Larkin woke to the sound of shouting. It was nothing new. Dust motes danced in the soft light, as a tiny ray of fresh sunlight streamed in through the arrowslit in the stone wall behind him. Larkin ran a hand down his face, his beard was thick and shaggy, the dark hair trailing down his neck and under his chin. He sat up on his cot and looked around the dim space, the stone walls were the same as ever, cold and slightly damp.
The hay on the floor badly needed to be replaced. It was wet and compacted into brown lumps on the dirt floor. The smell of rot hung heavy in the thick, stale air. But it was the same as yesterday and the day before and the day before that.
How long had he been in this cell? The bulky, black iron bars were dripping with morning dew. The condensation building as the ground began to warm with the morning sun. Larkin sat upright on his cot, straining to make out words through the cacophony of shouts.
Some of the voices he recognized. One such voice was that of Vox, a mean and angry man. Well over six feet tall and solid muscle, Vox bore a thick scar across his chest that peaked out from his uniform shirt any time he removed his livery jacket, which was often due to the humidity and stifling air in the prison.
Larkin had once told the man that his name must be Vox because his mother believed she’d given birth to a literal ox. It definitely wasn’t the best gibe Larkin had ever come up with, but it earned him a punch to the face and kick to his ribs nonetheless.
He knew one other voice as well. Jasper’s voice was a rough whisper of a scream, but he must have been putting up a good fight to cause such commotion. Jasper was another piece of shit, just for a different cause. He had already been well ensconced in the prison on the day Larkin arrived. The scruffy man was not much older than Larkin, but years of bad living had made him hunched and withered to nearly nothing. His skin hung from his bones and his eyes were milky.
“Get up!” Vox shouted again. The shout carried down the hall of cells and into Larkin’s.
“Today is your day, traitor”, he heard another voice say. This man’s voice was unfamiliar. It sounded somewhat refined. He could hear the smoothness in it, a man who had drank a fair share of hot tea this morning. Probably one of the noblemen Jasper had offended.
Larkin heard a rumor from some of the other men imprisoned under the massive fortress that Jasper had taken a nobleman’s daughter and turned her to opium and sex work. That was just one of his offenses. The other, he’d been told, was that he’d been involved with some rebels, a group of people who wanted to take down the king and install some other idiot to the throne.
Larkin’s opinion on the topic was that it was a load of horse shit. The king was an arrogant asshole, but to even think of overthrowing the crown, the man had to be a fool.
The shouting subsided. Perhaps Jasper was unconscious now because all Larkin could hear from down the hall was the scrape and shuffle of boots and an occasional grunt.
He waited until he heard the metallic clank of the main door and then pushed his cot over to the wall with the arrowslit. It was just wide enough that if he pressed his face to the cold stone, he could see the world beyond.
The prison was nearly at ground level and he could see the prison wagon waiting outside. Vox came into view, the heaving brute dragging Jasper’s thin body along the ground behind him. Vox and another guard practically tossed Jasper like a sack of potatoes into the back of the wagon and locked the wooden door. So today was the last day he would see Jasper. The last day Jasper would breathe the air. Today was hanging day for Jasper.
Larkin stepped down off the cot and pushed it back along the side wall where it had always been. He sat down on the edge and rested his face in his hands. Hanging day. The day would come for him soon enough. He’d been in the prison for several days now, maybe even weeks, he’d lost count and meals were too sporadic to help him keep track. He told himself he was ready, but he knew in his heart he wasn’t.
His crime had been murder. He had been caught holding the delicate dagger that had stabbed the nobleman in the back, blood coating his hands and clothes. He had confessed at his trial and accepted his sentence with his head held high. It was only the sound of Miriam’s soft sobs in the courtroom that made him regret his decision. A jealous lover, the judge had called him, but he knew she had no love for Lord Thomlinson.
All of it, all of this, the violence, the blood, the waiting in the cold dark, even the noose, it was all for her. Larkin had loved Miriam fiercely since they were children. He was her sworn protector since the age of eight and she had loved him in return. In the quiet garden of her house, they played, and he slew dragons and conquered kingdoms for her. Firing his little bow and arrow set on her dolls. He even gave her lessons and in time she too was able to fire the bow.
Larkin’s mother worked in Miriam’s family home. She was the lady of the house’s handmaid and thus allowed to have her son live with her. In fact, he’d been born in that house and had known no other. He had grown up believing in his heart that one day, he would marry Miriam and they would live happily ever after. But of course that wasn’t the case.
Her father, Lord Bruxton, had arranged her marriage to Lord Thomlinson when she was only sixteen. Both she and Larkin had protested as much as possible, but nothing was to be done and the wedding went forward just days after her eighteenth birthday.
Larkin saw Miriam from time to time, always from a distance. Before the wedding he had moved out of her father’s house and into a small room above the blacksmith shop, where he worked as an apprentice. She was as beautiful as ever, but thin and her eyes held shadows. Shadows he didn’t want to know the cause of.
