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secondjulia · 1 year

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Hob Gadling's First Execution

WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE

“He was begging,” Dream said. Mud squelched all around them, but he and Death made no sound as they walked over the already bloodied field. “I heard it.”

“He was begging to live, you idiot!” Death said.

“How do you know?” Dream looked at Hob Gadling, kneeling before a hoard of soldiers. His hair and beard were coated in blood.

“He’s writhing away from the man with the axe, not towards him!”

“The specifics were unclear. His lips seem to be leaking, his words were obstructed. And there is only one logical thing to hope for in this scenario.”

Death shook her head. It had barely been a decade since they’d visited the White Horse, and Dream had repeatedly pointed out — as if she could have failed to notice — that the world had only become a less appealing and more brutal place to live.

“But look at him!” Dream said. “Such misery, my sister! Surely he wishes for his torment to be over.”

“This is his torment.” Death said. “And he wishes, I am quite certain, to avoid it entirely.”

She sighed, her eyes running over the line of men on their knees in the mud, hands bound. A few met her eyes with a glimmer of hope. One beamed broadly, even as he shook and panted, blood running down his face. Hob Gadling did not look over. Though he had squirmed when they were first dragged out to the field where the masked man waited to end their short, brutal lives, he was now still. His gaze didn’t scan the assembled crowd for support or mercy but looked defiantly ahead.

“But how could any sensible creature wish to continue to live in a world such as this?” Dream asked.

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t,” Death said. “None of them do. Not in a world such as this. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to live.”

“Hm.” Dream nodded toward the man who had beamed at Death. “That one likes this world. He still dreams of the glory he may yet achieve through his sacrifice. He would continue on, dying a thousand deaths for his lord if he were allowed.”

“See?” Death smile kindly at the doomed man. “Some sensible creatures have found a way to embrace their reality.”

“I would not call that sensible.”

Death gave Dream a sad smile that said she knew very well his callousness was mostly an act.

Dream knew each and every one of these kneeling men. He had witnessed their final nightmares and bestowed, where he could, more comforting dreams. It was a balance that took a careful hand — something Dream had had to cultivate more and more as civilizations grew. Waking from a lovely dream only to face the executioner could be a torture, while waking from the horrors of night to face the end of torments could be a relief. Forbidden as he was from interfering in the lives of mortals beyond his own dominion, Dream did his best with the powers he had.

And to others — those who would walk away from this field — he gave harsher visions so that they might not forget the blood they shed. He hoped that one day the horror of such practices would impel their end.

Though he was still certain that the next few minutes would prove him right, Dream felt no pleasure. Parts of him would die today. Each of the men kneeling in the mud had lived rich lives within his realm. One who had dreamed of glory now only hoped for a swift end. Another only wished for heat as the chill rain soaked through his tunic and dripped from his hair. Several held friendly faces and warm hands in their daydreams. Others’ minds had gone blank with fear, all thought and creation already stolen from them. Their dreams would die today, and those parts of Dream, too.

Hob Gadling had slept little these last few days. Dream had busied himself with others, honorably not wanting to act in any way that would push his wager with Death one way or another. But now, Hob’s mind was unignorably full and active, daydreams spinning out, vivid and loud. He dreamed of—

Dream turned from the sight immediately.

His own face looked out of the daydreams of Hob Gadling.

“You are ready, my sister?” Dream asked, trying to cover his surprise.

She nodded. “This century’s looking to be nearly as busy as the last.”

As a soldier walked toward Hob, Dream forced himself to watch. He never enjoyed seeing his sister’s work, especially not when it began like this. Humanity had always been prone to fits of violence, but in its growing civilizations, their capacity to enact horror had exploded. Still, Dream had not expected to feel so sick at the sight.

Relief and fear gripped Hob in equal measure as the man strode forward to seize him first. He’d’ve preferred to die in battle, sword in hand, but at least this would be over soon.

Let us meet here again, Robert Gadling…

A slight smile brushed his lips. At least the voice he’d heard a thousand times out of memory, held closely in his heart, would accompany him to his end.

…in this tavern of the White Horse, in one hundred years.

“Forgive me, lord,” Hob murmured. “I shall not make our meeting.”

The pretty face shone in his mind as clearly as if he’d last seen it yesterday. His slender, black-clad stranger, the scarlet jewel hung over his chest no match in glamor for those petal pink lips dressed with a mocking smile. Oh, how Hob had wished to meet him again when they were both ancient and put a different expression on that lovely face!

