by Dave Watson
One of the soldiers who had been restraining Agnes has taken notice of her fine features and shapely body. As she writhes gasping on the ground, her homespun shift ridden up around her thighs, the soldier’s tongue wets his lips in lust. He tells his captain that he’s never fucked a witch before. Several of his comrades claim the same.
Densmore gives his consent, and orders that the witch be taken to the caves beneath the cliff to receive immediate justice. Agnes is dragged away by her hair, screaming and kicking all the way down the path that descends the cliff face to the beach and into the dark network of tunnels beneath Bennane Head. The villagers use the caves only as a communal latrine that the river cleanses with the coming of each high tide.
Densmore watches from atop his horse, smiling slightly in approval.
Cairns leads ten of his men in carrying out the Sheriff’s command in the caves, and afterwards finishes the violated, beaten and bloodied woman with a dagger to the belly. Her corpse is left among the shit to be washed out to sea with the tide.
The village is put to the torch. The livestock slaughtered and the people of the settlement, wailing in bewildered horror, are fettered together in a marching column, wrist to ankle. Men, women and children, babes in arms included.
Alexander Beane, their unofficial lord and protector, is dragged semi conscious behind a horse from the burning village.
The road from Bennane Head to Edinburgh is long and hard.
The captives, chained together like wayward cattle walk, stumble and crawl for two full days without food and only the barest minimum amount of murky water to keep them alive. Their ragged exile is harried along by the horse mounted soldiers. Hard, cruel men are they. Beatings and rapes among the prisoners of the Earl and Sheriff of Ayr are common on the road, and not all the villagers make it to the capital. Several of the old and sick, a couple of the women, and more than one infant babe perish on the forced march to the nation’s capital. They are the lucky ones.
The dungeons of Edinburgh castle are worse.
Overseen by a grotesque giant of a man known only by the innocuous name of Anderson, the dark depths of the King James’ seat is a waking nightmare for any unlucky soul who should find their future in its dank embrace. The surviving villagers of Bennane Head are cast into this black hell, half starved and screaming. In the past two days, all have lost their home, their freedom, and their very humanity. Several have lost kin.
Captain Hugh Cairns comes on the first night of their incarceration and seeks out Alexander Beane, finding him chained to the wall along with his fellow captives. Cairns squats in front of the battered village leader, and solemnly describes in detail how he stabbed and killed his wife Agnes after he and ten of his men had repeatedly raped her. There is a deadness to Cairns’ voice and eyes. When his baiting elicits no response from Beane, who keeps his eyes downcast and refuses to react, Cairns eventually gives up and leaves. He has other business in the dungeon.
Cairns has noticed of late how sloppy some of his men’s martial skills have become, and he desires that they be more efficient with their weapons. To this end, ten of the captives are led from the dungeons into a courtyard and bound tightly to thick, tall stakes driven into the ground. They are used for weapons practice.
Later, Cairns returns to the dungeons and again squats in front of Alexander Beane, this time recounting how those In the courtyard had died, twitching and rent from spear, axe, sword and arrow wounds. Cairns does not seem to take any joy in these strange confessions, remaining as animated as a rock as he describes his butchery. Indeed, there seems to be a terrible sadness in his eyes, yet somehow at the same time, not so much as a glimmer of anything that could be called humanity.
The head jailer Anderson also pays a visit to Beane that first night in the dungeons. He has taken a twisted, predatory interest in Alexander Beane's eight year old daughter Marie. A skinny, ethereally beautiful blond haired waif with huge eyes of the palest blue which she inherited from her mother. On that first night in the dungeons, Anderson comes to the crowded cells and drags her away from her frantic father, who this time struggles with all his might against the unyielding iron chains. Little Marie is carried away to Anderson’s private quarters, and her father is forced to listen to her screams that echo about the cold stone walls the dungeon.
Now come the Questioners, led by a tall gaunt man by the name of Lachlan Griffiths. He is not long returned from Rome, where for the past eight years he has studied the methods of witch finding. He is also the King’s most trusted advisor, mentor and tutor in the ways of Satanism.
Every day, coldly overseen by the skeletal Griffiths, each of the captives are subjected to the talented hands of his torturers. No exceptions. On Griffith’s order, the children are the first to be interrogated. Torn away from their screaming parent’s arms, they are taken and put to the question. Some do not return.
They all confess eventually.
It is only a matter of time before the instruments of the interrogators loosen their tongues, often literally. The tools of torture are wielded with extraordinary skill. Some white hot, others cold, hard and very, very sharp.
All the sinners have to do to make the pain stop is confess, Griffiths whispers to them.
And they confess.
Oh, how they confess.
They confess to entering pacts with daemons, of bringing plagues, misfortune and sorrow to the God fearing small folk of the land. They confess of their abilities to turn themselves into animals, of having familiars and of partaking in wanton, lustful nights of deviant sexual revelry in the company of devils.
They confess it all. Yes, they are the perpetrators of the deathly scourge that has plagued the south west coast of late. They confess to abducting, murdering and devouring countless lost travellers. Men, women and children; all taken and eaten indiscriminately. Hundreds, maybe thousands, all assailed on the road atop the cliffs at Bennane Head and dragged into the labyrinth of caves below to be butchered and consumed.
