The Prince & The Executioner

This story was originally published on Substack.

The king stirred in his sleep, cackling, grinning, dreaming of past deeds. Hyperrealizations of razed villages and weeping wives danced across the magic lantern show of his mind’s projection sheet. On a nightstand beside, sat his crown. It was a stunning headpiece, crafted of gold, emblazoned with jewels, and adorned with precious gemstones mined from lands of many a decimated tribe.

The unenviable task of waking him fell on a humble servant. The servant walked in with caution in his feet, approaching this temperamental king ever so carefully. With a tremor in his hand, the servant softly nudged the king by his breast. A wild look flashed in his eyes. Jolted abruptly into a state of consciousness, the king screamed in the servant’s face.

“Filthy pondscum, how dare you disturb my rest?”

“Your majesty–” the servant stammered, “do you not hear those infant cries? It is your son. The prince has arrived!”

When the king sped onto the delivery scene, it was there, in that hallowed chamber, where the clinical scent of smelling salts interspersed with the fragrance of afterbirth. Against a backdrop of stone-covered walls, the king gazed upon the young queen, who lay frail and pale in her blood-soaked mattress, her body reeling from the arduous labor it had just undertaken. The king met eyes with the stout midwife, her meaty arms tightly gripping the newborn prince. The midwife handed him his son, before signalling for the other nurses to follow her out. In private, the king exhaled his elderly huffs onto the freshly-carved cherubic face. Though just hatched from his loving mother’s womb, he possessed elderly eyes, ones that the king recognized as the very ones that met him in the looking glass of every room he entered. The prince’s face was scrunched up in sobs, soft to a touch, with a gentle frown that stretched across his forehead, while loudly crying that triumphant newborn howl. The king searched desperately beneath those glittering pupils, those dark black pools of infinite potential. He searched for any traces he could find of his own personal darkness, his infamous cruelty, and kingly barbarity, yet strangely, he could not find even the faintest glimmer. All with the passage of time, he reassured himself.

He named the boy Claude. News of his birth spread quick. The royal bugles blared, festive bonfires were lit, and colorful banners with handsome glyphs were dispersed for all to see. The news proclaimed loudly and clearly: the prince is here!

To know that this cruel king’s lineage would persist was no great thrill to the people. It seemed all but inevitable that this blood-lusting despot would instill his ways into the mind of this young boy. And so, all throughout, there was enforced jubilation and compulsory celebration. For in the people’s hearts, there was nothing but bitterness and fear. Already they despised the child, though no soul was brave enough to voice such a thought. In accordance with the law of the land, anything–whether it be uttering the wrong phrase or panhandling in the wrong street–could land you in the deathly chamber. Whether it was under the guise of population control, resource management, or simply stamping out the subtlest whiffs of rebellion, it was par the course for this cruel king and his retinue of affiliates. It was well understood by all, that it was in their best interest to be on their best behavior. There was never any telling what infraction, however minor, could garner you a date with the executioner’s blade.

The perfume of death was potent that day. The fumes of ionized blood, that tender rustic scent of innards laid bare, lingered in the dungeon air, wafting their way into the executioner’s acclimated nostrils. He was a steady handed decapitator, this executioner who went by the name of Frederick. In his work uniform– a black hood over a faded green tunic– Frederick did good on his daily routine, working his way through a backlog of prisoners.

He stepped to a table and grabbed a stained rag, using it to wipe the human remains from his trusted axe. As he cleaned his tool, a blank-faced chaplain recited the customary prayer over a headless corpse, all before a pair of guards would come in to bring their next assignment.

“Send in the next one,” said the executioner.

“There isn’t another,” the chaplain replied.

“Oh,” he remarked with no small surprise.

“Time for a relaxing little day trip, perhaps?”

On this rare occasion where there was little work to be done, Frederick decided to pay an unscheduled visit to his superior. Lord Pennington, the great Magistrate Supreme of the land, had his workplace situated just a short walking distance away from the executioner’s den, in a far more regal and capacious courthouse, where Greek-style columns and Cheshire-grin gargoyles stood in proud displays of the kingdom’s ruthless judicial system. When he arrived, an assistant guided Frederick to the Magistrate’s study-room, where many relics collected from his worldly travels stood perched on handsomely-built mahogany shelves.

“The Magistrate will meet with you at his earliest convenience. He is presently having an audience with his majesty, the king.”

Frederick soon regretted having come down to meet him. He almost wanted to call the entire thing off, though he was unsure when such an opportunity would arise again. While sitting patiently in the austere frigidity of that office, his eyes darted from one corner to the next, examining the accolades, the many ribbons, and lifetime honors pertaining to the Magistrate’s career. The centerpiece of his collection was a

gorgeously-rendered painting, made by an artist with a keen eye for light, space, and tone. The massive oil painting stood beside the entryway, almost taking up an entire wall. It was a wide-canvas landscape in a delicately-carved frame, featuring an ensemble of men, women, and children on an idyllic retreat outside a sumptuous country home. The home was large and stately, painted white with a large oak tree looming proudly above it, a swing on a rope woven into its branches. The point of focus was Lord Pennington himself, dressed dandily in coattails and frills with an ostentatious cane to hold up his bony frame. He stood tall before his large family of adult children, doting wife, and all their grandchildren. Everyone there dressed in fine garments: the men wore black, the women wore white. There were easygoing smiles on all their faces, particularly on those of the children. Frederick wondered whether any of these children had any concept of what their grandfather did for a living– condemning common folks to their doom, so that they could enjoy a leisurely, luxurious lifestyle playing with rubber balls and swinging beneath old sturdy oak trees.

At last the Magistrate arrived. By his airs, he was a sophisticated man, clad in black robe, which draped over his feet and endowed him the aura of a man who floated rather than one that walked. With a perpetual scowl in his eyes was a man of unencumbered cunning, a powdered-wig judge in a pince-nez, with a wrinkled-face that expressed incalculable intensity. When he walked into his office, the executioner stood up and clasped his hands.

Though only in his forties, the creases on Frederick’s face when he smiled seemed to age him an entire decade.

“Your honor—”

“How is my little decapitator?”

“Apologies for my suddenness. I know–”

He waved his hand and smiled. “There’s time for you, Frederick. Always.” Even when he smiled, it always seemed to carry a subtle hint of disdain.

Frederick sat. He began: “there’s a matter I wish to discuss.”

The magistrate guillotined the head of a cigar as he listened.

“I’m very grateful for this position. I am. I see so many of my neighbors struggle just to make ends meet. So I am not one to complain. This job, the stability it provides. I do not take it for granted.”

He paused.

“But, it is my wish to retire.”

The Magistrate’s jovial aura soon withered into a suppressed intensity. Clueing into this almost immediately, Frederick began to say his words with more deliberate pace and careful consideration.

“This job… it’s built a chasm between my neighbors and me.”

The Magistrate huffed.

“People keep their distance from me. Some, on occasion, spit in my presence. I am on a regular occasion, refused service. I once took a knife to a blacksmith so that he could sharpen it. Instead of helping me, he thought it best to toss the item towards my feet.”

“Tell me the names of these people. I’ll sentence them to the fullest extent for you. Every last one of them.”

