The Time Roads by Beth Bernobich

Author:Beth Bernobich
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2014-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

THE TIME ROADS

FEBRUARY 1914

The execution took place on the seventeenth of February, at one o’clock on a cold dank afternoon. Clouds masked the skies. Snow drizzled downward in fits and starts. It caught in the crevasses between the stones of the palace. It blew in runnels over the tiled yard and blurred the outer walls, so that the world appeared a smudged and dirty gray.

I stood on a balcony overlooking the yard. My senior guards flanked me. More guards lined the square, all of them dressed in long woolen cloaks and fur-lined hats, their rifles held across their chests. My minister of home affairs, whose responsibilities included the Anglian Dependencies, stood behind me. He and I and all these soldiers would bear witness to the death of Thomas Alan Austen, the man who had tried to assassinate me.

Nine days ago, Austen had fired a rifle from the rooftop overlooking the steps of Osraighe’s cathedral. Chance alone had saved me—a remark from a companion that caught my attention and caused me to turn away. The bullet had grazed my neck and shattered the wooden doors of the cathedral. Austen had fired three more bullets and killed two of my guards, before he fled. The Garda had captured him before he could escape the city.

My half-healed wounds from that attempt ached in the cold. I had not wanted to give Austen the honor of a formal execution. My ministers, and especially Lord Ó Cadhla, had advised me otherwise. Out of respect for Lord Ó Cadhla’s long service—to my father and to me—and knowing he never opposed me without reason, I had agreed.

The iron gate swung open, and four guards marched the prisoner into the courtyard. Thomas Austen was a small, bent man, dressed in black trousers, a black smock, and black cloth slippers, already wet from the snow. He was bound with chains at his wrists and ankles, so that he could not do more than shuffle toward his death. For a moment, I almost pitied the man.

Then he lifted his gaze to mine. His eyes narrowed. His lips parted in silent laughter, turning the air silver with his breath.

My pity vanished.

You are a bold man, Thomas Austen, to look at me that way.

A guard took hold of Austen’s arm and bent close to the man’s ear, no doubt urging him to show respect. Austen said something in reply and the guard smiled.

A dangerous man, said the reports from my Constabulary. Much loved in his homeland for his courage and his intellect. He had dedicated his life to the cause of Anglian independence.

The procession, delayed only momentarily, continued forward to the solitary wooden post at the far end of the courtyard. The post itself was a relic from my grandfather’s day, when Anglia and the other Dependencies fought more vigorously against our rule. Even then, it had been reserved for political prisoners of some importance. During my father’s reign, most convictions ended with imprisonment or exile. The last criminal whose death I witnessed here was Lord Alastar De Paor.

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