The Judas Goat

Image by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

by Martinne Corbeau

One there was and once there was not a young priest named Father Alric. Of all things, he loved God best—except for men, beautiful lithe men, the artisans that worked in the cathedrals, shepherds that brought their flocks to graze in the fields nearby, the workmen that drove cartloads of rocks and supplies for the church. Their rough, thick hands gripping reins of leather could send him into a cold sweat. He would retire to his cell in the grip of desire and if he gripped himself during that cold fire, he would spend the evening clutching his crucifix and whipping himself bloody in repentance.

In the fullness of time, his obedience to god was rewarded and he was given his own parish. He loaded up one of the monastery’s donkeys and struck out for tiny parish church nestled in the rolling fields of the French countryside. The kind Van Gogh painted 400 years later. It was the time of Joan of Arc and the church held the country in an iron grip.

My husband Rolland witnessed Father Alric’s entrance to our village. Thinking it a courtesy, he approached the young priest with a wineskin in hand. The day was hot, and Rolland’s shirt clung to him like a lover. Father Alric’s eyes widened, and he shrunk away from the proffered sac. Rolland had never met a priest who didn’t drink wine, but he wasn’t offended by the rejection. He tossed the skin aside and gave the donkey’s ears a good scratching.

“What ho, good father? What brings you to our humble village?”

Father Alric’s eyes followed my husband’s thick fingers stroking and scratching deep in the recesses of the animal’s ears and the ecstatic animal’s response of eye rolling and head bumping. Father Alric cleared his throat to reply.

“I am your new father.”

My husband grinned. “Are you now? I’ll have to tell the old one. He’ll have definite questions for my mother.”

Father Alric choked. “I meant the new priest of the parish.”

Rolland slapped the side of the donkey’s neck a few times, raising a cloud of dust. The donkey brayed. Father Alric yanked the reins hard to pull the donkey’s head away. “I must be going.”

Rolland laid a hand on Father Alric’s leg. “Let me know if you need anything, Father. The parish is just up ahead on your left after the graveyard. Careful with those reins, you might tear something.”

“I’m fine!”

“I meant on the donkey.”

The priest dug his heels into the donkey’s sides, who danced sideways, gave a few tepid kicks then straightened out and trotted away. Before the priest had rode up, Rolland had paused in stacking hay to eat his lunch I brought him, and have me for dessert. After, I lain in the grass and watched the whole exchange between him and Father Alric before standing to shake the grass off my skirt. “He looks fun.”

Rolland smiled. “He looks lost.”

I touched his forearm and whispered the fateful words. “He’s trouble.”

Rolland laughed and dragged me behind a haystack. I loved that man so much I weep at his memory. He was a world class lover and always made me laugh. He loved without shame. Men and women. We were friends that became lovers. We married to give each other the freedom to live and love as we wished. It was perfect then Father Alric showed up.

Did you know that slaughterhouses keep a pet goat that they feed and care for? The goat is accustomed to the noise and smell of blood. It cheerfully trots up the ramp every time leading unsuspecting animals to their death. It’s named the Judas goat. Father Alric was our Judas goat.

Rolland dragged me to church that Sunday. It was a sad little affair. The last priest had his throat slit by marauding soldiers that stripped the church of any valuables. The church had lain dormant for over a decade before they sent Father Alric. The altar was a table nabbed from the inn, the candlesticks were carved wood, the cloth looked like an old blanket. There was a handful of yawning faces that turned up for the novelty. Father Alric stood behind the table, chanted some Latin, waved his hands around a bit, before passing around a cup I recognized from our cupboard. I glared at Rolland, who squeezed my hand. I took my sip of wine and thrust it back at him. Father Alric stood behind a raised pulpit and mumbled at us for a good hour then dismissed us. After services, Rolland assured the distraught Father Alric that he would let others know that the church was open and more would show up next week. On our walk back I let Rolland know my feelings.

“Not me. I’m not going back.”

Rolland sighed. “It’s harmless.”

“It’s not.”

“It is. It brings the village together, gets the old out of the house, teaches the young how to behave around adults, and we can see who needs things and help them.”

