THE TRIAL OF A LOUP-GAROU
by
James Lee
Copyright 2010
Staring fiercely down at Jean from the dais overlooking the cobbled courtyard, the magistrate spoke clearly and forcefully in his official baritone so that all could hear and pay heed. He carefully spoke his weighty pronouncement in precise, clipped speech. “Jean Broceliande, do you understand that your hideous crimes and sorceries were duly proved beyond question?”
Jean cleared this throat and replied quietly, “Yes, my lord.”
Although tied hand and foot and flanked by sword-wielding guards as he faced the dais, Jean furtively searched the crowd of onlookers for Marguerite. He did not see her.
“Jean Broceliande, bastard of a shamed priest, you were treated most leniently, given the utmost clemency, in the previous proceeding, were you not?” The magistrate gave him no chance to respond. “Taking your youth and extreme ignorance into consideration, you were ordered enclosed at the Friary of St. Michael the Archangel and warned that any attempt at escape would mean the gallows. Scarcely three months thence did you flee your lawful confinement.”
Jean thought of Marguerite’s stealthy visit and her news of his child growing within her. He had had to leave. He hadn’t considered the risk of it. What else could he have done? A man must take care of his family. No child of Jean’s would grow to maturity in hunger and mistreatment like its father before it.
Jean did not remain free long enough to penetrate the forest. Taken to the conciergerie, he hoped Versipellis had spoken truly when he said only a silver blade wielded by a loved one, a unicorn’s horn, or burning could kill him. No one in the village loved him, even if silver weapons were available. Nor could anyone here have the horn. In addition to that, the postponed sentence was the rope. Aside from a possible hemp burn and some other minor discomforts, Jean had nothing to fear from the gallows.
At last his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of Marguerite. She was not big enough with child yet to reveal her condition. Otherwise she would attract too much attention in the village by showing herself. She patted her belly and smiled when her eyes caught his. Why did she smile? Of course. She must have remembered that hanging, while likely painful, would not harm him. After the puny attempt to take his life, the shock of his survival would provide the perfect distraction for escape to his home in the forest.
“Jean Broceliande, having freely confessed to being a loup-garou, and, while in the human form, having taken a male child of most tender age and having drunk its blood and later eating of its flesh, notwithstanding it was a Friday, caused your confinement to the aforementioned monastery.
“Wherefore, this most high and honorable court having carefully considered the plea of the prosecutor, and having made full inquisition into all depositions and interrogatories touching this present case as well as duly weighing the full and free confessions of the accused, not affirmed and deposed once but many times, unambiguously reiterated, acknowledged and avowed, doth now proceed to deliver sentence.”
How much longer would that ruddy old man drone on and on? Carry out the hanging and be done with it. His family needed him in the forest. Jean struggled to swallow a taunting laugh at their petty hangman’s game. Did they not know his power? Could they not see the futility of trying to execute Jean Broceliande, Squire to the Black Lord of the Ancient Forest of Wotan?
The magistrate continued his pompous litany. “Twice you have sinned against God and the King’s peace, Jean Broceliande. However, no man or boy can die more than once. Reluctantly, this court must compromise this impossibility by setting aside the overly humane death by the noose. A sentence more fitting to your heinous crimes and sorceries, and your arrogance resulting from your previous, inappropriately merciful, punishment must be imposed.
“This most high and honorable court doth now proceed to once more deliver sentence. The accused, Jean Broceliande, shall be handed over to the Master Executioner of High Justice. The accused, said Jean Broceliande, shall be drawn upon a hurdle from this very place unto the customary place of execution where he shall be burned alive and his body reduced to ashes.”
An exultant roar came from the crowd. Jean saw Marguerite scream and faint as two guards gripped his arms and more joined them.
Piously crossing himself, the magistrate dipped a quill, signed a document, and continued, “Given and confirmed in this court in the present year of grace, fifteen hundred and seventy.”
As though finishing a letter to a casual acquaintance, he blew on the parchment and shook the little canister of sand over it to speed the drying of the ink before affixing his wax seal. He didn’t even look at Jean when the guards cheerfully pulled by the ankles and lower legs him over the cobblestones and dirt to the hurdle. Jean craned his neck upward, trying to keep the back of his head raised off the bouncing ground. The onlookers had a grand time pelting him with stones and taking swipes with sticks. The guards apparently enjoyed themselves, too, especially when the dragging caused a particularly effective scrape, cut, or bump.
