« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2020, 07:12:38 PM »
Léopold Tremblay, Baron de Choisy
(720 - 773 BC)
"I need you to be strong, Marcelite. For me. For the children."
His wife swallowed audibly, offering a small and uncertain nod. She then returned to my brother and I, giving us both an anxious smile in an attempt to console us. It lasted all of ten seconds; five more seconds would pass, and my mother started to break down. Our arms curled around our mother's weeping form, embracing her but also attempting to shield her from the cold and uncaring world.
A portly man in a blue coat that marked him as a part of Chateaufaux's Gendarmerie shouted at us from down the long corridor to 'get a move on'. My brother looked over his shoulder at the voice's source, his expression one of contempt. Sensing what might follow, I hurried everyone along before my brother got to experience what the butt of a musket might feel like against his jaw.
The large wooden door slowly creaked open, revealing a throng of men and women, some immaculately-dressed in silks and others wearing more frugal attire. Some were short and others were stocky, some were tall and lanky; all, however, bore sneers and looks of disdain. Insults and jeers came from the crowd, directed at him and at us. My father did not pay them any heed, walking towards his own death with his head held high.
We were led to a small booth adjacent the public square surrounded by gendarmes. They wanted us to watch.
A small man with bushy eyebrows unfurled a scroll and began to read from it in a dull and dispassionate tone. "Léopold of House Tremblay, Baron de Choisy. Found guilty of aiding and abetting the enemies of the Serene Republic, the traitorous Covenant. Today, we are gathered to carry out his sentence... execution by guillotine."
Cheers erupted from a crowd eager for their bloodlust to be sated. I saw familiar faces that fateful day. Those who I had once thought my friends were there in the crowd, screaming out in excitement, losing any and all pretense of civility.
"Don't just stop with him, kill them all!"
"Oui! Deal with the swamp-dwellers, too!"
I looked to them for a few moments longer, and then I turned my gaze elsewhere. To some far-off point away from all the pain I felt, away from what was about to happen...
I feel guilty, even now, about not actually watching it. I only heard it. I heard the blade of the guillotine falling down, and then next, my mother's blood-curdling scream. I made the mistake of returning my gaze forward and thus saw my father's headless body and an all-too-familiar face staring back at me from within the basket it rested in. It was my turn to break down.
I wept, and I just kept on weeping as they led us all back to our cells. I lie down on the bed and close my eyes, still soaking wet, hoping that I wake up and it carries me to another place. Another time.
It is inside the Governor's Hotel. It is 775 BC.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2020, 07:14:25 PM by Better Dread than Dead »
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