Solange's Secret M/F

[chandor864]

Solange's Secret​

The wind carried the murmurs of the golden wheat fields of Chastel-sur-Marne. In this small, isolated village, under the imposing shadow of the Saint-Cyprien monastery, life flowed to the rhythm of the seasons and the church bells. Solange, a young woman with hazel curls and bright eyes, was not born of the village, but of the edge of the Serre forest, where her father, a respected but solitary herbalist, had raised her. She had inherited from him the knowledge of plants, the reading of the stars, and an intuition that sometimes put her out of step with the village’s strict piety.

For some years, Solange had worked for Master Simon, the miller. It was there she met Thomas, the young blacksmith, whose honest laugh and calloused hands quickly won her heart. Their love was simple, discreet, made of stolen glances and whispered promises under the great oak in the meadow. They dreamed of marriage, of a small thatched house, far from the austerity of Saint-Cyprien.

The problems began with the drought. The summer was scorching, the harvests meager. Then came the illness: a mysterious fever that caused the villagers to shiver, leaving them weak and decaying. The remedies of the midwives failed. The prayers of Father Anselme, the abbot of the monastery, seemed to go unanswered.

Solange, who had nursed her own mother with complex infusions before losing her, felt powerless. She remembered her father’s words: "Some illnesses come from the body, others from the soul, and still others from the heavens. You must know how to distinguish them, my daughter, for only the Devil rejoices in our ignorance."

Desperate to see Thomas fade and her younger sister, Élise, cough relentlessly, Solange turned to her father’s ancient grimoires—yellowed parchments he had forbidden her to read before the age of twenty. There, she found the description of a "fever of the spirits" that strangely matched the symptoms. The remedy, it was written, required rare herbs growing only in the depths of the Serre forest, and a delicate preparation, to be done under the dark moon, invoking the "protective spirits" of the earth.

This was not sorcery, Solange thought, but ancient, forgotten medicine. Driven by love and fear, she ventured into the forest, defying the warnings of the monks who considered those places unholy. She harvested the herbs, the moss-covered stones, and prepared her potion according to the instructions, her hands trembling with fear and hope. She whispered the incantations, more out of ritual than conviction, asking the earth to restore strength to the sick.

Against all expectations, Solange’s potion worked miracles. Thomas regained his color; Élise stopped coughing. Other villagers, seeing their recovery, secretly came to beg her for her remedy. Solange distributed her preparations, asking for no retribution, only the promise of discretion.

But discretion is a rare virtue in a small village.

The recovery of some sick people, while others continued to die despite the monastery’s prayers, did not go unnoticed. The murmurs changed nature. People spoke no longer just of the drought, but of "Solange's work." At first, they whispered "miracle." Then, "witchcraft."

Father Anselme, the Abbot of Saint-Cyprien, was a man of unwavering faith, but also of power. He frowned upon any form of knowledge that did not come from the Holy Scriptures or the authority of the Church. The fact that Solange was healing where his prayers failed was not only a humiliation but also, in his eyes, flagrant heresy.

One evening, Élise, full of a childlike joy at having recovered her health, told a friend how Solange had "spoken to the stars" to make her potion. The friend, under the seal of secrecy, told her mother, who, fearing for her soul, confessed everything to the parish priest, who in turn reported it to Father Anselme.

The news reached Brother Ignace, a zealous Inquisitor detached from the diocese to "purify the troubled souls" of the provinces. Brother Ignace was known for his method—seemingly gentle but devastating to the mind. He believed that confession came through destabilization, through the exhaustion of the senses, not through brute force, which, he claimed, "hardened the heart rather than opening it."

One night, as Solange was returning from Thomas’s forge, shadows detached from the dark houses. She was seized by several men from the monastery, their faces hidden by hoods. Thomas, alerted by a muffled cry, emerged from his workshop, hammer in hand. He threw himself at the assailants, but they were too numerous. He was overpowered, struck on the head, and collapsed unconscious. Solange was forcibly taken away, her cries lost in the silence of the night.

She was led to the Saint-Cyprien monastery, into a dark, cold room with bare stone walls. There, she was stripped of her everyday clothes for a simple linen shift, and tied to the wooden table, the same table where, decades earlier, other "lost souls" had been subjected to interrogation.