I kissed his hand. “You’re a kind soul.”

He hugged me to him, and I finished my thought.

“Stupid. But kind.”

He dropped me and walked off, while I laughed at his back.

He spent more time at the church and I didn’t think a thing of it. Rolland got “ideas”. He would obsess over situations and hammer at them until he had fixed them or destroyed them. At that moment he was carving and assembling pews for the growing number of villagers who were now attending services. Father Alric was finding his voice. He no longer mumbled his madness, he shouted it. The man was obsessed with devils and devilish intent. He railed at nature’s secrets, women’s wiles, and wayward goats. He had the inn’s goat Timothy burned for “devilish intent”.

Yes, Timothy was a piece of work, with an imp’s sense of humor. All goats are rascals. That priest felt the goat’s attention was personal and had him punished. I wasn’t worried until I brought Rolland his lunch and found him and Father Alric kissing. The priest clung to my husband’s shoulders. Rolland gripped the priest’s head and waist with his massive hands and was giving as good as he got. I dropped the lunch basket.

“You fool!”

Rolland pulled back and blinked at me. The priest drew away with a shriek and fell to the floor, his heels scrabbling in the dirt. He scrubbed his face with his forearm and pointed at my husband babbling. I waved a hand at him.

“Oh, shut up; you were sucking his face off, you little shit.”

  I ran up to Rolland and backhanded him with all the fear and fury I felt. He spat blood on the floor and looked at me with hurt eyes. “What?”

“What? What? That cur scrabbling in the dirt over there will have you burned like Timothy.”

“What? No. Alric isn’t like that.”

Father Alric sat weeping on a pew nearby, praying, muttering, and crossing himself over and over again. I grabbed his arm and shook him until he raised his eyes. “You tell no one. You understand me, you sniveling ass?”

His eyes narrowed and he snatched his arm away and stood up. He pressed his nose to mine. “Do not touch me, you foul besom.”

He leaned forward to press me back. I stepped on his foot, grabbed his genitals and squeezed. Through his gasps, I hissed.

“Do not cross me, or I will watch you burn.”

I shoved him backwards, he fell against the pew and clutched himself. I grabbed Rolland by his ear and drug him out behind me. I’ll give that rat bastard credit. It took him almost a whole week to crack and send for the Holy See. Rolland clutched me around my waist as we watched them ride into town. That night while we lay beside each other holding hands, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I buried my face in his shoulder and hugged his arm. “It’s ok. You always were kind to a fault.”

“At first, I thought you were mad at me for being unfaithful.”

“It’s never bothered us before.”

“I know! That’s why I was confused by your anger. You saw what he really was.”

“Yes. He is consumed by hatred and fear. He’s dangerous. He seeks out what he’ll betray. He sees himself above us because of his education and religious training. We’re barely above the beasts in the fields in his eyes. He was using you to experience freedom, with no thought about what would happen after. He’s a coward.”

“I’ve put us both in danger.”

“You have. But I still love your silly ass.”

He enfolded me in his arms and I clung to his warmth. We were arrested the next day. I was grateful they didn’t drag us naked from our beds. It gave me time to straighten the house up, hide the valuables, and shutter the windows.

I was taken to a barn and locked in a large stall with iron bars. Mother Gaia was huddled against the wall in a corner, shaking and mumbling. She was a troublesome woman, old and mean with no family to care for her. She’d taken to sudden bursts of profanity and violent swipes of her cane, like she was plagued by demons. An ignorant priest might think her possessed, a smart peasant would think she’s gone mad with hunger and dehydration. There was a bucket with a ladle nearby. I knelt beside and was coaxing her to drink when I heard someone approach.

“You are probably wondering why you are here.”

It was Father Alric. His hands tucked in the sleeves of his cassock, he stood narrow and tall in his righteousness. I ignored him and kept dribbling water into Mother Gaia’s toothless maw. I was resisting picking up the slop bucket nearby and throwing it in his face. He continued, “You are here, because you and your husband have been accused of sorcery.” He smacked a hand on the bars. “Look at me!”

