Sample:
His body shuddered involuntarily: he recalled all too painfully when, a teenager, he’d been caught too far away from home. Caught by a hostile gang of older boys from the next village, out alone and unaccompanied. He suddenly found himself surrounded by the gang. He turned around: his way back was cut off. He was outnumbered, outfoxed and out of range to get help.
They surged forward, dragging him off his mount. The pony fled. He went flying. Hands grabbed his quiver and tore it loose, scattering the arrows in all directions.
Egging each other on, they pushed him around in the middle of their circle of fists. Gradually he had become muddier and muddier as they kept knocking him to the ground. And as each layer of clothing had become dirty and wet so, to the cheers of others, they were torn from him. Soon he was down to his undergarments and boots. Frantically he realised that his humiliation was now being enjoyed by some of the village girls, out with their brave gang of bullies.
He would not show fear! He would not submit! He’d go down fighting! Two pairs of strong arms grabbed him from behind. His wrists were wrenched apart and put behind his back, ropes being lashed around them, so tightly that, in moments, his fingers were going numb. His two captors, dragged him out of the muddy clearing and towards an oak tree. The boys clapped and chanted “Swing boy swing, hang the little thing.”
Some of the girls started to feel uneasy: a few slipped away anxious not to be associated with the dreadful denouement they now feared. A blindfold went over his eyes. The end. He knew it. And still being goaded, he would not plead for mercy. He would not plead for his life. How long would it take? he asked himself. If they hauled him by the rope off the ground, it would take many minutes to kill him. He would flail around helplessly as the cord cut into his neck, cutting off the blood supply to his brain. And then there would be waves of semi-consciousness until the final blackout. Oblivion. His legs would stop twitching. All life squeezed out of his body, his guts would be released soiling his trousers, his boots and the ground below. How long would it be before anyone cut down his corpse? Would he be left to rot? For yelping wolves to leap up and tear his boots away to attack his putrefying flesh? Or would it be quick? Would they stand him on a chair or branch and then kick it away? Would that be a quick end? He’d seen the hangman at work in their market town. But he’d noted the care with which the knot on the noose was placed at the back of the neck. Wham! The body fell under its own weight; a few moments of struggle, if that. The head caped in cloth lolled to one side, neck broken, the legs twitched automatically. Then the corpse would be still.
He felt the rope slip over his head and tighten. A voice in his left ear whispered, “Plead, beg, it’s your life! Go on! Beg for mercy.” Mud had splattered his face and tears poured.
“Never!”
The hood went on. They slung the rope over the sturdiest branch of the oak on the edge of the hollow. He shook his head in a no as much as the noose permitted. The girls on the ridge had started to ebb away. The boys were disappointed to lose their audience: then their bravado ebbed.
Suddenly they hauled him up, vertically off the ground, and his neck took up the strain as the noose tightened: Gregorian screamed but the sound was choked by the rope and muffled by the hood. His legs swung wildly in all directions. One foot stubbed itself on a tree branch and swinging the other leg, Gregorian’s feet found, he knew not what, but it held. He could take some of the weight off his neck. He was swaying giddily at forty-five degrees. But the two ringleaders were no longer concentrating on Gregorian or deliberating his fate and their escape route. A movement caught in the corner of his eye distracted Nostramus. The pony? The pony was back! It couldn’t be. It was staring down at them, quiet and unafraid. And its reins were looped over its neck and on to the saddle. Someone had done that for the animal.
They started to back away from Gregorian’s swinging, struggling figure. He knew nothing of what was happening around him. Except that, in the blackness of his head, unable to see what was going on, he had been deserted by his captors. Their departure could be good news or bad?
“Get him down! Now!” The firm voice echoed across the clearing. They froze. A man’s voice? Or a woman’s?
“Cut him down or I’ll do it and then I’ll cut you down.” They started to turn in the direction of the voice.
“Turn any more and it’ll be the last time you wretches will see anything.” They took the command at face value. Hands trembling they fumbled at the knots at the end of the rope, releasing it from the tree. As it came free, they took Gregorian by the shoulders and lowered him gently to the ground, as if their lives depended on it.
“Now remove the hood.”
They obeyed.
“Now the noose! Take the noose off!”
They obeyed.
“Turn around; very, very slowly.” They didn’t.
“Maybe you’ll live, you young wretches. Not that you deserve to. Now turn. Carefully.”
The boys turned slowly, their faces pointing down to their feet and ignoring Gregorian’s groans as he writhed on the ground, trying to release the ties on his wrists.
The boys looked up slowly, clearly terrified at what they expected to see: their nemesis. Nothing!
“You’re for it now,” snarled Crasper. Nostramus was taking up the threat.
Gregorian lay prone on the ground, his wrists as tightly lashed as ever, despite his best efforts to free himself.
“Oh, I think not.” It was definitely a woman’s voice, which rang out.
They looked at each other and turned. A woman! Hah!
“Got your friends have you?” The now more confident young male voice cried out, their new-found bravado on the rise.
“That’s his. Turn slowly. Untie him. Stand him up and put it on his head. This is an order!”
“Make me! Woman! Show yourself.” It was as close as it could have been to becoming Nostramus last words. For years later in life, he would have the same nightmare: a soft twang echoing across the clearing, something coming directly at him, the hat being torn from his head. He didn’t even have the chance to duck.
Crasper looked on, his jaw dropped and fear invaded his eyes. He looked back behind Nostramus and over the still struggling
Gregorian in the mud. One second the hat had rested at an angle on Nostramus’ head. Then it was fifteen feet away, pinned to the trunk of the beech tree directly behind him. Nostramus lost control and his trousers were suddenly wet and warm. His humiliation was almost complete.
“Oh dear!” the female voice dripped sarcasm. “I missed! Not often that happens.”
The two looked frantically around. Which way to run? They were trapped. In their hesitation, the archer would have easily had the time to reload. One of them might make it up the bank and into the relative safety of the trees. They turned in the opposite direction, knowing they were facing their armed assailant. They saw nothing: trees, bushes, undergrowth. No evidence of a person. They were terrified.
“You’re looking in the wrong direction, boys.” The voice rang out again but now from their left!
How could this be? They looked at each other: their fear of death was absolute, matched almost by the fear of humiliation.
“Start talking. Tell me who was here. Since only you two wretches are left.”
The ringleaders shook their heads. They wouldn’t dare betray the other boys. “It, it was only us.”
“Liar!” the woman’s voice rang out. “Look around you, footprints everywhere.” They decided to make a run for it. One of them would make it to cover. Fifty: fifty. Better odds.
The voice echoed back lazily. “Going to make a run for it? But, before you go, ask yourselves one question. How many of me are there? How many voices have you heard since you cut down your victim?”
Nostramus made a break for it. Arms flailing, he reached the branch of the first tree and was feet from some semblance of safety.
The arrow stopped him mid-flight. It pinned the loose folds of his tunic arm to the branch. It missed his arm itself by inches.
Crasper stood quite still in the middle of the hollow. The arrow had come from the opposite end of the clearing to the voice. He fell to his knees and wept. His whole body shook in fear. Nostramus frantically tried to free himself, to no avail.
“Boys, I wonder if you’ve learned your lesson?” The voice was much closer.
How could this be? they wondered silently and separately in total trepidation.
Leaves rustled and a branch was pulled back. A hand, a woman’s hand! Nostramus could see it clearly.
Crasper cried out: “There!” He pointed. A tall black cloak emerged, a long bow held to the left, arrow in place and pointing downwards.
“Don’t be fearful. Just be very afraid! There’s no escape.”..
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