One night not unlike any other, a pageboy arrived at the blacksmith’s shop with a message. The blacksmith’s wife, goodly Mrs. Hempstock, gave him the note as he ate his supper and he was out the door before he’d even finished reading it. But he was too late.
Larkin burst through the door of the Lord Thomlinson’s town house only to find Miriam standing at the bottom of the stairs in her torn nightgown. Blood covered her hands and face and the thin gown. The look she gave him was one of horror, but he knew her well enough to see that some slight satisfaction gleamed in her eyes. He grabbed her to him as she sobbed.
Upstairs, the scene was gruesome. Furniture was strewn about the elegant bedroom. A chair lay on its side, the legs splintered. And Lord Thomlinson, he lay face down in the large four poster bed, blood pooled around him, soaking into the soft sheets.
An elegant dagger protruded from his back, the silver and jewel encrusted hilt glittered in the lamp light. Larkin turned to face Miriam and saw the bruise that was beginning to bloom on her cheek bone. He felt white-hot rage burn inside him and sprung into action.
He pulled the dagger out of Lord Thomlinson’s back. The sound of flesh squelched and blood sprayed anew from the wound. He covered himself in the gore, smearing it on his clothes, tearing the fabric of his vest and shirt.
Miriam stood near the doorway watching, understanding his movements and motives. She pulled her nightgown off and threw it into the lit fireplace. It quickly caught fire and she rushed to the bathing room to clean the blood from her skin as best she could. Larkin caught one glimpse of her naked body and fought down the ache to hold her as he continued to set the scene.
The officers arrived at exactly the moment he thought they would. Miriam huddled in a corner of the bedroom sobbing, fresh makeup over the bruise on her cheek. Larkin walked calmly down the stairs, his hands held above his head, the bloody dagger clutched in his fingers.
He told them he could stand it no longer, her married to that man. So he had broken into the townhouse and killed him in a fight. They questioned Miriam and she corroborated his story, making sure to act like a traumatized wife, full of tears and hysterics.
Larkin was taken into custody and thrown into the cell he had called his home for so many days now. The news of Lord Thomlinson’s murder spread quickly throughout the small town. So he had waited in the cold dark for his hanging day. So he had taken his occasional time outside to let the sun warm his face, to listen to the other men talk, to think about Miriam and how at least now she was free.
He let the squeak of the wagon wheels pull him back from his memories, and laid back down on his cot, staring up at the wood beam ceiling above. Soon, his day had to be coming soon.
*****
Larkin awoke to the sound of metal clinking against metal. He sat up hastily and stared as Vox twisted the key in the lock. Vox’s face was grave, not the usual pinch of anger to his brows, but a relaxed, calm, graveness.
“Today’s your day, young man,” he said with a low gravelly tone.
Larkin rose from the cot and strode toward the corner of the cell. “At least let me relieve myself first,” he said over his shoulder to Vox. He proceeded to piss in the corner.
Vox stood by the iron door and waited surprisingly patiently for Larkin to tie up his britches and walk toward him. Manacles were placed on his wrists, linked together with a short chain. A longer chain was welded in the middle and Vox tugged on it, leading Larkin down the darkened hallway.
No sunlight streamed in from the arrowslits this morning. The sky was full of fat gray clouds that threatened to rain at any moment.
Larkin heard only the foot steps, the heavy steps of Vox’s boots, and the lighter ones of his own. How many days had it been since they took Jasper? Three, maybe five at most. Larkin was tired of waiting. The footsteps sounded like drum beats in his head, a soft steady rhythm that pushed him forward.
They walked outside the fortress walls and onto the lush green grass. For a moment, Larkin stood and savored the fresh air on his face. His beard was long now and beginning to mat together.
He looked up into the cloudy sky and breathed a deep breath of the cool, moist air. Today was a good day to die, he told himself. He was ready. What he had done, who he had done it for. He was ready to meet his end. Miriam was free and that was all that mattered.
Vox tugged on the chain and stirred Larkin from his thoughts. “Come on, in the wagon. Don’t waste my time,” he said. Though his voice was stern, it wasn’t the same tone he’d used with Jasper. Perhaps Vox knew, Larkin thought. Maybe he knew what Larkin had done and why, and maybe he understood. Surely he had loved someone besides himself.
Larkin followed the beast of a man and ascended the small steps into the wagon, pondering Vox’s surprisingly gentle eyes. He sat on the little bench inside and waited for Vox to attach the long chain to the side with a lock.
He listened to the familiar thud of the wooden door and the clink of a key in the lock. He sat upright and only jostled a bit when the wagon started moving. The wheels let out their squeak that he knew all too well. His heart was heavy as the wagon bumbled down the dirt road and toward the city center and the gallows.
