Thunderous hoof beats echoed through the great forest. “Faster! Faster!” yelled a cloaked captain heading the entourage racing along a darkening road: little more than a sunken path beaten down through eons of travel under a towering canopy. Clods of rich soil and leaf litter flew high into the air behind charging steeds. Vines of ivy fluttered in spring air caught up in the rush to judgment, as road was enveloped by ageless forest in the intruders’ wake.
Rocks and dirt tumbled down a steep hill face behind Joshua as he scrambled forward on his hands, clawing toward the summit. Fingernails dug into the thin soil for extra grip but Joshua was oblivious to the scraping and tearing of sharp stones. Under threat of death he endured excruciating pain and fatigue. But, despite Joshua’s desperate breathing and ear-pounding heartbeat, the muscles in his legs were getting tight. Even terror couldn’t keep exhaustion from paralyzing his burning calves and thighs.
The charging horses started to flank him and it was becoming quite evident that he couldn’t beat them to the ridge. Slowing, he turned onto a rock outcrop to his left. Backed into a corner, it wasn’t a question of if the inquisitors would catch up with him, the question became what would happen when they did? Anxiety flooded his mind as he hoped for his legs to recover in the few seconds before the nearest pursuer arrived.
As horse and master ascended near the side of the outcrop, Joshua picked up a fist-size stone, turned, and hurled it at the aggressor. Startled, the inquisitor ducked his head and the rock glanced off his left shoulder; it wasn’t a debilitating blow, but it created the opening Joshua needed to get past the steel of the assailant’s sword. Seizing the opportunity, Joshua leapt off the boulder and kicked at the rising head of his pursuer.
Falling to the ground, the man dropped his sword and tumbled down the hill. Joshua fell opposite the horse from the master and slid a number of feet before righting and scrambling to catch the retreating horse. As he leapt on the back of the sliding brown stallion, Joshua grabbed a handful of flittering mane and willed the frantic steed reach flat ground to mount an escape before the relentless mob closed in. Unfortunately, being front heavy and hind strong, the horse was more adept at ascent, while being relatively slow to descend the steep hill. Hot on his heels, the officer he had kicked from the stirrups raced down the hill after Joshua, grasping onto him before they could reach the bottom.
Joshua fought with all his might. Kicking and punching, he struggled to free himself and stay on the steed. But, with arms clamped around Joshua’s waist, the posse member jerked and twisted until Joshua could no longer stay on the horse. Salvation slipped from his fingertips as he lost grasp of the long, muscular equine neck.
Elbowing his assailant fiercely on the side of the head, Joshua twisted around to straddle him and drive his own weight down to the ground. Pressing left knee against soft ribs and grabbing the round-faced deputy by the hair, Joshua struck with all his might, again and again he raised his right hand and drove it down about the aggressor’s left eye until his enemy’s deadly clutch was broken.
But the delay was too great and reinforcements arrived. One, then another, and another piled on, clutching and wrapping and clinging to Joshua; pressing him to the ground. They squeezed his arms and legs until he couldn’t move. Then a heavy-set marauder wrapped his arm around Joshua’s neck and began choking him. The warring gang squeezed and pressed harder, and harder, until Joshua couldn’t roll, or twist, or wriggle, or even breathe.
Principle waned, and panic gripped Joshua. He couldn’t breathe! The chase robbed him of oxygen, every fiber of his being burned for air. He tried to bite, to spit; to scream, jerk, kick and twist, but nothing was working, he couldn’t break free of the relentless, cruel mob; he couldn’t breathe. His lungs and stomach were on fire. Oh God help me, he thought. Help Me!
His lungs pulled and pulled for air; the spasms uncontrollable. His diaphragm convulsed, squeezing the churning stomach until vomit spilled into his esophagus. The acid too burned, and the taste of bitter soiled Joshua’s mouth. But air was all he could think about, the squeezing, burning, crushing pain in his chest was spreading, he had to have air, it was the only thing that could put the fire out. How could something taken for granted every moment of every day cause such a horrible pain in absence?
He only felt the pain, every nerve burned a smoldering death. Air! Air! was his only thought. At last, looking for it, he could only see black. His eyes were fading. And finally, after what seemed an eternity, thank God, his mind was going black as well.
