Flamestaken

France, 1487.

"Release the latch! Please, I mean no harm!" Banging and rattling echoed from the enormous, arched egress of The Church. The entire lobby was empty. A few clusters of candlesticks that surrounded honorary alters was all that breathed.

"PLEEEEAASE!!" The voice began to beg.

Suddenly, wish granted. The large, oak doorways creaked and groaned open in slow motion. A young man, pale and anxiously confused, appeared from the edge of the door, white knuckles clutching the wood just below his chin. Before he could utter a word or steal a glimpse, a gust of wind past him as he slowly returned the large doors to their original locked state.

"My deep and sincere apologies, Inquisitor." He turned around cautiously to see a young maiden curtseying as low as her trembling muscles would allow.

"No fret, fair lady." The monk carefully reached for her fragile, ivory wrists, highlighted with a stripe of bright red and dark purple. His heart sank, quickly adverting his gaze to her saline, soot splotched face that somehow still appeared as one of those exquisite works by modern painters like Jan Van Eyck and...what was his name? Levinchi? Davincheo? He could not remember.

"They would not cease till I in their hold!" The lady cried, clutching his pure white robes, scuffing them lightly with dust of the Kingdom grounds. He only would have minded this had she not been a specimen of perfection.

"Take a breath, M'lady. We shall spruce you back to life then discuss what's happened." He wore a warm, gentle smile and secured her slightly wobbly frame under his arm, guiding her to the medical wing.

"Sister Madigan." He smiled "We have a surprise guest in need of healing." Whilst relaying the recent events to Madigan, as the two holy folks eased the maiden into a cot, the stranger hissed excruciatingly.

"My back. Please Sister..." she whimpered, leaning away from the mattress with desperation. The Sister peered past her dark green kirtle and under her cream slip, seeing ridges of raw flesh. Moreover, she could smell the yellowish puss forming at the very edges. The rouge of malodorous copper. Sister Madigan cleared her throat in the least combination of horrified disgust, letting her gaze slowly rise to the young monk.

"Brother Aldread, please. Give us a moment." The whites of her eyes were bright, flaming with angst; two little rat pellets for pupils. A foreign expression of Sister Madigan.

"Y-Yes, Sister." The man held his head in a deep bow whilst turning, to abandon the strange maiden. Upon entering the main hall, a howl echoed through the halls. He winced. Frozen. A sound he had never heard.

Before he could grow entranced by this grisly symphony, a figure materialized from darkness; one of the many archways leading into what seemed to be oblivion. The figure held a scroll who only bothered to look up from when the parchment crumpled against Aldread's chest. Aldread stared.

"Brother Aldread! You have just passed my thoughts! O, how The Lord works in mysterious ways." He sighed blissfully, gently rolling the document, simpering up at Aldread with half-moon eyes, as if there were not the wails of a woman echoing through the nave.

"Indeed..." Aldread's expression remained bland and straight. "We have a guest, Brother Elisha. Do you hear?"

Elisha blinked once. Twice. Peering over each of Aldread's shoulders.

"I thought I heard...something?" His lips curled into a lowercase 'n' of curiosity. His droopy eyes searched Brother Aldread for some sort of answer.

"We are nearly finished, M'lady." Sister Madigan rushed back and forth from the cot's side table to the maiden's leather-whipped wounds. The last alcohol-rinse trickled down hedges of flesh, sizzling white foam gathered in the lips of gashes. A sort of healing topical was carefully dabbed upon the throbbing red worms. Madigan cocooned the woman in a corset of gauze, allotting her to lie down for the first time in days.