Chapter 116: Tell me, what's the plan?

I'm not often sensitive about my title but the way he said it, with scorn and disgust made me ache to put my thumbs through his fucking eyes.

“You,” he went on, “Who consorts with vampires....”

“Technically,” I interrupted, “there hasn't been any “consorting,” done yet. We're kind of waiting for our wedding night for that sort of....”

“You, who are friends with mutants.”

“Yeah ok, you have me there, but I'm not a mutant myself so....”

“You, who supports your family in their deviancy....”

“Well that's just a case of the fact that Sam doesn't like to wash his......hang on....what?”

“Your sister, lying with another woman, and a Sorceress no less.”

“You're telling me that my sister is a deviant because she prefers the romantic company of women to the company of men? I prefer the romantic company of women to men, so I don't understand the problem. Unless you're still holding to the political practices of Hemmelfart in condemning female practitioners of magic.”

“It's an abomination.”

“Who says?” I demanded.

“The scriptures say so.”

“No they don't.”

“It is an abomination.” He insisted before taking up a position as though he was about to deliver a proclamation. “And lo it was said to them that Man shall not lie with man and woman shall not lie with woman as it is an abomination.”

“No it doesn't. It says nothing of the kind.”

“I....”

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“It doesn't say that.” I insisted trying to catch his eyes as well as the other men around them. “I looked it up. What it says is that “You shall not lie with man as with a woman. It is an abomination.” Which is quite an old and vague statement. First of all, who is the “you” in the statement as that might suggest that even women aren't allowed to “lie” with men. Speaking of which, define “lie” for me. Does that mean lying down or telling lies? In short does that mean that I'm allowed to tell lies with, or to, a woman but not another man?....Bit harsh on the woman there. The other verse from the same section that talks about this kind of thing actually says, “If a man lies with a male then both have committed an abomination.”

“Still not a condemnation of what my sister and her lover do. It refers only to what men do to each other.”

“Be silent.”

I ignored him.

“So what they get up to in the privacy of their own homes is actually ok according to the scriptures.”

“The scriptures tell us that such things are evil.”

“No they don't. They tell us nothing of the kind. By the way, if homosexuality is a sin, then I saw one of your knights committing that same sin with someone as I came through the cloister earlier. I told you about it earlier and you said nothing then either. Not very moral of you there. Sounds a bit like....One rule for us and another rule for everyone else. So, now that we've cleared up the fact that what my sister gets up to is absolutely fine, according to the scriptures, then we can move onto your next point please?”

“The church has long said that a woman's proper place is to please their husbands. Not their wives, their husbands.”

I laughed at him again. He was trying to fight me on my battlefield. Kerrass knows about swords and monsters, Emma knows about Boardrooms and mercantile meetings. But this? This is my place. The debate of ideas and what people said historically and why.

“Yes they did. They did indeed. They told women that for many years, that their place was to be seen and not heard. You know why? There are three reasons. The first reason is that for a religion to spread then it needs more followers, the quickest and easiest way to do that is for children to be born into the religion and so they want the women to be little baby making machines to pump out the next generation of fire worshippers.” Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“This is blasphemy,”

“The second point is that most of the other early religions. The ones that predate the holy fire and the landing at the Yaruga. Gods and Goddesses like Veyopatis, Melitele, even the Lionhead.”

“Say not their name here.”

“Don't worry, I won't but I don't think that there is much desecration that I could do that you scum-fucks haven't already done.

“But Melitele is a female religion for women. Veyopatis is well known to have many priestesses.”

I laughed at a sudden thought.

“For the ignorant in the audience that's the word for female priests.”

“Oh you are going to burn in the purifying fires of...”

“The only religion that is almost exclusively male is the worship of Kreve. I find it interesting that that's the one that has been adopted by the eternal fire and the same, vice versa. The priesthood of Kreve probably wanted some kind of ally against all the women that were hanging around, being all divine around the place.

