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Joss was halfway through the market area before realizing she needed to talk to Garrett and get some extra supplies. The lacerations on the strange man they found were deep, and she knew she’d need something stronger for him if she was going to fix him up properly. Turning Drakon east, Joss navigated around the afternoon crowds, keeping the horse’s pace at a gentle trot.
Trying to hurry without drawing too much attention to herself, she finally caught sight of the swinging sign of the Lazy Ox, one of the local taverns. It was a popular one, nestled at the edge of town, whose locals didn’t mind if an executioner dropped in, mainly because they were either too lowly or too drunk to do anything about it. It was also the only tavern she was allowed to frequent, the rest trying everything but downright banning her from entering. Despite her status that permitted her entrance into public houses, it was the hassle that kept her away.
Reaching the tavern, Joss dismounted and tied Drakon to the hitching area with the other horses, making sure he was more towards the end. Knowing this was the rougher edge of town, Joss unhooked the covered ax and brought it in with her. She kept it low and parallel to her leg as she entered, keeping to the wall as she made her way around to where Garrett was, the tavern keeper who was pouring a couple rounds. Seeing her, he nodded to the far edge of the bar where she was often directed to, out of the way from being noticed by the majority of the clientele.
Waiting at the bar, Joss scanned the layout, watching as games were played, ales and liquor consumed, and the laughter from a few jokesters overlapped the bustling noises of those talking and having a good time. A few of the town harlots had already shown up, a couple of them nodding to Joss, who nodded back in greeting, keeping things discreet as the ladies went back to entertaining their income for the night. Since the ladies often didn’t have enough money to visit the local doctor, it was Joss who they went to when they needed medical help. She wondered about them—if they were looking out for themselves better or had kept up with the medicines she had given—when the tavern keeper approached.
“Joss,” he grunted, the closest to a happy greeting she had yet to witness.
“Garrett.” She smiled in greeting, counteracting his gruffness. “I just need a couple of things.”
Garrett eyed the others at the bar, and seeing they were distracted, breathed out a little easier. “What can I do for you?”
“Jenever,” Joss said, referring to the juniper-flavored liquor that was commonly sought there. “I need a bottle of it, along with a bottle of rum.”
“Having a night, are we?” Garrett commented sarcastically.
“Henrik and I found a man on the side of the road who’s in bad shape,” she explained. “He’s going to need it more than me.”
Garrett nodded in brief understanding before turning away to collect the bottles. As he went to the back room, Joss scanned the front again, finding that nothing had changed. Looking on the other side, she was met with a wall, littered with parchments that were all nailed to it. The Lost Wall was its nickname, since each parchment was someone who was either missing or wanted for crimes, so lost in moral corruption that they had a price on their head. The descriptions were normally added with a drawn portrait, sometimes accurate, sometimes not.
Skimming the contents to see if anyone new had been added, Joss couldn’t help but search for a face she would recognize. She hadn’t seen him in years, and there wasn’t a day that had gone by that she didn’t wonder about him, always peering at the Lost Wall to check if, by chance, she’d learn what had come of him. Each time left her empty handed, and this time was no different.
Except something else was there, peeking out from in between two other flyers, almost buried underneath the scouring of new lost souls. It was a pair of darkly drawn eyes, expertly done so that Joss left her place to take a better look. Lifting one of the flyers that covered it, she found this parchment to be much different than the rest based on the scrawling designs and perfect penmanship.
“They still can’t find him,” Garrett’s voice broke in, startling her a bit. “Almost five years of fighting in the border wars. They might as well pronounce him dead.”
Joss, who had turned to look at him, redirected her gaze back on the parchment. There in bold letters was the Prince Royal’s name, Callan Ronen. Still missing, while his family continued to hope that someone would recognize him if he had made it home without his memory.
The parchment hadn’t come without problems; too many individuals had surfaced claiming to have found the lost prince that it was almost useless to keep the posters up. Quite a few had even tried to pass off as the prince themselves, even though all they received in return was publicity that rewarded them a free drink or a night with a gullible lover. No one had seen the prince, not even his own men.
