The Serpentwar Saga: The Complete 4-Book Collection

Erik turned and was astonished to see Manfred von Darkmoor enter, flanked by two guards wearing the livery of Darkmoor and two others wearing the Prince’s colors. Manfred motioned with his head to Erik to come to the far end of the cell where they could speak privately.

Erik got up slowly, and the guards stood away as the two half brothers reached the far end of the cell. Erik said nothing, waiting for Manfred to speak.

After looking at Erik a moment, Manfred said, ‘Well, I suspect you wonder why I’m here.’

‘I would think that was obvious,’ said Erik.

‘I’m not entirely sure why I’m here, truth be told. Perhaps it’s because I have lost one brother and am about to lose another, whom I don’t know.’

‘I may not be lost, brother,’ said Erik dryly. ‘The Prince has taken the evidence under advisement, and I have a very gifted solicitor arguing on my behalf.’

‘So I have heard.’ Manfred looked Erik up and down. ‘You do look a great deal like Father, you know. But I suspect you have your mother’s steel in you.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘You never knew our father; he was a weak man in many ways,’ Manfred said. ‘I loved him, of course, but it was difficult to admire him. He avoided fights, mostly with Mother, and he hated being in the public eye.’ With an ironic smile, he added, ‘I, on the other hand, find that I rather like it.’ Picking an imagined speck from his sleeve, he said, ‘I don’t know if I should hate you for killing Stefan or thank you for making me Baron. But either way. Mother is up talking to the Prince right now, ensuring you go to the gallows.’

Erik said, ‘Why does she hate me so?’

Manfred said, ‘I don’t think she hates you, really. Fears you is more like it. It was our father she hated.’

Erik looked surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Father liked the ladies, and Mother always knew he had been forced into marrying her. From what I gathered, after I was born they were man and wife in name only. It was Mother who ensured we had only male servants or ugly women working in our castle; Father had an eye for pretty young girls. Even with Mother’s precautions, Father found every pretty woman within a day’s ride of the castle. Stefan was a lot like him in that respect. He really thought he’d hurt you if he took your girl and had his way with her.’

‘Rosalyn wasn’t my girl,’ said Erik. ‘She was more like a sister.’

‘Even better,’ said Manfred. ‘He would have delighted in knowing that. If he could have taken your mother while you watched, he’d have liked that even more.’ His voice lowered. ‘Stefan was an evil bastard, Erik, a mean-spirited pig who delighted in causing pain. I should know, because I was on the receiving end of it most of the time. It was only when I caught up with him in size and could defend myself that he left me alone.’ Almost whispering, he said, ‘When I first saw him dead, I was angry enough to have killed you myself that minute. After the shock wore off, I realized I felt relief that he was gone. You did the world a favor by killing him, but I’m afraid that fact won’t help you at all. Mother’s going to see you hung. I guess I’m here to tell you that at least one of your brothers doesn’t hate you.’

‘Brothers?’

‘You’re not father’s only bastard, Erik. You may have a score of brothers and sisters out there. But you were the oldest, and your mother made sure the world knew it. I guess that’s really the reason you are going to hang tomorrow.’

Erik tried to muster as much courage as he could. ‘We’ll still see what the Prince has to say.’

‘Of course,’ said Manfred. ‘If you do somehow come out of this without being hung, and after you’ve spent your time on the prison gang, send me a letter.’ He turned and walked away, then turned to look back at Erik. ‘But don’t enter Darkmoor if you wish to stay alive.’

Erik stood alone for a minute after Manfred left, then returned to his place next to the sleeping Roo.

Time dragged on and Erik found himself unable to sleep. Several others fell into fitful dozes, and only Biggo and the Isalani seemed able to sleep comfortably. A couple of the men sat in silent prayer.

At midnight, the door opened and a handful of priests entered, from various orders, and each stood across from the prisoner who wished to take comfort. This continued for an hour or more; then the priests left, and still no word from Lender.

Erik at last fell into a half-sleep, with panic waking him up several times, his heart pounding and his chest constricted, as he fought against the rising terror.

Suddenly a loud clang echoed in the otherwise silent cell block and Erik was on his feet as Sebastian Lender entered the room. Erik lightly kicked Roo awake, and the two hurried to the far end of the cell.

Erik looked at what Lender carried and his chest constricted in terror. A pair of boots, fashioned out of soft leather, with high tops that folded down, were clutched in the old man’s hands. They were a horseman’s boots, well made and artfully crafted, and Erik knew why Lender carried them.

Erik said, ‘We’re to die?’

