Choke and Knuckle brought Lisbet up from the crypts beneath the church. She was still in wrist and ankle shackles and had to shuffle along between them, making a racket as she did. Considering how she had spent the last twenty-four hours, she did not look too bad. She was calm and did not struggle as Choke and Knuckle led her through the kitchen into the church, one on each elbow.
Barrelmender was kneeling in prayer at the altar. He rose and put on his helm, dropping the visor before turning to face the three. His black plate armor was lightly embellished with bright red enameled flames. The helm was a snarling gargoyle. With the severe, black, monk’s robes overtop the armor, and the black iron Wheel around his neck, Brother Barrelmender of the Brothers of the Holy Stone presented an unambiguous figure. When debates of orthodoxy versus heresy have closed, violence is the final arbiter. A gargoyle protecting a church from evil appears as much a monster as those it defends against.
Trembling between Choke and Knuckle, Lisbet seemed as though she had planned to say something. In beholding Barrelmender beneath the simple Wheel above the altar, she could only moan. Still, she kept her feet and did not cry or wail, as so many others in her position would.
Barrelmender nodded and turned to head up the center aisle to the church doors. With Lisbet shuffling along between them, Choke and Knuckle did their best to follow without dragging her. Barrelmender shoved the church doors open and strode out to stand on the top step overlooking the town square.
Choke had only finished ringing the church bell a few minutes before, but the town square was full. The crowd fell silent as Brother Barrelmender stood tall on the top step of the church with Knuckle and nine soldiers spread out on the steps in front of him.
Up above, crows and magpies took to the wing from the church roof. The murder of crows and racket of magpies were mixed into one huge gang above the square. They swooped and wheeled playfully, cawing and cackling; a jeering mob at play.
One particularly beautiful magpie swooped in low to squirt a large stream of shit onto Thad’s corpse on the Wheel. His aim was true. He hit Thad’s smashed and scorched face square, with nary a drop wasted.
This broke the tension of the crowd, many of whom had already been drinking. Laugher and a few cheers rang out.
“Ack! Ack! Ack!” Nester cackled as he wheeled over the crowd.
Peep and Mariola were with Grace, Nathalie, and Petrina, standing at the base of the church steps, off to the side at the path between the church and the graveyard. All three girls had been holding their composure since being brought to the square, but Nester’s performance was just too much for them. They reacted with gasps and indignant cries.
“Oh that dirty bird! I hate him! I hate him!” Grace exclaimed with her trembling fists balled up in front of her.
“That’s Nester,” Peep said to Mariola. “He hates Thad more than anyone. I guess he’s been shitting on their little sex romps for some time now.”
“Ooooo! Foul creature! I hate him! I hate him!” Grace cried, tears streaming down her contorted face.
Upstaged by a bird, Barrelmender visibly sighed as his shoulders drooped a little. He turned to check that Choke and Knuckle were behind him with Lisbet. They were, so he squared his shoulders and pointed his staff at Knuckle:
“Sergeant! You and your men clear a path to the Wheel!”
Brother Barrelmender’s strong voice resonating within his helm brought the mood of the square back down. The folk between him and the burning Wheel stepped back to create a path as Knuckle and the soldiers came down the steps.
The birds flying above settled themselves, too. The crows and magpies dropped to perch upon the roofs of the buildings around the square, adding to the event’s audience. With them mixing species, there were a few little squabbles between the different birds, but they quieted quickly.
Brother Barrelmender ordered Choke and Knuckle to follow him, and began his descent of the stairs. Once again, the crowd was somewhat distracted from his performance by the gathering of birds surrounding them on the roofs and walls around. People were looking around and commenting to each other about the unusual situation of so many crows and magpies coming together. As well, the birds were now eerily quiet as they stared intensely down into the square.
However, as odd as the situation with the birds might have been, it was no true competition for a heretic burning. As Choke and Knuckle brought Lisbet down the steps with her chains dragging, the people’s attention was drawn back to the human spectacle.
Peep, however, had no such interest. She was staring up into the sky, looking around for one more bird. The square was now quiet, with the crowd in an expectant hush. From above came a low rolling croak that crested into a loud caw. Peep’s gaze snapped over to a huge raven perched on the top of the church steeple, next to the four-spoked Wheel of Stron. It stared down at her and the two made eye contact. In recognizing the raven that Diya had transformed into at the end of their meeting, Peep understood that the druid was here to watch the culmination of her move against Thad. The raven nodded deeply to Peep before looking away.
When Brother Barrelmender reached the burning Wheel, he waited silently for Choke and Knuckle to catch up with Lisbet. Thad’s corpse was chained to the Wheel on its iron tripod. Underneath that was a cube of stacked logs almost two meters high. Under the logs, the heart of the pyre was a heap of tinder-dry twigs and sticks waiting for the flame to start the inferno.
What the entire setup lacked was a scaffold or any other means to get Lisbet up onto the Wheel for an execution. Nor was there any chain or rope to secure the condemned to the side of the pyre, as was often done with such group executions. This was being noted, with whispered speculation rippling through the crowd. Was Lisbet to be spared? Had the drunken Barrelmender simply forgotten this basic detail? What was going to happen?
Brother Barrelmender gave something of a hint as to his intentions when Choke and Knuckle reached him with Lisbet.
“Hold her there, facing me,” he said, gesturing to the spot directly in front of the Wheel, up against the pyre.
Lisbet had been staring up at Thad with tears streaming down her face. She resisted being turned away from him, but was no match for Choke and Knuckle, who swung her into position and shoved her back into the logs.
