Joe Abercrombie: Before They Are Hanged

“We must move on Dunbrec immediately, a swift assault while they are unwary and—”

“Pah! Foolishness! The defences are too strong. We must surround the walls and prepare for a lengthy—”

“Nonsense! My division could carry the place tomorrow!”

“Rubbish! We must dig in! Siegecraft is my particular area of expertise!”

And on, and on. West rubbed his fingertips in his ears, trying to block out the voices as he stumbled through the churned-up mud. A few paces further on and he clambered around a rocky outcrop, pressed his back to it and slowly slid down. Slid down until he was sitting hunched in the snow, hugging his knees, the way he used to do when he was a child, and his father was angry.

Down in the valley, in the gathering gloom, he could see men moving over the battlefield. Already starting to dig the graves.

It had been raining, not long ago, but it had stopped. The paving of the Square of Marshals was starting to dry, the flagstones light round the edges, dark with damp in the centres. A ray of watery sun had finally broken through the clouds and was glinting on the bright metal of the chains hanging from the frame, on the blades, and hooks, and pincers of the instruments on their rack. Fine weather for it, I suppose. It should be quite the event. Unless your name is Tulkis, of course, then it might be one you’d rather miss.

The crowd were certainly anticipating a thrill. The wide square was full of their chattering, a heady mixture of excitement and anger, happiness and hate. The public area was packed shoulder to shoulder, and still filling, but there was ample room here in the government enclosure, fenced in and well guarded right in front of the scaffold. The great and the good must have the best view, after all. Over the shoulders of the row in front he could see the chairs where the members of the Closed Council were sitting. If he went up on his toes, an operation he dared not try too often, he could just see the Arch Lector’s shock of white hair, stirred gracefully by the breeze.

He glanced sideways at Ardee. She was frowning grimly up at the scaffold, chewing slowly at her lower lip. To think. The time was I would take young women to the finest establishments in the city, to the pleasure gardens on the hill, to concerts at the Hall of Whispers, or straight to my quarters, of course, if I thought I could manage it. Now I take them to executions. He felt the tiniest of smiles at the corner of his mouth. Ah well, things change.

“How will it be done?” she asked him.

“He’ll be hung and emptied.”

“What?”

“He will be lifted up by chains around his wrists and neck, not quite tight enough to kill him through strangulation. Then he will be opened with a blade, and gradually disembowelled. His entrails will be displayed to the crowd.”

She swallowed. “He’ll be alive?”

“Possibly. Hard to say. Depends whether the executioners do their job properly. Anyway, he won’t live long.” Not without his guts.

“Seems… extreme.”

“It is meant to be. It was the most savage punishment our savage forebears could dream up. Reserved for those who attempt harm to the royal person. Not carried out, I understand, for some eighty years.”

“Hence the crowd.”

Glokta shrugged. “It’s a curiosity, but you always get a good showing for an execution. People love to see death. It reminds them that however mean, however low, however horrible their lives become… at least they have one.”

Glokta felt a tap on his shoulder and looked round, with some pain, to see Severard’s masked face hovering just behind him. “I dealt with that thing. That thing about Vitari.”

“Huh. And?”

Severard’s eyes slid suspiciously sideways to Ardee, then he leaned forward to whisper in Glokta’s ear. “I followed her to a house, down below Gait’s Green, near the market there.”

“I know it. And?”

“I took a peek in through a window.”

Glokta raised an eyebrow. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? What was in there?”

“Children.”

“Children?” muttered Glokta.

“Three little children. Two girls and a boy. And what colour do you suppose their hair was?”

You don’t say. “Not flaming red, by any chance?”

“Just like their mother.”

“She’s got children?” Glokta licked thoughtfully at his gums. “Who’d have thought it?”

“I know. I thought that bitch had a block of ice for a cunt.”

That explains why she was so keen to get back from the South. All that time, she had three little ones waiting. The mothering instinct. How terribly touching. He wiped some wet from beneath his stinging left eye. “Well done, Severard, this could be useful. What about that other thing? The Prince’s guard?”

Severard lifted his mask for a moment and scratched underneath it, eyes darting nervously around. “That’s a strange one. I tried but… it seems he’s gone missing.”

“Missing?”

“I spoke to his family. They haven’t seen him since the day before the Prince died.”

Glokta frowned. “The day before?” But he was there… I saw him. “Get Frost, and Vitari too. Get me a list of everyone who was in the palace that night. Every lord, every servant, every soldier. I am getting to the truth of this.” One way or another.

“Did Sult tell you to?”

Glokta looked round sharply. “He didn’t tell me not to. Just get it done.”

Severard muttered something, but his words were lost as the noise of the crowd suddenly swelled in a wave of angry jeering. Tulkis was being led out onto the scaffold. He shuffled forwards, chains rattling round his ankles. He did not cry or wail, nor did he yell in defiance. He simply looked drawn, and sad, and in some pain. There were light bruises round his face, tracks of angry red spots down his arms and legs, across his chest. Impossible to use hot needles without leaving some marks, but he looks well, considering. He was naked aside from a cloth tied round his waist. To spare the delicate sensibilities of the ladies present. Watching a man’s entrails spilling out is excellent entertainment, but the sight of his cock, well, that would be obscene.

A clerk stepped to the front of the scaffold and started reading out the prisoner’s name, the nature of the charge, the terms of his confession and his punishment, but even at this distance he could hardly be heard for the sullen muttering of the crowd, punctuated by an occasional furious scream. Glokta grimaced and worked his leg slowly back and forth, trying to loosen the cramping muscles.

The masked executioners stepped forward and took hold of the prisoner, moving with careful skill. They pulled a black bag over the envoy’s head, snapped manacles shut around his neck, his wrists, his ankles. Glokta could see the canvas moving in and out in front of his mouth. The desperate last breaths. Does he pray, now? Does he curse and rage? Who can know, and what difference can it make?

They hoisted him up into the air, spreadeagled on the frame. Most of his weight was on his arms. Enough on the collar round his neck to choke him, not quite enough to kill. He struggled somewhat, of course. Entirely natural. An animal instinct to climb, to writhe, to wriggle out and breathe free. An instinct that cannot be resisted. One of the executioners went to the rack, pulled out a heavy blade, displayed it to the crowd with a flourish, the thin sun flashing briefly on its edge. He turned his back on the audience, and began to cut.

The crowd went silent. Almost deathly still, aside from the odd hushed whisper. It was a punishment that brooked no calling out. A punishment which demanded awestruck silence. A punishment to which there could be no response other than a horrified, fascinated staring. That is its design. So there was only silence, and perhaps the wet gurgling of the prisoner’s breath. Since the collar makes screaming impossible.