Lender said, ‘Yes. The Prince gave the order less than an hour ago.’ Lender handed the boots through the bars to Erik. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I had built a persuasive brief, but the mother of the man you killed is the daughter of the Duke of Ran and has much influence in this court as well as the King’s. The King himself was consulted, and in the end you were both sentenced to death. There is nothing that can be done.’ He pointed to the boots that Erik now clutched before him. ‘These were your father’s last gift to you; I thought it would be unfitting for you not to have them at least for a few hours before …’

‘They hang us,’ whispered Roo.

Erik pushed the boots back through the bars. ‘Sell them, Master Lender. You said the gold he left me wouldn’t cover your fees.’

Lender pushed them back toward Erik. ‘No, I failed and I will give your gold to whoever you instruct me to. There is no fee, Erik.’

Erik said, ‘Then send the gold to my mother, at Ravensburg. She’s at the Inn of the Pintail and she has no one to care for her. Tell her to use the gold wisely, for it is all I will ever be able to give her.’

Lender nodded and said, ‘I pray the gods will be gentle with you, Erik, and you as well, Rupert. You have no evil in your hearts, even if you have done this violent thing.’

Lender looked close to tears as he turned away, leaving the two young men from Darkmoor alone in the far corner of the death cell.

Erik looked at his boyhood friend and said nothing. There was nothing to say. He sat and stripped off his common boots, and pulled on the rider’s boots. They fit as if they had been fashioned for him. High, to mid-calf, they were soft and clung like soft velvet instead of harsh hides. Erik knew that if he worked for a lifetime he would not have been able to afford their like.

He sighed. He would at least wear them for part of one day, from the cell to the gallows. He only regretted he didn’t have at least one opportunity to test them on horseback.

Roo sat on the floor, back against the bars. He looked at Erik, his eyes wide with fear, and whispered, ‘What do we do now?’

Erik tried to smile reassuringly at his friend, but the best he could manage was a crooked grimace. ‘We wait.’

Nothing more was said.

• Chapter Eight • Choice (#ulink_90eb2572-f5e8-503c-9003-df76b7d9cdc0)

The door opened.

Erik blinked, surprised to discover he had dozed, in a numb, emotionally exhausted sleep. Guards, heavily armed against the possible rebellion of the condemned, entered. Last through the door was the strange man Robert de Loungville.

‘Listen, you dogs!’ he shouted, his gravelly voice striking them like a leather glove. With a twisted smile he said, ‘You come when bidden and die like men!’ He called six names, and the last of the six was Slippery Tom. Tom held back, as if somehow he could hide among the group who would be hung second. ‘Thomas Reed! Get out here!’ commanded de Loungville.

When Slippery Tom only crouched lower behind his friend Biggo, de Loungville sent in a pair of guards, swords drawn. The other prisoners stepped aside, and the two grappled with Tom a moment, then dragged him from the cell. He started to cry out for mercy and wailed the entire way to the gallows.

No one in the cell spoke. They all listened to the sound of Tom’s screaming as he was carried farther and farther from them, then turned as one to look out the cell window as the screaming grew again in volume. The first six prisoners were marched in line, save for Tom, who was still being dragged; his voice reached a near shriek in terror. Repeated cuffing from the guards who carried him only seemed to increase his panic, and short of knocking him senseless, they had no way to shut him up. If they were put off by the screaming, they showed no sign; Tom obviously wasn’t the first man they had dragged shrieking to his death; he would be silent soon enough.

Through the bars, Erik watched with a mixture of revulsion and fascination as the first five men plodded up the six wooden steps that led to the gallows. In some distant corner of his mind he knew he would soon be following them, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept that reality in his heart. This was all happening to someone else, not to him.

The men stepped up on the high boxes placed under the nooses, and Tom was carried up to where he would die. He kicked and spit and tried to bite the guards, who held on to him tightly. Then they lifted him up to the box, while another jumped up beside him and quickly placed the rope around his neck. Two more guards held him in place lest he kick the box over and die before the order was given.

Erik didn’t know what to expect – an announcement of some sort or reading of a formal verdict – but without ceremony Robert de Loungville came to stand directly in front of the condemned, his back to the men still in the cell. His voice carried across the yard as he said, ‘Hang them!’

Guards kicked hard at the boxes under the men’s feet, in one case twice to move it from under the man who slumped down in a faint at de Loungville’s command. Slippery Tom’s screaming was choked off abruptly.

Erik felt his stomach knot at the sight before him; three men went limp, a sign their necks had snapped; one jerked twice, then died; but the last two kicked as they were slowly choked to death. Slippery Tom was one of the two, and it seemed to Erik he took an impossibly long time to die. The slender thief kicked, striking one of his guards with a heel, and Biggo said, ‘Should tie a man’s legs, you’d think. Robs him of dignity, kicking around like that.’

Roo stood next to Erik, tears of terror streaming down his face as he said, ‘Dignity?’