[I'd like to apologize in advance for the many weird POV changes.]
Ash fluttered down from the sky, landing on the stone tiles of the city avenues. Ash always fell these days; catching on the rooftops, dirtying ladies’ skirt hems. At first they had caused a panic, but now a suffocated silence had fallen over the white city, an uneasy calm. But the people of Minas Tirith had lived with dread in their hearts for a lifetime, and while the trepidation grew with each passing moon, lives meandered on beneath it’s shadow.
A crowd was gathering near the City Gaol. They said that a man was to be executed, a man called Megorlebdas. He had been a farmer, they murmured, but his harvests failed time and again. He had been a farmer before jealousy lead to insanity, before it lead to arson and murder and theft, time and again. He had dark eyes, wild eyes. He snarled at the onlookers from where he stood, shackled on the steps, and a guard held him back. A shove propelled him forwards, and with a lurch he stepped down one step, two steps. The guards prodded him onwards towards his own end, the First Warden Landrem at his heels.
Around the bend, a lady dressed in a fine cotton gown scanned the sides of the road for a young woman, one who was not supposed to be out of the barracks. Irritation tugged at the edge of Lheinel’s eyes. Every once in awhile, she threw a look up the street, expecting the executioner’s procession to go past, and hoping to evade it. She found the young woman just in time for the procession to begin. There would be no avoiding this one.
Further on, a scullery maid was on an errand. She’d been sent to purchase apples, nothing more, nothing less. Bregdys had only wanted apples… Her brow furrowed as she stood in the fruit-monger’s stall.
“I don't see why apples have to be so costly, I mean really, let's be reasonable here..." Her voice drifted off as the procession entered her peripheral. She turned to watch, and found that she could not look away. The prisoner argued with the guards as he was escorted past: “Release me you fools! I have served Gondor longer than you children!" His shouts echoed off the walls, and Bregdys found herself joining the crowd, enchanted by their shouts and jeers.
Draugond braced a hand on the edge of a fountain as he dunked the other into cool water, and splashed some on his weary face. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied the procession, and turned to watch solemnly as it passed. He lowered his eyes to the ground a moment, then nodded to himself. He snatched up his spear and joined the back of the following.
The First Warden hummed before speaking. “Avarice is no crime in the eyes of the Steward. Yet death is a crime, and death may only be paid for with death.” The words left him dispassionately, his tone level. Megorlebdas struggled against his bonds, but a guard hit him on the back of the head with a shield.
“Cursed idiot!” the prisoner spat as he was forced onwards along the path. “Death? You want to talk about death?” His shouts were slowly turning to bitter, panicked laughter. Bregdys felt her stomach clench and churn, but she kept walking -- so many kept walking -- out of morbid curiosity. The Warden spoke again.
“There is only one end to this. It shall be swift, and it shall be done.” Draugond followed in a trance, glassy-eyed, and staring sightlessly ahead as First Warden Landrem continued to speak:
“Our stores are well-stocked. Farms other than yours have not fared poorly.”
Draugond caught up to Landrem, and tried to catch his attention. He nodded in the direction of Megorlebdas and asked, “What did he do?”
“He burned three farms, killing five.”
Draugond glanced at the criminal with a mixture of fury and astonishment. Gravely, he replied, “Then the City’s justice be done upon him.”
The young woman, Yvyrn, glanced at the woman beside her. “Are they really going to behead him?” she asked more out of curiosity than worry. Lheinel sniffed.
“Why would they not? He is a murderer and a thief.”
Yvyrn raised her brows. “Imagine that!” she said excitedly, “One minute here he is walking on his own two feet… the next, he’s got no head.”
Bregdys crossed her arms with a slight shudder, listening to the conversations around her. She murmured softly to herself, “I’m not sure that death should be the answer…”
Lheinel pursed her lips, looking at her young companion. “You have a very gory mind for a girl who is supposed to be learning decorum, Yvyrn.”
The girl shrugged innocently. “I was just making an observation, Miss Lheinel.”
As the procession reached the Stone Stage, Megorlebdas shouted at the locals he passed by. “Starve, starve!”. Cerriel leaned against a pillar with an amused, arched brow. Already standing with the throng was a young writer, Gwilithel. She watched with disinterested disdain as more people filed in. Yvyrn craned her neck, and ran up a flight of steps to find a good place to watch the execution unfold. She settled on a ledge, swinging her legs freely in the air. Bregdys watched the accused mount the stage, walking towards his own demise. Somehow, she had ended up at the front of the roaring throng, consumed by their chaos.
