In the end, however, the Mayor was not concerned about most of the information confessed by the thieves, for it was discovered that most of them were either orphans or had been abandoned while very young. Only one of them had anything that aroused the Mayor’s interest.
This particular young man had a tattoo of a black rose on his chest. He had been born in the woods on the hills outside of Voldya, the son of a woman who had lived alone since the death of her lover. She had died when her son was still a child. She had also been a follower of the old Voldyan religion. Shrouded in myth was this ancient religion, a faith considered vulgar by the modern priests, and its rites for generations had been denigrated as nothing less than the veneration of demons and evil spirits.
While the young man’s companions were sent to the public scaffold, the Mayor goaded him to confess all he remembered about his mother and the old rites she’d practiced.
The youth eventually recalled everything he could: that his mother had been a devotee of Od, and that she had a wolf which she believed relayed her prayers between earth and the abode of her god.
The particulars of her faith her son could recall was only foolish practice in the eyes of the Mayor and the inquisitors, but one item did rouse their interest: that from time to time this woman entertained in her humble abode men dressed in wolf furs. The son recalled that underneath these furs the bodies of these men were adorned with red markings.
Upon further inquisition the thief conceded that perhaps these markings were blood, and under further torture, he avowed firmly that, yes, the markings had to have been blood! He was compelled thus to say that when these men came to visit that his mother also entertained them in her bed, for the mornings following these visits it was his mother’s customs to bathe straight-away.
The priests among the inquisitors took this information as proof that she had glorified in some gory rite. They further claimed this all proof that the old gods were not only demons, but their followers, such as this woman, were murderers. All manner of vile concoctions they deduced from the final confessions of the young man.
He was nearly starved by the time the inquisitors were finished with him, and his body ravaged by the wounds of his torture. And though his confessions may have sounded like the ramblings of the ill to others, the inquisitors delighted in the foul charges against his mother that they interpreted in his words.
The Mayor, contented at last, proclaimed the youth was a heretic and sorcerer and ordered his execution. But the youth was not to be sent to the gallows; he was sentenced instead to be burnt alive in the town square.
Now the Voldyans who came to witness the burning were much aghast at this method of ending the young man’s life. Thief that he was, they were not used to seeing such brutality. Some of the more prestigious Voldyans, friends of the Mayor or well-associated with the privileged councilmen, applauded his body being consumed by fire.
But more frightened than the reaction of the populace was that of the priests. For just before the first faggot had been lit the youth looked upon his accusers and proclaimed that Voldya would be devoured by a fierce and merciless beast.
The priests took this as evidence that the youth’s demons had been summoned to take retribution on his account. The Mayor tut-tutted their fears, but there were some amongst the councilmen who, upon listening to the priests, agreed full-heartedly that the youth had spoken something about the curse of the Black Rose.
By the end of three days, when the faggots had cooled enough, the ashes of the youth were swept up and taken to a ditch at the end of town and there deposited and covered over with lime. And when night had descended many of the Voldyans who had thought the Mayor’s verdict had been savage came to pay their last respects, while others came out of simple curiosity.
Later, these mournful talked about the thief and his mother, and a general interest in the old religion was cultivated. The youth’s life story was turned into a saga by the city storyteller, who sold editions of this tale at a price inexpensive enough that anyone could afford to read it.
The local troubadours were inspired to write a new ballad titled, The Black Rose and Her Son. Even the guild of actors wrote new plays to immortalize the same Black Rose. A popular form of commerce it came to be for the shield makers to create plaques painted with stylized icons of groups of men, all wearing wolfs’ skins and dancing in a circle. Just as popular were the more sentimental icons of The Black Rose strolling through the wood on the arm of her son. The Voldyans were delighted by all these things the artists and writers produced, which seemed like nothing more than harmless entertainment.
But the Voldyan priests were anything but delighted. The brotherhood implored the Mayor to do something to stop the citizenry’s fascination with the Black Rose and her heathen followers. They reminded the Mayor that idols and mementoes of the depraved were not to be tolerated; and to stress their concerns they repeated the curse issued by the condemned youth.
Now the Mayor, for the service of having burnt the heretic, had been rewarded with a great cross of silver from the thankful Archbishop who resided in the lands to the south. And from the King the Mayor received the title of Earl and given lands far in the north. The Mayor mused over the priests’ request for some days, and eventually saw the opportunity of enhancing his reputation further by taking some measure or more to curb the activities of his citizenry. His would not only be a wholesome component of a wholesome kingdom, his would be, without doubt, the most wholesome.
And so the Mayor issued the order that interest in the Black Rose, her son and her heretic religion was illegal. The citizens were given two days to bring all manuscripts or icons to the public square to be thrown into the pyre built just for the purpose for destroying the outlawed material.
The troubadours were no longer allowed to sing about the Black Rose, and the actors banned from performing any play that referred to her or her heretical religion.
In a move to show the public he meant business, the Mayor placed heavy fines on the storyteller and the authors of the plays. Their works, he declared, were only literary promotion of delinquency. Anyone caught with these items in their possession would be, from hence forth, subject to heavy fines as well.
