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Eremites by Anel Viz © Anel Viz
They put him to the question, but he’d withstood it. In vain. Kip, beautiful, gentle Kip, had immediately succumbed to the pain and confessed. It was in Kip’s nature to yield. Now Tol lay, broken, bleeding, half delirious, on the straw of their cell, crawling with vermin, his head on Kip’s lap, waiting for morning. Kip was weeping quietly. Every now and then a hot tear would land on his friend’s cheek as he stroked his hair. “Forgive me, Tol. I couldn’t stand it. Now we’ll burn at the stake.” “We’re goners anyway. You see what they did to me. Will it hurt that much more to burn than festering in agony for weeks before I die? I’m glad you spared yourself the torment. I’m glad you’re here, still whole and beautiful, to comfort me.” Tol’s hands were crushed, his palms livid and blistered from the boiling water. The splintered ends of his shin bones poked through the shredded skin. He hadn’t been able to move his legs since his spine snapped on the rack, but he could feel the pain. The guard outside their cell kept close watch, as if they might yet turn themselves into birds and fly through the tiny window ten feet above them. Soon a monk would come to hear their confession. What was left to confess? Kip had told all. Confessed, but not repented. The Inquisition required that they acknowledge their sin and the rightness of its terrible justice. It would not save them. Heretics could recant, even some witches were spared. Not him and Kip, not the sin against nature. Lip service – in their heart of hearts they could not deny their love. What did he regret? Only that he had given in to his desire for this angelic man, weaker than he, who trusted and adored him. Kip did not regret even that; he only blamed himself that the torturers had wrung their secret from him. God would not be fooled if their offense was indeed unpardonable. He remembered their kisses, the wonderment of touching and being touched, the desperate embraces, the fear of discovery. He remembered Kip’s sighs and trembling frame when he abandoned himself to the ineffable pleasure of possession, how he entered him slowly, carefully, lest the scepter of his passion cause this frail man the slightest discomfort. He remembered the terror in Kip’s eyes when they’d dragged him out of the interrogation chamber and dumped him on the floor, his pleading when they led him in in turn, and the single shriek that pierced his heart five minutes later. The priests had stood by, grim and smug, and watched the lay authorities slowly break his body before they handed him over to them for execution. Neither the scourging they had undergone nor their death must pollute those hands that blessed, absolved, and turned the wine and bread into Our Lord’s blood and flesh. Hands like Pilate’s.
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