The Sacrifice of a Hero: Revival Page 6

  Set a new start for being reborn under the name of the bursting rays

  Don’t mourn me while in my murky vest, for I have known I was next

  Wait for me when the sun relines its lovely lion’s glowing light

  Only then, you will feel the blessing of the wanderer of the Night Watch

  Just when you find peace in being reborn, you will feel Cheerfulness,

  And the burning fire enriching your bones and makes your wealth

  A still mocking bird was seen on a branch of an oak tree not very far from the platform; the Pope walked out of his cathedral I slow steps dragging his legs heavily, as if nudged by nudge, and foot by foot, and even cross by a cross. He edged in confident steps to the front of that cathedral; the platform was built the previous day, it was made for that morning spectacle, the cathedral’s surface was hidden by the rising high sun, but nothing was able to hide the massive rising light of the window that was fired from the inside by the sun rays and inclining through the bloody red and the golden fire.

  The sound of the murmurs of excitement stirred the crowd as if they were hungry for fire; a loud shout swept right there amidst the plaza like a thunderous bestial voice,

  “Here they are coming! They are coming right now!”

  To a loud chorus of joyful voices and heckles, a number of the elite royal guards appeared pushing through the hot square; they were leading Three shackled men. Northumberland most wanted prisoners and the last Knight of the Watch Nights were tied up one behind the other like animals; and two warrior monks who were accused of helping the Night Watch Knights secretly. The long centuries of respecting the knights in Northumberland finally came to a perpetual end; the king gave up on them because they refused to reveal the location of the treasure. Frayne made a perfect plan, and by the time the king arrived at the cave where he first hid the treasure, it was empty, he couldn’t even find a trace; it was silence as if no one had ever entered it for a million years.

  Frayne thought of how many sacrifices he offered his country but, they all betrayed him, even his own king. How could he forget the role the Knight Watch Knights played in escorting the pilgrims into the holy land despite the dangers that encountered them? How could the pope forget that it was the Night Watch Knights who provided safe passages to Escorting pilgrims to the Holy Land, and the fact that they transmitted letters?

  Anyway, Frayne was ready to die, life didn’t mean anything to him anymore, especially, after his beloved Rose left him, the king was determined to finish the last Knight; but how could he accuse Frayne of heresy and perversion? How could he just say “God was not pleased by your deeds,” As he started his speech in the warrant he issued. It was the same phrase, they found applicable on many people and knights. Talking or even confessing in that instance wasn’t of any significance, the plan was already made; everything was decided. Frayne looked at the crowds who were watching him with despise and spitting on him as they stripped him of every dignity a human being had to enjoy, even covering his own skin wasn’t a right he enjoyed any more.

  Those shackled prisoners were led up towards the few steps of the platform right as the pope instructed them to do. The pope was the first to reach the base of that platform. The first to go was Frayne, the grand master of the Night Watch Knights, a tall, muscled man who grew stronger even though his body was full of scars, after days and sleepless nights of captivity, that strong man walked with dignity towards his destiny, chains weakened his steps and behind him was the two monks. After all the prisoners took their place and mounted the platform, one of those cathedral iron doors opened and around ten clergymen emerged; amongst them was their head, Williams, the archbishop of sins, he served as the king’s confessor.

  And right as the watery winter sun rose above the bell towers, the archbishop stepped forward in steady steps, and after quieting the crowds, he started reading the Knight’s name and those of the monks; he was listing their crimes too, “This knight has admitted and confessed his crimes freely and not under any pressure,” The archbishop repeated then paused a second before continuing; “I hereby, sentence you the two monks, for life imprisonment, may our Almighty God have mercy on both of your souls,” A roar could be heard amongst the crowds, most of them were approving while others expressed their protest.

  Frayne, the Knights master and the last of the warriors stepped to the front of the scaffold in front of him and raised his hand to silence the crowds. After a sound of scattering and whistles as well as catcalls, the noise started to subside slowly until the place was finally as silent as death itself.

  “Listen to me everyone, and hear what I’m going to say very well, for I will never have the opportunity to say it ever again,” Frayne called out in a thunderous voice. “We might have confessed to all of these terrible crimes.” He paused to let his words sink in the minds of the crows as the archbishop couldn’t, but bow for Frayne’s bravery; he mitered his head gravely; it was then when Frayne shouted as loud as he could, “But, never believe what was said, all of those confessions were false, they were all forced from our mouths under torture, both monks stepped forward nodding and shouting loudly that what Frayne was saying was all true; at the same time, the two other prisoners were shrinking back, in a desperate try to distance themselves from Frayne. At the other far end of that platform, stood the archbishop of the sense together with the other clerics who huddled in their consternation; and at the moment when Frayne started speaking, the archbishop hurried up to the high captain of the royal guards; Frayne was able to see him whispering urgently and pointing at him.

  “We, the Night Watch Knights, have neither betrayed our nation nor did we lose the order of the Night Watch Knights and it will always be holy and pure,” Frayne cried as the soldiers and the guards converged on him.

