State Executions

Marcus Flavius Sarus takes a few steps forward, turns to regard the condemned behind him, then the bereaved families flanking the stage, and finally the waiting throng before the dais. He proclaims loudly, in a voice well trained to addressing many, "Citizens of Ar! These behind me are not just here to meet their deaths tonight, but are here as a reminder. A reminder that the stones of Ar are mortared with the blood of good men and women, and regularly deserve such tribute to remain strong. Ar is lifeblood to all of us. Remember this well as we purge that which threatens it!"

The words of our esteemed Legatus echoed through the forum before the Central Cylinder as four prisoners, four ill-fated criminals, were brought to justice before the populus.

First, a woman of Ar, found guilty of aiding Tyrosians and taking coin for her continued silence:

"Wasn't like that, ubara!" Aurura says, all her panic coming out in a whine far more shrill than she'd meant. "Lady, wasn't like that. My family's bakers! Bakers!" At the blank stares she gets for that, she shakes the bars of the cage. "The grain shortage made the business die off, and then father died, and mother long gone it came up to... up to..." She hesitates, hearing the boos, and weeps. "Up to me! And so I took on the boarder sure, but I didn't know til a week later he was of Tyros!"

Melisande stops addressing the woman for a moment and turns, as if she is speaking to the crowd, “When the Taurentians discovered the men of Tyros, it was confirmed that they had offered her coin for silence, so that they may leave to go back to Tyros. When they were caught, they had the plans of our beloved city.” Melisande's eyes grew grave as she lifted her hand, “Open her cell,” she said low, “Aurora Validus, I, Melisande, Ubara of Ar, deny you bread, salt and fire...” she paused.

The baker, Aurora, continues to plead for her life, a pitiful sight for a free woman of Ar, the whole turn of events distasteful to those gathered as they heckled the woman, spewing insults at her for her lack of honor and dignity.

Melisande lifts her chin as the woman begins to beg for her life and she raises her hand, so that the crowd will quieten. “Do you, woman, beg to live? Do you give up your freedom? Do you give up the right you have to die by impaling, as a free woman might? Do you lower yourself now, submitting yourself to a collar so that your possessions are forfeit?”

What possessions? Trembling in the guard's arm, Aurora stares at the ubara, at this idea of freedom and power. Her mouth opens then closes. Her daddy's bakery, all gone, her pride, all gone, her mother's hopes. She looks left and right at the warriors, some of whom she's sold bread to in the past, and chokes out, "Yes, yes Ubara, anything. Please just don't kill me." And that's all she can say. She's wracked with sobs.

And so it was done.

The next prisoner, a Naval officer of Tyros, was brought from the cage, before the populus, at the Ubara, Melisande’s command.

Septimus stepped closer to the bars as his name was called out. He stood with an ease, standing tall and proud. In truth, his uniform had been ripped away in the fray when he had been set upon in ambush while coming to observe the Arian's as merely a preamble of battle. He had been honest, however, in his disdain for women being allowed to watch him die simply on a pike, when there was War about. "I am Septimus," he said with a clear tone that was given the amplicification of a lifetime of leading men. I face my enemies with pride, Ubara. For Tyros, for Galahad."

Melisande worked her jaw as she spoke, her voice lifting, “Your Ubar Galahad, He of Tyros, offered Ar a 100 pasang berth in the waters you supremely navigate, man of Tyros. Glorious Ar rejected this offer, but before it had the opportunity to meet her in the water, your Ubar, in his folly, marched his soldiers down to the walls of Ar.” She narrowed her icy gaze at him, “Noble foe, your Ubar and his men did fall in the Battle for the Fields of Elysium two days ago, and you were caught, a man of the sea, upon our land – an enemy in foreign territory. As is your honorable right, we offer to you the death of impalement before our citizenry, so that you may fall with your brethren.”

The man, Septimus, a soldier for Tyros’s causes, proved to be vigilant until the very end. And even though he was not of Ar, still, one must not deny that the man was honorable in causes of his own beloved Home Stone.

"I am Admiral Septimus Alarus. I am a warrior, not a criminal. The day went to Ar in battle, but War is not a single battle, but rather a series of many. The finality of the War is yet to come..." he left that open ended possibility blazing in his eyes as he boldly met the Ubara's gaze. "I was captured with nets and wrestled to the ground by superior numbs. I do not deny you your victory, Ubara...or your city. I do, however, not choose to die upon the pike like a criminal, but rather to die as a man, with a blade in my chest."

Melisande gazes at him as she considers his words, nodding slightly. She turns pointedly to face the members of the family of the fallen, dropping her chin to them and wheels back around, "Your request is denied. Guards, impale this Tyrosian Admiral." She clasped her hands behind her and then stepped back.

Marcus Flavius Sarus raises a hand and says aloud to the Tyrosian, "Hold!" He gestures to the executioners behind him to move forward and surround the condemned warrior; preparing to seize him and bear him up atop the spike. He adds, "Admiral. Die with dignity."

Septimus’ right fist cuffs out into the air at the jaw of the approaching warrior of Ar's reknown legions. His feet were firm, his eyes accepting of death, but not without a fight. Septimus kept his fists held high at the Legatus' call...though he did not throw another punch. "Run me through, Legatus. Then put me on your pike for display."

Marcus Flavius Sarus turns his wrist slightly, a signal for the guardsman to secure the prisoner and rise him aloft. Sarus shakes his head, "You haven't earned death at my hands, Tyrosian."

