Читать книгу The Serpentwar Saga: The Complete 4-Book Collection - Raymond E. Feist - Страница 21

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.’

Roo stopped moving, but his eyes were wide, with tears running down his face, while his mouth moved, saying nothing that Erik could understand.

Erik glanced around and felt a sick numbness in his stomach, as if he had been poisoned. Then his bowel tightened and he felt the need to relieve himself and was suddenly fearful he would fill his pants when he died. He found his chest tight and had to will himself to breathe. Sweat dripped down his face and ran from his armpits and groin. He was going to die.

‘I didn’t mean it …’ said Roo, pleading with men who had no power to save him.

The sergeant in command gave the order. The prisoners were marched from the cell, and Erik wondered how he was managing to keep in step, for his feet were leaden and his knees trembled. Roo shivered visibly and Erik wished he could have touched his friend’s shoulder, but the shackles and manacles prevented such movement. They left the long hall next to the death cell.

The condemned moved down a long corridor, to another that led to a short flight of steps. They walked up them, turned another corner, and out through a door into daylight. The sun was still not above the walls, so they moved through shadow, but above them a blue sky promised a beautiful day. Erik’s heart almost broke wishing he could see that day.

Roo cried openly, making inarticulate noises punctuated by a single word, ‘Please,’ but he managed to walk. They moved past where the first six bodies lay in the yard, as a charnel wagon was being drawn close enough for the dead to be loaded into it. Erik glanced down at the dead men.

He almost stumbled. He had seen death before, having found Milo and having looked at Stefan and the nameless bandit after he killed them, but he had never seen this. The men’s faces were contorted, especially those of Tom and the other man who had strangled, their eyes bulging from their sockets. The other four whose necks had broken still looked ghastly, with eyes staring lifelessly at the sky. Flies were already gathering on the corpses, and no one was bothering to shoo them away.

All at once Erik was being moved up the steps and he felt his bladder weaken. He had not needed to relieve himself, and suddenly he felt an overwhelming urge to ask for permission to do so before he was hung. A wave of childish embarrassment swept up from some deep well of memory and he felt tears coursing down his cheeks. His mother had scolded him at an early age for messing his bed during the night, and for reasons beyond his ability to understand, the thought of messing himself now was the worst fate he could imagine. From the reek of urine and excrement, others had already lost control; he didn’t know if it was those ahead of him or those who had already died. He felt a desperate need not to lose control and have his mother get mad.

He tried to look at Roo, but suddenly he was stepping up on the box, a guard stepping up next to him to place the noose expertly around Erik’s neck without hesitation, then step down without upsetting the box below Erik’s feet. He tried to look over, but for some reason, he couldn’t see Roo.

Erik felt himself tremble. He couldn’t make his eyes work, and images of bright sky overhead and dark shadows under the walls made no sense. He heard a few mumbled prayers and what he thought was Roo’s softly pleading ‘… No … please … no … please,’ over and over.

He wondered if he should say something at the end to his friend, but before he could think of anything to say, Robert de Loungville came to stand before the condemned men. With astonishing clarity, Erik could see every detail of this man who was to order his death. He had shaved in a hurry that morning, for a slight stubble had turned his cheeks dark, and there was a slight scar above his right eye Erik hadn’t noticed before. He wore a fine red tunic, with a badge that Erik could now see depicted the Seal of Krondor, an eagle soaring over a peak above the sea. He had blue eyes and dark brows, and his hair needed to be trimmed. Erik wondered how he could see so much so quickly, and felt his stomach rebel. He was about to be sick from fear.

The only prisoner not slated to die was brought to stand beside de Loungville, who turned to him and said, ‘Watch this and learn something, Keshian.’

Nodding once to the men on the gibbet, he ordered, ‘Hang them!’

Erik sucked in his breath in terror as he felt a powerful blow knock the box from beneath his feet. He heard Roo’s shriek of terror, and then he fell.

