(2)

Three days later shortly before sunset, a pair of men armed with spears and covered in armor pushed open the door without warning, yelling complaints about the smell as they scattered furniture in their path.

Cecil had been expecting them to show up sooner or later, but had already decided against trying to resist or run away. Looking like a starved escaped slave, she wouldn’t have been able to spend the couple silvers her uncle had squirreled away, even assuming she wasn’t grabbed off the street by the first guard who spotted her, or stabbed in the stomach by a cutpurse within the hour.

At least inside her own house she could eat and drink all she wanted, ravenously making her way through all the food in the cupboards. She never expected fruit, but the simple chance to eat fresh bread and dried jerky were luxuries.

Without going out to the well to fetch water, cleaning herself properly was impossible, but Cecil had long since given up caring whether the house would stay clean when she was expecting to have her neck on the chopping block before the week was up regardless.

Part of her understood the futility of escaping the city, while another part was simply pleased to have received a chance for petty vengeance, and no longer cared about her own life. A miracle never came twice, and she was satisfied to die now.

And so when the guards came, she greeted them with an empty bottle of spirits, laughing merrily even as they followed the stench upstairs to her uncle’s rotting body.

There was no point hiding or justifying the murder. Everything she said to these soldiers would go in one ear and out the other. No matter what bruises she had or what abuses she drunkenly recounted, their expressions never shifted, until one finally got annoyed and kicked her to get her to stop talking.

Cecil had already seen enough public executions, back before she became that man’s plaything. They didn’t care about the story behind the crime, only that one less orphan would be around to pick pockets after today.

After a few minutes searching the house for anything else of value, and exchanging a couple words between each other, two of them grabbed the oversized shirt she had been wearing as a makeshift dress and tore it off her, leaving Cecil naked to the elements once again.

There was no need to take her out to the guard post and interrogate her. Her guilt was clear as day, so far as they were concerned. With one guard flanking her at each side, they lifted her by the arms and led her outside.

The man at her right began to ring a handbell. Three rings, then a pause. Three more. Indeed, the signal for an execution. A small parade began to form as her naked young body was exhibited for all to see, passersby making their way to the square to watch the show. They parted ways for her and cheered, like she was some kind of hero, and indeed, she was the most famous performer in this moment. For once in her life, dozens, hundreds were turning out to see her die.

In the square was her stage, a set of wooden steps that she was carried up. Convenient, as she was too drunk to even walk. Before her was not the chopping block as she had expected – perhaps hoped – but the gallows. She should have figured they wouldn’t let her die too quickly, she thought with a laugh at her silly misunderstanding.

The one at her left lifted up her lightweight body easily, raising her for all to see clearly. She counted no less than one hundred spectators. A record crowd, tired of watching fat old men hanged, cheering to watch a small girl dance.

Since the guards hadn’t even bothered to tie her hands, she gave them a delighted wave, the heavy dose of alcohol eating away at what shame and sensibility she might have otherwise had.

For several minutes, she was held there, waving, waiting for more to arrive. Eventually, she was set back down underneath the noose and the other soldier began reading out her charges.

For the heinous murder of her beloved uncle, who selflessly took her in to save her from being orphaned.

Cecil giggled, but didn’t bother to say anything. The crowd jeered her accusation, and a few even began throwing rocks, only to be shielded by the armored guard and stopped by others around. That handbell had promised a show, and having her neck broken by a hurled rock would satisfy nobody.

Finally, the noose was tightened around her thin neck, and Cecil was slowly, gently, delicately lifted off the platform until her toes left the wood.

At first, she felt nothing. Seconds passed as she was lifted higher and higher, for all to see. Despite the rope, she was too numb to notice anything.

And then, her throat began to burn like nothing she had ever felt. Her hands shot to her throat, trying to get under the rope, to no avail. She didn’t have the strength to save herself, and so they hadn’t even tied her arms or legs. Her desperate flailing only drew greater celebration.

A long stream of warm pee ran down her legs, spraying off her toes as her legs darted back and forth seeking a distant surface. To answer her release, more cheers from the crowd, mixed in among a chorus of frustration. When the prisoner would soil herself was always a subject for betting when a girl came up, and she had no doubt the smirking guards beneath her who knew how much she had been drinking had won big.

With her fingers clawing at the rope, she could occasionally draw in a short breath, but exhausted as she was, she had no energy to keep herself up, and the weight of her body began to choke her once more.

Minute by minute, Cecil continued her dance at the end of a noose. To her, another sixty seconds felt like an hour of agony, although to the crowd watching, after half an hour, her movements became mundane. Constant cheering gradually decayed into amused yells every time her legs twisted her around and her thighs kicked open to spread the hairless folds between them.

By the time an hour had passed, she was clearly losing energy, and those who were still invested in her ballet were the dozen or so who still had a chance of winning their bets.

Between the alcohol she had drowned herself in and the oxygen missing from her brain, Cecil was well past the point of rational thought. She was losing the audience, she thought, as she gazed down at the crowd and the choking of the rope around her neck overlapped the choking she so often experienced during sex. In that moment, she decided to put on a show.

Her hands fell away from her neck, and her legs came to rest. Her audience focused, expecting her to finally expire and the winning time to be announced. Then, her fingers found her labia, and worked their way in. A fresh wave of cheers washed over Cecil as she began to finger herself on the gallows, thin waves of tingling pleasure barely reaching her failing brain. She twitched as she came under the gaze of a hundred men, then finally went still after seventy-two minutes of dancing.

One guard’s bare hand pressed against her chest, feeling for her still heart, before yelling out her time to the joy of many. Cecil was lowered down as the crowd dispersed, some eager to celebrate their winnings with whores of their own, others off to be berated by their wives for losing.

The soldiers who had brought her in didn’t miss the chance to offer the girl’s corpse to the highest bidder while it was still warm, a stonemason’s apprentice and his two mates who had guessed her moment of death to the minute, eager to reward her final show for speeding up her own demise ever so slightly to save their gold, in the way they thought the little slut would have loved most.

Before dawn, her semen-caked body was thrown over the wall, into the mass grave below.