The Executioner's Right (The Executioner's Song Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Finn smiled at Oscar as he did when he mentioned his father. “You did him proud. You don’t have to keep me safe any more. I’m old enough to keep myself safe.”

  “I know, but I owe him that much.”

  The door to the Wenderwolf opened, and Finn glanced toward it. There was a movement from the tavern, though not so much that he could see anyone coming out yet.

  “Get back to your studies.”

  Oscar squeezed his shoulder again before heading into the tavern, leaving Finn on the street alone. He waited there a moment, wondering if Oscar would send the King or Wolf out, but no one came. After a while, he turned and headed through the streets. It wasn’t that late, but he should be studying. His path led him past the Brinder section, his old home, and finally away and back toward Meyer’s home. Other than a light in his office in the back of the home, it was quiet. Finn hadn’t seen any lights in the windows overhead, so he suspected his sister had already gone to bed. Their mother had gradually improved, though it was slight. Not enough that she was up and able to care for herself yet, but she had started to come around in ways that she hadn’t in the last few months. Meyer really did have ways of healing.

  Finn didn’t bother Meyer. If he was healing someone, he would leave him alone. Most of the people who came to Meyer for healing did so wanting a level of anonymity. They wouldn’t be able to get that with him rushing into the office and disrupting everything that he did.

  Instead, he went to the small room at the front of the house and took a seat at the desk and began reading. He couldn’t get his mind off of what would happen to Rock, but he could focus on what he needed to do for his studies.

  A knock came on his door, and Finn pulled open to see Lena standing there. She had on a yellow nightgown, her hair pulled back with a loop of ribbon.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s just…” She looked past him, toward the desk. “What are you doing?”

  “Reading. I have some studying to do.”

  “I don’t need to bother you, then,” she said.

  Finn shook his head, motioning to the bed. “No bother. You can come in.”

  Lena took a seat on the bed, clasping her hands together and looking down at them. “I could help you.”

  “You could help me?”

  “I could. If you need to study, I could help.”

  He glanced over to the table in the stack of books. He and Lena had never been close, but they had always wanted the same thing. They had always wanted their mother to get well.

  “I would like that.”

  Finn came around, still sitting at the desk. At one point, he’d rested his head and had fallen fast asleep. That hadn’t been his intention, but sleep had come quickly for him, and now that he was awake, he rubbed his head.

  Finn’s neck ached from how he’d been sleeping. He’d rested with his head forward, pressing up against the table. The book in front of him had been mostly unread, though he’d needed to see what more he could learn from it. It was another healing book. Meyer had wanted him to read mostly books on anatomy and healing, which he found strange, but if nothing else, they were interesting.

  When he awoke, he got to his feet. He didn’t need to get dressed. He was still dressed from the night before, so there wasn’t the need to change. He headed out of the room to discover the smell of bacon and eggs.

  Not Meyer…

  He didn’t want to eat the executioner’s cooking. More than that, he didn’t want Meyer to be angry that Finn had overslept. He didn’t have much in the way of formal expectations, but he had come to expect that Finn would cook for him in the mornings.

  It wasn’t Meyer.

  Finn found Lena in the kitchen cooking. She hummed softly as she did, and when he entered, she smiled at him. A real smile, not one of the halfhearted smiles she’d been so fond of lately.

  Finn joined his sister at the stove, but she waved him away.

  “Sit. Let me do this. I didn’t really understand all of the plants he has you studying. Then you had that book on anatomy, as well.”

  He took a seat. It had been a while since he’d had the pleasure of eating his sister’s cooking, and he did enjoy it. She was a skilled cook and had been the one who taught him.

  “Does he have you here learning to be an apothecary?” Lena asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  Finn shook his head. “Not really. It’s all part of what he does. I keep waiting for the other lessons, but they haven’t really come.” Not the way he expected. There were the discussions about hanging, and about the techniques involved, but nothing more than that.

  Lena turned back to her work at the stove. “It’s nice to have you focusing on your studies like this, Finn. Father always thought you had potential. He wouldn’t have wanted you to have wasted it.”

  “He always knew you had potential, too,” Finn said softly.

  She stiffened slightly before returning to her cooking. Lena carried a pan over to him, sliding two eggs and three pieces of bacon onto his plate. “Seems as if we both wasted it, didn’t we?”

  Finn took a bite, savoring the flavor of the eggs. The bacon had the right crispness to it as well. He imagined her cooking for him regularly again but wondered if that was what she wanted. She had seemed content working, even if it had been the butcher. Who was he to take that from her?

  “Mother looks better,” she said.

  “I think so too.”

  “I haven’t thanked you.”

  “For what?”

  “For this,” Lena said. “All of this.”

  Finn sighed and looked up from his plate, ignoring it for now. “I haven’t told you how I ended up working with Meyer.”

  She brought the pan over to the basin and set it there, keeping her back to him. “You told me enough.”

  Finn had wanted to shield his family from what he’d done. He hadn’t wanted to admit to his sister what he’d done and how far he’d been willing to go. Maybe Lena needed to know. Honesty, for a change.