Joss gave the eyes one more look before letting the parchment fall back over it. “He’s heir to the throne,” she commented as she came back to the bar, resting the ax against it.
“They have two other heirs,” Garrett grumbled as he placed the bottles in front of her. “If that lad is still alive—” he nodded to the parchment “—then he has only a month left to get his ass home. Once the five-year mark hits, law states he’s legally dead and his brother becomes our problem.”
Joss understood where Garrett’s frustration lay. New kings meant new laws and often new taxes, a potential to sink Galmoor further into poverty. Since people’s desperation had kept Joss busy in her line of work, she wasn’t aware the Prince Royal was still missing. She was too busy with a life bestowed upon her family by the same royal family who lost track of their own heirs.
Dropping a few coins in Garrett’s palm, Joss asked for one more favor. “Do you by chance have a spare room available?”
Garrett eyed her, shaking his head, knowing what she was asking. Neither said anything, but it was already made clear: no charity cases were allowed to rest when paying customers were available, especially ones who didn’t have a deathsman stigma attached.
Nodding as if he had said it openly, Joss quietly took the bottles under her arm and grabbed her ax. Garrett moved on to attend to the rest of his patrons, so Joss saw herself out, wandering past drunkards and glaring eyes until she found the door.
Out in the open, Joss felt herself breathe easier. Packing the bottles in her saddle bag and attaching the ax back in place, she untied Drakon and swung back into the saddle. Following the road out of town, Joss made her way back home, mentally noting the supplies she had to help keep her company as she pushed Drakon into a full gallop. The urgency to get home was prevalent in how she needed to check Aric and how low the sun hung, foretelling that night was close at hand.
Rounding the corner and entering the courtyard, she was just dismounting when Henrik appeared in the front door, making his way towards her.
“He’s cleaned up and I fixed his nose, but the leg and shoulder need to be stitched,” he said as he approached. Asking for the reins, he nodded to the door. “You attend to him. I’ll take care of Drakon.”
“Are you sure?” Joss asked, wary of putting so many burdens on him.
“I still have to put the supplies away anyway,” Henrik reasoned, nodding to the wagon that sat in front of the stalls untouched. “I got Bluebelle put up, but I immediately went back to attend to our guest and prepare dinner. I can make sure these two are settled in for the night and then come help.”
“Thank you,” she replied sincerely, grabbing the two bottles and her ax. Patting Drakon on the neck, she walked hastily towards the front door.
Entering, the aroma of freshly cooked stew filled her nostrils, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since earlier that morning. She scanned the open room in front of her: the living quarters at one end and a kitchen at the other with a bulky oak table and adjoining chairs sitting in between like a divider. Fires burned in both hearths, one in the kitchen where the stew was cooking and the other at the front where two worn plush chairs faced it. While the cottage was furnished with working plumbing, thanks to the underground well, the place had never been outfitted with electricity, evident by the circular chandelier lit with candles, spilling light across the main room. A three-arm candelabra sat in the middle of the table, the wax dripping down the burning candles.
Setting her purchased items down on the table, Joss went to the bedroom Aric was in. A hearth also sat in this room, a small fire eating away at the logs as another candelabra sat on the bedside table. Mounted girandoles her father had made hung on the wall on either side of the bed, and three candle holders fashioned to each mirror helped illuminate the room further. In the light, she saw the bloody heap of rags in the corner, pushed out of the way.
Approaching Aric, Joss scanned his body, the welts and bruises marring his skin. She smelled the fumes from the neem oil, a blend between garlic and sulfur, which made her nose twitch as it grew stronger the closer she got to him. He had been stripped of all his garments except for his short underpants, one of the legs torn from the knee to the upper thigh to get to the laceration better. His long, golden hair still looked damp from where Henrik tried to clean the dirt and blood off, checking for any more cuts on his head. Removing the compress on his thigh, she saw the cut was deep enough to require stitching, like Henrik had said. She checked his shoulder, finding it too needed the same procedure done.
