HERESY

 

13th Century York – when they burned witches and Jews for sport. When almost anything was an omen of witchcraft and proof was whatever the Church wanted.

 

A Bishop blackmails an honest Sorcerer into raising a demon to do his un-Christian bidding. The spell requires an innocent young boy who accidentally recognises the Bishop’s heresy and from then on is marked for death.

 

The Sorcerer fakes the boy’s death, hides and takes him as his apprentice until he has grown into manhood and can no longer be recognised.

 

The Bishop gets madder and badder over the years and enters into a pact with the devil to ravish his own (unknown to him) daughter and offer her to Satan on her 16th birthday in exchange for dirty deeds.

 

Plot complications include her mother loving the Sorcerer, the daughter loving the, now grown, lad and the Bishop killing anyone and everyone who might thwart his plans to become Archbishop.

 

To the possible rescue comes the current Archbishop, via Pope Gregory, trying to expose the Bishop for what he is, but without proof except “heretical” testimony from a self confessed Sorcerer, his girlfriend and a couple of teenagers.

 

Building to an impossible climax the Archbishop is caught between Church politics and trying to do what he knows to be right during the ensuing Heresy Trials.

 

The Bishop by now has permanently removed all witnesses – even his best friend – and all that is left is to burn the four witches – but the Sorcerer and the boy have one last card – they can hilariously raise the dead.