In the morning, Brother Ignace entered, accompanied by Father Anselme and several silent monks. The sun struggled to penetrate the narrow loopholes, leaving the room in a dismal gloom. Solange was weak, exhausted by fear and the night spent tied up. She had tried to struggle, to cry out her innocence, but only her irritated throat responded.

Brother Ignace approached slowly, his gaze scrutinizing. He never raised his voice.

"Solange of Serre," he began in a calm, low voice, "you are accused of practicing forbidden arts, using pagan incantations, and leading souls astray from the true faith with your impious remedies. The Salvation of your soul is at stake."

Solange, her cheek against the cold wood, tried to speak. "I only... I only healed... I helped those who suffered..."

Brother Ignace ignored her. He held out his hand, and another monk handed him a fine, delicate white goose feather. Solange looked up, but she couldn't see the object, only the shadow it cast.

"We do not need to break you, Solange," Ignace continued, his voice barely audible. "The flesh is weak, yes, but the spirit is the true battlefield. A simple whisper, a few tickles... and the truth, even buried, rises to the surface."

Brother Ignace, the delicate feather between his fingers, leaned over Solange, ready to begin his silent and insidious interrogation, under the solemn and accusing gazes of Father Anselme and the other monks. The fate of Solange, the witch or the healer, hung on the brush of a simple feather, waiting for her secret to be torn from her exhausted soul.

---

Brother Ignace did not hurry. The silence of the interrogation room was heavy, broken only by the measured breathing of the monks. Solange felt the feather brush the sole of her right foot, just under the arch.

It was not sharp pain. It was a strange, soft sensation, which tickled the tender skin and awoke nerve endings numbed by tension. She stiffened, anticipating a reaction, but Ignace withdrew the feather. He let the second pass, an eternity of emptiness.

"The flesh is a lie, my daughter," he whispered, like a confessor. "It may be strong against pain, but it is incapable of resisting laughter. Speak the truth, and this game will stop."

He started again, this time with more persistence. The soft tip of the quill swept the sole of her foot, moved up to her toes, then returned. The sensation, initially bearable, quickly became unbearable. Solange began to fidget, but the ropes were too tight. She felt an uncontrollable spasm run up her leg.

The first sound was not a cry, but a small involuntary gasp, halfway between a sob and a laugh.

Brother Ignace slightly accelerated the rhythm, concentrating the movement on the heel and toes, the most sensitive areas. Solange began to laugh. It was not a laugh of joy or amusement, but a saccadic, violent, anxiety-distorted laugh. She couldn't stop. The muscles of her abdomen contracted painfully with each spasm.

"Confess!" commanded Father Anselme, his voice ringing out for the first time, sharp. "The truth is escaping you like an impure air!"

"N-n-no..." Solange attempted, her voice broken by the effort. "I h-h-haven't..." A new burst of nervous laughter overwhelmed her.

Ignace maintained the pressure. He moved to the second foot, then upward, grazing the inside of her bound thighs. Solange writhed on the wooden plank, the hard wood painfully scraping her cheek. Tears streamed from her eyes, but she no longer knew if she was crying from pain, from rage, or if it was the simple physical reaction of hysteria.

She was laughing uncontrollably, a high-pitched, pathetic sound that echoed in the stone room. It was a torture that attacked not only the body but also dignity and self-control. Her exhausted mind began to disconnect from reality. She was a prisoner of a forced amusement that was, in truth, an excruciating suffering.

The monks in the background, stoic, watched the scene. For them, this laughter was proof that the Demon was manifesting, forcing her to express an infernal joy.

"The name! Give the name of the one who gave you the formulas!" Ignace insisted, stopping just long enough for air to return to her lungs.

Solange, out of strength, exhausted, was now screaming, her face congested. The words were no longer intelligible. Only the echo of that wrenching laughter remained.

"My father..." she managed to gasp between two spasms. "My... f-father... His books..."

This was the confession they were waiting for. Not an admission of deliberate sorcery, but an acknowledgment of the origin of her knowledge.

Brother Ignace finally withdrew the feather. Silence returned abruptly, a deafening silence after the cacophony of laughter. Solange breathed heavily, her head still resting on the wood, her body trembling with residual spasms. She was broken.

