By the time he’d gone a block from the churchyard he knew the crowd was going to be huge. The streets were stuffed with red-faced farmers and squads of young boys running around with a hand pressed over their left eye like the one Carvahal had lost in the battle in the snowfields. Carriages crept through the mob, unable to build up the momentum to give the pedestrians the choice of clearing a path or being stomped into the dirt. Impossibly, even more filth than normal clogged the gutters and spilled in the roads. Shattered mugs and the busted slats of barrels lay everywhere. Pigeons dunked their beaks in soggy hunks of bread and the stems and seeds of a dozen different vegetables. From all sides he heard laughter, whoops, the cheery hails of men and women who haven’t seen each other in whatever they think’s been too long. He kept his hood on his shoulders. Unless the followers of Arawn had already dispatched more men to rub him out and reacquire his copy of the Cycle, the only one in town at all likely to recognize him would be the keeper of the Frog’s Head, and between the twin crowds of holiday and hanging he was no doubt more than a little tied up with his work. Dante running around with his face bundled up like a criminal would only have the watch asking why he was running around with his face bundled up like a criminal.
The standing water in the streets wasn’t frozen, but it wasn’t far off, either. His breath whirled away from his mouth, just barely visible. It felt good to be moving. He strode with purpose, weaving his slight body though the blathering clusters of people. He watched their faces, how they laughed and told jokes and found common ground bitching about the boys running wild (with special emphasis on how things had been different in their day) and the unreasonable tithing practices of the churches and the signs of degradation in the criminal element of Bressel. One of them opined that men emanated a mischievous vapor which, when mingled with the same vapor of others in the level of density and proximity you can find only in such overpopulated hives as Bressel, resulted in a much more malicious strain, the kind that led to the careless robbing and killing of drunks and, eventually, widespread anarchy. Dante slowed to hear the man expound his theory, but the hundreds of other voices drowned him out; within seconds he was no more than a single note in the symphony.
There was no one direction to the flow of people—there were public houses on every street in Whetton—but the general movement tended toward the south. No hurry, what with the executions over an hour away, and probably lots of boring proclamations and condemnations to kick it off, but wait too long and you’d get a place too far back to see their feet kick when they were turned off. A hanging wasn’t a hanging when for all you could see it may as well be a sack of potatoes strung up on the branch.
Even in the cold the people stunk. Dante tucked his nose into the collar of his cloak and was reminded he hadn’t bathed since their stay at the pond. At least his ripeness was his own. A dark-haired boy brushed past him. Of course. They’d be drawn to the hanging like flies to a cow’s ass. Dante pulled up his hood then and tugged it low enough to shade his eyes. George and Barnes would be out there somewhere. They knew enough about him to turn him in if there were any price on his head.
Single-story houses began to outnumber those with two or three floors. Sometimes they even had strips of dirt or grass between them. Another couple minutes and he reached the trampled-down field that never quite recovered from the monthly crowds. Copses of trees fringed its edges, but the only tree of note stood planted at its center, casting a shadow over the path that cut across the grasses. A light crowd milled about, talking and drinking, buying meat pastries and finger vegetables from the stalls that no doubt materialized overnight here every four weeks like clockwork mushrooms. Dante stopped a short way into the commons to take stock, wishing he had a pipe to light or any other way to immediately look casual.
Obviously the wain would come in down the path. Already people were mostly keeping clear of the rutted dirt. The tree spoke for itself. The prisoners on the wagon would be bound, but their heavy chains would probably be replaced with rope so hoisting them up and down wouldn’t hurt anybody’s back. Besides, with five extra pounds of iron on their wrists and another ten clamped tight around their ankles, the hangman might misjudge their weight and pop their heads off when they fell.