Draugond grounded his spear and stood stiffly at the back of the square. The First Warden turned away from the jeering townsfolk, searching the stage. He took a deep, controlled breath, and scanned the crowd for Captain Aedren.
One guard forced Megorlebdas to halt at the front of the stage, kicking the back of his knees to make him kneel. “There is no justice in this! I hope you lot suffer for it!” the man screamed out, meeting the eyes of the onlookers.
Another guard, Rathel, stood at the ready, awaiting the First Warden’s signal as his fellows came to join him. Landrem cast his gaze upon Rathel, shouting the man’s name.
Megorlebdas rambled half to himself about famine. He cried out in a desperate, impassioned sob as he rained curses on his captors. Bregdys looked up at the man with a soft gaze, her eyes stinging. “That poor man…” she said, wringing her hands. The prisoner spat on one of the guards’ boots. The guard returned the favor with hard punch to the criminal’s face. The First Warden grunted, “Peace! Peace.”
Lheinel crossed her arms, glaring at Yvyrn’s seat on the nearby ledge. “Yvyrn. Come down and stand by me, please.” Yvyrn moved further along the ledge. Lheinel sighed. “Yvyrn, if you come down from there, I will buy you one of those tunics you were looking at last week.” By now she cared little for the spectacle onstage, rather focusing on her attempts at persuading Yvyrn to behave like an actual person rather than a monkey, for once. Yvyrn ignored her offers, wide eyes glued to the stage. Rathel walked towards Landrem with a sheathed blade.
“First Warden,” Rathel greeted formally, presenting the blade to the executioner. The tension in the air was nearly palpable. Even Megorlebdas fell quiet. Blood trickled down the side of his face, the first drops of many. In the crowd, Bregdys felt her pulse race. She took a small step back: was she really going to watch a man die? The First Warden drew his sword out of its sheath, the blade glinting in the light of the braziers. Intricate decorations of horses adorned its hilt, and pale Cirth upon the blade bore its name: Rorcrist. He hefted the sword in his hands. Rathel lowered his head and stepped back with the empty sheath, remaining silent as he always was when witnessing these...events.
Lheinel pressed her lips together and considered her options. She was not going to climb up and pull Yvyrn down, and it seemed that the girl was utterly uninterested in listening. She relented, promising to think up a punishment for Yvyrn as she looked out at the stage with the same bored disapproval as earlier. The First Warden stepped forward towards the accused, his blade resting upon his shoulder. He began to call high and clear to his captain and the crowd. Bregdys covered her mouth with a hand as the sword was raised. Gwilithel crossed her arms over her chest. Her lip curled in disdain and she shuffled forward in the crowd to watch the execution. Draugond looked on impassively from a distance, eyes following the movements of the sword. Even the prisoner no longer seemed to run his mouth. Only his breathing broke the silence as he watched, fearfully, and listened. Bregdys squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating the killing blow far too soon.
“That poor, poor man…” she repeated to herself. The young girl on the ledge sat with an eager fixation on the stage. She had seen executions before, but never a beheading. Bregdys, however, hugged her arms. The blow still hadn’t fallen, she could tell that much. She opened her eyes slowly, and they focused on the kneeling man. Gwilithel flicked her gaze over to the scullery maid.
“It is a fitting punishment for his crimes,” she said in an unsolicited reply. Bregdys shook her head. The words that left her lips were far away, slowed by dread.
“Punishing death with death is… poetic… but illogical,” she said numbly. Bregdys sighed, and noticed that her hands had gone cold and clammy. She wished dearly that the execution would finish soon.
Gwilithel raised an eyebrow. “Illogical in what sense? He took lives, now we take his.”
Bregdys shook her head again. “So he took lives… and because taking lives is wrong, we take his to prove it?”
Nearby, Lheinel turned her head and gave an approving nod to her protege, who climbed down to join her. “Ah, finally. Thank you, Yvyrn.” From up on the stage, the First Warden fought the urge to glance down at Yvyrn and Lheinel, and kept his eyes fixated on Megorlebdas’ neck. Yvyrn leaned forward intently. “See, look,” she whispered, “Head…”
Bregdys could not force herself to look away from the man. She had no will to argue, no will to focus on anything but… “That poor man,” she murmured for a third time.
Gwilithel shrugged her shoulders. “It sets a good example for others.”
Bregdys finally broke her gaze from the scene to look at the other woman. “A good example? But what of compassion?” Her voice broke slightly, and as she looked back toward the stage she subconsciously moved a hand to her throat. “Why are they taking so long? Would it not be more-more merciful, to get it over with?”
