Mark Lawrence - King of Thorns

The priests then, two black crows with the holy purple showing at their breast, swinging censers. Blunt-faced, alike as brothers, no older than Makin. Following, drawn on a cart and bound at hand and foot, a mother and two daughters, ten, twelve, hard to say, white with terror. The senior priest brought up the rear, purple silks showing in diamonds through the black of his cassock, a stern man, handsome enough, silver hair in a widow’s peak lending him gravitas.

“I need a decent ale.” Makin spat. “That arac’s left a sour taste.”

It might be that a good execution doesn’t need a good reason, but it seemed to me that no execution the church conducted could be called good. I’d held Father Gomst in contempt most of my life, as much for the lies he told as for his weakness. That night of thorns and rain had shown his lies, clear as if lightning found them in a dark room. But they would have surfaced in time either way. In fairness though, Gomst’s brand of feeble optimism and talk of love had little of the Roma doctrine in it. Father wouldn’t let the pope’s hand inside his castle.

There were jeers among the crowd as the woman and her girls were manhandled onto the platform, though plenty kept silent, faces held tight and joyless.

“Do you know what the Church of Roma has in common with the church that came before it, the faith the popes held in the time of the Builders, in the centuries before the Builders?” I said.

Makin shook his head. “No.”

“Nobody else does either,” I said. “Pope Anticus took in every bible that survived the Thousand Suns in deep vaults, all the books of doctrine, all the Vatican records. All of it. Could have burned the lot. Could be following every letter and footnote. The scholars can tell you nothing except that you’re not allowed to know.”

The priest up on the platform had found his stride, patrolling the edge before the crowd and bellowing about wickedness and witchcraft. White flecks of spit caught the sunlight as they arced over the heads of the peasants closest in.

“I never took you for a theologian, Jorg.” Makin turned away. “Coming for that ale?”

I watched the executioners wrestle the first girl to the post. Not to be a straight hanging then, a little cutting first perhaps. She put up a struggle for a small thing: you could see the strain in the man’s arms.

“Too early in the day for blood, Sir Makin?” I goaded him but the jibe was aimed inward at whatever was putting that same sour taste in my own mouth.

Makin growled. “Call me soft but I’ve no stomach for it. Not for children.”

I don’t think he’d ever a stomach for it, Makin, not for children, not for men, though he’d let himself be carried along in the darkness of the Brotherhood back in those early years when he counted himself all that stood to defend me.

“But they’re witches.” Another taunt meant for myself. They probably were witches. I’d met witches of many flavours and more magic seemed to leak into the world with each passing year, finding its way through this person or that as if they were cracks in the fabric of our days. I’m sure the priest would have had me up on his platform too if he knew I could talk to dead men, if he saw the black veins running corrupt across my chest-if he had the balls to take me. They might be witches, but just as likely the woman had dared to disagree, or invent. Roma hated nothing like it hated invention. A priest might order you burned for making free with some enchantment, but find the trick of a better steel, or rediscover some alchemy of the Builders, and they would have an expert spend all week killing you.

Makin spat again, shook his head, walked away. A judgment on me. On his damn king! I threw off the anger, it was an escape, I could hide in it, but it wasn’t Makin that had made me angry.

Let people pray to God, it’s nothing to me. Some good may even come of it, if goodness is something that matters to you. Trap him in churches if you must, and lament him there. But Roma? Roma is a weapon used against us. A poison flavoured sweet and given to hungry men.

Up on the platform the girl screamed as they stripped her. A man approached holding a cane all set with metal teeth, glittering and pretty.

“It’s the bishop, isn’t it?” I found Kent beside me, his hand on mine as somehow it worked to draw steel without asking my permission. With Kent’s help I kept my sword in its scabbard.

“Murillo,” I agreed. There were few men who would dare mention Bishop Murillo to me. I regret the nails still. I had hammered them slow enough into his head, but even so it was too quick an escape for him.

“A black day,” Kent said, though I couldn’t tell if he meant then or now. Pious or not, he had never once chided me for the pope’s nephew.

I nodded. I had better reasons to hate the church of Roma than for Murillo, but the bishop had put the edge on it. “How’s Hellax?” I asked.

“She’ll be fine. They put a poultice on her leg,” Kent said.

The girl howled like the damned though all they’d done was show her the cane.

“Fit to ride, is she?” I asked.

Kent gave me a look. “Jorg!”

We’re built of contradictions, all of us. It’s those opposing forces that give us strength, like an arch, each block pressing the next. Give me a man whose parts are all aligned in agreement and I’ll show you madness. We walk a narrow path, insanity to each side. A man without contradictions to balance him will soon veer off.

“Let’s get a better view.” I moved through the crowd. Most got out of my way, some I had to hurt. Kent stayed close behind.

Makin walked away because his contradictions allowed him a compromise. Mine are not so gentle. I’ll say it was hate that put me on that platform. Hate for Roma, for its doctrine of ignorance, for the corruption of its highest officials, perhaps for the fact it wasn’t my idea. My Brothers would tell you the decision owed as much to contrariness, to my taking offence at the idea that the only things holding those prisoners save the binding cords were fear of the priest and the baying of the mob. Certainly my actions owed nothing to three months on the throne of Renar. When they set that crown on my head technically I accepted responsibility for the people of my kingdom, but the crown weighed more than the responsibility ever did, and I even took the crown off before too long.

Nobody tried to stop me clambering on stage. I swear there were even a few helping shoves. I took the cane from the executioner’s hand as he drew back for his first swing. Sharp little twists of iron studded its length. The girl, naked against the post, watched that cane as if it were the only thing in the world. She looked too clean for a peasant. Perhaps the priests had washed her so the marks of her torture wouldn’t be lost in the dirt.

Red slaughter was an option, my fingers itched for a sword hilt and I felt fairly sure I could kill everyone on the stage without breaking sweat. Hanver hadn’t seen war in a generation-I was more than ready to change that. Instead I tried reason, or at least my brand of reason. Three strides brought me to within a yard of the silver-haired priest. The toothed cane twirling in one hand.

“I am King Jorg of Renar. I have killed more priests than you have killed witches, and I say you will release these three for no reason other than it pleases me.” I spoke clear and loud enough for the crowd, which had fallen so quiet I could hear the flag’s fluttering. “The next words out of your mouth, priest, will be ‘Yes, Your Highness’ or you’ll be making a meal of this cane.”

To his credit the priest hesitated, then said, “Yes, Your Highness.” I doubt he believed my lineage, but he sure as hell believed my culinary predictions.