Free Golden Lion by Wilbur Smith

the Buzzard in any way should be subject to instant, public execution.
    When the culprit drew near it became clear that he was no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, a hot-headed lad who’d acted in youthful high spirits without giving the slightest thought to the consequences. The commander hesitated. He was a decent man with a son of his own and he did not want to deprive another man’s family of their boy, simply for expressing the disgust that everyone – the commander included – felt in the presence of the masked man.
    The Buzzard noted the commander’s hesitancy. He could hear the first, nervous cries for mercy coming up from the crowd. Every instinct told him that this was a crucial moment: one that might determine whether he was seen as a monster to be feared or a freak to be pitied, and of the two he knew exactly which he preferred.
    ‘Give me your sword,’ he growled at the commander, then reached out with his right hand and ripped it from the man’s grasp before he had a chance to argue.
    The beak and the glaring eyes turned their predatory gaze on the two soldiers who were holding the boy. ‘You two, tie his hands behind his back!’ the Buzzard commanded. ‘And look sharp or I swear the maharajah will hear of it.’
    The men, who looked almost as frightened as their captive, immediately did as they were told. The Buzzard heard one of them apologizing to the boy and begging for his forgiveness. ‘Silence!’ he rasped.
    A heavy weight of bitter resentment settled over the watching throng, but no one said a word as the boy was bound and then forced to his knees. All his adolescent bravado had vanished and he was just a fearful, weeping child as one of the soldiers forced his head down so that the back of his neck was exposed.
    The Buzzard looked down at the boy’s bare, brown skin, raised the scimitar and swung it down as hard as he could.
    He missed the neck.
    Instead the blade sliced into the top of the boy’s back between his shoulder blades. A terrible, high-pitched wail of pain echoed around the square. The Buzzard tugged on the blade that was stuck between two vertebrae, forced it free and swung again, hitting the neck this time, but failing to sever it.
    Three more blows were required and the boy was already dead – a corpse held in place by the two soldiers – before his head finally dropped from his shoulders onto the dusty ground. The Buzzard stepped back, his chest heaving, and looked right around the square, turning through three hundred and sixty degrees as he surveyed the scene and all the people in it, basking in the fear and hostility he saw on every face. Then he ordered the commander of the guards, ‘Take me back tae the palace,’ and as the soldiers reformed the escort around him he thought to himself,
Aye, that’ll do it. I believe I’ve made my point.

 
     
     
     
    ship’s captain had to be on duty, or ready to be summoned by those who were, at any hour of day or night. Once Hal had set to sea, he did not allow Judith’s presence to distract him from his responsibility to his ship and all who sailed in her. To do so would have been to take undue liberties with the admiration and affection his crew felt for him. Nor would Judith have allowed it. She knew what it was to be a leader and would not have wanted to come between Hal and his duties, nor would she have respected him if he had allowed that to happen.
    But if there was one hour of the twenty-four in each day that they could dedicate to one another, rather than anything or anyone else, it was the one that preceded the dawn. This was the time when the ship seemed at its quietest, when the sea and wind were most often at their calmest and when they could take advantage of the peace and the silence to express, whether in words, or actions, or both, their love for one another.
    Hal could never sate his desire for Judith. He loved the moment when he thrust into her, plunging so deep that he could hardly tell where