  “Listen to my words and remember them, our sin was not, by any means, heresy—our only sin was our weakness! We have betrayed our Order by signing false confessions! Look around you, those clerics were and will always be the real traitors to our land and God!” It was then when Frayne felt a painful blow coming from one of the ferocious guards knocking him down to knees while the crowds surged forwards the crowd surges forward. The warriors dragged the prisoners from that scaffold and forced them back to prison; their swords and lances were at the ready.

  The words of Frayne reached the king’s ears someway while he was having a late breakfast in is palace and as soon as he heard the news, he flew into a rage and raked all the dishes to the ground as he cudgeled his messenger. The king went crazy and unable to control his anger, he convened quickly the council of his civil and the lawyers of his church; he wasn’t assured until they told him that there couldn’t be a proof of heresy better than denying it. And they told him to put an end to the boiling turbulence by condemning Frayne to death immediately.

  “Your grace, it is better to execute that last Knight immediately if you want this chaos to come to an end,” A lawyer advised.

  “Yes, your grace, he shall die before the sunset,” Another lawyer pleaded.

  The king was kind of satisfied with the idea and without any trial; he issued a royal decree condemning Frayne to death before the sunset.

  The news spread immediately like fire across Northumberland and to the rest and even to the neighboring lands such as Highlands. And within less than an hour, boats started delivering people from all over the places to witness the execution. And so was the case until five hours after the decree was issued. All the archbishops and the clerks watched the sizing up of the stuck of firewood that started to be accumulated in order to burn Frayne to death. They all laughed as they saw the firewood enough to burn the heretic.

  The archbishop’s assessment had always been based on more than a tiny experience with the heretic burnings. And happily, that archbishop had been a theology student there for years, when the king started to burn hundreds of knights for the same fake crimes he accused them off; when he even spit on the cross and denounced Christ? Could he just be
condemned to death for listening to an old haggard that jumped in his way and started predicting his future? Frayne had never performed sexual depravity acts, neither did he consume from the woods that belonged to the king, yet he was to be burned with the wood of the forest he had always protected. The immolation was said to last for only one hour, but the king wanted the pain to be longer and for that, he ordered his executors to make the fire small so that they could prolong his pain. Frayne was shackled and under careful guard, he stood as still as a mountain; he was still young to die; he didn’t exceed his thirties; everyone loved the way he looked, his handsome figure; his long hair that had a streak of gray along it; around his neck was his round jewel pendant, it was showing the seal of the Night Watch Knights, two knights wearing only one horse. Frayne’s eyes didn’t leave the face of the dead body that was put right next to him as he was locked into the cage like a savage animal.

  The guards pushed him towards the piled wood and tied him up without removing his shackles to an iron rod. He could see nobles drinking lavishly and all of them were gathered as if they were witnessing a party, not a death. Four monks managed a bathtub of ale and right in a corner stood Alfred silent; he didn’t seem to have the power to stop the unfair execution of his only friend; a glance of sorrow swept his face as his eyes met Frayne’s eyes and he couldn’t, but lower his head to the ground. Alfred; the Marshall and the huge knight stood helplessly with his long thick dark hair and beard.

  It was then when an inquisitor started reciting and reading carefully and loudly, Frayne’s crimes from a rolled scroll he was holding. The inquisitor started:

  “Frayne Albinson, King of Northumberland

  And all of his Holy Eminence, the Pope

  Have decided to convict you of heretic action

  You are condemned today to death

  You must die and be consumed by fire flames

  Only fire can drive out the evil that lives in your soul

  Only Lucifer, your only master will welcome you

  To the depths of his darkest fire and his underworld”

  Only then, did everyone become suddenly silent; that silence overwhelmed even the last Knight and rested on his skin just like poison. It seeped into Frayne’s blood as he heard the crimes that he didn’t commit and it paralyzed his mind, his pupils became all of a sudden dilated as he resisted the was a tremor in his hands. His face was covered in an unusual awkwardness. He took off his angry eyes in awe of the crowd with a weariness that swept all over his exhausted body; deep inside, he wanted to bury the whine and the fatigue he was feeling like a small child, he raised his eyebrows and looked at the sky. The firewood was set; the smoke and the flames danced higher.

  Satisfied that the burning fuel was more than adequate for the requested task, a young abbot turned into a circle and looked around him to study his spectators. They all looked as a mangy, all of them looked like enemies of the faith, or so thought the abbot and the clerks, most of them were unreliable friends, he noticed a group of some other clerics. Some were probably younger, and one looked an older man, he was seemingly the leader of the group. That old man was talking and lecturing loudly, his words looked more like it; it was about the heresy Inquisition in particular. For some reason, that wasn’t surprising, since the pope chose very well his clerks to accuse as many knights as possible of heresy; yet, there wasn’t anything that could have possibly been done about Frayne’s confidence and the trust of the people he gained easily.

