The procession walked up streets choked gray with dust, drifts heaped haphazardly up walls. Faces peering out of high windows and from greenery swathed roofs. All eyes intent, a single solemn figure, chained, dignified. A stumble, chains jerk, dignity stolen in the kicking of legs desperate to rise, struggling flailing, falling. Mounted men either side, grim faced, boiled leather spread with fat, glistening in the light of a blood red sun fading beyond human reckoning. Ahead, just a pace or two, serenity and composure contrasting with a slight twitch of a face held firm, a lip curling, a stifled blink, medallions of offices long held, and bright robes. A justice’s scales obscured in the folds, hidden by a man no longer sure that he deserves to wear them, a slight glance back at the accused, a tear, or just perspiration in oppressive heat glances down cheeks of iron. All the while the crowd trails, a hundred eyes wild with hatred, a hundred voices raised in hatred and words best not uttered uttered, a hundred people chanting with fever the catechisms of Unity, the holy mixed with the. The guilty was still struggling to rise, nobody thought of his welfare.
Framed against the fading red light of the day, the destination, a low mound, not a hill, for there were none in this dusty flat land. This mound was capped by a long platform, simple stone, and a skeletal tree long dead upright in the middle. On top of this tree, a hemp rope, nose dangling from it’s end. The result and the destination summed up in one single image. The result; of four verdicts, four appeals, six justices, the house of assembly, and the Chief Magistrate, still sitting on his horse. The chains snap, the guilty is stuck, foot in a pothole. All that can be heard in the silence of the crowd is a crack of bone snapping and a scream of pain out of previously still lips later. Stoicism in year’s worth of trials, broken in that instant, the humanity of the subject lay bare. The mounted men chains in hand pull up profane, the elder one dismounts, an attempt to drag the guilty up is met with howls of derision. A tile arcs through the crowd, it hits the ground, skitters towards the guilty prone on the ground, scores a hit high on the back of his crown. He falls limp. The crowd howls, screaming in rage, cheated of its justice and sport. A man charges at the figure lolling limply, the younger of the guards heels his mount into the man knocking him flat, beating him with the flat of his blade. The crowd is silent, the elder guard, sits on the balls of his feet, ready to sweep the guilty onto his mount. The crowd surges, the Justice turns and casts a baleful glance at them, scanning faces in the front rank, silence.
The elder soldier, kicks hard, the chained man doesn’t move. A kick, harder, the body lifted of the crowd, the broken leg at a sickening angle. A low moan escapes the lips of the chained. Silence still holds. The soldier drags the man to his feet, supporting him on his shoulder, they hobble forward. The crowd cheers, drowning out words whispered quickly into ears numb with pain.
Nobody wanted this, least of all the Magistrate, this was accounted not on guilt, but on ancestry.
I know.
Don’t hold it against His Honour, he’s much troubled, and so am I and the young-un up ahead.
I know.
Promise me you won’t haunt His Honour because of this, he’ll give you a decent burial, feels it’s the least he could do.
I won’t.
Okay then, we’ll make it quick, we got the hangman from up the river, not the drunk they call a hangman here.
I know.
Can’t be seen to be helping you, neither can the Magistrate,
I’m sorry. I know I don’t hold it against you, I just want time to think.
Aye, you don’t have much time for that.
The young-un was troubled. Riding past his loves house, he hoped she had heeded his advice, not to watch the spectacle. Course with her he could never quite be sure if she would, just out of a mismatched sense of curiosity quite at odds with the rest of her sensitive nature. The crowd troubled him, his captain had whispered briefly into his ear, a simple warning. If they get angry, kick up the horse and get out of there, they won’t let you be just because you wear your uniform. His blade was sitting easy in his lap, a hand resting ever so lightly caressing. He preferred not to think on the complexities of the case. He thought only that for a man who was supposed to be a murderer and rapist he must be real fast on foot, a veritable champion amongst men, to get from his camp to the town on the day of his foul deeds. It was something that the young fellow had once remarked in passing to the elder soldier now walking next to him. He’d been told to shut up, in a quiet slightly proud way.
The procession reached the mound. A quiet man, slight, balding, misfortunate enough to be dressed in executioner’s robes nodded wearily to the elder soldier. The executioners eyes dead, swivelling to look at his charge, a quick few measurements which his hands, a length of rope rapidly coiled around arms. The sound of a voice not often used, caked in malice or disinterest you could never tell which.
Bit tall.
We warranted he was, we build new gallows.
I warrant he’s still to tall, but we’ll have to make do.
He has to die, we weren’t told how, you do your job and you do it painless mind. This last bit was quiet, spoken in a cuff. The condemned kicked ineffectually, a few harsh words in some guttural language. Nobody looked. The crowd surged forward. It filled the hill. Faces all staring intently, shifting between the convicted, and the noose. The hangman inching forward… fate written large on the image of a noose stained red by a fading sun. Close, the sun fades, a fitful glimmer of some faraway god, angry perhaps t the death of its adherent. A powerless god, in this land of dry hills and heat to crack stones.
A change. A courtyard, and a dignified figure sitting on a dais. A justice’s scales revealed in the late afternoon sun, a figure sure of himself, not cowed by the magnitude of what he is about to do. A verdict read in soft tones to an uncomprehending defendant. A familiar face, out of chains, not so dirty or so abject in hopelessness yet. Howls of triumph, a slap of backs in the front rows as the verdict of guilty is read out, drowning out a carefully considered argument. A justice slumping back into his seat, a speech cut short, careful words, measured to show those now howling of the spurious nature of the case of the danger and the injustice. A careful warning to those involved. All ignored in for a quest of misplaced vengeance.
A change. Feet swing in the air, one kick of heroism seeming to flail in the direction of a distant homeland, seeking on the distant and now dark horizon home. A second kick, seeming to sail into the future, cut short. A shudder; like that of a spinning top ending its gyrations, flailing to its demise on some child’s floor. End.
A justice his back turned on a verdict he regrets. And with that would begin a reform process and years of long fighting for what seems a futile cause. Cobwebs of logic swept away by a burning desire for justice, opposition in Senate, and in the populace swept before the strength of the arguers.
A change. Success. Three times do a third of the Senators rise, and three times do they in unison proclaim acceptance. And each time the roaring of cheers and claps echoes from courtyards just outside the room. Heady days. A triumph for justice. Just a slow progression forward. Matah laughing in the background.