The Execution Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Innkeeper and the Fat Wife.
    They were offering a warm hearth and
apprenticeship for the boy. Ravan would learn the ways of the Inn
and would be well kept, the big man promised, his Fat Wife nodding
in assurance. They had no children of their own and were in need of
a young, strong arm around the Inn.
    The Old One knew of the Inn, had
passed it that cold, rainy afternoon long ago when he’d cradled the
dying child in his arms. He knew that elite travelers preferred the
dwelling and it made a good coin. Even so, he must be assured that
Ravan would be well cared for, never hungry, and would have ample
opportunity to steal away to the forest, as was so important to
him. The Innkeeper nodded that he would.
    Clasping and unclasping his gnarled
hands, the Old One struggled. He knew that this would be an
opportunity for the child to make a fair trade, perhaps even learn
how to read and write. It was a bold step into the world. The Old
One realized how important this was. He believed that each child
deserved such an opportunity; after all, maybe one day the boy
would grow into a man who would help the orphanage because of the
wondrous things he'd learned.
    Nevertheless, the Old One found it
hard to part with the boy. Ravan’s brooding silence and dark eyes
had worked their way into his heart, and when that quiet and rare
smile crept across the boy’s face, it was a thing of great
beauty.
    The Old One knew the mischief and joy
that was hidden somewhere underneath the lonely shell and held a
warm kinship for the lanky child. He was fond of Ravan, and didn’t
realize how he'd come to depend upon the quiet presence of this
particular orphan, frequently somewhere close by, as he tended the
orphanage.
    He worried for the boy as well. There
was one cold November evening when the boar pig had attacked one of
the children. The girl had slipped from the fence into the reach of
the tremendous-tusked beast. The monster pig had seriously mangled
the child’s leg and ripped an ear from the side of her head before
Ravan was able to pull her from between the slats of the
pen.
    Bludgeoning the snout of the boar with
his bare fists, he finally caused it to release its teeth from the
girl’s limb. She had bled so much that for a fortnight it was
dubious whether she would survive at all.
    Ravan went mysteriously missing,
though no one noticed this with all the commotion surrounding the
injured girl. The Old One eventually left the crippled girl’s bed,
hopeful that she would survive. He was mortified when he found the
boy crouched in the corner of the pigsty, a blood drenched
plowshare clutched in his hands. The boar, three times the size of
the boy, was unrecognizable, a butchered mass in the boggy
muck.
    It disturbed the old man that the act
of killing had gone beyond death, for there remained no
recognizable shred of evidence of the animal’s species—the act had
been so violent. All Ravan could whisper was, “It shouldn’t have
hurt her,” and then, for a good long while, he again ceased to
speak.
    This was the one and only
manifestation of this kind the Old One had ever witnessed. This was
not hunting, and it went beyond protection.
    This was the first and only time he
had seen Ravan kill.
    He told no one, but coaxed Ravan from
the sty and washed him off in the butcher shack, away from the
house. Wrapping the boy in a blanket, he went for clean clothes and
burnt the bloodied ones. No one else ever knew. It remained their
secret and the Old One wondered if the boy recognized the gravity
of this.
    There were also those rare times, when
he looked into the shadowy eyes of the boy and he did not see a
child, but a man—dark and brooding. The mystery of ages seemed to
be gazing back at him. He wondered at the depths of the child’s
thoughts, wondered where his mind went when the child looked so
lost and far away.
    Most of the time, however, he was
overwhelmed with the innocence of the boy. He would watch Ravan
scamper up the hill with