The Mayor confiscated one of the icons and gave this to the Sheriff. This icon the Sheriff hung in his office so all the deputies in the future would know on sight what one of the outlawed icons would look like. The Mayor, upon confiscating the original copy of the storyteller’s saga, stored the manuscript away in a chest in his office.
This he did in case the King –considered liberal by the priesthood- might ask for evidence of the lurid nature of the cult of the Black Rose which had dictated such harsh measures.
The Mayor was proud of the results of his decrees, and icons and copies of the saga were burned by the hundreds. As the bon fire grew higher the priesthood had taken to the streets to listen to the conversations of the crowds coming and going.
They heard the disgruntled words of the Volyans, and deemed that the fascination with the old religion still clung to popular interest. They knew that some had secretly hidden more icons in their homes, and a few even possessed copies of the saga. Thus, the priests conceded that the Mayor’s decrees were not enough, nor ever would be as long as the old religion held appeal for even one Voldyan.
So the priesthood convened in their temple to discuss a means which would scare the unrepentant populace into disdaining the Black Rose once and for all. They knew the real details surrounding the old religion had been lost in the mists of time, but they also knew that ignorance was no great hurdle for the devout.
They whiled away the hours of the forthcoming night by weaving tales of how it must have been during the ancient times… of the inequities played out by the old heathens and of the sins they surely had committed.
Each priests’ tale was more lurid than his brother, and by the time dawn appeared they were so frightened by these stories they were quite relieved to see the light of day. T
hey had come to the conclusion that the old heathen ancestors were immoral indeed, practitioners of the most heinous of crimes. They had their scribes record every tale they weaved in a great scroll. But which of these crimes, they asked one another, would most persuade our flock to stop making evil the subject of intellectual interest?
As they pondered this question one of the priests happened to peer out the temple window overlooking the street. His attention was sidetracked by a mother and small child, walking hand in hand along the pedestrian by-way. A large boar, apparently escaped from its pen, scrambled up the by-way from the opposite way.
Upon seeing the woman and child its ears lowered and it grunted and swung its tusks angrily. At once the mother whisked the child into her arms, and several men came up and threw stones at the animal to drive it back the direction it had come. The beast snorted and turned, and as it began to run, one of the men told the woman he would tell its owner of how the animal had behaved. “Surely,” the man assured, “if the farmer is to slaughter any of his herd this year, then he will choose this one, lest it harm a child.”
The woman kissed her child and the priest saw how very relieved she appeared. He turned to his brethren and told them what he’d just witnessed. The priests were excited, for now they knew which of their grisly tales they should tell their flock in order to encourage fear and dread and most importantly, compliance.
So they went to the streets of Voldya, a priest to every street corner and two more at the doors of the town hall. They divulged to every listening ear the horrible tale of how the old heathens had indulged in an appetite for the flesh of young children. There was, the priests declared, an annual selection by lot of one child amongst all the progeny of the city inhabitants.
This child was killed and roasted and served at a banquet for all the adults to enjoy. But this practice, the priests warned, had not been enough for many, for the heathens regularly laid in wait in the places where the children customarily played.
When chance arose, the priests elaborated, these men and women would pounce upon the unsuspecting child and kill him or her. The bodies of the murdered children were then dragged to the homes of their killers and there prepared as dinner.
The Voldyans were horrified by the priests’ tale. They did not know what to believe, and went to the Mayor for council. The Mayor, not notified of the priests’ secret meeting, was aghast and called for the High Priest.
He ordered them to tell him this tale of the old heathens’ cannibalism. And so the High Priest recanted the tale and the Mayor, ashen by the implications, asked for proof of these things. So the High Priest showed him the scroll in which the scribes had recorded all the tales, and after the Mayor had read the last one he reckoned that such a pious document could be nothing less than the chronicles of the Divine.
That evening the Mayor sent out the town criers with the proclamation that the old heathens had been child-eaters, and that anyone -whether citizen or visitor- who held any interest in the old rites must be supporters of child-eating, or worse, secretly child-eaters themselves.
The consensus amongst Voldyan majority regarding the Black Rose changed as quickly and as drastically as the priesthood had hoped. The majority began to attend the religious services with more gusto, in the hopes that the Heaven would pardon them for their wrongful past sympathy with the old religion. More than this, this majority demanded harsher penalties against any and all suspected child-eaters. These demands the Mayor was happy to meet. Amongst the harsh preventive measures the Mayor approved were the laws governing the possession of Black Rose paraphernalia. Anyone caught in possession of the saga or the icons were condemned for degeneracy and sentenced to torture and death.
The majority of Voldyans were content and proud of the new laws. Wholesome was their kingdom, they deemed, for this strict outlawing of child-eaters. But it came to pass that the loom of the law was not enough to make the Voldyans feel safe. They judged it best and wise to stop any possible revival of heathen sympathy by silencing the original source. So they dragged the storyteller into the street and killed him with their pitchforks.