Corporal Osgar and almost all the soldiers in the square had now formed a circle around the burning Wheel to keep the crowd clear. Barrelmender gestured for Osgar to come to him, and handed him his wooden staff.
Brother Barrelmender stepped about three meters in front of Lisbet and flipped up his helm’s visor. He raised his hands to command silence. He received it. Barrelmender dropped one hand to point emphatically at Thad up on the Wheel. His powerful voice rang out with his judgement:
“I dealt with that one yesterday! That was Thad Swallowtail! Formerly an Altarian priest charged with overseeing Saint Melifluina’s Convent in Saltwells. He abused his position of trust and violated several young women in the convent before abducting them and bringing them here. He preached to them the Solluna Union heresy. He engaged in moon worship and drove others to it in pursuance of his perverted needs!”
Barrelmender paused as he let his pointing hand drop. He drew his longsword and raised it up above his head.
“Yesterday within the church, I executed him with Stron’s avenging fire. He died a heretic. His soul now resides in Hell. And today we send his body to join it!”
This elicited some cheers, along with exclamations of, “praise Stron!” and the like. Brother Barrelmender waited for that to die down before he proceeded. He dropped his arm to point his sword tip at Lisbet. She was trembling between Choke and Knuckle, who had a strong hold on her shackled arms. Lisbet met Barrelmender’s eye squarely, though, and gave him a look of unadulterated hatred.
“And now this one!” Barrelmender boomed. “Lisbet Greatspring. She claims to be Swallowtail’s wife. In fact, she was his accomplice. A nun of the convent, charged to protect those girls he violated. Instead of doing her duty, she indulged her every perversion in giving herself and them over to the heretic Swallowtail. I have heard the truthful testimony of her victim. I have found her guilty of Solluna Union heresy and sexual deviancy.”
Brother Barrelmender dropped his sword low to his side and stepped up to Lisbet.
“Lisbet Greatspring,” Barrelmender said. His voice was strong and loud enough to carry, but lacked the strident tone of before. He was sad and not unfriendly as he spoke to her: “Now you die. The question remains how you go to your judgment. Will you admit your sin and beg for Stron’s cleansing Holy Fire to take you to Altas for his judgement? Or will you burn in Stron’s avenging Fire and join your profane partner in Hell?”
This was Lisbet’s moment. She did not betray herself. She took a deep, steady breath and shouted straight into Barrelmender’s face:
“You hypocritical swine! I’d spit on your ugly face if I didn’t know that you’d like it! You are—”
“Shut up!” Brother Barrelmender hollered as he lunged forward to grab Lisbet’s throat with his left hand.
“Stron! Eat her heart!” he prayed as he drove the point of his longsword through Lisbet’s chest.
This time, Brother Barrelmender pushed the sword in to the hilt so that its blade entered the lattice of logs behind Lisbet. Stron’s Holy Fire surged out of Lisbet’s back along the blade, igniting the heap of kindling under the logs.
Both Choke and Knuckle dropped Lisbet’s arms and fled from the infernal heat.
“Stron give me strength!” Barrelmender shouted in prayer. With his left still on Lisbet’s neck, he took a step back to clear his sword blade from the logs behind her. His sword still in hand, Barrelmender heaved Lisbet’s body into an overhead press, with the blade protruding from her back sending a plume of Holy Fire to the heavens. Stron had given him strength to spare. Brother Barrelmender threw Lisbet onto the pyre. She slid off his sword and landed on top of the logs, just under her husband’s feet. The stack shifted a little, but held. Smoke began to rise from the pyre as its heart bloomed with fire, just as Lisbet’s had.
The instant Brother Barrelmender’s blade left Lisbet’s body, the Holy Fire stopped. Still, Barrelmender stood with his sword held high for a few seconds, breathing heavily. In the dead quiet of the square, the crackling and snapping of the dry twigs burning was loud indeed. Sparks and smoke rose around Thad as flames began to lick at his wife beneath. The stink of burning hair wafted over the crowd.
Barrelmender examined his sword’s blade carefully, taking a moment to flick at some smears of charred grease. He looked up at the surrounding folk staring at him wide-eyed.
“This shall have to be polished now!” he admonished, brandishing the blade towards them before sheathing it. He paused with a pained expression for a long time before posturing up to address them further:
“Let this be a lesson to all of you! Be good! Or don’t. See if I care! We now have a funeral this afternoon, apparently, so I shall be having a nap this morning. Feel free to pray quietly in the church, if you wish. But leave me out of it! Is that clear?”
No one in attentance presumed to respond. Brother Barrelmender moved over to Corporal Osgar to retrieve his staff. With it back in hand, Barrelmender took a few strides towards the church, causing the crowd to scatter in fright as they cleared a path for him. Barrelmender stopped in his tracks and twirled his staff through a sequence of fighting moves. The heavy staff thrummed through the air with terrifying speed and power. Clearly, Brother Barrelmender was still blessed with Stron-given strength, and he was enjoying it.
Barrelmender finished a particularily long, one-handed sweep of the staff by pointing it at the burning Wheel, now in full conflagration.
“So it goes for heretics!” he bellowed. “And there’s a few more of you here that I could throw on there with them, I think. No small number of you could use a good crack! Smarten up!”
With that, Brother Barrelmender stomped into the church, leaving the doors open behind him.
As Barrelmender left, so too did the crows and magpies in attendance. They took wing above the square, cawing and yacking, before heading their respective ways.
Muse Vassal 