“That would just create more work for me.”

“This is true.”

“My wife has lost dear friends because of my role in society. And she resents me for it. She and I got into quite a heated debate the other day about it. Lots of nasty words were said. At the end of it, she said to me: “perhaps you should try being a real man for a change, and not a low-level murdering thug,” and after that she walked off to bed, crying in her sleep.”

“Ah,” the Magistrate smirked, “it seems the man with the battle axe has a different battle axe to deal with at home.”

“She certainly has a point.”

“She doesn’t. She has no point. You must educate her. Tell your wife to bite her tongue, lest she say something she’d soon regret.”

Frederick’s eyes winced as he continued. “My own kin won’t look me in the eye.”

Frederick went into great detail about the ways his own son had grown distant in his presence. Though it hurt his soul for his son to be so emotionally disconnected from him, he could not blame him either. Frederick understood how burdensome it must be, being the son of the most hated man in the realm.

“How do they know all this about you? Did you let others see you without your hood?”

“I may have been careless in concealing my identity as of late. I suppose it’s all very personal, people’s hatred of me. Perhaps I killed a loved one–”

“Do not use that word,” the Magistrate interrupted, “What you do is not killing. Is that clear?”

Frederick nodded.

“Killing is bashing a man’s head in to steal his bread. Killing is slitting a man’s throat to lie with his wife. Killing is disemboweling a man just to see the color of his entrails. Do any of these fit your description?”

Frederick shook his head.

“They certainly do not. These are repugnant, unforgivable souls. You, my friend, are noble and brave. What you do is in service to your people. Whilst the bread maker dispenses bread, and the fish monger dispenses fish, you dispense justice– a rare commodity in today’s ugly reality. Because of you, there are less wicked men mucking our streets, doing whatever hellish, vile thing that they please. Don’t misuse words, Frederick. Words have meaning. You are not a killer. You are a hero. Society often rejects its most faithful servants. You make them feel inferior. You remind them that they in fact not do not do nearly enough in the service of others.”

“Still, I still must ask if you do see any other function out there for me?”

“Why do you insist on being difficult? What would be the sense in re-assigning you? I already possess the greatest executioner a magistrate could ask. Do you know what an immense inconvenience it would be for me to find a replacement? Do you know how many executioners we went through before we arrived at you? Many of them lacked the mental fortitude that you so gracefully wear. They practically needed a brain scan after every session.” The Magistrate scoffed at such a notion. “Then there were the others who didn’t require that. The ones who rejoiced in their task a tad too much. You know the type. Those surpassed even the bloodthirst of our cruelest past rulers. You can imagine how terrible that was? Those devils were no good in their employ. They were sloppy, they were grotesque. They reduced our kingdom’s image to that of heathens and barbarians. Oh, so you see, my dear boy, all the ones that came before you? Pansies and sadists, the lot of them. No, no, no. It will be nigh impossible to find you a suitable replacement. To find an executioner as reliable, dependable, and, most importantly, dispassionate as you. You are good at your job precisely because you do not enjoy it.”

It was a salient point on Lord Pennington’s part. What made Frederick so good at this executioner task was his uncanny ability to compartmentalize everything he did. For in his brain existed two fully-functional machines operating at total capacity. Working in tandem, these twin devices operated as a sort of crude, but reliable filter. This filter processed everything it saw into a bifurcating pathway. If the stimuli analyzed revealed anything in relation to his family, it would flow swiftly into the empathy box, wherein anything he did had to be completed with the utmost care and affection. If, however, it fell into the purview of a stranger or someone who was not a blood relation, then that feeling would fall squarely into the apathy box. The apathetic part of his brain was capable of fulfilling any such punishment or beheading, just as long as the person he was executing was not his loved one. It was a most curious thing to behold: a man who could easily spend all day chopping heads of unknown men, then swiftly going home to kiss his wife on the lips and his child on the cheek, not that very much of either was happening much those days. Yet the point still stood. He could complete these state-sanctioned executions without any lasting damage to his admittedly already-compromised psyche. The perfect clockwork simplicity of his brain made him truly indispensable. Yet even the most perfect machines are sometimes prone to malfunction.

After considering the Magistrate’s impassioned remarks, Frederick could barely respond with more than a hollow shrug. “I do the best that I can. My father once said, if someone pays you to do a job, and you accept – it is your duty to fulfill it to the best of your ability.”

“Wise words. Your father must have been a good man.”

“Could be. Never talked with him much after that.”

The Magistrate sat in thought for a period of time. Having mulled over the executioner’s pleas, his eyes soon began to glow, indicating that a shift had taken place in the old man’s head.

“My son, I understand. But I cannot relieve you of your role. Not now, at least. I do, however, have an opportunity.” The Magistrate leaned in close, as if to disclose some sensitive information. “Would you be interested in working with our young prince? You see, the king loves his son. Of course, as he is his natural born heir, eventual successor to the throne and what have you. But it would seem that the boy does not currently possess the urge, the violent urge, necessary for him to rule when eventually he takes up the throne.”

The Magistrate recounted a recent event at the castle, in which Prince Claude came to a passionate and emotional defense of the castle’s livestock. He would not let harm come to this dear, poor pet pig of his.

“Let him be,” the Prince cried in anguished tears for this pure, porcine soul.

It took a very long time for the workers to explain that unless he allowed them to slaughter the animal, there would be no supper to fill his belly that afternoon. Prince Claude was inconsolable at this realization, and so he wept as a child weeps, with no self-conscious insecurity over how his whimpers and wails may be perceived.

“You see, the prince is a pusillanimous runt. Simply put, an embarrassment to the crown.” The Magistrate went on: “I posit to you, Mister Frederick, that if you can spend time with this child, let him watch you at work. Impart in him the dispassionate ways of manhood, and he might have a chance of becoming one himself. Should you succeed, well, you will have done this land a blessing it can never repay. Should you satisfactorily fulfill this task, I will see to it myself, much as I may regret it, that you never work a single day in your life ever again.” He grinned a satisfactory grin.

Though careful not to show it, inside the executioner was thrilled. With a gentle smile, he accepted. “Yes, I will do the job.”

Early the next day, the executioner left his home, taking an alternate path from his regular commute. He began the long trek by foot towards the Castle. No map where ‘X’ marked the spot was needed. For the Castle stood tall, bare and ubiquitous. Throughout the land, there was nowhere in sight from which one could hide. It was such a

behemoth structure, ancient and brooding, with an unmistakable landmark silhouette of hard edges and towering angles outlined across its base in descending order, like fingers on a palm– a gargantuan hand of straight lines and black stone, so pitch dark that it sapped all the light from the sun to which it seemed eternally grasping for. In order for Frederick to reach this castle, he had to walk for very many miles alongside a steep and treacherous cliff. On several occasions, he sped too carelessly, tripping on those slippery pebbles peppered across the trail, nearly falling over into his oblivion.