They confess it all, just to make the strange, hard men with the dead eyes stop.
One among the torn and brutalised remains of the village population refuses to confess, however, regardless of what they do to him. They burn, cut, gouge, twist and stretch him, yet still he does not confess. He will not confess, because Alexander Beane is consumed with hate. An uncommonly strong hate that few ever truly experience. A hate so all consuming that even the brands, blades, ropes and spikes are to no avail. The kind of hate strong, bright and violent enough to attract a certain kind of attention.
To some, hate is sustenance and currency.
For three full turns of the moon, in the depths of Edinburgh Castle’s dungeons, the systematic torture and rape of the small folk of Bennane Head continues unabated, and their leader’s white hot hatred grows stronger and more potent still with the passing of each agonising day.
By the time the guards march them to the courtyard for the public trial, fewer than half of the original population remain among the living.
The trial itself is a mere formality. Beane and the others are kept in squat cages in full public view, pelted by the baying crowd with rotting vegetables and effluent while the court, presided over by Sheriff Densmore, passes its judgement. Through their own confession, they are found guilty of practicing witchcraft and the abduction, murder and cannibalisation of the unknown scores of innocents who have gone missing from the south west coastal area that year.
They are sentenced to death, by way of purification by fire.
As the verdict is read out, Beane, caged along with the pitiful remains of his village, holds his daughter close. The child has not spoken a word since the first night Anderson took her, and her eyes, once so full of light and life are empty, vapid pale blue pools of despair. Heartbroken for his child, he tries to take solace in the fact that their suffering will soon be over, and death will release them of their torment.
Yet through his sorrow and yearning for an end, the hate within him burns
stronger and hotter than ever, and a terrible thirst for retribution outweighs his despair.
As the pyres are prepared, an unseen entity slinks among the jeering crowd. A presence that takes delight and feeds from all the hate, fear and prejudice so prevalent in the air this day. The negative energy that pours from the yelling mob, and from Alexander Beane in particular, is like a beacon to this thing, which is known by some humans knowledgeable in the ways of daemons, as Ozay. A creature of chaos, it thrives on Beane’s hate and senses opportunity.
The sentence passed, the doomed villagers of Bennane Head are dragged wailing in terror from their cages. They know the fiery death that awaits them, and some cling in desperation to the bars of their iron pens. Captain Hugh Cairns orders that their grasping hands be struck from their arms in order to hasten proceedings, and they are carried to the pyres, hacked ragged stumps bleeding on the ground.
When they come for Alexander Beane and his daughter, four guards are required to wrest the mute, limp child from her screaming father’s arms. He struggles valiantly, in an enraged frenzy of hate, and only a fierce blow from a sword pommel to the back of his head which knocks him senseless is enough to end his brief but futile struggle.
And as the blackness takes him, the creature Ozay moves in and begins whispering.
Do you hate, son of man? Does your soul not burn with hatred?
The voice, purring and seductive, comes slithering into Alexander’s subconscious like a black snake. All around him is darkness. He cannot see, hear, smell, touch nor taste, yet this voice he can sense in his mind somehow, and he finds he can answer.
- Who are you?
A friend, Alexander. These men, these hateful, cowardly men have killed, tortured and debased you and your people. Your wife, raped and left to die in shit, deep in the caves, with your unborn son already dead in her belly, snuffed out of existence, insignificant as candle flames in a tempest. Your daughter. How Anderson violated her sweet innocence! These men have taken it all from you, and yet they name you murderers, cannibals and heretics. In the name of their god, they judge you, and now your people will burn for your crimes.
- I am innocent. My wife, my children, my village are all innocent.
You need not tell me this, Alexander Beane. I know you are a good man. The guilty are those that accuse you. This is known to me. The good Sheriff and Earl of Ayrshire Labhrainne Densmore and his acolytes are the one’s who have wrought so much blood from the land this past year. They sacrifice in the name of a myth they call Satan, who is no more real than the God they falsely profess to worship. Densmore knows you are innocent. He knows you have done nothing, yet still you and yours are riven and burned at his command. ‘Tis not right.
- But why? Why did Densmore come to our village? Why would he choose us? We have harmed no one.
You were betrayed, good Alexander. Look to the people of Ballantrae for your accusers, my friend. With jealousy and suspicion, it was they who sent the good Sheriff to your hearth.
- I will kill them all. I swear it. Every single one who had a hand in this. From the grave and the void if need be, I will take my due, paid in their blood.
No. You will burn and you will die, my friend. Nothing can change this. But there is a way.
Tell me, good Alexander, what would you give for vengeance? What would you give to see those who have wronged you suffer as you have suffered?
- Anything. Everything.
Speak true now, son of man. I seek no earthly possession that you, nor even a king, could offer. My price is that which is eternal and everlasting. Do you know of what I speak?
- My soul? You wish my soul? So be it. Take it. It is yours. I have no more need of it.
