The Executioner's Daughter (10 page)
Read The Executioner's Daughter Online
Authors: Laura E. Williams
Much later, she heard her father's booted feet approach the door. When it swung open, she rose and stared at him hard. For so many years the executioner had only been a dark figure in her nightmares, but now he was standing before her. And yet, she loved him.
He removed his gloves and placed them on their high shelf. He took a step toward her, holding out his hands. They were strong and wide. No blood stained the skin. She forced herself to take them.
As her father opened his mouth to say something, Lily blurted out, “I must go. I am leaving.”
Will slowly closed his mouth. He withdrew his hands and filled a tankard of ale. “Where would you go?”
“I don't know. Somewhere ⦠some place where no one knows who I am. Some place I can learn more about healing.”
“'Tis what your mother prayed for. What she dreamed of.”
“But what of you?” Lily couldn't help asking. “What will you do? How will you manage? Perhaps I should stay.” The words left her mouth before she could stop them.
“You must go.”
“But who will assist you?”
Her father refilled his drink. “I will find an apprentice, the son of an executioner from another town.”
“But who willâ”
“Enough! You will go away from here. Gather your things and leave.” He turned away from her and said over his shoulder, “You are no longer any use to me. I do not want you here.”
The cruel words bit deep. Tears blurred her way as she hurried to secure a few belongings, including the mortar and pestle her father had given her, and her mother's finely carved comb. She tied it all into a bundle she could carry on a stick over her shoulder.
“Be gone,” her father insisted when she stood uncertainly before him. He turned his face away. “Go.”
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Lily fled, running away from her father and from her own betrayal. Even as she ran, she knew she should have stayed.
Without realizing where she was going, she soon found herself beside her mother's grave. Lily dropped her bundle and sprawled next to the stone.
She cried for a long time, hearing her father's words over and over again.
I do not want you here.
She would have preferred piercing arrows or stinging stones to those words.
Lily gasped. Words like stones. He had purposely struck her with evil words. He had chased her away because he loved her, just as she had done with the fox. She could return to her father and likely he would welcome her home, but that was not to be her fate. Her destiny lay beyond this forest and down a distant road she'd never seen, barely even dared imagine. Like the fisherman in her mother's dream, her father had set her free. And this time she was not running away but running toward her future.
Will stretched away from the trestle table, leaning his head back to relieve the tension in his neck. Each year it became more and more difficult to hunch over his herbs and concoctions.
He ambled outside, enjoying the fresh spring air. Without even thinking on it, he headed into the forest. In the two and a half years that Lily had been gone, he had found much solace beside his wife's grave. The path to her marker was well worn by now, but even in the dark he could have found it, the way was so familiar.
When he reached the graveside, he did not notice anything amiss at first. The gentle mound of earth had flattened over time, but he kept the area clear of dead leaves and undergrowth. He often brought flowers or willow branches to rest against the headstone. This time he had nothing to offer.
Not until he knelt beside the stone did he see the cross. It was the size of a child's finger, made of silver with intricate carvings along the edges. It hung from a delicate chain. Someone had draped the chain over the stone. Intertwined within the small loops of the chain were several feathers from a dove's breast.
Lily.
The grief overwhelmed him. Even right after she had left, he hadn't felt such a painful wrenching of his heart. The tears came without warning. Flooding his eyes. Filling his nose. Tears he had been saving his entire life, ever since he'd been a boy, teased and taunted and chased away. The executioner's son.
He gently touched the gleaming cross. The feathers fluttered with the movement. Lily was well. She had left the cross, he knew, to tell him so.
As his tears abated, he imagined his daughter in some distant part of the land, healing and soothing as Allyce used to do. Carefully, he lifted the cross from its resting place and hung the chain around his neck. He would keep Lily's gift next to his heart, where it would be safe.
I've always been interested in medieval times. As a child living in Belgium, my family toured many of Europe's castles. The ancient, thick stone walls and turrets, and the dank dungeons never failed to stimulate my imagination. I became a princess or a knight in shining armor. I battled dragons and always won.
My interest in medieval life never faded. As I grew up, I continued to travel and visit castles. They still held a magical appeal for me, but I also grew very aware of the darker side of the Middle Ages such as the pestilence, the harsh laws, the famine, the battles. The more I learned about what life was like back then, the more I wanted to know.
The Middle Ages ran from around
A.D
. 450 to
A.D
. 1500. During this more than one-thousand-year span, England went through many cultural changes. In the earlier years, England was in transition from life under Roman rule to life under the influence of invading Angles and Saxons (from the coasts of Denmark and Germany). Then, in 1066, William, from Normandy, invaded and conquered England, thus giving him the name William the Conqueror.
Soon, England thrived, and the period known as the High Middle Ages began. New towns sprouted up; the merchant class could now afford luxuries such as elaborate wall hangings and glass windows instead of oiled cloth. The population was expanding, so more food had to be produced with the help of newly designed farming equipment. Soaring cathedrals and solid castles were built, many of which remain standing today. It was a time of growth and prosperity, except for the peasant class, which toiled from dawn till dusk.
Although many aspects of life were quite civilized, there was a hauntingly barbaric sideâthe punishment of criminals was far less humane than it is today. Thieves had their hands cut off; liars often had their tongues removed; criminals were tortured on the rack or the wheel. Yet everyone accepted this, for the most part, as a way of life.
Punishments were seen as a good deterrent against future crimes, and the criminals were portrayed as sinners who deserved to be humiliated, tortured, or executed. Children attended the executions with the rest of the townsfolk. There was much shouting against the condemned person and cheering for the executioner. And once the convict was killed, he was often left on display for people to see as a gruesome reminder not to sin.
Once the idea for this novel came to me, I started to do research into an executioner's life. On a summer vacation to Europe with my family, we visited the medieval town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany, and at the Kriminalmuseum I came across an intriguing book called
Criminal Justice Through the Ages,
which described the life of an executioner in a medieval town. Because his job was to kill for a living, people were both frightened and disgusted by him. As a result, the executioner was not allowed to attend church, drink in pubs, or fraternize in any way with others. And that was true for his family as well.
Many executioners inherited their job from their father, or were criminals themselves, given the job of executioner only to save their lives. Some were alcoholics, unable to bear what they were doing, but condemned to the profession nonetheless.
Because there were usually few executions each year, the executioner made extra money by working other jobs such as driving lepers from town and cleaning sewage cesspools. Or, as in Lily's father's case, by becoming a healer. There was a mystical aura surrounding the executioner. So much so, that people would visit him secretly for medicine, which they felt held more potency. Some believed that the rope used to hang criminals had special healing powers that only the executioner could pass on by way of his concoctions.
As I discovered more about the executioner's family “curse,” I felt it was important to portray Lily as an outcast, as she truly would have been in 1450, the approximate date this story takes place. I imagined that life would have been extremely difficult for Lily, given her circumstances. But, like other women of her time who became leaders and surgeons and defended castles, I wanted Lily to choose to fight against her destinyâto rise above her fate.
Laura E. Williams
is the author of
Up a Creek
and
Behind the Bedroom Wall,
which was named a Jane Addams Peace Award Honor Book. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
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Contents
Henry Holt and Company, LLC
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Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Copyright © 2000 by Laura E. Williams. All rights reserved.
Published in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8186-2 / ISBN-10: 0-8050-8186-0 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-6234-2 / ISBN-10: 0-8050-6234-3
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First published in hardcover in 2000 by Henry Holt and Company
First paperback edition, 2007
eISBN 9781250128751
First eBook edition: May 2016