Panic for air filling his brain finally drained away as his brain shut down. And his body followed. Resistance ceased and the fight left his body. Joshua’s limits of mortality were at once starkly apparent.
The inquisitors relaxed their grip. Letting go of Joshua’s neck, the man that was choking the life from him, literally destroying Joshua, rolled over and pressed to his feet. All was quiet in the solemn, ancient forest except the heavy panting of men and horses. Even sunlight was muffled by the canopy as it trickled through to divide shadow from shadow.
But then, in a life extending instant, a sudden gasp shook Joshua, followed by a cough projecting vomit on the dark forest leaf litter, then more gasping and more coughing. The coughing grew regular and Joshua started to regain consciousness. He could feel again, he could feel the fire all over his body, especially in heaves of his chest. Arterial pulses throbbed in his head with heartbeats pounding the mind like a hammer striking an anvil.
Despite the horrid, unbearable pain, Joshua yet lived. Was it a miracle? No it was not, though alive, it was by design, not good fortune or divine interference. His captors didn’t want him dead, yet. No, it wasn’t their purpose to go around killing just for the sake of killing, for they stood for something. They represented righteousness in the Lord’s service. Their purpose was to teach Joshua a lesson, to extract a confession, to be acknowledged and gratified, and finally, they wanted to make an example of him.
The flamboyant captain of the troop stood and started down the hill. “Get some rope,” he ordered the stocky man that had been choking Joshua. “Secure the heretic.”
Having received his order, the choker lumbered the rest of the way down the hill to the waiting horses where he grabbed a rope from one of the saddles and started back up toward Joshua. Upon arrival, he proceeded to tie Joshua’s hands together behind his back. Then he tied Joshua’s feet as well, pulling hard on every loop and knot.
With the captive secure, the inquisitors pulled him down the hill on his stomach, head first. The captain led the party to the bottom of the hill and then out to a small clearing in the tall woods. There, putting fingers to his cracked lips, he whistled for the horses.
“Tie him to Carlton’s horse,” he ordered.
“The devil’s powerful in this one,” declared a tall, black haired member of the clan with deep-set, droopy eyes and pock-marked pale skin partially hidden by a thin unkempt beard hanging like a cobweb. “Shall the demon have chance to kill?” he asked, stepping into the light.
“Suffer the witch not torment God’s people another night,” added the wrinkled, leather-faced one they called Carlton.
“Every second he’s alive poses a grave risk. Look what harm he has caused Laurentin,” puffed another of Joshua’s captors, still taxed in his breathing by the struggle of good versus evil.
Forthwith the group looked at the one known as Laurentin, standing a comfortable distance from the man kneeling in their midst that caused him such considerable fear only moments before on the side of the hill. Laurentin’s face and sleeve were blood-smeared, having wiped the trickle from his nose. And his cheek was swollen, nearly to the point of closing his left eye.
Rolling the reigns of a large bay between his fingers, the heavy-set officer that had choked Joshua stroked his free left hand through dirty blonde hair to pull it from his freckled face. “Dispatch him now and be done with it,” he urged, stepping forward, “before he summons additional demons, or departs the body.”
“You fools are the demons,” Joshua managed to reply in his own defense. “You cover the continent in blood with the lust of your own ignorance, while I harm nothing. By what right can you declare me evil?
You’re blinded by your own vision. You’re too busy looking at others to recognize your own evil. Step back now! Step back I ask you, and imagine how you must look in the eyes of others right now; in the eyes of the Lord.”
“Enough!” rumbled the captain, his long gray hair flipping in the afternoon breeze with the sudden turn of his head. “I’ve heard enough.” He walked toward Joshua, stopping one pace distant, and looking down on the defenseless mason he hissed: “With hostility and a wicked tongue you’ve proven your pact with the devil.
“You’re charged with sins against God and crimes against the King. You show familiarity with spirits, for you’re known to speak with animals, and to propose their equality with the children of God – heirs to his kingdom; denying his very image on Earth. You deny the workings of Satan by announcing, in great contradiction of the spirit of heaven, that plague and sickness are born of their own seeds; not the works of the devil’s familiars. And you stand accused of the practice of sorcery, afflicting man and crops with disease, as you’ve been seen by credible and virtuous witnesses to handle corpses and diseased plants in various stages of decay and affliction.”