It took nearly half an hour to reach the main part of the city, the cobbled streets smoother on the wagon wheels. Larkin watched through the barred window as the buildings went by, people ducking out of the wagon’s path. The streets were full of people bustling about, some followed the wagon, eagerly awaiting the coming spectacle.
The smells of the city mollified Larkin, fresh bread, smoked meat, animals, fresh hay. His senses gobbled up the smells and sounds of the city where he had lived his entire life. The city where he knew he would one day die. He had only hoped he would be an old man, dead in his sleep, next to his wife, not a young man of only twenty-one, alone, and with a noose around his neck. But Larkin supposed he wasn’t one to question the fates.
He saw the blacksmith’s shop from the window and sighed. He remembered the feel of the hammer in his hands, and the sweat on his brow. It was honest work and he had been so grateful to have it. He thought about Mrs. Hempstock upstairs in the kitchen, probably preparing tea or baking a loaf of bread. He figured she must have rented his room to some other young man by now, having given up on him ever returning. She probably thought she had been a fool to let a man capable of murder sleep under her roof and eat at her table.
The wagon stopped abruptly and he could hear Vox shouting at the crowd to back up. “One foot in front of the other. That’s all you have to do.” he told himself quietly. It would all be over soon, all of it.
The door to the wagon cell creaked open and Vox unlocked the chain. “Come on then, the hangman’s waiting for ye.” he said, and gave the chain a gentle tug.
Down the stairs of the wagon, across the cobblestones, through the crowd of jeering people, up the wood stairs and onto the platform. The hangman stood waiting, dressed in all black with a large hooded cowl covering his face. His voice was low and peaceful as he said to Larkin, “This part’s easy, lad. All you gots to do is stand on that stool there and I’ll handle all the rest. Though you might say a prayer to your gods if you have any.”
Larkin approached the little wooden stool and took a short step to mount it. He faced the crowd and the judge appeared and read his crime and sentence from a parchment roll. He took the opportunity to scan the crowd for any familiar faces. None. Not Mr. or Mrs. Hempstock, not Lord Bruxton, and not Miriam. Just nameless faces. Good. He didn’t want to see anyone he knew, least of all Miriam. He hoped she had left the city, gone somewhere new and started a new life, without him.
“The sentence is death by hanging”, the judge said in a loud voice. The crowd began to murmur and the hangman approached Larkin at last. He slipped the rope loop over Larkin’s head. The judge turned to him, the curls of his white wig swaying a bit in the breeze. “Any last words, Mr. Marsh?”
Larkin only shook his head, his eyes fixed on the street beyond the crowd. He thought for a fleeting moment he had seen something. A flash of silver or light just beyond the crowd, but it disappeared.
The hangman tightened the loop around Larkin’s neck and he bristled at the scratchy fibers against his skin. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The breeze kissed his face with a chill, a promise of a winter he would never see. He could feel the presence of the hangman shift and the crowd went deathly silent. The whole city seemed to stop and hold its collective breath.
He heard the whistle before he felt the whip of the arrow over his head. Just as the hangman kicked the stool out from under his feet, just as he began to feel the rope tighten around his neck. Just as he felt his weight drop, an arrow struck the rope and Larkin fell to the platform.
Pandemonium erupted and people began shouting and pushing toward the platform. “Run!” he heard someone shout. Larkin got to his feet and leapt from the wooden platform as fast as humanly possible. His hands were still shackled, but they’d left his feet unbound. “Their mistake”, he thought as he ran faster than he’d ever run before.
He heard the men running behind him, the hangman was old and easily tired. As Larkin approached the edge of the woods, he took one glance over his shoulder. Vox was the only one chasing him. He could have sworn Vox winked at him and slowed to a jog, acting as if he too was out of breath. Larkin kept running, his thighs barking in pain, his chest heaving to take breaths, but he pushed until he was deep inside the forest.
He stopped near a massive tree and listened. He heard nothing, no voices, no footsteps. Was he really safe? Had he managed to get away? Larkin stooped with his hands between his knees and gulped down air.
He needed water, there must be a stream nearby, he could hear it burbling in the distance. He listened closely to determine the direction when a twig snapped. Larkin cursed under his breath, turning to hear footsteps coming toward him. They were soft though, not the heavy booted feet of Vox.
A cloaked figure stood about 40 feet away, a bow across their back. The archer.
Larkin put his hands in the air in placation and waited for the archer to approach. As the person got closer, he could see they were slight under the heavy cloak, a jeweled dagger glittered at one hip.
Miriam pulled the hood of her cloak back from her head. Her eyes were bright and lined with tears. Her lips moved as she silently said his name. In an instant he was running to her and she threw her arms around him.
Larkin looked down into her face and gently kissed a tear from her cheek. She pulled a hairpin from her hair and used to unlock his shackles. They fell to earth with a thud. He bent his face to hers and she reached up on her tip toes to kiss him. He pulled her into his chest.
They soon broke apart and together began walking through the forest. There was another city on the other side of it and many more after that.