Touched by Fire
Kathleen O'Reilly

Excerpt

London, 1796

All of London had turned out for the day. Forty thousand the papers had said. The great, stone wall of Old Bailey loomed high above the city like a mighty gray fortress. People sang and whistled, clapped and cheered as they waited outside Debtors’ Door, jostling their way to a better view. The trees were full of spectators, the poor wretches who couldn’t afford better. Ladies and dandies paid the extravagant sum of ten pounds to occupy the windows across the walk.

The vendors, summoned by the smell of a spare shilling, had come to hawk their wares. Pie-men moved through the crowds with practiced ease, the smell of gingerbread and tarts wafting in their wake. Musicians played their fiddles, crooning their tuneful ballads. Oftentimes the crowd would join in, particularly when the chorus unfolded.

Yes, the people of London loved a good hanging, and the long-awaited demise of Black Jack Cady promised to be one of the best.

The sixteenth Earl of Haverwood had appeared early, and polished many a palm in order to ensure his prime location on the hill in front of the gallows. The young lad beside him stared in wonder, fascinated by the spectacle and the noise. A visit to the city was a rare thing indeed; on most days the Earl had no patience for the lad’s dawdling nature.

The stomping and chanting grew louder and the Earl pointed to the two men climbing the steps to the gallows. The taller of the two, Cady himself, smiled and waved to the crowd, blowing a kiss to whichever maiden was bold enough to catch his eye.

Without hesitation, the man stepped onto the platform and up to the rope, making a fine show of testing its strength. The rabble whooped in delight at such bravado. The shorter man strode forward with purpose, anxious to have the business done. It was a miserable job, but it paid well, and on a day like today, the people approved of him, and he was the hero.

“Hat’s off!” The cries rippled through the stands and the crowd obeyed the order, eliminating any articles that might obstruct the view of such an event.

The Earl swept his hat off his head and noted with pleasure the boy’s wide-eyed stare. He’d been waiting many years for this day. There would be no more secrets. He leaned in close, to be heard over the din of the crowd. “It’s a shame we couldn’t get closer. I’d never seen such evil before in a man. As if he were the devil himself. Taking women without compunction. Slitting their throats and leaving them for dead.

“The way he watched your mother that night, tossing his knife between his hands like it was a toy. I should’ve stopped him, you know, but instead I stood there like a coward. The bastard laughed at me.” He stared off in the distance for a moment and then cleared his throat.

“If we were closer you could see his eyes. You should be able to see his eyes.” The Earl laughed, and the boy looked up at his father with a somber, brown gaze, studying the Earl carefully, waiting.

The loop slipped around Cady’s neck, and the hangman tightened here and there, measuring the length. Too short and the death was slow by strangulation, too long, and decapitation resulted.

“They were the strangest color. Not gold, not really brown, and I’ll never forget the way he looked at Mary.” The Earl spat on the ground, rubbing at the spittle with his boot. “Stripped her bare with his eyes, even before he laid a hand on her. Don’t know what saved her life, perhaps he knew that death would have been easier for her.”

The constable mounted the steps, his hands clasped behind his back. He nodded to the hangman, but spared no glance for the condemned.

“Never seen such evil in one man’s eyes until now. You’re nearly nine, boy. Do you think you could hide it from me? I’ve been waiting to see how you would turn out. Watching you.”

The boy stood straight and silent, just like the hero from his books -- the DragonSlayer. He had learned that sometimes it was wise to keep a quiet tongue when the Earl was nearby.

“The way you look at the maids with lust in your eyes? I couldn’t stop it once before, but I’ll not stand for it in my own house. Do you think I’d let it happen again?”

The boy shook his head quickly, confused by the words and the hard gleam in his father’s eyes.

The hangman pulled the rope taught and the Earl jerked the boy’s chin up. “You’re to watch this, boy. This is what happens when an evil man slinks between a woman’s thighs.”

The constable at the edge of the platform raised his hand, a signal for the executioner.

“You see that man, that vile piece of poison smiling to the crowd?”

The hangman grasped the lever above him, sliding the bar, and the crowd quieted, waiting for the sound when the pin slipped free.

The Earl rocked back on his heels. Finally there was justice for his wife. “That’s your father.”

The pin dropped and the platform fell. The crowd roared in approval as the condemned man swung back and forth.

“You’ve got his eyes, got that rutting blackness festering inside you. You can’t hide it though. I see it and so will everyone else.”

The boy locked his eyes straight ahead, watching the body swing like the tail of a clock. He blinked twice, making sure there were no tears. He mustn’t cry.

The Earl was wrong and he would prove it.

He wasn’t evil, he was the DragonSlayer.