Joshua was by this time leaned back in a sitting position with his feet under his hands, working frantically to loosen the knots of his bindings. He knew that reason was lost on his captors and that his judgment was passed when first accused. I need time, he thought to himself.
“While these charges may seem legitimate on the surface,” he began, “any vague appearance of merit therewith is mere illusion, as all have goodly and reasonable explanation. I am but a servant of God, his office on Earth, and servant to the King. I seek knowledge, not to further Satan’s desire, but to assist mankind, so that more time may be devoted to glorifying the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and doing the work of the Almighty.”
“The Almighty needs no help from you,” charged the captain.
“Nor from you”, Joshua came back.
Continuing on, Joshua began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that …”
“Enough of this blasphemy you demon!” the gray headed leader ingloriously interrupted. “Admit your nature and be spared a gruesome and horrifying ordeal. Confess your dealings with the devil and you’ll receive a quick and honorable death.”
Joshua gripped and pulled at the rope until the nails were pulled back on his middle fingers. But he looked past the pain to those he held dearest. Anything – he would do anything to be there for them.
“Death would be a dishonor, sir. The Lord has blessed me with a beautiful wife and children. Allow me to honor the Lord by preserving and advancing his blessing”
The leader didn’t pretend to entertain Joshua’s plea. “I shan’t be the fool for your trickery, Devil, your speech is clearly the cunning work of Satan spoken through the mouth of a warlock.” Then, pointing to an oak about five hands across at the chest, he added, “Bind his feet to this tree. We shall force the devil from this body.”
With that Joshua was jerked up on his feet. And his captors were occasioned to notice that his leg bindings were partially loosed. “Deceit! Deceit!” cried Laurentin. “He speaks lies to distract us as he attempts to circumvent God’s justice.”
As soon as the escape attempt was known all of the captors clamored for Joshua’s utter destruction.
“Help!” Joshua screamed into the vast, stoic forest with all his might in utter desperation. “Help!”
He prayed that somebody, anybody, would hear his plea for help so as to save him, and save his family and friends the sorrow and hardship of losing him, and save his work in understanding life and the diseases that afflict the world. Don’t let my love and my work die, he prayed.
But, his oppressors would accept no variance, and vowed silence for any voices other than their own. They threw him to the ground by the oak tree. Then the choking man jumped on Joshua’s back, settling between Joshua’s restrained arms. Slamming his hands down on Joshua’s head, he bounced it against the ground before reaching around Joshua’s face and pulling back with force so immense as to make Joshua instantly scream in agony with the feeling that his neck was surely broken.
While Joshua’s neck was being so terribly wrenched, the man called Laurentin approached with his knife drawn, having a contemptuous look of revenge about him, and thrust it at Joshua’s mouth attempting to force it open. Laurentin had snapped from the stress imposed by a resistant quarry, blood was not to be shed, the body was to remain intact. The knife point, however, gashed through Joshua’s lower lip, and lodged below his teeth. Having failed thus in his first attempt to sever the vulnerable captive’s tongue, Laurentin pulled the knife back and thrust it up under Joshua’s chin back near the throat, all the way to the soft palate above the tongue, and then proceeded to rip it side to side to render Joshua dumb in a fit of frenzied rage.
Searing, was the pain from the slicing blade, as it caused blood to squirt from the soft undermouth, reddening the steel of apathy. Blindness from hands clinched across his eyes, coupled with the shocking pain in his neck and mouth, overwhelmed Joshua with terror again. His whole body stiffened, his legs kicked against the restraints, and he loosed all the scream he could muster with his head cocked back and the weight of a heavy man bearing upon his chest.
Reacting to prevent another such scream of pain and fright, the choking man moved his thick hands down across Joshua’s mouth and nose, and returned to the cradle position with his elbows on his knees as he sat on Joshua’s back. The strain on Joshua’s neck caused the gash under his mouth to gape open, allowing a great amount of blood to flow down his neck and chest, with much more blood pouring directly onto the stained ground. Still yet, his throat was filling with blood, further hindering the breath of life. It suddenly flashed through his mind that he was in hell, in the hands of a vengeful Beelzebub himself. Again his lungs burned, much as his neck burned under the intense, crushing pressure on the nerves, ligaments and vertebrae.
