The Execution (10 page)

The awful and sickening intent of the
man settled abruptly into the boy’s awareness, and he became
intensely alert, thinking very fast. The room seemed all of a
sudden too warm and small. He knew if he called out for help, it
would probably prove futile. Most noise would be easily drowned out
by the revelry below. He didn’t have time to consider much beyond
this thought.

Steele suddenly and clumsily snatched
for Ravan’s arm but managed only to grasp the sleeve of his tunic.
Candle nubs scattered to the floor as the boy ducked and wriggled
free of the shirt, leaving himself half-naked and breathing hard.
Deep red scratches ran down one arm from where Pierre’s long, filed
nails clawed for him. Blood beaded in scarlet drops and dripped,
unnoticed, from the tips of his fingers to the floor.

Shirtless, Ravan scaled the bed and
lit lightly on the other side. Without hesitation he reached into
his boot for the familiar blade—Pig-Killer.

Standing with the limp tunic in his
hands, Pierre was aroused by the sudden nakedness of the boy, the
silver necklace and copper ring shining bright against Ravan’s
amber skin.

“
That’s a start, you
pretty little bitch,” Pierre leered. He circled the bed slowly,
hands up, claw-like, as though to catch the boy.

One of his comrades chuckled and
started to crawl across the bed, effectively trapping Ravan in the
far corner of the room.

The boy glanced beyond the man to the
window, his only obvious means of escape. It seemed inaccessible,
sheltered behind the advancing Pierre. The third man blocked the
door. Ravan was entirely trapped. There was no means of escaping
what was to come.

Pierre lunged clumsily for Ravan, his
eyes glistening with excitement and eager anticipation. The big man
was slow and awkward, but his sheer size made him acutely
dangerous. If he managed to get hold of Ravan, he could easily
overpower him and stifle the boy’s screams, consummating the
rape.

Ravan made a calculated and desperate
decision. His thoughts were blindingly fast and he acted with
enormous resolve.

Pierre had grossly miscalculated his
prey, and this was a strategic error on Steele’s part.

Suddenly twisting his body, Ravan
swept the blade in a wide arc, with all the strength and commitment
he could summon. He brought the knife blindingly and viciously
across the face of Pierre. Pig-Killer obeyed effortlessly, leaving
behind a seven-inch gash. The vicious slice went from below the
man’s left ear, across the bridge of his nose and down his jaw,
glancing off bone as it finished just short of his
throat.

For the briefest of moments, Pierre
seemed only stunned. The blade was so sharp and quick that Steele
didn’t appear to comprehend the extent of his wound.

Seconds later, he shrieked in rage,
his hands clutching at his face as blood streamed down both arms.
His nose was nearly severed, the cartilage cut completely through,
and it flopped loosely down onto his upper lip. He was a grotesque,
horrible figure and his voice rose to a shrill pitch as he wailed,
stumbling backwards. His trousers had fallen and his erection
retreated back beneath his apron of pubic fat.

Startled, his friends stood stock
still, unable to take their eyes from their comrade’s
mutilation.

Ravan, his back wedged into the corner
of the room, wielded his knife in front of him. His lip was curled
back in a vicious snarl, his eyes wide and fierce. The stress of
the moment caused him to break out in a cold sweat and his body
shone, sleek and wet. Wild and trapped, he would kill if he needed
to—or die trying.

The savagely unpredictable and vicious
attack on Pierre had the desired effect on the other two, as they
were planted with shocked expressions stamped upon their simple
faces. They stared blindly at the butcher job of Pierre, obviously
surprised by Ravan’s attack and stunned by the incredible amount of
blood it produced.

In his rage, Pierre pawed for his
sword, which had dropped away from his hip with his loosened
trousers. He finally found the blade and stepped forward, raising
it awkwardly towards the boy’s face, his bloodied hand shaking
uncontrollably.