“That's another reason that women are told that they're second class citizens so that they don't get ideas above their station and start to believe that they might be able to start becoming important people in the church. The senior priests want the priesthood to be a boys club where they can all sit around and jerk each other off with how powerful and wealthy they are.”

“A priesthood that includes your brother.” Someone shouted. I craned my neck to try and see who it was but they were behind me.

“Yes. Brother Mark is considered a progressive which is why Sansum here doesn't like him very much. He likes doing things like, giving all his money away to provide food and shelter for displaced war refugees and allowing anyone who has a calling to support the church.”

“Arch-Bishop Sansum,” One of the knight's in front of me insisted. Sansum had retreated from my constant stream of words and was examining the implements of torture.

Jerome came to me again as I saw Sansum pick up something that looked like a vice. Jeromes voice drifted to me from out of the murmuring in the crowd.

“Pay no attention to the revealing of the instruments. Torturers use it as a method of intimidation. They will take out a table and from some kind of bag they will take their time setting out knives, bodkins, thumb-screws, needles, bottles of unidentifiable stuff that you won't recognise, syringes, hooks, straps, gags, funnels, tubes and all kinds of other things. This technique works on men of excessive imagination. Men who like to feel as though they're in control of any given situation. Men who inflict pain and like to feel as though they are the boss. Nobles who beat their servants, priests who abuse their congregation, wife-beaters and child-abusers.

“They know the horrible abuses that can be done to a person and they see, in the displayed implements, everything that they have ever done to other people and they are afraid of having it done to themselves. Ignore them. Most of them are for show. Proper torturers have methods and they only need one or two individual methods of causing pain or discomfort. Good torturers rarely need anything more than a knife or a hot piece of metal.”

I nodded my acknowledgement of the point and tore my eyes away from what was happening.

“Now where was I, ah yes. My third point. This goes back to the founding of the eternal fire. You have to have studied this kind of thing to find it out. I'm a historian so I spent a good amount of time looking into the historical basis for some of the more.....wacky parts of scripture but I was interested in. But in this case we're going to talk about the founding of the cult of eternal fire.”

Someone had brought one of those fire-bowls up to where Sansum was setting himself up. I watched as he put a poker deep into the hissing fire.

“Don't look at it.” Jerome told me. “It is only pain. You've known pain.”

“So yeah.... When we, I mean humanity. Came to the mouth of the Pontar we found the Elven ruins on that place that we now call Novigrad. Yes, I'm sorry to the doubters, Novigrad is not purely the product of human ingenuity. The Elves got their first in the same way that they did for a lot of the “great” cities of mankind. Vizima, Trotogr, Vengerberg, Nilfgaard City. Toussaint doesn't even bother hiding it. But anyway back to the story.”

Sansum gestured to one of the knights who drew a dagger and came towards me. I had already been stripped of my leather armour. He took hold of the collar of my shirt and used his dagger to strip me of the garment.

“That was a good shirt,” I complained. “Not that I object that much.” I told him, “but at least buy me dinner first.”

Not the greatest joke in my arsenal but you work with what you've got.

“The colonists came to Novigrad and they climbed up through the city and across the bridge up to where the cathedral now rests. Most of the colonists were establishing camp and it was only a few of the settlers that had chosen to explore. Nor did it happen at the point of landing. They didn't land and then walk up the road to see what was going on, they needed to make sure they had somewhere to sleep first and that there were proper supplies laid in for when times got a bit harder as they always do in these early settlements.”

Sansum had pulled on a huge leather glove. The type that blacksmiths use when they had to hold onto hot metal. He drew the poker from the fire and examined the end. It was certainly hissing smoking but he didn't seem satisfied. I assume that he wanted the metal to be red or even white hot before bringing it over. A bit of a ridiculous hope to me as the little firebowl was certainly hot, but it takes real heat to be able to make an iron poker glow red.

“So anyway, the colonists were mostly sorting themselves out when a small group of kids, young kids, no more than sixteen at best, got bored with all of the endless chores that go with establishing a new settlement and decided to go and explore.”

