the hangman’s daughter

The Hangman’s Daughter-Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21: GROETHUIS AND THE GOLDEN SCORPION

 

He lay on the slab as still as a gutted fish. His arms were bound. Strong, wiry cords clasped him to the hard bed, and he could not stir an inch. There was no need for binding. He was broken, his bones shattered, his skin seared red. With every breath he took he saw himself in his mind’s eye, tiny and naked, climbing a great mountain of black razor rock. Everything burned. There was not a cell of skin or speck of bone, it seemed, that did not cry out in pain.

He lay in agony. And he waited.

At times he would drift asleep, and then he would be woken by voices. Two dark figures would stand over his bed and talk in whispered tones , like great black clouds growling thunder at each other.

A harsh white light, of a kind Thomas had never seen before, hung from the ceiling and blinded him so that he could not make out their faces, and was forced to listen.

The first voice was silky and vile, it’s tones clipped like rose buds, all wormy and sly and it made him shiver when he heard it.

The second voice was cold, hard and deep. The voice of a killer. He could tell that much. He could tell simply from the way his fingers tried to form fists when he heard it.

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The Hangman’s Daughter- Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20: KATHY

 

When she awoke, she was in bed.

Mariana’s perfume was still trailing in the air, and she could smell wisps of it on her clothes and sheets.

Mariana…

She wrestled with the idea of Mariana killing Virgil. Was that the right word?

On the one hand, she knew he deserved it. But then, that wasn’t the reason she had done it. And was it ever right to kill, even a monster like Virgil?

Even as her body ached for sleep her mind was flying, battering itself from one thought to another like a blind bird in a cave. She lay awake, thinking over everything that Virgil had said. To even try to rescue her father, it seemed, was suicide. The Nine Unknown Men would kill her without a qualm if she tried to alter history for her own ends, no matter how noble. In the darkness she gnashed her teeth in anger. It was so unfair. She spoke to herself silently:

I am Marie. I can travel back in time. I can slow time around me. And one day I’ll be able to move across oceans just by thinking it.

Wow. But, say if you wanted to save someone who you loved very much from dying, could you do that?

Well, no.

But, what if you knew that they were in Hell and the only way to save them was by going back in time and warning them, you could do it then surely?

Nope. Can’t. Rules.

Oh. Well, at least you won’t get old.

Um, well actually I will.

Oh. So this time travelling? Is it actually any use at all?

Well. No. No it isn’t.

Right so.

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The Hangman’s Daughter-Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19: VIRGIL

 

There was a great yellow moon sewn into the black and grey fabric of the night sky and the path ahead of the two men was a golden thread, leading them home.

“I hear there was a murder.”

“Yes.” Luke replied “Our magistrate.”

“I’m sure you’re all distraught.” said the youth tonelessly.

Luke did not reply, not wishing to lie, but not wishing to show disrespect for the dead.

“Did they catch the murderer?” and again the words were passionless.

“No.”

“Do you think they will?”

“I don’t know.”

The youth snorted at this, as if it amused him.

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The Hangman’s Daughter- Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10: THE SHADE

She lay there in the mud for a few minutes, not quite sure if she had gone mad. After all, she had seen some incredible things when she had had the fever. But the figure in front of her was real. She was seeing it before her eyes, not in her head. Slowly, she clambered to her feet, rivers of muddy water running off her now thoroughly soiled white night-dress. She took five steps, and stood at the right hand side of the figure. From where she was, she could just about see the tip of an elegant chin, the end of a nose, but everything else hidden by the folds of the hood.
“Hello.” said Marie quietly.
The figure started, and Marie realised that she had taken him by surprise. If this person was what she thought he was, then how was that possible?

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The Hangman’s Daughter: Chapter 9

                                                                                                      CHAPTER 9: ANGEL IN THE RAIN

The front door was bashed open with a thunder clap, and Marie shot upright in bed.
From behind her bedroom door she could hear raised voices, something heavy being carried, grunts and curses, and she felt a stab of ice in her as she thought the cottage was being robbed. Then, her door swung open and she screamed as the grizzled face of Sylvie’s father, the blacksmith D’Arbe, shot into her room like a jack from a box.
She screamed and he shouted in fright before realising who she was. Then he muttered to himself “Wrong room…” and was gone as suddenly as he had entered, leaving the door to slowly close of its own inertia.
But right before it closed, Marie could see through the rapidly shrinking opening a mob of townsmen carrying her father into his bedroom, behind the, Toureil barking orders “Lay him down on the bed! Careful! Careful you asses! He’s not a sack of potatoes!” And she had just enough time to see her father’s face, white as marble save for the hideous red scar running down his nose and his blue eyes lolling sightlessly, and although she did not actually hear herself, she screamed at the sight of him. And then, with malicious relish, the door clicked shut, cutting her off from the kitchen, and leaving her in the darkness again.

