Erik said, ‘We’re to die?’
Lender said, ‘Yes. The Prince gave the order less than an hour ago.’ Lender handed the boots through the bars to Erik. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I had built a persuasive brief, but the mother of the man you killed is the daughter of the Duke of Ran and has much influence in this court as well as the King’s. The King himself was consulted, and in the end you were both sentenced to death. There is nothing that can be done.’ He pointed to the boots that Erik now clutched before him. ‘These were your father’s last gift to you; I thought it would be unfitting for you not to have them at least for a few hours before …’
‘They hang us,’ whispered Roo.
Erik pushed the boots back through the bars. ‘Sell them, Master Lender. You said the gold he left me wouldn’t cover your fees.’
Lender pushed them back toward Erik. ‘No, I failed and I will give your gold to whoever you instruct me to. There is no fee, Erik.’
Erik said, ‘Then send the gold to my mother, at Ravensburg. She’s at the Inn of the Pintail and she has no one to care for her. Tell her to use the gold wisely, for it is all I will ever be able to give her.’
Lender nodded and said, ‘I pray the gods will be gentle with you, Erik, and you as well, Rupert. You have no evil in your hearts, even if you have done this violent thing.’
Lender looked close to tears as he turned away, leaving the two young men from Darkmoor alone in the far corner of the death cell.
Erik looked at his boyhood friend and said nothing. There was nothing to say. He sat and stripped off his common boots, and pulled on the rider’s boots. They fit as if they had been fashioned for him. High, to mid-calf, they were soft and clung like soft velvet instead of harsh hides. Erik knew that if he worked for a lifetime he would not have been able to afford their like.
He sighed. He would at least wear them for part of one day, from the cell to the gallows. He only regretted he didn’t have at least one opportunity to test them on horseback.
Roo sat on the floor, back against the bars. He looked at Erik, his eyes wide with fear, and whispered, ‘What do we do now?’
Erik tried to smile reassuringly at his friend, but the best he could manage was a crooked grimace. ‘We wait.’
Nothing more was said.
The door opened.
Erik blinked, surprised to discover he had dozed, in a numb, emotionally exhausted sleep. Guards, heavily armed against the possible rebellion of the condemned, entered. Last through the door was the strange man Robert de Loungville.
‘Listen, you dogs!’ he shouted, his gravelly voice striking them like a leather glove. With a twisted smile he said, ‘You come when bidden and die like men!’ He called six names, and the last of the six was Slippery Tom. Tom held back, as if somehow he could hide among the group who would be hung second. ‘Thomas Reed! Get out here!’ commanded de Loungville.
When Slippery Tom only crouched lower behind his friend Biggo, de Loungville sent in a pair of guards, swords drawn. The other prisoners stepped aside, and the two grappled with Tom a moment, then dragged him from the cell. He started to cry out for mercy and wailed the entire way to the gallows.
No one in the cell spoke. They all listened to the sound of Tom’s screaming as he was carried farther and farther from them, then turned as one to look out the cell window as the screaming grew again in volume. The first six prisoners were marched in line, save for Tom, who was still being dragged; his voice reached a near shriek in terror. Repeated cuffing from the guards who carried him only seemed to increase his panic, and short of knocking him senseless, they had no way to shut him up. If they were put off by the screaming, they showed no sign; Tom obviously wasn’t the first man they had dragged shrieking to his death; he would be silent soon enough.
Through the bars, Erik watched with a mixture of revulsion and fascination as the first five men plodded up the six wooden steps that led to the gallows. In some distant corner of his mind he knew he would soon be following them, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept that reality in his heart. This was all happening to someone else, not to him.
The men stepped up on the high boxes placed under the nooses, and Tom was carried up to where he would die. He kicked and spit and tried to bite the guards, who held on to him tightly. Then they lifted him up to the box, while another jumped up beside him and quickly placed the rope around his neck. Two more guards held him in place lest he kick the box over and die before the order was given.
Erik didn’t know what to expect – an announcement of some sort or reading of a formal verdict – but without ceremony Robert de Loungville came to stand directly in front of the condemned, his back to the men still in the cell. His voice carried across the yard as he said, ‘Hang them!’
Guards kicked hard at the boxes under the men’s feet, in one case twice to move it from under the man who slumped down in a faint at de Loungville’s command. Slippery Tom’s screaming was choked off abruptly.
Erik felt his stomach knot at the sight before him; three men went limp, a sign their necks had snapped; one jerked twice, then died; but the last two kicked as they were slowly choked to death. Slippery Tom was one of the two, and it seemed to Erik he took an impossibly long time to die. The slender thief kicked, striking one of his guards with a heel, and Biggo said, ‘Should tie a man’s legs, you’d think. Robs him of dignity, kicking around like that.’
Roo stood next to Erik, tears of terror streaming down his face as he said, ‘Dignity?’
Biggo said, ‘Not much else left to a man now, laddie. Man comes into the world naked, and leaves the same way. Clothes on his body don’t mean anything. He’s naked in his soul. But bravery and dignity, that counts for something, I’m thinking. Maybe nothing to anyone, but someday, you never know, one of these guards might be telling his wife, “I remember this big fellow we hung once; he knew how to die.”’
Erik watched as Slippery Tom kicked, then twitched, then at last ceased moving. Robert de Loungville waited for what seemed a long time to Erik before, with a motion of his hand, he shouted, ‘Cut them down!’
The soldiers cut the dead men from the gibbet, and while they were being carried down to be placed on the ground, other soldiers hurried with fresh nooses and put them in place.
Suddenly Erik realized they were coming to get him. His knees began to shake and he put out a hand to steady himself, pressing his palm against the rough stone. This is the last time I’ll feel stone against my hand, crossed his mind. Robert de Loungville motioned for a company of guards to form up, and they marched out of sight of the waiting prisoners.
Through the walls they could hear the tread of boots upon stone as the guards marched from the yard to the death cell. Closer and closer they came, and Erik alternately wished that they were here and it was over and that they would never reach the death cell. He pressed his hand hard against the wall as if the rough feel of it against his flesh somehow denied the approaching end of his life.
Then the door at the end of the hall opened and the guards marched through. The cell door was opened and de Loungville was calling their names. Roo was called fourth, Erik fifth, and Sho Pi, as the only one who would not be hung, was last.
Roo got into line and looked around, panic on his face. ‘Wait, can’t we … isn’t there …’
One of the guards put a firm hand on his shoulder. ‘Stay in line, lad. That’s a good fellow.’