Lheinel shifted her gaze, first to Yvyrn, disapproving quietly of the girl’s fascination but choosing not to comment, then to Bregdys, silently judging her for being too softhearted a girl. “This is the judgement that has been passed on him. It must be carried out.”
Gwilithel chimed in, “I suppose what you can take from this is that there is no compassion in the law. He has committed his crimes, so he is paying for it.”
Bregdys pleaded, “But the law should be merciful!”
First Warden Landrem looked up, and locked eyes with his captain. “My Captain!” he cried, “Be there any reason today this man should live?”
The captain called back firmly, “No!” and made the signal for death with his hand.
Megorlebdas frowned bitterly at the captain from where he knelt. “Get on with it then…” He knew how the day would end for him, sooner than later. Out among the crowd, Gwilithel frowned at the maid beside her.
“And what else would you have them do? Set him free to do what he pleases?”
Megorlebdas repeated his words, louder for the executioner and the audience to hear: “Get on with it then! Chop off my head and continue on with your sorry lives!”
Bregdys chilled at his words, and hugged her arms tighter. “I-I don’t know, but… that doesn’t mean that this is right!”
Megorlebdas looked down at the crowd, then closed his eyes. He swallowed. His last memories would be the sound of his own execution.
Bregdys murmured, “Surely there are more m-merciful ways to kill…”
Landrem turned his sword down for a moment, and leaned towards Megorlebdas. Gently, almost in a whisper, inaudible to all save perhaps Rathel and the condemned, he said, “May you find peace after death.” Megorlebdas did not grace him with a reply. He waited, blindly and silently. Yvyrn curled her fingers around her tunic in anticipation. Cerriel let a smirk spread across her lips, while Bregdys waited with bated breath, watching the kneeling man with wide eyes. Sad eyes.
The executioner raised his sword high. It flashed bright in the air. For a moment, he paused. Then he brought the sword crashing down. In a single blow, he cleaved Megorlebdas’ head from his shoulders, a spurt of blood staining the front of the stage. The head bounced off and rolled into the first row of the crowd. He drew a shaky breath. It was done.
Bregdys bit back a scream when the head landed only a few feet away. She could not look away. Why couldn’t she look away? Yvyrn snatched Lheinel’s arm, squeezing and then letting go, relaxing. “...No head!”
First Warden Landrem turned to Rathel, producing a pale cloth from his robes. He cleaned Megorlebdas’ blood from his blade with a degree of ceremony, and handed the sword back to Rathel with both hands. Taking it from the Warden, Rathel reassured him, “You did well.” He watched his superior carefully as he sheathed Rorcrist, unsure of how the Warden fared. Down below, Lheinel flinched at the sight of the head and Yvyrn’s tight grip. She kept her composure, forcing herself to exhale, and holding her face in a collected, neutral expression.
“No head, indeed.”
Bregdys could not move her eyes from the head. The eyes were wide open. Glassy. Dizziness overtook her. Her surrounding began to blur, and she landed with a thud on the stone pavement. Cerriel glanced over and let out a soft chuckle, shaking her head. She watched for a little longer before turning -- she’d done better beheadings herself.
Draugond respectfully lowered his head at the sight, but then proceeded to look around at the assembly. On the distant stage, Landrem called out orders to the watchmen. “Take the body! Fetch the block!” He monotonously reminded the guard carrying the corpse, “Don’t toss out the shackles.” He took out his cloth and crouched down, wiping some of the crimson spray from his boot. He stood, turning his gaze to the ash-darkened sky. “The blood reeks,” he said. “The blood reeks.” Distracted, he said something to Rathel.
Rathel passed the sheathed sword over to Landrem with both hands, responding, “It is my duty.”
Landrem took the sword, and buckled it to his belt. “And this is mine,” he said. “I need a drink. You?”
Rathel nodded, wanting to keep the Warden company to make sure that he was alright. “Aye. Splintered Shield?”
Down below, Yvyrn could not stop staring at the headless corpse. She asked, intrigued, “Can I touch it?”
Lheinel placed a hand on Yvyrn’s shoulder, in an attempt to steer her away. “No you certainly may not.” The girl frowned, but understood nonetheless.
“We are going back to the barracks,” Lheinel continued, “and I am going to measure out a pattern to have a few more dresses made. And you need to put on some shoes and take a bath -- enough adventure for the day.”
Yvyrn groaned. “Can Landrem take me back?”
Lheinel sighed, “You may ask him, politely, and you may not go near the corpse. If he agrees, you may return with him.”
The younger girl grinned. “Thank you, Miss Lheinel,” she said, turning and running up the stage stairs. As she entered the stage, she halted in her steps, and changed her mind, heading back down to Lheinel.
