The Courtney Series - 09 - Birds of Prey by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780312963811
Published: 1998-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

The next day dawned in a cloudless sky. Although the air was chill the sun was brilliant and the wind had dropped. From the scaffold Hal watched the closed door to the dungeons. Daniel stayed close by his side; in taking Hal’s share of the work on his broad shoulders he was shielding him from Barnard’s lash.

When Slow John came through the gates and crossed the courtyard to the armoury, with his measured undertaker’s tread, Hal stared down at him with stricken eyes. Suddenly, as he passed below the scaffold, Hal snatched up the heavy mason’s hammer that lay on the planking at his feet and lifted it to hurl it down and crush the executioner’s skull. But Daniel’s great fist closed around his wrist. He eased the hammer from Hal’s grip, as though he were taking a toy from a child, and placed it on top of the wall beyond his reach.

‘Why did you do that?’ Hal protested. ‘I could have killed the swine.’

‘To no purpose,’ Daniel told him, with compassion. ‘You cannot save Sir Francis by killing an underling. You would sacrifice your own life and achieve nothing by it. They would simply send another to your father.’

Manseer brought Sir Francis up from the dungeons. He could not walk unaided on his broken bandaged feet, but his head was high as they dragged him across the courtyard.

‘Father!’ Hal screamed, in torment. ‘I cannot let this happen.’

Sir Francis looked up at him, and called in a voice just loud enough to reach him on the high wall, ‘Be strong, my son. For my sake, be strong.’ Manseer forced him down the steps below the armoury.

The day was long, longer than any that Hal had ever lived through, and the north side of the courtyard was in deep shadow when at last Slow John re-emerged from below the armoury.

‘This time I will kill the poisonous swine,’ Hal blurted, but again Daniel held him in a grip that he could not shake off as the executioner walked slowly beneath the scaffold and out through the castle gates.

Hop came scampering into the courtyard, his face ghastly. He summoned the Company surgeon and the two men disappeared once more down the stairs. This time the soldiers brought out Sir Francis on a litter.

‘Father!’ Hal shouted down to him, but there was neither reply nor sign of life in response.

‘I have warned you often enough,’ Hugo Barnard bellowed at him. He strode out onto the boards and laid half a dozen whip strokes across his back. Hal made no attempt to avoid the blows, and Barnard stepped back astonished that he showed no pain. ‘Any more of your imbecile chattering, and I will put the dogs onto you,’ he promised, as he turned away. Meanwhile, in the courtyard, the Company surgeon watched gravely as the soldiers carried Sir Francis’s unconscious form down to his cell. Then, accompanied by Hop, he set off for the Governor’s suite on the south side of the courtyard.

Van de Velde looked up in irritation from the papers that littered his desk.

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