A few guards would walk ahead of the wagon, he imagined. A second wagon would bear the hangman and his understudy and their armed entourage. No officials, most likely, other than a bailiff or some other nobody with a loud voice. At minimum six men of the watch. Probably twice that, with the potential for more. They’d likely be in varying states of the inebriation that was impossible to avoid on Falmac’s Day, but that wasn’t going to be as big an advantage for Dante as it should. Their minds would want to be off raising tankards and groping paired deposits of fat like every other man, but their captains would want them martial, swords ready. Between a troop of armsman and the Crooked Tree, the crowds couldn’t help remembering their place.
People kept filing in in twos and threes and boisterous beer-sodden throngs. He figured the guards would cluster up on the way in, give themselves some protection from the revelers. That would be the worst time to try to take them. Ideally there would be a few self-important speeches to give the men of the watch time to disperse and get distracted by the fights and taunts of an intoxicated, high-spirited crowd; if he were really lucky a few guards would use the confusion to slip off for a pub. Dante would bide his time, then, and hope they wouldn’t try to string Blays up first as an hors d’oeuvre. What about the other prisoners? Instant allies if he could free them. The watch wouldn’t know which escapee needed to be killed first. That was it. He’d have to act fast, but he could make that happen. Then what? He headed for a copse of trees and thought that over as he searched for a walking stick suitable for staving in skulls—the men he released might have the fighting spirit, but they’d have a serious want for weapons.
And that, he thought, was as far as he could take it. Let them get ready to strangle a few men, then set those men free and go from there. There would be at least a little fighting and a lot of running. Other than that, it was all up in the air. Maybe he’d be able to steal a horse, maybe not. Maybe Cally would strike down with a word everyone who looked at Dante cockeyed, but almost definitely not. He clenched his teeth, stomach twisting. He didn’t like depending on all these contingencies. He wasn’t sure he could trust himself to act smoothly in the confusion of battle. He considered himself a deliberate man, the kind of man who didn’t make a choice until he’d thought it all the way through. That’s what you did when you wouldn’t tolerate mistakes, least of all from yourself. But this, this was chance, chaos, the toss of a die, the blindfolded plunge.
He should have hired the boys to make a scene. He should have taken the offer three years ago to sail from Bressel to Portsmouth and back; it wouldn’t have taken more than two weeks, and he’d never sailed. He should have enticed a couple bodyguards to aid him with careful lies and the reckless expenditure of silver. He should have read more, not just the book, but books, all the books of the Library of Bressel. He should have practiced more with the blood—he’d done so one time more, lighting the shadows into a small fire one afternoon outside the tomb, but he’d quickly stamped it out, afraid someone would see the flames and the smoke. He should have found a way to speak to Blays himself, just one last time. He should have written a letter to the monk back in the village. His life there hadn’t been so bad. Boring, but not bad. After the stark and brutal lessons of the last month, he’d come to appreciate the strength of the monk’s quiet methods, the lessons he taught more often with a well-turned sentence than with an open hand or a bark-stripped branch.
The low-key panic he’d felt since waking up had left his mind reasonably flexible, fast, if a little flighty, but as the minutes rushed on he found it harder to keep a rein on his thoughts. Sweat oozed down his sides. He maneuvered up to within a stone’s throw of the tree. The crowds had swelled quickly, filling the field, spilling into the path and jostling each ot
her for lines of sight before there was anything to see. The bells of one o’clock pealed from Whetton proper. He squeezed his eyes shut. Within moments, his ears filled with the cheers and whoops of those at the edge of the field nearest the city. The wains were rolling in.
A hush preceded the wagons as the people looked on the faces of the condemned and for an instant imagined themselves seated with the prisoners. Once they’d lumbered past, the catcalls and laughter started up again, louder than before, and in that way Dante followed the progress of the watch. His stomach felt like something were pushing up on it from below. There were too many tall men between him and the path to catch a glimpse of the wagons, but underneath the crowd’s babble he thought he could make out the rumble of two separate sets of wheels. Bad sign. He wanted to get close enough to see Blays, but if he moved now he’d never get back his place some twenty yards from the clearing around the Crooked Tree. Half of Whetton must be here. With Falmac’s Day, along with the farmers and peasants who tended to show up in direct proportion to the scarcity and brutality of the method of execution—though hangings were enough to do the trick—there could be twice as many men in Whetton today than was normal.
