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((14 Kingsway, 35 Dragon; Late morning, Denerim docks; @Linette ))
One thing was certain, Conrad reflected with grim humor as he made his way down the gangplank: a career as a sailor was not for him. Fortunately, the worst of his seasickness had passed by the end of the second day out of Antiva City, but he had never grown accustomed to the sway of the deck beneath his feet on even the calmest of days, and when they had encountered stormy weather – the captain had called it a “little squall” - he had remained in his cabin, clinging to his bunk as it rolled this way and that, unable to decide whether to pray for salvation or a quick death to end his misery.
Not for the first time, he asked himself why he had chosen to come to Ferelden, but the answer remained the same. It was as far from Hossberg as it was possible to get without sailing off the edge of the world. He did not know if the magistrates were seeking him; he had broken no laws, save perhaps in the burning of the house, but he had broken his oath … five generations of oaths, and that itself would be a death sentence. In the months since he had left, there had been no indication of a bounty, no word in fact, of anything to do with his homeland. Perhaps – Maker willing – the apostate hunting hysteria had burned itself out before too many innocent lives were claimed, and the magistrates repented of their foul betrayal of their own sworn duty, realized that his father had the right of it and would hold him blameless. Perhaps. He might hope for just that, but not so strongly that he would test it by returning. He was in Ferelden, and in Ferelden he would stay.
The feel of solidity beneath his feet as he stepped onto the dock was a marvel, and he paused to savor it, closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath, feeling a smile touching his mouth. He allowed it, but fought back the laughter that tried to rise in its wake. He had never been mirthful by nature, but in the weeks since he had left the Anderfels, he had frequently found laughter bubbling up in his chest for the oddest of reasons: a mime feigning a battle against three invisible opponents on the streets of Antiva City; a rainstorm that soaked him to the skin; a pair of gulls in noisy battle amidst the ship's rigging over some stolen morsel.
Grief, perhaps. He had seen much of it over the years, in the families of murder victims, the families of the condemned … even from some of the condemned themselves, overcome with remorse for their crimes. They laughed, sobbed, screamed … he had seen one woman drop to the ground and bark like a dog until her husband dragged her away from the spot where her son had been hanged. And yet, when he thought of his father, he felt what he ought to feel: sorrow, betrayal, frustrated anger; never once had he felt the urge to laugh at the memory of Johann's battered face. Nonetheless, the odd urges to laugh baffled him, even frightened him a bit; if he let himself start laughing, would he be able to stop?
“You take care, big'un.” The bo'sun, boarding the ship after helping to tie her up, accompanied the words with the friendly clap of a hand to Conrad's shoulder, though he had to reach up to do it.
“I will, thank you,” Conrad replied. His command of the Common tongue was good, but pronunciation still gave him difficulty, with 'will' coming out as 'vill'. The sailors had treated him well during the journey, the captain joking about using him as a spare mast (though it would be a poor mast indeed that bent over the rail whenever the seas grew choppy). In addition to the coin he'd paid for his passage, he had offered his skills as a healer, fixing a shoulder that had been yanked from its socket during the storm, stitching up the cook's hand when his knife slipped while gutting a fish. Their gratitude for this had been familiar enough, but the camaraderie they had offered him was not; the realization that folk did not shun him automatically was slow to sink through a lifetime of isolation, and he was still unsure how to behave. He had watched them playing dice in the evenings, participated in their banter as he learned the rules of the game, but politely declined when invited to join in.
An executioner must be above reproach. His father's words; his father's life, and Conrad's, as well. To end a life in the name of the Maker's justice was a sacred duty, and yet, too many folk were willing to believe the worst of those who performed that duty, and too many executioners (butchers, Johann had contemptuously called them) gave them reason to believe the worst. The rules of conduct were many and unyielding: never gamble; never get drunk; never visit a brothel or a prostitute; never take a bribe; never be late; never go back on your word once given; never brawl; never fail to address everyone, even the condemned, with respect; never fail to perform your duty, but never, never torture or execute one that you believe innocent of the crimes of which they are accused.
Adherence to these rules had made the Krause clan one of the most respected executioners' dynasties among the magistrates, but it had made no difference at all in the eyes of their neighbors, who still treated them as pariahs unless they required their skill as healers, nor to the folk in the villages and towns that Conrad had visited on his circuit, who answered any questions he asked without making eye contact, edging away even as they spoke. In the end, it had made no difference to the magistrates; his father had died for his honor, but Conrad still clung to it. It was all that he had left of Johann.
