[La Divina]: 115.Coriander.The Enchantress's Story.The Birth of Ros

The Enchantress’s Story, The Birth of Rose

Bless me father, for I have sinned. You would cast me into the Fire, because darkness is my heart’s true nature. I belong to the cruel, poisonous race of women, and my feminine graces tempt and bring horror. It was my body, this container of my unworthy soul, that planted seeds of evil into the holy mind of your messenger. It was that power that drove him to force himself on me in the dark. Only I am to blame. How can I pray to you, when I have sinned so? When the product of that curse stirs in my womb?

“You are further accused of using witchcraft to tempt a holy man to your bed.”
Those assembled spoke harsh words with their eyes, fire dancing in the dark centers, reflecting the death that awaited the young woman hunched on the wooden bench before the village council.
“You will now be cast into the fire. Should you burn, we will know your innocence. You and your unborn child will be buried in the church yard, your souls prayed for.” The head of the council stared down at her sternly, as though daring her to speak. She trembled. “If you are a witch, you will not burn, but you shall be sent to the prison where you will be tortured until dead.” The young woman’s pale hands clenched into fists over the small bulge of her belly.
“Have you any last words to speak?” The council, in robes of black, stood firm like many shadows.
“With my last words I speak only my love for my creator.”
“The devil quotes scripture!” screeched an old woman, her eyes twice as fiery as the death that awaited the accused.
“Was the devil but a fallen angel?” the young woman muttered. “I do not say I am innocent, but nor am I guilty of all you have accused me. I am not a witch. Though you might call forth my practice as evidence, I say to you that I only have the knowledge of the earth to heal with the herbs that my creator has blessed me with. That was no help in bringing that man to lie beside me. Such a medicine does not exist.” Here she shot a significant glance to the women that glared down at her. “But my child, this unborn, plays no part in my sin. You would say it is the product, the antichrist of your church, but I beg of you to let it live, for it has not yet set foot on this earth, knows no evil, and has no agenda now but to be fed and to be warm.”
Silence fell, then whispers between the council.
“You preach,” the young woman continued, “that our God is all-powerful, but also full of hate for the human race because of our sins, that he would cast us into Fire at our death. But I believe he is forgiving, and that he would forgive my child, even if he does not forgive me, though I love him still.”

Because I know you are not what they have told me. I know that you love and forgive. I know that to you I am as pure as the day I first sung your praises, and that if I was born a female, then it was your will. There is a good place beyond death, and I know that you wait for me there.

“Let her live.”
All but the young woman stirred, staring at the holy man as though he were possessed. And perhaps he was.
“Though she has sinned against God and against me, the killing of a child still in its mother’s womb is surely a matching sin. Let her be branded with the mark of a witch, and exiled from us.”

And so I let them march me to the prison, where I felt as through my head would split in half with the heat of the mark they branded into my skin. This is just a mark worn outside of my soul, it does not matter. When I die I will not take it with me. My child will live and I will teach it to sing your praises.

The mark was dark red, visible along the hairline over her smooth brow, a pointed shape over her right eye to signify the true nature of her craft. Her house was burned to the ground, her garden uprooted, and in the dark dim of night she was driven in exile from that place by firelight and harsh words.
She walked for three days, struggling with the sickness that boiled up from inside, the heaviness in her belly, the ache of her feet. At last she found a place and a cot in a house where she shared her every breath with the sick and the mentally ill. No one questioned the mark in her moon hued skin. She covered her face with a hood and sat out with the other beggars, pleading for alms for herself and the rapidly swelling miracle in her womb. When months had passed, she woke with terrible pains and sickness pouring from her mouth. Fleeing the place as fast as she could in her laboring steps she found clean water and fell to her knees at the steps of a church, bringing the child to light at dawn.

A holy man found me there on the steps, reaching for the door to your house. I shrank away from his touch, but let the two alter maids with him help me to my feet. Dried rose petals carrying a sweet perfume drifted down from the sleeping bouquet in the stone arms of your image, drifting in the wind onto the blanket where the child gurgled in the morning light. I named her Rose.

Rose was bathed in clean water and baptized in the light of a stained glass window reflected in the basin of holy water. She was dressed in a simple shift given by her godmothers, the alter maids, and the church bell rang to announce her birth and the morning mass. Her mother was given a small hut to live in, and when Rose slept through the night, a new garden was planted within the low, uneven stone walls. She would spend the first weeks of her infancy breathing the soil, hearing her mother’s voice speak of the healing properties of the herbs, the names. Thyme, rosemary, ginger, coriander.
Neither of them knew, but in a short time the plant with thin green stems and flowering leaves shaped like swirls of ink on paper, smelling of freshness, would bring them another Coriander.