Without a conscious thought to his action he opened his mouth until he felt something between his teeth. And suddenly his jaw snapped shut like a trap, with all the grit and determined force he could manage. Bone splintered and ligament tore in the small finger of the choking man’s left hand and he immediately leapt up off of Joshua, pulling to free his finger and nearly tearing it clean from his hand in the process. As it tore from the clinch of Joshua’s teeth only a few strands of stretched skin attached the dangling appendage to the hand.
A new and greater rage came over the red-faced choking man. “The devil bit me!” he bellowed. And in throes of fury the wild-eyed monster kicked at Joshua with great savagery, as Joshua lay coughing blood and gasping for breath. With feet tied securely to the tree, Joshua could only shift his body trying to deflect the punishing blows as they came one after another at his head and abdomen.
“Tie him to the tree,” the leader commanded, having exhausted all patience, “prepare a fire”.
At once, the quiet, curly-haired one who lacked expression on his plain, pale, hairless face began to obediently untie the harness he had been fashioning from rope. Other members of the party fanned out through the deep forest in search of all manner of fuel to burn.
In their agitation, the posse of inquisition had interrupted their plan to tear Joshua’s arms from their sockets and break scapulas and tear ligaments by harnessing his hands, still bound together behind his back, to a pair of pulling horses straining to rip him from the anchor that was the tree that had stood for decades in the rocky soil. No, the time and effort to secure a confession became unnecessary formality to the mob in their wild state, unaccustomed as they were to contesting of their authority and always inclined, as they also were, to displays of dramatic cruelty. Instead, they moved to the final act in this repugnant, morbid play. Evidence of what they considered to be the devil’s attack on their group was more than proof enough to condemn Joshua.
When the harness rope was unraveled and Joshua’s hands were untied, he was stood and his hands bound around the oak tree. His shirt stained red from the blood of his slashed mouth. What blood wasn’t draining from the long cut near his throat was pouring over his lower lip and running down his chin with every labored breath exhaled.
I’m running out of chances, he thought to himself. Though possibly futile, screaming for help seemed to offer his only hope, faint as it was, that someone would hear him, and, although even less likely, that someone would be willing and able to help him. He took a few deep breaths, more painful after being kicked so forcefully in the ribs. Holding back a cough brought on by the irritation of stomach acid or blood sunk deep in his lungs, he constricted his diaphragm with all his might and screamed past his severed tongue for as long and hard as he could push the air out. He screamed not as a coward, but as a man desperate to return to his young son Samuel and daughter Elizabeth: shining lights in a world of bitter darkness.
Before he could get it all out, he was struck hard on the side of his face by the tall man with the dimpled complexion, who was holding tightly to Joshua’s left arm. Again Joshua screamed. And the pock-marked man put his left hand on Joshua’s throat, squeezing the trachea shut to muffle the cry.
Then the curly-haired man that was missing some teeth in front, passed his rope across Joshua’s eyes and pulled hard around the tree, tying a tight knot in back; cinching Joshua’s head fast against the tree, and causing stars to flitter in his eyes.
Joshua tried to conquer the utter despair of his situation with thoughts of reflection and wishes for his beautiful, innocent family. I love you Samuel, he told his young son in silence as the rope man circled round him, drawing him tighter against the unfeeling tree with every pass. And he thought of his tender daughter, so sweet and pure, I love you Elizabeth. And, I love you Sarah, he said to his adoring wife. Lord, care for my angels! he prayed. His fear was coming true. What he prayed to avoid every night was coming true, and despite the perverse agony he was subjected to, his greatest distress was that he wouldn’t be there to care for, and to laugh and love and play with his precious family.
As Joshua prayed for his family, the rope man soon had him bound in a deadly, unbreakable embrace with the tree, having passed twice over Joshua’s throat to quiet any further cries for help. And the rest of the hunters of men were piling a large assortment of limbs, twigs, and leaves around Joshua and the huge living stake to which he was bound.
