The Executioner's Wife

The Executioner's Revenge

Second to last chapter! Thank you all again for your votes and comments. I'll be going back to edit soon since this is basically a first draft. I appreciate any thoughts or comments for the next edition!

Okay, here we go 😁

The son of the red-bearded guard had not eaten that afternoon. There was soup in their quarters but it was red- it reminded him too much of the massacre at the scaffold. His father told him to eat anyway, and that he would need the energy before he went off to his next post. But hunger had long faded from the boy's mind- there was something greater pressing on it. As the father and son stood together in the last moments of their break, the older man could sense his child's worry.

"The executioner doesn't usually get like that," the red-bearded guard promised, sipping a cup of the warm soup. "He's just a little agitated."

His son nodded, but was not convinced. The executioner's wife had finally been taken back to the castle, where the king would deal with her. Everyone in his order were surprised by how she had managed to escape. A lost servant had been collected from her room- they put together that the switch must have happened when she visited the dungeon the second time. But the red-bearded guard, who had been posted there at the time, held no regret for his slip. To him, everything was fixed. To his son, the security felt slippery.

"What if she gets out again?"

"She won't."

"What if he comes looking for her?"

"Well, we'll do what we did last time," the red-bearded guard shrugged. He regarded the anxiety in his son's face, and clapped a hearty hand on his shoulder. "In this job son, you learn to look past the details. Just do as you're told. Protect the castle, honor the king- most mistakes are forgiven... if you don't claim them."

He offered the last half of his soup to his son, who drank it gingerly under his father's watch.

"Where's your next post?"

"The entrance."

"Then go, my friend." The red-bearded guard laughed wholeheartedly. "And do your job. I will see you tonight, for supper."

And so his son went, holding up the rigid posture that he'd been taught, determined to brush away his emotions about the whole thing. Everyone in their kingdom had a job to do. Even though he was just fifteen, it was time to do his. His father, and the king, were counting on him.

He walked with a fellow guard to take their posts at the entryway. But there was a commotion at the entrance to the castle- shouting right where he would take his next post. As he approached it, he heard the scattered clangs of metal meeting metal, and a twisted scream as a life was cut short. He gripped his sword and ran forward, ready to help.

Protect the castle.

He stopped just a few meters away. The guards he was meant to replace lay on the ground, open wounds in their heads and necks bleeding between the plush carpet and the gravel. Above them stood the executioner, the culprit in his hand- the dripping blade of the axe. The king's executioner breathed raggedly, but hardly broke a sweat as he dominated the large space in the entryway, gripping the handle with two fists. He was still in his uniform. His mouth and nose were covered by his mask, as if he were on unholy duty, revealing just his eyes and his wild tangle of black hair. His dark eyes narrowed at the red-bearded guard's son, and the boy's heart galloped in his throat as the executioner asked a plain question.

"Where is my wife?"

Protect the castle. Honor the king.

The guard beside him reached for his sword, but his grip was shaky, and he fumbled it. The red-bearded guard's son found his, and held it confidently.