II
Hail the Conquering Hero
“For two years, we have had the Devil’s own curse down upon our heads. But at last, the culprits responsible have been brought to justice and we are free!”
A raucous cheer went up from those assembled in the tavern at the words of the village headman. Harsh, grating laughter and the sloshing of ale leaving cups and hitting the floor resounded in the closer smoky confines of the common room. Seated at a table off to one side of the room, Colban grimaced. God’s wounds, he thought. How long is this going to take?
The headman, standing in the center of the room, drew himself up taller. He was a paunchy bald man with a booming voice, and he put it to good effect, though the room was not so very large as to justify such force and volume, Colban thought. “Two years since the Bruce in his castle closed the Western Road, leaving us cut off from the rest of the county.” He paused and then put up an instructive finger. “But our nightmare started even before that, did it not, my braves? Since most of us were wee ones, we’ve lived with this shadow over us. The disappearances. Men, women, children, taken from the road, or even from their very beds in the night.”
Men and women around the room shook their heads in dismay, and a few made the sign of the holy cross as safeguard against such evil visiting them.
Now, warming to his audience, the headman stood tall, bringing his speech to its crescendo. “Loved ones and friends, missing in the night.” He repeated. “Until the black cloud of misfortune hung over us all and the village of Lothian became a cursed place in the minds of all. Until the Bruce himself declared the County closed to all travelers.”
Angry mutters and grumbling again sounded throughout the room, but this time the headman raised a fleshy hand and quelled it.
“But the Bruce did not abandon us. The Lord of the land sent us salvation in the form of this man!” He whirled around and pointed straight at Colban.
Colban fought down the urge to vomit.
“This man. Colban, Reeve of the land. It was his sharp wit and keen eye that found the bodies of the MacCall family, may almighty God bless them and keep them.” He crossed himself. “The bodies found right near the filthy inn of the butchers what did the deed! Innkeeper Aisling and his shrew of a wife. Living among us this whole time, and us never suspecting that they were the ones responsible.”
Now, the room exploded with drunken shouts of posturing aggression and bravado. “Found ‘em at last,” shouted one man. “We strung ‘em up good and proper,” another said, licking his lips, almost like he derived pleasure from the memory. Colban looked down at the scarred wood of the table.
A tankard slapped down on the table in front of him, shocking him and spraying ale in his face. Above him, the headman stood, grinning down at him and the drink he had put before him. “Aye we did, lads. And all thanks to this man. Raise your cups to Colban!”
“Colban!” came the drunken cries, in manic, joyful release.
Colban the Reeve looked down at his ale, and then took a long slow drink. It tasted like blood to him. He stared down into the dark swirl of the liquid and remembered.
When the Bruce had summoned him, Colban had had high hopes. Perhaps this endeavor on behalf of the Lord would make his name. It had seemed a trivial matter. Go to the county of Galloway, investigate the trouble there, and see that the Western Road could be reopened for trade. It sounded simple enough. Plus, the thought of all those grateful merchants, their purses fat with coin, beholden to him for reopening the route, had most assuredly sweetened the prospect. It had seemed like the opportunity of his life.
And then, he had arrived at the village of East Lothian, in Galloway. He was the first stranger to visit the town in two years, and from the moment he entered the outlying fields, he knew it. Haunted faces and suspicious eyes had followed his every movement as he had ridden to the center of town. Everywhere he looked, the people of Lothian had gazed upon him as if he were either an archangel come to deliver them at last or a devil from the very pit itself, to visit one final malediction upon them.
It had not taken him long to understand why. He had heard about the disappearances in the area, even before he had been dispatched there, but now, listening to the first hand accounts, he could understand the fear and oppression these people lived under. No one deserved to suffer in such a manner. More than the opportunity, or even the possibility of reward, it had been that realization that had driven Colban to prosecute his investigation and pursue his mission.
Days, and then weeks passed without event, and Colban had begun to believe that perhaps he had been wrong, that perhaps there was simply too much peasant superstition in the area, coloring normal, everyday tragedies and giving them a more ominous and sinister air.
And then came the day that he found the MacCall boy, and everything changed.
He had been riding out on toward the coast, working his way along the road. His horse had come over a hill, and suddenly it reared up. He was almost thrown from the beast, barely managing to maintain his grip on the reins as crows burst up from the ground in a tumult of black wings.
