The Execution (3 page)

D’ata stepped onto the flat stones of
the dungeon floor and swallowed twice to pop his ears. The dampness
reeked as an unlikely breeze greeted his nostrils. It was rank and
repulsive and he thought it must come from the very rock beneath
his feet.

He could make out the dark rows of
cells, two of them, like long black fingers stretching from the
hand of the devil himself. The unfortunate men who were cast in
here were miserable souls, most of them truly evil, with dreadful
crimes to share their nature. Rarely, though, they were just
unlucky, or enemies to the wrong power. Nevertheless, they shared
something with him...misery.

Making his way down the left row of
the dungeons, D’ata held the oilcloth outstretched to broaden the
sphere of light. The stench drifting out from the holds was
overwhelming now, a vile mix of rotting death and nearly dead.
Sometimes, the maggots invaded even before the end came.

He fought the overwhelming urge to
vomit, to abandon his mission and flee.

‘
I will do my bidding and
be gone from here, back to my room for prayer, a hot drink and a
good night’s sleep,’ he thought to himself.

He tried not to glance into the cells
as he walked by them, only lighting the lamps enough to make his
way. It might be worse to see into the holds than to just imagine.
The groans from within seemed inhuman and the unmistakable affront
of a wretched, naked form evacuating his bowels gave him barely a
moment’s pause.

The moans and gasps hurried him along
and his eyes remained fixed to the stone floor in front of him. An
outstretched hand extended grisly and mutilated from a cell and
startled him. He knew the horrid torture of slowly crushing the
digits of a man’s extremity, and D'ata wasn't at all certain the
hand was even attached to an arm. He stepped over it carefully,
maintaining his direction, bent now upon his purpose. He replaced
his cloak and kept his head down, knowing where he must
stop.

D’ata must have appeared, for all
purposes, the dark angel that he was, passing over death and
despair as he carefully and silently made his way to the last cell.
He was beginning to wonder if he would never get there, for
eternity seemed to have a grip on him, but eventually he arrived at
the solitary dungeon, with its massive bars and heavily bolted
door.

Holding the oilcloth up, he thought at
first that no one was in the hold. He squinted hard, swinging the
torch carefully to and fro, searching the cell while commanding his
eyes to stop their tricks. Finally, he made out a wretched form in
the far corner.

The man was wrapped in rags, huddled
as far from the door as possible, burrowed into the straw like a
miserable animal as though to gain what little warmth he could.
From the cell door, he looked fragile and small. The flesh that
showed was bruised and scraped. D'ata knew this was because the
prisoner had been subjected to torture before his sentencing. The
man possessed an evil history, and it was the way of
things.

If they were loathed, the prisoners
suffered horrible fates. Men were castrated by suspension until the
weight of their bodies tore the delicate orbs from them. If they
were adulterous, they were sodomized by the guards. If, however,
they were feared—they were beaten, but no hand would touch them
directly. It was believed that the truly evil in life could spite
one in death, and there was a respectful cruelty reserved for
prisoners such as this one.

D’ata breathed in a deep breath. For a
moment, he thought the prisoner dead. He thought he might be too
late, but as his eyes better adjusted, he saw the slow, shallow
rise and fall of the prisoner’s breathing.

“
You there, it is I,
D’ata—the priest. I have come to hear your confession.”

There was no response and the creature
remained unmoving. He tried again, “I am here with the seventh
sacrament. Do you wish salvation?”

Again, there was no
response.

Unlocking the gate with the heavy iron
key the guard had given him, D'ata moved into the cell. He locked
it quickly and hid the key on his sash, between the folds of his
robes. “I give you the chance to seek the forgiveness of our
Father, to go to your death in peace.”

The prisoner remained terribly
still.

Holding the torch up, the cell
appeared larger than he'd first thought, a good size, nearly five
long paces square. Most of the floor was bare stone, stained with
the blood and decay from past prisoners, layered with old and moldy
straw. The air was dead, unmoving and heavy.

Kneeling next to the man, D’ata
stretching his hand out to touch the huddled form. It occurred to
him that the prisoner might be sleeping, or unconscious. The man
may not have heard anything he said.

At such a close range, he became aware
that the creature was not a wretched withered shape after all, as
he’d appeared from outside the cell. The murderer was a stalwartly
man, perhaps over four cubits tall, like himself. He'd expected
less, a pitiless fragment of a man. Surely it must be so, since the
crime was worthy of only ugliness, weakness. A taker of life—and
now his would be taken.

The priest’s eyes sharpened as he
noticed the folds of dense muscle layered over the bare ribs, which
probably protected them from breaking during the beatings. He
glanced at the strong sinews of an exposed thigh, the knees folded
for warmth under an unmoving body.

D’ata noticed the ragged scar of an
obvious impalement on the thigh. There were many scars—this man was
cruelly battle-worn. He next observed the broadness of the
shoulders, wisps of straw clinging here and there. There was
nothing weak about this man, but D’ata sensed that the prisoner was
indeed forsaken. He swallowed; perhaps they were not so different
after all.

His head was completely buried beneath
the straw, arms clasped around it as though to protect it, even as
he slept.

D’ata paused, considering the gentle
rise and fall of the man’s breathing, soft and sincere, like a
child’s.

“
I have bread and wine for
you,” he whispered.

He had hidden the loaf and flask from
the guard. It was forbidden to bring other than spiritual comfort
to the condemned, but D’ata was not unkind, and carried these few
comforts to share...if he felt it deserving.

It occurred to him that perhaps the
prisoner was deaf from the beatings, or maybe unable to move, his
back broken as sometimes happened with the tortures. He'd seen the
guards drag a man to the gallows, unable to carry himself even to
his death.

