Karen Robards - Amanda Rose

“ That ’s him. That’s the one. Grayson-bloody murderer. ”

Matt stared at them. Missiles thrown by the crowd began slicing through the air around him, rotten tomatoes and eggs and even rocks. The guards, as caught up in the maelstrom of refuse as he was, cursed viciously and hurried him up the stairs. Matt did nothing to hinder them. Every ounce of his concentration was suddenly focused on fighting down the terror that tiptoed icily up and down his spine. He scarcely felt the rock that bounced off his left temple, leaving a darkening bruise and a trickle of crimson in its wake.

The platform was long and narrow, just wide enough for perhaps four men to stand abreast. It stood a good fifteen feet off the ground-far enough so that there was at least an even chance that the drop would break the victim’s neck. After all, England in the year 1842 was a humane country; no one wanted a man to meet his death twisting at the end of a rope and choking for as long as a full half hour. No matter that it happened like that more often than not; at least it was not planned. Thinking of the horrible, blackened face and gasping sounds of a man he had once seen hanged and who had died hard, Matt promised himself he would watch for the hangman’s signal, then jump upward at the last moment so that he would fall through the trapdoor with a little extra force. All he asked now was that his finish be quick and clean. Being slowly strangled to death by a frayed piece of hemp was an end he preferred not to contemplate.

He was not the only man scheduled to die that day, he saw as soon as he set foot on the platform. Two other poor wretches were there, their irons already replaced by a single rope securing their hands behind their backs in the attitude in which they would soon meet their maker. Each had a man with a rifle standing behind and a little to the right of him. The Crown was clearly taking no chances, even at this late date. Three nooses instead of the one he had envisaged swung gently in the breeze. Two sets of eyes other than his own were viewing the soft beauty of a budding spring day for the last time. Matt took odd comfort in the presence of the two other condemned men. Only now did he realize how little he had relished the thought of dying alone.

“Over there.” His guards-he rated three, whereas the others had only one apiece, which surely meant that he was considered the most dangerous, or perhaps notorious, of the prisoners-shoved him into place before the closest noose. Its twisted brown length seemed to mock and beckon at the same time. Matt wished sickly that it was all over. It was not death he feared so much as the act of dying, he realized. Dying scared him horribly. He could feel cold sweat breaking out under his armpits and along his spine. Desperately he hoped that his sudden weakness was not apparent to the men around him. Clenching his teeth, he unobtrusively straightened his shoulders and forced himself to concentrate on the here and now. Philosophizing about death paid no tolls; in any case, he would soon be solving its mysteries for himself.

From his position at the end of the platform, Matt realized that he would die last-or first. At this point he didn’t know which he preferred. But when the priest stepped up to the prisoner at the opposite end and began administering the last rites, Matt felt a dizzying surge of relief. It seemed that his stubborn body was determined to hang onto life as long as it possibly could.

Down below, the crowd quieted as they realized that the first execution was imminent. Matt looked out over the sea of upturned faces, his lips curling with hatred and contempt as he felt the blood lust of those for whom his and his companions’ doom was merely an excuse for a holiday. A hanging was an event, more respectable than a cockfight or a bearbaiting but just as exciting. Fine gentlemen and ladies in their curricles jockeyed for position to one side of the gallows under a clump of tall young oaks whose just-greening buds provided some protection from the bright spring sun. Shop clerks and merchants’ apprentices, given the morning off by masters who were just as likely to be present, stood shoulder to shoulder with pink-checked scullery maids and prim seamstresses. Jammed almost underneath the platform itself were London’s street people-the whores and thieves and drunks who haunted the city’s byways at night. They were so close that they had to crane their necks uncomfortably to see the condemned men above them. But they were content: they were in the best possible position to hear the snap of a broken neck. Vendors made their way through the crowd, hawking meat pasties and hot chestnuts and lemon drinks. Overall hung an air of festivity, as if the citizenry had turned out to gawk at a carnival come to town.

Matt scarcely felt it as one guard ponderously began to remove his irons while another kept him firmly fixed in his rifle sights. He was too caught up in the horror of watching another man suffer the fate that soon would be his. The priest made the final sign of the cross over the condemned man-a small, stooped fellow with a bald head and fear-dulled eyes-and stepped back. The executioner, a black hood obscuring all but his eyes, stepped forward to jerk a hood similar to his own over the victim’s face. Then, his movements quick and efficient, he grabbed the noose and pulled it over the man’s head until it rested against his scrawny neck. The man jerked as he felt the rough hemp against his flesh; through the obscuring hood Matt saw his lips moving, in what he guessed was a prayer, as the hangman tightened the rope and positioned the knot judiciously. Then the executioner stepped back and the drumroll began. The condemned man gasped audibly. To Matt’s horror and pity, he saw a wet stain spreading down the front of the fellow’s ragged breeches; the man’s fear had rendered him incontinent.

“May God have mercy on your soul,” the priest intoned, and the doomed man gave a hoarse cry. Then the executioner lowered his hand in a sharp, slicing motion while his assistant obediently pulled the lever that opened the trapdoor. The little man screamed just once as he felt the floor dropping out from beneath his feet and himself falling through it. Matt had no time to breathe the prayer hovering on his lips, so quickly was the man gone. The rope snapped taut. The scream choked off in mid-cry. There was a sharp crack, followed by a moment of silence. Then the crowd roared its approval. It had been a clean death.

“ No. Oh, please God, no. ” The next man to die, a huge, redheaded fellow bigger than Matt, lost all pretense of composure as the priest approached him. Matt could almost smell the man’s fear. The good father paid no attention to the man’s attempts to cringe away from him, but quickly muttered the service while two guards rushed over to assist the original guard, who had abandoned his rifle to lock the weeping man in a bear hug and wrestle him back into place. Matt felt goose bumps break out along his arms as the priest, hastily making the sign of the cross before backing away from the prisoner’s flailing legs, was replaced by the executioner. At the sight of that black-hooded figure, the man screamed horribly while tears rolled down his square yeoman’s face. Matt, watching as the hood was forced into place over the head of this second man, clenched and unclenched his fists in impotent sympathy. Would he, too, be so overcome by fear when his turn came that he would lose every vestige of pride and human dignity? he wondered desperately as bile rose in his throat.

“You gonna cry for Mama, too, Grayson?” the guard tying his wrists behind him taunted in an undertone. Matt glared at the man, feeling a burning rage that the oaf should mock the terror of a man in such dire circumstances. In that single instant before his eyes locked with those of the guard who was squatting behind him, he registered that his irons had been removed and that the guard who was supposed to be keeping him covered was instead watching with wide-eyed interest the frantic struggle going on just a few feet away. Even before his brain had properly recognized the opportunity, his body, made desperate by the situation, acted. Before he was conscious that he meant to do it, he swung around, jerking his wrists from the guard’s hold, freeing them from the as-yet-untied rope in a single, violent movement that ended with his hands bunched into two fists that slammed into the astonished man’s temples like twin anvils. The guard crumpled with a single grunt; the other guard, the one with the rifle, looked back just in time to see Matt going over the side of the platform in a low, fast dive. Automatically he jerked his rifle up and fired. Matt felt the stinging sensation of a bullet plowing through the side of his right hip, but he didn’t slow down.