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The Hangman’s Daughter-Chapter 8

                                                                         CHAPTER 8: THE BATTLE OF THE STONE BRIDGE

There was a great yellow moon sewn into the black and grey fabric of the night sky and the path ahead of the two men was a golden thread, leading them home.
“I hear there was a murder.”
“Yes.” Luke replied “Our magistrate.”
“I’m sure you’re all distraught.” said the youth tonelessly.
Luke did not reply, not wishing to lie, but not wishing to show disrespect for the dead.
“Did they catch the murderer?” and again the words were passionless.
“No.”
“Do you think they will?”
“I don’t know.”
The youth snorted at this, as if it amused him.

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The Hangman’s Daughter- Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7: Cain the Farmer

“Bernadette, can I tell you a secret?”

“A good secret?”

“No.”

The two were sitting alone on the wall where the thief had passed by four years ago on his way to his appointment with Marie’s father.

They were sitting shoulder to shoulder, Marie’s red hair mingling with Bernadette’s blonde, something now possible since Bernadette and her odour had parted company some years back.

“So what’s the secret?” said Bernadette.

“I think I’m evil.” said Marie quietly.

“Really.” said Bernadette “What’d you do?”

“Do you remember when they told us that Monsieur Nogaret was dead?”

“Yes.”

“When I found out, I was glad. I was happy he was dead.”

“Were you happy he was stabbed?”

“What?” said Marie, surprised by the question.

“Well, I just want to know how bad it was. I mean, being happy someone is dead is one thing. Being happy that someone broke into their house and cut them up and turned all the walls red and made it so they still haven’t cleaned it up and it’s probably going to be haunted forever…“

“That’s what happened?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, I just heard he died!”

“So, how do you feel now that you know how he died?”

“I dunno. Kind of bad, I suppose.”

“Well, there you go. Not so evil.”

There was a brief pause. Bernadette kicked air.

“So why were you happy when you heard?”

“I hated him.”

“Why?”

Marie kicked herself mentally and realised that she had talked herself into a corner. To tell Bernadette about her encounter with Nogaret all those years ago she would have to explain why Nogaret had visited her father’s house. Then she would have to explain why her father was in Nogaret’s employment and not only would her father’s identity be exposed and his life at risk, but she would be exhausted from more explaining than any human being should have to endure. This would take some brilliant excuse, something to completely throw Bernadette off the scent.

“Just did.”

“Okay.”

Disaster narrowly averted.

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The Hangman’s Daughter: Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6: THE CURIOUS DEATH OF MONSIEUR NOGARET

 

Months passed, and the small village of St Anne draped itself in the yellow of summer, the orange of autumn, the white of winter and the green of the new spring like a child trying on her mother’s dresses and then discarding them as she loses interest. Little changed in the village. News of the war with the English came in peaks and troughs. One day a  terrible defeat, destruction imminent, the next a glorious victory, London in three weeks. But this distant war did not even cause the slightest real ripple in the still lake that was St Anne. Of notable events perhaps the greatest was the death of Doctor Toureil’s wife. The woman who he had so often berated, teased and insulted, had in her last days watched her husband work like a scourged slave to save her, toiling with bottles and jars, resorting to ever more outlandish and bizarre cures to halt the disease that he knew had no interest in ceasing its rampage through her body.

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The Hangman’s Daughter- Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5: THE MASK

 

Marie swam languidly through a black sea of sleep that was deep, warm and mercifully dreamless.

When she awoke, the fever was gone and her bed was once again cool and soft.

Seated on a stool by her bedside, Doctor Toureil scrutinised her with two small grey eyes that were cosy beneath great white bushy eyebrows.

“Good morning.” he said quietly.

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The Hangman’s Daughter- Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4: DOCTOR TOUREIL

If you were to meet Doctor Toureil, your first impression of him would be that he was a farmer. He had the broad red face of a man who spent his days tilling fields, or clumsily trying to catch agile sheep on misty mountains. His hands were huge, pink and covered in a sandpaper of calluses. His clothes were shabby, and had probably not left his body in ten years. This, of course, was one of the reasons why the villagers of St Anne trusted him so much. He wasn’t some polished outsider come to sneer at the simple little country bumpkins. If anything, Doctor Toureil was more of a bumpkin than anyone else in the village. He was also an excellent doctor.

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