The sky spun for Erik as he moved through the air. His only thought was of the blue above, and he heard himself cry, ‘Mommy!’ as he felt his body hit the end of the rope. A sudden jerk made his skin burn as the rope tightened around his neck, then with another jerk he continued to fall. Instead of the expected crack of his own neck or the sudden choking as his windpipe was crushed, he felt a numbing slam along his face and body as he fell hard against the wooden floor of the gibbet.

Suddenly Robert de Loungville was shouting, ‘Get them to their feet!’

Rough hands dragged Erik upright, and with a half-dazed sense of being somewhere else, he looked around and saw stunned men returning his confused expression. Roo gaped like a just-landed fish and his face was sporting a red mark from where it had struck the boards. His eyes were puffy and red, and snot ran down from his nose as he cried like a baby.

Biggo glanced around, blood running from a cut on his forehead, as if trying to understand this evil prank that robbed him of his meeting with the Goddess of Death. The man next to him, Billy Goodwin, closed his eyes and sucked in breath as if he were still choking. Erik didn’t know the name of the man at the far end of the gibbet, but he stood silently, his expression as stunned as the others’.

‘Now listen, you swine!’ commanded Robert de Loungville. ‘You are dead men!’ He glanced from face to face. He raised his voice, ‘Do you understand me?’

They nodded, but it was clear none of them did.

‘You are officially dead. I can have anyone who doubts my word hauled up again, and this time we’ll tie the rope to the crosspiece of the gibbet. Or if you’d prefer, I will happily cut your throat.’

Turning to the Keshian prisoner, he said, ‘Get over there with the others.’ The shackled men were being pulled roughly down the steps to stand next to the bodies of the dead.

Soldiers cut short the rope hanging from each of the five men, and two placed a similar noose around Sho Pi’s neck. ‘You’ll leave those on until I tell you to take them off,’ shouted de Loungville.

He came up to the five still-stunned men and looked each in the eyes as he walked slowly before them. ‘I own you! You’re not even slaves! Slaves have rights! You have no rights. From now on, you will draw each breath at my whim. If I decide I don’t want you breathing my air any longer, I’ll have the guards close that noose around your neck and you will stop breathing. Do you understand me?’

Some of the men nodded, and Erik said, ‘Yes,’ softly.

De Loungville nearly roared when he said, ‘When I ask you a question, you will answer loudly so I can hear you! Do you understand me?’

This time all six men said, ‘Yes!’

De Loungville turned and began walking along before the men again. ‘I am waiting!’

It was Erik who said, ‘Yes, sir!’

Coming to stand before Erik, de Loungville put his face before Erik’s, so their noses were less than an inch apart. ‘Sir! I am more than a sir, you toads! I am more than your mothers, your wives, your fathers, and your brothers! I am your god from this moment on! If I snap my fingers, you’re dead men in truth. Now, when I ask you a question, you will answer, “Yes, Sergeant de Loungville!” Is that clear!’

‘Yes, Sergeant de Loungville!’ they said, almost shouting, despite raw throats from the mock hanging.

‘Now load those men into the wagon, you swine,’ de Loungville commanded. ‘Each of you take one.’

Biggo stepped forward, picked up the body of Slippery Tom, and carried him as a man might a child, loading him into the wagon. Two gravediggers stood in the charnel wagon and dragged the corpse deeper into the wagon bed to make room for the next.

Erik picked up a body, not sure what the man’s name or crime had been, and carried it to the wagon, placing it where the gravediggers could grab it. He looked at the man’s face and didn’t recognize him. He knew it was one of six men he had seen for two days and probably spoken to, but he couldn’t recall who this man was.

Roo looked down at the man at his feet, then tried to pick up the body. He struggled, tears from an apparently inexhaustible fount streaming down his face. Erik hesitated, then moved to help him.

‘Get back there, von Darkmoor,’ commanded de Loungville.

‘He can’t do it,’ said Erik, discovering his voice still hoarse and his neck sore from the rope burn. De Loungville’s eyes narrowed menacingly, and Erik quickly added, ‘Sergeant de Loungville!’

