Next time she woke up she felt fairly better. No more swooning or sudden bouts of weakness. Just incredible feeling of hunger and thirst. The front door was wide open, and she could see the executioner outside. He had tied his horse next to the well and was saddling it. Sun was high on the sky, indicating that it was already well past noon. She got hurriedly dressed and climbed down, stumbling slightly to the hem of her skirt.
“Take your coat. You’re coming with me,” the executioner shouted from the outside. She grabbed her cloak, red as her shirt and skirt and walked to where he stood beside his horse.
“Now that Eliac is back, we’re going to start doing things little differently. You’ll stay with me until I get things settled with him. I don’t want to come back home only to find you gutted from the front porch. Like I said to Eliac, I’m getting rather tired of replacing maids.”
Stay with him? She wasn’t all that sure if it was a good idea. She wasn’t all that sure that she could handle the gory aspects of his occupation. But she really didn’t have a choice. She was to do as he told her to do, at all times, if she wanted to gain her freedom.
“I can’t let you wander around in town. There’s an isolation cell near my chambers.” A cell. He was going to lock her up again. Disappointment flickered over her features.
“I’ll lock the door. It’s for your own safety. That way Eliac can’t get to you. And it’s only when I’m working. I’ll see that the guards bring you something to eat. Take a book with you. Or something to sew. Anything.”
Well, at least he wasn’t expecting her to tag along when he started working. Of course she had seen executions before, they were pretty common happenings. But she balked at the idea of standing there when the executioner interrogated the prisoners. She had been lucky. She hadn’t gotten under his tools. Few of the women she had shared her cell had gone through the grinder several times, and every time they were returned to the cell more and more appendages were missing, bones were broken and their features had often times mangled beyond recognition.
She had taken a book with her since she had finished her sewing several days ago. She had been relieved that she got shoved in to a cell instead of having to endure the stench and sights of the interrogation chamber that was adjacent to the Executioner’s office. She hadn’t counted on that she could hear everything that went on in that dim hole of hell.
She could hear every whisper. Every scream. Every ragged plea of mercy. And the executioner talking with calm voice, explaining the details of every procedure to his victims before he started cutting in to their flesh. It was torture like no else. To hear him explaining to a woman how he would first cut off her nipples to make her bleed and wait for a while before he got on with something that would really hurt. Or to hear how he shattered joints of the men with creative use of rope and levers. And hear the voice of the interrogator when he kept asking the same questions from the prisoners over and over again, see him through the bars of her cell when he had to step out for some fresh air every once and a while to tamp down the nausea.
It was late night, and she imagined that the day would be over. That the executioner would come and take her home. Instead she watched in horror when a child, a boy that couldn’t be older than seven years was guided past her cell in to the interrogation chamber. She held her breath, waiting for the screaming to start. Nothing happened. Silence was almost deafening, until the heavy door burst open, and the interrogator marched out, the executioner close on his heels. Both men looked angry, the executioner downright murderous. They stormed down the hall, and stopped when they obviously imagined that there was nobody close enough to hear them.
“I won’t do it.” The executioner.
“Then we’ll just have to find somebody who will…” The interrogator hissed. She tried to squirm her head through the bars of her cell to get a better view, but it was impossible. She had to rely to her ears to follow their conversation.
“Good luck finding somebody. Find a person sick enough to do it, and you have found a person who belongs in to my hands rather than being out there on his own devices…”
“But the bishop…”
“And since when have we bowed in front of him? I don’t care if the boy stole from the Christ himself! He’s just a child!”
“Watch your words, Wolverine. I’d hate to see you hanging from those ropes just because somebody misunderstood your meaning…”
“God damn you… Fine. I’ll do it. But you’re going to wait outside.”
“But the bishop…”
“The boy already confessed! What more do you expect to get out from him?”
“You have a point. But I’ll be waiting outside…”
She scooted hastily against the far wall of her cell when men walked past the door. They didn’t seem to notice her. She crept slowly closer when she heard the door opening and closing. She could see the interrogator standing in front of the door of the interrogation chamber. Shrill screams coming from behind that door filled the air suddenly. Even the interrogator covered his ears. Then those screams stopped suddenly and turned to a gurgling sound. Then even that stopped, and there was nothing. Just a long moment of silence. Then the door opened and the executioner showed the limp body of the boy to interrogator’s arms. Small body was covered in blood and other bodily fluids, limbs hanging in awkward angles, and there were several cuts marring the skin of the torso.
“Happy?” The executioner asked.
“It didn’t take long enough,” the interrogator said, inspecting the injuries the body had sustained.
“Bring me healthy adults and I can make them scream forever.”
“What is this? Did you slit his throat?”
“No. Knife must have slipped. Hmph… I really should be more careful with those…”
She tried not to flinch when the executioner opened her cell door and reached for her hand. If he noticed her reluctance to touch him, he didn’t comment on it, just grabbed her wrist and pulled her after him. They walked out from the prison in silence. He led her through the quiet streets to the stable where he had left his horse earlier that day. Saddled the stallion, hopped on to the saddle and helped her behind him.
They rode slowly. She got the impression that he let the horse decide the pace and the direction. It had taken this journey several times before, and knew exactly where to go, which route to choose in order to reach the homestable.
“It’s late, but I could make you something to eat…” She proposed when he helped her down from the horse.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll make something anyway. I slept almost the whole day, and I’m not tired.”
“I’m not hungry. If you need something to do, clean the stable.”
“But you haven’t eaten anything and…”
“I’m not hungry! I just killed a six year old boy because he stole a loaf of bread from bishop’s carriage, so forgive me if I don’t have the stomach to eat anything right now!” The executioner shouted, shoved her towards the hut and grabbed the reigns of his horse, turning towards the stable.
“Why?” She asked. He stopped.
“Why did you do it? I heard you arguing with the interrogator. Why did you do it if it was wrong?”
“I do not decide what’s wrong and what’s right. It’s not my place. I try not to meddle with things that are not my concern. I do my work because it keeps me fed. And it’s something I’m good at.”
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000