Chastening Day

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY   Act I:   A BOY’S LUCK, A PRIEST’S CALLING

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Ch 1: A priest, a boy and a village

Pavel couldn't wait for chastening day. After years of imaginings, he was old enough, and fortunate enough, to join in the spring festival. There were so many girls he might be paired with. There were two or three who he had often imagined chastening. Many were astonished at his luck in being chosen at all. But to be chosen as first chastener? Pavel might be stunned to be thus chosen, but his legs went from under him when he heard who he would be chastening. Anja Salidef? Pavel was far from the only boy who had felt the lash of her scathing tongue.

All through the winter, notes had been dropped in the priest's box. Some anonymous, some not. Some vague accusations, some with detail. Many, more than likely, were untrue and had been written out of spite. There were notes from older men and notes from younger men. From bitter women. Sometimes even from the jealous friends of the girls themselves. For all of the accusing notes named the younger women. And most, if not quite all of these young women hoped that reports of their misdeeds would not be too numerous, would not be too heinous, would not be too false.

The girls, named in secret, were judged without defence. The village priest and a small group of elders, all men of course, annually assessed the accusations. A few days before the festival, the box was decanted, and each note was piled neatly next to the printed name of every qualifying village girl on a table in the vestry.

Though all girls included were now of age to be judged as adults, only those still unmarried could be accounted for Chastening Day, for chastening rights over married women fell by tradition to their husbands alone.

Parallel to this judging of the girls of the village of Crothin-Under-Heath was the judging of the boys. They, however, were judged on good deeds, not on bad. Deeds of heroism, of chivalry. Acts of strength and virtue were collected: not for the boys were there tales of misdeeds, not for them reports of spiteful words or questionable actions.

One young man on everyone's lips (though to look at his almost hairless face, one might think him still a boy) as most likely to be counted amongst the chivalrous was Marco Vance. Always courteous, often kind and, when backed into a corner, predictably brave, Marco was liked by fathers, by mothers and by girls of all ages.

Pavel, however, was not much liked at all. Nor so good looking. He had never once figured in the calculations of those who must weigh the good deeds of the youthful men. Until one day, not quite yet a month from the Chastening festival, his luck had changed.

He was walking on his own (for he was barely even popular with other boys and men) when he chanced to hear the cries of a young one. There was a river which chattered through a rocky gorge around the village. Pavel chanced to be trailing through blueberry bushes in the airy wood at the gorge's top.

The cries seemed to be close, so he stepped to the edge of the gorge and tried to see from whence they came. He looked up and down until he located a young boy who had slipped while trying to get a ball, with which he and his friends had been playing, from a fork in a birch tree which leaned out over the river far below.

The birch had proven weak, as its wood grows quickly. And, in the mist from the river, it had rotted, for birches prefer drier conditions.

With a scream from the boy, and panic from his friends, the tree's roots had loosed their moorings and had slipped, with a crack and a jerk, and another crack and another sickening jerk, out over the edge of the gorge. The boy had clung on in terror and was only saved from falling by clinging to the fork which had caught his toy. The ball itself he saw fall to the rocks, to be swept by the river away along the gorge.

The other young boys, in panic, had run to the village to try to find help, leaving their companion clinging desperately to the upside-down limbs of the fallen birch. And this is when Pavel heard his frightened cries.

Pavel had rarely done a brave thing in his life. He was not liked for a reason, for he tended to be sour of disposition, slow to contribute and, when all is told, often mean of heart. He was the kind of young man (but a boy so recently) who would rather stamp on a snail than watch its slow passage. Who would shoot at birds with his home-made catapult in preference to hearing them singing in the branches. Who would kick at a cat as soon as look at it.

But, for once in his life, he was moved to try to do something brave. He lay himself flat on the gorge edge and reached down for the boy. When his arm failed, by some distance, to reach, he looked for a vine or anything else to help him climb down, though he felt fear to do so, for he had never been a climber of trees, let alone rocks, and did not care for heights. Yet he managed to spy a route, a chance, and he climbed most bravely down the sheer face of the gorge, using whatever slim finger and foot holds he could find.

