The Last Execution (2 page)

The boy stares at the fly. He cannot feel it moving across his hand.

The hand that set fire to Gorm Pedersen's barn. The hand that threw the stone that made a hole in the blond head of the sheriff's little son.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers. “I'm sorry, Dad.”

I
t is close to dawn, just ten hours till the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill, and the master baker has baked his bread.

He delights in standing there, in the bakery door, with the chill to his chest and the warmth at his back. He delights in seeing the sun leaven and redden out there. It fills him with a dual pleasure: The sun is such a strong and powerful oven that its might cannot be conceived by the human mind, and still he feels that this morning, he's beat it to the post again. It is so big, he is so small, and still he has crossed the line first! This is his delight.

Suddenly he's consumed with fear. He falters. Recalculates. At any rate, he, the master baker, will abide. Like the first man on the field. A loyal soldier.

“If only we had the right to sell our bread for a bread's price!” he sputters between clenched teeth.

The price of rye has risen. The same goes for wheat. But can one charge
more
for a loaf of bread? No! The Bakers' Guild has tried. The town council—led by the mayor—refuses to budge. Same price. To make allowance for those who can't afford it: the so-called poor. Despite the fact that even fuel has become dearer!

Fuel . . . perhaps this day will prove to be a good bread day after all! He thinks about the beheading of the boy on Gallows Hill; that wastrel, that young arsonist and child murderer.

The master baker summons his apprentice. When the lad arrives, he explains how much bread he should take along and exactly where he should stand on Gallows Hill so he can sell as much of it as possible. The lad nods sleepily. This prompts a grunt from the master baker. It disgusts him that the lad always looks as if he's just woken up.

“If you don't learn to put in an honest day's work,” he says, “I'll have to sell the bread atop Gallows Hill myself—at
your
beheading!”

This remark seizes the boy with fear. The master baker is well pleased. And the boy knuckles down to work.

The master baker is standing in his doorway again, thinking. This thing about the bread prices: It's misguided. The proof is in the lad to be executed today.

One keeps the prices down to accommodate the likes of him. What on earth for? One could ask oneself: If he hadn't had the means to buy the bread—so what? He might have starved to death. Exactly—died his death. The same result as today. Only much, much cheaper. First we waste money by filling his belly with cheap bread, and then we waste money by chopping off his head!

All this talk about
children.
Where does it all come from, anyway? From overseas? But children don't even count. They're like unmixed ingredients: no substance for a living wage. Children are to be kneaded, formed, and baked. Only
then
can they be called people. Everything else is misguided nonsense. As if one would offer a client a lump of dough when he requests a loaf of bread.
He who sees a child sees nothing.
Isn't that the way it is? It's not like anyone would miss him. Is it really so bad just to say it out loud? What is such a sorry little waif compared with the life-giving rays of the sun?

But then the master baker is interrupted: The first client of the day is a pale girl asking for flour. So she can bake her own bread. He snorts loudly. He may as well donate the bakery to poor folk like her. Then
he
would be the beggar who could come in and buy bread for free! And flour!

“You're going to be the death of me!” he cries.

The girl looks up warily, then drops her head.

“It's my fault,” she answers, hugging the flour to her chest.

The master baker is contrite.

“It wasn't meant like that,” he mumbles.

He stares after the girl, who hurries off—her frail body, the blond hair falling down around the thin neck.

Just
one
swing. No more, no less to put an end to that frail shape.

It's actually rather strange: You'd think that folk would
lose
their appetite from seeing a head being severed from its body. But no, not at all. Rather the opposite. It's as though everyone becomes insatiably hungry, feels the need to glut themselves with all sorts of bread. But especially the sweet kind, the dear kind. Raisin bread. Ooh yes, the lad should mind to take plenty of raisin bread up to Gallows Hill.

The master baker sees the lad stifle a yawn, but doesn't get upset. He's in good spirits now. When he thinks about it, there are three things that go together very nicely: sunrise, freshly baked bread, and the soft sound of God's big, righteous ax swinging through the air.

One town's many mouths, a chorus fair,

Whilst a head that still doth stare

Rolls to the ground

Without a sound.

T
here are nine hours till the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill when the first tendrils of sunlight spread over the ceiling of the cell like a gray-white lake.

The boy is sitting still, looking at it.

He thinks about the time he sat with his father on the hilltop and gazed over it all: fields, forests, lakes, and meadows, and then, the farms. There they lay, spread over the landscape, big and small, as if it were just a game, and each farm was like a card lying facedown on the earth, and when you flipped a card over, the color or number would decide whether you went to bed hungry or not. In the foreground, small people and cows were moving about; in the distance, just the smoke from a chimney top could be seen. But which card should you choose? Which one of those farms would let a wandering father and son work for a meal and a night in a shed?