‘Well, he’d better,’ said de Loungville, ‘or he’ll be the first one of you sent back to hang.’ He pointed back up the steps with a dagger he now held.

Erik watched as Roo struggled to find strength enough to drag the corpse to the wagon. The ten feet must have looked like a mile. Erik knew Roo had never been a strong boy, and whatever vitality was usual, his had fled days before. He looked as if his arms were damp rope, and he had no power in his legs as he dragged hopelessly on the corpse.

Finally it moved, first a foot, then two, and after a moment more, another. Grunting as if he were carrying suits of armor up a mountain, Roo pulled until he got the body to the foot of the wagon. Then he collapsed.

De Loungville came to stand over him, crouching down so his face was level with Roo’s. He shouted so loud he nearly screamed, ‘What? Do you expect those honest workmen to climb down from there and finish your job for you?’ Roo looked up at the short man, silently pleading to die.

De Loungville reached down and gripped Roo by the hair, pulling him to his feet, holding the dagger to his throat. ‘You’re not going to die, you useless piece of pig snot,’ he said, as if reading the boy’s mind. ‘You’re mine, and you will die when I tell you it is my pleasure that you die. Not before. If you die before I tell you, I will reach into the Death Goddess’s hall and yank you back to life, and then I will kill you. I will cut your belly open and eat your liver for dinner if you don’t do as I tell you. Now get that dead meat into that wagon!’

Roo fell backwards, hard against the wagon’s tailgate, and barely kept himself from falling. He leaned down, got his arms under the body’s arms, and heaved.

‘You’re no good to me, boy!’ bellowed de Loungville. ‘If you don’t get him in that wagon by the time I count to ten, you worthless slug, I’ll cut your heart out before your eyes! One!’

Roo heaved and his face betrayed panic. ‘Two!’ He forced his own weight forward, and got the corpse sitting up. ‘Three!’

He lifted with his legs and somehow got himself half turned around, so that the dead man rested against the tailgate. ‘Four!’ Roo took a breath and heaved again, and suddenly the man was halfway into the wagon. ‘Five!’ Roo let the body go and reached down quickly, gripping the corpse around the hips. He ignored the reek of urine and feces as he heaved with his last reserve of strength. Then he collapsed.

‘Six!’ screamed de Loungville, leaning over the boy, who sat at the base of the wagon.

Roo looked up and saw the man’s legs were hanging over the end of the tailgate. He struggled to his feet as de Loungville shouted, ‘Seven!’ and pushed as hard on the legs as he could.

They bent and he half pushed, half rolled the dead man all the way into the wagon as de Loungville reached the count of eight.

Then he fainted.

Erik took a step forward. De Loungville turned, took a single step, and delivered a backhanded blow to Erik that brought him to his knees. Lowering his head to lock gazes with the stunned Erik, Robert de Loungville said, ‘You will learn, dog meat, that no matter what happens to your friends, you will do what you’re told when you are told and nothing else. If that’s not the first thing you learn, you’ll be crow bait before the sun sets.’

Straightening up, he shouted, ‘Get them back to their cell!’

The still-stunned men moved raggedly along, not certain what had happened. Erik’s ears rang from the blow to his head, but he risked a glance back at Roo and saw that two guards had picked him up and were bringing him along.

In silence the men were taken back to the death cell and herded in. Roo was unceremoniously tossed in, and the door slammed shut behind.

The man from Kesh, Sho Pi, came to look at Roo and said, ‘He’ll recover. It is mostly shock and fear.’

Then he turned to Erik and smiled, a dangerous look around his eyes. ‘Didn’t I tell you it might be something else?’

‘But what?’ asked Biggo. ‘What was all this vicious mummery?’

The Keshian sat down, crossing his legs before him. ‘It was what is called an object lesson. This man de Loungville, who works, I imagine, for the Prince, he wishes you to know something without any doubt whatsoever.’