After some time marching beneath the sun, he eventually arrived. It was the closest he had ever been to the castle after an entire lifetime of being mocked by it. it was only now up close that he could admire what a truly spectacular and intimidating piece of architecture it was. What an awe-inspiring assemblage of volcanic rock and ashy brick, stacked high and mightily into dazzling configurations of handsome arches, curvaceous cornices, and strategic turrets. These storied walls were the very ones he had heard so much about in songs and tales, the kind that involved warring, vengeful tribes, hellbent on earning back their land by mutinying against their royal conquerors. Movements of rebellion were not an uncommon occurrence over the centuries, but they never amounted to much either. Every generation of kings was prone to their bout of uprisings, and it was always by the might of their loyal knight’s army that such movements were effortlessly quashed.

That the castle remained standing for as long as it had was a true testament to its exalted place in the order of things. Surely, one could surmise, God saw something in this blood-thirsty regime, for He had allowed it to exist for as long as it did.

When the executioner arrived at the castle walls, he promptly made his way past the opulent portcullis, as the drawbridge bowed down invitingly for his expected visit. Guided by a guard through a long series of halls and corridors, at last he arrived at the young prince’s room.

When he entered the room he saw that the prince was busy working with a great assemblage of colorful blocks, which he has stacked into all sorts of unique facsimiles of notable things like castles, pyramids, and ziggurats. The future king was building tiny wonders with all his bricks, having stacked them high on the carpeted floor of his spacious room. The Prince was a quiet boy, sitting on his tiny blue chair that he had painted himself with haphazard lazuli strokes. He adorned his chair with charming approximations of creatures he liked– squirrels, pigs, and unicorns–charming patterns of fleur-de-lis, and crooked shooting stars to tie it all in a bow.

Frederick was at first apprehensive to approach this child. It was an amusing sight. A man who had so violently ended the lives of countless souls, was now suddenly almost a sheep in the presence of this boy. Though decades his senior, it was not lost on Frederick that this very child wielded so much more power than he could ever dream of possessing. While sustaining a bow, Frederick began: “Your highness,” a nervous rasp rattling, before clearing his throat. “Excuse the intrusion. The king has hired me to pay you a visit. My name is Frederick.”

“Hello, Sir Frederick!” the Prince squeaked.

“You flatter me, Prince Claude. I am merely Mister Frederick.”

“Nice to meet you, Mister.”

Seven years since taking his first breath, the prince had turned out to be a good little boy. He was gentle, polite, and a lover of all living things. Though privileged from birth to live in unimaginable luxury, subjects available at every moment to tend to his every need, his mother the queen, had made certain he did not develop a conceited personality. It was she who imbued him with softness and lightness, instructing him to say please, thank you and to never let someone leave without handing them their due compliment. He was already unlike his father in so many ways.

“I have been tasked with instructing you in the ways of the world. What makes it turn and your place in it. May I ask how you see it?”

The child began: “Well it’s a really big world, isn’t it?” There’s lots and lots of people in it. Like you. Like me. We have trees and other natural things. There’s flowers like daisies and roses. I like the smell of roses but I don’t like it when I touch them because the thorns hurt my hands. Ouch. And er, well we got all kinds of animals here, too. Big ones, like the elephant, who’s got a long snout, and then there’s the giraffe, who’s got a long neck. There are ants that crawl in the dirt, fish that swim in the water, and the frog who likes to spend time in both. We all have to get along and share this land, fair and square.”

Frederick would have chuckled normally at such childish naivete, but there was a remarkable note of sincerity in his childish view of the world. The prince conducted himself with such effortless poise when he expressed these puerile views. His eyes were bright with wonder, imbued with boundless curiosity, streaks of energy pulsing through his tiny, chubby hands, which twitched unceasingly as he recounted the many fascinating things about creation. When he spoke, he seemed indecisive on what to do with said hands, whether to keep them akimbo, tucked in his pockets, or crossed as he had observed in the stern adults surrounding him. Yet even when he bore this authoritative pose, his kingly heritage was betrayed by the plodding course of meekness endowed by his quirkily rodent-like face, that sniveling, sniffing nose and darling overbite which gave everything he said a sibilant, innocent lisp.

Frederick stretched a soft smile at the corners of his lips. “Very concise, very apt. Which is your favorite beast?”

The question pleased the prince as though he had long waited for someone to ask it. “Uh… maybe the… maybe the… maybe the…” he trailed off into distinct thought, until it finally clicked: “the unicorn,” he said with delight in his eyes.

“The unicorn,” Frederick frowned.

“They’re so wonderful! The sound their hooves make, clop-clop-clop, and their horns are so magical.”

“Have you seen one before?”

Prince Claude shook his head.

“I would think not,” said Frederick, “of course an intelligent young man such as yourself would know that unicorns do not exist.”

Prince Claude’s mouth fell open just slightly with astonishment. His eyes drifted heavenwards, an expression filled with doubt and mounting sadness. Bursting the prince's unicorn bubble was the first step that Frederick decided to take towards fulfilling his goal of manning up the boy. But, oh to see the look of hurt disillusionment on his small face.

Frederick remembered encountering this very expression time after time on his own son many ages ago. Raising a child with a series of reality checks, seeing how deeply it affected them, was a sight that often tugged at the murmuring, muffled heart strings of his early fatherhood days. Yet, here, now, seeing as how he bore no blood relation to the prince, it bothered him very little, his complex mental machinery working fast to wither any bubbling empathy. Frederick was merely doing his job, as he always did. After all, Frederick thought, boy would have to learn sooner than later that his childish fantasies were precisely just that.

The Prince was taken outdoors, to a fecund field of bushes and flowers. It was here where he would undergo his first lesson. Against the opulent grandeur of these fertile gardens, many holes had been dug in the ground. Eroded flowers and bits of bitten petals were decorating the soil. They were clear, tell-tale signs that an infestation of critters was well under way, rummaging a path through the beds of vegetables, wreaking havoc on the harvest.

Prince Claude spoke to the executioner, “What is it that you do?”

“Put simply, I dispense justice. Something we call capital punishment.”

“How do you do that?”

“By the butt of an axe.”

Claude crossed his arms and made a disbelieving smile. “How does a butt make justice, does it fart forgiveness?”

Frederick smirked.

“It’s easier if I show you. I hear there is a particularly bad squirrel problem. They must be dealt with or the garden will fall.”

As if on cue, a bushy-tailed, brown-coated squirrel emerged before them, squeaking and rubbing its paws with cunning bravado, fully rejoicing in the abundance that surrounded it.

“There goes one right there,” said Frederick pointing to it.

“Can’t we just let the squirrels be?”

“I’m afraid not, your highness. They’ve waged their war, and we must retaliate.

“But what if they’re just hungry?”

“That could be, but– rules of engagement being what they are, our only recourse is to crush them.”

“Rules of what?”

“Rules of war, essentially. Do you know about war?”

“Of course I do,” Prince Claude said with a defiant frown. Despite his age, he did not like being condescended to. “Father has told me all about war. About his battles, about my grandpa’s battles and his dad’s battles. War does not sound not very helpful to me. I think we could get on much nicer in life if we shook hands with our foes and hugged each other every once in a while.”

“Oh, Prince, if only it were that easy. Very well, grab your weapon.”

The executioner handed the prince a slingshot, a sturdy stump of bamboo with a rubber band tied to the top of its protruding stumps.

