Barrington J. Bayley
THE SINNERS OF ERSPIA
ONE
The Sinners
Histrina scarcely dared raise her head once she was in the chapel. Eyes downcast, she followed the tonsured acolyte across the tiled floor, walking between slanting slats of hard white light which entered through narrow openings high in the walls. They were like arrows picking out stone recesses and elaborate wood carvings in the cool, otherwise dim place of worship. She passed before the altar upon which a small flame burned in front of a polished stone figure, automatically pausing to press the back of her hand to her forehead in the traditional sign of submission to the Good Lord.
Then she came to the little confessional room where the priest was waiting. The acolyte disappeared through the drapes, returning after a moment. Punctiliously he folded his hands. “The Father will see you now, my child.”
Her heart beating wildly, she went in. Sitting in an ornate upright chair, wearing a maroon cope, the Father smiled at her kindly, the wrinkles of his benign face creasing.
She obeyed as he motioned her to kneel on the cushion before him. The small room seemed to enclose them both as if nothing else existed in the whole of Erspia. Only the cheep of a bird somewhere outside broke the heavy silence. There were no windows. Light came from an oil lamp on the nearby table.
Clenching her hands together, she tried to avoid looking directly at the Father’s large polished boot. She felt utterly in his power.
The Father sighed and then uttered a brief recitation. “Heerwecumlord, lighten us our bodily burdens.”
He sighed again. “So why are you here, daughter?”
The question was ritualistic. “To accuse myself, Father.”
“And of what do you accuse yourself?”
“I—” She swallowed. “I have been having thoughts, Father.”
“Tempting thoughts?”
“Yes, Father.”
“The Evil One sends bad thoughts to us all, my child. You have been taught how to resist them.”
“I don’t think I can resist them much longer, Father.” Her words came out abjectly. “They are too strong.”
“What is it the Evil One is trying to make you do, child? Hurt someone?”
“No… well, yes, sometimes he tries to make me do that. But I can resist that by concentrating on good thoughts, as we are taught. This is something else. Feelings that keep making me want to—to—”
The priest leaned forward, almost eagerly. “Yes, daughter?”
“There is a young man, Father,” she said demurely. “I keep wanting to… do sinful things with him.”
The priest leaned back, sighing again and tutting to himself. “All is clear. This is the Evil One’s most powerful weapon. The body itself collaborates with it, for the body is full of darkness and corruption.”
Her voice was a whisper. “What can I do, Father?”
“The Lord will help you to fight these thoughts.”
“But it is so difficult, Father. They are so overwhelming. Especially when night comes—”
“Yes, the Evil One is stronger at night. Stronger than the Lord himself at times. But he must be fought. If you but once give way to the lecherous thoughts he puts in your head, you will instantly be his. He will force you to do other things as well—steal, murder, lie. He will banish all the good and clean thoughts that the Lord sends to you, and your life will be one of wretchedness and crime.”
“Yes, Father. But help me—help me to be strong.”
The priest’s voice became stern. “You can help yourself, my child. When the Evil One’s fever comes over you, when you imagine that you can resist no longer—and you must believe me when I tell you that you always can resist longer—then call on the Lord by his secret name.” He leaned forward again, placing his hand on her bowed head. “I am instructing you in this because you are obviously in danger. You were told this name when you were confirmed in the ways of the Lord. Can you remember it?”
“Name, Father?”
“Yes.” His lips brushed close to her ear. “Ormazd!” he hissed. “Call on Ormazd in your time of strife. He will hear you.”
“But is that certain, Father?”
“Nothing is certain, my child,” the priest answered sadly. “The Lord and the Evil One both struggle for our souls. Who wins depends on what we love most. But you must pray—pray to Ormazd, the sacred name of God the Good. Pray tonight and every night, when temptation comes in the dark hours.”
She felt both his hands pressing down on her scalp as he mumbled a blessing. He signed for her to go.
She pulled open the wood-panel door, pressed through the drapes and found the acolyte standing outside. Histrina had arrived specially early. Others from the village were beginning to file into the chapel now, forming a queue outside the confession rooms. She stepped silently past them, not meeting their eyes.
Outside, she realized she felt strengthened a little. Tomorrow she would be at confessional again, and the priest would ask her how she had fared during the night.
Oh, how would any of them ever be able to keep the Lord’s way were it not for these daily sessions of advice and encouragement? Without the church, she was certain she would have fallen into the torments of sin long ago.
Yet for all that, this was the first time she had dared to confess the yearnings for lechery that of late had been stealing over her.
The small, bright sun was no larger in the sky than a peppercorn, and was dipping down towards the sharp edge of the horizon. On Erspia it was never possible to see very far. One could walk to any point on the horizon in a matter of minutes. To the eye it was as if the world were no more than a shelf of rock and soil that the sun was about to slip under.
Histrina, however, had never known any other world. To her this close little scene had the homeliness of normality. Night approached and birds were twittering, flying to their nesting places in the trees. She quickened her step to retrace her path to the village.
The road wound between stone-roofed cottages. An unexpected silence greeted her as she lifted the doorlatch to her parents’ house. No one was there. They must be at confession, she thought. I must have missed them on the way. Oddly, she had thought they had already gone that afternoon.
Then, on the kitchen table, she found a note. Have gone to see the Arrands’ new baby. Won’t be back till late.
Unaccountably her heart sank. Somehow she didn’t went to be alone in the house during the long evening.
With an abruptness that she had begun to find frightening, the sun winked below the horizon. Darkness began.
Already, it seemed in her imagination, urges were beginning to well up in her. She lit the lamp in the living room, then knelt before the family shrine, and prayed.
“Good Lord,” she whispered, “deliver me from these unclean thoughts. Let my liking for Hugger be pure and friendly. I don’t went to dwell on his body like this, O Ormazd.”
She heard a noise, and gasped. But it was only a knock on the door. Rising, she went to open it. A handsome, smiling young man stood there. He wore a jaunty hat with a feather in it, and newly pressed shirt and breeches. In his right hand was a lance, which he leaned against the wall.
“Hugger!” she nearly shrieked.
Still smiling, he placed one foot in the door. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”
Limply her hand fell from the latch and he was in, closing the door behind him. He extended a hand. “The kitchen is no place to talk. Shouldn’t we go into the living room?”
“I suppose so. But you shouldn’t be here. My parents are out.”
“Yes, I know. I saw them going towards the Arrands.”
It distressed her that he should come here and find her alone, but it was a distress that was rapidly turning to excitement. She led him into the living room, where she immediately set herself down before the shrine and began to pray once more, silently and intently, with eyes closed.