My lips were getting dry and I had to lick them so that I could continue speaking.

“Off up the hill they walk and they came to the ruined elven building, probably a temple, that had been deserted for some time and they saw a bright, warm glow emanating from it. There, they found a large fire pit, huge it was, easily ten feet across.”

“The scriptures say that it was fifty feet,” someone called.

“Does it now?” I answered with a smile. “The only person that would say that the “Bowl of Flame” was that large would be someone who hasn't actually seen it. I have, I was taken to Novigrad by my parents at a young age so that I could be baptised into the faith. I had already been baptised in my families shrine but they kind of just wanted to make sure. I've been back and seen it many times. Even describing it as ten foot across is probably a bit of a stretch.

“But....the scriptures say nothing of the sort. The scriptures describe a bowl, but mostly they are too busy talking about the fire rather than the bowl that contained it.

“Also,” I went on. “The whole point of the eternal fire is that we need to keep it alive. It isn't an entirely supernatural flame, it needs fueling. Can you imagine how much wood and oil it would take to keep a fire burning where the bowl was fifty feet across. My understanding is that, as it is, the church has to maintain several forests of it's own in order to make sure that the fire never goes out.”

I was babbling now. Sansum had withdrawn the poker again and was advancing on me.

“Continue please, heretic,” he told me. “I am interested in hearing the remains of your story.”

“Which story?” I asked him. “The one about the founding of the church of the eternal fire? Very well. So this small group of children went into the temple and they found the bowl and the flame. They found that there hearts were gladdened and they felt a sense of security that they had not felt before. That they had not seen before....”

I screamed as the hot metal was touched to the side of my arm. It wasn't held for long but it felt like it took for ages as my flesh started to cook.

Again my brain went somewhere else. I was still conscious now but at the same time I could see Jerome sat on a chair watching the whole thing.

“There are several ways to deal with the pain.” He told me. “First of all, you have to understand that the use of pain is there for several reasons. One of the main ones is so that he can exert control over you. He wants to show you who's in charge of the situation and that he can do anything he likes to you. The pain is a means to an end. So what is his end? Remember that he hasn't asked you any questions yet.

“Secondly. Focus on what you want out of the situation. Never believe that you have no power as you sit in the chair or are strapped to the table. You have everything that the questioner or the torturer wants. As I say, it's about power. He wants something from you. Whether that is information, a confession, or an acknowledgement of power. He wants you to beg for him to stop, is the most common example. That's the point when the questioner asks his questions or pushes the confession over the table for you to sign your name.

“So you have to decide what you want out of all of this. If you wish to survive then you must play for time until he starts to get desperate. Then you start to give him what he wants, but in stages. Think about what information that you can give him and in what order. What's the least important piece of information that you can give him? Can you get away with lying? But ration the truth. Don't spend the coin of truth in one go, other wise he will think it was all too easy and just jump straight back into hurting you. So what do you want from him?

“But above all, don't let him take charge of the situation. Be in control, be smarter, be angrier, be stronger than he thinks you are. Fight him. Remember that he can only see and hear what you show him.”

I nodded my thanks to Jerome's apparition and wondered if I was losing my mind.

Then I wondered if it mattered.

I looked up at Jerome who was standing over me. He was examining the small part of my skin that had stuck to the hot metal of the poker. I drew my lips back in a snarl.

“But then.” My voice came back. “But then they looked over and they saw a man, or at least they thought that it was a man, scripture certainly said that it was a man, but he was sat next to the fire as though he had been tending to it. They greeted him warmly and asked who he was and he told them, “I guard the Eternal Fire; so long as it will flame in this place, so long this city and your kin will endure” The kids ran off downt he hill to tell the people about this, other colonists went up to investigate the fire and indeed found it there but the man who told them about this had disappeared and although they searched for him, he could not be found.”

It was as though Sansum had listened to my story for a moment as though he had been caught up in it before he nodded, and pressed the poker back to my flesh. At first I tried to clench my jaw against the pain. I tried to show them that it wasn't affecting me. I looked over at Jerome's face.

