I'll let you into a secret - I have no clue what this next tale is all about. And I'm summing it up from memory and I'm in a bit of a hurry because it's Friday night and I do have a life, occasionally, and tonight is one of those occasions. As always (although I have forgotten to mention it recently), and probably more importantly than normal today, don't rely on me for any proper facts and analysis. That's what Peter Ackroyd is for.
The Second Nun's Tale: Cecelia, when she is not busy breaking the hearts and shaking the confidence of Messers A. Garfunkel and P. Simon, is busy being a virgin. She marries Valerian which makes it a bit tricky maintain her virginity, and even though she wears an ugly old shirt of hair under her wedding dress, she's a bit worried that this won't be enough to discourage him. So she makes up a story.
I have an angel watching over me she tells him. If you lay so much as a finger on me, he will kill you. But go ahead and love and respect me if you like - he won't have a problem with that. But no touching.
Valerian, understandably, wants to see the angel before he believes her. He's convinced that she's actually in love with another man, which she isn't, she's just, well... a bit weird, if I'm honest.
Anyway, Cecelia agrees, but says first he must be baptised, and she gives him instructions to visit some old guy living in a cave. He does what he is told and finds the old cave-dweller (whose name is Urban; am I the only one who finds this super ironic?) and gets baptised, and sees the angel, so I gues Cecelia wasn't making it up after all.
Valerian comes back and tells his brother what happened and his brother sees the light too, and Valerian takes him off to be baptised by Urban. Basically what happens for the rest of the story is lots of people become converted to religion and then get themselves murdered. In that order.
The two brothers became preachers, and got quite well known. They also got beheaded. Maximus, one of the officers responsible, felt so bad about this he also turned religious, and went around converting people in their place. When Almachius, who was the guy in charge, found out about this he ordered Maximus to be killed as well. Which he was, but I forget how.
Almachius decides the best thing to do would be to banish Cecelia to some far-flung corner of the earth, employing that principle of justice favoured by five year olds everywhere: "well, she started it". But by now the court officers have all turned to religion too and they refuse to take her away. Finally he manages to convince them to at least set up a meeting with Cecelia, during which he demands she renounce her faith. She won't, of course, and says all sorts of things to goad him about how stupid and powerless he is. To be fair, she has a point.
He condems her to death, and tells his men he wants her to be "cleansed by fire." He must have found some new men from somewhere, because these ones are prepared to follow his instructions to the letter (heathens!): they put her in a bath and try to set fire to her. She won't burn, so they try and cut her head off, but that doesn't work either.
There's some sort of convenient plot point (sorry, I mean long-standing rule of the kingdom) which says that it's illegal to try and chop someone's head off more than three times, so the soldiers leave Cecelia with her neck all mangled, and blood spurting everywhere. Eventually after three days she dies, but not before she converts lots more people and asks for her house to be turned into a church.
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