“What is this for?”

“To lodge into their skulls, the squirrels must be hit! And you can never go wrong with a slingshot, young prince! Stones are always a reliable method of pest control. Endless in supply and extremely fatal. Why else would David have chosen it to defeat Goliath?”

In the middle of their conversation, the squirrel had ample time to run away. Frederick and Claude chased after it, trudging their way through bushels of corn. They spotted the squirrel, but the squirrel was fast to dash out of there. What the squirrel left behind took them both by surprise.

There was infant squirrel with a still soft, very pink snout, sleeping peacefully on a bed of leaves with some half-eaten things that his mother had scavenged.

“Well we missed the mother,” said Frederick, “but this will be a good target for you. Grab a rock. Use your slingshot.”

“No,” Prince Claude protested, “It’s a baby. It didn’t do anything.”

“Your highness, I understand your hesitance. Really I do, but squirrels are not much different than people. You see, one of the first things you have to understand about my line of work is it’s never too early to deploy capital punishment— this squirrel, though a child, will one day grow to be a garden-desecrating menace. Do not be fooled by his beady little eyes.”

“But it’s a baby. It didn’t do anything. You need to give it a chance to try being your friend first.”

At that, the executioner had no adequate response. He decided to call off the entire extermination. Shortly after, he bid farewell to the Prince, and went straight to the Magistrate’s office.

Soon afterward, Lord Pennington spoke with Frederick.

“Have you met the prince?”

“I have. He is quite precocious.”

“Indeed. How did the first lesson go?”

“He would not go through with it.”

“ You must be more forceful with him. You have full permission to do so. He must learn his lesson.”

“I understand. He just did not want to do it.”

“Don’t let it happen again. You do him no favor shielding him from the realities of life. You know just as well as I do, stifling your humanity is an obligatory rite of passage if you intend on surviving. The sooner he is numbed to the ways of mankind, the sooner at ease the king will be with the future of his realm. Now tomorrow when you return to the castle, know this, I have a very special assignment prepared to heighten the stakes.”

The next day, Frederick returned to the castle, where he was promptly guided by a guard back to the Prince’s room. On his way, he briefly met eyes with the young queen as she walked in the opposite direction. She smiled at him with warmth and pleasantness. Her piercing beauty instantly reminded him of his own wife back home, back when they were both much younger and very much in love.

It had been so long ago. He was little more than a common peasant when they were both young and deeply enthralled by one another. He dreamed of unobtainable security and prosperity, escaping destitution, a woodsman’s boy with a skill for chopping logs. He could clear acres in a single day. He was strong, sturdy, dependable. This made him such a catch in the eyes of this pleasant young peasant girl. When they wed and had their son, in spite of having little to their name, it seemed like things could be fine and beautiful in the world. They had each other and that was enough. It wasn’t long after a long string of days, unsuccessfully finding work that he landed his job as executioner. Though this young couple was apprehensive at the start, ultimately they saw it as a necessary step towards financial stability. Frederick, for his part, relished the avenue it provided him to feed and shelter his family. He earned a good wage chopping heads, and he felt that it would take him towards better opportunities later on in life. He wasn’t wrong after all, for here he was in the royal castle itself, exchanging glances with the queen herself, while he was on his way to meet with the prince, who was reliably there in his room, continuing to build with bricks.

“Hello again, your highness.”

“Hello again, Mister Frederick.”

It was during these brief pleasantries that a guard entered the room.

“The Magistrate sends a message. He has provided you with your next assignment.”

The Prince’s lesson for that day was tied up and bound to a chair in a small room. It was that same unlucky servant who years ago first announced the prince’s birth. In his restraint, he was begging for mercy.

The Guard looked at the Executioner and explained the situation: “Years ago this servant disturbed the king’s rest while in the midst of a pleasant dream. The king has never forgiven him. The Magistrate expects that you teach him a… handy lesson.”

Frederick understood the assignment. He looked over at the condemned servant, as he whimpered so helplessly and so pitifully in his chair.

“It’s a bit of a minor assignment for someone of my experience.”

“The Magistrate believes it would be a good entrypoint for the Prince.”

“I am not one to conduct business outside of dungeon walls.”

“The Magistrate has granted special permission for you to do so,” with that he handed him a sheet of paper, signed by Lord Pennington himself, explaining the special circumstances.

Frederick grabbed the paper and examined it, pretending he knew how to read. He handed it back.

“I haven’t brought my equipment with me.”

“That’s alright,” the Guard replied, “the necessary equipment will be provided. Just tell us what you require.”

The Executioner nodded with tacit understanding. He looked over at the Prince and asked him to follow him into the room where the Servant was kept.

“Alright, your highness. This man upset your father. As punishment, he must have his hand removed.”

The Servant’s pleas persisted: “Please, don’t. It was so long ago. I’ve never repeated my offense.”

Frederick placed the Servant’s hands over a bench. He picked up a clean, unused axe and lifted it into the air.

The thieving servant’s cries reached a harrowing crescendo, and the prince, still confused, stopped the process with a piercing shriek.

“Why are you doing that? Leave him alone. Please! Please, don’t hurt him, please.”

The executioner stopped mid-swing. It hadn’t even occurred to him that the sight of a limb chopping might be a distressing sight for such a young child. But when he heard those impish howls, suddenly he was taken back to a time when his own son was still very young and had not yet been educated in the violent ways of the world, when his innocence was still somewhat intact. It stirred something that had long laid dormant inside his heart. Though he had no blood relation to this servant and certainly not to this blue-blooded prince, in some way, he felt that by harming them both with this violent act, he was in some retroactive way bringing harm to his own grown-up son.

Seeing the fear in the boy’s eyes, he suddenly did not see the eyes of a prince who needed to be instructed in the brutal ways of the world. And so the executioner did not go through with this assignment either.

It was not long before the magistrate summoned the executioner back to his office.

“Do you mind explaining to me why there is currently a servant in the castle walls with both his hands intact?”

“I could not go through with the procedure. The boy, the prince, he was not ready to learn his lesson.”

“He wasn’t ready? I see. And how, may I ask, did you determine that?”

“He’s seven years old.”

“So not only are you wasting my time by not fulfilling your contractual obligation but you also wasted the prince’s time by not giving him the lesson he was supposed to learn? You realize, it’s one thing to waste your employer’s time, it’s another thing entirely to waste the time of the royals.

Frederick shuffled in his chair. “Listen, are you sure you want me to teach this boy? I think perhaps I am not the right man for the job.”

Lord Pennington sniffed with derisive intent. “I already sang your praises to the king. Shall I retract my endorsement? I could do that, but it would make me look very stupid. If you don’t wish to do it, fine! There’s a long line of people in the unemployment line who will gladly take up the duty. None nearly qualified as you are, granted, but what’s the matter? Don’t you still wish for your retirement? Don’t you want your family to live in comfort?”

The next day, Frederick returned to the castle and, with the young Prince Claude, coming back to the chamber where the servant remained tired, visibly exhausted and malnourished. Frederick was to go ahead with his assignment.

However, he decided that he would not make the young prince watch. He told the prince to go back into his room, and go back to playing with his bricks. It was only then that Frederick cut off the servant’s hand.

