The Burning Time Read online

  ALSO BY ROBIN MORGAN

  FICTION

  DRY YOUR SMILE

  THE MER CHILD

  THE HANDMAIDEN OF THE HOLY MAN

  NONFICTION

  SATURDAY’S CHILD: A MEMOIR

  THE WORD OF A WOMAN

  A WOMAN’S CREED

  THE DEMON LOVER: THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM

  THE ANATOMY OF FREEDOM

  GOING TOO FAR

  POETRY

  A HOT JANUARY: POEMS 1996-1999

  UPSTAIRS IN THE GARDEN: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS

  DEPTH PERCEPTION

  DEATH BENEFITS

  LADY OF THE BEASTS

  MONSTER

  ANTHOLOGIES

  (COMPILED, EDITED, AND INTRODUCED)

  SISTERHOOD IS FOREVER

  SISTERHOOD IS GLOBAL

  SISTERHOOD IS POWERFUL

  THE NEW WOMAN (CO-ED.)

  THE BURNING TIME

  ©2006 Robin Morgan

  Cover design by Christopher King

  Cover image: © Archivo Iconografico, S.A./CORBIS

  From Life of Ludovic of France at the Purgatory of

  Saint Patrick, 14th century

  First Melville House Printing: 2006

  Melville House Publishing

  145 Plymouth Street

  Brooklyn, NY 11201

  www.mhpbooks.com

  eISBN: 978-1-61219-306-9

  A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

  v3.1

  FOR DEBORAH ANN LIGHT,

  FRIEND, PRIESTESS

  AND

  FOR VERONICA MORGENSTERN,

  NIECE, MAIDEN

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  I: Good Intentions

  II: The Right to a Window

  III: Unexpected Guests

  IV: Two Warnings

  V: Kitchen Conspiracies

  VI: The Sabbat Circle

  VII: Different Hungers

  VIII: Friends and Enemies

  IX: Strategic Moves

  X: Bishop to Queen’s Pawn

  XI: Family Connections

  XII: Harvesting Souls

  XIII: The Dying of the Year

  XIV: Leavetakings

  XV: Visions

  XVI: The Breaking of the Storm

  XVII: A Midnight Caller

  XVIII: A Gift of Shadows

  XIX: The Midwinter Sun

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Questions for Discussion

  31 OCTOBER 1324

  ALL HALLOWS’ EVE was not when you wanted to be out of doors—bolted doors. Not even in your own yard. Certainly not on the heath or the roads, surely not in the worst storm in memory, and especially not in the deliberate pursuit of witches and demonic spirits.

  The commander had only fifty lads, lacking even a full complement, since the Bishop had split up his troops, sending men-at-arms in all four directions to follow every road out of Kilkenny. Worse, His Eminence had personally ordered him and the three sub-commanders to batter down doors along the way, interrogate everyone, and do whatever was necessary to elicit information about any—any—passing travelers. A man of discipline, the commander had masked his shame at how much terror he and his men had caused this night. It would be some time before he would be able to erase the memory of such fear, raw on the faces of peasants and innkeepers along the route to Wexford, as they knelt before him and wept, pleading that truly they had seen no one, heard nothing. Well, His Eminence might not have believed them, but he did. The roads were deserted. The sole upright shapes he and his men passed had turned out to be ghostly tree spines bowing in obedience to the storm’s wrath.

  He spat, craning his neck to peer back at his troops through the sputtering light of the torchbearers’ beacons. They, like him, were soaked to the bone with freezing rain. At least he and his two lieutenants sat astride, but the other poor bastards had been trudging through this maelstrom that pelted them with hailstones and sleeted the roads until the troops slipped and fell, cursing, while the horses skidded sideways, shrilling as they scrambled to regain footing on the muddy ice. And now they faced a steep hill road ahead. Good lads, the commander thought, grateful the gale’s whine buffered him from their grumbling, but sent on a hopeless search. No one, certainly no woman, dare move through such a night. Unless witches really could fly.

