The Flesh Endures

by Cleo Cordell

  Reaching out he ruffled Clem’s dirty hair, took hold of his ear. ‘So, what have we here? It looks like a dirty little animal, no? Might it taste good roasted? What say you brethren?’

  Clem held his breath, not daring to look into the cold green eyes as Gille’s fingers tightened like a vice, pinching the flesh of his earlobe until his eyes watered. Barnabas picked up the sword which had been resting in the flames. The big man advanced towards him, holding the sword outstretched. The white-hot tip glowed like a beacon, a deadly fire-fly against the background of the night. Clem watched it in horrified fascination, so enthralled by disbelief that he did not scream until the metal was held against his exposed calf. He heard the hiss, saw smoke rising, but at first it felt as if ice had been held to his leg. Then the pain swallowed his soul. His cry of agony rang out clear and true, wavering only as he choked on his vomit. The smell of scorched flesh tainted the air.

  Gille de Peyrac watched the boy writhe, his blood drumming in his temples. There was a satisfying weight at his groin, the heat of excitement in his belly. Cries of pain were music to his ears. He smiled again, his handsome face as pleasant as if he was rubbing down his beloved destrier with a bunch of straw. Ah, poor Valoure. The war horse had taken a lance in the chest and died in agony. It had been an unlucky blow. A peasant – ignorant filth like this boy – had blocked his vision for valuable seconds and the lancer had slipped in beneath his guard.

  Ah, well. The Lord giveth . . . Taking out his knife he cut off a piece of the boy’s ear and popped it into his mouth. Clem convulsed with shock. A string of gluey spittle hung from his parted lips. His eyes were as wide and dark as a frightened hare’s. Gille grinned. They had the whole night to play with the boy and they had only just begun.

  ‘Put out his eyes, shall I?’ Barnabas said helpfully. ‘Send them boiling down his dirty cheeks?’

  Gille made a sound of impatience, his gesture of dismissal almost effeminate in its delicacy. He had small hands, which were clean compared to the rest of his person, ‘No, no, you buffoon. Later. I want to watch his fear. Begin by burning off his hair. It is riddled with lice and I do not favour adding to the number I foster.’

  Clem gibbered, almost incoherent with mortal terror. Until that moment he had hoped against hope that they would free him. Now he knew that he was surely lost. Barnabas put a meaty hand on his throat to steady him, brought the hot iron close to his head. He felt the heat of it against his skull as his hair began to singe.

  The other soldiers looked across with mounting interest. One or two of them rose to their feet. Clem closed his eyes tight shut and began to pray. A thin keening noise came from deep within his chest. He was powerless to stop it.

  And then the woman burst from the trees, wailing like a harpy and laying about her with a wooden cudgel. For a few seconds the soldiers did not move.

  ‘God save us it’s a witch!’ called out one.

  ‘Nay, it’s but a mad woman,’ said another.

  Some of them crossed themselves, others rushed for their weapons. To their eyes Garnetta moved so fast that she seemed to be everywhere at once. The flame-red cloak whipped out behind her as she swung the tree branch back and forth.

  Barnabas cursed and clapped his hands to his arm, where a heavy blow from her club had numbed it. Taken by surprise Gille whirled to face his would-be assailant, a curse on his lips. Before he could draw his sword, he took a blow full in the face.

  ‘Christ and all his saints!’ he burbled through a split lip. His nose, which had taken the force of the cudgel, began to throb and swell. Blood poured down his chin. He ran his tongue over his front teeth. At least four of them had been loosened. Bloody hell and damnation, the wench had spoiled his looks.

  ‘Run away,’ Garnetta hissed through bared teeth to Clem. ‘Go on. Run!’

  Clem needed no second bidding. Despite having to drag his injured leg, he scuttled for the trees. Terror lent him wings. He wove back and forth, avoiding the hands which reached out to grab at his ragged tunic.

  ‘Come then, you brave men who make war on children! Fight me!’ Garnetta called out, spinning in a circle and brandishing the club. She was so fired up with anger that she felt as if she was St George facing the dragon. Even now she did not consider the rashness of her actions. There was a red mist before her eyes, a core of molten heat somewhere in the region of her solar plexus. She did not know where her strength came from, but it felt good. She was powerful, an avenging spirit. There was a point of pressure between her eyebrows. It felt as if light was pouring into her.

