Page 8 of Dancing On Air

Chapter1

FIVE YEARS LATER

The most despised man in all of England was none other than the hangman.

Connor Wyland’s father had sold his soul to the devil five years earlier when he agreed to take the position of the hangman in order to save his life. By doing so, Connor’s family was also shunned and hated. It was a decision to save one man’s life, and ruin so many others in return.

Once being a noble and highly respected, Connor had hoped to follow in his father’s footsteps to become a knight someday. He most likely would be knighted by now if things hadn’t changed so fast and drastically. Now, instead of ever having the chance to become a knight, the only thing Connor’s future held was disgust, guilt, loneliness, isolation, and deep remorse. The only promise in Connor’s future was the one of someday burning in hell for all eternity.

For the past five years he had assisted his father in taking the lives of the condemned. Connor felt condemned as well. He would follow in his father’s footsteps, just like he’d always aspired to do, but unfortunately this wasn’t the profession he ever hoped to hold.

Connor waited now at his father’s side atop the gallows, ready to assist him with the hanging. His only reason for even being here was that his father insisted he learn the trade—if killing people was really even considered a trade. Connor wasn’t even sure. Lately, his father had been sickly, and it seemed as if he became weaker every day. Learning to take a prisoner’s life was the last thing in the world Connor ever wanted to do. He respected life of all kinds. Death—or causing a death—was against everything he’d ever believed in.

Connor learned to become calloused over the years, having had to tamp down his feelings when he walked down a road and people ran the other way or talked about him behind his back. His family hadn’t even been able to live in town because no one wanted them anywhere near them. A hangman and his family were considered trash. They were considered despicable by most people, and often were spit upon as they walked past. There was no way Connor would want to live in town with those who hated him now. Instead, he and his family lived in a hut made of wattle and daub deep in the forest, with no protection from the knights of the castle at all.

Connor was in training to someday take his father’s place, since there was no other job for him to pursue. Of course, there wasn’t a man to execute every day, so to earn extra money to live on, he had to clean out gong pits, shoveling up feces from castles and monasteries. Another job was collecting taxes from whores, and on occasion even working at the tanning pits. These were jobs that no one wanted to do. The cesspools and the tanning pits smelled so foul that they caused people to vomit just being near them.

Connor lived in hell now, and nothing was ever going to quench the fires that threatened to burn his soul. This was a life that could never be changed. And it was also a decision that Connor wished he had never had to make.

Ignored, but not forgotten, Connor’s emotions always caused a knot to form in his stomach at every execution he attended. Even though Connor wasn’t yet the one pulling the lever or swinging the blade, he knew someday he’d have to carry on in his father’s wake. His job now was to learn the ropes, so to speak, by helping his father cut down the bodies from the nooses afterwards. He also collected body parts and made sure all the corpses were buried after the executions. However, Connor refused to be the actual one who took the life of a defenseless person, no matter how guilty they were or what kind of crime they’d committed.

Some nobles liked to display the dead in gibbets, or hanging cages afterwards. It was supposed to scare others from committing the same crimes. Connor always made sure to pay the lords from his own pocket to let him bury those bodies right away. He saw no need for this sort of torture to the loved ones of those slain.

This damned job never got any easier, and only promised to get worse with each passing day. His father had been pestering him to make the final blow of a blade or pull the damned lever of the gallows himself by now. Still, he hadn’t. Connor had fought his father, not wanting to do it now or ever.

The condemned man today was a mere thief here at Marvane Castle—the place his family hated more than anywhere else. The thief was young, and his family watched from the front row. The condemned man’s wife held her crying children to her bosom.

God’s eyes, Connor’s heart went out to them. He hated executions, and especially ones that took place here. It felt like Lord Sampson purposely condemned more men than other lords did, and sentenced them to die. It was obvious that he wanted Connor and his father to continue to be tortured for the death of the man’s brother. Would this ever end?

Watching the wife and children of the thief, it felt no different to Connor than when he and his siblings watched as his father was almost beheaded. It was the hardest thing in the world to face… or was it? Connor felt as if being in this position was all his fault since he’d told his father to do whatever it took to save his life.

If Connor had realized five years ago just how awful this life was going to be, mayhap he would have watched his father die that day after all. Instead, his whole family had been cursed and suffered every day because of his father taking the deal of being the hangman in return for his life being spared.

Had Wensel Wyland been killed that day, it would have been horrific and hard to forget. But at least Connor wouldn’t have to keep reliving that incident day after day, watching others in the same position as his family and father once were.

Damn it—why had his father even asked him to make the decision that day? Why the hell did Connor, at only sixteen years of age, have to decide a man’s fate? It wasn’t his decision to make, and he never should have done it.

Connor told his father to save his own life that day, only thinking of his young siblings and the fact they’d just lost their mother and needed a father in their lives. Plus, Connor loved his father and didn’t want the man to die, of course. Then again, even as horrible as that would have been, at least Connor wouldn’t have been the one to condemn his family. He also wouldn’t have to be a major part of watching so many others go to their deaths… and feeling like each one was somehow all his fault, as well.

One life saved five years ago, but so many others taken since then.

Had it really been a fair trade after all?

Had Connor made a wrong decision that day, and doomed his entire family for life because of not being able to let go?

“Forgive me,” Connor’s father whispered into the ear of the condemned man, placing the noose around the thief’s neck.

The hangman asking the man who was about to die for forgiveness was normal. After all, a hangman was only doing his job. Most of the condemned realized taking a life wasn’t what an executioner or anyone really wanted to do.

“Y-you’re forgiven, hangman. Take my coin. Please.” The prisoner looked back over his shoulder at Connor’s father, giving him the coin clutched tightly in his bound hands behind his back. Fear filled the thief’s eyes. “Now, you will assure me this will be a clean and fast death, and that my soul will get to heaven?”

“Don’t worry, you won’t suffer. I’ll make certain it is a clean and fast break. However, where your soul goes afterwards is not up to me,” mumbled Connor’s father, taking the coin and tossing it over to Connor. Connor caught it in one hand, swearing he could feel the blood money burning into his palm the same way that hot poker had scorched his face five years ago. His scar throbbed. He brushed his hand over it, willing it to disappear, but knew it wouldn’t. He was scarred for life in more ways than one. The sadness inside him hardened his heart and made him angry at everyone—especially himself. Connor hated himself for his decision and for whom he had become. He was actually no longer sure he could love anyone in this lifetime. He didn’t deserve happiness. And as much as he missed Eleanor, he hoped she had found a nobleman to marry and had moved on with her life.

“I only stole to feed my family,” wailed the man. “Please, don’t kill me for wanting to provide for my hungry wife and children.”

Connor’s father ignored him and continued to place a black hood over the man’s head. Wensel Wyland never showed any emotion when killing a man. Connor supposed it was because he was once a knight of the king, and had gone to war and killed many on the battlefield. The only time Connor saw his father break down was at the death of his wife. Connor’s parents had been in love from the day they’d married. Love in a noble marriage usually didn’t exist, since weddings took place for the purposes of alliances only. His parents were lucky to have found love. Connor was sure he could have found love with Eleanor, too. But that was before. Now, things were different and love no longer mattered or existed for him.

He pocketed the coin, feeling disgust at all of this. After what Connor had been through in his life, he no longer believed in heaven. To him, hell surely existed though. Hell was where he lived every day of his life.