“I was talking about combating pain.” he told me. “Remember that what he is doing is torturing your body to get at your mind. Your soul doesn't care, he can't touch your soul, but that's what he's doing. Hurting the body so that the mind rebels. Your body is a complex system full of nerves and veins and capillaries. Instinct and intelligence all wrapped up in a giant, leather bag, mostly made up of water. So how do you combat pain?

“Your body knows what it's doing. Let it get on with the business of being hurt. Right now it is flooding your body with adrenaline and other chemicals to help combat the pain. Help it. Get angry. Get more endorphins flowing. Let your body scream if it wants.

“But always remember that he is hurting your body to get at your mind. He can't touch your mind so he's going for your body.”

I looked away from Jerome and back up Sansum. I let myself smile.

“So,” I said clearly. “These kids told of what they'd seen far and wide. They spent their time tending the fire and spreading the word of what they had seen.”

Sansum turned and went back to the fire-bowl before pushing the poker back into the hottest part of the furnace.

“Eventually,” I went on. “Followers of the warrior god Kreve came and listened to the children's tales of what they had seen and got together and agreed that what the kids had seen was an aspect of their God Kreve. This, in the biggest example of different religions joining with each other in an effort not to get wiped out. Hell, even the traditional “enemies” of Melitele and Kreve got their shit together when they were threatened by the eternal sun from the south. But I digress.”

Sansum had taken the poker out of the fire again and was examining the end unhappily. I could see that he was arguing with someone about it but neither side seemed particularly happy about it.

“I've completely gotten turned around with this and lost my point.” I told my audience. “Ah yes. I was talking about women in religion. Here's my point. Something that I learned from the study of history over scripture.

“Scripture tells us that there were two founders of the Cult of the eternal Fire and that they were friends called Samuel and Terrence.”

Yes, long time readers, my brother was named for one of those two men. One of my points of gratitude towards my parents was that I wasn't named after Terrence. Frederick is bad enough as it gets shortened to Freddie but I'm not sure I could cope with being called Terrence.

No offence to anyone out there called Terrence.

“We know that the two friends became very protective of the flame. Scripture tells us that they had two ideas and therefore that the cult of the eternal flame should have two branches to the church. The first branch should be martial and proactive in the protection of the flame. This was headed up by Samuel as he was the more martial of the pair. He told his friend that in order to keep the fire burning then it needed to be protected from anything that might cause it and the city harm.

“He would go on to travel the surrounding lands, hunting out those monsters that might grow to threaten the growing city of Novigrad. He had some luck at the pursuit before he tried to take on a dragon and got eaten for his trouble.”

My audience rumbled their discontent at this statement. Sansum was coming back with his poker. “St Samuel was martyred protecting the city from monsters.” He intoned, “we should all be so lucky to martyr ourselves in such a way.”

“In which case, Witchers should be saints too as they regularly die, protecting areas of civilisation from monsters.”

“Which they charge the people for.” Sansum protested.

“Who is going to give the Witcher something to eat then. You?”

In place of a retort, Sansum pushed the hot metal against my other arm. This time he dragged the metal down my arm.

I let my body scream. A scream that left me panting for breath when it was done.

“What's the matter?” I snarled as the pain began to recede back to the agony of burnt flesh. “Couldn't come up with a better retort?”

This time he went for my shoulder.

I found some laughter in the depths of my belly when he was done.

“Every time,” I told him. “Every time you fail to respond to one of my arguments. You prove me right in the face of your followers.”

He examined the metal again before turning back to the fire.

“So Samuel got eaten by a dragon. We don't know much about him really as it was Terrence that tells us most of these things, including the fact that Samuel got eaten by a dragon when it's much more likely that he died shitting himself to death by the side of the road, given the time that he was travelling around. Terrence had stayed in Novigrad and wrote his famous letters to the various Kings and Queens of the continent, preaching the good word of the eternal flame.

