by K. J. Parker
The end of the work took Ziani by surprise. Quite suddenly (late one afternoon, an hour before the lamps were due to be lit), in spite of the rain and the mud, the spoiled food and the sodden timber, they finished off the last of the smashed-up carts, and the column was officially ready to set off. Someone found Valens and told him; he ruled that they might as well stay where they were until morning and get everything ready for an early start. In the meantime, they could deal with the leftovers of unfinished business — shoeing horses, making an inventory of supplies and munitions, drawing up watch rotas and executing the prisoners.
It was a long, wretched and tedious job. Originally the idea was to hang them in a civilized fashion, but it didn’t take long for Major Nennius, officer in charge, to realize that that wasn’t going to work. There were no trees sturdy enough to serve as makeshift gallows, and he was only able to scrounge up enough four-inch-square-section long timbers to build two sets of scaffolds. Even hurrying things along at maximum speed, he could only turn off two men every fifteen minutes; eight an hour, and he had sixty-seven to deal with, or sixty-eight if the Ducas was going to join them (apparently that hadn’t been decided yet). In addition to which, the rain had soaked into the ropes, which meant the knots didn’t slide properly. Someone suggested waxing them with beeswax, a smart-sounding idea that turned out to be useless in practice. Two hours into the job, after five of the first eight executions had gone unpleasantly wrong, Nennius decided that hanging was a refinement he couldn’t afford. They were already working by torchlight, and his men had spent the day working on the carts; they were tired, wet, hungry and miserable, and he had the impression that their patience wasn’t unlimited.
Unwilling to take the decision himself, he balloted his junior officers. Three of them were ardently in favor of beheading and argued their case with a fervor he found more than a little disturbing. The other four voted for strangling. Hooray, Nennius told himself, for democracy.
Once the decision had been taken, however, it turned out that nobody could be found with a good working knowledge of practical strangulation. It was simple, someone said, you just put a bit of rope round a chap’s neck and pull it tight until — well, until it’s all over. Nennius, however, wasn’t convinced. He’d never seen a man strangled to death but he had an idea that there was rather more to it than that. Someone suggested having a prisoner in and doing a trial run. Nennius shuddered and sent out for chopping blocks and axes.
Not, he had to concede, that he’d ever seen a man decapitated in cold blood before, either. But he felt rather more confident about it than about strangling. Provided they could find a way to make the prisoner keep still, how hard could it be? A bit like chopping through tree-roots, he told himself. He gave orders for the axes to be carefully sharpened.
Perhaps it was because it was late and wet and dark; it didn’t go well. The first prisoner presented himself with admirable resignation, as if he could sense that everybody was fairly close to the end of their rope, and he didn’t want to make things any more fraught than they already were. But the headsman muffed the stroke, cutting into the poor man’s shoulder blade instead of his neck. The prisoner jumped in the air and squirmed about uncontrollably — not his fault, Nennius had to concede, it was pure instinct and muscle spasm — and finally had to be put out of his misery with spear-thrusts and a heavy rock to the back of the head. The spectacle had a very bad effect on the rest of the prisoners, who turned uncooperative; the next victim needed four men to hold him down, and the headsman refused to swing for fear of hitting one of the helpers. Further delay, while some men botched up a sort of a crush — a heavy oak beam with a strong leather strap to secure the head, and a thick, wide plank to lay over the body, on which three men could sit. The arrangement worked, more or less, although the headsman’s nerves were shot and he needed three cuts to clear his third victim, who yelled like a bullock being dehorned throughout. The next six went through all right, and then the headsman’s hands slipped on the wet axe-handle, so that the blade glanced off the back of the victim’s skull and sank two inches into the headsman’s left foot.
After that, nobody seemed to want the job, until a smarmy young ensign who Nennius particularly disliked volunteered and, in default of other applicants, was appointed. He’d been one of the fervent pro-decapitators in the debate earlier, and he went at it with three parts enthusiasm to one part skill. It’d have been all right if he’d been a big, brawny man with plenty of upper body strength; instead, he was short and scrawny, too weak to control his swing, and he was quickly demoted on appeal from the helpers, who feared for their lives. At this point it dawned on Nennius that if he wanted to have any credibility left come morning, he was going to have to do the filthy job himself.