Colban had steadied the horse, but then he looked down to the ground to see what the crows had been feasting on.
It was a boy.
The body was pale and limp, the clothes tattered and stained with blood. Horrible wounds marred the flesh where it showed through the ripped rags he wore. Colban had dropped down to the boy’s side, kneeling on the ground, and reaching out with a tentative hand.
At his touch, the boy’s eyes had fluttered open. They went wide and white with pure terror, and he struggled to get away from Colban, but his wounds were too grave for him to do much more than writhe in agony. Colban had reached out to steady the boy, whispering words of comfort to the child, but nothing seemed to calm him.
“Who did this, lad?” Colban asked. “Who hurt you so?”
At first, it had seemed as if his words had gone unheard, but then the boy had raised a small hand and reached out toward the roaring sea. As Colban had followed his gesture, he had looked to the cliffs overlooking the ocean and he had seen the inn. The building, tall and dark, loomed against the backdrop of the sky. “There?” he had asked. “Is that where you were hurt, lad?” But as he had gazed down at the child once more, he had seen that the spark of life had left the boy.
He had returned the boy to the village and told what he had experienced. All the fear and impotent rage of the people of Lothian were brought to a manic frenzy at the sight of the dead child. And when Colban explained where the child had pointed, it was like a dam had burst.
Men gathered farming tools, butchering knives, old swords long gone to rust, anything with an edge that could taste blood, and set out toward the inn on the cliff. Caught up along with them, adrift in the maelstrom of the mob, Colban had journeyed out with them.
He had yelled with them as they had smashed in the door with blows from a wood cutting axe. The door had swung in at the first strike and, now looking back, Colban realized that it was because it had not been locked. He had seen the confusion and the fear of the innkeeper and his wife as the crowd of their former friends and neighbors had swarmed inside and seized them in their home. But despite the whispered doubts in his head even then, he had stood witness as the charges were leveled, and gave testimony over what he had witnessed. The last effort of a dying child to name his murderers had easily trumped the desperate denials the couple offered.
And because he was the agent of the Lord of the land, it had fallen to him to preside over the execution. He had held the rope. He watched as the two accused murderers died gasping and twitching, hung from the rafters of their own inn. He felt their deaths along the twitching, vibrating length of the rope in his hand. And then, when they were silent, the crowd turned to him and cheered. For he was the hero who had discovered the source of the horror that had terrorized the village for so long. Their savior and deliverer.
But now, as he sat in the common room, enduring yet
another celebration in his honor, one thought dominated his thoughts.
If he was a hero, then why was it he that felt like he had committed murder?
A light touch on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie. He looked up to dark green eyes and a wild mass of black curls cascading down. Aileen, the headman’s daughter, grinned down at him.
“You know, for a man at his own celebration, you seem fairly miserable,” she said.
His heart lightened at the sight of her, at the rich timbre of her voice. Meeting Aileen had been the truest spot of light in the darkness of his time in Lothian. He had been drawn to her from the moment they had met, when he had first dined at headman Aysle’s home. Colban had begun courting her almost immediately, and Aileen had reciprocated his feelings. Rather than act as an impediment, her father had been thrilled with the possibility of the match, and now, with Colban the savior of Lothian, he was practically making wedding plans.
Colban smiled back at her. “Not much in the mood for celebration, I suppose,” he said, glad to be able to admit as much to her.
Her smile slipped slightly, hearing the heavy weight in his voice. “No, it doesn’t seem like you are much at all.” She stopped and then looked him in the eyes for a moment. “What is it?” she asked, genuine concern underlying her words.
He shook his head, unwilling to burden her with his doubts. “I just have much on my mind, that’s all.”
She stared at him for a long moment and then leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Then perhaps you need to talk and have someone listen. I can meet you in the churchyard cemetery in a short while. You can tell me what concerns cause such deep furrows in your brow.”
Colban looked around the room. “It’s not exactly a proper meeting for a young man and woman. Not without a chaperone.”
Aileen laughed and shrugged. “Well, I would ask my father to accompany us, but alas, I fear he will be too much in his cups to serve such a role.” She smiled at him once more, and her hand reached out to touch the back of his. “Come talk to me, Colban. Whatever is troubling you, we can deal with it together.”
He wanted to tell her that what was troubling him was the growing fear that two innocent people had died because of his word. But instead, he just nodded his agreement. “The churchyard. Before the next turning of the hour.”