Too soon the order was given, “Light the fire.” Then the one they called Carlton, with the weathered, hardened face, removed two flint stones and some dry grass from his travel bag, walked over to Joshua’s feet, squatted down, and began striking the stones onto dry grass placed among some brittle leaves. When one of the sparking flakes caused a smolder in the grass, Carlton blew gently to feed oxygen to the infant flame so that it might grow to consume the accused heretic fastened tight to what would soon be known in those parts as the burning tree.
With rope pressed tightly across his eyes, Joshua couldn’t see the tiny flame as it fed on the fuel piled all around him. But he could hear the light cracking and popping of boiling sap in the burning twigs. Gingerly at first, the wisps of smoke wafted up in a deadly sway around him, before disappearing in the shadows of the forest air. Then higher and higher the thickening smoke climbed into the canopy, swirling and blowing amongst the upper branches after escaping searing, leaping flames dancing all about.
Joshua tried to block the growing monster of hades from his mind and re-live his fondest memories. Maybe someone would yet come to stop this horrid atrocity and deliver him from the netherworld madness. Maybe it was all a horrible nightmare that he would wake from any moment. Hast thou forsaken me? he asked his lord.
But his mind was not to be separated from the body. The building heat in his legs and foul gases in his nostrils began to take control of his thoughts. As the flames grew higher and hotter, and the pain grew ever more intense, and the smoke grew from irritating to choking; terror and panic began to again spread through his mind like an unchecked poison.
Shortly, he had lost his ability to look to the future or remember the past. As the pain mounted to unbearable intensity, he lost sight of what was important. In frantic fervor, pain was again all he could see, and survival all he could seek. The fire attacked Joshua's body with ferocity unknown to all but a few unlucky men. Smoke burned his nose, throat and lungs; again robbing him of precious air. Stop! Stop! Oh stop! his mind cried out as the skin of his feet and legs began to blister. The hair burned away as he steadily descended into hell. He strained against the bondage, shaking to and fro with feverish violence. The constant muffled screaming past the choking rope was involuntary and beyond his control; being, as it was, but an avenue for pain seeking its own escape from a doomed body.
Stronger and hotter the fire grew. It roared through the leaves and branches overhead, billowing dark smoke high into the dreary sky; demonstrating domination of the condemned through its absolute destructive power. Joshua was on fire! The pain was unimaginable, as testified by delirious cries to the heavens. The hair of his head burned, along with his clothes. He shook, and tore back and forth in the burning rope, biting as a crazed beast at his constraints as he trembled all over. But the rope was thick and still strong, too strong to succumb to Joshua’s will. It held him to burn. Like an evil embrace, it held him in submission to a supreme deadly torture; while his utterly cruel attackers mocked his agony.
Joshua sucked in toxic smoke and searing gases trying to get air. The burn on the inside reflected the vicious burning of his flesh. Merciless fire was all consuming as the raging flame enveloped, with lances of heat shooting into his core, boiling blood and igniting his emotions as well as his tortured body. The searing gases broiled his lungs, it was as though there was no air; he was breathing fire. And it burned! Oh how it burned! Joshua’s world was ablaze; the fire was a supreme pain that couldn’t be extinguished. Joshua’s whole world was reduced to pain, but not reduced in experience, as he felt more than he had ever felt before, but it was only incredible, agonizing pain; all love, all hope, all reason was gone.
Alas, as the violent, violent end drew nigh the war for survival was lost. Fire killed the parts of the whole one by one. Cells burst from the boiling of life’s fluids. Skin swelled and split in the heat; exposing fatty oils to ignition. Joshua’s mind, almost dead from heat, poison gas and pain, ceased to think; it could only suffer under complete, unbearable, utter pain. Fire filled his mind and he couldn’t see past it; not one thought dare even escape complete combustion. The brain was reduced to a receptor; incapable of reason, unable to contemplate or reflect. His muscles flexed and strained in defiance, his screams overpowered the roar of the fire.
His life became the fire, and a doomed resistance to the fire… until finally only the fire remained.
In the end; the agonizing, horrific end; even the resistance and pain died: life was gone. Joshua was gone. His golden voice was silenced as his body fell limp and continued to burn. All his knowledge and all of his memories and all his capacity for love and kindness burned away. As his body was consumed by the fire, so with it the love, hope and dreams of a family drifted away with the vanishing smoke. As mankind’s legacy of self-righteous cruelty played on, the light of a generation was extinguished.