It wasn’t like chopping tree-roots, or splitting logs. It wasn’t like anything else he’d ever done before. It was exhausting, difficult, disgusting and very, very precise. But if you concentrated furiously all the time and held the axe at just the right angle and hit very hard indeed, you could sort of chip the head off the neck with one cut; whereupon it slid through the restraining strap and flipped up in the air, while the trunk jerked and spasmed, upsetting the men perched grimly on the board into the sticky red mud. An eighth of an inch either way and you’d screwed it, and that meant fifteen seconds or so of frantic hacking, which more often than not broke the neck rather than cutting it. All in all, Nennius decided, this wasn’t what he’d joined the service for. In fact, it was a thoroughly unsatisfactory way of doing things, and there was still a very long way to go.
Midnight came and went. There were complaints from the rest of the camp, particularly from civilians, about the noise, which was disturbing people’s sleep. There was also a message from Duke Valens, reprieving Miel Ducas, who shouldn’t have been included in the general warrant in the first place.
It was understandable, perhaps, that nobody told Miel Ducas that he’d been spared; the execution party had plenty of other things to do, and it was easy for details to get overlooked. Accordingly, Miel spent the night huddled in a corner of the biscuit-barrel stockade. He’d wormed himself against the barrels as if he was trying to squeeze himself through the tiny crack that separated them, and if anybody came within two feet of him he lashed out with his hands and feet.
In spite of everything, there was still a part of his mind that was perfectly, cruelly clear; and it very much wanted to know where the sudden panic, the overpowering fear of death, had come from. He wasn’t sure. The best explanation he could come up with was that he was well aware that he’d been included in the warrant by mistake — kill the prisoners, they’d said, meaning the captured scavengers; but the sergeant in charge of the guard had assumed the order referred to everybody currently under restraint. Miel had tried to explain; first quietly and reasonably, then at the top of his voice, so everybody in the camp could hear him. While he was yelling and screaming, he was bitterly ashamed of himself, and he knew perfectly well, deep inside his mind’s sound core, that he was only objecting because it was a mistake, because it was unfair. Childish reasoning, giving rise to childish behavior; the Ducas doesn’t throw tantrums, particularly in the hearing of seventy-odd poor unfortunates who are doing their best to compose themselves as they wait for the end. Lack of consideration for others had always been the greatest sin, after disloyalty. Every time he paused for breath, he could hear them muttering and swearing at him telling him to shut up, put a sock in it, get a grip. He realized that at the end he’d lost everything, and he tried to use that to pull himself together. But each time he heard the axe fall — the clean shearing hiss, the soft thump followed by a shriek that marked a botched cut, the deep bite of the edge going through into the oak of the block — the panic surged up and spurted into his brain, overruling all his objections and setting him off again, like a baby woken up in the night.
Each time the guards came and grabbed someone, he thought, I wish they’d take me, and then it’d be over with; then, as the hurdles
that served the pen as a makeshift gate were slammed and chained, he snuggled harder still against the barrels, shivering like a man with a high fever, desperate with relief because they’d taken someone else, not him. Then the pause; then the axe-fall, and off he’d go again, explaining in a yell that slurred the words together about the mistake in the warrant; then the hurdle-chain would rattle and he’d think, They’ll take me next, just to stop me making this horrible disgusting noise; and so back to the beginning, top dead center of the flywheel, and the wish that they’d take him next.
He counted, of course: fifty left, forty-five, forty, thirty-five, thirty, twenty-five, twenty, nineteen. At times he was sure the terror would kill him before they finally condescended to come for him; then he’d slump, just as scared but too exhausted to move at all. His trousers were wet with piss and he’d skinned his throat with shouting, and he hated the scavengers for sitting still and quiet in the dark, while he made such a pathetic exhibition of himself. He realized he’d been yelling for Orsea, for Veatriz, for Jarnac (but he was dead already; thoughtless shit, to be dead when he was needed for a typical swashbuckling Ducas rescue); for Valens, for the sergeant of the guard, for the adjutant-general, for Daurenja, whose worthless life he’d saved from the just fury of Framain. Apparently, none of these was minded to help him; embarrassed, probably, by the appalling fuss he was making. Little wonder nobody wanted to know him, at the end.
