaturally clear, like a bird’s song. “No. I am the first and the last of this village you shall have, on your own oath.”

“A false oath given to a simple slut, for the greater glory of God,” shouted the other hunter, as if to silence her.

“A binding oath,” she continued, “and one that binds you now. Did you think to deal with so great a witch without danger? Did you think to torment me so cruelly without binding yourselves to my fate?”

There was a dead stillness in the square. All that moved was the flicker of fear across their faces and our own.

“Fire!” called the Lady. Instantly there was a gust of wind, and the entire bonfire was in flames, as if it had burnt already a half-hour with a barrel of oil poured on. The fire entirely surrounded her then, hiding her from our eyes and the flames reached into the sky, higher than the steeple of the church, roaring, leaping and curling.

The uniforms of the soldiers caught fire, and they ran from the square, shouting in pain. Yet we felt only warmth.

When the flames fell back a little, she was no longer bound to the blackened post behind her, and she was no longer old. Her hair was fire, and the raging flames made a living gown more beautiful than silk or muslin. She was young, and we knew her well. Even the oldest among us still remembered — it was her patience with me I called to mind then, and her merry laughter. What she taught me in my week of service was to seek the courage that love requires.

Standing in the flames, she smiled her merry smile at us, then, looking at the hunters, beckoned with her hand. Unwilling, they were drawn forward into the heat. Their faces and chests blackened and charred as they approached the inferno, and when the flames actually licked around them, they crumpled and vanished.

“Farewell,” she said to us. “I have passed a pleasant hour here. My thanks for your hospitality, and my blessings. I would take with me a friend, if he would come.”

At this, old Martin shuffled forward from among us. Almost deaf and blind, part daft and scarcely able to get out of a chair these days, nonetheless he somehow managed to croak, “I am ready, girl, at your service.” We laughed.

She laughed too, throwing her head back happily, as I remember her. “I thought you might be. Come, then, make haste.”

We watched in growing amazement and apprehension as the old fellow staggered toward her, pushing through the crowd and on toward the fire. “Watch out, Martin,” someone shouted. Yet he hobbled into the flames, which burst fiercely around him in a flash. Our groans of horror were replaced by gasps of amazement when the fire fell back to reveal a young man naked in the embrace of our Lady. Turning to us again, she waved a last time.

With a roar, the fire leapt into the night sky and was gone.