Page 10 of Dancing On Air

“Our Father, who art in Heaven…” Eleanor started praying out loud with the nuns, still staring at him with every word she spoke. Her rosary was gripped in one hand, and she wore a large crucifix on a chain around her neck. She wasn’t dressed like a nun, but Connor couldn’t be sure she hadn’t joined the Order after all. He hoped for her sake that she hadn’t. She deserved to be happy and to have a family with lots of children, like she’d always wanted. Like they’d always wanted.

“God’s eyes, not the prayers again,” grumbled Connor with clenched teeth.

The crowd became impatient. The nuns prayed even louder for the soul of the condemned man. Every time a group of nuns showed up at a hanging it made Connor feel twice as bad as he already did.

“Pull the damn lever!” shouted Lord Sampson from the crowd. He, of course, was the noble who had condemned this man to death. “Do it now, or I won’t pay you, Wyland.”

“Connor, do it,” said his father, coughing even more. His face became pale. “Do it for me. I’m not feeling well and need to sit down.”

Connor looked out at the crowd again, hearing the children crying, remembering the day he and his siblings cried and begged to have their father’s life saved. All he wanted to do right now was to run over and cut the noose off the prisoner, and set him free.

But he couldn’t.

To do that would mean he, as well as his father, would be killed in the man’s place. His siblings at home would suffer because of it, if that were to happen. His first duty was to preserve his own family and to take care of their needs.

“Go,” said his father, still coughing. He pushed Connor over to the lever. “It is your job.”

His job.

His duty.

The words echoed in Connor’s head feeling like the bony fingers of the devil probing and poking at his mind. He was sure he felt the fires of hell raging up within him. It was getting harder and harder to ignore the feeling of overwhelming doom.

This was Conner’s awful, stinking, horrible life, and he hated it with every fiber of his being.

His eyes fixated on the lever. He supposed his father was right. He couldn’t ignore this for much longer. Yes, he needed to learn to do what would be expected of him someday soon. There was no avoiding it anymore. Nervously reaching out, his hand wavered above the lever without touching it. Then he heard Eleanor cry out, and his gaze shot back to the crowd.

“You are doing the work of the devil and will burn in hell for taking the life of this woman’s husband,” shouted Eleanor. “How could you? Just look at her poor children. Do you want them to see this? Do you want this to be the last remembrance they have of their poor father?”

Connor swallowed deeply. Why did Eleanor’s words have to feel like a knife to his gut? The more she spoke, the more the blade twisted inside him, deeper and deeper. He couldn’t even look at the prisoner’s wife or children now. It only reminded him too much of his own life, being a boy and about to see his own father killed. God’s eyes, no one should have to go through this.

“Dammit, just do it!” growled his father in his ear. Then, before Connor knew what happened, his father’s hand clamped over his, trapping it atop the lever of death. Connor’s head snapped around, but too late. His father yanked Connor’s hand and the lever was pulled. The floor under the prisoner’s feet gave way, sending the condemned man to his death. When Connor’s eyes shot back to the thief, he was gone. His feet were no longer on the platform, but now dancing on air.

Connor heard several women scream and then the shouts of the crowd as the dead man swung back and forth, his weight making the rope creak in the wind.

Part of the crowd cheered, happy to be rid of the thief. Then there were those who wailed and mourned for the man’s life. The nuns prayed even louder. The dead man’s widow dropped to her knees, clutching her children to her bosom as they all wailed and wept loudly.

Connor felt numb. As horrible as any execution was, he had taught himself over the past five years to dismiss his feelings when a man went to his death. Instead, he usually focused on anything else. Anything but his job. Over the years he was usually able to tamp down his emotions, or at least until the job was completed and the dead body had been hauled away and buried. Today, he was unable to do that. Not with Eleanor there glaring at him with those angry eyes, judging him, looking as if she wanted to kill him.

“How can you live with yourself after what you’ve just done?” snapped a nun from the foot of the gallows.

He didn’t say a word.

“Dispose of the body,” instructed his father. “I’m going to collect our pay from Sampson.” His father left the platform.

Connor hunkered down and dug through his bag to find his sharp dagger that he used for cutting down the dead. His horse and cart were waiting near the gallows. So were the gravediggers who would assist him in burying the corpse. Connor had already paid Sampson’s steward earlier, bribing him so Sampson wouldn’t leave the dead man on view, but rather let him bury the man as soon as the hanging was over. Connor couldn’t bring himself to approach Sampson, since his hatred for the man was so strong. If he encountered him, there would be a risk of saying or doing something that might endanger his family. It bewildered him how his father could take money from the man, after it was he who ordered his father’s death.

“You disgust me. You are heartless, despicable and… and… and you are an ogre.” These words came from Eleanor this time. He looked up, his eyes meeting hers as she now stood with the nun at the foot of the platform. He never thought he’d hear the woman he was once supposed to marry saying these awful things to him. Especially since they had been so close during childhood. They were best friends. He and Eleanor had looked forward to their life as husband and wife. They’d even discussed the fact that they both wanted lots of children. It bothered him immensely that she seemed to hate him now, even if he deserved it. Still, it would do no good to show that her words cut him to the bone.

“I’ve been called worse,” he answered softly, getting up and walking over to stare down at the deceased, swinging limply from the end of the rope through the hole in the platform. He could tell by the angle of the man’s head that it was a clean break to his neck and that he’d died quickly. Connor nodded his approval and reached out and cut the man down. The prisoner’s body fell with a thump to the ground beneath the gallows. Connor stuck his dagger through his belt, and made his way down the stairs, stopping only for a moment when he passed by Eleanor, looking back over his shoulder at her.

Was it wrong to want to gaze upon her beautiful face just once more? He couldn’t stop thinking that this woman should be his wife right now and that he should be a respected knight, but he wasn’t even close. Instead, he was feared and hated by all. People went out of their way to avoid him. He always heard gossip about him and his family as the crowds whispered behind his back.

His gaze traveled over to his past betrothed and once more he drank in her beauty. Eleanor’s skin was smooth and pale—just like a noblewoman’s was expected to be. She’d pulled her hood back up, but some loose tendrils of her vibrant red hair were still quite visible. It made her look like one of the mythical fae folk. Her rosewater scent drifted on the breeze, reminding him that she was no longer a girl like the last time he saw her. Now, she was a full-fledged woman. A woman who should be his… but wasn’t.

“You’ll regret this someday,” the nun ground out, rushing away to comfort the widow. That left Connor standing alone with Eleanor. He couldn’t even meet her gaze. He no longer had a right to look at her in this manner. Not when he was naught but a simple commoner—a bloody executioner, and she was a respected noblewoman.

He lowered his head and took a step away, but stopped suddenly when he felt her hand gently touch his arm.