The Claw Of The Conciliator Read Free Page A

and rightly!, that such a vile crime deserves no mercy. Yes, I say! Yes, we all say! Hundreds and maybe thousands lie in unmarked graves because of this Barnoch. Hundreds and maybe thousands have met a fate far worse!”
    “Yet for a moment, before these stones come down, I ask you to reflect. Vodalus has lost a spy. He will be seeking another. On some still night not long, I think, from now, a stranger will come to one of you. It is certain he will have much talk—”
    “Like you!” someone shouted, to general laughter.
    “Better talk than mine—I’m only a rough miner, as many of you know. Much smooth, persuasive talk, I ought to have said, and possibly some money. Before you nod your head at him, I want you to remember this house of Barnoch’s the way it looks now, with those ashlars where the door should be. Think about your own house with no doors and no windows, but with you inside it.”
    “Then think about what you’re going to see done to Barnoch when we take him out. Because I’m telling you—you strangers particularly—what you’re about to see here is only the beginning of what you’ll be seeing at our fair in Saltus! For the events of the next few days we have employed one of the finest professionals from Nessus! You will see at least two persons executed here in the formal style, with the head struck off at a single blow. One’s a woman, so we’ll be using the chair! That’s something a lot of people who boast of their sophistication and the cosmopolitan tincture of their educations have never seen. And you will see this man,” pausing, the alcalde struck the sunlit door-stones with the flat of his hand, “this Barnoch, led to Death by an expert guide! It may be that he has made some sort of small hole in the wall by now. Frequently they do, and if so he may be able to hear me.”
    He lifted his voice to a shout. “If you can, Barnoch, cut your throat now! Because if you don’t, you’re going to wish you had starved long ago!” For a moment there was silence. I was in agony at the thought that I should soon have to practice the Art on a follower of Vodalus’s. The alcalde raised his right arm over his head, then brought it down in an emphatic gesture. “All right, lads, at it with a will!”
    The four who had brought the ram counted one, two, three to themselves as if by prearrangement and ran at the walled-up door, losing some of their impetuosity when the two in front mounted the step. The ram struck the stones with a loud thump, but with no other result.
    “All right, lads,” the alcalde repeated. “Let’s try it again. Show them the kind of men Saltus breeds.”
    The four charged a second time. At this attempt, those in front handled the step more skillfully; the stones plugging the doorway seemed to shudder under the impact, and a fine dust issued from the mortar. A volunteer from the crowd, a burly, black-bearded fellow, joined the original ramsmen, and all five charged; the thump of the ram was not noticeably louder, but it was accompanied by a cracking like the breaking of bones. “One more,” the alcalde said.
    He was right. The next blow sent the stone it struck into the house, leaving a hole the size of a man’s head. After that, the ramsmen no longer bothered with a running start; they knocked the remaining stones out by swinging the ram with their arms until the aperture was large enough for a man to step through.
    Someone I had not noticed previously had brought torches, and a boy ran to a neighboring house to kindle them at the kitchen fire. The men with piletes and staves took them from him. Showing more courage than I would have credited to those clever eyes, the alcalde drew a short truncheon from under his shirt and entered first. We spectators crowded after the armed men, and because Jonas and I had been in the forefront of the onlookers, we reached the opening almost at once.
    The air was foul, far worse than I had anticipated. Broken furniture lay on every