He seemed unsure of what to focus on,
whether he should run Ravan through right away or address his own
injury first. With his free hand, he pawed at his own distorted
face, trying to close the hideous wound and hold his nose more
closely to where it belonged.

Ravan was shocked at his own
handiwork. It was a horrifying and ghastly image, but somehow it
made him feel strangely exhilarated. Quickly considering the
situation, he realized he could not reach beyond the sword with his
own weapon. He decided he must close the gap between them, before
Pierre gained enough composure to strike. He risked being run
through in the process, but as far as he could see, it was his only
option.

“
Don’t touch him, Pierre.
He’s not mine—he belongs to Duval,” Monsieur LaFoote’s booming
voice shook the room.

Through the corner of his eye, Pierre
spotted the Innkeeper holding a razor sharp dueling sword leveled
at his ear. “Look what the bastard’s done to me! Look at my face!”
he screamed.

There was only raw silence in the
room.

LaFoote continued, “We both know
you’ve had this coming for a long time, you sick pig. Down to the
kitchen. The wife will sew you up—or you can die right now.” He
stepped closer, the sword mere inches from Pierre’s head. The tone
of the Innkeeper’s voice carried with it the cold promise of
truthful intention. “Do what you will with the babes of others, but
touch this one and you will rape no more,” the Innkeeper
warned.

Pierre knew Lafoote was capable of
this threat, but was evidently struggling with it, weighing the
gravity of it to the joy of killing Ravan. He hesitated. The razor
tip of the dueling sword pressed against his earlobe. “He was
trying to steal from me!” Pierre screamed. A long pause stretched
out in the room and only the ragged breathing of the boy could be
heard.

“
You know I’ll do it,
Pierre,” LaFoote pressed him. “He belongs to Duval.” His words
landed like icicles dropping to paving stone.

Sobbing and screaming revenge, Pierre
finally broke away and shuffled his bulk back through the door. He
kept one hand on his mangled face, the other clutched at his
trousers and the hilt of his own dull sword.

His friends followed, leaving LaFoote
and Ravan alone.

Ravan dropped his arm, the knife
dangling in his hand. He straightened, still breathing hard, and
blinked his eyes. He was dazed as though he was moving slowly in a
dream.

LaFoote eyed Pig-Killer. He stepped
towards the boy, reached down and picked up the fallen shirt. “I’m
sorry, Ravan.”

Bewildered, Ravan stared. “I don’t
understand, who is Duval?”

The Innkeeper sighed, his arm
outstretched with the shirt, but said nothing.

Ravan looked blankly at
him.

LaFoote tossed the shirt onto the bed
and turned away. “Go to your room Ravan. I’ll be up to talk with
you in a bit. Bar the door until I do, and don’t come
down.”

Ravan hesitated. “But, I
don’t—?”

“
I said get to your room!”
LaFoote yelled at him. “Now do as you’re told, do you hear?” He
startled Ravan, his reaction too angry given the boy was just
moments ago defending himself from a rape.

Still shaking, adrenaline surging
through his body, Ravan searched the man’s face for clues to this
evolving mystery.

LaFoote maintained his silence,
gesturing at the door with the long and serious blade.

Ravan stared, at the Innkeeper he
thought he knew, at the dueling sword he'd never seen before. He
puzzled over the stormy expression on the face of the traitor.
“But, I thought you brought me here to—?”

“
Speak no more!” LaFoote
boomed.

Confused and angry, Ravan snatched the
shirt from the bed and left for his room, but not to wait, as
instructed. Instead, he would make a plan of his own.

CHAPTER SIX

†

The afternoon, as D’ata had suspected
it would be, was beautiful, clear and warm. His mood, however, was
not. He remained disturbed but strangely excited by the morning’s
events at the church and could not remove thoughts of her from his
mind. He even considered the possibility that she was not human at
all, that she was sent from the devil himself to destroy the
sanctity of his world, or perhaps to test him. He’d heard the
monsignor speak of such things before.