Hesitating, he reached his hand out,
the stark cleanliness of it strangely corrupt against the filth of
the bare shoulder. He didn’t shake the man, but instead gently
pressed his fingers around the collarbone. He felt muscle glide
over sinew as the form groaned and stirred.

Swiftly yanking his hand away, rocked
back on his heels and waited.

Pushing his bruised body to his knees,
the man struggled, his head hanging loosely.

It was just about then that the priest
became more acutely aware of the well defined body, the lean but
muscled form and size of the man. He recalled that this was a
barbarian, and briefly he wondered at his own uncommon lack of good
sense, coming into the cell as he had. Good judgment was not
necessarily one of his gifts.

The man groaned, his battered body
moving with agonizing jerks, likely stiffened from sleeping on the
cold floor.

D’ata watched silently as the man
struggled to will his body to move, like a marionette coming
strangely to life.

Drawing several short, torturous
breaths, the prisoner crouched with his head still hanging. He
wrenched his hands to the sides of his head, as though he might
stop the explosion that was sure to occur. Finally, the gasping
stopped and the man’s breathing became deep and regular, his hands
falling to his knees.

The prisoner slowly raised his head to
peer at his antagonist, expecting but not retreating from the
forthcoming blows. He squinted and blinked from beneath thick,
tangled black locks, the meager light from the oilcloth seeming to
offend his eyes.

D'ata knew the prisoners would
frequently sit in darkness for a very long time, sometimes for days
without seeing the full light of day.

The man looked strangely like a medusa
with a dozen or so long straws clinging to his tangled mane. He
appeared to struggle as he tried to focus on the face of the young
priest who had stirred him so rudely from his sleep.

With a gasp, D’ata fell abruptly away
from the prisoner.

Losing his balance in his haste, the
torch almost fell into the straw. He scrambled to right it and
swiftly regained his balance.

Then, D’ata leaned forward, holding
the torch near, bringing their faces but inches apart.

He moved the fire closer, passing the
flame back and forth slowly to see the man’s features more clearly.
He hastily scanned the forehead, the jaw, thickly bearded. He
noticed the sharp cheekbones and the full mouth, finally coming to
rest upon the eyes.

“
Oh my God, the eyes,”
D’ata stammered, “I seem to have—you are...holy mother of God!” His
mouth dropped open as he reached up, with total disregard, roughly
brushing the long hair away from the prisoner’s face. He studied
the nose, long and angular, the slope of the cheek and the
squareness of the lean jaw.

The mouth, full and wide, slowly broke
into a lopsided grin as the prisoner regarded the priest in return.
His thick lashes and black brows framed dancing eyes, defiant
despite their current wretched state of affairs. A deep and ragged
scar, over the left brow, defiled the tragically beautiful
face.

His eyes, however, were quite the most
disturbing, for as D’ata stared, transfixed by them, he knew
them—knew them unmistakably.

Under the blood and the grime, beaten
and forsaken as it was, the face was his own, a mirror image of
himself.

Both stared in silence, as each beheld
his twin.

The deep, hollow laughter from the
prisoner drifted up the dungeon stairs, out the window slots, and
briefly beckoned all moths before it was swallowed up by the thick
fog of the night.

CHAPTER TWO

†

The Orphanage

Ravan, twelve years
before...

The orphanage sat nestled in between
two hills so that the dirt road into it popped abruptly over the
crest of the eastern ridge, giving little notice of an impending
visitor. Most of the country was intermittently wooded but the two
hills were bare. Today, their greenness looked strangely brilliant
against the gloomy, rain sodden sky.

The great house, as it was called, was
really just a cottage, with a sod and bentonite-clay roof. It did,
however, have an enormous kitchen that the children spent much time
in on the coldest of days.

Sometimes, if a child was ill, he or
she would spend the day snuggled next to the big cook stove, as it
was always burning. There was a small bed next to the kindling box,
reserved for sick ones. Sometimes two or three nestled together in
the sick bed. Most often, children escaped from the bed, but
sometimes they did not. Consequently, a small cemetery lay just
over the hill, next to the forest, with a smattering of tiny
crosses adorned with handmade treasures.

The kitchen had a warmth to it beyond
the heat, a warmth from the eternal presence of the small ones. It
was here the children gathered for nourishment, for their bodies
somewhat, but even more so for their souls.

Behind the house was the barracks, a
sort of dormitory fashioned from an old turkey barn. It had a low
roof and rows of small beds, each with its own wool or feather
blanket.

The children gathered the feathers
from the chicken and turkey houses to make new pillows or blankets.
In the summer, they collected thistle down from along the river for
the mattresses. When there was a feather shortage, they stuffed the
blankets with straw.

There were no windows in the barracks
as glass was expensive. Neither was there any heat source beyond
the simple fire chamber at one end. As it seemed the winters were
colder lately, the children pressed more of the clay between the
cracks of the building to windproof the little
structure.

The beds were littered with small
tokens that identified each child, a particularly lovely stone, a
piece of blue sealing wax, a broken shard of colored glass. Each
treasure was tucked away safely about the bed of the child to whom
it belonged so that the beds had the appearance of rows of blessed
shrines. Each was taken special care of, in the fashion that only a
child can. Should a child die, the treasure accompanied him or her
to the gravesite, buried carefully with them, or left dangling upon
the cross.

Recently, the orphanage was full, as
the plague had left many young ones. A good third of the population
between India and Iceland had succumbed to the Black Death of the
mid-fourteenth century, and the plague recurred at heartless
intervals.