Jonas and I shook our heads.
The alcalde threw out his chest, as politicians do whenever they see an opportunity to speak for more than a couple of sentences. “I recall it well enough, though I wasn’t more than a stripling. A woman. I’ve forgotten her name, but we called her Mother Pyrexia. The stones were put up on her, just like what you see here, for it’s largely the same ones doing it, and they did it in the same way. But it was the other end of summer, just at apple-picking time, and that I recall very well because of the people drinking new cider in the crowd, and myself with a fresh apple to eat while I watched.”
“Next year when the corn was up, someone wanted to buy the house. Property becomes the property of the town, you know. That’s how we finance the work, the ones that do it take what they can find for their share, and the town takes the house and ground.”
“To shorten a lengthy tale, we cut a ram and broke through the door in fine fashion, thinking to sweep up the old woman’s bones and turn the place over to the new owner.” The alcalde paused and laughed, throwing back his head. There was something ghostly in that laughter, possibly only because it blended with the noise of the crowd, and so seemed silent.
I asked, “Wasn’t she dead?”
“It depends on what you mean by that. I’ll say this — a woman sealed in the dark long enough can become something very strange, just like the strange things you find in rotten wood, back among the big trees. We’re miners, mostly, here in Saltus, and used to things found underground, but we took to our heels and came back with torches. It didn’t like the light, or the fire either.”
Jonas touched me on the shoulder and pointed to a swirl in the crowd. A group of purposeful-looking men were shouldering their way down the street. None had helmets or body armor, but several carried narrow-headed piletes, and the rest had brass-bound staves. I was strongly reminded of the volunteer guards who had admitted Drotte, Roche, Eata, and me to the necropolis so long ago. Behind these armed men were four who carried the tree trunk the alcalde had mentioned, a rough log about two spans across and six cubits long.
A collective indrawn breath greeted them; it was followed by louder talk and some good-natured cheering. The alcalde left us to take charge, directing the men with staves to clear a space about the door of the sealed house and using his authority, when Jonas and I pushed forward to get a better view, to make the crowd give way for us.
I had supposed that when all the breakers-in were in position they would proceed without ceremony. In that, I had reckoned without the alcalde. At the last possible moment he mounted the doorstep of the sealed house, and waving his hat for silence, addressed the crowd.
“Welcome visitors and fellow villagers! In the time it takes to draw breath thrice, you will see us smash this barrier and drag out the bandit Barnoch. Whether he be dead, or, as we have good reason to believe — for he hasn’t been in there that long — alive. You know what he has done. He has collaborated with the traitor Vodalus’s cultellarii, informing them of the arrivals and departures of those who might become their victims! All of you are thinking now, and rightly!, that such a vile crime deserves no mercy. Yes, I say! Yes, we all say! Hundreds and maybe thousands lie in unmarked graves because of this Barnoch. Hundreds and maybe thousands have met a fate far worse!”
“Yet for a moment, before these stones come down, I ask you to reflect. Vodalus has lost a spy. He will be seeking another. On some still night not long, I think, from now, a stranger will come to one of you. It is certain he will have much talk—”
“Like you!” someone shouted, to general laughter.
“Better talk than mine — I’m only a rough miner, as many of you know. Much smooth, persuasive talk, I ought to have said, and possibly some money. Before you nod your head at him, I want you to remember this house of Barnoch’s the way it looks now, with those ashlars where the door should be. Think about your own house with no doors and no windows, but with you inside it.”
“Then think about what you’re going to see done to Barnoch when we take him out. Because I’m telling you — you strangers particularly — what you’re about to see here is only the beginning of what you’ll be seeing at our fair in Saltus! For the events of the next few days we have employed one of the finest professionals from Nessus! You will see at least two persons executed here in the formal style, with the head struck off at a single blow. One’s a woman, so we’ll be using the chair! That’s something a lot of people who boast of their sophistication and the cosmopolitan tincture of their educations have never seen. And you will see this man,” pausing, the alcalde struck the sunlit door-stones with the flat of his hand, “this Barnoch, led to Death by an expert guide! It may be that he has made some sort of small hole in the wall by now. Frequently they do, and if so he may be able to hear me.”
He lifted his voice to a shout. “If you can, Barnoch, cut your throat now! Because if you don’t, you’re going to wish you had starved long ago!” For a moment there was silence. I was in agony at the thought that I should soon have to practice the Art on a follower of Vodalus’s. The alcalde raised his right arm over his head, then brought it down in an emphatic gesture. “All right, lads, at it with a will!”
The four who had brought the ram counted one, two, three to themselves as if by prearrangement and ran at the walled-up door, losing some of their impetuosity when the two in front mounted the step. The ram struck the stones with a loud thump, but with no other result.
“All right, lads,” the alcalde repeated. “Let’s try it again. Show them the kind of men Saltus breeds.”
The four charged a second time. At this attempt, those in front handled the step more skillfully; the stones plugging the doorway seemed to shudder under the impact, and a fine dust issued from the mortar. A volunteer from the crowd, a burly, black-bearded fellow, joined the original ramsmen, and all five charged; the thump of the ram was not noticeably louder, but it was accompanied by a cracking like the breaking of bones. “One more,” the alcalde said.
He was right. The next blow sent the stone it struck into the house, leaving a hole the size of a man’s head. After that, the ramsmen no longer bothered with a running start; they knocked the remaining stones out by swinging the ram with their arms until the aperture was large enough for a man to step through.
Someone I had not noticed previously had brought torches, and a boy ran to a neighboring house to kindle them at the kitchen fire. The men with piletes and staves took them from him. Showing more courage than I would have credited to those clever eyes, the alcalde drew a short truncheon from under his shirt and entered first. We spectators crowded after the armed men, and because Jonas and I had been in the forefront of the onlookers, we reached the opening almost at once.
The air was foul, far worse than I had anticipated. Broken furniture lay on every side, as though Barnoch had locked his chests and cupboards when the sealers came, and they had smashed them to get at his household goods. On a crippled table, I saw the guttered wax of a candle that had burned to the wood. The people behind me were pushing to go in farther; and I, as I discovered somewhat to my surprise, was pushing back.