Free Eight for Eternity by Mary Reed, Eric Mayer Page B

him look vaguely awkward and uncomfortable.
    “I’m a craftsman,” he said. His mild features belied the anger in his voice. “I take pride in my profession. A quick, clean death, that’s what I aim for. I once met a fellow who extracted money from the condemned man’s family on condition he’d make sure the fellow had an easy exit. Had no idea what he was doing. Botched the job so badly the victim’s head was ripped off. He never collected his fee. Whether the family got their bribe back, I can’t say.”
    Two boys, perhaps six and seven, whom John took to be part of the man’s family, sat in a corner and goggled up at their visitor.
    “I’m not here to quibble over your payment,” John said. “I wish to interview you about the hanging. Kindly ask your children to leave us. It isn’t the sort of thing they should hear.”
    The man looked surprised. “They’re always asking to hear that story about the poor fellow’s head again. But if you insist.” He shooed them into the other room.
    The rooms were part of a stolid apartment building north of the Mese, halfway down the steep hill which descended toward the long finger of water known as the Golden Horn. Furnishings were the usual wooden tables and chairs and a brazier for heat and cooking. One of the ubiquitous Christian crosses hung from the wall. The confined space smelled strongly of garlic from a recent meal.
    “I understand you are called Kosmas.”
    “That is correct, excellency.”
    “From your speech I can tell you are not from the city. What brought you to Constantinople?”
    Kosmas’ mild expression darkened. “Taxes. We owned a farm in Anatolia. Raised livestock. Pigs mostly. A few mules and horses. For four generations we were landowners, until, finally, we couldn’t pay. So I brought my wife and children to the city and looked for work. That was three years ago.”
    “You found employment as an executioner?”
    “Most of the time I work for a butcher. I’m paid a decent wage and can bring home some meat as well. Executions aren’t steady work. They bring in extra money. One day I might be able to own a small farm again. I miss the open fields. The noise the beggars make in the alley keeps us awake most nights.”
    “How does a farmer and a butcher come to hang criminals?”
    “I performed executions in Anatolia. Even in the countryside there’s occasionally someone who needs hanging and not many with the required expertise. Once a village witnesses a condemned man slowly strangled because the knot wasn’t placed right….well…I took it up as a civic service. I was well known in the area.”
    “You may have spared a lot of curious children nightmares,” John observed, with a stern glance toward the doorway to the other room. He glimpsed two heads vanishing from sight. “You were summoned on short notice to carry out the executions by Prefect Eudaemon?”
    “Yes. He is familiar with my work. There have been quite a number of calls on my service of late. As a good Christian I can only deplore that, but as a family man with children and a wife to feed…you understand, I am certain.”
    John responded with a thin smile. In fact, he did not understand Christians at all. Was Kosmas attracted to Christianity because it was the official religion or because its most sacred symbol was a man being executed? “Describe what happened,” he ordered.
    Kosmas paused in concentration. In his memory he must have been seeing a picture of that cold morning. “The prisoners were ferried over from the city. Seven of them. Four were beheaded. A quick death, excellency. Much kinder than hanging. Not a task I like to carry out. But duties must be met however distasteful. Think of how those in charge of crucifixions must have felt! It’s one thing to give a quick downstroke of a sharp axe and deprive a man of his life, but quite another to hammer nails into living flesh. I have never been ordered to crucify a man, but if I was I would make it