Bang!

• Renee Buckland, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2011

And then there was silence. There always is silence when someone has just been beheaded. I personally think it is cruel and terrible. But I would never voice that opinion to my peasant friends, let alone the Lord of the Manor or his soldiers. I could get into deep trouble. There should be some other way to sort our problems. No one, not even the worst criminals deserve to be treated this way. Then, the children started crying their poor little hearts out but the executioner had no mercy.
It all happened in the dark hours of the morning yesterday. Most of us were asleep in our huts except for Arthur of the Bakery. He was creeping around silently trying to steal grain from the farms down the road.
I woke up to the sound of soldiers yelling and running past my hut, instructing each other to capture Arthur. I was upset since he was my next door neighbour and I knew him to be a jolly man with a hardworking, lovely wife and two pretty, rosy cheeked children.
Jumping out of bed, I raced next door to comfort Molly and the children, James and Anna. They said he had gone to check on the bakery because he heard a disturbance there. Together we put the children to bed and Molly and I talked. We agreed that I would look after the children, who settled down happily with me, while she went to look for her husband.
Three hours later, Arthur was found in a garden hut, a bit out of the village. He was taken to the dungeons of the Lord straight away. I caught a glimpse of him and he looked like he had been whipped a few times with the cat'o'nine-tails. His back was bleeding and his eyes were fearful.
I tried to keep the children settled but when their mother burst into the hut crying, there was no stopping them.
It turned out that Arthur had been found guilty of a number of crimes that had not been discovered before. The villagers had always respected him and were angry that he had betrayed their trust. They were also sad that they would be losing a great friend.
The soldiers were parading around notifying everyone of the beheading to follow the next day. Molly was allowed to go into the dungeons to see her husband briefly for the last time. It was only because she had the reputation of being an honest woman that she got that priviledge. She came back, her face swollen and red, but trying to stay strong for the children.
That night, I was back in my hut when suddenly there was a knock on my door. It was Arthur. He thought that the children were with me and wanted to see them for a final farewell. He had escaped the dungeon...
When he went away, I closed my door and jammed it so that he could not come back. As much as I cared for the family, I wasn't going to get myself killed for betraying the Lord of the Manor. I was worried about him for quite awhile, when there was a loud knock on the door of Arthur's hut next door.
The soldiers had guessed where he had escaped and were there to arrest him. Straight away he was taken to the middle of the village and everyone crowded as was customary during an execution.
The masked executioner, hefty, strong and pitiless, raised his razor sharp metal axe. For a brief moment in time there was a hushed silence. And then,BANG... THE HEAD ROLLED.