Tuesday night in the church’s dungeon, Barbara Moore is taken from the garrote, a heavy collar is locked around her neck, her wrists are placed in irons and fastened to the metal belt, her elbows are pinioned tightly behind her back, and rude rusty iron gag is pushed into her mouth and fixed behind her neck before she is stood up and chain is fastened to the collar. Barb would spend the night bound like this.
Outside, the woman that had been bound to the stake since early morning is about to be burned at the stake as the closing ceremony of the evening.
Every two hours the jaw-breaking iron gag would be removed from Barbara’s mouth and she would be asked if she would confess and every two hours she would refuse. At three AM she not only refused but her refusal was laced with obscenities even Tree cannot believe came from her mouth!
But hunger, thirst, and exhaustion are taking their toll. By Wednesday morning it has been 48 hours since she last slept and 42 hours since she ate or drank. Standing all night with so little sleep would have difficult enough but having over 80 pounds of irons and chains fastened to her made it all that much more fatiguing. At nine AM as the irons are removed Barb is asked again if she wished to confess. Sleep deprived she had to as what would she be confessing to. She still looked bewildered as the charges are read but shakes her head no.
After she is freed from the chains and irons she is brought to a wall and her wrists are bound to two rings over her head. At first she is grateful to no longer have her elbows pinned behind her back but that passed as what would be a three hour flogging began.
The flogging stops and Barb is brought to a cell that has a window looking out onto the market square of Little Brampton and is told to watch for the next hour. As an incentive to Barb she is told she could have an hour’s rest. She rises on her toes and grabs the bars to help steady her as she looks out the window.
It is lunch break at the gallows in the market square and three dead witches will hang from the gallows until the hangings resume at 1 PM. She sees a topless woman walking through a corridor in opened in the crowd by constables. In general the crowd, while leering at the woman, remained respectively quiet as she walked towards the whipping post on a mound half way across the square from the gallows.
She is quite beautiful I think as she comes closer. I think I recognize her but as tired as I am I can’t place her. A monk steps up next to me and says “You knew her as Helen in your room in Eastwick but after she joined the Order of Penance and Punishment she has taken the name Sister Perpetua. Saint Perpetua was killed in an arena directing a sword to be driven through her throat when she refused to renounce her Christianity.”
“That’s so touching. If she’s such a good Christian why did she lie to get me here” I ask.
“Miss Moore when Helen was sent to us she was with child. Her parents are very… well established shall we say. Due to a generous contribution to the diocese instead of being hanged the next market day she was sent to the convent of Sisters of the OPP to carry the child to term then serve one year of hard labor.
“She was less enthused but decided it beat dying at a young age. As the year passed she acclimated to the life of hard labor instead of being a pampered child and when it was time to send her home she asked Mother Superior if she could serve another year of hard labor and then be trained to become a sister of the order. After she testified against you for her penance for succumbing to your spell she was ordered to pray the Rosary fifty times while kneeling on a wedge of wood and suffer 15 lashes in the market square. Her reply to the archbishop was she would pray 100 Rosaries and asked for thirty lashes for her sin. I doubt a holy woman such as she lied about you” the monk says.
“Holy woman, she sounds like a certifiable masochist to me” I reply and my thought is reinforced as she steps up onto the block and willingly raises her arms to have her wrists bound to the whipping post.
-Barbara Moore
Sister Perpetua is bound to the whipping post and in short order receives 30 lashes with a cat-o-nine tails.
When the flogging is done Sister Perpetua pleads to receive double the lashes for her sin. She is denied her request- for now- as Sister Angel is waiting in the wings for her turn at the whipping post. She is none too pleased with the novice since it has been decided if thirty lashes was good enough for novitiate Sister Perpetua thirty lashes was good for the other three sisters that framed Barbara. She prepares to go to the whipping post.
TREE