Aileen backed up and gave him a small curtsey. “Don’t keep me waiting,” she said and glided away from the table.
Colban watched her go and knew in his heart that he meant to marry the girl. Take her out of this cursed town, start a real life somewhere. Away from this madness.
Before he could think any further, drunken townsfolk began lining up to toast him, and his melancholy mood returned.
As the minutes passed, more and more men and women of the town came to him, urging him to tell the story of his discovery of the MacCall boy, praising him for the justice and safety he had brought back to the town. And each word of gratitude and praise seemed to twist and coil like a venomous serpent in his stomach, spreading the poison of guilt through his veins.
Finally, he could take no more. Begging off with the excuse of too much to drink, Colban slipped out the door and into the crisp, cold air of the night. The night was dark, the heavy fog obscuring even the stars above. Colban stood outside the building, his eyes closed and his face back, feeling the mist on his cheeks and pretending that it wasn’t really his tears.
Deep in his heart, he knew, really and truly knew, that the innkeeper and his wife had not hurt that boy. They were not responsible for the disappearances that had ravaged this county. Colban’s words had murdered two innocents.
And just as that thought crystalized in Colban’s mind, the noose slipped around his neck and pulled taut, lifting him off the ground in gasping helplessness.
His feet kicked at the empty air as he was hauled bodily upwards. His hands tore desperately at the rope around his neck, but as his fingers worked at the hempen strands, it only seemed to grow tighter. His eyes bulged with lack of air, but as he spun suspended, he finally saw what held him.
A man crouched on the edge of the roof of the tavern, one arm outstretched and holding the length of rope that Colban dangled from. He had a dark tattered hood up over his head, but in the dim light of the night, Colban could see the man’s pale white skin and blood red eyes. He held Colban at arm’s length, examining him the way that a fisherman would gaze at a fish, wriggling at the end of his line.
Colban worked his mouth, trying to say something, to yell for assistance, or curse this horrible creature, or even beg for mercy. But the rope took away his voice as well as his breath and his tongue lolled thick and lifeless in his mouth.
The hooded man holding the noose cocked his head to one side, appearing to listen to the loud sounds of revelry coming from the tavern beneath them. He fixed those red eyes on Colban. “They heap praise upon your name, Colban the Reeve. Deliverer of Lothian they call you.” The man’s voice was something out of a nightmare, ragged and ruined, partly between a growl and a wheeze. “But I know the truth.” He pulled his arm in, dragging Colban’s dangling form closer till the two were face to face. “Murderer,” the man hissed.
Colban’s eyes were wide, and he tried in vain to shake his head in denial. The hooded man’s eyes never left his.
“An innkeeper. His wife. Dead. Their blood on your hands. For it was you that led the mob that took their lives. You that gave the testimony of lies that damned them. You held the rope that hung them.”
Cold understanding spread through Colban’s stomach at the man’s words. The doubts, the nagging guilt and shame that had eaten away at him for the last two days now came rising to the fore. His own great fears confirmed by this demon, sent from Hell itself to exact revenge.
He stared at his accuser and there were the blood red orbs of the hooded man, staring back at him. As he struggled for breath which would not come, he saw that the length of rope that led from the man’s neck coiled around the man’s arm and ended in a noose tied around the hooded man’s own throat. As he stared, the rope itself twitched and writhed like a living thing and, for a moment, he felt it tighten further.
Suddenly, without warning, the hooded man’s head snapped to the side, staring intently off into the darkness. In the direction of the old churchyard.
A split second later, Colban heard the sound that had caught the other man’s attention. A woman’s screams sounded in the distance, faint but clear in the still night.
Aileen! Colban thought in desperate horror, even as his vision began to black.
And then he fell heavily to the ground below as the rope around his neck released fully. He gasped great, desperate lungfuls of breath. As he looked up, he saw the hooded man, leap from the roof to another nearby building and race off in the direction the screams had come from. Colban pushed himself to his feet and followed as closely as he could, his neck burning and his heart filled with dread for the woman he loved.
III
Ill Met by Moonlight
The Hanged Man raced toward the sound of the woman’s screams. Around his neck and coiled along his right arm, the hangman’s rope that had been the instrument of his death pulsed and shifted, the rough, hempen coils scraping along his cold flesh.