Noises and gruff little groans came from his father as he tried to find the right posture for his back, but that day the boy barely registered a sound. He was consumed by something else. It was a miracle: He had caught sight of his mother. Although the distance was too great to see her expression, the long black hair and movements were hers. No doubt about it. She was quick yet elegant, worked with haste but twirled around on her toes like a ballet dancer. The boy followed her movements without batting an eye. His heart hammered in his chest; but it would hammer even louder the moment he reached the farm, where he'd seen her, the moment he stepped into the yard and she looked up. When he could see how beautiful she was. But perhaps she'd frown. Perhaps she would purse her lips and say: “
We don't want beggars here!”
But then her mouth and face would freeze. She'd look and look and look at him, with big round eyes. “
Is that . . . is that you, Niels?
” He'd nod, and she'd hold him tight; he'd put his arms around her, too. He would feel she was crying. “
My dear boy, I have thought of you every day—a thousand times a day! You are the first thing I see before me in the morning, and the last thing I see before I close my eyes at night.
” He'd say: “
Me too
.” She would kiss his face. It would be wet with her tears. He'd say: “
I always knew that I would find you!”

“Shall I choose?”

Niels startled, interrupted. His father looked at him searchingly. He'd meant: Which farm should they try? The boy looked back at the farm where he'd seen her. The magic was gone. He no longer thought that the woman there moved so gracefully. Wasn't that more like a waddle than a walk as she walked away? Now you could see that it wasn't black hair, just a black cloth she'd wrapped round her head. It wasn't her. His father could sense something was wrong.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes you are. Tell. What?”

“Nothing special.”

“Who?”

The boy knew it well enough. His father had told him a thousand times: His mother had died when he was born. This he knew all
too
well. He could live, and she died.

Niels grabbed a stone, jumped up, and threw it with all his might in the direction of the farm with the false mother. But the farm was twenty throws away, perhaps more. The stone landed a little farther down the hill, bounced a couple of times, and disappeared into the grass. His father misunderstood.

“Shall we try
that
one?”

“No!” The boy pointed at random to a farm in the opposite direction. His father looked at him again.

“
They've
got work,” he said. “I'm sure.”

“I think you're right,” answered his father, getting up.

Niels could see he was in pain. His father tightened the rope around his waist and put a hand on his son's shoulder.

“You know what? I think tonight we'll have roasted lamb!”

All at once the boy realized how hungry he was. He forced himself not to look in the direction of the farm with the woman. As they went down the hill, he tried to focus on their goal: getting a job. If he didn't think about anything else, it would work. Just think about the one thing. Just hear the one sentence:
Yes, we have work.

The farm was in better shape than you could glean from the hilltop. The boy had learnt to interpret the tiniest clues—what would increase or decrease their chances of getting to work. First and foremost, the farm may neither be too slick nor too shoddy. If it was too pretty, it meant they didn't need help—not even to sweep the yard. And if everything was too run-down, it meant that the owner either was in a fix or just couldn't care less. Both scenarios had the same result for father and son: no work.

That day the boy couldn't rid himself of the sinking feeling: This farm was a tick too neat. He wrung his cap in his hands hard, as if the desire for a job lay hidden in its folds.
Come on! Say yes! Say: “Yes, we could use an extra couple o' hands.” Say yes!

The farmer came out of the stable, and the boy's dad stepped forward to present their case.

“Do you have work for two men?”

The boy stood to attention, strained every muscle, each and every brain cell
: Come on! Yes! Say YES!

“The lad doesn't look like much . . . ,” said the farmer.

That hurt. His whole body felt all warm-like and numb, even though he tried to stand on his toes and spread his shoulders. He felt he'd let his dad down—by not being bigger, taller. By not looking like much.

“We've all been small,” said his father.

“True enough,” answered the farmer, “but that won't bake us any bread.” The farmer smiled weakly, but his father didn't flinch and looked him straight in the eye.

“But isn't it by hard work that we grow taller?” he asked.

The farmer's gaze faltered for a moment. He glanced from father to son and back again.

“Perhaps you've got a point. . . .”

And then they were given a chance.
Yes
, they could stay.
YES
.

They were to gather stones. His father pointed to a large stone, but as Niels managed to get his fingers in under it, he realized it was going to be far too heavy. Out of the corner of his eye he could sense the farmer watching him from a distance. He managed to heave the stone onto his lap, and then he tried to walk on casually, pursing his lips in a soundless whistle to hide the effort of it all. Once they had rounded the edge of the barn, his father stepped forward and grabbed the stone, just before it slipped through his fingers. He cast his son a quick smile from under his cap: They'd found work.