Saint of Blood by Sarah Starr Murphy
Everyone gets my legend wrong. The plot warps under the weight of time and the details blur. I was real, I was fictitious. I was a third- or fourth-century virgin. I was a Syrian martyr who encountered a dragon. Or was it a demon? Or was I possessed? No more. I’m the beheaded Saint Margaret of Antioch, and it’s time my story was told properly.
Born to noble but heathen parents, I was raised by a Christian nurse in the country. Sweet Nurse taught me all she knew. I tended sheep, watching them at pasture on the high sunny days of summer, timothy grass perfuming the air. I was present at the births of dozens of lambs, pulling twins slick and hot from the birth canal. My mother died, and my father turned his back on me and my new faith. Nurse and I knelt at night and prayed for our sheep to have easy labors, thick wool, and merciful deaths.
News traveled slowly in our world, but one day at the market I heard whispers of a man named Olybrius. He was a blue-blooded killer, one of many roaming the countryside, using trifling differences in faith as an excuse for sport and spoils. Eyes flicked to me and away. I left the market and the rising tide of speculative chatter. I was the prettiest unwed girl for miles, with no parents to protect me.
He saw me out in the fields. I tried to avoid his gaze, but Olybrius was the kind of man who didn’t miss when he aimed. He sent his underlings to talk to me.
They asked if I was a free woman. If so, Olybrius would marry me. If not, then who should he pay to take me as his concubine? I wouldn’t answer, so the meatiest of them grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me down to where the man was seated on a beautiful chestnut stallion.
“Well?” Olybrius asked.
“I am of noble birth,” I said, “And I’m Christian.”
He sucked his teeth. “Would you consider worshiping the old gods instead? I could give you immeasurable wealth and unthinkable pleasure.”
I paused as if considering. He leaned in. I waited until his breath came faster, until his horse nickered impatiently.
“I worship the God who shakes the earth beneath your filthy feet. The vast and mighty sea trembles before my God. My God is the God of lambs and birth and fire.”
The horse stamped one foot and Olybrius slapped it lazily with his reins. He sighed. “Grab her.”
They threw me into a prison cell. Olybrius brought me out from time to time. It was obvious what he was after, even more obvious what he’d do if he couldn’t get it. But I was fifteen. I rolled my eyes, I stuck out my tongue. His men tied me up and beat me so that blood coursed like menstruation. Olybrius paled at the flow of red, but I didn’t feel any pain. Eventually they tossed me back into the cell.
I woke with my nose wrinkled. Something smelled like sulfur and neglected piss-pots. The dragon was enormous. Its green skin was translucent like thick, supple glass. Silver blood pumped beneath the surface, branching arteries carrying it up to a twisting heart. The dragon hissed smoke through iron teeth. It had a bristly gold beard and matching hair like a horse’s mane. Before I could move, it stuck out a long, blue tongue. The dragon flipped its tongue back over its head then whipped it down to my feet. Strong and wet, the tongue cinched around my ankles and pulled me into the gaping mouth. I was consumed.
I flung my arms wide because I wasn’t about to die like that. The dragon’s stomach shattered at the force of my fists, and I stepped back into the room, birthing myself. The jagged edges of the dragon’s Caesarian wound glittered in the dim light.
There was a ripping sound and the dragon vanished. What appeared in its place was even more terrifying. A many-armed devil, glowing white as alabaster. It was slightly shorter than me, with flaxen hair and the face of a haughty, smug man. It looked rather like Olybrius.
“You’ve killed my brother.”
I grabbed the demon by his thinning hair, flung him to the floor, and put my foot on his neck. He garbled.
“You’re under the foot of a mere girl,” I said, “There is no lower place for you to go.”
He croaked, gurgled. I gave a few vicious kicks.
“I admit defeat,” the devil managed. “What a cursed thing, to lose to a girl.”
I kicked him where I thought his testicles might be.
“Piss off, you wretched demon,” I said. A crackling rip and that devil was gone.
When Olybrius returned it was just me in my cell, my wounds miraculously vanished, a crimson smile on my face.
“I’m Margaret of Antioch,” I said. “Saint of Blood.”
The sea may fear my God, but that is nothing compared to the way Olybrius looked at me as he backed from the room, calling for his men and their pitiful swords.