  Dimly, he heard a rhythm, and all his senses sprang alert. Hooves. Distant hooves. The pounding grew louder, more distinct. Then he spied the outline of a lone horse galloping through the fog, down the hill road toward him and his men.

  He ordered a halt as the animal’s shape drew nearer and pulled up on an outcropping of rock above them. He never took his eyes from it, as gradually his footsoldiers came up behind and clustered around their leader. The torchbearers’ spitting brands gleamed yellow through the fog, reflecting on the men’s spear-points and swiftly drawn swords. But as the commander and his troops squinted upward, the flares began forming strange fogged aureoles of light. A spectral form emerged from them, floating through the mist.

  It sat astride the horse with an air of unchallengeable authority, as if enthroned. A heavy black cape denoting rank and wealth billowed from the shoulders of the Rider. Yet the figure’s face was veiled by a curtain of rain, its hair drenched by the storm to the colour of shadow.

  But with the next stab of lightning, the commander started in terror, as did his men, many of them dropping their weapons, falling to their knees, and crossing themselves.

  The flash imprinted on their gaze a sight they would never be able to forget. The lightning had exposed, like a reflection, the head of the Rider. It glowed in the light, inhumanly large. It was crowned by two sharp, bright, upcurving horns.

  The commander’s thoughts skittered and spun wildly. This is a tale to tell for years—if I live to tell it. He managed to keep his seat and stay his horse from rearing, but his entire body shook as it never had before, even in battle, and he could feel the tremors of the terrified animal beneath him.

  Motionless, the apparition shimmered at them, waiting.

  The commander knew he must address this creature. He opened his lips. He worked his jaw. But no words came. He felt his voice shrivel into a knot of panic in his throat.

  Then it no longer mattered, because all his questions were answered at once.

  It spoke.

  It called out to them with a ringing voice, in a tone of absolute command. Phrases clipped with contempt came riding over the storm’s howl with the majesty of lightning itself.

  “Merry Meet, this Samhain Sabbat,” It roared, “You need search for Me no longer. You have met the One you seek.”

  TEN MONTHS EARLIER …

  I

  GOOD INTENTIONS

  GREEN, such defiant green! At the bleak heart of winter, this brazen, shameless green! No wonder they call it the Emerald Island, he thought, peering through light fog at the emerging coastline, verdant even in January, though as veined with snow as a gemstone faceted with light.

  St. George’s Channel had finally calmed, so Richard de Ledrede was now able to hazard a stroll abovedeck, his corpulence bundled in a sable cloak. Rather pleasant, this, to lean at the ship’s rail breathing in the salt air and enjoying the vista—better than having to stagger up from his cabin again and again to drape vomitously over the side and retch. It had been tortuous, this journey—intensifying in chill, damp, and discomfort as he’d moved northward, leaving behind the sunny south of France, braving English Channel squalls, riding through sleet on the frozen fields of England, enduring the Bristol Channel’s heaves, traversing the neck
of Wales to the port of Anerystwyth, and now at last nearing harbor at Wexford—but only after an Irish Sea crossing so choppy that his normally ruddy complexion had turned its own shade of pale green. But it was almost over. He had survived again.

  Soon he would be back—well, not home, but on terra firma in Kilkenny Town, answerable only to himself, the Papal Emissary to Ireland, the supreme authority of the Roman Catholic Church in his own bishopric of Ossary. Soon he could relish the comforts of a floor that stayed beneath his feet, a blazing hearth, decent food and wine—at least as decent as might be imported into this benighted bog of a country. Though only for a while. Sic transit misera. How long, he wondered, must he tolerate Ireland this time, before winning permanent release and restoration to the Papal Court? Patientia. He sighed. Then, distracted by shouts, he turned to watch the scurry of seamen and cabin boys as they worked sails and ropes in preparation for dropping anchor. Across the deck, a slender young man in a black cassock was pacing slowly, reading his breviary. Glancing up, he saw his superior gazing at him, and he smiled.

