Chapter 58: The Notice Board and the Town Crier
Jared led me to the public notice board, a grimy, weather-beaten thing that served as the city's beating heart of gossip and decree. A crowd had already gathered, a motley collection of the curious and the concerned, surrounding two soldiers in simple armor who stood guard as a town crier, a man with a booming voice and a self-important air, pasted a new notice to the board. Before the invention of the electric telegraph, before newspapers were cheap enough for the common person, this board was the only way the city's masters spoke to the masses. Every town had one, placed in a prominent square, its use restricted to official business. To deface a public notice was a crime that could land you in prison, or worse. And because most of the common folk couldn't read the dense, spidery script, the town crier, after posting the notice, would read it aloud several times for all to hear.
The crier finished with his paste pot, then took a small brass bell from his belt and rang it sharply, its clear tone cutting through the murmur of the crowd. "Hear ye, hear ye!" he bellowed, his voice loud and clear. "The witch scheduled for execution this day has escaped her righteous confinement! By order of the Lord Mayor, a bounty is hereby issued! One hundred gold coins for the witch, delivered alive to the city gaol! Fifty gold coins for the witch, confirmed dead! And ten gold coins for any information leading to her capture!"
A murmur of avaricious excitement, a hungry, greedy sound, rippled through the crowd. But the crier held up a hand. "Don't be gettin' any foolish ideas!" he warned, his voice stern. "This witch is extremely dangerous! She has already killed many! Know your limits! A clue is enough. Do not attempt to capture her yourselves. You'll only be throwing your own lives away!"
His words were a bucket of cold water on their fiery greed, and the crowd's enthusiasm quickly died down. But I knew the crier's warning was a kindness. After what I had witnessed, I had no doubt that a common citizen would stand no chance against her. She could kill them as easily as swatting a fly. So, the witch had escaped. Even with a wizard and all those knights and priests, they had failed to hold her. The thought of such a dangerous person loose in the city, a predator in the gaslit labyrinth, sent a fresh wave of fear through me. I prayed she had already fled beyond the city walls.
“Why would they offer a bounty if she’s so dangerous?” I whispered to Jared. “Aren’t they just encouraging people to get themselves killed?”
“The bounty ain’t for them,” he said with a cynical smirk, his eyes hard. “It’s for the professionals. The bounty hunters, the rat-catchers. And if the witch uses her sorcery to kill a few commoners, the magicians will be able to sense it. Then they’ll know where to find her.”
“So they’re using the people as bait?” I asked, horrified.
“Of course,” he said, his voice laced with a bitter contempt. “What do the nobs care for the lives of the poor? And if a few of us die, all the better. Saves the city from having to pay out the reward.” I fell silent. He was right, of course. What child of the slums did not harbor a deep, burning hatred for the nobles who oppressed them?
I had not forgotten the original purpose of our visit to the notice board. Because most commoners couldn't read, the crier had to read the entire proclamation, including the full, official titles of the issuing authority. He was just reaching the end now, his voice rising in a grand, formal cadence. "...by order of his lordship, Baron Juan Ista, Lord Mayor of the city of Candon, under the authority of the Viscount of Valladolid, in the Duchy of Toledo, by the grace of the Kingdom of Castile, and by the imperial decree of the Iberian Empire!"
My head spun. The long, convoluted string of titles was almost too much to process, a cascade of power and dominion. But I filtered out the noise, the extraneous details, and focused on the core information, the pieces that mattered. The Kingdom of Castile. A subject of the Iberian Empire. Finally. A piece of the puzzle. I knew where I was. And for the first time, I felt a flicker of something other than fear: the cold, sharp thrill of understanding.
Comments (0)
Please login or sign up to post a comment.