Nearly all. He still had the books, the journal, the tools of the healer's trade, and most of all, Maker's Mercy. He received more than a few odd looks with two massive swords strapped to his pack, and he'd been offered a fortune for the silverite blade in Antiva City, but he would starve before he parted with it. It was more than a family heirloom; it was a sword of justice, the ultimate badge of office for a true executioner. Any muscled oaf could be a hangman: drag some terrified sinner up a ladder, loop the noose about their neck and shove them off. To remove a head cleanly with a single stroke, to deliver swift and merciful justice to a repentant sinner … that took discipline, strength, skill and training. Conrad had practiced for years, starting with tough stalks of rhubarb, before he had been permitted to use Maker's Mercy in an execution when he was twenty-one. It had been successful, death delivered in a single blow, as had been all but one of the seventeen beheadings that he had carried out in the years since.
He would not part with the blade, but he felt no urge to resume the work of an executioner. Much of it was that to do so would require providing an account of his experience, which could lead to inquiries that might reach all the way back to Hossberg. Even if that were not the case, however, he suspected that it would change nothing. As the son of an executioner, he had been barred from apprenticing in any other profession; even the Chantry had been closed to him. To follow in his father's footsteps had been the only path open to him, but now …
He had made choices before: what town to travel to next; what type of interrogation might be most successful in obtaining a confession; whether an accused was guilty or innocent, based on their responses and reactions. But choices as to his own life had never before been presented to him, and the sheer immensity of it was daunting.
He could be a healer; he was good at it, and had actually enjoyed those duties, something that had never been even remotely true of the executioner's craft. But he had no idea how to go about it. Folk in Hossberg had known to come to the Krause home, and even the folk on his circuit knew that executioners were often healers on the side. He'd have to start from scratch here, build a reputation from nothing …
Again, the laughter tried to rise. Damn it! Perhaps he had been too long in the sun. He gritted his teeth and glanced upward, squinting his right eye, feeling the left mirror the action behind the patch. The sun was high overhead, the sky clear, but he was far from warm; there was a decided chill in the air that was never present in and around Hossberg, even at night.
He had coin: coin enough to live on while he figured things out; coin enough to buy supplies to replace the things he'd had to leave behind. First, however, he'd best use some of that coin to buy clothing appropriate for the climate and get a room to sleep in. Wouldn't do to freeze to death his first night here.
Rolling his shoulders to better settle the straps of his pack, he resolutely set off in a direction that he hoped would take him off the docks, wishing that his oilcloth cloak was generous enough to don over the pack. It wasn't much (though it had been quite adequate for most of his life), but it would be better than nothing.
One thing was certain, Conrad reflected with grim humor as he made his way down the gangplank: a career as a sailor was not for him. Fortunately, the worst of his seasickness had passed by the end of the second day out of Antiva City, but he had never grown accustomed to the sway of the deck beneath his feet on even the calmest of days, and when they had encountered stormy weather – the captain had called it a “little squall” - he had remained in his cabin, clinging to his bunk as it rolled this way and that, unable to decide whether to pray for salvation or a quick death to end his misery.
Not for the first time, he asked himself why he had chosen to come to Ferelden, but the answer remained the same. It was as far from Hossberg as it was possible to get without sailing off the edge of the world. He did not know if the magistrates were seeking him; he had broken no laws, save perhaps in the burning of the house, but he had broken his oath … five generations of oaths, and that itself would be a death sentence. In the months since he had left, there had been no indication of a bounty, no word in fact, of anything to do with his homeland. Perhaps – Maker willing – the apostate hunting hysteria had burned itself out before too many innocent lives were claimed, and the magistrates repented of their foul betrayal of their own sworn duty, realized that his father had the right of it and would hold him blameless. Perhaps. He might hope for just that, but not so strongly that he would test it by returning. He was in Ferelden, and in Ferelden he would stay.
The feel of solidity beneath his feet as he stepped onto the dock was a marvel, and he paused to savor it, closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath, feeling a smile touching his mouth. He allowed it, but fought back the laughter that tried to rise in its wake. He had never been mirthful by nature, but in the weeks since he had left the Anderfels, he had frequently found laughter bubbling up in his chest for the oddest of reasons: a mime feigning a battle against three invisible opponents on the streets of Antiva City; a rainstorm that soaked him to the skin; a pair of gulls in noisy battle amidst the ship's rigging over some stolen morsel.
Grief, perhaps. He had seen much of it over the years, in the families of murder victims, the families of the condemned … even from some of the condemned themselves, overcome with remorse for their crimes. They laughed, sobbed, screamed … he had seen one woman drop to the ground and bark like a dog until her husband dragged her away from the spot where her son had been hanged. And yet, when he thought of his father, he felt what he ought to feel: sorrow, betrayal, frustrated anger; never once had he felt the urge to laugh at the memory of Johann's battered face. Nonetheless, the odd urges to laugh baffled him, even frightened him a bit; if he let himself start laughing, would he be able to stop?