Nine. He could hear someone crying; a feeble, bubbling noise. He realized he was listening to himself.
Eight; and the guards had paused in the gateway, looking round. When they left, the I-wish-they’d-taken-me-instead feeling made a feeble surge before drowning in terror.
Someone else was talking, but the hammering in his ears blotted out the words. He knew he was waiting for the fall of the axe; a voice in his head was saying, When they come for me I’ll fight, I know how to fight, I’m good at fighting, I’ll kill them all and escape. He wished the voice would shut up; but instead it changed. It was someone else, talking to him. He discovered that his eyes were tight shut, and he didn’t seem able to open them again.
Something touched him, and he felt his leg kick out. Impact, and a shout; pain and anger. There, you see, I’m fighting them, I’ve got one already, that just leaves —
“Keep still, for crying out loud, I want to talk to you.”
Strangely enough, the voice was familiar. In another time and place, it had belonged to a woman; the woman at the scavengers’ camp, who’d tried to teach him to sew. With a jolt, he remembered who the other prisoners were.
“I’m sorry,” he heard himself say. “Did I hurt you?”
“Yes. Stupid question, of course you did. Now listen.” She lowered her voice. “There’s not a lot of time left. We need to get out of here before it’s our turn and they come and get us. Do you understand me?”
“You mean … ?” Was she really talking about escaping? Didn’t she realize the guards would be back any moment, as soon as the axe fell? She made it sound as though they had to hurry and get down to the market before all the fresh coriander had been sold. “We can’t,” he said. “They’ll stop us.”
“Be quiet and listen. I’ve been watching them.” She was talking so quietly he could barely hear; quick, businesslike. “When they come in to fetch the next one, they leave the gate open, in case they’ve got their hands full with someone struggling. There’s a moment when the gate’s open and their backs are turned. They’re worn out, you can tell just by looking at them. We’d have to be quick, but we could slip past and they wouldn’t see us. If we got just outside the gate and waited till they came out again, we could get away. Really,” she added furiously. “I’ve watched the last four times, and it’s always the same. If we got away, we could head for Eremia. They wouldn’t follow, they’re about to move out, I’ve heard them talking about it. We could find your friends in the resistance, or even the Mezentines; they’d be interested in knowing what’s been going on here. Well?”
Well, he thought. Absolutely nothing to lose; so how was he going to explain to her that he was too scared to move? It would sound ridiculous, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to make it. “You go,” he said.
“On my own? I can’t. I don’t know how to saddle a horse, or which direction to go in. Listen: my husband was the third one they took. I tried to get my uncle to go with me, but he’s wrenched his knee, he couldn’t walk. I’ve tried everyone I could think of, but they were too scared or they’d given up. If I can’t find someone to go with me, I’ll die. I know about you now; you’re good with horses and finding your way about, they say you’re a great war hero and everything. You’ve got to help me, there’s nobody else left. Please.”
It was really only because he was too tired to make the effort to refuse; and because he couldn’t keep still anymore, and anything was better than being kept waiting until all the others had been used up. Besides, it wouldn’t work, and they’d be caught and killed on the spot, so at least there was a chance he wouldn’t be led out there to the chopping block. But mostly it was because he felt so weak, and doing what you’re told is always easier than fighting. If he refused she’d probably get angry with him, and he hadn’t got the strength to face a scene.
The sound of the axe falling; someone swearing in exasperation; a shout, three parts weariness to one part fury. She was standing up, grabbing his arm and yanking on it. He had to get up, or she’d have dislocated his shoulder.
His legs buckled twice on the way to the gate. As they passed, someone said, “Where are you going?”; his heart froze, but she dragged him past and into what he supposed was position for the maneuver they were about to attempt. He’d forgotten the details of the plan already.
The gate opened. The guard’s shoulder brushed his face, but the guard didn’t stop or look round. They’d passed him, and she was hauling at his sleeve. The gate had been left open.