The wave of silence and the shouts that followed on its heels came nearer. Whips cracked from the direction of the path. He gagged, swallowed. He still had time to leave. No one would know he’d been here but Cally, and Cally would understand. Dante’s death, when it came, wouldn’t mean anything, wouldn’t strike any blow against injustice and the corrupt law of man. He’d just be a body. But as much as his legs were ready to run—and they were shaking so hard he thought he might drive himself into the earth—he knew, if he left now, he would hate himself for all his days. He’d carry a mark so deep it may as well be branded on his forehead. He’d filter all his actions thereafter through the memory of the day he’d let them kill Blays, and in that sense his life would already be told, worthless for however many more years it may last.
Besides, as Cally might say, just because killing the watch wouldn’t do any good didn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing.
The quiet took the crowd around him. Wheels creaked in the cold. He heard the snorts of the draft horses, saw a blip of their driver through the shoulders of the men in front of him. The driver’s bass voice carried past his ears as all the people thought on the day they’d take their own ride on the wain to the tree at the end of the path; and then they were shouting, jeering, and Dante was shouting too, eyes clenched shut, head thrown back, a wordless cry of defiance. He was ready.
He pushed up further into the crowd. If these idiots were still in his way when the time came he’d yank out his sword and give it a taste of their blood before it bit into the watchmen. He shoved his way onward, matching glares, refusing to yield, and made his way within ten feet of the inner rim of the masses. Close enough for now. Close enough to crane his head and see the wagons break from the walls of people and into the clear circle around the tree. He started counting men. Six at point in front of the wagons, brown cloaks flapping behind them. Three more to either side. Five more trailing, one bearing the banner of the city, the eagle’s black talons clutching the golden shock of wheat. And three—no, make it four—crouched down in the bed of the second wain, hands resting on their hilts, scanning the crowd for anyone with any funny designs on the black-hooded man sitting cross-legged at its center.
Dante’s eyes flicked to the first wagon to count the condemned. Seven. Somehow there were always seven. There among them, blond hair a mat of grease, face smeared with dirt and soot and dried blood, sat Blays.
Dante stretched on his toes and pulled his cowl a couple inches back from his face, but he didn’t dare cry out or wave his hands and the boy didn’t look his way. He didn’t appear to be seeing anything at all, in fact. Dante’d never seen that look on his face: eyes downcast, face tranquil as a slack sail, body swaying loosely at the jolts and jounces of the wain. He hadn’t looked that way when they’d been chased through the forest by three grown men on horseback. He hadn’t even looked that way in those days after he’d seen Dante call the shadowsphere in the alley in Bressel—he’d pouted and brooded and kept to himself, but beneath all that he’d kept a spark, an air of confusion and betrayal that lent some moment to his moods. Now, he looked like he were already dead. Dante’s knuckles whitened on his staff. Sure, a veritable army of men drawn for honor guard. For their sake he hoped they said a prayer before it began.
Time blurred. Men jumped off the wagon and hauled the doomed men to their feet. The black-hooded man lowered himself and took down a couple stools. He set them beneath the Crooked Tree and slung two of the nooses draped over his shoulder onto the tree’s one straight and level branch. Dante turned his shoulders and wiggled closer. The watch picked out two filthy men whose age he couldn’t guess and made them step up on the stools. The hangman fitted the ropes around their necks, setting the knot at the back, behind their heads. With a jerk to his gut, Dante realized these men weren’t going to be kicked off a platform so their necks broke like had been the practice of Bressel’s most recent hangman, they were going to be turned right off the stools. They looked like they’d have no more than a foot to fall, two at the utmost; Jack Gray, executioner of Bressel, averaged his ropes at eight feet and, so he boasted, varied their length to the build and weight of his client just enough to make sure the spine snapped without yanking the head clean off.