It was then that the running boys returned with their fathers, and with the frightened mother of the fallen boy. And there they found the least expected person in the village engaged in an act of genuine goodness.

With a little help from one of the fathers, who had thought to bring rope (of which there was plenty in the village, for the making of hempen ropes was one of the trades by which Crothin made its way in the world) Pavel managed to thread a noose under the shoulders of the boy, and knot it true, till the fathers were able to pull the small one up to safety. Then the grateful mother, when Pavel, with help and guidance, had emerged from the gorge, showered him with thanks and praise and kisses till the swarthy, awkward Pavel knew not where to look.

This one act of bravery was so spoken of, and had occurred so fortuitously close to the choosing time, that Pavel was leapfrogged over many a worthier boy to be installed, not just as one of the three chosen chasteners, but as First Chastener for the next month's spring festival.

He had, as had many young men, often fantasised about the Chastening, for talk of it pervaded the village for weeks beforehand. Who would not want to be allowed to strip, to spank on her bare bottom and to humble a pretty girl? (For, due to what some might say was the unfair way that the girls were chosen, it was often the prettiest, and on occasion the most arrogant, who were chosen.) But few boys ever got to actually participate. Those that did told stories, however, stories that, on occasion, grew with the telling, so that the young men who got, by their virtues, to participate, often had unrealistic expectations of the humblings that they would be asked to conduct.

Chastening Day, nonetheless, featured powerfully in the minds of both males and females of the village, and indeed of the surrounding region (for Crothin was not alone in its superstitions) to the point where it had, across the generations, set up a resonance between punishment and youthful thoughts of sex. At the Chastening festival, one could, if one proved extremely lucky, lay one's hands upon a girl who one might never in a lifetime get another chance to touch. In some inflated stories, these prettiest of girls were tied up. In others, it was even their breasts which were tied, and the girls led along by one chastener while a second whipped their backsides with willow or birch. Some tales had more than just juicy girls' arses being whipped. It all depended, so the common knowledge went, upon the priest who presided in the village at the time.

For it was the village priest whose job it was to supervised the chastenings. And Crothin's priest had recently changed.

It was to be their new priest's second year of supervising. And in his first, so the stories went, he had proven more liberal in his reading of the rules than had his predecessor of fifteen solid years. He had, it was said (though he’d been in the parish for a few short months) allowed partial stripping of the girls by Chasteners. He had let the boys bend the girls over, with their legs akimbo to boot. Some said, in hushed tones, that he had sanctioned a brief spanking to one girl’s breasts.

Encouraged them, that was the tale. He had prompted the chasteners to humiliate the girls. And the elders had chosen to accede to his direction. For obedience to the clergy was strong in Crothin.

What they did not know was that their new priest had lobbied his bishop hard for his appointment to the parish. Father Dominic had been a secretary under Bishop Fernandino, an organiser, a man who knew the inner workings of the church most intimately. He was party, as secretary, to knowledge of occasional shocking stories of misbehaving priests.

As secretary, he had access to accounts of the rituals which each local parish might host throughout the year. He knew, particularly, of the specific rituals of this backward heathy region. And he knew that, while these rituals might not be condoned by the Bishopric, they were, at the least, tolerated.

He had found, studied, and avidly researched tales of the rituals of this region. Some reports were recent, many were more distant, for the archives of the church went deep into time. There were tales of events that should not have been allowed. But, when reported to the Bishopric, so many had been simply filed away, swept under the carpet by a Diocese and Papacy averse to controversy.

This secretary-priest knew his bishop well. The man was a prime example of a sweeper-under-carpets. Some of the things hushed up by his bishop had shocked even the scandal-seeking Dominic. And Dominic was not a man who reckoned himself easily shocked. For he had come into the Church for entirely wrong reasons.

Being clever, and obviously so, he had found few impediments to his rising through the ranks. And, being quick in his understanding of others, he had been able to disguise his own intentions well, and cover the tracks of his past indiscretions, and always conduct his research under disguise of legitimate work.