But the servant’s cries were so loud, so jarring, that they reverberated with sickening clarity all throughout the castle walls. They brought the royal boy’s ears to a haunted shudder.

The boy broke down and he sobbed. The executioner came back into the room in an attempt to console the boy. He laid his hand on the future king’s shoulder.

“Please don’t cry, your highness. It’s not all bad. He knew this could happen when he made his decision.”

“But you hurt him…” cried the Prince.

“I didn’t.”

“Then why was he crying?”

“Because sometimes learning important lessons can be painful. Do not worry. I made sure to only free him of his non-dominant hand. He’ll still be able to do much of the same activities as he did before. Though hopefully not for stealing.” Frederick smirked, but the young boy did not find it amusing at all.

“Will he still be able to live happily ever after?”

“I don’t see why not. He’s more than capable of going out there and finding a fulfilling job somewhere else.”

“Are there lots of jobs out there for folks with just one hand?”

The executioner did not have the heart to lie so baldly in the young child’s face. There weren’t even jobs for people with both their hands. “The important thing,” Frederick continued, “is that he learned an important lesson about respecting the law. An education is the most generous gift you can provide to your fellow man. Did you know that?”

An education is the most generous gift you can provide to your fellow man. Did you know that?”

The Prince wiped a tear and suddenly appeared quite fearful. “You’re not going to cut my hand, too, are you?” It took a very long time for the tears to cease flowing from little Claude’s eyes.

Frederick went back to Lord Pennington to confirm the successful task completion.

“How did he take the lesson? Did you make him watch?”

“I did.”

“How did he react?”

“How do you mean?”

“I want all the details,” the magistrate said with an unhinged look in his eye.

On the fly, the executioner had to come up with something believable. “He was a little tense at first, but after a while I think he found it quite… entertaining.”

“Entertaining?”

“Yes.”

The Magistrate cackled. “Marvellous. Oh, that brings such joy to my heart. That’s why you’re my favorite person. Oh very nice indeed. Well then, for his next lesson, I want you to bring him to work with you. You will let him see first hand how disgusting the commoners are, and why they deserve to be punished. No offense.”

“None taken, your honor.”

Morning came once again. The queen stepped out of the Prince’s room. But when she passed by Frederick as he made his way forward, she would not even acknowledge his presence. In stark contrast to the friendly disposition the day prior, now she was cold and indignant. With that dismissive glare, any illusion that the queen felt any fondness for him immediately evaporated. Gone was the pleasantness she exuded. Eerily overnight, she seemed to have stymied into a state of passive aggression. He was quietly wounded as he went into Claude’s room. It was there that he noticed the Prince, standing silently by the corner, facing the wall, not building anything at all. A member of the castle staff was changing the Prince’s bed sheets. It was the smell that hit Frederick first. The unmistakable scent of urine. It was only when he noticed the large wet stains on the sheets that he realized what had happened. The implications were immediately clear to him. It was to surmise that the events of the previous lesson had left a lasting, instant impact on the boy.

“Hello, your highness. Everything alright? It’s time for us to go out into the town.

The Prince was so cold in his state of shame and embarrassment.

“You’ll get to see where I work? I think you’ll like it. Ready??”

Prince Claude stood quiet for a very long time, before finally replying with a soft, unfeeling: “yes.”

On a horse-drawn carriage, they arrived into town. The prince wore a disguise of simple, unremarkable clothes. He blended in just fine with the crowd of peasants, strolling in every direction, stone-faced folks, weathered down by desperation and poverty. Everyone in the streets was too absorbed in their own woeful worlds to notice the prince of the land was there, smack dab in their proletarian presence.

Finally, they had arrived upon the familiar dungeon facade that Frederick called his place of work.

“Right here is where I come in for work everyday. Excited to see what it’s like?

“Yes,” replied the Prince, not very convincingly.

“Worried? Don’t be. You get used to it after a while.”

“Are there any games we can play?”

“I’m afraid not. You see, once maturity comes knocking, there aren’t very many times you’ll find to play anymore. And that’s true whether you’re a peasant like me or a king like your father.

It’s a simple fact of life that you should realize. Life, after a certain point becomes quite…”

He wanted to say cruel and unrelenting, but he was interrupted by a sharp noise, a noise of crashing cymbals, and thrashing drums.

Frederick and Claude craned their necks to the direction of the ruckus. On the very next street, marching to a comical beat, a band of clowns and performers were trotting through the streets for the amusement of those huddled masses.

“Circus is in town,” the executioner remarked.

Curiosity beamed into the Prince’s eyes. “A circus? I’ve heard of those. Aren’t they supposed to be funny?”

“So they say…”

“Can we go?”

“Well yes, but first we must…” At a certain point, he stopped nudging the boy. It occurred to him that the prince was not yet prepared for the full reality of what lay beyong those grim cobblestone walls. Right as they arrived at the doors, Frederick made a decision.

“You know,” the executioner said with conviction, “we can always come back later. Let’s go see what they’re up to over there.”

The prince was so happy about that. Frederick felt a warmth he could not describe.

When they arrived at the circus, the royal little boy was suddenly seated underneath a dusty but colorful tent amongst a sea of peanut-chewing, profanity-spewing peasants. Prince Claude had never seen so many haggard disheveled countenances in all his young life. It was truly a sight for his sheltered eyes to behold.

When the show began, the lights grew dim. Within seconds, the prince was entranced by the acrobatics, the clown antics, and all the lion tamers and bear performers. He was enraptured. He was gasping with delight. He was laughing at all the jokes. And he cheered after every death-defying stunt. For Frederick, on the other hand, this show was of no interest at all. It occurred to him as he watched the prince enjoy it from his periphery, that he could not recall the last time he had felt that kind of unburdened elation. He had long been desensitized to any spectacle of this type. By his measure, maturing into adulthood was a long arduous process of desensitization. The sooner one could be callous to the everyday miseries, the sooner they could enjoy the privileges of manhood, which bestowed a level of acceptance and agency that one expected to inherit from childhood for merely existing. It was only after a certain point that one understood that such things as acceptance and agency were not givens, they were granted only through the wholesale submission to the system’s powerful displays of cutthoat-competitiveness and unbridled aggression. That was ultimately what Frederick knew he had to make clear to this boy. Only then would he be effective as a leader of men. That was his hired task, and now having taken him to the circus instead of the dungeon, he was floundering on his responsibility.

He could not shake the feeling that what he was tasked with doing, though ordered by the king’s court, was not something he could go through with. It was best to allow this child his joy for as long as he could. His maturity be damned. And the future of the land with it too. Why was his mental machinery lagging this badly, Frederick wondered.

When the circus concluded, Prince Claude could not help himself from giddily trotting along the street, back to the carriage that would return him to the castle.

“Wow,” Claude bleated, “that was so fun. So terrific? Can we do that again?”

“Perhaps, next time, maybe.” Frederick said with a blank expression, “We’ll see.”

Dinner at the castle was always a tense ordeal. If all were lucky, no words would be exchanged, for invariably any words would be cruel and charged with malic. Much to the young prince’s chagrin, they were again eating pig. Prince Claude had absolutely no appetite at all. He merely played with his plate of lettuce, while he hummed a tune he heard the clowns play that day.