These men would hang till they strangled. Some of the older men he’d known, men who could remember the hanger before Gray, said it could be five or ten minutes before the legs stopped kicking, that some of the condemned had dangled for a full half hour and been found to have their hearts yet beating. Before they’d made it law that all who hanged must be kept on the line for a full hour after their initial turn, Half-Hanged Kurt had been cut down after forty minutes, buried, then been dug up filthy but breathing when a traveler had heard his cries beneath the dirt. So Jack Gray had brought new methods with his contract.
Dante was amazed the two men who stood before the crowds offered no resistance as the ropes closed around their throats and and tied them to their fates. Why so spiritless? What could they lose? Now was the time for rage, to exact some minor measure of control in choosing the moments of their deaths. Not this farce, this resigned obeisance. Maybe they deserved what they were about to get. Was that it? Did they feel the same way? Had the fact some fancy-man on a podium had deemed them guilty of their crimes convinced them it was their time to move on? The hooded man finished his preparations and stepped back. A watchman with silver pins flashing on the collar of his cloak took center.
“You have been tried and condemned in the courts of this land. Any final words or requests?”
“I ask the mercy of the family of the man I did kill,” one man said. “I only wanted food.” The crowd booed.
“Another slug of whiskey!” the second man shouted through his thick brown beard. The crowd laughed, raised flagons and flasks.
“So it ends,” the watchman said. The hangman stepped forward, draped a white cap over the first man’s face, then the second. Dante’s heart shuddered as he reached into the deep folds of his pockets and gathered up his burden. The captain of the watch reeled off some speech about justice and the obligations of civilization.
“We take no joy in meting out the fate you’ve earned yourself,” the captain smiled at last. “A moment of silence, please. Pray to the gods. They have been known to grant mercy, even to the wretched.”
He held up a hand and the crowds went quiet. Dante’s fingers slid over the fragile bones he’d taken from his pockets. He set Jack Hand’s inspirations on what little open ground he found at his feet. The six fleshless rodents raised their eyeless heads at him, clicking their teeth. No going back now. He held his hand close to his chest and gestured toward the tree. They skittered through the clustered legs of the audience, unheard, unseen. For whatever extra insanity it would add he popped the torchstone into his mouth. Someone cried out at t
he sight of the bleached-bone animals streaking toward the bound men. It would have been more dramatic to wait till Blays’ turn had come beneath the judging branch, but he wanted as many men turned loose as he could manage, as much chaos as he could muster to conceal his true intent. More shrieks rose up on the tail of the first. The watchmen glanced around. A couple loosened their swords. Within seconds the dead rats had leapt on the hands and ankles of the criminals. This was it, the plunge, the toss of the die.
A cold anger stole over Dante’s bones as he watched the rats’ teeth clashing through the ropes of the condemned. The hangman cried out and bumped one of the men off his stool. His bare feet kicked at the air. One of the rats jumped on his feet and scrabbled up his legs to the noose. It chomped down and within three heartbeats the rope snapped and the man thumped against the ground. Everything began to move at once and Dante whooped like a savage and plowed through the men between him and the clearing. With a terrible thrill he wouldn’t unlive for all the world he burst into the open ground. The dead rats were running out of ropes to gnaw through and with a thought he sent them to assault the first guard who’d figured out Something Bad was going down. Blood leapt away from the man’s leg as the rats ripped in with tiny claws. He smashed the bones of one with the pommel of his sword, then fell screaming to his knees. The rats swarmed up his body.
Dante rushed into the field, staff in his left hand and sword held high in his right, torchstone gleaming from his open mouth.
“The judgment of the gods has come!” he screamed around the stone at the men who’d be hanged. “Kill them all! Fight for your lives!”
Heads turned his way. The cannier men seized the confusion for their own. One of the guards cut down a distracted prisoner while one of the prisoners punched out a guard and snatched up his sword. Like a school of fish every man moved at once. The watch clustered up and began an advance on the tight circle of condemned men. The vast crowds wailed like a roof-stripping gale as some fell back and others pushed forward for a glimpse of this new chaos.
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