  “You said that Mother needed to see a physician. But when I found out how much one cost, I took on a job I shouldn’t have. I was caught. Brought before the magisters and the jurors and—”

  She turned sharply to look at him. “Why would they have brought you before the entire jury?”

  “Because they sentenced me to hang.”

  The words lingered in the air.

  It felt strangely good to admit to his sister what had happened. He’d tried to keep it from her, as if he could protect her from the truth, but perhaps that was the problem. He couldn’t even protect himself from the truth. How was he supposed to protect anyone else from it?

  “When will it happen?”

  Finn shook his head. “It won’t. At least, it won’t so long as I work with Meyer. He claimed something called the Executioner’s Right. We had to go before the king and everything. So long as I continue my studies with him, I’ll be permitted to be his apprentice.”

  “And if you fail?”

  “Then I hang.”

  She held his gaze. “Which means we would have to find someplace else.”

  The practicality of what she said hurt, but it was true. Were he to hang, he couldn’t imagine Meyer letting her stay. Though were he to fail, it meant Meyer would face punishment as well.

  “I suppose it would.”

  Lena seemed to consider for a moment. “Then you can’t fail. Do what you need to remain his apprentice. Mother needs that from you.”

  Finn could only nod. There was a time when he would have said their mother needed her more than him, and perhaps she still did, but now she needed him as well. Finn had to do whatever he could to give her the chance to survive.

  Lena returned to her work, and Finn stood quietly in the kitchen before retaking his seat and sitting to eat. When he finished eating, he left Lena alone. She hadn’t said anything more.

  Returning to his room, he considered sitting and st
udying for a bit more but decided to practice with pumpkins. It would help take his mind off of everything else.

  Finn had been chopping at pumpkins, slicing through seven in a row, when Meyer returned to the yard. He watched Finn for a little while saying nothing. After a bit, he nodded.

  “Time for us to go.”

  Finn wiped the blade clean, resheathed it, and carried it inside. Lena glanced at him, her gaze slipping to the massive sword Justice, before she headed up the stairs and to her room.

  When Finn returned to the small garden, Meyer still waited for him. “What do we need to do this morning?”

  “We will talk as we go along.”

  He led Finn from the garden and out into the street.

  They headed away from the river, toward the outer sections of the city. At first, Finn thought they were traveling to one of the prisons, but they veered down a different street than they would have needed to reach the debtor’s prison or Declan.

  The gate loomed into view, and Finn glanced over to Meyer.

  “What’s outside the gate for us today?”

  “What can you remember from the first book you borrowed?”

  Finn looked over at him, frowning. “The first book was on anatomy.”

  “It was. What do you remember?”

  Finn shrugged. “The body is more complicated than I had known. There are more muscles and bones and—”

  “What do you remember?”

  “What am I supposed to remember?”

  Meyer looked over to him as they reached the gate. A pair of Archers manning the gate nodded to Meyer. “You’ve had several weeks with that book. What do you remember?”

  “What in particular are you asking me about?” Finn felt frustration rising up within him, though he knew he needed to be careful. It wasn’t Meyer’s fault that he had struggled with the anatomy book. The only way that he’d been able to learn anything from that book had been trying to tie it to what he’d seen before.

  “Maybe it was too much to ask,” Meyer whispered.

  There was activity outside of the gate today. Some of it came from near the hegen, where he saw quite a bit of scurrying in and out of their section of the city, though not all. In the distance, the Raven Stone rose like a taunt, reminding him of Rock’s sentence and the role he would have to play in enacting it. The gallows loomed above the stone, something stark and powerful.

  How would I be able to help kill a man I call a friend?

  Meyer veered them away from the hegen and the Stone.

  Finn stayed close to him. They headed farther from the city than he’d expected, taking the road leading toward the city of Vur and away from the forest.

  “Are we going to be gone from the city long?”

  “Not long. The testing isn’t far from here.”

  Testing.

  It was that time.

  “Should I have brought more with me than I did?”

  Meyer looked over at him. “You’ve brought all you will need. The Executioner Court consists of master executioners. It meets periodically, and I had not known they would be meeting so soon this year, but given the king’s movements, and his concern about the Alainsith…” Meyer shook his head. “The court is responsible for determining who serves in the kingdom. You must convince them of your readiness. When you do, then you can truly be my apprentice.”

  They made their way past a few neighboring farms. Several of them had livestock, one with a pen containing what had to be a hundred pigs. The stench of it was worse than even the worst of the sections of the city. Some of the farms were small, little more than patches where farmers could grow corn or potatoes or other vegetables, while others were much larger. Some of the larger farms already had people working in the fields. Land granted by the king, the farmers were usually wealthy merchants who lived in the city and rarely came outside its walls.

  Finn glanced back toward the city. From what he could see, the palace rose high over the city walls, resting on the hillside. Several of the bell towers for the churches scattered throughout the city were visible. A few taller buildings could be seen as well, though not much more than that. A wagon caravan appeared in the distance along the side of the road. It didn’t look to be moving.

