Read Online The Burning Time by Robin Morgan - Free Book Online Page B

need not look so startled, I know something of your personal history—did your scholarly monks never teach you that the word ‘witch’ comes from the old Saxon ‘Wicca,’ which means ‘wise one’?”
    “It is unseemly for a woman to—to so flaunt her learning! It is—”
    “Have no fear. I shall not try to educate you further. I teach only where I am wanted and never inflict knowledge on the willfully ignorant, but—”
    “Your
Grace
, I must
protest
! You insult my—” Yet she plowed on, a scythe leveling a field of grain.
    “—but your accusation of ‘devil worshipper’! How absurd. The devil is more real to you priests than to any of us. Come, come, we really are quite simple. We celebrate the earth and the seasons, cherishing each moment, living not for the promise of some afterlife brandished from afar to make us more willing to tolerate suffering in this one. We dis
like
suffering, you see—which is why we do not deny the flesh as you do, and why the Irish have risen up more than once against tyrannical lords. But we are wise enough, usually, never to
seek
conflict. Leave us alone and we will leave you alone. Though that is not your way, is it, my lord? You even martyr your own followers if you catch them actually believing in the love you preach, do you not? Crucify them first, sanctify them later?”
    The Bishop stared at her, mouth agape, incredulous.
    “Ah, yes. That was quite a superb performance you put on for me just now, Bishop—concern for my marriage, my reputation, my soul.” She clapped her hands in mock applause. A manservant immediately appeared in the archway of the Great Hall, but she dismissed him with a wave, turning back to her guest. “Now let us discuss what your visit is really about. You consider us here in Eire ignorant dolts living in abackwater. But you forget that I can read, and I have means. I employ personal scouts in England and on the Continent, a few trustworthy people who send me news in private reports. I keep up with your Holy Inquisition, you see. I know that your John XXII has issued new papal bulls calling for an outright war against those you accuse of sorcery. I know the Church has its own new blood-sport. I follow all your slaughters, wherein you hunt down and burn alive scores of people, mostly women and girls.”
    “Not without provocation! For being hideous heretical—”
    “For being healers or teachers or weavers, for questioning, for studying star constellations, for wishing to marry whomever they chose or perhaps not marry at all, for seeing visions, for having dark skin or a mole, for disobeying a father or husband or brother or even son, for being too smart or too simple, too rich or too poor, too plain or too pretty. What have women ever
done
to you but bear, nurse, raise, and love you? Does our existence so unman you that you feel compelled to imprison Divinity in a single shape—reflecting
yours
—and then destroy all who disagree? Is
that
not why your pope sent you to Ireland, Richard de Ledrede? To carry your plague of accusation and massacre here? To hunt witches? I see it in your face as if written across your forehead, like a stain.”
    Energy rising in her from the passion of her argument, Alyce began to tremble. But she stood her ground.
    “Hearken to me now, Papal Emissary. These people you call rabble have never hurt you or your church. When your priests threaten them, they peaceably
go
to your mass—but they still attend their own sabbats and hold to their own ways. They are poor, these peasants, but they are also not fools. I give you fair warning.
You shall not harm these people!
”
    De Ledrede blinked hard and repeatedly, like someone trying to urge himself awake from a nightmare. The stone walls rang with Alyce Kyteler’s words, yet her tone grew even more combative.
    “My lord Bishop, you are what we in the Craft call a
cowan
—an outsider—so you would do well to conduct yourself with humility. You are