Michael Jecks - The Outlaws of Ennor

Isok looked away. David was only aware of his own misery, and his self-pity was eroding Isok’s sympathy.

‘As for the Prior, he shouldn’t have tried to get me to confess. Mind, he looked almost glad when I strung him up! He didn’t care. Always hated the islands, didn’t he? Hah! What I’d give now for a last sight of St Nicholas. One last look. First thing in the morning, when the sea’s flat-calm and easy, the light just that golden colour, you know? And everywhere looks fresh and new, sort of clean. And I’d see it from a boat, a small one, with the wind singing in the rigging. Aha! That’d be the sight for a man about to die, wouldn’t it?’

It was the next day, while Isok was up working on the sail, that he heard the screams. Looking down with a feeling of ice in his bowels, he saw the prow’s cell opened, and David being pulled out by force. There was a gathering of ten sailors on the maindeck, and Isok saw them talking to David, who dropped to his knees before the master, begging. He was picked up unceremoniously, the shackles removed from his wrists, and then he was lifted to the rail.

The master said a few words, and then pushed. From where Isok was, he could see his friend’s face lingering for a moment near the water’s surface, and then saw it fade, a yellowish moon, sinking slowly below the waves, the drowning man’s mouth wide in a terrified, silent scream.