BEYOND THE PALE - Flash Fiction Story by E.C. Traganas

 

BEYOND THE PALE

Speyer on the Rhine, 1477

Flash Fiction Story 

By E.C. Traganas

 

            The freshly-painted stockade fence was not the issue. Fences of all shapes and sizes had often adorned houses in the area, adding a quaint, well-tended charm and sense of security to the prosperous market town of Speyer, and this particular fence, painted in cheerful stripes of green and white, was especially attractive. But the fence had suddenly become an acrimonious barrier pitting neighbour against neighbour, and a community that had for so long lived in harmony now found itself cleaved in two with bitter hatred.

            A crowd of onlookers had gathered outside the grounds of the gayly-coloured timbered house tucked away near the main road leading up from the quayside. All along the fence were pinned drying bouquets of roses and baby’s breath, sachets of lavender, stale bread buns and rotting sausages, and worst of all, soiled men’s braies, grimy hoses and women’s linen breast bands. The stench from the decomposing food was offensive to passers by, but the staid, elderly members of the community were scandalized by the public display of unmentionable undergarments.

            “This is an outrage!” Hans the miller shouted with indignation. “It is a month now. The newlyweds have not even stepped out of their cottage to remove these loathsome tokens.” He spat out the word with puckered distaste.

            “Let them be, Hans,” said Jürgen the butcher’s son. “It is what we do here. It’s just in jest, eh? You remember how we plastered your own door when you and Greta were married, don’t you?”

            “I will remind you that we were out and about the very next day like respectable people. Everything was already cleaned up and presentable,” Hans huffed.

            “Well, maybe the two need more time,” Jürgen replied twisting his mouth wryly. “What’s the matter wi’ you, eh Konrad!” he shouted upwards at the shuttered second story window. “Can’t get it up yet, can ye?” The assembled crowd burst into bawdy, cackling laughter and began pelting the shutters with the rotten sausages and hard rolls.

            “Enough!” cried the town’s mayor. “You are to disperse immediately, for the sake of decorum and decency. Give the newlyweds some privacy. The bishop and I will decide how to proceed with this.” Some of the townsfolk loitered about cracking lewd jokes while adolescent boys began playing tug o’war with the grubby braies.

            “Leave!” screeched the bishop with a terrifying rasp, flailing his staff at the cowering delinquents.

            “Your Eminence,” whispered the mayor. “One month is excessive. I suggest we take matters into our own hands and get to the bottom of this.”

            The bishop was nodding in assent, his double chin puffing up and down with authority. “Tonight, then,” he replied. “Let the townspeople retire first.”

            After sundown, as the town crier made his rounds near the village square, the two dignitaries approached the fence of the house at the edge of the road, commanded the bailiff to break open the lock, and solemnly waltzed onto the premises with imperious pomp and increasingly prurient thoughts in check. “Children, it is the mayor and myself,” the bishop announced as they ascended the wooden staircase. A sliver of light was shining from under the door at the top of the landing. “We are concerned about you. May we come in?” There was no answer from within.

            The mayor nodded to his bailiff, who on cue turned the handle to the door that slowly opened to reveal the scene before them. “Konrad Hetzeldorf, is that you? No, what, hey? This is no man! This is an imposter, an impersonator—a female, a wily, wanton daughter of Eve! And what is that, that thing…that piece of leather on the bed next to you, eh, you filthy whore? It’s a prosthetic phallus, isn’t it? Bring it here, bailiff.” Konrad sat up in bed and was frantically trying to cover her exposed breasts with a bedsheet. Else her companion was by now shrieking hysterically.     

            “Satan, away wi’ thee! In the name of God, in the name of God…” the bishop blubbered open-mouthed.

            “Bailiff, seize him, er—her!” the mayor ordered. “Evil fornicators! Sodomites! Bind her. Bind them both. Cover them up, the hussies. They shame us all!”

            “God have mercy, have mercy upon us,” the bishop repeated with eyes shut tight as in a trance. The startled women were cuffed and paraded to the public stocks in their flimsy shifts and clapped behind wooden boards with the leather appurtenance nailed above them. Within minutes, the town crier was loudly proclaiming the execrable scandal that had befallen their once sedate and respectable municipality.

            And suddenly, a community previously so divided was now unanimously united in collective fury and indignation. “‘Tis an abomination!” Hans cried, echoed by Jürgen and the chorus of enraged brethren in that now close-knit neighbourhood. Hans grabbed a switch of birch branches and began to assail the sobbing women with righteous outrage while Jürgen ran up breathlessly producing a wicker basket.

            “Here!” he shouted to the crowd while bombarding the criminals with ripe apples. “See what Eve herself hath begotten! Let them eat these, the strumpets!” The rowdy crowd was by now out of control.

            “It seems there’ll be no trial for these sinners,” the bishop observed.

            “Indeed, it is out of our jurisdiction. The people have decided,” the mayor assented with a sign to the bailiff. Amidst ear-splitting cries and jeering insults, the women, who were by now badly bruised and semiconscious, were dragged under torchlight down to the wharf and fettered together back-to-back. With a splash, the weary bundle was noiselessly deposited into the waters of the dark Rhine that roiled and bubbled savagely with reptilian hunger, and was seen carried far away bobbing up and down in the faint silvery gleam of the cleansing moonlight.

            The new day dawned with rosy peacefulness and hope as the community emerged to resume their workaday lives secure in the knowledge that the universal natural order of things had once again been restored.

E.C. Traganas - Author of the critically applauded debut novel Twelfth House, E.C. Traganas has published in Möbius, Ibbetson Street Press, The Penwood Review, Agape Review, Ancient Paths, and numerous other literary journals. Shaded Pergola, her new work of short poetry which features her original illustrations, was recently published by Tropaeum Press. A resident of New York City, Ms. Traganas enjoys a varied career as a Juilliard-trained concert pianist & composer, activities that have earned her accolades from the international press. 

https://www.elenitraganas.com