CHAPTER TEN
On the following day, word had gone to all the citizens of Phoride, calling them to the town's square to observe the execution of a high official, set for sundown. The high official's name was not given.
Most of the men and their male children had obeyed, what was a command to attend. Knowing well, who the unnamed official was to be executed, all but a few of the Prominants had left their wives at home.
That was a direct symbol of their disobedience towards the ArchBishop.
Manguino had not regarded the petition sent to him asking for a pardon, for Brook, based on the Canon's Law and its declared punishment.
No one believed the allegations towards Brook and his wife, but they could do nothing to help him. There were many monastic guards watching the whole city and they had made it very difficult for any large groups of men to meet and talk.
At sundown, large numbers gathered in the square and waited.
They all looked at the two spreader-arches set on a platform, about a meter high, to one side of a large podium and the entire square took on the appearance of a theatre stage.
There was an uneasy silence there. With all the men and boys crowded together, the silence had an almost unnatural aura to it. Nothing was said.
Soon, several messeigneurs and cardinals came out of nowhere with the ArchBishop. Three walked on each side of him, as if guarding him from approach, and each man carried a club with spikes protruding from them, and Manguino carried a scroll of parchment enveloped by a black lash.
Everyone in the crowd watched as the ArchBishop approached the podium and the others swung their clubs from side to side.
Lloyd and Boyce watched the event also. They hid themselves in the shadows of an alley and were able to see the entire square without revealing their presence.
Manguino was apparelled in a festive garb as were his men, and when they reached the podium, they helped him up the steps to it.
He grinned and spoke.
"People of Phoride! — We are all gathered together this day to rid the earth of two blasphemers who think themselves above the law." he shrieked to them.
Boyce was becoming anxious. He wanted to leave but he knew that he couldn't. What's more, Lloyd forced him to stay. He knew that it was cruel to make a child witness his parents' execution but Lloyd hoped that Boyce would understand why Brook allowed it all to happen.
"He's the one that should be killed." Boyce said to Lloyd, trying to keep his tears from showing. They listened to Manguino carry on.
"The Almighty cannot allow any insubordination towards himself and the institution that he created for you all. These two will be made an example of. You all will see to what an end disobedience results!"
He slid the black lash off from the scroll and unfurled it.
"Bring the demons!" ordered Manguino.
Several of his men walked over to the platform and slid a door open and dragged Brook and Dearborne from it, and pulled them to the foot of the podium. When before Manguino they forced Brook and Dearborne to their knees but they stood up immediately. They would not kneel and after several times of their being forced to kneel, and their rejection to comply, they were permitted to stand.
Manguino glared at them and gave them an Evil little grin. He proceeded to read the scroll to the public.
"The former-ruling Lord of Phoride, Brook Scullion-Blue, and his wife, the Lady Dearborne Scullion-Blue, have been found guilty of possession of ancient, sacrilegious manuscripts, and of pictures of Hell." he paused for a moment then proceeded. "In refusing blessing from men of the Almighty, and the performing of sorcery, leading to the subsequent death of the High-Cardinal Allen — they are now charged with practising their subversions against the Canon Laws and the citizenry of Phoride."
The people were quiet and most had tears in their eyes, and they all knew that everything that was said about their Lord Sovereign was not true. Yet, they could do nothing for the square was too well-guarded.
Brook gave a longing look to Dearborne. Both knew what was upon them and they both
knew that they could not change what was happening to them.
They felt dead, already. They were both beaten very badly. They were scarred and bruised and Dearborne's body was violated by each and every coenobite, hurting her to the point where she could hardly walk, or even stand.
Their faces were pale and drawn with blackish-blue rings circling their protruding eyes. Both were dressed in torn and dirty course-woven sackcloth.
Both were made to smell bad, having excrement, from Halls, thrown over them and large insects, and vermin of every kind, crawled all over them.
But now, after nearly twenty-four hours of severe torture, they could no longer scream out in horror of their state of being.
"They pleaded innocent to all their charges. In lack of their confession to these charges, they are found to be guilty and I now pronounce my sentence upon them!" Manguino tried to keep from smiling to himself, his ego inflated with pride at the idea of judging his respected brother.
Miel and Cassta were in the crowd. They looked-on and tried to see some way to help them but there was absolutely no way to do so. Too many guards were positioned in all the key places and no one could enter or leave the square now.
"May God help them!" Cassta exclaimed and Miel pulled on his shirt to quiet him.
"Before I pronounce sentence, you may speak!" Manguino told Brook.
Brook looked up at him with huge blood-shot eyes, then turned to the people. He lifted his bound hands into the air as a gesture of plea.
"I do not accept the kneeling of one man to another, since no man is so deserving." he cried out to the people, and circling above the square was a large swallow that was loudly singing. He
kneeled before Dearborne as he still spoke to the people in his loudest possible voice. "But I do kneel before this dear woman because her love had made her brave and she accepted my woes onto herself." he cried out and there was a gasp from those in the audience.
He stood again and took a few steps forward.
"Stay true, my friends of Phoride. I now die but my lineage is not following me in death."
There was a murmur in the audience and Manguino became nervous and started to look worried.
