Bricks
Written by: technospiritualist
The young woman screamed and hurled herself against the soldier, but she was too weak. She crashed against his steel breastplate. He laughed. Grabbing her long blond hair with his right hand, he pulled her off balance, then punched her in the face. The young woman saw the blow coming, and then saw stars. She came to rest on the cold stone floor, on her stomach, her weight smashing her small breasts flat down under her, head turned to the right. The soldier laughed again. She tried to get up, but pain and weakness washed over her; Only a pathetic, whimpering moan escaped her lips. In the shadows to the left, the Radiant Inquisitor watched silently, licking his lips, and behind the soldier, next to a wooden cart, stood a simple bricklayer.
The soldier kicked the woman hard in the stomach, and she groaned. He motioned to the bricklayer, who came forward and began to lay bricks along the floor. The semi-conscious woman was lying face down in a small alcove which was five feet deep and four feet across. Blood ran down from her right cheek, across her mouth and nose, and dripped noiselessly onto the gray stone. Her eye was beginning to swell and bruise. She might have been seventeen years old, she might not have been.
The last few feet of the alcove were filled with barrels of water and boxes of dried meats and fruits. Enough food and water for months. Near the entrance was a flint, a box of candles, and a copy of the Holy Word of Radiance. Everything she would need to serve out her final punishment.
The bricklayer began to seal off the room. He laid the bricks two deep, and across the four foot opening of the alcove. Once the mortar set, the wall would be solid. And permanent. He was a simple man, and pious, doing what the Lightbringers told him to. Today, they told him to brick a beautiful young woman into this dungeon alcove. As he slapped mortar onto a brick, on his knees, he glanced up at her leg. Except for his wife, he had never seen so much of a woman’s body. Her already immodest dress, exposing her bare ankles, had slid far up her leg when she fell, and he could even see a small portion of the back of her thigh. Her skin was smooth, creamy, perfect. He could see the curve of her back leading down to her thin waist, then the swell of her…. He slapped the brick down, wiggled it into place, and picked up another brick. Time passed silently.
The Inquisitor was behind the bricklayer now. The wall was waist high, and growing. The inquisitor began to read off the list of charges. His thin, high voice droned out one offense after another, and with details. The poor mason couldn’t help but listen, though he didn’t want to. How could a young woman of such great beauty and so few years do such awful things? What evil had moved her? Heresy, sedition, free thinking. He thought of his young daughter, Nalia, or his nieces, Medwyn and Mahrwyn. The three were all just a few years old, innocent and carefree. This young woman was in her teens, old enough to be married and mothering children, but somehow she had become an enemy of the Pious Kingdom. Could that happen to his daughter and nieces? The craftsman prayed to the Family of Gods that no such evil should enter his life. ‘Blessed Thrombor,’ he implored, ‘please keep this evil away from my family’. He picked up another brick.
By the time the Inquisitor had finished the charges, and rolled up his scrolls, the bricklayer was able to rise from the floor and continue his work standing instead of kneeling. His legs were numb, and as he mixed up more mortar, he began to feel the pricking of pins and needles in his flesh. You would think the Gods would reward a man for spending time on his knees, since that’s what they demanded, and yet even that had to be painful. What could be done, but to bear it? It couldn’t be helped. He laid more bricks. The wall grew.
When he was placing bricks at eye level, the woman came to her senses, and began screaming. She threw herself at the wall, and then tried to crawl through the narrow space remaining between the top of the wall and the arch of the alcove. The mason drew back in sudden alarm, but the soldier was ready, and struck her full in the face with the butt end of his spear. The mason heard her strike the floor on the other side, and then begin to whimper and cry out. “Please, don’t do this! Please don’t brick me in!” She was speaking to all of them, but the bricklayer felt she was talking to him alone. He glanced at the soldier, meeting his eyes for an instant, and had the sudden impulse to strike the soldier with a brick, bash in his skull. He could do it; the soldier wouldn’t expect it, and the inquisitor would be too shocked to do anything. He could escape with this woman, find a place in the woods to live. He could have all his sinful desires fulfilled by her body.
He placed another brick.
In the end, duty is all that matters. If you do what you’re told, and do it well, the Gods will reward you. A man’s duty was to submit. He paused for a long moment, wiping sweat from his brow. Besides, he didn’t want his family to suffer as they surely would if he gave in to these dark thoughts. He would have to confess these thoughts to the Lightbringer on Churchday, and he would receive lashes for such dark thoughts. He sighed, deep and heavy, and laid the final brick.