The Executioner.

by Frank Riley.

"... Continued fair weather and the unusual circ.u.mstances of the execution promise a turn-away crowd of more than 100,000 spectators by Court time. All unreserved tent s.p.a.ce has been sold out for several days. Next news at...."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Sir Jacques de Carougne, Lord High Executioner for the Seventh Judicial District, spun the dial on the instrument panel of his single-seater rocket, but the vidcasts were over for another hour. He cursed, without too much vigor, and wished he had troubled to look at a vidcast or faxpaper during his vacation. But then he shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders.

What did it matter? After a thousand executions, everything was instinct and reflex. Some died hard; some died easy. Some fell to their knees, too paralyzed with fear to fire their own shots. Others fought daringly, even with a degree of skill, but always the end was the same: A broken body bleeding and twitching in the dust; the blood-happy spectators shrieking in the ecstacy of release from the humdrum of their pushb.u.t.ton lives; the flowers, the scented kerchiefs and the shreds of torn garments showered on him by screaming women, who always seemed to find him more satisfactory in the arena than in his tent.

As the skyline of New Chicago shimmered into view, Jacques flipped on the 'copter mechanism. His air speed braked, and the needle-nosed little craft drifted lazily down the eastern sh.o.r.e of Lake Michigan, then veered westward over the tinted gla.s.s rooftops of the spotless city.

Jacques stared glumly down at the city that had been so much a part of his life, from the long-ago years of his training and youth to the professional years of his most famous executions.

Farther to the west, out beyond the eternally green landscaping and the precise, functional homes of the residential suburbs, Jacques saw the crude stone parapets of the Chauvency judicial arena, surrounded by acre after acre of colorful tents and pavilions.

His powerful, jutting nose wrinkled with disgust, but his eyes widened at the number of tents. There must indeed be something unusual about today's execution. He hadn't worked before that big a crowd for years.

The Federal Bureau of Internal Tranquility should be happy about this one!

Jacques sighed, still struggling against the despondency that had been within him since the vacation interlude with the brunette government worker in Curacao had ended as unsatisfactorily as all the rest. Someday it would be his body bleeding in the dust, smashed at last by the soft-nosed bullets from Le Pistolet du Mort. Then the flowers and adulation would go to the condemned man, and the Bureau would add his name to the plaque at the base of the towering statue on the Washington Mall. So be it. He had played a long roll of the dice, and the stakes had been high. But if only once, just once before it ended....

The bell on his instrument panel told him that the servo-pilot in the tower below had taken over for the landing. He sniffed with disgust again, but this time the disgust was for himself. G.o.d, but he was in a foul humor today! He released the controls and stared at his strong hands, grimly admiring them. There was still speed as well as strength in these fingers. His lips twisted into a thin smile, cold and confident. Whoever he was to meet at joute a l'outrance, let him try to match twenty years of training and skill!

His rocket cradled with scarcely a jar into the small landing s.p.a.ce at the north end of the arena, between the two replicas of 15th century towers, reproduced so faithfully by 22nd century technicians. Jacques squeezed his huge frame through the door of the small craft and looked dourly around. A squire, in scarlet leggings and tunic, his long black wig slightly askew, came running toward him and knelt three paces away, as prescribed by the Judicial Code of Heraldry.

"Oh, sire!" he panted, "Thanks be that ye have arrived! The hour is well past noonday, and we had begun to fear...."

"Time enough," Jacques growled. He gestured impatiently, and the squire clambered to his feet, bowing again.

"This way, your Lordship!"

The squire led him to the lower room in the north tower. It was the usual room of monastic simplicity--whitewashed stone walls, a single window, two wooden benches and a low couch on which his garments for the occasion had been carefully arrayed. After the execution, he would be moved to his black silk tent in the center of the camping grounds.

While the squire fluttered around him, eager to be of help, Jacques removed his short-sleeved dacron shirt, kicked off his sandals and stepped out of the comfortable shorts he always wore for traveling. The squire gaped with awe at the sight of his muscular body.

"M'Lord, truly thou art a powerful man!"

Jacques looked down at him with mixed contempt and amus.e.m.e.nt. The squire was a thin, pale little man, with the pinched look of nearsightedness about his eyes. His wig and tunic were much too big for him.

"What do you do, Squire?" Jacques inquired, not unkindly.

The man looked hurt, as if the question reflected somehow on his ability to serve as a squire to the Lord High Executioner.

"Computer development," he muttered. "Resonating pentode circuits." Then he drew himself up defensively, with not a little pride. "But I placed at the top of the list in the Bureau's test for squires!"

"That's fine," Jacques commented drily. "Now hurry, let's see what you learned...."

"Dress him handsomely, Squire!" boomed a taunting voice from the doorway. "Our Lord High Executioner faces a rare challenge this day!"

Jacques recognized the voice of Guy de Archambault, the Court Bailiff, whose bilious nose he intended to grind into the dust one of these fine days. But his anger at the Bailiff's intrusion was overbalanced by curiosity.

"What's all the excitement about?" he demanded. "Who's on the docket, anyway?"

The Bailiff grinned mockingly.

"Forsooth, M'Lord, restrain thy impatience! In the Court's good time wilt ye learn...."

"Oh, knock off that drivel, will you! Court's not in session yet...."

The Bailiff's huge belly shook with laughter.

"Have it your own way, Jacques, m'boy! But in any vernacular the meaning's the same--you're in for quite a surprise, if rumor has it right!"

"Out with it, then! I can see you've been waiting to tell me."

The grin broadened on the Bailiff's puffy lips.

"You can bet your last sou on that! It would have broken my heart not to be the first to tell you...."

Jacques took a threatening step toward him.

"I'll break more than your heart if you don't answer my question...."

"Patience, pa--Oh, all right!" the Bailiff hastily interrupted himself as Jacques took another step in his direction. "You've got a woman to shoot down this time--and that's just half the story!"

Jacques' craggy features hardened into immobility.

"What's the rest of it, fool?"

"There's gossip going around that she's a page out of your past--maybe several pages, or even a whole chapter!"

Jacques leaped the rest of the distance to the door and grabbed the Bailiff by his lace collar, twisting it until his round, fat cheeks swelled and reddened.

"Who is it?"

"L-Lady Ann--of--Coberly!"

Jacques thumped his head against the side of the doorway.

"I told you to knock off that drivel."

"But--but that's all I know--I swear it! I just got here this morning, too, and took a quick peek at the calendar when I heard all the rumors out among the tents...!"

Jacques shoved him out into the hallway, and stalked back into the room.

The Bailiff straightened his collar, but made no move to leave.