Hob had been lucky. He was not yet old, but he’d made it longer than most. All his mates who’d laughed so heartily at his boasts all those years ago had gone to their graves, wounded or worn down, their laughter long gone. But Hob still felt like his brash, young self, defiant in the face of death. He even looked young. His body had held up remarkably well through years of battle and banditry and plague creeping back through England, and, honestly, he felt that he could have held up many more decades — if not forever.

But now his luck had run out.

Hob looked up defiantly at the enemy who had condemned him. He couldn’t even remember now why they’d been trying to kill each other. The political machinations behind the throne were too distant, and Hob didn’t care. A moment later, he was forced to his belly, pushed down onto hard stone, his face hanging over the river’s edge. He was not important enough for his head to be set on a pike, frightening others away from his treacherous deeds. He was a simple soldier, a common mercenary, just unlucky enough to take a coin for services rendered on the wrong side of the battlefield, — to be swept out of the way with the fall of the axe more for convenience than political statement. Hob’s mortal remains would fall into the river like waste.

He had not even been given the curtesy of a blindfold.

Hob shut his eyes. In the darkness at the end of his life, he looked into a moon-pale face with storm grey eyes. He ignored the final flashes of the life he’d led up until then, regretting only that he would never meet his pretty lord again.

Then agony shattered all thought.

Hob was falling.

Seconds swelled to years.

Warm drops that must have been his own heart’s blood splashed onto his face before the river tumbled him into itself and he was drowning, still feeling the gaping wound at the base of his skull.

Then cold, wet, darkness.

Hob woke, thrashing in pain.

He gasped and cried out as the air scraped over raw flesh. He flailed out with both hands and the soft mud was like hot stones against his skin. He flopped like a fish on the river bank, naked, every inch of him scorched with a pain beyond even the most brutal interrogator’s imaginings.

For a long time, Hob just writhed and cried.

Death had too much work to linger, but Dream had followed the severed head as it floated down the river. The body of Hob Gadling had been tossed unceremoniously into a pit with a dozen others. Dream knew that the life force that kept the foolish man alive would spring from the brain, though he still severely doubted whether there could possibly be any desire for such a life. Dream had seen uncountable last-second horrors of decapitated victims and knew the pain must be unimaginable, if (usually) brief. Now, he sat hidden in a grove of willows a little ways away from where Hob had washed up and waited for the begging to begin.

Death would not be too busy to return with her mercy.

Hob lay curled on the muddy river bank for a long time before he could really look down at the body that had, through some magic, appeared under his neck. It was tender as a fresh cut all over, but it looked like him. Slightly soft with hair over the chest and legs. Bound with the soldier’s muscles he’d had since he was a young man. The only difference Hob could see was that fresh skin had grown where old scars had once been. He hadn’t gotten any scars since his early thirties — not since around the time he’d seen his stranger in the White Horse.

His stranger!

“Oh you beautiful devil!” Hob’s voice was hoarse and it pained him severely to speak. But still, he laughed. “My wonderful, blessed stranger!”

In one hundred years!

He hadn’t just been challenging Hob to live. This wizard or saint or devil must have made it so!

“Oh my stranger, my beautiful lord!” Hob called out. His head tilted back to the heavens. But then he looked around, uncertain if that’s where his mysterious benefactor’s power had come from. He pressed his forehead into the mud, bowing to whatever unseen force had saved him. “If your hand were Satan’s own I’d kiss it!”

As soon as the words left him, he bit his lip — a sharp, torturous pain that made tears spring to his eyes. Hob sat up and looked around swiftly. Even in his glee, a thrill of fear ran through him. He didn’t wish to find out what it was like to be burned alive for consorting with the devil.

“From this day forward,” Hob murmured, his head bowed, “when I pray my Lord, it is to you I pray. Ever after, when I speak of thanks and mercy and forgiveness and glory, it is to you I speak. In your name, lord, though I do not have it. Thank you!”

Dream watched, dumbfounded, as Hob Gadling pushed himself up and limped naked down the river bank, grinning like an idiot.

Regretting the time away from his duties, Dream shook his head and turned away. He would be right eventually. This day had only served to vividly remind him him of the acute horror of this world. And Hob still had ninety years left to endure before their next meeting.

Dream was patient.

#I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ONE WORD ABOUT ORPHEUS #This is the AU called Things Work How I Want Them To #Ferdie Friday #Ferdinand Kingsley #Sandman #Dream of the Endless #Death of the Endless #The Hollow Crown #Richard II #Spoiler Alert I guess #I mean this story came out like four hundred years ago so I feel like the Statute of Limitations on Spoilers has expired #I really didn't realize how much the first one looks like he's calling Henry Bolingbroke YOU BITCH and I think it's totally appropriate

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