Haley Kellner

18

Sacrifices

The sun rose and everything fell. To Admar, that’s how morning executions always felt. As if the trees and the sky and the newly burning sun followed the arc of his ax, lopping off the old man's head together in one fell swoop. And from the receiving side, as well. Like the whole world crashing down on you. He looked down now at the lone head, lolling on its side, tongue lying limp, blood still spurting occasionally from the sever. A shame. He’d never had a chance to ask if his musings were correct.
He preferred morning executions. Starting off the day with work set him into a productive stride. Perhaps he'd finally get ‘round to building that set of shelves nigh, the ones he hoped would organize his stockpile of villains’ bones from its hapless pile on his floor. After six years of memories to preserve, he was overrun with skulls and knee caps.
He’d not yet picked the lumber for such a job. He spotted a fine looking spruce a few paces away from the platform, but had only his work ax on him and detested using it for recreational chopping. He'd once made the mistake in the yard at home against a practically criminal bush and forgotten to sharpen it before work the coming day. He almost felt bad for the crook as it took a few good swings before the head came clear off. With such an embarrassment to his craft, he vowed never again to mix work and play.
Admar was so consumed by the dilemma, it took multiple elbows to his shin before Tobias got his attention.
"I presume we're hitting up Maiden's Fount after this mess is handled,” he said.
"Aye, but I'll not be drinking. This day shall be a fecund one. Finally, I shall conquer those shelves.”
Toby laughed dryly. At this point he was almost done clearing the remains. He'd swabbed the blood, tossed the head in his canvas sack, and was rooting through the body’s pockets in case the guards had missed anything worth saving. "Come now, Admar. You've been nagging of those shelves since Charlemagne. Never gonna happen."
"Knave! Doubt me again and I will chop off your dick." With this declaration he twirled his ax expertly, but Toby did not flinch. Instead, he grinned triumphantly as his hands found the end of the old man's pants leg. Picking up the foot, he shook the leg so the gold coins sewn into the cuff jingled like church bells on Christmas morning. Admar clasped his arm over Toby's shoulders in celebration of the find and they both looked over the decapitated grandfather who'd just bought them lunch. His limp body covered in ratty tunic and stockings was like a child's old beloved plaything fallen to the dogs. The stump oozed.
Toby wiped a fake tear from his eyes. He spoke, "Even in death, still he gives."

At The Maiden's Fount, Admar and Toby found a table inside. There were glares and curses as Toby still carried his sack of body and head, whacking into every table and person they passed. But no one dared oppose such a duo, executioner and collector. Toby ignored them and they allowed him to do as much, his parcel tossed over one shoulder like Father Christmas. Admar noticed for the first time when they sat and the sack plunked down between them, a third guest.
"You had to bring that thing in?"
"You would not let me swing by the crypt. I can't very well leave it outside."
"What's it to you if someone takes it?"
"It would be an insult to my post. We'd have to catch the fellow and then you'd likely have to execute him too and then we'd have two bodies and no ale."
"The king shall rest easy knowing you take your post so seriously," Admar said, clinking his milk against Toby's brew.
"Was it Cecily who made you cease drinking?"
"No, I told you I am to accomplish much today. Do not cast such hate on my maid."
There was a clatter at the front of the pub causing both men to turn. Twas Cecily herself. Surrounded by layers of blue skirt and clasped tightly in her bodice, her breasts overflowed just as blood overflowed to Admar's heart and penis, who, like a faithful knight, was always on watch. It'd been this way ever since their schooling when all the girls' bodices grew tighter with age, but only dear Cecily's ever bothered to fill naturally up without the extra kerchief stuffing used by other maids. With her long chestnut hair, shinier that the mane of the king’s mare, and her strong, relentless voice, she knew well to seldom use, she was the perfect girl. She'd not noticed Admar until after their graduation when, with a grueling internship spent fetching ale and cleaning up messes left when a sucker under the ax lost control of his bowels, which happened often, he arose to the position of official town executioner. Hence forth, he hadn't been able to keep maidens aback. Women loved a man in uniform. But it was still always Cecily that turned his head and kept it there. Now her eyes were frantic.
Admar rushed to her. "My dear Cecily, what makes your sweet cheeks flush just so?"
Her voice was hoarse from crying causing her to talk in husky, sexy way. “‘Tis my brother,” she said. “He is fated for your ax.”