‘Know what?’ asked Billy Goodwin, a slender fellow with curly brown hair.

‘He wants you to know that he will kill you without hesitation if you do not do what he wants.’

‘But what does he want?’ asked the man whose name Erik didn’t know, a thin man with a grey beard and red hair.

Closing his eyes as if he were about to take a rest, Sho Pi said, ‘I do not know, but I think it will be interesting.’

Erik sat back and suddenly giggled.

Biggo said, ‘What is it?’

Finding himself embarrassed before these men, he said, ‘I loaded my pants.’ Then he started to laugh, and the laughter had a hysterical edge to it.

Billy Goodwin said, ‘I dirtied myself, too.’

Erik nodded, and suddenly the laughter was gone and he found to his amazement he was crying. His mother would be so angry with him if she found out.

Roo roused when food appeared, and to their astonishment it was not only abundant but good. Before, they had gotten a vegetable stew in a heavy beef stock, but now they were served steaming vegetables and slabs of bread, heavy with butter, and cheese and meat. Rather than the usual bucket of water, there were cold pewter mugs, and a large pitcher of chilled white wine – enough to slake thirst and ease the tension, but not enough to get anyone drunk. They ate and considered their fortune.

‘Do you think this is some cruel thing the Prince is doing to us?’ asked the grey-bearded man, a Rodezian named Luis de Savona.

Biggo shook his head. ‘I’m a fair judge of men. That Robert de Loungville could be cruel like this if it suited his needs, but the Prince isn’t that sort of man, I’m thinking. No, like our Keshian friend here says –’

‘Isalani,’ corrected Sho Pi. ‘We live in the Empire, but we are not Keshian.’

‘Whatever,’ said Biggo. ‘What he said about this being a lesson is right. That’s why we still have these on.’ He flipped the length of rope that still hung from around his neck. ‘To remind us we’re officially dead. So that whatever happens next, we know that we’re living on sufferance.’

Billy Goodwin said, ‘I don’t think they’ll have to remind me anytime soon.’ He shook his head. ‘Gods, I can’t remember what I was thinking when they kicked the box from under me. I was a baby again and waiting for my mum to come fetch me from some difficulty. I don’t think I can tell what I felt like.’

The others nodded. Erik felt tears start to gather as he remembered his own feelings as he fell. Pushing that aside, he turned to Roo. ‘How are you doing?’

Roo said nothing, only nodded as he ate.

Erik knew he was looking at something powerful changing in his friend, something was marking him and making him different from what he had known all his life in Ravensburg. He wondered if he was changing as much as his friend.

Guards arrived later to remove the trays and pitchers, and no one spoke. Soon the cells fell into darkness, and the single torch that illuminated the hall outside remained unlit.

‘I think it’s de Loungville’s way of telling us to sleep as soon as we can,’ said Biggo.

Sho Pi nodded. ‘We will get an early start on whatever it is we do tomorrow, then.’ He curled up on the stone shelf and closed his eyes.

Erik said, ‘I’m not sleeping in my own filth.’ He removed his boots and trousers, then took them to the slops bucket and did his best to shake loose the dirt there, using a bit of the drinking water to clean them as best he could. It was a gesture, nothing more, and the pants were still dirty and again wet when he put them back on, but he felt better for trying.

Some others followed his example, as Erik nodded at Roo, who sank back into a corner with his arms wrapped around him, despite the fact it wasn’t at all cold that night. But Erik knew his friend felt a chill inside that no fire would ever drive out.

Erik lay back, and to his astonishment felt a warm fatigue sink into his bones, and before he could ponder the amazing events of the day he was asleep.

‘Get up, you scum!’ shouted de Loungville, and the prisoners stirred. Suddenly the cell erupted in a cacophony of sound as guards slammed shields against the iron bars and began to shout.

‘Get up!’

‘On your feet!’

Erik was standing before he was fully awake. He looked at Roo, who blinked like an owl caught in a lantern’s light.

