King of Thorns

I dropped the head and kicked it into the crowd. I say “kicked” but in truth it’s a bad idea to kick a head. I learned that years ago, a lesson that cost me two broken toes. What you want to do is shove the head with the side of your foot, like you’re throwing it. It’s going to roll anyhow so you don’t need that much force. See, the thing about severed heads is the owner no longer has any interest in minimizing the force of the blow, or any ability to do so for that matter. When you kick somebody in the head as you do from time to time, they tend to be actively trying to move themselves out of the way and the contact is lessened. A severed head is a dead weight, even if it’s watching you.

And that exhausts my insights into the kicking of severed heads. Admittedly it’s more than most people have to offer on the subject but there were Mayans who knew a lot more than I do. That of course is a whole different ball-game.

Makin finished with his straps and stepped beside me. “That was probably too harsh,” he said. “You did ask me to point these things out.”

“Fuck off,” I said.

I waved to the Brothers. “Let’s ride.”


For close on a hundred miles we retraced our path along the North Way, down through the duchies of Parquat and Bavar where most travellers are welcome so long as they don’t plan to stay, and even our sort are tolerated so long as we don’t get off our horses.

The town of Hanver greeted us with bunting. Among those peaceful huddles of thatched cottages that I had remarked upon whilst travelling north, Hanver lay equally untouched and unspoiled, a place not visited by war and cradled amidst idyllic farmland divided into tiny fertile fields.

“Looks like a holy day.” Kent stood in his stirrups to see. For all that he was a dark and deadly bastard, Kent had himself a pious nature, the good kind of pious, or at least the better kind.

“Gah.” Rike liked his celebrations louder, more wild, and more likely to end in a riot.

“There’ll be chorals,” Sim said, ever the music-lover.

And so without much more than a nod toward the fact I was king of Renar and that none of them were much more than scabby peasants at the end of it all, the Brothers led me into Hanver. We rode in down the main street, through the crowd, the locals with scrubbed faces, sporting their best rags, the children waving ribbon-sticks, some clutching sugar-apples kept sweet over winter. The Brothers set off on separate ways, Sim to the church, Grumlow to the smithy, Rike handing his reins to a boy outside the first tavern. Row, more particular, chose the second tavern and Kent veered off to a stables to get an expert eye on Hellax’s front right foreleg.

“Looks like there’ll be more than chorals.” Makin nodded ahead to the main square. A wooden platform had been erected, fresh timbers, still weeping. A wide stage, a gallows frame, and three strangling cords dangling in the breeze.

We tied up at the public tether and Makin flicked the watch-boy a copper double.

“Church execution,” Makin said. A white flag fluttered at the far corner of the platform, the holy cross and cup inked onto the linen.

“Hmmm.” I had little enough enthusiasm for matters ecumenical in the Tall Castle. On the road the church spread Roma’s poisons without moderation. And that perhaps is the only time I have considered my father to be a moderating influence.

We stood with the others in the sunshine, snagging skewers of roast mutton from a passing seller. An ale-boy sold us arac in pewter cups, a dark and bitter local brew, stronger than wine. He waited for us to throw it back then went on his way with his cups returned. I may not have any time for the church, but why miss a good execution? Once years back we’d watched them hang Brother Merron and Row had said, “A good execution don’t need a good reason.” Which is true enough.

We heard the singing first, four choirboys, probably none of them cut, not in a wattle-and-daub town like Hanver. Nothing to see to start with save a silver cross up high on a staff, then the crowd parting and the boys in white frocks, voices soaring. I saw Sim way back, mouthing the words, though he didn’t know the Latin, just the sounds of it.

The priests then, two black crows with the holy purple showing at their breast, swinging censers. Blunt-faced, alike as brothers, no older than Makin. Following, drawn on a cart and bound at hand and foot, a mother and two daughters, ten, twelve, hard to say, white with terror. The senior priest brought up the rear, purple silks showing in diamonds through the black of his cassock, a stern man, handsome enough, silver hair in a widow’s peak lending him gravitas.

“I need a decent ale.” Makin spat. “That arac’s left a sour taste.”

It might be that a good execution doesn’t need a good reason, but it seemed to me that no execution the church conducted could be called good. I’d held Father Gomst in contempt most of my life, as much for the lies he told as for his weakness. That night of thorns and rain had shown his lies, clear as if lightning found them in a dark room. But they would have surfaced in time either way. In fairness though, Gomst’s brand of feeble optimism and talk of love had little of the Roma doctrine in it. Father wouldn’t let the pope’s hand inside his castle.

There were jeers among the crowd as the woman and her girls were manhandled onto the platform, though plenty kept silent, faces held tight and joyless.

“Do you know what the Church of Roma has in common with the church that came before it, the faith the popes held in the time of the Builders, in the centuries before the Builders?” I said.