“And so, for the crime of Heresy, you are to be burned at the stake until dead.”
All in all, you could say his day started badly.
***
Mitt Larsen paced his cell.
He could hear screaming from one of the interrogation rooms.
In the cells next to him were two men. They were bound and hooded. The guards would take turns to spit on them, defecate in their food. At night he heard muffled screams coming from their cell and tried, hard, not to think about what was happening then.
***
The rules: Punishment is carried out 24 hours after sentencing.
He had one day to make his peace.
***
Mitt knew the risks he was taking. Teaching had become a Divine Right.
And teaching evolution, and belief in a world outside? Well, that was just asking for trouble.
But it was in his blood. His parents had home schooled him. He started when he turned twenty.
Five years was better than most people got.
***
At the time of the Burning, a priest came to his cell accompanied two Inquisitors. They tried to coerce a final confession from him. He had heard it was to be “grueling.”
Knowing you are going to be tortured never prepares you for the brutality of it.
He withstood the beating. As his nose broke he considered the irony. He would have turned to God to comfort him at times like this. That thought almost have made him cry, but the pain as they brought a mallet down on his foot was more pressing.
It didn’t really matter what they did to him. It wasn’t like he’d need to walk after today.
He was gagged, bagged and dragged in out to the press. He heard cameras flash, but he could see nothing.
People shouted questions at him. They all took his silence as defiance. He heard the priest tell them that he was in league with Evil Doers and was unrepentant of his crimes.
At least they had the last bit right.
***
Eventually he was strapped to the stake. The executioner talke while he worked.
“You’re not getting a sedative. You’re going to feel this. You’ll be alive when your belly splits, you’ll smell your insides cooking. You’ll not be able to hear us laugh over your own screaming, but we will be laughing.”
There was a wet sound. Followed by a thud.
The executioner had stopped talking.
There were shouts of alarm, gun fire, an explosion off to one side – and then nothing save a high pitched whine.
Mitt waited. The silence was worse than the pain. He tried to call out, but the gagged robbed him of his voice.
He was sweating – could feel his back wet; feel the drops running over his skin. He strained to hear.
Steps! Steps walking along the pathway to where he was waiting.
“This is it.” He sobbed. The wait seemed endless.
And then his hood was pulled off. He blinked hard against the light. Hands were behind his head, loosening the gag.
“Sawy abaht the wait, there, mate. Bloomin guards didn’t kna whenna fawl dahn. KnowotImeen?”
Hands reached out to him. Mitt Larsen collapsed, sobbing, as he was carried to freedom.
