Chapter 2: The Hanging

Near Ashtown, in the Heartlands of the Twin Kingdoms, one month later

“Hang ’em!” Old Wil bellowed angrily as the others took up the cry, “The noose! Give ’em the noose!”

The mob cheered and hollered and spat insults at the three ragged men in chains standing under the expanse of a beech tree and a flock of sparrows had perched themselves on the canopy, singing to each other excitedly over their heads. One was not even a man yet, but a boy of twelve, frightened and desperate. He had wet himself and looked at them with imploring eyes. “Mercy!” he cried, his voice quivering. “It weren’t me, I swear on Iax’s name, it weren’t!”

His companions, on the other hand, seemed to have resigned themselves to their fate. To the boy’s left stood a brutish, thick-necked man with an ugly scar from an injury that had taken off half his nose. He cast a defiant look at the crowd while, on his right, a sandy-haired, dark-eyed man with a sullen, pockmarked face hopped from one foot to the other, twitching and breathing raggedly. They stood before three nooses of hempen rope which had been swung over a thick branch. It would not break under their weight.

“Kill the whoresons!” Rik the stonemason yelled, hurling a rock at the brutish man. It caught him under the eye and fell to the grass, bloodied. The man hissed and bared his brown and broken teeth. More stones flew, some meeting their mark. The boy whimpered and dropped to his knees, still begging for clemency. The brute cursed the mob, calling them whoresons and worse in return, yet the sandy-haired man remained silent as bright blood trickled down his face from a deep gash on his forehead.

“I didn’t do nothin’, I swear! They made me! They made me!” the boy squealed, wriggling in his fetters. “I swear it by the Burned God, it weren’t me!”

“Keep His good name out o’ your mouth, wretch. You’ll burn in Hell for what you’ve done!” cried Barra the forester’s wife. The village folk took up the cry.

“Hang ’em! Hang ’em! Hang ’em!”

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t…” the boy sobbed, as two armoured knights yanked him to his feet. Struggling, he fell back down, his reddened eyes gushing with tears. “Mercy, sirs, believe me, please! Please!”

“On your feet, lad. It will be over soon,” one of the knights commanded coldly.

“No! NOOO! You must believe me! I don’t want to die!”

But his desperate words were muffled by the crowd’s cries for blood.

“Can we go, Trystan?” Kyra murmured. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

They sat at the back of the mob on an old wooden fence, away from the sweaty smell of the crowd. The boy in the seaweed hood looked on in fascination, his eyes fixed on the three knights arguing a little way off. He was barely younger than the boy that was to be hanged, with deep green eyes rimmed with gold, and long light brown hair.

“I want to see,” he said softly.

Kyra’s face had turned milky white and she nudged him again. The kennel master’s daughter was a comely girl of fifteen, with cascading black curls over a heart-shaped face, deep blue eyes and a smatter of freckles.

“Trystan,” she implored, pulling at his sleeve, “please, let us go, I do not wish to see this…”

The boy shook her off, never taking his eyes from the scene. “You can go, if you wish. I want to see it.”

“What would your mother say?” she urged.

Trystan grimaced, he knew exactly what she would say.

“Don’t tell her then.”

He had never seen a man die, and morbid curiosity had gotten the better of him. He had wondered how long it would take them to utter their last breath, and whether it was more painful to die by the rope than by the sword, or whether it were true that Iax would banish their souls to the land of the damned. Yet right now, his mind was on the splendour of the knights. His heart had filled with excitement when he heard the news that a small company in service to the Lord of Roserock had apprehended the outlaws and would put them to justice. Here, in his own small lands were real knights – gleaming giants, clad in flashing steel and silver plate over golden chainmail, and with swooshing velvet capes trimmed with satin. Sewn onto those capes and over the hearts of their squires’ leather brigandines was a white rose whose thorny stem wove itself over a white castle. Trystan looked longingly at the squires. The young men jested and jostled and laughed as they tended to the knights’ horses, and traded banter with the men-at-arms who had accompanied them on their quest.

“Trystan,” Kyra whispered urgently, “please, let us go.”

