The Executioner's Rebellion (The Executioner's Song Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Were you trying to destroy the Alainsith settlement?”

  Lyle’s fingers started to twitch even more, twisting, working, and tapping around the metal.

  Finn took an involuntary step backward, moving away from him, but caught himself.

  He didn’t need to back away from him entirely. He needed to stay here. He needed answers.

  “If you tell me what you are trying to do, I can ensure you…”

  What would he ensure him?

  Was it death? He wasn’t even sure if Lyle deserved to die. Given what he’d seen, Finn certainly couldn’t argue that he had done anything other than defile the dead. Was that a crime worthy of execution?

  Even if it was, did he deserve to hang, or should he be offered an honorable death?

  Out here beyond the confines of Verendal, Finn had that luxury of the latter option. Within the city, he wouldn’t be able to offer anybody an honorable death. He was at the mercy of the jurors, and though Finn could make suggestions, he was not able to request specific sentencing the way he could here. Out in the surrounding villages, he was essentially the juror and the executioner.

  “What was unclean?” He increasingly felt like he wouldn’t get anywhere with Lyle, regardless of how hard he questioned him. The man was mad.

  “House unclean. You unclean. Village unclean.”

  Finn blinked.

  Could he have set up bodies around the village in the same way he had around the house?

  “Why are they unclean?”

  Lyle cried out, his voice a painful shriek, and he jerked on the chains again, pulling on them as he tried to tear the chains free of the stone.

  His eyes widened, a wild expression in them, and he screamed as he darted toward Finn, trying to kick, trying to pull on his chains, trying to do anything to get himself free.

  Finn took a deep breath. “Under the authority of King Porman, I am here to find the truth.”

  Lyle glared at him, shaking the chains, and Finn knew there would be no way for him to find any truth.

  Maybe there was no truth when it came to Lyle. Only more questions, more mystery. He stepped backward, leaving the home and closing the door to the sound of the chains still rattling inside.

  Finn stared at it for a long time, unable to tear his gaze away.

  “I heard you in there.”

  Finn turned slowly to see the priest of Fell watching him. “What did you hear?”

  “You were asking him what he tried to accomplish.”

  Finn nodded. “I wanted to know what his intention was by exhuming the bodies.”

  “Why must he have any intention other than depravity?”

  “Depravity alone is often not the reason men commit crimes like that.”

  The priest took a step forward. The lantern light seemed to shift, sliding past him. “I can tell you what we saw. I understand that you left the village with Olanth Roaln.”

  Finn nodded. “He guided me to Lyle’s home.”

  “That was necessary to see?”

  “It was.”

  “Why?”

  Finn turned toward the door, still hearing the rattling of chains inside, the steady jerking on the metal, and wanted to know if the stone was going to start crumbling in the same way it had in Lyle’s home. “You said you’d heard about me.”

  “I have heard about you. When we requested somebody to come, and received word out of Verendal that you were answering the summons, I thought to inquire more about you.”

  “And what have you heard?” Finn asked, looking over.

  “There are more rumors about you than I would’ve expected,” the priest said. “I don’t know how many of them are true, but I imagine there must be nuggets of truth in all of them.”

  “Probably,” Finn said.

  “Now, there are some I find difficult to believe. I think it would be hard for me to say that you were executed and survived.” The priest smiled tightly, cocking his head to the side. “Much like I think it would be difficult to believe that you have been sent by the king himself, assigned with some magic he has gifted you, to ensure the safety of the kingdom here at the edge of his land.”

  “I have nothing magical,” Finn said.

  “There are other stories that are easier to believe: you are diligent and detailed, and you are relentless when you feel you have the information you need.”

  “Those are the rumors about me?”

  “Perhaps not so blunt,” the priest said. “But from those rumors, one can infer some elements of your personality. Are they true?”

  “It depends on your measure of truth.” Finn turned toward him, lowering the lantern. In his nervousness, he realized he’d been keeping it held out. “I have trained to follow the king’s justice. I do so with a determination to find the truth. There are times when others have an agenda, and it is up to me to dig beneath the surface, to find whatever agenda might exist.”

  “And do you fear a hidden agenda here?”

  Finn looked around the village. It was dark enough that he couldn’t see anything other than the shape of the houses, the candles and lanterns inside the windows, and a soft swirling of smoke drifting above them.

  How much was he to reveal to a priest of Fell?

  If there was witchcraft taking place in the village, then he didn’t know if the priests would need to be involved. He didn’t know if the priests should be involved.

  “I don’t know if there’s a hidden agenda here so much as there’s always something hiding,” Finn said. “In the case of Lyle Martin, there’s more to what he was doing than meets the eye.”

  “He was with the dead,” the priest said.

  “You keep saying that, but I saw dead arranged around the fence surrounding his home.”

  “And you assume he had some purpose in that? This is the hidden agenda you think you might find, Mr. Jagger?”

  “I’m trying to uncover whatever reason he had for arranging those bodies.”

