A spavined nag pulled the cart over uneven cobbles, through a jeering crowd that cursed and spit at him. They heaved rotting vegetables at him, calling him an aristo and screaming that he would soon be kissing Madame.
Most of the scruffy men and women wore ragged clothes, and all sported ribbons or caps of red, white and blue. Ryan couldn’t understand where he was. Or when he was. The lath-and-plaster houses that lined the narrow street were packed close together, with mullioned windows, half-timbered fronts and thatched roofs. Beneath the iron-bound wheels of the cart bubbled a noisesome open sewer.
The stench of the foul air was almost too much for Ryan, and he gagged, trying to breathe through his mouth to minimize the smell.
Now he could hear a different noise above the bedlam of the hostile mob. There was a pattern to it, repeated again and again, louder as the car drew nearer to the center of the action.
It was a drum roll, then a voice calling out what sounded like a name. A howl of derision rose from the crowd, then came the strangest noise of alla high whistling like a sword slicing through the air, then a dull thump, like a huge butcher’s cleaver striking squarely at a carcass.
Another loud cheer erupted, then the whole thing was repeated over and over.
The mob grew thicker and noisier as the cart pressed on, the man leading the horse having to strike out with a short whip to keep them back. The flavor of a lynching lay heavy in the bright sunlight.
Ryan tested the cords, but they’d been tied by someone who knew his business. They had been pulled so tight that he could feel blood trickling from around his fingernails.
The street turned a sharp dogleg corner, and Ryan could see what was waiting for him.
Suddenly he was out of the cart, being pushed up a short flight of steep stairs, standing on a wooden platform that was awash with blood and urine. Below it was a pile of straw sodden with more dark blood.
An old woman had been sitting on the steps, her hair and clothes splattered with crimson, calmly knitting. “May ye rot in Hell, citizen aristo,” she hissed at him.
There was the rattle of the drum, and the name of a marquis was called out. The great steel blade was hauled to the top of the guillotine by a team of four men, its angled edge dripping scarlet.
The press of people on the platform prevented Ryan from seeing what was happening, but he saw the blade drop and heard the thunk of the impact and the cheer from the huge, swaying crowd at the gout of blood that sprayed into the sunshine.
“You’re next, citizen,” muttered an old man in a stained frock coat and cracked knee boots, pushing at him with an ebony stick with a silver lion’s-head hilt. “All over soon. By the Three Kennedys, it will.”
Ryan recognized the voice and tried to turn, but he was gripped firmly by the elbows and marched to the foot of the guillotine.
His feet slipped in the blood, and he nearly fell.
There was a long, broad plank, with a semicircular notch roughly cut in one end, the whole thing soaked in blood. It was tilted toward him for ease of handling, and he felt himself lifted bodily and slid along, the sticky liquid cold and clammy against his skin. Another piece of wood was clamped over the back of his head, holding him still.
“For treason against the body and heart of France and for dealings counter to the righteous ideal of the revolution, sentence of death is hereby pronounced against the person of the duke of Glamis, marquis of Cawdor.”
“Who should have been king hereafter,” whispered the old man with the ebony cane.
The drum was beating, very fast and high, like a staccato heartbeat.
The cheering that had greeted the announcement of Ryan’s name was hushed, dying away into a great, sighing stillness that filled the square of the town.
The rope creaked as the ponderous blade was hauled to the top of the execution machine.