The swallow that circled overhead was now on the ground behind the people; and Boyce watched with Lloyd, as it turned into a man, dressed in robes of chamois material. They watched him move into the crowd.
"Yes, my brother, Manguino. If you truly were a god, you would know that there is, indeed, a progeny between my wife and I. We have kept him from all the eyes of Pomperaque and he will soon avenge our death! You, Manguino — you have committed the crime!"
"Enough!" Manguino screamed out an order, aimed at Brook.
"Burn in Hell, Devil incarnate!" Manguino began to enter into a fit when he heard this from Brook. The people were also disturbed by it.
Most of the people that were in the crowd didn't know what this Devil was, but those that did know explained that it was the name of a legendary Being who was the ultimate Evil, and was actually Evil itself.
Manguino was shocked to realise that so many knew of Devil. That was forbidden knowledge and it wasn't taught at the Blaisaman. 'How?', he wondered?
He motioned with his hand at Brook and several of the guards grabbed him and Dearborne
and spread both out, on the spreader-arches, making the wrists-bonds tight to the point of drawing blood from them.
Boyce began to tear, as Lloyd held to his arms.
"Even now your father is instilling doubt in the Phoridene's minds about the ArchBishop! Your uncle will be obsessed with fright for a long time!"
Suddenly from behind Lloyd came a hand and a hiss of air. He turned around quickly, ready to defend his and Boyce's life, if need be, and saw that it was Empal.
"It's dangerous to stay here any longer, my friends!" Empal said to them.
"A moment!" demanded Boyce and Lloyd nodded in agreement.
"Alright, but if I could find you here, anyone can!"
They understood but they, nevertheless, stayed longer.
Although the Angels were brutal with Brook he continued to yell to the crowd.
"Look at your Almighty now, my people. See him squirm in his discomfort. See that he is only a man, and nothing more. Do not submit to his will. Unite against him or he will destroy you!" Brook struggled as he yelled, shaking the entire arch to which he was tied.
"Enough!" screamed Manguino, hoarsely. "You have said enough … and that is enough from you!" his incoherency weakened his control.
He raised his hands to them and the Angels ripped the stinking sackcloth from their victims' bodies and began to bludgeon them.
The mob's voices died down and all were dumbfounded, as they beheld the torture.
"Prepare execution!" cried Manguino. "For their transgressions of
Canon Laws, I now pronounce the only sentence possible on these two —
DEATH TO THESE SINNERS!" he yelled.
The crowd was mute. They watched Brook's and Dearborne's naked bodies writhe and convulse in pain as they bled from huge wounds made on their bodies by the Angels' studded gauntlets and the messeigneur's spiked clubs.
There were a few women within the audience who fainted from what they saw and many had slowly begun to walk away. They refused to watch their best and most beloved leader slain by someone whom they didn't understand, or like very much.
"Remember this day, people of Phoride." Brook forced himself to say as he began to lose his breath, then with his last ounce of strength he blessed them all. "May the True Living God have mercy on you all!"
He stopped struggling from his stretched out bondage and watched
Manguino raise his hand, then drop it.
The Angels had raised their electrophoric weapons and when Manguino dropped his hand, an eternal twang echoed throughout the land. Brook's and Dearborne's bodies trembled and shook violently then, in a short order, just hung there swinging back and forth.
"Quickly, now. We must leave!" urged Empal and they finally made their way across town, heading north to the Joenine Forest where Empal had left his Kenttitian Eagle.
Manguino stayed at the podium for a while and gloated over the dead bodies of his rival brother and his lovely wife. With him were several of the guards and messeigneurs, waiting to escort him back to the cathedral.
Soon, a large figure approached him and began to speak to him.
"I had foreseen this event!" said the man.
Manguino looked over at the man and he became pale, as if he just died.
"Jessuum Benitar!" exclaimed Manguino. "Why are you here, I haven't seen you since … since Smith's death."
"My mourning for your father is over. I now mourn for Brook." Manguino climbed down from the podium and cautiously and shyly approached him. Jessuum continued. "What had occurred here today, my little man, will never be forgotten. You have done something that will never leave you, and I see the eventuality and inevitability of vengeance."
The ArchBishop began to fall over his words but then slowly said what was on his mind.
"Then tell me, Seer, you are prophetic — who and where is Brook's offspring?" Manguino waited eagerly for Jessuum's reply.
"I cannot tell you directly and you know this. All I can do is dream and you must decide what it means to you." he said.
"Tell me, then!" he demanded from Jessuum and he tipped his head showing that would consent to an answer. He began to chant.
"There is a man on a trek to a place
Where the sky is touched by
A legendary grace.
There the little one learns to face
His long road back, uniting the world
In its promised Peace!"
Jessuum broke from his stare and slowly turned, and looked back at the
Almighty ArchBishop.
"That's all for now, I must depart!" he told Manguino then began to walk away.
"Wait!" squealed the ArchBishop. "Why do you leave?"
"Patience is a quality that you are not endowed with. How unfortunate!
I will be near, when I am needed!"
Jessuum walked away from the ArchBishop headed for no place in particular.