  “Should we veer around the wagons?”

  “That’s our destination,” Meyer said.

  A man appeared near one of the wagons around the road. Thin and with a bald head, he nodded toward Meyer with something of a familiarity. The dark leathers he wore reminded Finn of what Meyer wore for the Gallows Festival.

  Others stood in the circle of the wagons behind him, though Finn couldn’t see them well from where he stood. Meyer blocked part of his way, but this man blocked more of it. A wooden structure rose up within the center of the wagons.

  “Henry Meyer,” the man said, raising one hand briefly before touching it to his chest. “You have answered the call.”

  Meyer nodded solemnly. “I present myself before the court.”

  Finn could see a gallows in the middle of the wagons. The Executioner Court.

  “So you have.”

  He stepped to the side, and Meyer started forward, guiding Finn with him. He followed slowly, glancing everywhere around him as he did. The wagons created a natural barricade along the road. They were far enough from the city that they wouldn’t encounter many people, and they were near enough that they wouldn’t come across any brigands. Not the way they would farther from the city.

  When they entered the center of the wagon caravan, the gallows kept his eye. It reminded him of the one atop the Stone, but this was made more simply. A few timber crossbeams supporting it. A rope dangling, the end of it barely moving in the soft breeze.

  Was that for me?

  The Executioner Court was his testing. Which meant he had to pass or he would face the remainder of his punishment.

  Hanging.

  Finn’s gaze lingered on the gallows.

  At least it wouldn’t be a public spectacle. That had been worse. This was almost private.

  “I didn’t expect the court to convene so soon,” Meyer said.

  Finn tore his gaze away from the gallows. If he were to be tested, he had to steady his mind. It was no different from any of the jobs he’d taken when working with the King. He couldn’t do those jobs worried about what would happen. He had to remain focused, prepared.

  “And we would not have, were it not for King Porman’s travels.”

  Meyer nodded as if that answered everything.

  “The timing is unfortunate.”

  “I am sorry, Henry,” the man who’d greeted them at the wagon entrance said, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “Truly I am. I delayed as long as I could.”

  “It is appreciated.”

  The man turned to Finn, regarding him. “This is your apprentice?”

  “Finn Jagger.” Meyer met Finn’s gaze for a moment. “Apprenticed to me according to the ancient right. I hereby present him for testing to the court.”

  “As is required,” the man said, his voice rising.

  “As is required,” others around him said, their voices a chant.

  Finn hadn’t realized how they had gathered, but now saw that they were arranged behind the first man. First executioner, probably.

  “Have you trained him according to custom?”

  “I have begun his training according to custom,” Meyer asked.

  Finn hadn’t fully trained. He’d been working with Meyer, trying to learn what he could, but Finn had thought he would have more time than this. Now their fates were tied together.

  “Then let us test him according to custom. If he succeeds, he may continue his path toward serving the kingdom as a royal executioner. If he fails, Verendal will seek a new executioner.”

  Meyer nodded.

  The lead man turned to Finn. “Present yourself, Finn Jagger.”

  He looked to Meyer for guidance but didn’t see anything from him. He watched Finn, his eyes intense, and Finn di
dn’t know what else he needed to do or say. There hadn’t been preparation for this.

  What was I supposed to do to present myself?

  Finn looked all around him. The other executioners—and he suspected they were all executioners—waited for him to say something.

  “I present myself to the Executioner Court for testing.”

  “Very well.”

  They guided Finn to the center of the wagons, close to the gallows. Finn couldn’t help but glance toward it, curious whether there was anything they would demand of him with it. Meyer had taught him about the noose, ways of tying it, and he’d explained the various parts of a hanging, but would that be all that they wanted him to know?

  Three executioners stood in front of him. Finn was surprised to realize one of them was a woman. Heavyset and nearly as tall as him, she regarded him with a suspicious glare.

  “Describe the proper technique for setting a humerus fracture,” the woman asked.

  It took Finn a few moments to realize what she asked of him. Fracture meant bone, and he’d seen something in the anatomy book. What was the humerus?

  When he didn’t answer quickly enough, the man next to her frowned. “Well?”

  Finn searched his mind for what to do. The answer was there. He had seen it just last night while studying with his sister.

  Humerus. Arm bone.

  “It seems that he’s—”

  Finn cut the woman off. “Splint the fracture. Binding to the body to support the bone while it heals. It’s a painful break but should heal in a few weeks with appropriate binding.”

  He had seen something like that in one of the other books, but even that wasn’t quite where he remembered it. It came from remembering what they’d done to Hector when his arm had been broken.

  “How would you treat a partial thickness burn?” one of the others asked.

  Finn didn’t know what they meant by partial thickness, but he had some idea of how to heal a burn.

  “Aloe and honey mixed into a salve,” Finn said.

  He wanted to look to Meyer for support, but he felt that he wasn’t supposed to do so.

  “What would you place on an infected wound?”

  Unlike the others, Finn hadn’t seen an infected wound with Meyer. He’d read about them, though. This time, the answer came to him from what he’d read, the memory of it sliding into his mind.