The king, for his part, spent the entire evening guzzling wine from his goblet, stuffing his face with grapes and baby tomatoes, speaking in cryptic incoherent babbles which drunkenly burst from his imprecise lips at irregular intervals.

“Dearest, why do you always wear that ugly gown to the dinner table?”

“You think it is ugly?.”

“Don’t do your figure any favors at all, love. I prefer the green dress, you know the one?” He laughed lasciviously.

The prince gave his father a blank stare.

“Look how he regards his father. What could he be thinking? You just can’t wait to be king, can you?”

The prince at last spoke “I don’t want to be king. I want to be a clown.”

The king nearly choked on his food, his nostrils flaring with indignant rage.

“You what? Repeat that, boy.”

“I want to be a clown and bring joy to the people with laughter.”

“Who says that a king can’t be a clown?” the queen interjected with a side glance at her inebriated husband.

“So this is the family I am to deal with, is it? Well we may as well leave the floodgates open. This kingdom is ruined. Ruined… Ruined… Ruined.”

It was then that the king, in his drunken stupor, very suddenly passed out on the table and began to snore.

As the days went by, Prince Claude and Frederick had a hell. They truly were forming a lasting bond, over tasty frozen treats and the entertainment of sideshow freaks. For though Frederick had long mucked in the company of the maimed and the miserable, slowly but surely he was regaining his lost sense of playfulness.

Some days Frederick took the boy to the fair, and there they would browse through all the stalls, admiring the wares that were on sale, chatting up with all the nice people travelling from afar, trying to make a trade. Here they could also enjoy shows put on by vulgar actors in front of covered wagons. Their puerile displays of flatulent humor and punch-heavy slapstick were something that Prince Claude especially adored.

Frederick had in fact become so consumed with the task of entertaining the prince, that he neglected entirely his original task of maturing the boy. For him, it was more important to let his innocence linger for as long as it could.

‘Oh, the innocence of childhood,’ Frederick thought– “Why are we born with it if we must inevitably lose it? It seems like such a cruel joke that life is wont to play. If only we could remain in our harmless, generous phases forever– it was the only time in life when you didn’t constantly wonder if there was any meaning to it at all. It is a blissful period when the mind looks with awe and wonder at every new discovery that surrounds it, yet it is also the time when pain stings the greatest, as the young impressionable mind has not yet realized that these pains will follow it for the rest of its life. Oh, the innocence of childhood, he repeated in the annals of his brain. It would be so marvelous if it were not so torturously brief– we’d be better off not knowing we ever had it in the first place, rather then losing it so unceremoniously through the course of our existence. It had been so long since Frederick had experienced any semblance of innocence in his life, that he may as well have never experienced it ever in his life in the first place.

When he saw it exhibited so effortlessly in the actions of the prince, it was as though he was observing some strange exotic animal that had long been thought extinct. Is this what it looked like? It must be protected at all costs if that is the case. Much as Frederick attempted to preserve this elusive state of the prince’s life, fate had other things in mind.

It happened one day, as they walked past a crowd at a bustling fair, that Frederick accidentally bumped shoulders with a passing festival goer.

“Pardon me,” said Frederick.

The festival goer turned to look at him. “That’s alright. Got us packed in like sardines today, I reckon.” He said with a friendly laugh. “Wait a second,” said the stranger, his bright red brows furrowing in recognition, “I know you.”

“You must have me mistaken for someone else.”

“You haven’t even heard me say it.”

“Who do you think I am?”

“You’re the decapitator.”

“You don’t know who I am.”

“Leave him alone,” the Prince chirped. “He’s a good man.”

“Hate to break the news to ya, little one. But your father here is a real piece of work. A certified horse’s arse, if you know what I mean.”

“-Alright,” Frederick stuttered, “we’ll be leaving now.”

“Oi, the feck you are. You’re not going anywhere, you flea-riddled mongrel.” He grabbed him by the collar. Frederick gargled. The stakes were clear. The man’s friendly presence had evaporated, giving way to a raging, hulking mass of muscle, seething and ready to tear the executioner apart from limb to limb. “You know you took me own twin brother from me, ay? The only person I had in me life, just because he accidentally sneezed at the Magistrate’s shiny leather boots, the tosser. My wee baby brother. Taken from me, brutally, over a simple little oopsie-daisie. Was that justice? Was it?!”

“Seeing what a fine gentleman you are, perhaps it’s best there aren’t two of you around.”

“What was it you said there,” the man pressed his muscular thumbs deeper into the sides of Frederick’s neck.

“I’m warning you…” Frederick whispered through his clenching teeth.

“Go ahead, put me to death for threatening yous. Go on. Cry about it to your monarchist bedfellows. I don’t care if you chop me head. I’m already dead.”

It was then that a circle of spectators had gathered around the Prince and the Executioner, a growing circle of those ruined and desolated by Frederick’s blade.”

They screamed, shouted, chanting all sorts of cruel taunts:

MURDERER! QUISLING! DEMON!

It amassed into quite the mob of incensed townsfolk. It took the arrival of several sentries to intrude upon the scene, break it apart, making several arrests in the process. Though he genuinely did not want it to be so, Frederick knew it was only a matter of time before he encountered these folks again, one at a time, when he went back into work.

At the end of the fair, Frederick and the Prince found a quiet little street corner where the masses were more subdued, between stocked crates, where the two could recover from the confrontation.

“Was it true what he said? About his brother?” asked the Prince.

Frederick tried to think of a clever excuse, but not came to mind. Frederick saw no use in lying any longer. He merely nodded.

The affirmation hit the young prince like a ton of bricks. His sense of safety seemed to vanish in an instant. He could not say anything for a while. He just looked into space, trying to make sense of it while counting specks of dust in the air. At last, the young prince spoke again: “Why did you kill him?”

“It isn’t killing.”

“Whatever you call it. How many?”

“I don’t know. I’ve lost count. I’d have to consult the official records.”

“As many as the number of beans in that glass?”

The question confused Frederick, until the prince pointed at a a large jar off in the distance, sitting on a table beneath a tent, a long list of names and numbers kept beside it. It was a jar filled with jelly beans, any festival-goers could come around and estimate the number of jellybeans inside. Whoever guessed the closest to the real quantity would be rewarded with a free meal. Frederick frowned at this jar, as he was never particularly good at those sorts of games. By his own estimate, the jar seemed to contain more than a hundred jellybeans, but less than ten-thousand, so actually it was quite accurate in regards to his own body count. He nodded towards the prince.

“Why do you do it?” asked the Prince.

“I have to. It’s my job. To remove from society those deemed unfit.

“Why is it you who gets to do that?”

“Because your father commands it.”

The Prince went quiet again.

“Listen to me, your majesty. I know this is difficult to take, but it’s better you learn it sooner rather than later. These measures are necessary for the benefit of all. If you knew what some of these people did to others, you wouldn’t worry too much about them.”

“So it’s ok to kill someone if they killed?”

“Well–”

“That means you too, right?”

At this the executioner went cold.