He wasn’t aware of taking the six or seven steps; the thunder in his head was too loud, and he couldn’t feel his legs. But they were on the other side of the gate, and the guards came bustling past, hauling a man by his wrists; his back was arched and he was digging his heels in, so that they plowed ruts in the mud as he was dragged past; his head was as far back as it would go. All told, he was in a bad way, but he made tolerable cover. Perhaps, if he’d known what a service he was performing for the Ducas, it would’ve made it easier for him to bear. Perhaps not.
She was pulling at him again, like a lazy horse. He followed, ambling. It was, of course, ridiculous; they wouldn’t get twenty yards. In between waves of terror, he occupied his mind with wondering why she’d taken him with her. She seemed so efficient, so self-possessed; not the sort who needed a man to look after her. The most he’d be able to achieve would be to get them both caught. The thought crossed his mind that she fancied him. He managed not to laugh out loud.
Well, they’d made twenty yards. Perhaps she was telling the truth, and she really couldn’t tack up a horse on her own. Some women were afraid of horses, the way some big, strong men were scared of spiders. Perhaps she thought that as soon as they were across the border, the Ducas’ loyal retainers would come scuttling out of their hidey-holes in among the rocks to fight over the privilege of sheltering them. Perhaps she’d seen how very, very frightened he was, and had taken pity on him. (Well, quite. Nothing like looting the dead for a living for honing the delicate sensibilities.) In any event, they were in the open. Behind them, the biscuit-barrel stockade was a vague, looming shape, lit by a fuzzy yellow glow from the hurricane lanterns. Ahead of them, pale shadows that had to be tents. She steered him away from them — for someone who needed him along because only he knew the way, she had a superb sense of direction — toward a dark open space on their right. Closer; he could make out the dark gray outline of rails. The horse-fold, surrounded by a ring of gate hurdles. Was she really thinking of stealing a horse? Not a good idea, in his professional opinion as the duty big, strong man. Highly unlikely that
the Vadani kept their tack in a neat pile in the corner of the fold. Bareback and without a bridle, a horse would be a liability rather than an asset. Not his place to argue, though. She led; he followed.
Up to the hurdle fence; over it (the middle rail was brittle and snapped under his weight with a noise like a tournament), through the fold — horses raised their heads and stared sleepily at them as they passed — and over the other side. Now that was smart: a short cut, to avoid going through the middle of the camp. Suddenly it occurred to Miel that they might get away with it, after all. But it seemed so pathetic … why hold still and be killed, when you can just walk away with only a little luck and determination? Could you really opt out of death so easily, like skipping a tiresome social engagement by pretending you had a cold?
She was talking to him.
“… All we’ve got to do is get across this flat bit of ground and we’re on the uphill slope. They won’t even —”
She stopped dead. A shape was thickening out of the darkness; a man, blocking their way. Oh well, Miel thought; and then, The hell with giving in. We’ve got this far.
“Hold it,” the man was saying. “No civilians past this point without authority, so unless you’ve got a pass …”
She was talking to him: “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. We were just taking a walk, we hadn’t realized we’d come so far. We’ll head straight back.”
“That’s all right,” the sentry was saying, when Miel hit him with a rock. He wasn’t sure how it had got into his hand. He must have stooped and felt for it, but it had come to him like a properly trained dog; he could just get his fingers around it comfortably. The sentry’s head was turned toward her — had he even noticed she wasn’t alone? — and he wasn’t wearing a helmet.
The trick was to throw the stone without actually letting go of it. Judge it just right and you can crack a man’s head like a nutshell. Miel saw him drop; he let go of the stone and jumped on him, his knees landing on his chest and forcing the air out like a blast from a bellows. What the hell are you doing? she was saying somewhere above him, as he scrabbled about looking for the sentry’s sidearm — he was half lying on it, which made it horribly awkward to get it out of the scabbard; lucky the poor fool was either already dead or thoroughly stunned. After two or three massive tugs he got it free; she was nagging, Come on, leave it, we don’t need it, you’ll ruin everything.