The door to the cell was opened and the men ordered out. They came to stand in the same order they had marched to the gibbet in, and waited without comment.

‘When I give you the command to right turn, you will all turn as one and face that door. Understand?’ The last word wasn’t a question but a harsh command.

‘Right turn!’

The men turned, feet shuffling, the shackles making any quick movement difficult. The door at the end of the cell block opened, and de Loungville said, ‘When I give the order, you will start forward, with your left foot, and you will march behind that soldier there.’ He pointed to a guardsman with the chevron of a corporal on his helm. ‘You will follow him in order, and any man who fails to keep his place will be back on the gallows within one minute. Are we clear on that?’

The men shouted, ‘Yes, Sergeant de Loungville!’

‘March!’

The first man in line, Billy Goodwin, moved out, but it was obvious that Biggo and Luis didn’t know their left from their right, and it was a ragged group that set out after the corporal. They followed through a long corridor, away from the courtyard where they had endured the false hanging the day before. They climbed a long flight of stairs and were taken into what appeared to be the palace proper. Their chains clanked as they moved quickly, and suddenly Erik was self-conscious, as they were hurried past some court officials who glanced at them and returned to whatever discussion they were having.

Erik realized he was still filthy, as were all the other five men, though Sho Pi was only in need of a bath. The rest had soiled their clothing and had infused it with the reek of terror. The bit of cleaning the night before had done nothing to rid the clothing of the stink. Usually untroubled by the smell of honest sweat, a constant companion to a blacksmith, Erik was now repulsed by the stench that intruded on his nose.

‘In there,’ said de Loungville, and Erik realized it was the first time he had spoken in a calm voice in two days.

They entered a large chamber, with six steaming tubs of water, each as high as a man. The door was closed and Erik heard it bolted from outside. Guards came and unlocked the manacles and shackles. ‘Strip off those rags!’ said the corporal.

Biggo started to remove the rope from around his neck, but de Loungville shouted, ‘Leave that there, swine! You’re dead men and that’s to remind you. Strip off the rest!’

The men removed their clothing. Erik put his boots in a corner, and watched as a serving boy gathered up the ragged, stinking clothing.

‘You’re going to meet someone very important,’ said de Loungville. ‘We can’t have you stinking the place to high heaven. I don’t mind, but I’m lowborn like you swine and have no tender ways; others aren’t so tolerant.’ He motioned, and other boys, dressed in the livery of palace squires, carried buckets of soapy water. Without warning, they lifted the hot soapy water and poured it over Biggo and Billy Goodwin, and then returned to the tubs for more. ‘Wash down!’ shouted de Loungville. ‘I want you as clean as you’ve ever been in your life!’

The men began to clean away weeks of grime, body filth, and stench. Harsh salves were brought to rub into their hair to rid them of any lice, and Erik thought he’d have no hair left, yet by the time they were done, he stood shivering but revived. He hadn’t felt this clean since the night before he and Roo had killed Stefan.

He looked at Roo, who nodded and gave a pale imitation of his former smile. He hugged himself as water dripped off the only thing he wore, the noose around his neck. He had scant body hair, and Erik was astonished how much he looked like a little boy.

Clothing was produced, plain grey tunic and trousers, and Erik was allowed to reclaim his boots, as the others with footgear were. Biggo and Billy went barefoot.

They were lined up and inspected by Robert de Loungville, who said, ‘You will be allowed to go without chains for a while; the noise and sight of them might be offputting to some of the more tender-natured of those we are about to meet. But first you will follow me.’

The corporal ordered them to return to line and they did so, falling in raggedly in the same order they had entered the bathing room.

They were marched to a small courtyard and there brought to a halt. Along the top of the wall, guards with crossbows were stationed, while every fifth man held a longbow. ‘Those fellows up there with the big bows are Pathfinders,’ said de Loungville. ‘They can hit a sparrow at a hundred yards. They’re up there to keep any of you from becoming inspired during our next little demonstration.’

He motioned and a guard handed him a sword. ‘Any one of you scum think they know how to use this?’