Jean almost had a sense of relief when he arrived at the hurdle. It was a crudely constructed wooden cage mounted on a ramshackle flat wagon. The swayback horse hitched to it looked old and tired. It lazily swished its tail at the swarms of flies and tried to shake them from its head and scraggly mane. Jean wondered with a cynical smirk if he would outlive the nag pulling him to his end.
Several men stuffed him into the pen. People danced about throwing rocks and good-naturedly jostling each other. The dry, splintering wooden bars offered little protection, but it was better than the short trip from the magistrate to the hurdle. With a harsh command and whip-crack, the wagon began its slow, creaking, and rattling journey to the killing place.
The swelling crowd easily kept pace with the worn-out horse pulling the hurdle. The event swiftly became a major village festival. Jean heard a pipe and small drum enliven the procession. He vainly listened for Marguerite’s lute.
It was a dream. It had to be a dream. How could all this be happening to poor, simple Jean? Lying on his belly to give the rock throwers a smaller target, Jean turned his face to peer between the bars. How could all these people be so happy about someone’s death? Why did they crave it so? Why revel in cruelty to another person? Did watching the agony of others suck away some of their own for a short while?
The confused boy would never know.
Eventually the hurdle abruptly stopped. When the men pulled him from the cage, Jean gawked at the great pile of pitch-splattered wood and stout post. He couldn’t look at anything else.
No, this was no dream.
The magnitude of his sudden fear prevented his saying anything or crying out. He barely felt being dragged across the dirt. His gaze scanned the onlookers. They seemed more quiet now, almost subdued in their grim anticipation. Some averted their eyes from the devil servant dressed in louse-infested rags. Others simply stared, slack-jawed in their wonderment. Some laughed and drank. Some crossed themselves.
Jean thought of Marguerite at the pond near the sheep pasture on that wonderful, beautiful day when his life had truly begun. In his terrified daze, Jean tried to block out all thoughts of anything but Marguerite, Marguerite and the child he would never know.
Several burly men jerked him to his feet to lash him to the stake. It stood two or three hand breadths taller than himself. A wide leather strap went around his neck and the post. A gravelly voice at his ear advised, “This thing strangles you, if we have a mind to do that, or it can just hold your head in place. Wringing your neck puts you out of your misery nice and early when you deserve some mercy, but you don’t deserve no mercy.” Jean wondered how the man could strangle him in the flames without being burned himself. His thought was interrupted by that same gravelly voice. “We aim to see to it that you suffer real good. Thought you would want to know, lad,” the man chortled.
Jean refused to look at the oaf so enjoying his participation in the death festival, but he could smell the stale wine and onions on his breath. His joyful tormentor continued while tying a wet cloth over his victim’s mouth and nose, “This will keep you from choking to death on your own smoke so you can last a little longer in the flames. This way the townsfolk can get the benefit of a few more of your screams. We’re going to enjoy that.”
Jean almost thanked the man for blocking his putrid breath odor with the wet rag.
“We will do our best to prolong your hell right here on God’s earth as long as we can before you look old Lucifer in the face for an even longer agony.”
Jean tried to ignore all else to look out over the growing crowd and watch a cloud gently floating in the distance. He had always enjoyed gazing up at clouds, especially the big, fluffy ones. Letting his daydreams drift along with the clouds had been a pleasant escape from being taunted as a halfwit, from Papa’s beatings, and Mama’s melancholy—and from the constant hunger. The clouds had always been peaceful puffs of hope above the squalor and pain of day-to-day existence. He closed his eyes and smiled.
A voice intruded with its formal, oratorical proclamation: “Jean Broceliande, Servant of Satan, loup-garou, bastard of a priest, and foul eater of children, it is the judgment of this most high and honorable court of our sovereign, Charles the Ninth, that you be burned and your body totally reduced to ashes. What say you?”
Not really in response to the ceremonial question, Jean cried out as loudly as he could through the rag on his face, “Marguerite!” He thought he heard a familiar weeping in the distance, but did he hear it with his ears or his heart?
He strained to ignore the approach of the men with the torches. An expectant hush fell over the crowd. The fire blossomed. The mob cheered. The flames licked up his legs in a malevolent caress. The pain bit into him. Rippling slices closed over his body. He could hear the sizzling pops and smell the acrid aroma of his own roasting meat. He refused the futile impulse to scream for mercy. He refused to give them the pleasure of his fear. Worthless Jean Broceliande would leave this world with the only thing he truly possessed: his dignity. He may have been dull-witted and barely more than a boy, but he could hold his head high and exit like a man.
Then the howling began.
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