“It's from his writings that we know about Samuel's martyrdom at the hands of a dragon. It's from these writings that we get the commonly held tenets of faith, including the thing about Homosexuality and the hatred of monsters. He told us that the holy flame keeps us safe from monsters which is why it must be protected at all costs. It's from these things that pricks like you find their justification from committing appalling acts. He preached protection. It was him that set up the two arms of the church, the knights and the priests. It was him that ordered the fires built and he was the first Hierophant of the Church of the Eternal fire. Stealing the term of “Hierophant” from the druids as he went.

“What he didn't mention was his sister.”

Sansum had withdrawn the poker from the flame again and was advancing on me.

“That's right,” I told him. “Saint Terry had a sister. It wasn't just two male friends that went up to the fire it was also Terry's sister. We don't know much about her because her brother spent a good amount of his time ignoring her and having her name taken out of the records.”

This time I didn't even try to stop myself from screaming.

“Because Terrence and his sister didn't get on.” I continued after a moment. “She would tell everyone things like “We need to see the fire as a welcome, as the warmth of comfort and a beacon in dark places.” and “We need to use it to guide people towards their homes and make Novigrad a place that they would want to travel.” She used to preach that “The fire is not literal. The fire is not something that only exists in the church but also in ourselves, that we are the flame and we need to carry that warmth of hope and compassion and comfort every where we go.” As Terrence got more and more tyrannical and extreme in his views, his sister got more...”

I screamed, and screamed and screamed.

“How dare you speak against St Terrence, the first of the saints?”

“But he wasn't though was he. There were plenty of saints before him. I think you might have meant to say that he was the....”

I was cut off again as the agony ripped through me. The earlier burns were throbbing in the heat of the place, the salt of my sweat was getting into the injuries and making them hurt even more.

“She told us that The Fire needed our help. That it was meant as an inspiration, rather than a scourge. But Terrence was the one that wrote to all of the important people. His sister walked among the poor and the dispossessed, doing her best to help those people less fortunate than herself. Other records of what she did were destroyed. That's why women are kept down and haven't been allowed in the clergy. It's because Saint Terrence wanted to stop people from listening to what his sister was saying and listen to him instead. He wanted his sister to know her place.”

“You condemn yourself out of your own mouth. There was no such person. The Fire protects us from monsters and keeps us from harm. It is sacrilege to even suggest otherwise.”

“It hasn't done a very good job of it has it.” I pointed out. “Three wars, the last one of which, we lost.”

“No.” He grinned, “It's not the flame that has deserted us. It's we who have deserted the flame. We use magic. We consort with monsters and allow the use of magic.”

“Yeah, about that. Here's an interesting thing, and again I quote from actual scripture. “And the flame shall cast out and condemn all those monsters who mean us harm.” A bit vague I will admit but at the same time there is a second passage. “We shall protect ourselves and our great city from those monsters that seek to destroy Novigrad and extinguish the flame that keeps us safe.” That is what the scripture says. It condemns those creatures that mean us harm, although the term “us” is variable but the second passage says that only monsters who attack Novigrad are actually fair game.

“Do you deny,” I coughed on the smoke and the smell of my own roasting flesh. “Do you deny these passages?”

“I don't....”

“Then tell me, you twisted fuck. Where does it say that a little girl who likes to read books is a threat to Novigrad. Or a Woman that happens to need the act of sexual congress to survive. How is she a threat to Novigrad?”

“They are monstrous deviants who....”

“Who don't threaten Novigrad. They lived miles and miles away. By any stretch they would have to travel through two countries to even see Novigrad let alone threaten it's existence. And as for Ariadne, the woman I intend to marry. She is currently studying the scripture of the holy flame before we get married in a ceremony conducted by a priest of the Flame. She told me that she wants to know what all the words mean.”

I screamed again. The metal had cooled a little since he had been standing with it in his hand for so long. The burning lasted a long time.

When it did, finally end. I allowed myself a little whimper.