And your daughter’s. And those of what remains of your people. You are a good man, Alexander, but you are tainted by hate, and your soul alone will not pay for your vengeance. As her father, it is your right to offer your daughter up to me. As the first among your people, their souls are likewise under your protection. The spirits of you and your people will soon be wasted and lost to the void, but give them over to me and three will suffer and die for every one of your people that have perished. Your village numbered forty and eight. I swear to you that one hundred forty and four of those who that have wronged you will pay, and pay so dearly as to make your own torment seem a pleasure. This is the way of things, Alexander. What is reaped is always sown threefold.
- You think me a fool, daemon? I know from whence you come, and I will not condemn my daughter nor my people, to Hell. I care not what you offer in return. Take my soul, do as you will with it, but my little Marie’s suffering ends this day, and she will have peace.
You speak of what men call Hell, Alexander? Hell is a fancy and nothing more. It is a fiction invented by the very caste of men who now burn you and your daughter alive. And why? It is no more than a tool used to control you with fear. There is no hell, good Alexander, other than that which men create for themselves. Nor is there any such fallacy as heaven; that paradise to which they promise your soul will fly should you bend the knee to these hypocrites. Your soul, and your daughter’s, are nothing more than collections of energy that scatter to the void when your flesh expires. But to me and my kind, your soul, your light, is useful and need not be wasted.
Fear not the fires that the liars call Hell, my friend, for you are already there. Hell is what is happening to you and your villagers as we speak. As your body sleeps, the pyres are lit, with you upon one. Your daughter is bound atop another. Parlay with me and your suffering will end, and those who have done this to you will pay dearly.
Among those condemned, I offer four of your choosing who will be the first. Name me four principles and their suffering will be legendary. One among the four you name will be cursed above all others, and will endure centuries of torment, for I will personally haunt and feed from them for all generations until their very seed is erased from existence and their line is extinguished. And more; the people of Ballantrae will feel the wrath of your vengeance, for they are the ones who brought this hell upon you.
These are generous terms I offer, but decide quickly, son of man. As we dicker here, little Marie’s golden hair is aflame and the fires lick at your flesh.
I may be what you call daemon, Alexander Beane, but I do not lie.
At that instant, Alexander Beane regains consciousness. The black silent void is violently torn away and he finds himself engulfed in flame, bound to a stake atop a woodpile. The pain is monumental, colossal and all consuming. His flesh blisters, bursts and runs like tallow from his bones. Around him are other pyres which hold the last of his people, and his daughter. They are all as torches, screaming hideously.
He agrees to the terms.
The searing agony of the fire is gone in an instant, as if it never was, although his body burns still and he yet clings to life. The voice of Ozay returns to him.
We have an accord, Alexander Beane. While you still can, give voice and name me your four principals, and the one most accursed above all others.
Alexander Beane looks out from his pyre across the people gathered to watch him and his people roast. Before his eyes explode in their sockets from the terrible heat, he seeks out and in turn roars the names of his four chosen.
Griffiths.
Anderson.
Cairns.
Labhrainne Densmore, and his blood, are accursed above all others.
The voice speaks again.
It is done. When next the sun rises, you shall have your vengeance.
They name you cannibal, and so cannibals they shall be. I will give them hunger such as they have never known, my friend. Griffiths, Anderson and Cairns will feed upon the flesh of Densmore, then they will visit slaughter on the folk of Ballantrae until three lay dead for every one of your people. The Densmore line will be cursed for all time until their seed is no more.
The last thing Alexander ever sees is the appearance of four black wraiths that now stand behind the shoulders of the four me
n he has cursed, invisible to all but him.
And he laughs until he can laugh no more.
Ironically, the one only who did not confess to the Questioners was the one who at the end, was guilty of consorting with daemons.
When the burning is over, and Alexander Beane and the remains of his village are reduced to ashes, the crowd is dispersed. Justice has been done.
Lachlan Griffiths receives word to attend the King immediately, and makes his way to the throne room, oblivious of the unseen entity which now follows his every step.
Upon his arrival, King James dismisses all present in the room, servants and nobles alike. When only His Highness and Griffiths remain, James begins to speak.
The Earl and Sheriff of Ayr, his bastard son Labhrainne, has lost control, and risks much, he says. The King James edition of the Holy Bible has been in use throughout the entire realm for almost a decade. Should the truth of this matter at Bennane Head ever be known, the entire kingdom, the church and even Christianity itself could be thrown into chaos.
He commands that Griffiths dispose of the troublesome youth whose appetites have put his very rule in jeopardy. Likewise, Anderson the jailer, Captain Hugh Cairns and his men, and Labhrainne’s acolytes in the south are also to be silenced. All who know the truth of the matter must take the secret to their graves.
The King promises much in return for this favour. Lachlan Griffiths will take Densmore’s place. The rank of Earl and sheriff of Ayrshire, and the role of high priest of the New Southern Coven will be his. Once the madman is dead, Griffiths is to take up his new post immediately, and remain there in his family's new seat in Ballantrae. Part of his role there will be to ensure the legend of the Beane clan is kept alive. No one must ever know the truth, or the whole monarchy could crumble. The coven must also be kept quietly alive, and James charges the Griffiths family to always serve their religion, and under his protection, to make but a single human sacrifice each year.
In the King’s name.