X

The Last Day

By Gaerdir

X

X

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement." - J.R.R. Tolkien

X

The brilliance of the daylight nearly made him blind.

Months of vegetating in the cell had changed him. He was no longer the cherubic, witty man he had been on the ship; now a pale reminiscent of himself, his frailty shocked him. He found it a strenuous task to get up on his feet and walk a few feet, let alone the few kilometers that they had told him the journey would be.

The travel was not made any easier by his knowledge of what lay ahead; the event itself would be displayed before a modest group of spectators, all guessing as to which crime he had committed. Given a few minutes interview with each, he knew he would not be able to sate their hunger for information. Truly, how could he tell them what he had done when he himself was lacking in that aspect of knowledge?

The village-folk would have to settle for blood to satisfy themselves, for he had nothing else to offer.

He had tried asking his jailors, of course. Why had he been locked up? Why was he being treated like a transgressor when he was just a poor jester? The questions provided no result but for insults to be thrown his way. He was consciously aware of his flaming red hair and bright blue eyes which made him stand out among any crowd. He had always been proud of it, thinking that it accentuated his appearance as a joker; however, in the jail, his captors were exceedingly religious. In the name of God, they said, they would not answer the son of the devil who wore his father's gifts so proudly upon his head.

Rubbish. If God truly did exist, he hadn't turned his head toward the jester's side; otherwise he would have been long saved from this misfortune.

He had first relied on his prayers to save him from sinking into the depths of insanity. Locked in the small dark cell had reawakened his sense of claustrophobia that he had thought he had lost in the days of his childhood. With no one to talk to except for the walls, he could feel his mind gradually slipping from the heavenly abode of reasonable thought into the fiery pits of illogical thinking. Fearing his clarity of thinking, he began praying to the God he had tried to convince himself that was real.

Day by day, his disgust grew. Where was the benevolent, omniscient entity now? If he was all-seeing, how had he ignored the poor joker's situation? Had he found it more important to grant the mother of five another child rather than save an innocent man from the vicious grips of a fate that he did not deserve? Consumed by rage, the prisoner would scream at the walls, ranting and raving at the obviously false deity that everyone deliberately placed their trust in.

Many times he had heard the jail authorities meet; but as they spoke in English, he could not understand their words. However, he was able to recognize a few; namely Satan and exorcism. While the latter was not clear to him, Satan was the universal word for the devil himself.

Reaching the end of his rope, the jester decided to embrace insanity.

Going insane provided a refuge from the constant talking around him. When he was the subject of jokes he could not understand, he found he did not care. He would throw himself against the bars of his cage and scream that he would hunt down the family of every person who had wronged him – including the guards. When they gave him food, he would sometimes defecate in the bowl in a display of contempt. The world the so-called God created had turned on him – and he was going to die in it, but only after humiliating it to the greatest possible degree.

Then she came.

The captive let a dreamy smile waft over his face. He stumbled over a rock, his bare feet complaining from the pain, but he ignored them. The monk looked back at him, alarmed to see him grinning at the end of his life. The jester disregarded the look and continued thinking.

It had been sudden – unheralded by the trumpets of heaven. She had crawled out of a hole in his cell. He turned, all but controlled by his rage, ready to smash her into the wall. His cell was the last area of privacy he had, and he was not going to let anyone disturb that. He opened his mouth to shout – but then he recognized her.

She was striking by anyone's standards, a far shot above ordinary women. But what he found most appealing about her was her golden eyes. They held a wisdom hidden behind a wall of playfulness. Sobriety behind naiveté. It was this mesmerizing quantity that had made him remember her.

Her eyes were not the only thing that brought them together. She was thought to be a witch due to her appearance. In their own way, they were both outcasts.

Her eyes were not the only thing powerful about her. She was strong-willed, ready to fight for her rights – but at the same time she was sympathetic and loving. It would be hard to gain her affections, but he had done it somehow.

For days, she crept in at night and they talked. He told her about the wrongdoings that he had unknowingly become a part of – how he was being prosecuted for someone else's mistake. In her eyes, there was an unquenchable fire, a fire that threatened to purge the world of those manipulators who had pulled strings to make this horrible consequence occur. She brought up theories. Perhaps a monk wanted to become more powerful?

He refused to listen to such talk.

He tried to tell her about his family, back in France – however, his voice choked with emotion every time he thought of them. He let her talk – her livelihood in the forest and how she got along. But most times they just sat, knowing that each other's presence was comforting enough.

Even the hole provided no escape to him. He just couldn't fit in. She saw him reduce to a man without faith, without hope. And then she stopped coming, just as abruptly as she had started.

And now he was here, walking with three men who strongly believed in an entity whose non-existence could not have been plainer. She agreed with him about that.

He chuckled. In all those days, he had never asked for her name. Or perhaps he had? He could not remember.

They had arrived at the spot. There was already a gathering. The street boys sat near the church, watching from a distance. A group of elderly women were to the side. And at the back –

That golden hair and eyes were recognizable anywhere, just like his hair and eyes.

She stared at him, her eyes defiant, and he smiled, knowing that she would never let his executors rest in peace until they had paid the price.

The executor read out prayers to god as the cold blade of the axe pressed against his neck.

"Amen."

Amen.

Jack Cherbourg closed his eyes as the axe came rushing forward, severing his head from his neck.

Minutes later, Ellen decapitated a crow and through its head at the monk's and priests feet, cursing them for eternity.

FIN