Till at last he found a posting where he wished to work as a parish priest (for such was the only job that would place him in situ). And, due to his speedy progress through the ranks of the Church, he also found himself in an enviable position to manage that appointment.

Having chosen his path, he set about persuading his Bishop that his Lord now called him to minister to flesh and blood, rather than to ledgers in a library. And, though Dominic’s Bishop at first resisted, he had finally relented.

“But if you must needs travel,” the Bishop said, “then Dominic, be my emissary to Rome.”

But the secretary countered. “Most flattered though I am, my Lord calls me to minister to a humbler flock.”

“Then I will move you to the City,” said the Bishop.

“Your Grace,” said Dominic, “my Lord, I am clear, calls me to a simpler future. That future must be away from the rush and clamour of towns. It should be the post of humble parish for a man who is called to be humble himself.”

“Then I know of one nearby,” said the Bishop, “where I can still call upon you if your services are needed.”

“Your Grace,” said Dominic, “I would rather go to a place where I can not be called away.”

“Where, then?” asked the Bishop.

“Somewhere most distant,” said Dominic. “Somewhere where I may minister to the commonest of common people. Somewhere where the guidance of Rome, and of your own good grace, are not near enough felt.”

“Where then?” asked the Bishop.

“Crothin Heath,” said Dominic. “I have looked at the maps and have prayed to my Lord. He has found me somewhere obscure indeed. Crothin Heath,” Dominic argued, “has three slow and feeble priests who no longer have the energy for the job. Crothin-Under-Heath itself has a priest who, though he has been steady, is now ripe for retirement to a less stressful life. To a monastery, perhaps.”

And, when the Bishop at last relented to this strange request, in Dominic's hands, retired he soon was.

“But really, Dominic,” his bishop said on his final day, “why you wish to go amongst these peasants is quite beyond me. I have looked, since your insistent request there to be posted. They are fools thereabouts, with foolish beliefs.”

“Are not even fools the subjects of our Lord? Blessed are the meek. No lamb shall be overlooked.”

“Yes. Well. But when things get too dull for words, don't expect to come running to me for help. You can fend for yourself out there, man. You want this place, you must live in it and live amongst its foolish peasants. You hear me, Dominic? Short of a scruffy hand-drawn Christmas card arriving from it once a year, it's a place that, till you lobbied me to move there, I barely recalled existing. I believe, in fact, that I personally appointed your predecessor when first I came to the Diocese. The place caused me early trouble and, as I recall, took up precious time which I needed for letters to Rome and the the Arch Diocese. The folk of Crothin Heath are fools, as I said, with delusional beliefs! But, Dominic, should those fools get out of hand once more… on your head be it! For I would rather not know!”

But Dominic already knew, or hoped that he knew, what might get out of hand. Chastening Day. That was the belief which had the Bishop call them fools. It was Chastening Day which called Dominic to minister to this obscure and distant place. For Pavel and his fellows were not the only ones to fantasise about pretty young women being stripped and chastised.

For it was his resentment and, ultimately, his fear of women that had led Dominic into a celibate life. And yet, this was far from natural for him. For deprived of hope of nature’s normal intimacy, women manifested ever greater in his mind. He pictured them at night when his work was fulfilled, in the mornings over breakfast, and even on his necessary walks through the rambling bishop’s palace.

He never thought to picture the ordinary congress of ordinary couples. When Dominic knelt in his favoured aisle box pew (which Fernandino imagined he had chosen as a token of his humility) in silent meditation (which his Bishop felt essential for effective prayer) Dominic projected visions before him. In them, humility was reserved not for himself but for girls and women kneeling, heads bowed, before the communion rail with their skirts down at their knees. Or held bent over the gilded alter, paying proper penal penance for sinful urges offered up in confession.

The page had but to turn at the lectern for a new illustration to stir in his mind. For in the book of Dominic’s imaginings, strippings and floggings were but the frontispiece. Deeper in the tome moved pictures and descriptions of scenes most varied.

The most febrile spot in Fernandino’s rambling diocese, the likeliest to let Dominic’s hand scribe this, his imagined book, was obscure and distant Crothin-under-Heath.