  The soldiers held off, watching warily. The glow in her strange eyes, her abnormal strength, alarmed and disconcerted them. How could she, a mere woman, strike terror into their hearts? She must be accursed or perhaps she was an angel sent to punish them for their many sins. One of the men sank to his knees, his hands held out before him in supplication. Crossing his hands on his breast he murmured, ‘Forgive me, Lady of the Rowan. For I have sinned grievously.’

  Gille de Peyrac kicked the man in the side of the head. ‘A pox on your pagan Goddess! There’s your forgiveness! Get up you stupid bastard! Can’t you see that she’s naught but a skinny wench. She might be worth a ransom. That’s no pauper’s cloak she’s sporting. She has probably been found swyving a priest and is fleeing from a nearby nunnery.’

  The other men seemed to come to their senses. They tittered at the picture portrayed by his words. Ashamed of their superstitious fear they moved towards Garnetta. Two of them – small dark men, comrades of the man who had called on the ancient Goddess – held back, their hands held up before them, the middle fingers bent over their palms to form the ancient horned shape which would avert the evil eye.

  ‘Sweet Jesu!’ Gille roared. ‘Take her! Or must I do every task myself?’

  As the soldiers rushed towards her Garnetta felt the first flicker of fear. Instantly her belief in her own infallibility wavered, then died. In her belly the core of heat blinked out. The arm wielding the club suddenly began to ache. Her muscles protested and her arm fell to her side, but she kicked out anyway, screaming and struggling as they fell on her, their faces alight with the prospect of besting her. Garnetta scratched and bit at the grasping hands, but there were too many of them for her to make any impact. The man she had hit in the face barked out another order. A heavy blow landed on her temple. Stunned, only half conscious, she felt a nailed boot connect with the small of her back. The sharp ache pierced her through. Moaning with pain, she rolled onto her side, putting up her hands to protect her head. Fists rained down blows on her, punishing her for her arrogance in challenging the might of men. She bit back her screams, expecting at any moment to feel the cold metal of a knife or sword.

  ‘Enough! I want the bawd alive! Get her up.’

  Rough hands grabbed her, pulled her to her feet. She would have fallen but for the hands which held her upright. Her cloak lay at her feet, pulled off in the scuffle. The fine linen shift was torn and muddied, the neckline pulled down over one shoulder. Panting and spitting blood, she glared defiance at the man who came to look her over.

  ‘Cursed, hell-cat,’ Gille grated, sweeping her with a look that took in her slender form and ended at her bare feet and ankles. ‘Where did you learn to fight like that, eh?’

  She lifted her chin, biting back tears of pain, and saw with satisfaction that both of his eyes were fast blackening. The bridge of his nose was flattened and turning an ominous shade of purple. He grinned without humour, noting her appraisal. Deliberately he trod on her foot, mashing it into the carpet of leaves. The pain was sickening. She blanched, chewing at her bottom lip until she tasted blood. Her whole body ached and throbbed. There was a sharp pain in her back, another in her side. Every breath was an agony. She thought she might have cracked a rib.

  Gille looked around at the other soldiers who wore various expressions of disbelief. ‘Well? Why are you all standing there fly-catching?’

  ‘There’s just the one of ’er,’ Barnabas,
said stating the obvious. ‘Who does she thinks she is, eh? You ought to be holding a distaff woman, not that bloody tooth-pick!’

  ‘She was handy enough with that tooth-pick a few seconds hence,’ Edwin said, smirking. He glanced at Gille’s swollen face without the leader seeing. ‘Mayhap we should ask her to join us!’ The others laughed. Edwin clapped his big friend on the back. ‘What’s amiss, Barny? You ain’t crackin’ your face. You still favouring a sore arm?’

  Barnabas sniggered nastily. ‘It ain’t my arm, I’m thinkin’ of right now,’ he said scratching at his groin. ‘De Peyrac’s thinkin’ same as me, ain’t you sire? Ain’t much to go round though. She’s lean as a skinned hare. A man could bruise himself on those hip bones.’

  ‘There’s enough for me and thee,’ Gille said, attempting to smile and wincing instead. He dabbed at his ruined face with the hem of his filthy tunic. ‘Christ’s bones, she’s given me a better wound than I’ve had in many a battle. For that she will pay. Strip her and bring her over here. I’ll deal with this upstart wench first, then the rest of you can have her.’