Admar took Cecily back to his place to calm down. It was a handsome hovel he'd built himself one summer when the world was kind to one another and only a few cases of treason called him to his post. He led Cecily to his bedroom, which also contained the fire place and the gathering area. Although he had installed a long tapestry along the bed for a bit of privacy. It was there that Cecily crumbled into great sobs, as maidens so often do.
"With what is your brother charged?" Admar asked, the face of composure.
"Defacement of consecrated grounds," Cecily moaned. "The stupid wretch." She sat up. "Oh, but I should not say such things of a brother about to be lost to me. Please, Admar," She clung to his waist. "Make this not be."
Admar lowered himself onto the bed next to Cecily. "I will do all I can. But you know I am neither judge nor jury."
"But you know it's not right! He's only a boy and the offense is not so bad."
"Cecily, were they dicks he was sketching in charcoal over church grounds again?" She would not meet his eye. "You know this is his second charge on such accounts."
"He's just a boy,” Cecily only repeated. “He knows not what he does.” She looked up and saw no pity in her lover's eyes. She separated herself from his grasp. "So you would let your ax fall?"
"I would do my duty."
"Is it not your duty to uphold justice?” She said weakly. But when Admar didn’t budge, she burst into anger. “No, you are only a pawn to be ordered about like a dog. You are worth no more than the charcoal penises because of which my brother will die."

"Hold up. How can you allow such a wench speak to you in that way? Without a single hand raised against such smugness?" Toby said. "I shall never understand love." The friends were on their way to Madame Dupree's to relieve some stress.
"She does not understand. Tis not my own ax I swing, but the ax of the king and his government."
"What else did she expect of a brother who draws genitalia on the habits of nuns?" Toby said. "Although, I must say, if I ruled the boy would be praised for such imagination, not struck down."
"Did not Jesus have a penis?"
“Exactly.”
With these words, the pair, greatly lost in their conversation, ran into a small man and his wheelbarrow crossing their path.
"Knave!" Toby drew his sword on the man. “Was your mother so ugly, thou’st went blind?"
"My apologies," the man said. He tried to bow but with the sword at his throat could only dip his head in humility. "I did not see. " At once, his downcast demeanor shifted into glee. "Why Admar!” he exclaimed like the proudest town crier, announcing . “Deal pal, it is I!"
Toby looked at Admar in shock of him having such ill acquaintance. The man was small and portly with red cheeks due perhaps to sun or labor or just his general jolly manner--persistent despite the cart of horse shit he towed. Such blissful ignorance of his low standards amazed Admar, as ignorance it must have been to plod ‘round with any feeling other than shame.
Admar spoke dismissively, "I'm sorry, sir. Your plain, fleshy face is not one my mind has bothered to remember,” and tried to move past, but the stout man and his horse shit blocked his way.
"Little surprise. Neither captain of the jousting nor equestrian teams was I. But your brother in ridicule! In leggings wedged and heads shoved into chamber pots. Perhaps you can recall this once when they pulled and pulled and from the chamber pot my head would not budge?" All of this he said with the greatest delight, like a heroic knight recounting his success on the battlefield. Admar was forced to admit what he had known all along.
"Ah, yes.” He said with mock realization. “Chamber Pot Pete. How doth it go?" The man looked down at his cart of shit and crinkled his nose in good nature.
"I do what I must. Certainly nothing fancy as you. Who would have thought ol’ Adfart, barely able to climb the gallows rope in bodily education, would turn out to be the wielder of all our fates." Still laughing, he was completely naive of the magnitude of his own statement, the gleaming edge of Admar’s ax by his side.
"Yes, quite interesting how the tides have turned," was all Admar said and then pulled a flabbergasted Toby along past the man to continue on their way. From behind the crown of his head was bald as if the crows had already pronounced him dead and come to collect padding for their nests.
Peter, incapable of catching the grandest drift, was still calling after them all the school memories Admar worked daily to repress. The frogs in his lunch pail, the piss in his ink pot, so on and so forth. "We sure showed them, didn’t we?" He finally ended with, almost to himself, wheeling his barrow away.
"What was all that driveling about?" Toby said.
"A boy from schooling days," Admar explained. "You know that most, unlike your rotten brain, do not choose to come here. They're borne here, known by every face since birth. Most people here our age I attended schooling with which, despite my fortune now, were dark days."
"Wedged leggings, chamber pots.” Toby paused. “It seems you were a dweeb."
"A dweeb, indeed. And I vowed to become someone important enough to exact revenge on those who made my youth such hell. Like that butcher by the church who to this day refuses to cease calling me Adfart, that childhood mockery. I once swore to see him burn.
One day a school trip brought us to see the execution of a local boy caught in a dare to steal undergarments from a duchess's dresser. The other boys were beating me senselessly as usual when the executioner stepped down from his stage and threw them off with threats of the ax." Admar looked up from the rock he'd been kicking while they walked as if he could see it before himself now. "That's when I knew my destiny. No one would dare bother an executioner. And if they did, I'd have the power to avenge. I planned on eliminating all bullies from those schooling days. But soon in my training I learned about duty over revenge, a duty not to be exploited for personal gain. Such as I wish to explain to Cecily now."
Toby stopped. "Enough with that wench. Look now. We've arrived at Madame Dupree's. If the sight of such nude maidens fails to cleanse your conscious, I know not what will. Reach not your troubled hand for your purse of gold coins. What we squander on their exposed bosoms shall be on me."
"Hurrah!" Admar exclaimed. "What a friend you are to have."

