“Guys,” Nico says, breaking in over the CommLink. “I just picked up a transporter energy surge from the other Observer ship. Looks like you’re gonna have company.”
“Roger,” I say.
Back on the scaffold, the chaplain stands beside Wyatt and asks if Wyatt has committed his soul to God. When the poet nods in response, the priest offers a prayer for his soul, then makes the sign of the cross in the air. As a last act, the condemned man is given leave to speak his last words.
Overcome with emotion, it takes several minutes for him to find the words. When he does, they’re not what anyone expects.
I find no peace, and all my war is done. I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.
I fly above the wind; yet can I not arise;
Bewildered whispers spread through the crowd. One woman asks, her mouth agape, “He recites his own poetry as he dies?”
Wyatt ignores the murmurs and continues.
And naught I have, and all the world I season.
That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not—yet can I scape no wise—
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health.
I love another, and thus I hate myself.
He chokes back a sob. His eyes are swollen, face bruised. Torture must have extracted his confession, whether it’s fact or fiction.
I feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;
Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,
And my delight is causer of this strife.
He stops again and looks out over the crowd. Somehow, he locks eyes with me. He gives me a small, weary smile and shakes his head.
“I had thought to live among you for much longer than these short, cruel years,” he says, gazing at me as if I’m the only one on Tower Green. As if I’m the only one who can save him. I can’t stand the weight of his pleading eyes.
“I beseech you all, for the love of God and his saints, to pray for my soul,” he continues, his voice raspy and broken. “And pray for His Majesty the king because...though I confess that I am a sinner before God and man, I am innocent of the charges laid against me.”
His eyes are still on me. I look away. My own tears begin to flow.
“Thus, I take my leave of you.” He gives a short, curt nod indicating that he’s done. The burly executioner wastes no time—there’s a sharp kick against the stool and Wyatt is dangling at the end of the rope.
His body convulses as the rope pulls taut. His toes scrape across the platform’s surface trying to gain purchase; he’s a quarter-inch from being able to fully support his weight. It might as well be a mile.
His eyes bulge, legs thrash, and his face turns a mottled, purple hue.
The crowd erupts in a wall of noise, and some hot-tempered Neanderthal taunts him as he strains to breathe, but is interrupted by cooler heads. Just as Wyatt reaches the edge of unconsciousness, the executioner cuts the rope. The wretch falls to the floor. He coughs, chest heaving as life floods his lungs.
The executioner drags Wyatt—sputtering from lack of oxygen—to the trestle table positioned toward the front of the scaffold.
The executioner picks up a blade and slices through the lower abdomen; it wrings a shriek from Wyatt that I’ve never heard before. The sound is much higher-pitched that I expected; if Banshees were real, this wild and terrified keening wail is what I imagine they sound like.
I realize the sound isn’t coming from Wyatt—it’s Lady Anne giving voice to the horror playing out on stage.
“Dodger,” Nico’s voice is sober, measured. Like he’s trying to talk me off a ledge. In a way, he’s doing just that. “Don’t watch. Do you hear me?”
I set this in motion. This is my punishment: bearing witness to the carnage I helped create.
The volume of blood is overwhelming. It spurts upward onto Wyatt’s chest in several violent waves until it slows to gurgling crimson trickles. Wyatt’s screams fade as the dissection continues. By the time they take his testicles, his voice is long-gone and his eyes are glazed over.
“Dodger. Get out of there.” Nico says, the cadence of his voice shifting to urgency. “Whatever has gone bad in this timeline, we can’t fix it. We’ve got to get back to base before things get worse.”
“I can’t,” I reply. “Not yet.”
Wyatt’s organs are tossed into the bonfire; the putrid smell fills the air, causing those closest to the flames to retreat or attempt, in vain, to block the odor with silk handkerchiefs or embroidered velvet sleeves. Several spectators with more delicate constitutions stumble out of the crowd to vomit.
The executioner delivers the death blow, one swift strike to the neck.
The remaining blood in his body streams from the neck cavity, then cascades in a thin, uneven waterfall over the sides of the plank. The head hits the scaffold floor, then bounces down the wooden staircase with sickening thuds. It comes to rest at the feet of Sir Henry Norris, the Duke of Norfolk, who snatches the head up by the hair, and holds the bloody mass up to the crowd.
Some onlookers weep. A handful offer lukewarm cheers. Others stand silent as stone. Off to my left, a trio of ladies sob into each other’s shoulders.
Fagin’s voice breaks in; her voice is breathless “I found Trevor. She’s running toward the stables. I’m in pursuit.”
“Negative, get back to the ship,” Nico says in an unyielding tone that brooks no argument. “I have two more huge, distinct energy signature readings popping up on the display panels. It’s either more Benefactor ships arriving to back