“Where does it say that?” I asked him. “Where does it say that you get to strip a boy naked and make him wear chainmail before marching through the countryside wearing armour that even properly grown men struggle with, all for the crime of expecting a fair trial for the woman he was told to torture?”

“The Scripture says, suffer not a witch to live.” He bent close to my face to deliver the line. “You are right in saying that the Flame has deserted us. We must prove our devotion and there is no room, no room at all for even the smallest hint of doubt, either in our minds or in the minds of those people that follow us. The countryside must be purged. Not just of evil but even the temptation towards evil for we are wicked and the temptation towards darkness is strong.”

His face changed and he became almost gentle and fatherly.

“I pity you Lord Frederick. You have studied the ways of false knowledge and are so far into the teachings of evil men and women. I do not doubt that you were a good man once and that you wanted to serve the flame in the best way, but you have been corrupted. It is not your fault that your parents were heretics and went against the proper order of things. You were right to flee from your home but instead of running to the church for proper guidance you were caught by the snares of that most insidious place of decadence and heresy. The University of Oxenfurt.”

I can recognise a man who has set off on a sermon and I left him to it. In truth the rest from the pain was good although my burns and blisters were increasingly on my mind.

“Don't misunderstand me.” He went on. “I know the reason. That's how they get you. They promise you all the secrets of the universe and those truths that can soothe your troubled soul. There might even be some truth mixed in with all of the lies, but then the lies take their hold and then they follow them with more lies, and more and more until a man that could have been one of the foremost warriors of the flame is turned into the heretic that is sat before me. Betrothed to a monster, in service to another one,”

“Just to check,” I interrupted. “But you're talking about the Empress there with that last one right?”

He smiled at me gently without saying anything.

“I thought so.” I commented.

“But do not worry.” He told me. “We can purify you. You will burn in the fires of purification and your mutant Witcher freak will burn next to you.”

I gave myself the gift of a wry chuckle. He had just confirmed, again, that Kerrass had to still be alive if he was going to be burnt alongside me.

“Just a point.” I commented after a moment. “a small one. I notice you still haven't condemned or even mentioned the Homosexual acts committed by your own knights on their squires. You tried to divert me from the subject when I talked about it earlier. Twice, but I have not forgotten. What about your condemnation for those men who forced those horrific acts on those in their charge?”

“Men are sometimes weak. But the work they do outweighs the evil. They can be forgiven their sins and they confess their.....”

“So just a point. Why can't all of these people that you condemn also confess or serve in some way?”

“They are too far sunken into sin.”

“I'm not so sure. Homosexuality is an abomination remember? Also, is it not a greater evil to force another to commit evil acts. Which is what was happening that I saw. There was no way that....that child was enjoying what that knight was doing to him.”

I grinned at him.

“Ah but you are not an Arch-Bishop,” he countered.

“I'm pretty sure that you aren't one either.”

“Oh yes. And why do you say that.”

“Because I would have heard of you.”

He laughed and I wondered if I had miscalculated. “So arrogant.”

“But also because you so manifestly get the scriptures wrong.” I told him. “You keep quoting passages that are simply not true. Tell you what. You go and fetch a copy of the scriptures from your quarters and we'll see if it even matches.”

“I don't have to play your game.” He straightened up in front of me.

It was my turn to laugh. “You can't even read can you?” I laughed again. “Flame but if there was any other proof that we needed to prove that you aren't what you say you are, you can't even read. Required for the ordination of a priest let alone a Bishop.”

He returned to the fire bowl where he put the metal back in.

I did my best to just keep the laughter coming. It was not easy. I looked around for a bit and decided that it was time to change tactic. They weren't rising to the attacks regarding their faith but maybe they might respond if I challenged them on a military level.

“Tell me.” I said. “What's the plan?”

I waited for a little while. “I mean, here you are in the middle of nowhere, terrorising a few villages and killing a few people that you have arbitrarily decided are monsters. What's next? Gather more followers?”

“We will do the asking of questions around here, heretic.”

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