The execution arrived day after next. Twas made to be an afternoon one, of course. Admar got there fifteen minutes early. He'd taken the morning to get his ax its sharpest. If he must take care of Alex, he'd send the boy out with the honor of his best chop yet. On the platform, he took a few swings in practice. Strong, fluid motions to keep limber while the crowd gathered, a few tricks to rile their fancies. He’d only just taught himself to balance the blade atop his nose. He spotted Cecily in the front row. Even in her black mourning frock, she looked totally doable. Admar quickly maneuvered the ax in front of his pants. No matter how he stared, she refused his glance. Even as he mouthed to her "You still mad?" numerous times. She was, indeed, still mad. It was only when her brother Alexander the Corrupt, in the arms of the officials, approached the stage that Admar was forced to cast Cecily from his mind and focus on work. Still, he couldn't help feeling for Alex. Perhaps, he was a total delinquent mouthing off to priests and exposing himself to nuns, pissing in the baptismal font, but inside twas a good kid. As the two met, Alex raised his fist to meet Admar's in an amicable gesture of respect and understanding.
Admar spoke. "You must know how this pains me," he said.
"Oh, tis all good. I shan't have expected to get away with it for long." Alex grinned bitterly. "Shall be an honor to die knowing all I've accomplished." With this, he pounded his fist on his chest and shouted to the crowd, "Vive la schlong!" before the guards wrestled him to the chopping block.
They tied him down and all eyes were on Admar. With one last glance at Cecily, head buried in her kerchief, and one last thumbs up from Alex, strained through his restraints, Admar finished the job in one magnificent swoop. An arch so perfect one shed tears for it as well as the boy and his sister, who caught his dislodged head like a bouquet thrown at a wedding. Toby tried to pry it from her, but she held tight until he was distracted by a few of Alex's friends who had charged the stage, deftly removed Alex's postmortem boner with a dagger, and held it aloft over the crowd in his honor. Toby had no choice but to abandon the head and chase down the boys and their dick. He was held back by the crowd as they cheered. They tried to storm the stage, all because of a boy and his phallic drawings. “Shall be an honor to die knowing all I’ve accomplished,” Alex had said. And so it was. He was a martyr. A champion of the people and their basic human rights. He had inspired them.
He was drawn from his thoughts by Cecily’s seal-like blubbering. He rushed to take her in his arms, but while the cumbersome head she clung to kept her from pushing him away, she wriggled from his touch.
"Keep far from me, murderer!" she shouted. "Or tis I who shall be executioner!"
"Cecily, you know twas my duty! A devotion to which you once admired in me.” They faced each other like knights sparing. She in a crouch should he try to attack, he should she try to run. Admar continued, “Remember not, the first day we spoke? I let you hold my ax and you said you'd never courted an executioner before. I said tis useful have you many people you wish dead--a tremendous line. Perhaps not so humorous now. Yet, at the time, we laughed greatly."
"You killed my brother," was all Cecily said, with perfect clarity. And seeing Admar was going to reach for her again, she threw all she had left at him. All she had left being her brother's severed head which Admar caught. Cecily fled the scene and Admar tucked the head under his arm like a ball to charge after her when Toby stopped him.
"Let her go, brother. The damage be done."
Toby relieved Admar of the head. Suddenly, his hands felt very empty.

