Excerpt from Gaebrel’s Gamble

“Almost time to die, you maggots!” The chief jailer whacked his baton against the iron bars of the cells, laughing as several of the inmates scrambled back. “That’s right, practice your shakin’! The mob expects a good show, don’t you know! Better not disappoint!”

The jailer laughed again, being one of those fortunate fellows easily amused by anything and everything he came across. He passed by the last cell on the block, his fat greasy face peeking through the bars of the door. “Here now, don’t you look a pretty sight! How much for a kiss then, my lovely?”

“You couldn’t afford me,” Gaebrel Harrn answered back calmly, adjusting the collar of his freshly laundered shirt. “Better stick with dogs and pigs, they’re more to your liking.”

The jailer laughed uproariously as if those were the funniest words he’d heard in years. “Sun and bones, you be a clever one, Harrn! Gotta say I be missing you after.”

“Then maybe you can open that door, let me walk out.” Gaebrel picked up his coat from off the back of the chair. “You’ll then have ample opportunity to share in my cleverness.”

“Would that I could, boyo.” The jailer shook his finger. “But mob wants its show, and you be the prize attraction at the moment. They be calling your name.”

“I always aim to please.” The faint lilt in his voice became more pronounced as he put on the coat, his eyes focused on the wall, his mind on what was to come.

The jailer frowned. “Been meaning to ask you, Harrn…where the hell be you from? No accent like that I ever heard, and I heard a lot. Jasovani? The Northern Duchies? Or Tiazhaad, maybe?”

“The Harza States.”

The jailer frowned. “Where be that? One of them strange lands down in the South?”

“Far away from here.” Gaebrel gave the coat one last adjustment. No mirror in here, he had to use his best judgment. At least it fit, they got his size right.

Further bantering with the jailer was cut off by the sound of an iron door banging open, followed by indistinct shouts. The jailer looked over with a smile. “It’s time.”

“As it shall be for every man.” Gaebrel turned about, fastening one last button. “Lead on, if you please. Let’s get this over with.”

The prisoners were led out of the cells, guards armed with muskets and blunderbusses watching with wary eyes as they marched down the long central hallway and through a wide open door to a waiting courtyard. Wagons stood there, the beds surrounded by iron bars that turned them into cages with wheels, each pulled by a pair of flightless birds taller than a man with gray plumage. One of them pecked forlornly at the ground in search of something to nibble, the others waited placidly, their size matched only by their intelligence in the inverse.

“In you go!” Guns were pointed and one by one the condemned were herded in, the doors locked and chained behind. The jailers gave them cheerful waves as the wagons rumbled out of the courtyard, through the main gate and into the crowded streets beyond, lined with people eager for a glimpse of men about to make a close acquaintance with Death. A few ragged cheers came from some throats, duly accepted by the more magnanimous inmates as though they were kings enjoying the accolades of peasants. Others hurled cabbages and moldy fruit, splattering the projectile against the bars to the sound of insults and curses, partaking in that ancient peculiarity of the human soul of mocking those whom fortune had seemingly abandoned.

Gaebrel ducked his head aside as an apple core bonged against one of the bars, bits of juice and pulp splattering across the convicted thief and rapist sitting next to him. Ignoring the man’s curses, he looked out at the faces passing off to the side, the men in the shirt vests and round caps typical of this kingdom, the women in those odd headdresses. Six years now he’d been on Cunerin, the most ever spent on a single world since he left the place of his birth. Half of them spent wandering about Tiazhaad, perfecting his grasp of the local languages, then taking a seagoing ship to those strange lands of the southern continent (which hadn’t seemed so strange to his eyes, truth be told. The locals did have the habit of going about bare above the waist, men and women both, which made perfect sense given the climate but scandalizing those living to the north.) Then across the Sea of Spires, so named for the ancient stone pylons rising up from the sea bed to stab at the sky, a marvel to behold and a constant source of hazard to navigation. Never staying in one place, never putting down roots. There was always a new horizon to cross, new lands to see, new voices to hear…new riches to steal. Always somewhere else to go. Nothing would tie him down…except now he was bound for death, about to make friends with the hangman’s noose. And the one thing truly annoying about this whole affair – they weren’t hanging him for anything that he actually did, but for something that he didn’t. A different man would have found it ironic…but that fellow likely wouldn’t be dancing on air within the hour.