  The abbot got closer from the other men who were standing not very far from him; he was listening to the other old men’s comments with a kind of keen interest; he had a critical ear, and such a rising irritation ignited anxiety within him. He suddenly remembered the huge wielding pain, both physical and emotional and the theological cunning as well as the abject terror that dad broken many of the knights who were accused of being heretics during his five years working as the Chief Inquisitor. The abbot wondered if what he did was right or wrong and whether it was to be there that day; something felt different, he had his doubts, but he knew very well that if he didn’t abide by the king’s orders and the pope, he would suffer the same fate; no one wanted to die, not even for the sake of saving the land from possible Viking raids that were getting closer from Northumberland, the ships were already spotted in the ocean, it could ‘t be worse; Northumberland would lose the most precious man who could save his land, but they decided to give up on him once and for all.

  That abbot withdrew all of a sudden pushing himself to the sideways, he wanted to get away; he felt that what he assisted the king and the pope in was wrong; he could feel a curse getting closer, darkness approached from them as death was approaching from Frayne, the last Knight. But his movement caught the eyes of the clerks and his eyes met theirs as he said,

  “Would you have the courage and dare to be unfair?” He asked.

  The clerks pretended they didn’t hear anything at all; they wouldn’t risk hampering the execution after what they had done,

  “God shall not be pleased with your deeds,” The abbot muttered underneath his breath, no one gave him their attention; and it was time to make his way towards the towering stake that was ready with the stacks of wood to burn Frayne. And at a time, people thought they would enjoy watching the last Knight’s flesh burning, the abbot raised his voice as loud as he could.

  “This is not going to be the right place to burn the last Knight, we shall do that on a boat, everything is ready, look right there, the boat has arrived.” The abbot said, everyone was shocked at the abbot’s statement, but no one could object as the boat was spotted on the shore. Everyone’ eyes was focused to the boat; it was rowed by nine men, royal guards grabbed Frayne towards it; the abbot hesitated in setting the fire even though he was given the torch, and in that moment, the guards took the torch from his hand and rose it high over their heads then the mob roared.

  The pyre started to burn until midnight, but the crowd rather lingered, they loathed leaving until they would watch every stick of wood was consumed. It was projecting its shadows and throwing its sparkles in the surrounding area. The light of that fire that was casted by the flames danced wildly across the trunks of the dark trees, they twisted and curled in its obscurity as it provided its small radius of glowing light. The fire that was surrounding Frayne was pulsating as if it was a living heart; its sparkles glowed and moved in a rhythmical way with the bursting flames, matching every sweep. From far away, it was mesmerizing to watch it from some distance with its orange and red colors that started to give away the colors of orange and the red gave way the lead of the white color near its centre, where the emanating heat seemed to be the greatest of all. “Your path, warrior will be a long road of separation from your soul and the pain you will experience will match the color of your long hair before becoming as red as blood. It will be covered with a trail of blood, even bloodier that that of your father’s, you only have one hope, one wish, only one thing can help you out, scream as loud as you can while you still can, Aka, the god of Fire, raise your voice and call him when your life meets your death, when you feel the pain is unbearable, he will save your soul from being sold,” The old witch said. In that instance and despite the pain Frayne was experiencing, the words of that old haggard rang in his ears as he realized it was the end and he free his thunderous voice.

  “I, Frayne Albinson, the last of the Night Watch Knights, the grand master who was betrayed by his closest friend and by his own king, curse the King, the pope and all the clerks who participated in my death to feed your greed, you sent me unfairly to die like a criminal, both of you will die at the same year Grand Masters, curse King Philip and your names will be lost to the wind of time. Your bodies will join those of the dead Knights that you tortured and condemned unfairly to die.” Frayne screamed.

  Frayne desperately tried to cringe away from those flames, but apparently, there was no escaping from that fire. Frayne thought back again and found he had nothing to lose if he followed the witch
’s words; the worst that could happen was to die, so he finally said begged in pride and anger…

  “Aka! Aka! Aka! The God of Fire, the god of Darkness, I Frayne Albinson, the last Night Watch Knight, Call you from the far North. I’m begging you to save my soul and body from the flames of the burning flames and I will grant you, my soul, grant me thy powers and dress me exactly in your image, even if I know I will be the first vampire who will be walking down the earth, I agree to your conditions, please save me, save me Aka, save me, save me and replace all the goodness in my soul with your deep darkness.” Frayne made his last wish while the nobles spotted the glowing flashes of Frayne’s body amidst the smoke and the flames, but then they could see nothing else at all.

  A monk too out a cigar out and lit it from the burning flames. The other monks looked horrified at seeing the monk doing so. When the flames started finally to the gutter and everyone though the order and the line of the Night Watch Knights was finally extinguished. But hanging there in the air like the last lingering smoke flames and the unbearable scent of the charred flesh, remained the never dying cry of the Grand Frayne Albinson: “I Frayne summon both my king and the unfair pope to meet together before the God!”

  Chapter Five: Rebirth of a hero

  I was once fearful of my death that claimed my breath

  My motive was clear in my deep sorrowful thoughts

  I felt the light fading; everything gestured to absolute nothingness

  I felt like an evanescent that flickered of my singularity

  But right in that blink of an eye, I was reborn in the purest shape

  Although you may not like; all must be forgotten and forged new

  The sun sank as they clink watching what was brought in the dark

  There from the huge fire’s ashes, a new knight shall never die, but rise