Posted by romantic on October 31, 2000 at 18:12:07:
"Chelmsford Assizes, 31 October 1647: Jenny Kilmey, you have been found guilty of consirting with demons in order to harm others. The sentence of the court is that you be taken from this place to a place of lawful execution where you will be hanged by the neck until dead."
The Witchfinder General has ordered that we now execute the convicted witches one by one, so that all but the first may witness the deaths of the others. Today it has been a duty I undertake with confusion in my heary. all five witches have been women from my village whom I knew. We have just lowered the body of the fourt, Elizabeth Howe, a young wife whose adulterous lover accused her of bewitching him in order to save himself from the gallows. We throw her in the cart on top of the other three. I see these women stacked like cordwood, but as I look at the pile of their barefeet at the end of the wagon, I see their individuality. Elizabeth's large and strong lay atop the pale pink soles and coffee brown tops of the feet of Minnie, Lawyer Morton's Barbadan serving woman, condemned for practicing her "heathen rites" in her employer's home. Next, the rugged but still elegant feet of Mary Watkins, a widow accused by her daughter-in-law of causing a miscarriage. Mary's toes brush the slender, white feet of Sarah Watkins, said daughter-in-law, accused by Mary's family of plotting her murder. I wonder at the guilt of all these women.
We have saved for last Jenny Kilmey. a 20 year-old maiden who actually confessed to have intercourse with Satan. I am shocked as Jenny and I grew up together on adjoining farms. Nevertheless, it is my sworn duty as an officer of the court to carry out the executions of the condemned witches. My partners, Peter and Samuel, lead Jenny to the gallows. It it really only posts and a lintel set up in the stones of the strand. I appoach Jenny, read the sentence of the court, and place the noose over her head.
"William!" she says breathlessly, "you must help me. I am innocent of these charges!"
"But Jenny," I tell her, "ye have confessed, I have seen the signed document."
"Confessed?!" she cries. "Look!"
She rips her underdress down the fron to her navel, exposing a dozen scars of the hot iron on her milk-white breasts. I first stare in shock, then turn away embarrassed. I have no power in these matters. I must execute the court's sentence.
I step back and nod to Peter and Samuel. They haul on the rope, lifting Jenny off the ground. This is not the quick painless death of the axe at the Tower. The condemned strangles under her own weight. The executioners tie the rope off and leave her suspended for a full ten minutes to ensure death. That is the law. Jenny struggles, her tiny feet lashing, trying to kick at her executioners. She tries to shout or scream, but all she can make is a horrific gasping sound, a sound from Hell itself. As she struggles, the dress falls from her shoulders, once again baring her breasts to us. I want to cover her, but Peter holds me back. "Leave 'er be. The whoor'll be dead in two minutes."
Peter is right. In about two minutes, Jenny's kicking is reduced to twitching and her hellish gasps to whimpers. Soon all motion and then all sound cease. The feet that had kicked furiously now swing peacefully above the pebbles.
After a few more minutes, we lower her to the ground. I arrange her dress so it covers her again. Peter and Samuel throw her body on top off the others. I marvel at how small and white her feet look beside Elizabeth's and Minnie's. Soon they will all lie in a common grave in unhallowed ground. God's will be done.