  “What if there’s not a reason?” The priest glanced toward the home. “I can tell you what Mr. Martin was doing in the graveside at the edge of the village.” The priest looked over to Finn. “He was caught at a time not unlike this—late, dark. A new moon, so darker than most nights. The air smelled of pine, not of this filth you smell now.” The priest wrinkled his nose. “Ever since he began defiling the gravesites, we have all suffered from the stench it has left on the city.”

  Unclean.

  He kept thinking about the way Lyle Martin had said that word. He described his home as unclean, the bodies as unclean, Finn as unclean, and even the village itself.

  Why would he consider them unclean?

  And how did the exhumation of the bodies help him remedy that?

  It had to be witchcraft.

  Finn felt confident about that, even if he didn’t know what purpose he might have in using it.

  “It was worse near his home,” Finn said.

  The priest nodded slowly. “A few of us made our way up there,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “Only two of us managed to get all the way to his home. And only I managed to see it.”

  Finn frowned. “You saw it?”

  The priest looked back at Finn. “A terrible thing. I have never seen anything quite like that in my days of serving Fell.” He shook his head. “Such depravity.”

  “Did you go inside his home?”

  “I did not dare. I had no idea what purpose he had in placing those bodies around his yard the way he did, but it was such depravity.”

  Finn looked over to the door. Every so often, the chain rattled again, and he could hear Lyle crying out, as if he wanted nothing more than to break free of the chains, to pull free of the room that now held him.

  “Can you show me where you found him?”

  “You would not care to see it.”

  “I’m afraid I must.”

  The priest inhaled slowly before nodding. “I could show you in the morning.”

  “In the
morning, I intend to carry out his sentence.”

  “So you agree with a need to sentence him?”

  “I agree that despite whatever he had intended”—and likely witchcraft though he didn’t know if it was something else—“he has earned sentencing. At this point, I have decided to leave it up to the will of the village.”

  “The village has already decided, Mr. Jagger.”

  “I know.”

  “You seem… displeased.”

  Finn shook his head. “It’s not a matter of pleasure or displeasure. I serve the way I must serve.”

  “You’re upset that you don’t choose.”

  “I can choose whether or not to carry out his sentence,” Finn said.

  “I see,” the priest said. “You’ve made it clear that you’re not beholden to us in Weverth. And I cannot disagree with that.” He shrugged. “You wanted to see the location of the depravity, so I will show you. I must warn you, if you have struggled with the smells so far, this is worse. Far worse.”

  He guided Finn through the village and Finn followed, holding onto the lantern. When they crossed beyond the outskirts at the eastern edge, they headed toward a small clearing set far enough away that Finn couldn’t even see the lights. A small, stacked stone wall surrounded it, and a single tower stood in the middle of the graveyard—a marker of Heleth, something that surprised Finn, especially as Heleth didn’t require the burial of her subjects. The farther they went, the more the air took on the stench of death—a foul, terrible odor that continued to build.

  Strangely, the word that came to Finn’s mind was unclean.

  Maybe that was Lyle’s influence. Maybe it all had to do with the way he kept muttering the same word over and over again, as if to sway Finn in some way.

  Unless that was some sort of spell.

  Finn continued following the priest, and when he stopped near disrupted ground, the priest looked down.

  “As you can see, the entirety of the gravesite has been disturbed.”

  Finn swung the lantern around, noting heaped up earth where the ground had been unsettled then covered once again. Markers made of stone looked as if they had been recently reset, many of them partially tipped over, and a stack of them off to his left had still not been restored.

  “He dug all of them up?” Finn asked.

  “Most,” the priest said. “Though to be honest, we should have noticed it sooner than we did. I think it was just so unexpected.” He shook his head. “It was by chance that we encountered him out here.”

  “What was he doing?” Finn asked.

  He still hadn’t gotten a full picture of what Lyle Martin had been up to, and Finn thought he needed it. He needed to know just what Lyle had been doing and why, though he had no idea whether it would make a difference. At this point, he knew what the village wanted done, and it was going to be on him to decide whether he would carry out the sentencing.

  He was a servant to the king, and served at his will, but at the same time, Finn also needed to help ensure stability.

  Unfortunately, there were times when the life of one person caused so much upheaval and disruption around the villagers that removing that person was the safest option.

  In this case, maybe that was Lyle.

  “I found him lying next to the deceased remains of a Mrs. Wedlow. She had passed only a week before, and the sight of what he was doing…” The priest looked down at the ground, shaking his head.

  Finn forced back a wave of nausea.

  He had seen depravity in his days, but that would be beyond anything he’d seen.

  “What’s worse, she wasn’t the first one. Only the most recent. You ask what he was doing, and I tell you that what he was doing is unnatural. It goes against the laws of men and gods.”

  “You would see him hanged.”

  “Hanged. Quartered. Burned. Whatever method you feel is appropriate. You are the expert and the king’s representative. We are your servants in this case. But he must be removed from this world for his crimes against men and gods,” the priest said. “So you see, you might believe he had some agenda, but all he was after was wickedness.”

  The priest made a steady circuit of the gravesite, keeping his gaze lowered as he walked around it, and murmured something softly to himself.