As she hovered over him, Aric’s eye slowly opened, and the two stared at each other for a moment before Joss found herself asking, “How long have you been awake?”
“A little while,” his hoarse voice admitted. “The drink wore off.”
The moon vine, she thought, pressing her lips together. She was afraid the effects wouldn’t last long. “I’ll be right back,” she reassured him, departing from the room to grab her sewing box and the two bottles. Reentering the bedroom, she placed the bottles on the small table, Aric side-eyeing her as she began to uncork them.
“Your shoulder and leg require stitching,” she explained as she worked, keeping her voice calm despite the fact her adrenaline was mixing with her fatigued body, causing her hands to slightly tremble. Shaking them to fight the tension, she approached the bed again.
“Aric, I’m going to have to sterilize the wounds. It’ll help with infections, but it will hurt. So I’m going to give you some rum to help cut some of the pain,” she explained.
Aric took in a sharp breath, feeling apprehensive. “I won’t say ‘no’ to that,” he replied softly.
“I figured you wouldn’t.” She smiled, knowing of no man who would turn down a bottle of rum. Lifting up Aric’s head, she propped up the pillows behind him, trying to be gentle with his shoulder. Once settled, she grabbed the rum bottle and brought it to his lips, tilting it back so he could take a swig of it. He winced as the burning sensation filled his mouth, and once it hit his throat he started coughing, a rough wet cough that made Joss nervous.
“Again,” he said tiredly after his coughing was under control. The second swig went down easier, and by the fifth swig Joss thought he was well on his way to clearing a whole bottle.
“Easy, good sir,” Joss commented, knowing the rum would hit him fast on his empty stomach. “We need to save some for later.”
Aric breathed deeper as the rum took hold, and he watched as she prepared his leg by wiping away the blood that still seemed to seep out. “What’s your name?” he asked breathlessly.
While concentrating on his wound and hearing Henrik coming into the house, she said without thinking, “Jocelyn.”
It was strange hearing her full name, but there it was out in the open, and the stranger grasped on before she could reconsider. “Very nice to meet you, Jocelyn,” he said, mimicking her response to him earlier.
Joss barely looked back at him when Henrik came to stand in the doorway, taking her attention.
“The stew should be ready in a bit. I thought the broth would help him,” he said, a fresh washbowl in his hands.
“Perfect,” she complimented him. “Thank you for seeing to everything.”
“Of course.” He entered the room, coming to stand at the edge of the bed as she took the washbowl from him, careful to not spill the fresh water he brought in from the kitchen. “Do you need help at all?” he asked as she sat the bowl on the floor next to the bed like he had done with the previous one.
“I might,” she confessed. “I’m going to pour the jenever over the wound to help sanitize it, and then I’ll stitch him up. If the pain gets to him too much, I may need you to hold him steady.”
Henrik nodded as he rounded the bed, standing on the other side in case he needed to intervene.
Joss retrieved the sewing kit, finding inside a strip of leather she used for these sorts of procedures. Drawing close to Aric, she explained, “I need you to bite down on this.”
In a slight stupor, Aric opened his mouth just enough for Joss to slip the leather in between his teeth, saving his tongue in case the pain got the better of him.
With Aric situated and the jenever in hand, Joss looked at Henrik only once as she readied herself. Before she lost her nerve, she withdrew the cloths from the wound on his leg and poured the liquor directly onto it.
Aric jolted, snarling against the leather strap as Henrik came to hold him down. Joss tried to hold his leg steady, and against Aric’s screams she poured more of the liquor, needing to make sure every crevice of the wound would get drained out. Satisfied, she quickly dunked a nearby cloth in the washbowl, ringing some of the water over where she poured the alcohol and using the cloth itself to wipe the excess the mattress hadn’t soaked up.
As efficiently as she could, Joss dried her hand with a fresh cloth she used to cover the wound while she threaded a needle. Using the nearby candle, she let the flame heat the needle before returning to the bed. Uncovering the cloth, Joss got to work, pulling skin together so it overlapped and closed the cut. She could tell Aric wasn’t fully drunk anymore by how he shook, his breathing intensified against the leather.