He ignored her, instead straining to listen to what the knights were arguing about, but could never hope to hear over the howls and screams of the crowd. Two of the three warriors were young, barely older than twenty, and appeared as mirror images of each other. The twin knights were lean but muscular, with copper curls and deep-set eyes the colour of moss. They had an easy way about them and seemed to care little for what their commander was saying. The third was an older man, well past forty seasons. He was broad of shoulder and neck, his short-cropped hair turning grey, as was his well-trimmed beard. He had a handsome, stern look about him, and Trystan held his breath as he saw him snarl something at the young knights and cuff one of them behind the ear with a mailed hand, to the apparent delight of his brother.

“Come on, Trystan,” Kyra snapped, “we really should not be here!”

He hushed her, nodding towards the beech tree and the three condemned men. The older of the three knights stepped away from his companions and addressed the crowd, raising a hand for quiet.

“Good people of Ashtown!” he proclaimed in a deep voice, “my name is Sir Elric of Karcliff, in service of Selmyn of House Evergreen, Lord of Roserock and Steward of the Heartlands by the grace of the King.”

The villagers bowed their heads and Trystan leaned closer in apprehension, holding his breath. It seemed as if the entire hill had fallen under a spell of silence, save for the sobs of the condemned boy. Sir Elric continued.

“A year and a season has passed since these Heartland Raiders took to pillaging our lands. Killing our people and stealing our livestock. Their crimes are those of rape and murder among many others. Their victims, travellers and common folk alike. They have broken the king’s peace, and thus the king’s retribution shall be swift.”

The crowd’s rage began to stir yet again. Another rock flew at the outlaws, and the boy cried out, “Their horses, I tended to their horses is all, I never…”

“Hang the bastards!” the crowd roared. “Hang! Hang them!”

“Please, please don’t kill me. I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll join The Temple I will!”

Trystan saw Sir Elric’s mouth twitch; he raised his hand once more but this time the crowd seemed not to notice. One of the twin knights sauntered up and whispered in his ear. The older knight gave him an annoyed look and snapped at him.

“They raped my Lyra!” Tessa the washerwoman cried. “She’s cursed with child now, and she’s only sixteen!”

Brast the butcher unsheathed his cleaver, a gleam of vengeance in his eye.

“And my brother, killed ’em for two coppers they did!”

He pushed his way through the crowd towards the men under the beech tree, but in two long strides the commander was on him.

“Enough!” the knight bellowed. “They will face the king’s justice, not yours.”

Brast stood defiant, but only for a moment. He grunted at the knight and tucked his cleaver back into his apron, rejoining the crowd, who murmured angrily but did as they were bid.

“These men were captured on one of our incursions into their hideouts. Many were killed yet some of their ilk still prowl Smallwood Forest and the riverlands of the Eber. We caution all of you to stay clear of such places until such time as this menace has been put to rest.”

He then gestured at the men-at-arms by the horses.

“For their crimes, let these men hang in the name of the king.”

“Finally,” one of the twin knights said in a droll tone, “can we get on with it then?”

The boy quivered under the rope, a crazed look in his eye, “I beg you…” he howled, “please don’t hang me! I don’t want to die. I’ll be good! I won’t ever do anything bad, not ever! Please…”

“Should have thought about good and bad before throwing your lot in with those outlaws,” the young knight said in a careless tone as he fastened the noose around the lad’s neck.

“No, please sir knight, good knight, I swear…”

“Shut it, or I’ll gag you. Die like a man at the very least,” the knight ordered.

The boy shivered and moaned.

Yet his pleas fell on deaf ears. The knight simply moved to tie the ropes around the other two.

“Good goddess,” Kyra whispered.

Trystan said nothing; none did.

Once the nooses had been tied around the men’s necks, three men-at-arms stepped forth, holding the ends of the ropes.

The young knight puffed out his chest and proclaimed, “In the name of His Grace, King Elric of House Astriel, Herald of the Phoenix and Lord of the Twin Kingdoms of Arendor and Avestria, Shield of the Realm and Protector of Men, I Sir Tysen of Roserock, sentence you to death in the light of Iax and His angels.”