Next, they sealed the actors in their guild house and set it afire. And before the smoke had cleared in the sky they rounded up the makers of the icons and dragged them to the town square. Here the former shield makers-turned-icon painters were put to the flames in the same manner as the son of the Black Rose.
But not even this was enough for the concerned citizens of Voldya. The citizens grew suspicious of one another; and saw evidence of criminal intent with each petty neighborhood quarrel, and every family squabble.
The police were kept busy day and night by accusations from the outraged citizenry, and soon there was a line to the torture chamber.
Eventually, all suspected child-eaters were led to the pyre to meet their last penalty, but the line did not stop. The time came that all the regular inquisitors and deputies of the law were accused. At length the sheriff was alone in his station and had to call upon the priests to volunteer in the torture chamber.
The priests were soon charged by those they tortured, and they in turn, accused those who tortured them, including the High Priest and Sheriff. This made for a great commotion in the torture chamber, a commotion and dilemma that eventually spread to the streets and concerned those left in Voldya. Who is left, they said, to torture and burn these last degenerates? They discussed the matter and came to the conclusion that it was indeed their responsibility as the only Voldyans left.
The Mayor was sitting in his office reading a missive he’d recently received from the King. The King commended the Mayor’s handling of the recent child-eating epidemic that had apparently spread like wild fire through Voldya. For his good works the Mayor had been sent a medal and offered the hand of the King’s favorite daughter in marriage.
The Mayor was so elated by his good fortune that he did not hear the door of his office open. But after a time he heard someone speak his name. Looking up from the missive he saw standing before his desk a large assembly of children. Their faces were sober and their demeanor solemn. Startled, the Mayor asked why they were in his office.
A youth amongst the crowd came round the Mayor’s desk. The Mayor pondered why the youth was so informal and without seeming respect to the station of a public officer. He wondered where his secretary was and how these children had even got past the man. He also wondered why these children were not at home with their own parents. All these things the Mayor asked of the youth just before the boy took from his vest pocket a length of sturdy rope.
“My father was Sheriff,” the youth answered, “and next to the last suspected of the heinous crime of eating the young.”
The Mayor felt his skin prickle and asked, “But why are you here in my office? I am not responsible for the legal repercussions laid upon others suspected of child-eating.”
“No,” the youth said, “but he told us that you were the one who gave him the icon of the Black Rose which he had hung so flagrantly in his office. Thus, you are suspected of child-eating, Mayor, and will allow us to search your office and home. If you are innocent there is nothing to fear.”
The Mayor watched as the children ransacked his office, and his heart plummeted when they found the original copy of the storyteller’s saga in the chest. At once the Mayor was seized by the children, who bound him securely and led him from the office to the torture chamber.
So did the children of Voldya find the Mayor guilty of degeneracy. They cut off his tongue and broke every bone in his body, and finally carried him to the pyre in the town square where they set him aflame. With the Mayor’s death the city of Voldya was no more.
The children who had served as the remaining executors of the law changed its name to dismantle all ties with the sins of their fathers and mothers. The city they built was more wholesome than most, and the pride of its citizens and leaders. There was no tolerance to be found in this enlightened place for superstitious idols or mementoes. Most notably scorned
was any written word about antiquated practices. For like all virtuous people they knew that the surest path to moral degeneracy lies in the reading of it.
The Day The Classic Romances
Met The Internet Reviewers
by
Desiree Erotique©2007-2008
*Note* Originally posted at Novelspot
Just pretend that the writers of literary Romance classics are alive and must start out, like many modern authors, by publishing within the e-book industry. My bet is that for the Masters of the written word, the critic reactions might prove a little unexpected once they’ve submitted their book to the kind of review sites typically found online. Here are some “critiques” I can imagine:
GONE WITH THE WIND, by Margaret Mitchell
Review summary from online review site, Bitches Who Love Romances:
Scarlett O’Hara is just the kind of kick-ass heroine that appeals to me! This novel’s background of wealth and old southern aristocracy was riveting, even if the war scenes often tedious. (IMHO as reader here: The author could have easily transplanted the plot into a less controversial era and still maintained the romantic possibilities!) Now while Ms. Mitchell teased me with the possibility of a good juicy romance between the determined Scarlett and the sensitive Ashley Wilkes, she unfortunately chose to pair her heroine with alpha-male, Rhett Butler. Obviously, some readers may be “turned on” to the prospect of the alpha-male taming the shrew theme; but thank god this never materialized!!! Be this as it may, in the end Mitchell let me down by turning the previously wonderfully bitchy Scarlett into a total drool slut for Rhett. Then, after a stormy marriage there’s the death of a daughter –WHF???- (PUH-Leese people, leave the procreating to real life!) Anyway, the insufferable Rhett abandons Scarlett (from his POV she’s become nothing more than a conniving, domineering she-devil). Rhett Butler is just another example of male hormones gone into overdrive; the kind of guy who measures his virility by chivalrous displays toward sappy females like Melanie Hamilton.
Adieu, Bonjour Page 5