The Rose of Blacksword by Rexanne Becnel

to the wife!”
    To Rosalynde’s utter dismay, the entire assemblage seemed now to want some hapless girl to wed one of the condemned men. This would take forever, she fretted. And to make things worse, it appeared the mayor would not last much longer. By the time she did get to speak to him, he would be quite lost to drink! She stared around her in despair, wondering if she could find someone elsein authority who could help her. Surely there must be someone else.
    But there was no one else, at least not still possessed of all his wits. To the last man, every villager was well steeped in ale or wine, celebrating the annual festivities despite their lack of understanding of the custom’s source. It had always been done so, and it always would be. And as they probably did every year, they were all becoming completely and blindly drunk.
    She tried to get through the crowd but it seemed hopeless. Then a chant started and she cringed with the cruelty of it all. “Bring ’em up! Bring ’em up!”
    Between the awful noise, her helpless situation, and her worry for the ailing Cleve, Rosalynde almost burst into tears. Had the entire world gone mad? Were there nothing left but murderers and hangmen and bloodthirsty spectators? She clapped her hands over her ears and once more tried to escape. But she was perversely shoved even nearer the front, closer to the narrow stairs that led up to the gallows.
    Then the tone of the crowd changed and she looked about in renewed panic. A group of village men had maneuvered the cart nearer the stairs and removed the back rails so that they could drag the three prisoners out. Rosalynde saw the group of men rear back, as if heaved all at once by a force too mighty for them to oppose. But then they quickly surged forward again to capture their quarry. She heard a cry of pain, and more than one vicious oath. Despite her determined disinterest, she could not help but raise up on her toes and crane her neck to see better. But everyone was now peering avidly toward the scuffling at the cart and she could not see past them.
    Then the crowd suddenly drew back and Rosalynde was nearly toppled from her feet. By the time she regained herbalance and glanced up, the condemned men were being herded up onto the gallows.
    Rosalynde was overcome with unexpected compassion as she watched the repellent scene. Before she had been too consumed with her own miseries to worry about anyone else’s troubles. But as she watched the first man ascend to the platform, she was overwhelmed with pity. He was a crude young fellow, dirty and mean-looking. But for all that, he was quite clearly terrified. The second man was older, with a mouth that fell open in fear, showing blackened stubs for teeth. Tears ran freely down his cheeks, leaving clean rivulets upon an otherwise filthy face.
    She clutched at her cloak as she watched them shamble to stand beneath the waiting nooses, a burly guard on each side of them. Their feet were linked by heavy lengths of rope. Their arms were bound behind their backs. It was only by reminding herself that they were very likely murderers, of the same ilk as the deadly gang of cutthroats that had attacked her and her unsuspecting group yesterday, that she was able to fight back tears of sympathy.
    Then there was another disruption at the stairs, and, with a loud outcry from the crowd, the third man was dragged up onto the gallows.
    Rosalynde’s eyes were as round and staring as everyone else’s when the fellow found his footing and then shook his would-be captors off. Like the others he was bound hand and foot. But unlike those other hapless men, his bindings did not begin to lessen the threat he presented. Like a cornered wolf, beleaguered yet no less dangerous, he held the nervous men at bay, seeming almost to dare them to approach.
    He was a big man—huge, Rosalynde noted—with massive shoulders and powerful arms. His tunic had been ripped and partially torn away, and as he strained