  The Bishop did not smile back. Young Father Brendan Canice had been making himself unbearably useful since Anerystwyth: never cold, never seasick, a walking abomination of good cheer with odiously bouncing black curls and eyes so blue one might wince from the brightness. Summoned from Kells to attend upon the Bishop, Father Brendan had left his post at the ancient center of Irish learning and traveled to Wales to meet the senior prelate’s retinue, that they might journey the remainder of the route back to Kilkenny Town together. Not that Bishop Richard de Ledrede had invited his presence. Some bureaucrat in Avignon had decided for him that this young scholar, already gaining note for expertise in Celtic history and tradition, would be a valuable advisor to his work as the Pope’s emissary to Ireland. Consequently, the crossing was to have been spent tutoring the Bishop on Irish customs. But communication had been seldom and abrupt, limited to exchanges about the Bishop’s intestinal crisis, as the gallingly healthy Father Brendan repeatedly aided his superior in lurching from cabin to ship’s rail. Now the Bishop sighed again and beckoned to his traveling companion, who swiftly crossed the deck to stand before him.

  “Benedicite, domine,” the young man said, genuflecting, “Pax vobiscum.”

  “Benedicite, filio meo, et cum spiritu tu,” he replied, proffering his hand. The young priest kissed his ring.

  “Nonne convalescis, domine? Intervenione tuas devotiones?”

  “Bene. But English, please, Father Brendan. Latin unites our Church family throughout the world, but in conversation I prefer French, though my native tongue will do. Yes, I feel better—though there seems to be less of me,” he mused, glancing down at his rotund body, “and no, you do not disturb my devotions—though perhaps I disturb yours?” He glanced at the young priest’s breviary.

  “No, my lord. I was simply offering spontaneous prayers of thanksgiving. I have been awake since before dawn, my soul ringing like hammered gold—that eager am I to see Eire again!”

  “Nonsense. You have been away for only a fortnight. And you certainly have seemed content—never even mildly seasick. Somewhat unmannerly, that.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the young priest grinned, “My apologies. T’is an island nation, don’t you know—rich with rivers, too—so we grow up on the water. As for my homesickness, I have traveled little, yet no matter where I venture, t’is a Kilkenny man I am—from the seat of your own bishopric, my lord—the finest place on the blessed earth.”

  “Well, lad, perhaps you shall miraculously convince me to share your affection for Ireland. But it will be quite a challenge. I can tell you candidly that I have already suffered over a year in your disagreeable country.”

  Father Brendan could think of no diplomatic response to this, so he tactfully said nothing while attempting a sympathetic expression. The Bishop noted both the silence and the attempt.

  “So, you are to advise me, eh? You have a priestly name fitting for this work—Brendan and Canice, both missionary saints; my Cathedral in Kilkenny is named for Saint Canice, you know. Well, my son, I need you to acquaint me with the strengths and vulnerabilities of your people in a way no outsider could otherwise learn. You shall be my right arm, to aid me in bringing the Irish back to the Church from whence they eelishly slither away at every opportunity.”

  “I shall do my best, but—candor warrants candor, my lord. The Irish … in truth, they may never come wholly to the Church,” the young priest said softly, “yet they cannot but come wholly to the love that is Christ’s message.”

  The Bishop peered at the younger man, deliberating. When he replied, he had to raise his voice above the clamor surrounding them.

  “That is all very well, Father,” he half shouted, “But I shall now venture beyond candor and be blunt. I do not intend to suffer another purgatorial year on your shores. I no longer care if these people come, wholly or partly, to Christ or Christ’s message. I care that they come to the Church, that they obey Church law. I care that His Holiness cease being plagued by outrageous reports from Ireland: parishioners prancing round maypoles under full moons like cats in heat, priests so permissive they refuse to destroy horn-headed carvings that heathen stonecutters have secretly mounted above the north doors of our own churches! And denial of all this! Pretended innocence! As well as shocking incompetence. Delay. Elaborate excuses. Faeries. Imps. Enough whimsy to make a sane man gag. Let me advise you, Father Brendan. It is neither wickedness nor evil that destroys the world, but stupidity and incompetence—and the ceaselessness with which most of mankind practices both is awe-inspiring. But Ireland boasts an overabundance of practitioners. No one accepts responsibility for anything. Instead, there is rampant superstition. Superstition is the mother of chaos.”