As that particular thought passed through his head, a hand drifted involuntarily to the inside pocket of his coat. The clothes were delivered last night. The guards never got a clean look at the one who delivered them, except that it was a woman. Which didn’t clarify things in the slightest, since there were any number of ladies in Tasevanya who might be likely candidates. He’d only been here a few months, but they were busy ones, to say the least.

He found the note tucked in a pocket. Plans are in motion, it said. The hangman is one of ours, do as he says and you will live through this. Your friends haven’t forgotten you.

One of the birds made a honking sound, clattering its peak and skipping slightly in the traces. The driver cursed, jabbing the beast with a long prod, forcing it back into position. The wagon jerked a bit, the men in the back swaying as they rounded a corner and entered the main square. A roar of applause struck them like a wave, city watchmen keeping a clear path through the masses for the condemned to pass through. Gaebrel resisted the urge to stand up and bow like an actor on the stage. One by one the wagons came to a halt, to be met by yet more armed guards – city watchmen this time from the bowl-shaped helmets on their heads – who removed the contents of each conveyance one by one, escorting them up to the gallows for the all-important preliminaries.

The crowd had already been subjected to the pre-hanging speech, delivered this day by one of the senior priests from the Temple, who expounded greatly on the virtues of obedience to the law and necessity of resisting ones baser urges, along with the importance of loyalty to the current occupant in the Royal Palace, looming over the proceedings like some sort of ancient beast which it would be best not to awaken. Since the fellow delivering it was a priest, the crowd listened with respect, many making any number of holy signs when he was done.

Onto the main event. The first batch of prisoners was brought up, fourteen men in all. A notary read off their names and the crimes for which they were condemned from a list while the hangman in his traditional green hood and jacket fitted each neck with a noose. Afterward, he might allow those whose crimes were truly heinous or who possessed some measure of notoriety to make a speech, uttering a few final words of repentance or a fiery declaration of defiance unto death.

But all of the men in this first lot were petty thieves and hardly merited the honor. One of them tried to speak anyway, but only got out a few words before a black hood was pulled over his head. “I swear I never….!”

The priest uttered a brief prayer then stepped back smartly. A yank on the lever, the bottom hatch fell, and fourteen men dropped as one, the muffled cracks of their necks hidden under the roar of the crowd, who watched the bodies jerk and twist on the ropes with the appreciation of true connoisseurs. Much to his disgust, the hangman had botched one of the nooses and it failed to snap the neck, so there was a delay of several minutes while the fellow in question was strangled to death. The hangman was embarrassed out of professional pride though no one else seemed all that upset.

Afterward, the final death check was made in the traditional manner for this region by pressing a glowing hot brand against the face of each corpse, which also served the purpose of marking it as the remains of a condemned criminal to be disposed of like so much other trash. Tasevanyan’s were nothing if not efficient in such matters. The corpses were tossed back into the wagon that brought them here while the next batch was led up.

Being in the fourth wagon, Gaebrel had ample opportunity to observe the proceedings, noting the differences in the local methods versus others he’d seen in other lands and other worlds. Hanging…well, that was a classic. Hard to go wrong with a rope and wooden beam. In Tiazhaad they went for public beheadings, sometimes a dozen at a time, right in the market square. A man could go out to buy a sack of onions and as an added bonus see some other fellows head bounce across
the ground. But perhaps the most exotic method of disposing those deemed surplus to requirements had to be the Pig of Calabrenas…seen from afar as a boy with his father. A giant brass contraption made in the shape of a boar, the insides would be stuffed with five or six miscreants and one time and then roasted over an open fire until red hot. The screaming coming out of the nose vents sounded much like that of an angry hog from a distance…

Nothing like that here, the good people of Tasevanya seeing themselves as hearty, no-nonsense folk with little patience for such degenerate methods! No, mass hangings followed by a general holiday, that was the civilized way of doing things.

Gaebrel’s reverie was cut short when the back of his wagon opened. “Let’s go,” said a watchmen. One by one the men stepped out. Gaebrel stood up straight, arms bound in front, bearing up the scorn of the crowd with pride. He would not die here today…not like this. Unless that note had been a cruel joke of some sort…his eyes met that of the hangman, and there was a flash of recognition. The fellow knew his face.

The notary bellowed out their names as nooses were fitted to their necks. “Yavlan Isuvarias! Convicted of burglary, theft of livestock and damage to property! Condemned to death by hanging!”