A couple drinks at the Maiden's Font later, Toby left Admar at the bar to take a groupie back to his hovel. One of the strange ones who would enjoin him to describe the executions to her during the ravaging. Unlike Admar, he had no problem mixing work and play. A hand found itself on his shoulder.
"Begone, maiden. I have no mind for your wiles tonight." It was not a woman's shrill laugh that broke out behind him. He turned around to see Pete, snorting and convulsing as if having a small seizure at Admar's mistake.
"Me? A maiden! Egads." The puny man pulled himself onto the stool beside Admar and, through the saliva each guffaw thrust outward, worked to calm himself. Admar was reminded that not all had managed to grow beyond their youth.
"Control yourself, man. Twas only a mistake."
"Long as you don't find yourself trying to ravish me!" Pete said before seizing into another fit of laughter. While Admar waited for the next lull, he ordered two ales for his old friend and himself.
"Much obliged," Pete said. "I'd offer to pay, but we both know you can afford it." He elbowed Admar in the ribs jovially. "Instead, I shall offer you a toast," he said, thus raising up his mug of grog. "To all we've become since schooling days, whether it be town hero or town fool." His smile was not bitter. "And to the bonds of old friends staying strong, no matter how separate their positions in life become." With a clink of glasses, Pete downed his ale, making him appear as if he frothed at the mouth. But his honest admission shocked Admar into sobriety.
"Pete," he asked, "are you content with your station?"
He dragged a finger through his empty glass to get at the remaining froth. "If you'd asked me in school what I'd become, I'd sooner've said maiden before king of the horses' dung," he answered. "But no, can't say I'm unhappy, even if I be lowest of the low. I got a girl who doesn't mind the stench. I get Sundays off to visit Mom. And I've got reliable consorts like yourself. Anyway, we can't have all ended up local celebrities with riches at your feet, maidens on your arm, and the world on a string."
The reminder withdrew Admar from his funk. He grinned. "It is a charmed life."
"One you've certainly worked for. I remember all those days you couldn't go out pillaging due to that apprenticeship."
"It came with a price, but one I was always willing to pay."
"And now Cecily," Pete said offhandedly. There was no accusation in his face, but still Admar hardened.
"There are always sacrifices to be made," he said.
"Executioner's all you ever wanted as a kid. Funny how everything worked out."
Pete punched Admar in the arm playfully. He had to run home. His girl was coming and bringing her bastard over to meet him for the first time. Admar wished him luck. Watching the last link to his old past walk away, Admar tried to summon what happy memories he retained from schooling days. Perhaps when the health instructor, giving a lesson on avoiding the bubonic plague, accidentally exposed himself to the virus and died, leaving everyone with passing grades for the year. Or when a boy Brigham, in their equestrian studies, had to perform a rectal examination and caught his hand in the horse’s ass. The memories were sparse, but perhaps he’d forgotten. He ran to catch Peter before he left the pub.
"Are there happy memories? That you’ve retained from school?"
Pete only thought for a few seconds. “Twas a time when in physical education I climbed to the top of the gallow’s rope. Somehow I was the first, so all cheered far and wide. For a day, I was beloved. I could’ve lived off that feeling the rest of time, done anything for it, given up everything for it.”
“What changed?”
“I became sick. Returned a fortnight later to find the world had forgotten me. Except for thou, of course.”
They were both silent until Pete added, "That and the time Brigham's hand twas caught in the horse's ass."

