King Diocletian
Magistrate
I've been struggling with Liberty, so write a very short (for me) and simple scene to try to get going again. Here it is....
I’d left the farm long before dawn. I wasn’t the only one. Nobody wanted to miss this.
Actually that’s not quite true. Nobody quite knew what was going to happen, nobody quite understood, nobody quite believed that they’d actually go through with it. But nobody wanted to risk not being there if they did.
It had been a couple of weeks since I’d first heard the story. I’d been on my weekly trip to the tavern when Tom, in that slightly shifty way of his, had announced that they were going to put Lady Agnes on trial for blasphemy. I didn’t believe him. I don’t think any of us did. Why would they do that? Nobles just weren’t put on trial. Not for blasphemy, not for anything.
I don’t think any of us really understand what blasphemy is. It’s just a thing they use when the church takes against you, or if you do something stupid, like that time all those years ago when daft Huw spat at the priest and got himself 20 lashes. They threatened people with it when there were a disputes or arguments over tithes and very occasionally they flogged somebody for it. We all saw the whipping frame in the churchyard every Sunday, two stark uprights about eight feet high and eight feet apart on the stone platform, but it was only used once every couple of years. Sometimes I’d go and watch if I was in town anyway, and we saw floggings in the marketplace every six months or so, but usually I ignored them. You’d go if it was a youngish woman, which was rare, or somebody well-known, which was rarer.
Over the next few days it became apparent something was up. One of the other shepherds works with a merchant who sells wool to the hall and he was sure of it. He also said that it was some political issue, although nobody was quite sure what: either the church taking on the Portfoy family, which seemed dangerous even if they had been wrangling over the land by the ford for generations, or perhaps a plot involving Agnes’s stepbrother who, at 19, was four younger than her and, they said, didn’t stand to inherit when their father dies. And we’ve known for months that he’s very ill.
We talked about that in the tavern, but in truth I think everybody was just thinking like me. Would they flog her? And if they did, would it be in public? And if it was, would she be stripped to the waist?
I don’t think I’m a cruel man. I don’t much like the mobs who attend floggings, all snide and mocking, pumped up with the lust for blood and bullying. If they’re whipping a woman, of course I go. But I can’t remember the last time they whipped a woman I really found attractive. I remember a whore being thrashed when I was about 10 or 11, a slight blonde girl of 18 or so, creamy breasts pressed against the dark wood of the post in the marketplace as she sobbed through a dozen lashes, and the thought of that still keeps me going on nights when my wife’s ageing body disappoints me. I don’t even remember what her back looked like afterwards although having seen plenty since I can guess.
I’d left the farm long before dawn. I wasn’t the only one. Nobody wanted to miss this.
Actually that’s not quite true. Nobody quite knew what was going to happen, nobody quite understood, nobody quite believed that they’d actually go through with it. But nobody wanted to risk not being there if they did.
It had been a couple of weeks since I’d first heard the story. I’d been on my weekly trip to the tavern when Tom, in that slightly shifty way of his, had announced that they were going to put Lady Agnes on trial for blasphemy. I didn’t believe him. I don’t think any of us did. Why would they do that? Nobles just weren’t put on trial. Not for blasphemy, not for anything.
I don’t think any of us really understand what blasphemy is. It’s just a thing they use when the church takes against you, or if you do something stupid, like that time all those years ago when daft Huw spat at the priest and got himself 20 lashes. They threatened people with it when there were a disputes or arguments over tithes and very occasionally they flogged somebody for it. We all saw the whipping frame in the churchyard every Sunday, two stark uprights about eight feet high and eight feet apart on the stone platform, but it was only used once every couple of years. Sometimes I’d go and watch if I was in town anyway, and we saw floggings in the marketplace every six months or so, but usually I ignored them. You’d go if it was a youngish woman, which was rare, or somebody well-known, which was rarer.
Over the next few days it became apparent something was up. One of the other shepherds works with a merchant who sells wool to the hall and he was sure of it. He also said that it was some political issue, although nobody was quite sure what: either the church taking on the Portfoy family, which seemed dangerous even if they had been wrangling over the land by the ford for generations, or perhaps a plot involving Agnes’s stepbrother who, at 19, was four younger than her and, they said, didn’t stand to inherit when their father dies. And we’ve known for months that he’s very ill.
We talked about that in the tavern, but in truth I think everybody was just thinking like me. Would they flog her? And if they did, would it be in public? And if it was, would she be stripped to the waist?
I don’t think I’m a cruel man. I don’t much like the mobs who attend floggings, all snide and mocking, pumped up with the lust for blood and bullying. If they’re whipping a woman, of course I go. But I can’t remember the last time they whipped a woman I really found attractive. I remember a whore being thrashed when I was about 10 or 11, a slight blonde girl of 18 or so, creamy breasts pressed against the dark wood of the post in the marketplace as she sobbed through a dozen lashes, and the thought of that still keeps me going on nights when my wife’s ageing body disappoints me. I don’t even remember what her back looked like afterwards although having seen plenty since I can guess.