If this were the case, Satan had made
great strides towards accomplishing his purpose. D’ata was, since
this morning, unsure of anything. All he knew was that he must not
ever see her again. The massive machine of the Cezanne estate
groaned, the gears fractured. To see her again would be
devastating.

D’ata’s normally serene life was
severely shaken. He was first rebuked by the senior monsignor after
the church had cleared. Later, once at home, his father had flown
into a rage.

What was he thinking, the Earl yelled,
such a display in front of the entire congregation, after all that
had been done for him! What had he meant to do? Compromise
everything? His priesthood, his status, the status of the family?
What would this mean for his standing in the township, and the very
trade industry that propelled the Cezanne dynasty?

The more his father ranted, the more
angered he seemed to become until finally his father had done
something he'd never done before. In his rage, as his rhetoric
spewed and his passion mounted, he lost control and with a level
backhand struck D’ata hard across the face. It shocked both of
them, and rocked the very foundation of the Cezanne
Empire.

D’ata stumbled backwards, never in his
wildest dreams anticipating such a reaction from his father. He
fell and sat hard down onto the floor. He was shocked and staggered
by his father’s reaction. His cheek was turning an awful crimson
from the blow. He didn’t recognize the ruddy-faced man, clenching
his hands and towering over him. The only sound was the labored
breathing the tirade had forced upon the Baron.

His father stared mutely down at his
son, sitting dazed by the sudden violent turn of events.

Without moving, D’ata stared back,
eyes wide. When he spoke, his words were as honest and sincere as
his heart was broken. “But father—what if I love her?” he
whispered, his face pure and his emotion raw,

The question was heartfelt, genuine,
and—totally beyond the comprehension of his father. The Earl
stormed from the library, leaving D’ata completely
dumbstruck.

Now, as the afternoon swung upon him,
in all its warmth and lovely exhibition, all the young priest knew
and could think about was that he could not get her out of his
mind. It wasn’t the horrible event in the library he ruminated
about—it was her.

Over and over, he turned her vision
around in his head, remembering every detail of her lovely face,
her soulful eyes, her gossamer body. He remembered how the earthen
perfume of dust in her hair had drifted up into his nostrils when
he leaned over to speak to her. If Satan were playing with him,
he'd certainly chosen a heavenly image with which to do
so.

After his father left him, D’ata
retreated to his room. A terrible, unfamiliar heaviness rested in
his stomach, a sensation he could not recall ever having before.
His mood darkened and after brooding for a while, he changed into
his riding clothes. He was getting no closer to resolving the
situation. He couldn’t even properly identify it.

This was an utterly unfamiliar
landscape to him and the walls of the mansion closed in on him.
Irritated, and no closer to solving his dilemma, he slipped out the
back way to the stables.

* * *

Henri was perplexed at the young man’s
foul mood. D’ata was never ill tempered, had always been a gracious
and gentle boy.

The young man hardly spoke as he
pulled the big bay from its stall.

Henri had not been in the congregation
this morning, taking mass instead at the smaller parish closer to
the estate. Monsieur Cezanne and his family had taken one of the
finest carriages into town to take mass there and to observe
D’ata’s progress.

He'd heard the rumors though. Staff
had overheard the abuse as the Earl had rebuked his son behind the
closed library doors. Rumors spread like wildfire, but Henri
thought it better to say nothing as D’ata slapped a saddle on the
big gelding’s back. The animal stepped nervously in place, sensing
the urgency of the moment. The stable master noticed the deepening
bruise on the face of his friend and watched the young man tighten
the cinch too roughly.

It occurred to him that D’ata looked
older today. He hesitated before handing him a bridle with a ringed
snaffle bit, suspecting that in his black mood D’ata may be too
severe with the animal’s soft mouth. The snaffle would be gentler
than the shanked, double reined bit D’ata normally rode
with.

The young priest seemed not to even
notice, murmuring a ‘Merci,’ hardly aware of Henri's
presence.