"It is enough," declared Ignace, straightening up and putting the feather away with meticulous care, as if he had completed a clerical task. "She has confessed to receiving forbidden teaching and engaging in the study of heretical writings."

Father Anselme approached. "The path to repentance is open, Solange. But the truth comes at a high price."

They had obtained what they wanted: a justification to punish her, and to seize her father's precious and dangerous books. Solange's body, freed from the feather, was now ready for the Church's judgment, her spirit having been the first to yield.

---

Two days passed. Solange was held in a cold cell, fed dry bread and water. Her body still trembled at times, a searing memory of the forced spasms. The trial was held in the monastery chapel, transformed for the occasion into an ecclesiastical courtroom, far from the local lord's civil jurisdiction.

Brother Ignace presided, assisted by Father Anselme and two scribe monks. Solange, dressed in her simple linen shift, stood, weak and defeated, before the altar.

The judgment was brief. The confession extorted by the goose feather, although concerning only the possession of her father's "heretical writings," was interpreted by Ignace as proof of a demonic connection:

"Medicine without God's permission is but a trick of the Liar," declared Brother Ignace, his voice echoing under the vaults. "You tried to supplant Divine Providence. The spirits you invoked in the forest were not protectors, but familiar demons who played with your senses to give you the illusion of power. Your laughter, that violent and impure laughter, was the manifestation of their joy at seeing you turn away from the True Light."

The condemnation could only be heresy, the supreme crime against the Faith.

The crowd of villagers, allowed to attend, watched in horrified silence, torn between the fear of the witch and the recognition of the healer.

Ignace cleared his throat and pronounced the sentence. He rejected the penalty of the stake, which was too quick and which, he claimed, "purified the flesh without humbling the soul."

"For your crime, Solange of Serre, the Church, in its great wisdom, will not grant you the rest of death, nor the cleansing fire. You sinned by the lightness of your spirit, believing that light things could thwart the hand of God. Your punishment will reflect your fault."

He gestured to two monks who brought a new plank, similar to the interrogation table, but wider, and equipped with shackles for the wrists and ankles, designed to expose the victim's feet optimally.

"You are condemned to a public ordeal. Not one of pain, but one of shame and confusion. You laughed with the enemy. Henceforth, you shall only laugh for our edification."

Brother Ignace pronounced the name of the ordeal: the "Penitential Hilarity."

---

The sentence was carried out the next day in the village square, near the church, before a large and oppressed crowd.

Solange was once again tied to the plank. Her bare feet, washed and oiled, shone under the pale autumn sun, exposed to all eyes. An iron collar fastened her neck, and a leather gag was tightly fitted to stifle any audible sound, allowing only muffled noises and gasps to escape.

The executioner was not a violent man, but a silent novice who held in his hand several peacock and goose feathers, and a brush with very fine bristles.

The first hour was slow. The executioner merely skimmed and caressed the arches of her feet with the feathers, in a rhythmic and slow motion. Solange contracted, sweat beaded on her forehead, but the gag prevented the laugh from escaping. Her body twisted and arched in vain, held back by the restraints.

The ordeal was diabolical: it did not harm the flesh, but it tortured the senses and the will. Laughter, the body's reflex, was suppressed, transforming that impulse into an unbearable internal tension. The public watched, uneasy, seeing the pure distress and exhaustion on Solange's distorted face.

As the day progressed, the executioner became faster, more precise. He now used the tip of the brush to rub vigorously under her toes and heels, amplifying the sensation to a frenzy. Solange's body fought against the ropes, her eyes filled with tears that streamed down her temples. She screamed into the gag, producing only hoarse, inhuman sounds.

The villagers looked away. This torture, while not bloody, was more cruel and longer than any lashing. It transformed a reflex of joy into a true ordeal.

The ordeal was supposed to last until sunset, or until Solange fainted from exhaustion. In the middle of the afternoon, as the executioner wielded the feather with the regularity of a metronome, Solange surrendered. Her body slumped, her muscles relaxed, consciousness having fled in the face of physical exhaustion and sensory violation.

Brother Ignace, impassive, made a sign.

"Have her taken away. The Flesh has yielded. Let her soul meditate on the Vanity of Lightness."

Solange was removed from the ordeal, her public condemnation fulfilled. Her life was saved, but her status was clear: she was now a pariah, marked by the shame of forced laughter and forbidden knowledge.