The prisoners looked at one another, saying nothing.

‘Do you!’ bellowed de Loungville into the face of Luis de Savona.

‘I’m a fair hand with the sword. Sergeant,’ he said softly.

De Loungville reversed the sword and handed it to de Savona. ‘Then here’s the deal. Run me through with this and you can walk out of the palace a free man.’

De Savona looked around and, after a long moment, shook his head, throwing the sword to the ground.

‘Pick that up!’ raged de Loungville. ‘I’ll tell you when to put something down! You pick up that sword and run me through with it, or I’ll have that man up there’ – he pointed to one of the Pathfinders – ‘put a clothyard shaft through your thick skull. Is that clear?’

De Savona said, ‘Either way I’m a dead man.’

De Loungville came up to the taller Rodezian and shouted into his face, ‘Do you doubt my word? I said if you killed me you would be a free man! Are you saying I would lie to you?’

When de Savona said nothing, Robert de Loungville struck him across the face. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

Luis bent, grabbed the sword, and as he came up, he moved forward. Lunging, he abruptly found de Loungville had easily sidestepped the sword, and suddenly he was on his knees, with de Loungville behind him, the noose now pulled tightly around his neck. As he struggled for air, de Loungville said, ‘I want you all to listen.

‘Every man you meet from now on is your better. Each of them can take any weapon you have away from you like you were a baby. Each of them has proved himself a hundred times over to me, and I will grant any and all of them permission to cut your throat, strangle you, bludgeon you with a club, kick you to death, or whatever else they feel like if you so much as fart without my permission. Is that clear?’

The men mumbled something and he yelled, ‘I can’t hear you!’ De Savona was beginning to turn crimson from lack of air. ‘If he dies before I can hear you, you’ll all hang.’

‘Yes, Sergeant de Loungville!’ shouted the men, and de Loungville let go of the noose around de Savona’s neck. The Rodezian lay gasping for breath, and after a moment he got to his feet and staggered into his place in line.

‘Remember, every man you meet from now on is your better.’

He motioned for the guards to move the men out, and the corporal let them back into the palace. They moved quickly through a long passage, and abruptly they were in what appeared to be a private quarter of the palace.

They were led into a good-size chamber, one far smaller than the grand hall where the court had been conducted, and there they saw the Prince of Krondor, Duke James, the strange woman who had come to see them and who had been at their trial, and other nobles of the court.

The woman stood stiffly, as if this was a difficult place for her to be and she looked from face to face, and jerked slightly when she looked at Sho Pi. Some silent communication seemed to pass between them, and at last she turned to Lord James and the Prince and said, ‘I think they will do as you wish. May I be excused now. Sire?’

The Prince of Krondor said, ‘I can only imagine how difficult this was for you, my lady. You have my thanks. You may withdraw.’

The Duke whispered to the woman a moment and she nodded and left the hall. De Loungville said, ‘Sire, the dead men are here.’

The Prince said, ‘What you started was with my father’s knowledge and permission, Bobby. I am still trying to make sense of it all.’

James said, ‘Nicky, you’ve seen what the snakes can do with your own eyes. You were at sea when Arutha agreed to Calis and Bobby’s plan. You’d still be at sea if we hadn’t sent for you when your father died. Don’t doubt for a moment it’s necessary.’

The Prince sat, took off the circlet of office he wore, and studied the prisoners, who waited silently. After studying them for a long moment, he said, ‘Was all this really necessary?’

James said, ‘It was. Every condemned man would lie to you about his willingness to serve. They’d give up their mothers when the box was being kicked from under their feet. No, these men are the six who could be trusted the most among those condemned to die.’

Nicholas looked from face to face and said, ‘I still don’t see the need for the charade at the gallows. Certainly that was cruel beyond reason.’

De Loungville said, ‘Excuse me. Sire, but these men are now officially dead. I have made that abundantly clear to them all. They know that we can execute them at whim and they are to a man desperate to stay alive.’

