The Execution Read Online Free PDF Page A

was content and, in his silent way,
almost happy.
    The older children would help to keep
up with the smaller ones. It was family born of casualty; there was
no fighting. All had come to the orphanage by tragic means. Each
had an unspoken, woeful story, and life had blanketed these young
ones with maturity beyond their tender years—maturity from pain and
loss. If one looked deeply enough, it showed sadly in the eyes of
each child.
    Their circumstances served to bring
the children close together. There occurred an uncommon symbiosis
and to watch it on a daily basis, one might realize the symphony of
it. None but those who lived there would ever hear it.
    Ravan lost his mother at the age of
five and his four sisters had been taken elsewhere to work, or so
he told himself. He'd never seen them again and knew by the
expression in the Old One’s eyes that they were not to be
found.
    He had been the youngest, with no
father, at least none that he knew of. His last memory of his
family was of his sisters dragging him sobbing from his mother’s
breast, while he clutched at her, denying her death. She had taken
on the Black Death, the horrid wounds appearing around her armpits,
throat and groin. Finally, she lost her life’s blood as it flowed
sick, oily and black from her.
    When she died, Ravan lapsed into the
deepest of despairs, and the few who noticed were certain he would
die, but none cared.
    Subconsciously, he'd resigned himself
to this notion as well, and weakened as the days went by. His frail
young body, with its ancient soul, waited for the moment when he
would leave the wretched earth. Then he would finally be reunited
with his beautiful mother, surely the fairest and most loving
creature who had ever walked upon the earth.
    His sisters were gone, and he didn’t
even know where. They had simply—disappeared.
    Ravan was, for the first time in his
life, alone...
     
    * * *
     
    The Old One lifted the frail body of
the child from his death bed and carried him, wrapped in a worn
fleece, to a small ox cart.
    Harnessed to the cart was an aged
gelding, short but stocky, and swaybacked. The horse was a plain,
flea-bitten gray, and it hobbled along with a limping, shuffling
gait, from the time it had foundered after getting into the
corncrib. It nickered softly as the old man rubbed his hand along
the animal’s back and withers, checking that the harness was proper
before the long trek home.
    The pony had instinctively plodded and
hobbled along the rutted, muddy roads, reins dangling loosely in
the harness guides, heading for home. The Old One cradled the child
gently in his arms, cushioning him from the bumps in the road,
protecting him from the intermittent rain with his own
body.
    Sometimes, he whispered to the boy,
sometimes he spoke gently to the horse, and then he would hum
softly to both of them. Between the three, the miles faded away
slowly, unnoticed by anyone who might pass.
    Two days later, they arrived at the
orphanage. The child was an emaciated skeleton, a victim of
terminal despair. The Old One knew, however, that if God existed,
it was in the souls of small ones such as this. Over the years,
he’d seen society ignore the importance of the orphans, for they
were expendable. Not to him, though. To him, this child was as
important as any king.
    He sat with the boy for three days,
cradling him in his arms and singing softly to him. He stroked the
dark and unruly locks, brushing his lips against the forehead of
the child to make certain the fever was not excessive, and sponged
his frail body when it was.
    At intervals, he eased broth and
carrot mush sweetened with honey between the boy’s lips,
encouraging his wasted body to live. The daughters spelled their
father, and the hours turned into days.
    Ravan lived, nourished from the broth
a small bit, but nourished from the love of the Old One a great
deal. Ultimately, his soul could not find the freedom to flee from
earth when another cared so deeply for him. He