Page 90 of Hollow Court
“Darling, I think they’re waiting for us,” she said smoothly, pointing toward the stage. “Always a pleasure to see you,LordAnderson, Lady Anderson.”
The corner of my mouth twitched in response as I led her to where my cousins and parents were waiting.
It was telling that the gallows were preferable to Tavish’s company, even if they were chilling to look at. Tall wooden beams towered above us while five ropes hung idly from the main rafter, swaying in the breeze.
With a sigh, I signaled to the hangman to proceed.
A heavy weight sank to the pit of my stomach like a stone sinking to the bottom of the loch. These weren’t the first deaths I’d been forced to order, but it was the first time I had been forced to order a mass execution.
I clenched and unclenched my gloved fists, steeling myself as the first five men were led up the steps and to the center of the stage where the row of nooses awaited them.
Scottie stood proudly in the middle, black eyes narrowed over his broken nose, his expression still haughty. His death wasn’t one I would mourn.
But the others…
I couldn’t understand why they were so ready to die rather than give us even the slightest bit of information. The name of their leader, the location of their base camp, their plans…anything to help us prepare for whatever was coming next.
They had stayed resolutely silent on all of it, even up to the morning of their deaths.
The only thing I had gotten from any of them was a single sentence, repeated from man to man.
“The Viper is everywhere.”
It didn’t sound like something Tavish would call himself, but then, I wouldn’t have guessed that nearly thirty of my soldiers would rather hang than see my cousins and me take over as the stewards of Lochlann, so what did I know?
Viper was a clan in Socair, as well, but we didn’t have any particular enemies there that I was aware of. I couldn’t devote any more time to unravelling that mystery right now, though, because it was time for the formal sentencing.
Galina and I climbed the stage where my family was already waiting, and I cleared my throat to begin.
As soon as I formed the words, “hanging until death,” Scottie’s countenance faltered slightly. His smug expression faded while his throat bobbed up and down. There it was, fear coming in at the eleventh hour.
For a single, unreasonable second, I wondered if he would break, if this was the moment that he would change his mind and tell me what I needed to know. I stepped forward, ready to halt the hangings just as his gaze locked on to someone in the crowd.
His expression hardened, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
I scanned the crowd, already knowing it was an exercise in futility. There were too many familiar faces there, too many faces in general, staring ahead or lost in conversation with someone at their side.
Of course, it would have been too easy to ask for a sign to be nailed to their foreheads with a formal admission of guilt.
When it was clear that the men’s minds were still made up, I gestured for the hangman to continue.
Time sped up and slowed down all at once, passing in a series of disjointed moments. The creak of a lever, followed by the groan of the floor giving way. The snap of a rope pulled taut and the crack of a breaking neck, echoed five times over.
Their bodies swayed for several long moments before the village healer checked them for a pulse. Once each of their deaths were confirmed, they were cut down.
And five more took their place.
I hadn’t realized that my hands were balled into fists until Galina adjusted her hold on my arm, her fingers threading between mine. Her grip was firm as she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead.
No. Delicate was certainly not the word for her.
I didn’t allow myself to look away from the stage, but I grounded myself in the feeling of her thumb tracing an arc back and forth over mine.
There was another sentencing and another hanging, making a grand total of fifteen executions in under an hour. Then another.
That made twenty. Then twenty-five.
But the last group was the worst to come.