On the way home, Admar stopped by Alex's grave. As criminals were forbidden to be buried by their families, it also happened to be the mass grave of all other executions. What Admar had once looked upon as a place of triumph, he now held mixed feelings toward. He thought of an old man once accused of treason who sang a lullaby to his grandchildren in the crowd until his vocal chords were severed. Of the young prostitute who asked him to have a drink after. Of all those men and women quietly taking their punishment, following through with their duty, accepting that this was what their lives led up to.
At the sound of footsteps, Admar turned to see Cecily approaching. It had been only hours since last he saw her, but somehow her mega hotness seemed worn down. When she saw him, a shadow crossed her face, masking it further. She was only a woman now, a heartbroken woman.
"Whatever thou has crafted for me to hear, save it. I am deaf with grief and hate."
Admar knew no apology could salve Cecily's heart. He bowed and left her alone with her sorrow. But before he'd exited the mass grave, he turned with quiet revelation.
"Perhaps if I'd given my duty to you, to something else." he called, but Cecily did not hear him, due to grief, or maybe just distance, and Admar departed.

It took Admar a week to finish the shelves. He made them from an oak. He used his work ax to fell it in the woods behind his house. They were beautiful shelves, shining with the fat from a neighbor's cow. He was greasing them down just as Toby appeared.
"Thou ready?"

On the way to Pete's, Toby caught Admar up on what he’d missed. The new guy sucked. Too gentle. Never got it on the first try. Always spurted the blood everywhere. Too squeamish to stick around and help clean up.
"Makes my occupation thrice times as difficult. As if the guy's looking for a duel."
"He'll learn," is all Admar said.
"Well I'd loathe to be sentenced until he does."
Amidst their walking, Toby began jumping up and down.
"Ooh! Thou shalt never guess what I heard." Admar waits until Toby says, dramatically as if borne for the stage. "Mary. Ann."
"Mary Ann?"
"Mary Ann Triage. Hottest maid in town with regards to Cecily."
"In school, she was head of the jousting allegiance's crowd of good cheer."
"And tis you she wants."
Toby explained further. A fortnight past, he’d caught a glance of Mary Ann at the Maiden's and told her of his concern for her health since surely she was an angel who'd just suffered the fall from Heaven. A line he'd made up himself, convinced of its brilliancy. Unfortunately, Mary Ann accused Toby of speaking sacrilege and was sure to inform the guard. He distracted her by turning the conversation to Admar, their mutual acquaintance. Learning he'd separated from Cecily, Mary Ann became coy and made Toby promise to report back to Admar that if he ever ran out of work, she had an old cow just dying to be milked."
Admar's face contorted into disgust. "But, pray tell, what does it mean?"
"Who cares? She's yours!"
"I'm done with such foolishness. Tis much too similar to my schooling days. Only now people expect things from me."
Pete's home appeared in the distance. The stocky man was standing outside his straw door proudly, waving a hand.
"And what of Pete?" Toby asked. "Is he not of your high school days?"
"Aye," Admar agreed. "But Pete expects nothing from anyone."
A chubby boy ran out to Pete and the two knocked their fists together like kinsmen. A woman followed behind. Pete's girl. She was beautiful.

Admar returned from dinner at Pete's house that night to gaze upon his empty shelves. He arranged the bones of his victims upon them with care. A jaw here, a hip there. On the second shelf from the top, a long index finger lay haphazardly pointed in his direction and Admar let it. He had chosen who to be. When the shelves were lined, Admar felt no pride for his trophies. He looked upon the crowd and felt connected to the world. Millions of people he saw in those bones, some guilty, some innocent, but all poor wretches. They'd remind him of that. Even if he only remembered some of their names, some of their stories, the variety of gasps and exhales and sobs and wails that occurred the moment before the blow struck the back of a neck.
He remembered how Alex had laughed. He was not the first of Admar's to do so, but his was not bitter or evil like the rest. A pure laugh it was. The kind one releases in moments of excitement or relief or triumph. He'd set the hand he'd swiped from Alex’s grave on the right corner of the middle shelf, where he'd see it every night before rest and every morning before setting out. Admar had no idea what next to do with his life. He had no plan for the morning, but to merely start out and see what he found. But still the next morn Admar woke to walk blindly out into the world. He raised a fist in camaraderie with what was left of Alex, stared at the door handle, and slowly turned the knob.