“Aric, do you need more rum?”
He mumbled a “Fuck yes” against the strap, to which Henrik went to fetch the alcohol. Joss worked diligently, sewing and threading through skin as Henrik removed the strap and helped Aric drink from the bottle. For a long moment, his gulping was the only sound in the room.
Eventually, Joss tied the knot and cut the thread, finishing the leg. “Last but not least,” she smiled wearily as she came to his shoulder. Aric’s eye remained tightly shut, needing to close off the world, and for a moment Joss felt like she was casted out, unable to help him in his misery. Swallowing hard, she focused on his shoulder, repeating the same techniques as before.
When the liquor burned his raw wound, Aric screamed even more, baring his teeth. That’s when she realized Henrik didn’t have to hold him down. This time he restrained himself, his palms gripping the mattress in tight fists she knew would leave tears in the sheets if he continued. But he wasn’t lashing out, wasn’t trying to flee. He held himself there, knowing that beyond pain was healing, and she marveled at him before turning back to the task at hand. After she sewed his shoulder, closing the wound and cutting the thread, she found Aric passed out. From pain or rum, she would never know.
“We can use the thymelock now,” Joss told Henrik, who went to fetch the jar for her before going back to attend to the stew. Once in hand, Joss used a rag to gently dab the diluted salve onto the stitched areas. Despite its watered-down version, the thymelock salve could still heal wounds faster than other medicines, so Joss saved it for the more serious ones. After double checking the stitches, Joss also blotted some of the salve on his swollen eye and nose.
Setting the thymelock jar next to the bottles on the bedside table, Joss then checked over Aric’s other wounds, adding more neem oil on the ones that needed it. She then proceeded to gently wrap the stitched areas with fresh bandages, keeping them protected while the thymelock did its job. Finally, she placed the blanket over him so he wouldn’t catch a draft in the middle of the night. Leaving the candles lit in case of an emergency, she gazed on Aric one more time, remembering the eyes on the flyer in the tavern. Obviously Aric wasn’t the lost prince, but he was a lost person, and she wondered where he had come from.
Without answers, she left Aric to sleep as she journeyed into the main living quarters, Henrik placing the pot away from the fire to cool. They were both too tired to eat at the moment, so Henrik sat back in one of the worn plush chairs in front of the blazing hearth, taking a drink from the ale bottle he kept in the high cupboard. As Joss sat down in the other chair, he handed the bottle out to her.
“No, thanks,” she declined, absentmindedly looking over her shoulder into Aric’s room and finding him still asleep.
“Oh no,” Henrik signed, closing his eyes, realizing why Joss didn’t accept the ale and why he shouldn’t be drinking it either. “There’s another beheading tomorrow, isn’t there?”
“There is,” Joss confirmed, “but we won’t be the ones participating.”
Henrik begrudgingly put the cork back in the bottle until her words stopped him. “Why not?”
“The beheading is to be done by sword, and Master Hellis has accepted the task.”
“Are you serious?” Henrik gawked quietly, also looking into the bedroom to see if Aric was still undisturbed. “But why?”
Joss shrugged, staring into the fire. “The prisoner has a thick neck.”
Henrik stared at her before he began to chuckle, shaking his head as he nestled deeper into the chair, amused by it all. Glancing at Joss, he saw something in her face that gave her away. “You’re still going, aren’t you?”
“I just want to see how he does it,” she admitted, uncomfortable with the process but more uncomfortable with having a weakness that was being exploited.
Henrik nodded, understanding her reasoning. He knew her and her family long enough to understand that moral responsibility ran high in that bloodline, even for a job they never asked to be a part of.
“I’ll go too,” he decided, and when she looked at him curiously, he replied, “As the assistant to the town executioner, I’m obligated to offer moral support to my superior.”
Joss laughed a little, shaking her head. “Someone needs to stay and keep an eye on Aric.”
“Aric will be sleeping,” Henrik reasoned. “Besides, it’ll be nice to watch someone else dealing death instead of us.”
Despite the morbid thought, Joss couldn’t help but agree.