“And Lord Pennington,” the Prince continued, “and… my father…” he trailed off, staring into the distance. “It’s not fair. Why can’t they just be put on timeout?”

“Timeout?”

“Whenever I do something I’m not supposed to, I get put on timeout. And when I’m alone in a room, I get sad. I get sad thinking about what I did to be put on timeout. But it makes me feel bad about what I did, and most of the time I don’t do it again. Maybe that’s good enough of a punishment, don’t you think?”

“It could be. I never considered it,” Frederick smiled at the prince.

“Fake smile,” the Prince said.

“What do you mean?”

“Your eyes look like mine’s when they wanna cry. But you never let them, do you? Your eyes must have really big muscles.”

Frederick felt suddenly exposed for the deceit he kept for so long. A child was the last person he expected to pull this veil from his face.

The Prince continued. “My mom taught me to read people. Reading them like they’re picture books.”

“It’s a useful skill that the queen has imparted on you– I could’ve used it myself a few times in life. So many times when I was young, I said yes to things that I shouldn’t have said yes to. So many people I thought had my best interest at heart only to realize later–” He thought of all the times he was led astray, and it filled him with a violent rage that would’ve been so perfectly useful had he been at his work in the executioner den. But he had to contain his rage, and he did.

“We encounter more enemies in this life than friends. Everyone pretends to be your pal, these days, and it’s almost usually a lie.

“You’re my friend, Frederick. Even if you scare me sometimes. And that’s no lie.”

And there it was. Another thing the prince said that rocked the executioner by his very foundation. Befriending the future heir to the throne was not on his bucket list, yet there he was, watching it transpire as naturally as the sunrise and the passing tides.

“Now, I’m quite peckish, Master Frederick. I could use another pretzel right now. May we go look for pretzels?”

“Yes, we may,” Frederick said, choking a little, “let’s go find you a pretzel.”

“Progress check on the prince’s tutelage. How goes it?”

With a hoarseness in his throat, Frederick replied: “Well.”

The Magistrate nodded, noting Frederick’s suspicious tone. “Is he a cold-blooded bastard yet?”

“His Highness, I expect, will be very proud of his son.”

The Magistrate poured a glass of fine monk-fermented wine and offered it to Frederick. “A toast to you, my friend. I knew what I was doing when I elected you.”

“I knew I could count on you. Tomorrow I will be paying a visit to the castle. I intend to speak with the Prince myself. I’d very much like to admire the fruits of your labor. Many people will be coming to see him as well.”

Frederick sat frozen and perfectly still, not wanting to communicate even the slightest hint of discomfort. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“May I ask why you are so tense all of a sudden? Is there something I should be aware of?”

Frederick shook his head.

“Remember, Frederick. I sniff out lies for a living. No matter how good it is at disguising itself, the truth always emerges and presents itself to me. So spit it.”

Frederick relented. “Has it ever felt to you that this is perhaps… wrong?”

“Wrong?” the magistrate stretched the vowel with a raspy growl. “What exactly do you think is wrong?”

“I think it’s not right. Frightening the boy like that. Damaging him while he’s still so young and impressionable. Shouldn’t we let him keep his blissful ignorance?”

“That is not your call to make. Remember what your wise father said. Remember? You took this job, you have a duty to–

“And I think it’s wrong… killing folks.

The Magistrate stuttered. “Excuse me? Repeat that. These old ears are quite hard of hearing.”

“Killing is wrong,” Frederick said with a forceful tone, he calmed down a little and continued, “no matter if they committed a crime or not. Murderer or not. What gives us the right to end someone’s life?”

Lord Pennington scoffed. “When they’ve committed a crime, they forfeit their right to life. Simple as that.” The Magistrate’s face was one of such utter contempt, he could not wrap his mind around the words he was hearing. He could not believe such drivel was passing those familiar lips. “You ought to be ashamed, spewing shit like that. Let me make something very clear for you because I’m afraid you’ve been very badly confused. Your job is not to determine what’s right for the future king. Your job is not to think. Your job is to do. To do whatever the fuck I tell you to do. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I have to ask again. How is the prince’s education going?

“I’m doing good on my assignment. Know that. Under my instruction, he may turn out to be a great king.”

“A great king? Define that”

“A compassionate ruler.”

“Oh, sweet mother of God. You speak the language of the imbecile. I did not realize you were so fluent in it. Frederick, a man of your wisdom should know there is no such thing as a great king. Not in the way you define it. Cruelty is a prerequisite of awesome power. Everyone knows this. Leading peacefully is a sweet little pipe dream reserved for dopey fairy tales written for dumb little children. But you’re not a dummy, Frederick. No, no, no. Brutality is one of the most tacit reflections of divinity. It shows that one is brave enough, worthy enough of grasping what they wish.”

“You are not the first to feel the way that you do. You are contending with something that every great man must contend with. For in order to be a great man, you must be willing to be despised and reviled. Spat upon by your contemporaries, yet remaining steadfast in your convictions, your principles, towards everything this mighty kingdom stands for and then some. Only then can you secure your plinth amongst the pantheon of our greatest men. Understood?”

“I understand what you mean.”

“And do you agree?”

“I am a lowly servant to the community. I will do what I must for the good of the land.”

The Magistrate took a deep, satisfied sigh. “Let us make a vow, shall we? A vow that you will never bring such foolish thoughts to my desk ever again.”

Frederick took the vow and left.

That night, a tide stirred in Frederick’s conscience. After that meeting with Lord Pennington, he knew that come morning, things would never be the same. He sat at the round table of his humble home, surrounded by the little insignificant trinkets he acquired over a lifetime of laboring as an executioner.

His time was near. There was to be no doubt about it. It was a cloying inevitability. Soon these brutal tutoring sessions would be revealed for the sham that they were. And once again, he felt a distant sense of sorrow and regret that he thought only idealistic youth were capable of carrying. Soon he would find out what lies beyond the safety and security of everything that he once knew.

With quietness in his boots, he walked over to his son’s bed. No longer the little boy he used to carry on his shoulder, holding by his tiny hand while crossing the street. He was a young man now, full of coldness and frigidity towards his old man. There he slept and he snored. And though Frederick wanted to respect his rest, what was itching inside demanded to be heard. He nudged his son awake.

“Son, wake up.”

His son awoke, regarding the man he his father with unenthused, groggily half-shut eyes.

“I’m so sorry to wake you, my boy, but this is important. Listen, I just want to say that… I’m sorry we’ve grown apart. I was always so busy with work, so busy trying to make a living for you and your mother. And I neglected you in so many other ways. I did not realize the fullness of my failure until now. The point is I want you to know, that as cold and cruel as I may seem, as reprehensible and dangerous as your peers may perceive me to be, I want you to know I always did this out of love for you. If I knew it would hurt you, hurt your mother, hurt us the way it did. Oh… I wish I could turn it around, I wish some genie could come and let me re-do the things that I did. But that’s magical thinking. It’s no use, all this regret, is it? I never forgot how precious you looked when I first laid eyes on you where you were born. There was so much love in you. There still is. I know there still is. Just don’t repeat the same mistakes I did. Stay true to yourself, and look out for others around you, whether they are your blood relation or not. I realize now that that’s the only way out from all this… all this madness. It’s the only way to survive with your spirit intact.”