‘What about the Keshian?’ asked the Prince.

James answered. ‘He’s something of a special case, but my wife feels he will be needed.’

The Prince sat back and let out a long sigh. ‘Coming to this office wasn’t easy. Borric agonized long hours about who should sit on this throne until Prince Patrick is old enough to come take my place and I can return to the sea. That’s three years of this.

‘I’m a sailor, damn it. I haven’t spent more than a month in port in twenty years. This administering …’

James smiled, the light in his eyes making him look far younger than his years. ‘You sound like Amos.’

The Prince shook his head as a faint smile graced his lips. ‘I guess I do. He taught me all there was to know about the sea.’ He looked at the men. ‘Have they been told yet?’

Robert de Loungville said, ‘That’s why they’re here, Sire.’

The Prince nodded to Lord James, who said, ‘Each of you men is being given a choice. Listen carefully, so you’ll understand what is at stake.’

Robert de Loungville said, ‘By the grace and generosity of His Highness, execution of your sentence has been postponed. You have not been pardoned, nor have you had your sentence commuted. Are you clear on this?’

The men glanced at one another, then several nodded.

James said, ‘You men will all die. The only question is how and when.’

Robert de Loungville said, ‘The Kingdom needs something done. And we need desperate men who are willing to do it. To this end we have pulled you from the brink of death and we offer you this choice:

‘Any man who is enough at peace in his conscience to face the Death Goddess can ask and we will take him from this hall to the gallows and execute him. That ends his worries in this lifetime.’

He glanced around the room and no one said anything, not even the previously pious Biggo. ‘Good. You are going to be trained for this job that needs to be done, and when we are finished we are going to sail halfway around the world, and we are going to go places few men of the Kingdom have ever gone before and lived to tell about. And while we are going and while we are there, you may bloody well wish you had elected to go to the gallows this afternoon.

‘But if we somehow get through it all and get back to Krondor …”

Nicholas said, ‘Your sentences will be reviewed and you will be paroled or pardoned, depending upon whatever recommendation Lord James makes to me.’

‘And that will depend on what recommendation is made by those who lead you,’ said James. ‘So if you have any hope in you that someday you might again be free, do as you are told.’

The Prince nodded and de Loungville said, ‘Turn around!’

The prisoners did as they were commanded, and they were marched out of the hall. Instead of being returned to the prison block, they were taken to a small courtyard where a wagon waited. It was a shallow-bed affair with a buck-board, two drivers, and two benches in back where the men could sit three to a side, with a guard at the rear. A company of horse soldiers moved in to flank the wagon, and de Loungville shouted, ‘Get in that wagon!’

The men did as commanded, and soldiers quickly chained each prisoner’s right ankle to an iron ring under the small seat. De Loungville mounted a horse brought to him by a groom and gave the order for the company to move out. The gates to the courtyard were opened, and as the wagon rolled through, Erik could see they were leaving by a gate that led to a small road. At the far end of the road they could see a private dock, which must be for the palace. They turned away from the dock and moved toward the city itself.

They reached a second gate, and guards swung this wide, letting the procession leave the palace grounds. The hooves of the horses beat a loud clang as iron struck paving stone, and the horses snorted to be outside and moving. Erik looked around. It was barely past noon. So much had passed since that first glimpse of sky at dawn.

The sun had burned off whatever morning fog and low clouds had gripped the city, and now a glorious fall day was upon them. Warm sunlight caressed his face as cool ocean breezes carried the sound of gulls and the tang of salt.

He remembered the stab of pain he had felt when he had thought he would not see the day, and the terror and panic that had gripped him as rough hands had placed him upon the gallows returned. Erik felt a choking sensation in his own chest, and suddenly, without any ability to control it, he began to weep.

Roo looked over and nodded, and tears began to run down his face, too, but no man in the wagon said anything, soldier or prisoner. After a few minutes, Erik got himself under control and he sat back, feeling the breeze cool him, and vowing to never again be that afraid.