  Finn had been looking for something to help him understand what had taken place in Weverth, but maybe there was no explanation.

  He wondered if perhaps Meyer had known.

  The old executioner still tried to teach him, even after all the time they’d been working together. Perhaps this was really just one more lesson.

  Finn may never learn Lyle Martin’s reasons for consorting with the dead and arranging the bodies around his home. Maybe it had to do with the Alainsith, or maybe that was only chance. That didn’t mean Finn couldn’t carry out the sentencing asked of him.

  By the time the priest had finished his circuit around the gravesite, he looked over to Finn, watching him, a question lingering in his eyes.

  “Do you need to see anything more?”

  Finn took a deep breath and immediately wished he hadn’t.

  The air was awful, and it troubled Finn that it smelled worse than normal death and decay. There was something else here, though perhaps Finn wasn’t to find out what.

  He looked over to the small tower representing Heleth, and he wondered what the Mother would want of him. Perhaps nothing more than what he’d already done.

  The priest was right, though.

  What Lyle Martin had done was an affront to gods and men.

  “Mr. Jagger?” the priest asked.

  “All I need is a place to sleep for the night. Then in the morning, I will carry out his sentencing as you request.”

  Chapter Ten

  Finn had never slept inside a church. He was typically given accommodations in a local tavern or inn, or occasionally in someone’s home when he went to perform his duties, but never had his duties brought him to one of the churches in the town. He sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he looked around. The room was small—little more than a closet with a small bed—but it had been a clean, dry place to sleep. More than that, with the traces of incense burning in the church, it had not stunk nearly as much as other places in the village.

  A bit of sunlight streamed in through the small stained glass window, and he studied it for a moment, looking at the pattern. The design was meant to signify Heleth, but now must signify something else given that the church had been taken over by the priests of Fell. He saw Heleth, her golden hair streaming down, the circlet on her head marking her as the Mother, her hands outstretched on either side. The intricacy of the design was far more skillful than Finn would ever have imagined.

  After changing into his executioner leathers, he slipped his boots on as he sat on the edge of the small cot, glancing to his pack. He had a change of clothes and some food supplies, though nothing else with him. The sword rested at an unusual angle next to the pack, which Finn thought was strange since he was usually so careful with the sword. He took care of it the same way he’d taken care of Justice, though his blade didn’t have a name the way Justice did. Perhaps it would over time, if Finn kept using that blade in carrying out the sentences outside the city. Unlike Justice, which had supposedly been used in the war against the Alainsith centuries ago, his blade was newer and didn’t have the same history to it.

  Finn slipped the pack over his shoulder, held onto the sword, and stepped out of the room. It was near the main worship area of the church, and the steady chanting from the service drew his attention. Finn headed to the worship hall and stopped near the back wall to watch. He’d never seen a service for Fell before, though he had a feeling this priest was a bit unusual for one of the priests of Fell. For one, he wore a band signifying Heleth as well, which meant he served both gods. Either that, or he felt as if he needed to honor Heleth since the priests of Fell had taken over the church. There was also his irritable demeanor, though Finn didn’t know if that
was unusual for one of the priests of Fell or not.

  The worship hall was packed. The villagers apparently had an unusual level of devotion for their gods in Weverth.

  “As we look to the heavens, we must all ask the gods to watch over us, especially in these dark times,” the priest was saying. “Fell, sitting alongside the Mother, will guide us. We must observe and listen, waiting for our time to serve the gods as we are asked.” He bowed his head and began chanting, though Finn didn’t recognize the words. When he finally stopped the chant, his gaze fell on Finn. “And today, as we prepare to move beyond the darkness that has befallen our beloved Weverth, we must ask Fell and the Mother to guide Mr. Jagger as he carries out the gods’ will. Blessed be their mercy.”

  “Blessed be their mercy,” the others in the church intoned.

  The priest turned his back.

  It was a signal to the others. They all rose from their seats around the worship hall and turned toward Finn, looking at him briefly, before they started out of the church. When they had all departed, the priest turned back, making his way over to Finn.

  “I noticed you didn’t say the words along with us,” the priest said.

  “I don’t follow Fell.”

  “Do you follow the Mother?”

  Finn glanced up to the stained glass window circling the entirety of the worship hall. The light spilling through the windows illuminated the hall, giving off a warmth that didn’t fit with what he felt, though that wasn’t unique. When it came to Finn’s experience with the gods, especially Heleth, as he carried out the sentences, there was rarely a time when he felt their warmth. What he did was necessary, but the longer Finn served, the more he started to question whether he did what the gods wanted, or if it was only the king’s justice.

  “At times,” Finn answered.

  The priest smiled slightly. “An honest answer.” He looked toward the door where the congregation had departed. “Do you know that most would claim they serve the gods with complete devotion?”

  “Many do,” Finn said.

  “Yes, but I’ve seen that only the priests can truly claim they serve the gods with complete devotion. Everyone else finds that their devotion is much like yours, Mr. Jagger, despite what they say. It comes with their needs. There are times when the needs of the people are great and they turn to the gods, praying for their favor. Other times, the people are less receptive.”