  ‘No!’ Garnetta kicked and screamed, every nerve in her body jangling with terror. The spectre of Bunner and Rufus rose up before her. Karolan’s touch had washed her clean of the bearers’ foulness. Their joining in the tower had been a thing of wonder and sweetness. She tried desperately to hold on to that memory as a talisman against what was to happen. The soldiers would take it in turns to rape her.

  At the thought of being violated for a second time, soiled and used like a privy pot, a cold hand gripped her heart. She could not bear it – but bear it she must. Would it help if she stopped struggling, offered to pleasure each of them in turn, begged for mercy? No. They would laugh in her face. Nothing would help her. The man called Gille took pleasure in torture. She had seen him cut off the boy’s earlobe and put the bloody scrap of flesh into his mouth. There would be no mercy from him. Already he had unlaced the front of his hosen. His dangling penis was stiffening, standing up as he caught the acrid smell of her fear, saw the wildness of her eyes.

  Her shift parted with a ripping sound. Willing hands dragged it from her, shoving and pulling her towards a fallen tree. Garnetta tried to focus her thoughts, to call up the strength which had come to her aid earlier, but she was made weak by her all consuming terror. Had she really fought all of them? Surely not. Her bladder relaxed and a stream of urine trickled down one leg. Seeing it, the soldiers laughed coarsely.

  I won’t cry out. I won’t . . . She screwed her eyes shut as they forced her to lie belly down over a fallen log. The rough bark scraped against her tender skin as she struggled. She could not see their avid, cruel faces, but she could hear their coarse voices and smell their unwashed bodies. Her gorge rose. Bile and water rose up from her empty stomach, bursting from her mouth and trickling down her chin. She moaned with pain as two men took hold of her arms, pulling them out to the sides. Another two took hold of her legs and pulled them apart. Her hip and shoulder joints protested. She thought she might be pulled into four quarters.

  ‘You take her mouth, Barnabas. I’m for the tight nether portal,’ Gille said, stepping between Garnetta’s wide-spread thighs.

  Garnetta was held fast, unable to do more than twitch a muscle, and forced to endure Gille’s cruel, pinching fingers. He took pleasure in pushing his fingers into her dry passages, tugging on the sensitive lips of her sex. Tears ran down her cheeks as those holding her arms pulled and slapped at her breasts, but she did not cry out. Not until Gille spread her buttocks apart and rammed his cock hard into her anus. The pain was terrible. She sobbed and rose up against her captors, feeling delicate membranes tear and warm blood run down her thighs. Gille ripped into her, scoring her soft skin with his manicured nails, timing his thrusts to match her screams. Something gave in one of her arms, the hot ache of it almost lost in the torrent of other sensation. Despite her valiant efforts to hold herself apart from what was happening to her, Garnetta began to beg for mercy.

  Then her mouth was stopped by Barnabas’s onslaught. She gagged again at the smell of his unwashed parts. Stale urine warred with the cheesy smell of his member. Overlaying everything was the sour taint of his sweat. Holding the shaft of his cock, he stuffed it into her mouth, splitting and bruising her lips. He tasted like rotten meat. Gasping for breath, retching as the foul organ butted against the back of her throat, she writhed and twisted in an access of distress. The violation was both physical and mental. She strove to free her mind, to give it wings to fly, but the pain kept her earth-bound and she was spared nothing.

  Gille made certain that she suffered as much as possible, using his maleness as a weapon. Each of his thrusts bruised something inside her. Her whole world narrowed to pain. It was raw-edged, gnawing at her vitals. Blackness hovered at the edge of her vision, but she remained conscious. It seemed an age before Gille mashed his belly against her buttocks one final time and spilt his seed into her bowels. At almost the same instant, Barnabas gave a great shout of triumph. His thick fluid filled her mouth. When he pulled away she choked out the semen on another gush of her blood and vomit.

  Held in a space between agony and abject shame, Garnetta did not at first register the change in the men around her. Someone was screaming, a hoarse sound that held terror and surprise. Her ears still rang with the echoes of her own distress, so it was a moment before she realized that it was not herself but Gille and Barnabas who were making the sounds.