Septimus cursed the cowardice of the Arian's, his howls of rage were long and fierce as a thong of guards came to surround him, just as they had impersonally done so on the field of battle. Ar's superior numbers would one day fail them, and they would have to face men...man-to-man. He bloodied many a lip and was able to hook his thumb into the eye of one man before the vast numbers of the horde over took him. He was then set atop the bike and gravity did it's work well...with a groan, he was set atop the spear's tip and began to slide down. Blood spewed forth from his mouth, coughing it up out onto the crowd as he raged. Rather than fighting the pike, he used what little strength he had left, gripped the haft and began to pull himself down the shaft, until he lay, by his own choice, upon the stones at the bottom with a lifelessness in his eyes...calling out just before he faded, "GLORY TO GALAHAD!"

The next to be brought to justice was an Imperial Legionary, Octavian Valens, one who remained loyal to Marlenus. And though such justice was swift, it was a hard loss for the men and women of Ar, even the Ubara whom this particular warrior so despised.

Melisande did move, then admist the cries of the Tyrosian warrior, towards the cage where the man who had been bellowing epithet and slander against her. The Ubara was certainly not a stranger to these accusations. Over and again, she had heard the spitting hatred of some who were allied with Marlenus against her. Whore. Trevian. Female sleen of Port Kar. Her jaw worked as she regarded him, “Octavian Valens, Warrior of Ar, you are accused of sedition. You, thinking that you still ally with Marlenus, who has betrayed us all and now lays waste to villages of helpless free men and women, who has rejected his caste and his city. You betrayed your Ubarate. Melisande of Ar was offered up to the Trevians by you, and you agreed to fly on tarnback to their city in the Voltai in an exchange that they would kill... me. Primus Marleneanus met you there after this plot was discovered and witnessed by your own confession. You do not trust in the leadership of your own caste. You are a traitor.... And you could have saved your brethren, had you not been absent on the Fields of Elysium when duty called."

Octavian Valens clenched his fists at his side, words not coming easily in such a moment, but instead his jaw worked lightly. After a few moments pause, he turned to face the woman who dare call herself Ubara of his beloved Home Stone. "I do not follow behind the smell of bowels of Port Kar."

Marcus Flavius Sarus locks eyes with Octavian, and for a moment, his composure falters. As he looks at the face of the man he studied alongside at the academy, met hundreds of times at the kaissa board and in the arena while training, he feels his iron resolve melt just slightly, even beneath the harsh charge of treason. He inclines his head and says just loudly enough for the former Taurentian to hear, "I'll meet you again on the other side, sword brother." He gestures to the four nearby guardsman and indicates the impaling stake, "Do it."

Melisande shudders for a moment as she heard the tone in Sarus's voice, her skin crawling with gooseflesh. If they knew what I know... she thought... If this young warrior could have just waited and listened to his commander... She hated the loss. Her stomach roiled. She was not some asexual, unfeeling machine of a Gorean woman. She deeply ached at loss. It was never taken for granted – life and death – and though she experienced the power of taking it away, it was overshadowed by grief of an untrusting few who betrayed those they shared bread, salt, and fire with. But, this last prisoner would resolve her grief.

The final prisoner, would cause the crowd to go wild. A Cosian, one not even worthy of a name in the eyes of Ar, was presented to the crowd by the Ubara, who was quickly gaining the support and allegiance of the people of Ar.

Melisande raised her hand for him to be escorted out of the cell, “You call yourself a scribe. A Cosian spy who our Ambassador, Adlai, rooted out as being corrupt, spreading misinformation in an attempt to confuse and ferret out secrets of our caste and the superior city of Ar.” She seethed beneath her veil, “You, and all other Cosians will learn the might of Ar. You are not worthy of a collar. You are not worthy of freedom. You will be impaled only because the righteous indignation of the citizenry of Ar, who has too long been subject to such machinations of Cosians, has need of the satisfaction of the visual. So... up you go.”

The Cosian screams insults at the top of his lungs, ranging from the scatological, to the anatomical, to the blasphemous, to the truly obscene as he struggles vainly against the guards, attempting to bite, scratch, claw, run, hide... anything he can to escape this horrible fate at the hands of the hated sleen of Ar. He scans the skies one last time, hoping against hope for rescue from Cos, his eyes full of terror and rage... "Curse you! Curse you all! Sleen of Ar! Your walls came down once, by your own hands, after being conquered by glorious Cos! You'll fall again. And this time you'll burn. Every single one of you... burn!!!" he continues screaming insults as he is hoisted upon the spear, cruelly piercing him from below and his shouts of defiance become screams of pain and horror as he slowly, agonizingly slides down the slim pole and screams out his last.... "Die sleen of Ar... Die!!! Die!!!! Aaaarrrrrrr......... "

Cries of glory and justice rolled through the crowd as the Ubara and the legatus addressed the citizens at the culmination of the public executions. The honor of the people of Ar was upheld.

Melisande turns and addresses the crowd, “Men and women of Ar, our war is beginning. Our battle in the fields are being won even as the battle here within the walls of sedition and treason are won. Justice prevails, and wrongs are made right. Glory to the home stone. Glory to Ar,” she says, gazing at them all.

Marcus Flavius Sarus grips the nearby impaling stake and hoists himself up, using the dead Cosian's shoulder as a step. He raises a fist above him and cries out, "Behold the justice of Ar! Hail Ar!"

Glory to Ar. SPQA.

(For the entire role play log, which is amazing, might I add, please see: http://www.goreanforums.net/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=4178 )