“Get up you mangy sewer rats!” the keeper said as he unlocked the cell door. Several armed men stood by the cell with muskets and swords in case of an escape attempt. The wild look in their eyes dared anyone to try it.
Ethan, Gideon, Ash and his men sat inside the cell wide-awake already. The keeper opened the cell door. “The magistrate will see you now, ladies,” he said.
Ash led them, walking out the door with a bright smile. “Lovely day, ain’t it gov’ner?” he said cheerfully, as if he had been invited for tea. The keeper leered at him.
Ethan and Gideon followed the others out. “Have you been praying?” Gideon whispered to Ethan.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Then the Almighty will deliver us. The prophecy concerning you can’t be undone.”
When they came into the outer room of the jail, they stood before a man in a black robe wearing wire-rimmed spectacles and a curly white wig on his head. He sat at a table with a large black book full of legal precedents setting under his right hand.
The magistrate gave them all a cursory look, then spoke with the keeper of the jail, also acting as the bailiff for their hearing. “Bailiff, what crimes are these men charged with?” the magistrate asked.
Ethan reflexively goaded Gideon in the side. He had just noticed that the magistrate was under the control of a demon. He saw the spirit within the man. This would not go well.
“The two younger ones are charged with murdering an old woman,” the Bailiff said. Ethan examined the Bailiff. He appeared to be completely normal.
“Really?” the magistrate said, leering at Ethan, completely confident he had them dead to rights. The magistrate held the power of judge, jury, and executioner in these parts. Even if Ethan tried to tell the jailer about the demon, he would only be branded a lunatic and sentenced to a fate worse than death in some nightmarish asylum.
Ethan felt desperate, but something Gideon had just said to him moments earlier would not let him go. The prophecy concerning you cannot be undone. If Ethan really was a part of this prophecy, as Gideon had said, then Shaddai’s purposes concerning him must come to pass. No man, or demon, had the power to undo his counsel. Still, it was difficult to hold onto faith when a spot on the gallows waited for him outside.
“They were caught in the very act of killing her, Your Honor,” the Bailiff said, “and we’ve got plenty of witnesses who can verify it.”
“It seems like you two young men have been caught red handed, as they say,” the magistrate said. “Therefore it is my judgment that you both be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”
That last word carried the weight of finality. Ethan kept waiting for some sign that they would be all right, but nothing came-no bolt of lightning, no angels, nothing at all.
He thought about the realm shift. If he shifted into the spiritual world, he could escape them, but Gideon would be left behind. He could hide the priest from the prying eyes of demons, but not from natural eyes. Ethan could not bring himself to abandon Gideon.
“What about this other lot?” the Bailiff asked. “They stand accused of sedition against Lord Mordred and sabotage. They attempted to blow up the munitions depot last night.”
“Ah,” the magistrate said. “Do I find myself in the presence of men brave enough to stand against Lord Mordred? Well then, we shall have to give you heroes of the rebellion the special treatment you deserve…death by hanging!”
Ethan watched Ash. The pirate took it all very calmly, even glancing over at Ethan to give him a wink. Ethan couldn’t help but wonder, what’s he up to?
“Take them away, Bailiff,” the magistrate bellowed, looking directly at Ethan when he said it. “We mustn’t keep the crowd waiting.”
True to the magistrate’s word, a very large crowd had gathered to watch the execution. Ethan wondered how often they conducted this sort of public event. The so-called trial had been anything but. No defense of any kind had even been suggested.
Outside the jail, a wagon waited with sturdy fenced sidewalls. They led the prisoners, by armed escort, out to the wagon, where each took their turn having their wrists bound. Each man climbed into the wagon. The driver, a man in a black hood, sat up front. When the wagon was loaded, the black-hooded man snapped the reins on the team of horses, setting them in motion.
The tall gallows loomed ahead, beyond the thick crowd. The throng parted like waves of the sea as the wagon made its trip from the stockade to the gallows. The locals cursed and spat at them. Some threw food and mud, or worse.
Ethan wondered why the wagon itself was so long, until he saw the gallows. There a line of nooses hung from a cross beam about ten feet in the air above the main platform. A man stood upon the platform. He also wore a black hood with two holes cut to see through. The platform stood tall enough for a wagon, this wagon, to park and wait for the bodies to drop.
Six pegs lined the cross beam, but only five held nooses today. The wagon parked by the set of stairs leading up to the platform. The prisoners exited the back of the wagon and a guard escorted them above. The other hooded man, the executioner, waited to receive them.
The executioner took them each down the line, finding them a place among the ropes. He placed a noose over each of the men’s heads, cinching it up good and snug at the neck. Then he walked back to a lever fastened into the wooden structure. The lever would drop the floor open beneath them when the word was given. Ethan watched as the wagon followed a well-worn path from the stairs to just beneath the gallows.
The Bailiff climbed up onto the platform. He began to read off the charges against the condemned. Ethan’s thudding heart drowned out the man’s voice. He watched the sky, looking for something to happen, some sort of divine intervention that would save them. But Ethan saw no clouds in the sky or any angels flying to rescue them at the last moment.
Ethan turned to find the executioner ready on the lever. It was almost time. Strangely, the executioner wore a cutlass on his left hip. It puzzled Ethan, but not enough to calm the pounding of blood in his ears.
A thunderous explosion rocked the square. Everyone turned to see a plume of fire and black smoke rising above the buildings on the east side of the city. “The munitions depot!” voices shouted from the crowd.
“Hoo-hoo, this is where the fun starts, kid,” Ash said to Ethan.
A sword flashed through Ethan’s line of sight, severing his noose. He watched the hooded man run from man to man, along the platform, cutting all of the ropes fastening them to the beam above. “Come on, lads!” Ash said.
The executioner ran back to the lever and threw the switch. The flooring beneath their feet gave way like a trap door, and down they all went into the wagon waiting below. The executioner followed them through and began to cut their bonds.
Meanwhile, the hooded wagon driver snapped his reins and the horses jolted away from beneath the platform. The people ran out of the way, or fell out of the way, as pandemonium raged through the crowd. Most of the people had been distracted by the explosion. By the time they realized what was happening, the wagon was already racing down the main street toward the docks.