“You take care, big'un.” The bo'sun, boarding the ship after helping to tie her up, accompanied the words with the friendly clap of a hand to Conrad's shoulder, though he had to reach up to do it.
“I will, thank you,” Conrad replied. His command of the Common tongue was good, but pronunciation still gave him difficulty, with 'will' coming out as 'vill'. The sailors had treated him well during the journey, the captain joking about using him as a spare mast (though it would be a poor mast indeed that bent over the rail whenever the seas grew choppy). In addition to the coin he'd paid for his passage, he had offered his skills as a healer, fixing a shoulder that had been yanked from its socket during the storm, stitching up the cook's hand when his knife slipped while gutting a fish. Their gratitude for this had been familiar enough, but the camaraderie they had offered him was not; the realization that folk did not shun him automatically was slow to sink through a lifetime of isolation, and he was still unsure how to behave. He had watched them playing dice in the evenings, participated in their banter as he learned the rules of the game, but politely declined when invited to join in.
An executioner must be above reproach. His father's words; his father's life, and Conrad's, as well. To end a life in the name of the Maker's justice was a sacred duty, and yet, too many folk were willing to believe the worst of those who performed that duty, and too many executioners (butchers, Johann had contemptuously called them) gave them reason to believe the worst. The rules of conduct were many and unyielding: never gamble; never get drunk; never visit a brothel or a prostitute; never take a bribe; never be late; never go back on your word once given; never brawl; never fail to address everyone, even the condemned, with respect; never fail to perform your duty, but never, never torture or execute one that you believe innocent of the crimes of which they are accused.
Adherence to these rules had made the Krause clan one of the most respected executioners' dynasties among the magistrates, but it had made no difference at all in the eyes of their neighbors, who still treated them as pariahs unless they required their skill as healers, nor to the folk in the villages and towns that Conrad had visited on his circuit, who answered any questions he asked without making eye contact, edging away even as they spoke. In the end, it had made no difference to the magistrates; his father had died for his honor, but Conrad still clung to it. It was all that he had left of Johann.
Nearly all. He still had the books, the journal, the tools of the healer's trade, and most of all, Maker's Mercy. He received more than a few odd looks with two massive swords strapped to his pack, and he'd been offered a fortune for the silverite blade in Antiva City, but he would starve before he parted with it. It was more than a family heirloom; it was a sword of justice, the ultimate badge of office for a true executioner. Any muscled oaf could be a hangman: drag some terrified sinner up a ladder, loop the noose about their neck and shove them off. To remove a head cleanly with a single stroke, to deliver swift and merciful justice to a repentant sinner … that took discipline, strength, skill and training. Conrad had practiced for years, starting with tough stalks of rhubarb, before he had been permitted to use Maker's Mercy in an execution when he was twenty-one. It had been successful, death delivered in a single blow, as had been all but one of the seventeen beheadings that he had carried out in the years since.
He would not part with the blade, but he felt no urge to resume the work of an executioner. Much of it was that to do so would require providing an account of his experience, which could lead to inquiries that might reach all the way back to Hossberg. Even if that were not the case, however, he suspected that it would change nothing. As the son of an executioner, he had been barred from apprenticing in any other profession; even the Chantry had been closed to him. To follow in his father's footsteps had been the only path open to him, but now …
He had made choices before: what town to travel to next; what type of interrogation might be most successful in obtaining a confession; whether an accused was guilty or innocent, based on their responses and reactions. But choices as to his own life had never before been presented to him, and the sheer immensity of it was daunting.
He could be a healer; he was good at it, and had actually enjoyed those duties, something that had never been even remotely true of the executioner's craft. But he had no idea how to go about it. Folk in Hossberg had known to come to the Krause home, and even the folk on his circuit knew that executioners were often healers on the side. He'd have to start from scratch here, build a reputation from nothing …
Again, the laughter tried to rise. Damn it! Perhaps he had been too long in the sun. He gritted his teeth and glanced upward, squinting his right eye, feeling the left mirror the action behind the patch. The sun was high overhead, the sky clear, but he was far from warm; there was a decided chill in the air that was never present in and around Hossberg, even at night.
He had coin: coin enough to live on while he figured things out; coin enough to buy supplies to replace the things he'd had to leave behind. First, however, he'd best use some of that coin to buy clothing appropriate for the climate and get a room to sleep in. Wouldn't do to freeze to death his first night here.
Rolling his shoulders to better settle the straps of his pack, he resolutely set off in a direction that he hoped would take him off the docks, wishing that his oilcloth cloak was generous enough to don over the pack. It wasn't much (though it had been quite adequate for most of his life), but it would be better than nothing.
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