The Lady Justice

Chapter XXXIX: I Love, I Love Not

Lady Therese De Beauharnais, Duchess of Roche

30 November, Year 32 of King Frederick V of Monrique's reign

Tower Hill, Roche

Monrique

A sharp crescendo of ugly hate and fury rose up in the air.

The army Corporals were dragging a screaming, crying, bloodied mess that vaguely resembled a human body up the steps of the stage none too gently. Blood splattered all over the stage, and bits and pieces of his organs that had been pulled out during his disembowelment earlier lay in clumps around him.

Even from where I stood - at the back of the crowd, with a black veil covering my countenance - I could smell the metallic stench of his blood.

I remained still, as I watched, unflinching.

The Corporals set their captive down at the feet of the executioner, a plump man in his mid-sixties, who called for silence.

The noise died down, but the tension in the atmosphere remained. I could feel it in my bones, could taste the acrid anger on the tip of my tongue. One small match would be enough to set the whole Tower Hill in flames.

"Good people!" the executioner cried out, "this man, Bertrand De La Tours, has come here to die, by the laws of our good land. He yields himself to the will of our Lady, Her Grace the Duchess of Roche, against whom he has gravely wronged - for which surely, with his death, he does now atone. I beseech you all to pray for his soul."

A stony silence met his words. The bloodied mess that was Lord Bertrand could barely lift his head in response.

The executioner then knelt down in front of him, and bowed his head. "I ask for your forgiveness for what I must do this evening."

"I....refuse," came the bitter answer, "I...hope...you...all....burn...in...hell."

The words were barely audible, but everyone heard them. The atmosphere crackled even more with hate. If not for the Corporals guarding the area, the crowd would have lunged forward to murder him with their own two hands.

A brief smile unfolded on my face. The very fact that the executioner himself had asked Lord Bertrand for forgiveness was laughable - and the fact that Lord Bertrand took it seriously enough to curse us all to hell, was even more so. That request for forgiveness was nothing but an insincere show of courtesy. There was no one present in this area, not one, who did not want that bastard dead. His trial earlier in the morning had left everyone who had attended furious, and utterly disgusted.

It was why they were all still here, waiting with me, for him to die.

The executioner now stood up, nodding at the Corporals on stage. They raised Lord Bertrand slightly, while the executioner wrapped a rope around his neck and tightened the noose. The rope was then fitted to a pulley yonder.

"Now!" the executioner shouted, holding on to the rope tightly.

The Corporals stomped their boots hard in synchronisation. The ground below Lord Bertrand gave way, and opened wide, causing him to hang. The executioner instantly lifted the rope slightly above the stage for us to see his head.

His face was swiftly turning blue - as blue as his eyes that were almost popping out of his sockets - as his hands instinctively clutched at the rope cutting into his throat. He struggled in the air, choking, trying to scream, as the rope twirled, and he twirled with it.

I watched, not taking my eyes off him even for a moment. I absorbed the terror in his eyes, the agony etched upon his features, his blood-curdling screams. God forgive me, but I relished in his misery, committed every detail to memory.