The Sinners of Erspia

She felt both his hands pressing down on her scalp as he mumbled a blessing. He signed for her to go.

She pulled open the wood-panel door, pressed through the drapes and found the acolyte standing outside. Histrina had arrived specially early. Others from the village were beginning to file into the chapel now, forming a queue outside the confession rooms. She stepped silently past them, not meeting their eyes.

Outside, she realized she felt strengthened a little. Tomorrow she would be at confessional again, and the priest would ask her how she had fared during the night.

Oh, how would any of them ever be able to keep the Lord's way were it not for these daily sessions of advice and encouragement? Without the church, she was certain she would have fallen into the torments of sin long ago.

Yet for all that, this was the first time she had dared to confess the yearnings for lechery that of late had been stealing over her.

The small, bright sun was no larger in the sky than a peppercorn, and was dipping down towards the sharp edge of the horizon. On Erspia it was never possible to see very far. One could walk to any point on the horizon in a matter of minutes. To the eye it was as if the world were no more than a shelf of rock and soil that the sun was about to slip under.

Histrina, however, had never known any other world. To her this close little scene had the homeliness of normality. Night approached and birds were twittering, flying to their nesting places in the trees. She quickened her step to retrace her path to the village.

The road wound between stone-roofed cottages. An unexpected silence greeted her as she lifted the doorlatch to her parents’ house. No one was there. They must be at confession, she thought. I must have missed them on the way. Oddly, she had thought they had already gone that afternoon.

Then, on the kitchen table, she found a note. Have gone to see the Arrands’ new baby. Won't be back till late.

Unaccountably her heart sank. Somehow she didn't went to be alone in the house during the long evening.

With an abruptness that she had begun to find frightening, the sun winked below the horizon. Darkness began.

Already, it seemed in her imagination, urges were beginning to well up in her. She lit the lamp in the living room, then knelt before the family shrine, and prayed.

“Good Lord,” she whispered, “deliver me from these unclean thoughts. Let my liking for Hugger be pure and friendly. I don't went to dwell on his body like this, O Ormazd."

She heard a noise, and gasped. But it was only a knock on the door. Rising, she went to open it. A handsome, smiling young man stood there. He wore a jaunty hat with a feather in it, and newly pressed shirt and breeches. In his right hand was a lance, which he leaned against the wall.

“Hugger!” she nearly shrieked.

Still smiling, he placed one foot in the door. “Aren't you going to let me in?"

Limply her hand fell from the latch and he was in, closing the door behind him. He extended a hand. “The kitchen is no place to talk. Shouldn't we go into the living room?"

“I suppose so. But you shouldn't be here. My parents are out."

“Yes, I know. I saw them going towards the Arrands."

It distressed her that he should come here and find her alone, but it was a distress that was rapidly turning to excitement. She led him into the living room, where she immediately set herself down before the shrine and began to pray once more, silently and intently, with eyes closed.

At length she rose. Hugger was pacing the room restively.

“Why do you have your lance with you?” she asked shyly.

“I've been exercising with the troop. Have to stay in shape if we're to keep the Evil One's horde away, eh? They say it's been growing in numbers lately."

“Yes."

She faced him, the lamplight falling on her pale features and making them seem as though made of porcelain. His eyes wandered down the curves of her body, discernible through her loose gown, which showed off her shapeliness most fetchingly.

“You're looking nice,” he said gruffly. He stepped closer, put his hand on her plump arm, then suddenly caught her up and pressed her to him to give her a lingering kiss. She went limp in his arms while the kiss lasted, afterwards turning her head aside, breathing heavily.

“That's—enough. No more."

He held her as she tried to pull loose. “Do you remember the day before last, in the field?” he murmured breathlessly in her ear. “When we nearly..."

“No! Don't speak of it!” In desperation she tore herself free. “We mustn't even think such wickedness!"

She was flushed. She had felt his swollen manhood pressing against her belly when he held her. In the field—Oh Ormazd help her!—her hand had nearly...

“If we were married it wouldn't be wicked,” he said slyly. “So why is it wicked now?"

“You know very well! If we were married we would be consecrated by the Lord. Even then, it is sinful to be too much taken up with—with—"

“With lechery."