3.22: Justice – 3

I stood unmoving atop the bastion, as thousands of eyes stared at me, wide in shock.

My decision had been made long before the trial. Hyde had let his trauma dictate his decisions for a long time, and had endangered the future of his own people in his rage. He could no longer be allowed to do as he pleased.

Unfortunately, only death would stop him, so death I had pronounced.

He walked up to a bench and sat down slowly.

Exhaling, I looked at the bench.

“Yara! Come forward.”

She walked towards the center between two soldiers slowly, her head held high like a Queen.

“Did you create poison from the hospital’s apothecary supplies and slipped it in my food?”

“Yes,” she replied coolly.

Gasps echoed as she defiantly looked up at me. Thousands of eyebrows came together in disapproval and anger.

Emma and Matilda testified that the concoction that had been found in her tent had indeed been poison, so Yara’s verdict was also just as clear and concise as her answer.

Death.

As she was led away, two soldier escorted Meyer, holding him up between them, hunched and weeping.

The moment they let go of him, he immediately crumpled to the ground. They hurriedly bent down to check on him, when he raised his head to look up at me. I flinched at the sight of the wretched, tear streaked face.

“Sire, please spare my grandson!” he croaked. “Please have mercy on him! On me!”

“Your grandson is not a child,” I said out loud. “He hasn’t been one for years. If you hadn’t forgotten that, maybe he would have turned out better.”

I immediately regretted those words.

“I’m sorry, Meyer,” I said softly, “but he will be tried as what he is. An adult; responsible for his actions.”

His face fell, as all hope disappeared from it.

“Let’s get back to you; did you aide Yara in poisoning me or not?”

He nodded meekly.

“At the behest of Hyde, who promised to free your grandson in exchange?”

Another nod.

Corroborations from a few people followed. Yara’s own testimony sealed his fate.

“Meyer,” I said, standing up, “based upon gathered testimonies and your own admission, this court finds you guilty of aiding those who tried to murder the leader of this nation. You are hereby stripped of the title of Elder and barred from ever holding any position of power.”

He didn’t respond. Nor did he resist the soldiers who pulled him up to his feet and dragged him back to the benches.

He lay slumped on the bench, unmoving, but the moment he saw Judran being herded forward, he came alive again. He ran up to the center with haste.

“Please, Messiah!” he said, falling to his knees, “I’ll do anything to atone, but please spare him!”

“Take him away,” Lothar ordered.

“I—I plead guilty!” he shouted, fighting the guards, “It was my fault he turned out this way! I spoiled him! So please, punish me instead! Let me take his place!”

As the soldiers dragged him from the courtyard, he kept craning his neck to look back at me, pleading at the top of his lungs.

Sympathetic eyes followed him, but nobody spoke up on his behalf.

The six young men who had captured Aprilia and tried to kill Lothar were lined in front of us. I didn’t feel much pity for them. By their looks, neither did the crowd.

Three of them made the same arguments as Hyde in their defense; I was going to destroy the Cha by bringing in foreigners and marrying into their royalty, and their actions were only in the defense of the people. I didn’t waste time arguing with them and focused on their crimes.

The other three denied any wrongdoing and blamed Hyde for hoodwinking them, but as some of the sixty followers added their testimonies to that of Aprilia and Lothar, it became quickly obvious that these six men had been the most enthusiastic supporters of Hyde’s plan to oust me. Judran and another, Hersh, were the most unrepentant and kept glaring at me the whole time.

As for the sixty other followers, I’d like to think they had a change of heart, but the sentencing of an Elder, my further elevated status and the promise of lesser punishment for cooperation had probably been the bigger deciding factor in their decision to give up their stance.

We soon came to a verdict. “Based upon all the testimonies, this court finds you guilty of conspiring to commit rebellion, kidnapping and attempted murder. For your crimes, you are sentenced to death.”

Judran cursed me loudly as the soldiers dragged him back to the benches.

Then the new recruits moved, pushing the sixty other followers of Hyde forward.

Many fell on their knees, begging for mercy, while other stood rigid, heads lowered in supplication. Men who would have followed Hyde in upending what I had been building. The only difference between them and the convicted six men was greed and aggression.

I could be, no, should be, harsh with them for just that, but as I looked at them, I realized that they were just men afraid of change.

Most of them were farmers. Some were miners, two were carpenters, one a smith and one a teacher.

I sighed, then stood up.

“I think I understand your fear. You fear for your families and your way of life. I promise you, I’m not trying to destroy it, but preserve it. There is only one way for that; strength. But even that will change the nature of our nation.