  “But surely my lord—”

  “What I care about is order—the foundation for civilizing any country, including this absurd excuse for one. The only evidence of civilization in Ireland is what remains of Roman roads and aqueducts, legacies of what? An imperial order. The Roman Empire brought order to most of the world and then, astonishingly, kept it. With order comes peace. Not the Pax Romana: today that imperial role falls to our Holy Church. But we bring a broader, more beneficent order, governance temporal and spiritual. We teach people how to exist. And our influence has intensified during the decades the Papacy has been in France, allied with the French Court. That is what I care about, Father. An end to superstition. Respect for authority. People knowing their place. The world united under one efficient system, in secular and divine harmony. Civilization.”

  The young priest frowned in confusion.

  “But—my lord … surely the willing heart is brought to God by loving—”

  “Father Brendan. Have I said anything about God? This is not about God.”

  “But, sir, the Irish are a deeply spiritual people who—”

  “—flout the Church every chance they get. Spiritual people do not inhabit the real world, Father. Here in the real world, I assure you, temptations are more subtle, blatant, and formidable than wicked banshees or ghostly apparitions. Religious people! The more devout they are, the more they dwell in poesy.”

  Father Brendan beamed, having found, he thought, common ground.

  “Ah, my lord, but who does not love poetry? Erin is the land of poets. Why, the ollave were Celtic bards who trained for twelve years to pass a test—the Seven Degrees of Wisdom—before being permitted to write or chant poetry. The ollave were powerful sorcerers, too. They could compose an aer, a cursing poem to drive a man mad. And the seannachai—the tale-spinners! I grew up listening to them. In Eire every village has its tale-spinner and its poet.”

  “Well, the world could do with fewer poets and more administrators. Languedoc, Toulouse, Carcassonne—they were also full of poets, along with Cathar heretics. Please. Promise me that you are not going to be tediously defensive regarding your quaint local traditions. Your mission, Father, is to the contrary: to advise me on how most effectively p
apal supremacy can be definitively impressed upon these poor, troublesome, uneducated people.”

  Father Brendan soldiered on. “Poor, yes sir. And troublesome, aye—even with open pride, I fear. But uneducated—is that not unduly harsh, my lord? You must know that as far back as the eighth century, Irish scholars were held in the highest repute across Europe. T’was to honour that tradition I first went to my studies at Kells—where surely you must visit, sir! Erin’s treasures, Erin’s greatest books, the illumined masterpieces of—”

  “—the past, my son. This is the fourteenth century, not the eighth. Ireland has slipped backward into a mire of pagan idolatry. Your precious Erin—by the by, which is it? Erin or Eire? You people seem to use both interchangeably.”

  “They are interchangeable.” Then, wryly, “Why, I am ashamed you could have spent a year here, and no one hospitable enough to teach you that, my lord? Eire is the name in Erse—Erse is Old Irish, early Gaelic. Eire is the older name of the island. But Erin, the poets’ name for our land—after Eryn, one of the Celtic Goddess’s names?—has itself been around for more than a few centuries.” The blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “Of course, you could go back even further, soon after the Great Flood, when the Irish were called The Tuatha de Danaan, the People of Dana—that was another name for the Goddess, you see. Or you could—”

  “I could call it Ireland. As shall you, in my presence,” snapped the Bishop. He might as well discourage this long-winded scholar from such lectures right from the first, or they would never accomplish anything. He had no use for legends. He needed facts. And information on how the local people perceived those facts, strategic information he could use. But the young priest babbled on, trying to ingratiate himself and getting it all pathetically wrong.

  “Indeed, my lord Bishop, with your gift for languages, you might consider studying Gaelic. A lyrical, rich tongue it is.”

  “And a minor one. Also too guttural, which is why I never liked German. No music. Whereas French or Italian … no no, none of your Gaelic. You must do the translating—of words and customs both—for me.”