“Mister First Watcher didn’t look happy. I’ll come back with you, ‘cause--” She stopped. “Is that girl okay?”
Gwilithel let out a low hum, nose wrinkling at the stench of death, and trying her best to keep from gagging at the blood spattered about the stage. Shaking her head, she said, “His death was swift, at least.” She dropped her hands back to her sides as she realized that she was one of the few people left. She turned, and began to head out of the square. As more of the crowd departed, a small, momentary gap opened between Draugond and the scullery maid. Draugond banged the end of his spear on the pavement, startling those nearby. Glaring everyone out of his way, he marched toward the stricken woman. Lheinel, too, made her way over, eyeing the collapsed figure of the young woman with some pity.
“She should not have come,” the lady stated. Briefly looking at Yvyrn, she continued, “Neither should you. No matter.” She stepped over to the young woman, catching up her skirt with one hand as she crouched, careful not to let the white cotton drag in the dust. Draugond joined her beside the young woman, briefly taken aback when he recognized Lheinel. “My Lady,” he said in greeting.
Lheinel nodded to the man. “Sir. Seems the second time we meet like this.”
The Warden turned and lead Rathel down from the stage. Yvyrn watched them as they approached, waiting for the adults to grow distracted long enough for her to slip away. “Ai? Something the matter?” He asked, rushing forward and motioning for Rathel to follow. Rathel inspected the scene.
“Is she alright?”
“She is not dead, is she?” Gwilithel asked from a distance, daring to inch forward a few steps.
Draugond leaned in and listened, waving for silence. After a moment, he announced, “She draws breath still, I believe so, yes.”
Landrem looked on, and said, “We do not need a healer, aye?” Draugond nodded, and looked to Lheinel. The woman reached for her belt-pouch, checking it and producing a small vial.
“If anyone is sensitive to strong smells, I advise you to step back.” Lheinel uncorked the bottle, and immediately an incredibly strong burst of a disgusting smell, akin to rotting fish, filled the air around them. She waved the vial directly under Bregdys’ nose, and quickly pulled it back. Draugond wrinkled his nose, recoiling slightly at the powerful odor, but remained kneeling. Bregdys coughed, and slowly sat up, groggy but conscious nonetheless. “Oh-oh goodness what is that stench?” She groaned, rubbing her temples.
Lheinel smiled and straightened, re-corking the bottle. “Hart’s horn. Lovely, no? Welcome back, miss.”
Bregdys studied the ground. “Thank you…”
Draugond grunted in acknowledgement, smiling up at Lheinel with a nod. Bregdys looked around. Her eyes fixated on the executioner’s boots. He smelled of blood. Cautiously, she stood. “I-I need to return to work…Apples…” she drifted off. “Thank you, again, I’m...sorry.”
Draugond rocked back on his heels and stood, changing his spear to his right hand. Beside him, Lheinel tucked the bottle away into her belt-pouch.
“I advise you to rest, miss,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “You have had a bit of a shock today. Rest, and in the future, avoid executions.”
Bregdys nodded, mortified. “Sound advice,” she managed. Draugond looked in askance at Bregdys, then turned to Lheinel.
“Is she sufficiently recovered?
Lheinel replied, her gaze still on the young woman, “Aye. It was only a fright, was it not, miss? She will be fine, Draugond.”
Bregdys nodded once more. “I’m alright now, I think.” She ducked her head in a small, embarrassed bow. “Thank you.”
Landrem turned, placing a hand on Rathel’s shoulder. “We should be off,” he said.
Rathel nodded. “Very well.” Landrem lead the way out of the square, rubbing his arms. Gwilithel moved to follow them on her own, having seen that the other woman had recovered, and took her leave of the square. Lheinel swept an arm towards the exit, directing Bregdys’ attention away from the soldiers cleaning the messy stage. Draugond nodded once, satisfied, and eyed the Stone Stage.
“Ah, we appear to be the last remnant…”
Bregdys turned towards the exit, wishing dearly that she hadn’t come. “Thank you again,” she said, looking at Lheinel. She moved towards the larger tier. Apples. She had only wanted apples…
The crowd dispersed. Footsteps thudded, hooves beat down against cold stone, and merchants haggled over apples in the marketplace. In the distance, a proud courtesan scolded her young companion. The executioner cleaned his boots a second time, and a third; the guards got a drink at a tavern. Somewhere, a maiden laughed and scaled a wall. Another scratched charcoal letters over parchment, and one wandered numbly back to work. A man was dead. Many men were dead these days. A man was dead, and ashes fell, but lives meandered on.