“Like it or not, the only constant in life is change. It will happen one way or another. So you can either resist it and remain weak, then be trampled by who-knows-what in the future, or accept it in the process of becoming strong, so that you will at least be able to dictate the terms to some extent. That was the reason I brought shipbuilders and sailors from Nahnon to our shores.”

Faces fell in shame, whether genuine or feigned, I knew not.

“Given your motivations and the fact that you hadn’t taken any drastic action, I am inclined to be lenient.”

Some faces scowled in disbelief, while some looked up with hope.

“If you promise to be open from now on. Air your grievances in the open, so we can solve them together. Unlike what Hyde made you believe, I am not your enemy.”

Some of them nodded.

“Everyone can make mistakes. I made a big one just this morning, and almost paid for my life with it. So please, do not act on your beliefs without talking to the rest of us,” I lowered my voice, “because if they turn out to be against Chadom’s interests, you might not find me as forgiving again.”

This time the nods were quick. More nervous. Good.

“We need the immigrants at the Bay to focus on building docks and boats for us. As some of you might know, we had to prioritize the construction of insulae for them over housing for our own people, as they were getting grumpier by the day. You see, they hadn’t been told they would be landing on a barren shore. They had come expecting a port city, or at least a fishing village.”

Some faces grimaced in sympathy.

“I would like you all to construct roads from Cradle and the limestone mine to the Bay, so the construction work there can be finished as soon as possible. The sooner it is finished, the sooner we can focus on homes for us all.”

Some of them nodded emphatically. Some more reluctantly.

“That will be your sentence. Build the roads, to make Chadom a stronger nation.”

They bowed, in gratitude or relief.

As the group stepped back, my eyes found the gallows.

States began banning public executions once they grew confident enough in their ability to project power. I was confident that we would become powerful as well; not in centuries, but in just a matter of a few months.

The people, on the other hand, needed to see the state’s capacity right now.

Releasing a breath I had been holding, I looked toward the benches, then nodded to Rafiel.

The sharp eyed man nodded, then barked an order.

In response, twelve soldiers pulled the six men up and began pulling them toward the gallows.

While Yara remained on her seat, in shock or fear, Hyde got up slowly and began walking behind the men by himself.

“No,” I said out loud.

I would not let him turn himself into an inspiring memory in the minds of those that still believed in his foolish cause.

There would be no public execution for him. He would not be turning himself into a martyr.

He scowled at me as two soldiers dragged him away from the courtyard, back to the jail.

Realizing their death was only minutes away, three of the six men lost their nerves. Even twelve soldiers struggled to contain them as the men tried to free themselves with all their strength, enhanced by the primal fear of death.

I would have also preferred if no one died this day, but their actions were simply too heinous to be forgiven.

More soldiers arrived, helping their compatriots in controlling the convicts.

“Forgive us! Please, Messiah! Have mercy!” echoed through the courtyard as the men cried out, while the soldiers dragged them forward.

“Mother!” one of them cried.

One went completely limp.

The crowd watched with its breath held, as the soldiers put sacks over the men’s heads and tightened them.

The six men were dragged up to the gallows where a man wearing a mask pulled nooses over their struggling heads and tightened them, one at a time.

Then he stood to the side and looked up at me.

The courtyard stilled.

I slowly raised my hand, then dropped it.

The soldiers backed off as the hangman mirrored my action, pulling the heavy lever down.

Wood groaned, then a loud thwack echoed.

The platform under the condemned’s feet fell away.

Six men fell, and abruptly stopped.

I watched without blinking as two of them stilled immediately, while the rest kept twitching.

Mothers covered their children’s eyes, while their own widened with horror.

A woman in the front row fainted, then another. Nearby, a man fell on all four, retching violently as he vomited his breakfast on the ground.

Two more of the bodies stopped twitching shortly afterwards, while the last two kept moving for half a minute longer.

Violent death was no longer a distant fact to me.

I had to give mercy to many men in the aftermath of the Battle of the Bog.

I had the man who tried to kill me and the one who aided my cousins in their flight executed at my orders, along with Baron Wulf’s traitorous nephew.

I had personally executed the power-hungry child-killer Grimric, in addition to many others when I had to kill in self-defense.

Still, bile rose up in my throat. I pushed it down, then almost chuckled.

If the old me could see me now, what would he think?

Nobody would forget this day.

A beheading or a demonstration of our new weapons would have been more humane, but I had opted for this method for a reason.

Hanging was the method of execution reserved for thieves, which these men were.

They had almost succeeded at stealing our future.

I was under no allusion that I had rid Chadom of all the fools with more bravery than brains, but hopefully they would be more hesitant in taking drastic actions in the future.

The clouds parted, and the courtyard was bathed in warm sunlight.

Hopefully, an omen.

It was time to begin a new chapter in the short history of Chadom.