This is only a short interlude, written by my friend and translated by me. Real life forced her to drop out and so the rest of the story will be written by me.
I'm also very busy at the moment, writing the story on our German board and later translating it in English. So, if anyone was interested in translating my story from German to English, I would be delighted. At least, you would have the advantage of knowing everything a little earlier. ggg
Illusions 10
Vaysey looked down at the crowd beneath. How he had missed this! All these years in Nottingham, the populace hailing him! He grinned – having to hail him. There wasn't somebody he had trusted, not even those who had proven to serve him faithfully so far. Gisborne was living proof of that. "Or maybe dead by now," he snickered. And Alan had run out on him like all the others. But he had already known when he hade taken him into service; Alan was a man who trimmed his sails to every wind. Apropos wind; the wind was fair today. You wouldn't hear the prisoners' screams when they were led to the gallows. What a wonderful day! Death would come as a release for many of them and not few had died in the dungeons before the day of the execution had come.
It had been five weeks since Vaysey had come to Quanta-upon-Mo, an island in the South of England with only two buildings – the prison and the house for the headsman and his assistants. There was not even a priest; these men's souls were lost anyway. They were traitors and had forfeited the right to be called human beings. Officially there was no such island as Quanta-upon-Mo, but there had always been rumours.
Vaysey looked around at the crowd, turned to the hangman and nodded. The noose tightened and the stool under his feet was kicked away. He moaned and grunted, his last thought How could anyone hire such incompetent staff? Then everything went dark around him; the former Sheriff of Nottingham was dead. He'd always been weird and although torture had not broken him, his mind had found a possibility to escape; he had become mad at last. The crowd he had greeted at the day of his execution had been a bunch of rats running around in the courtyard and gnawing at everything that was lying around, kitchen scraps and body parts.
Vaysey's corpse was cast on the pile of carcasses. "Twenty-five…not bad for only a morning's work," the hangman mumbled. "Next one!"
Alan had been captured on his way to Nottingham by the King's soldiers and he had been lucky so far that it were soldiers and no bounty hunters. Dead or alive the King had said and so it was no surprise that even the peasants preferred hunting down the traitors to tilling their fields.
Alan knew that it was too late for him; this time he would not be able to get free and sometimes all he wished for was death. Torture was normal on Quanta. He listened to the screams of his fellow inmates and he knew that only time had saved him so far. Too many prisoners and only a few henchmen. But maybe…there was one thing….perhaps it could save him, if he only could talk to the right persons, if he could talk to the King. He knew something that might save him.