He motioned almost lazily at the men-at-arms, who at his command pulled on the ropes, and the three outlaws were hoisted up into the canopy of the great beech tree. They kicked wildly, spluttering and choking. Trystan’s stomach churned as he saw the boy’s bloodshot eyes widen, his expression contorted. His face turned red, then purple, then blue as he kicked at the air with what remained of his strength. Trystan could not stop himself from looking. The young boy made a horribly pained wheezing sound as his left eye began to pop out of its socket and blood trickled out of his mouth.

It took longer than Trystan had expected. The dead men struggled for what felt like hours. The sandy-haired one was the first to stop kicking, eventually hanging limply from the branch, his body swinging in the breeze. Next was the brutish one with his rotted teeth bared for all to see, who squirmed so hard it took three men to hold the end of his creaking rope.

The boy gasped and choked until he could gasp and choke no more, then he gave one last feeble kick and fell silent, his young eyes staring into nothingness. Even the birds fell silent.

The column of villagers made their way down the path back to town in high spirits. Men jested and shoved each other playfully as the women spoke of all and nothing, exchanging pleasantries as the warm summer sun washed over them. The long dirt road twisted and turned through the hedges and meadows, green as green could be.

“I heard some merchants managed to make it through unmolested,” Rik commented to no one in particular, “maybe they’ll grace us for market day.”

“Aye, that’d be good,” Brast answered, “I need me some salt to keep the meat. You hear where they came from?”

“Nay, but any trade is good these days. I need my tools fixed quick, and Varn’s too lazy or too damn stupid to do it right.”

Varn the blacksmith glared at him from under his bushy eyebrows. “Mayhap I’d work quicker if the wind didn’t keep blowing in through the holes in my wall. The wall you built. Shoddy work I paid you well for.”

“Come now, boys, no fighting today,” Rik’s wife Reah chimed in soothingly. “We’ve been waiting for market day all summer, an’ I heard some silk vendors will be in town,” she said as she squeezed her husband’s hand affectionately. “I could buy a bolt or two, make myself a nice new dress for Temple Morn…”

“One bolt, woman, I need my salt,” her husband sighed, ignoring the roguish look she gave him.

“When will they arrive?” Fela the miller’s girl asked.

“Today, methinks,” Reah replied. “I heard Helga talk about it. Lady Seleyn bid her get some spices for the castle.”

Their conversation turned to the price of grain, their voices trailing off to the back of the column where Trystan and Kyra walked in awkward silence.

“That was not right,” the girl mused, “he was just a boy.”

She had averted her eyes towards the end, and had refused to look at the hanging bodies as they were brought down to be buried under the tree.

“It was justice,” Trystan stated firmly. “They deserve what they got.”

“The other two maybe, but the poor boy…”

“Sir Tysen was right,” Trystan persisted, thinking of the dashing young knight and wishing he had a suit of armour as grand as his, “he should have thought about it before throwing in his lot with the Raiders.”

“The Burned Book says men deserve a chance at redemption,” Kyra chided him.

“It also says murder is a sin,” Trystan shot back. “They broke the king’s law, and they got what they deserve.”

“You’re too harsh, Trystan, that boy was no older than you.”

“And so? What of it?” Trystan demanded; he loathed people reminding him how young he was.

“Do you think he murdered anyone?” Kyra asked. “Could you?”

“Well, no, but…”

“I’m just saying that did not seem like justice to me,” she said.

“What would you know about justice anyway?” Trystan was sulking now.

“I know what I see, and I know what I feel,” Kyra replied. “Do you think you could have done better?”

“I will,” he replied eagerly, “when I become a knight. I will protect the innocent and punish the evil, as all knights do.”

“So if justice is punishment,” Kyra said, “what’s the difference? They murder, so you murder them back.”

“It’s not like that,” Trystan protested. “A knight does not murder. We punish according to the offence.”

“We?”

Trystan’s cheeks burned, his anger flaring.

“And anyway, what if they had a reason?” Kyra continued.

“A reason for what? To kill innocents and rob them?” he retorted.

“I’m not speaking of the Raiders. I speak of the boy. He only tended to their horses…” Kyra reminded him softly.

“That’s what he said,” Trystan persisted. “You don’t know that to be true. I’m not a knight yet. But I will be one day. I know it as well as I know my own name,” he said fiercely, “and when I am, I will be just and fair. But I will do what I must.”

“So you will kill?”

“If I must.”

Next Chapter: Chapter Three: Trystan