I tossed the ladle in the bucket and surged toward the bars. He took a step back out of arm’s reach. I smiled at this. “We’re not here because of sorcery, we’re here because you are jealous and petty. But go ahead and kill off the village you were sent to care for.”

His cheeks reddened and he stomped off. Mother Gaia chuckled behind me and lisped. “You tell him, girlie.”

I plopped down beside her, and we hugged each other until the guards came. Mother Gaia held up her hands, screaming and babbling confessions. They pushed her aside and grabbed me. They tied me spread eagle to a table to do a rough inspection of my body looking for witch’s marks, while Father Alric took notes nearby. When they were done, I was taken to a different cell and tossed in. I lay curled up on the floor, waiting for my heart to stop racing. Rolland whispered my name. I looked up, he was leaning against the wall cradling his left hand, the thumb was swollen, purple, and bent the wrong way round. I pulled myself over to him, laid my head on his thigh and wept. He rested his broken hand on my back and stroked my hair with the other. He whispered again. “What do we do? How are we getting out of this?”

“We’re not.”

We lay in silence. The official church inquisitors had been sent for and would be here within the week. We were tortured separately in the hopes we’d betray each other. We did. No one resists torture after second or third fingernail is torn from the root, you’ll say you licked a monkey’s arse if it will get them to stop hurting you. The worst was listening to Rolland scream. It tore at my heart. By the third day, red streaks were making their way up Rolland’s arms as blood poisoning took him; the whites of his eyes turned yellow as his body began to fail him. I held him in my arms and felt him slipping in and out of life. I whispered one last plan into his ear. I had crafted a knife from the boning in my corset. He called for Father Alric for one last confession.   

Rolland clung to Father Alric’s tunic and whispered into his ear. Alric’s hands clung to Rolland’s upper arms. Rolland breathed against Alric’s neck. I saw the goosebumps skitter across Alric’s forearms. I knew how he felt. Rolland could whisper me into an orgasm. His magic was making someone feel loved deeply. Alric was feeling it. His manhood pressed against his priestly robes. I pressed against the wall beside them. When Alric groaned in submission, my hand crept out to encircle his raging hardon. He gasped and I swept the knife down. There was an arc of blood and Alric fled screaming. In my hand I clutched a swatch of black cloth and wad of useless flesh. Rolland collapsed against me. I tucked it into my shirt and held my husband until he died in my arms. The guards showed up in the morning to empty the shit buckets and drag my gorgeous husband out by his heels to toss him in nearby mass grave in unconsecrated ground. I don’t give two shits about blessed ground. It’s the implied insult of not being “worthy” of their imaginary god. I told the guards I had evidence for the Holy See. They dragged me before them. When they asked what I had for them, I tossed the priest’s cold cock and cloth onto the table and said, “Your demon lies at the end of a path of blood from my cell to the church.”

 They leapt away from the table and dispatched the guards. It was worth being beaten for my insolence. I saw them drag the priest past my cell, I hung my arms between the bars and pressed my face against them so he could see my smile. I heard his screams and cries for mercy. And how he confessed. Things I couldn’t imagine. A laundry list of sin that only a priest could devise. My hatred of him was only outpaced by his hatred for himself. They broke my hands and my ankles. They didn’t ask me anything. They said it was to hobble the devil’s mistress. Horseshit. They did it because they could.

They cleared the town square, and the pyres were built to burn us on. Father Alric and I were made to crawl, with our broken limbs to the place of our deaths. He wept and babbled to his god. I kicked him with my broken leg. We both writhed in pain, but I caught his eye and whispered, “I told you I would watch you burn.”

He gasped at me as we were tied to the beams and the fire was lit. I reveled in his screams until I perished of smoke inhalation. And that’s how I died that time.

Martinne Corbeau is a 600 year old succubus who loves to gossip. She has seen much and is ashamed of little. She’s spent most of her incarnations in France, but had traveled widely through the liminal spaces and considers herself a citizen of the universe in multiple dimensions. She has brokered many deals with and for the undead; considers evil to be a matter of perspective; and binary definitions of good/evil heaven/hell the refuge of tiny minds