  ‘God! Oh, God! Look at it! Look what the whore’s done to me!’ Gille screeched, his voice almost a falsetto. ‘Help me someone. Oh, Christ! Oh, Sweet Jesu, it hurts!’

  Barnabas bellowed and capered in front of her, his hands clasped to his groin. His lips were pulled back in a rictus of agony, showing dirty stained teeth. Garnetta lifted her head to see that thick, dark blood was trickling from between his fingers. Ropy trails of it were dropping to the forest floor. The men holding her limbs let go. She straightened slowly, painfully and looked at the two screeching men in confusion. Gille’s eyes rolled back in agony. He fell to the ground, hunching over and jerking spasmodically. A litany of curses poured from between his lips.

  Edwin hurried over to his friend and tried to prise Barnabas’s hands away from his groin. His craggy face wore an expression of shock. A survivor of many campaigns, Edwin had seen men blown apart by culverins, men with torn and splintered limbs protruding from gashes in armour, but he had never seen anything like Barnabas’s privy parts. ‘Christ in Heaven, the fucking bawd’s done for him!’ He called out. ‘Barny, lie still. I’ll get the bag of sulphur powder from my pack.’ Desperately he mouthed the invocation to stop the flow of blood. ‘Sanguis Christi Maneat in te sicut Christus fecit in se! Sanguis Christi Maneat in te sicut Christus fecit in se!’ He had recited it a hundred times over men in battle, but had never thought to say it over a comrade slain by a wench. No one moved to help him. Edwin looked around at the others, taking in their looks of superstitious horror and confusion.

  Gille still writhed in agony on the ground, his lower belly and hosen stained crimson. He lay in a spreading pool of blood. Edwin’s lips thinned. He took charge. ‘Someone get over here! You take Barny’s hands. I can’t see what’s amiss for all the blood. Keep a hold on that bitch-witch. She’ll pay for this pretty mess when I’ve tended to Barny and de Peyrac.’

  Garnetta sagged against the fallen tree, feeling the weight of the branch against the small of her back. She felt light-headed, her senses dulled by pain and terror. It occurred to her that she could try to run away while they were all concentrating on the injured men, but her legs would not bear her weight. She hurt all over and could no longer distinguish what pained her the most. The stickiness of blood and semen cleaved her buttocks together. Her own blood slid on her tongue.

  When two of the soldiers grasped her arms, half dragging, half carrying her to where Gille lay, she had no strength left to resist them. Moaning weakly, she sank onto her knees and found herself looking into the face o
f her tormentor. Gille’s eyes were open and unfocused. He shuddered, his body arching into a final bow of agony. A dry rattle came from his wide-open mouth. He twitched once more and then lay still.

  A moment later Edwin let out a great cry of rage and sorrow. He grabbed his friend’s shoulders and shook him hard. ‘No! Don’t die on me, Barny! Ah, no. Oh, dear God!’

  The silence was absolute. No one spoke. No one moved. Slowly Edwin leaned over and closed his comrade’s eyes. He was pale under the weathering of his cheeks. After a moment he rose and walked over to Garnetta. Ignoring her he reached down to Gille, removing the hands which were still clutched to his groin. He held away the hands which seemed to be wearing wet, red gauntlets.

  ‘See what the witch has done?’ Edwin said through gritted teeth. ‘Look well, all of you.’

  There were gasps of horror as the damage was revealed. What had been Gille’s penis was now a scrap of raw flesh. What skin was left on it was black and charred. There was a raw hole where his scrotal sac had been. His thighs and lower stomach looked as if they had been flayed. Strips of muscle glistened wetly in the wounds. He lay in so much blood that it was difficult to believe that there was a drop left in his body.

  ‘But I did nothing . . .’ Garnetta managed to choke, as horrified by the sight as those around her. ‘It was they who hurt me . . .’

  ‘Aye, and they’ve paid dearly for it.’ Edwin’s face hardened. He grasped Garnetta’s chin, forcing her to look at him. ‘You’re no fallen nun, nor yet are you as innocent as you look. It is unnatural for a woman to have the strength of three warriors. What in God’s name are you?’

  Garnetta whimpered, near to collapse. ‘I don’t know . . . Mother of Christ, help me.’

  The soldiers closed in on her. Three small, dark men, their swarthy skins denoting their Celtic heritage, arranged their hands in the ancient sign of warding.