“Are you finished?” His son then quickly went back into his sleep.

Defeated yet released, Frederick walked back to his bed and slept beside his wife, who unbeknownst to him was quietly listening to every word he said.

Morning sun rose on the black castle courtyard. Over large swaths of finely-trimmed lawn, by a large fountain with a sculpture of snakes wrapped around a goddess, dignitaries and noblemen from lands distant and kingdoms near had arrived, earnestly awaiting the display of well-trained masculine aggression that the new prince was sure to exhibit.

“Golly,” Prince Claude said, “ all these people came here to see me?”

“Certainly, your highness,” the magistrate grinned, looking down at the boy with some uncertainty. “We are all eager to see what you have learned from our beloved executioner.”

It was something about the way Lord Pennington said this, something that made the prince’s skin crawl with immense discomfort. When he heard his name called by the castle crier, Prince Claude went out into the lawn, bowing before a captive audience, seated and waiting to witness his abilities. There among the audience sat his mother and father, the young queen and the aging king.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began the Magistrate, “Welcome. We are most pleased you could join us for today’s exhibition. Behold, our kingdom’s future king!”

Golf claps ensued for Prince Claude.

“There have been bothersome hearsay travelling through the leaves in the trees. Whispers that we cannot ignore, for they question the health and vitality of our king. They question his ability to rule effectively over our kingdom. Though I hate to repeat it, there have been accusations that our king is too elderly to be a king for very much longer, and that that puts our kingdom’s safety in a precarious position. I am here to tell you all– this is not true. Our mighty king, though wrinkly he is, may rule for a hundred years more if God wills it. And even if he shouldn't’, well then now you will see, the apple has not fallen far from the tree at all, for this here prince is more than capable, more than ready to take up the mantle.”

Prince Claude was so very confused. He hadn’t practiced any routine that he was aware of. He had no special skills besides building things with blocks, and even he knew it was unlikely that people had come from afar to watch him do that, as impressive though his structures may have been. All he saw were expectant faces. It was only when a cage was brought, rolled in by two servants on a dolly, a cage filled with squirrels from the garden, that a hollow squirming sensation entered his empty belly.

“For our first demonstration, the prince will now smite this basket of pests.” The Magistrate handed the Prince a familiar-looking slingshot, with a few stones to accompany it. “Well, go on then, your highness. Proceed.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You know already.”

It was only until the frightened young prince looked out into the audience, at his father in the front row, looking into his eyes, his vile visage nudging him towards animal cruelty. When it sunk into him, at last, what they wanted from him, the prince threw the slingshot as far as he could.

“I won’t do it, no! These creatures are friends. I will not do it.”

“You–” the Magistrate almost insulted the Prince, but knew better than to cross that line.

The king rose to his feet, incensed and enraged. “What are you doing, boy? What is this spectacle you are making?”

Prince Claude ran towards the cage of squirrels, swung it open by its tiny hinges, freeing the frightened squirrels from their prison, letting them out to run freely in the court, back into the gardens, scurrying through the feet of all the leaders and noblemen. The audiences shrieked with fear and repulsion. Many ran in opposite directions, a chaos of raving dignitaries, running like beheaded chickens.

“You petulant rat. Is this how you repay my love?” yelled the king, “Do you realise what you are condemning to us now?”

“I don’t care. I won’t be like you. Never.”

“What?” the king said, making fists with his clammy hands.

“I will never be like you.” And that was when Prince Claude ran off, back into the castle, weeping, but with his pride still very much intact.

The king’s rage subdued into a nonplussed pose. He looked around, at all the people looking at him and the failure of his son. His breathing became heavy, his heartbeat tense, his chest mounting with pressure. So much so, that he felt his arm go numb, and his face starting to contort on its own.

“Your majesty,” the magistrate said, noting his symptoms, “are you–?”

And the king collapsed to the ground, in plain view of all that had come to see this failed attempt at a power play. The old king was in the midst of a brutal cardiac attack. As soon as he fell, a fleet of servants came rushing to his aid. The queen stood by, conflicted, concerned, not only for the king, but also for her prince.

Once more, the Executioner was called upon by the Magistrate.

“Where is the prince?” asked Lord Pennington to Frederick.

“In the castle, I presume.”

“You are mistaken. There is no prince in our castle. Only a princess. You see, Frederick, you sad, mediocre man, you did not fulfill your job as was commanded. You were hired for a basic assignment and you failed it completely. You do realize, don’t you? In skirting your responsibility, you softened the little king and that has put the lives of all our citizens at great existential risk. The king himself is in critical condition and I don’t know what to do if something were to happen, because this prince is not at all ready to take the reins himself. When we are at the mercy of our enemies, we are doomed. Doomed, I tell you. You wreckless fool. A prince who is not ready for war is a death sentence to all. To the best of my interpretation, that is grounds for treason, a grave penalty as you well know. Do you follow?”

“I disagree with your assessment,” he said with a solemn toneless voice, “yet I will not argue with you. I know how set you are in your judgement once it’s been made. I am prepared for your sentencing.”

“Are you now? Well then, I sentence you to death!”

Frederick laughed. He had waited so long to hear those words. And that was why the words that came to him next flowed so effortlessly from his lips. “Sentencing the executioner to be executed? Amusing, Lord Pennington. Who do you expect to do the job? You yourself said it was an impossible task to replace me.”

“Not at all. You’ve made a great deal of enemies since the time you first filled your position, and there’s no shortage of folks who would jaunt at the chance to exact their revenge on the loved ones you’ve taken from them. Oh yours will be a special execution indeed. All the village folk will be most pleased to participate in your very own stoning.”

“A stoning? You couldn’t possibly sanction such a barbaric act.”

“A barbaric death for a barbaric individual. You’re shaking now, aren’t you? Poetic justice at its finest.”

And though Frederick protested, he knew that ultimately he was powerless to divert his soul from the grisly fate that awaited him. He accepted the sentencing with a stoic disposition.

The Medicine Man watched over the king as he recovered from his anxiety-propelled incident. The Prince stood out in the hall, watching the nurses come and go, attempting to keep him in stable condition in spite of the difficulties that his advanced age entangled. When the young queen came out of the very chamber where she first gave birth to her prince, the same chamber where now the violent king fought for his life, she was quick to approach the boy and console him with a motherly embrace.

“Your father is fighting, but don’t be worried, ok?”

“What happens if he dies?”

“Don’t talk about that.”

“But what happens?”

“Well then that makes you man of the castle.”

“And all the kingdom.”

“If father is resting, then who is ruling it now?”

It was then that the the prince heard magistrate’s leather boots trotting along the hallways, towards the prince. Lord Pennington wore a great big smile on his face.

“There you are. Prince, I heard you are fond of circuses and such?”

The Prince nodded.

“Well, I have something quite special for you. I hear the featured performer is someone you’re very fond of. Would you like to come and see the show?”

If people were picture books, the Prince surmised, then this Magistrate was a pop-up book for early learners. Every stretched wrinkle on his liver-spotted face, from the gleam in his malicious eyes to the sharp, jagged edges of this menacing teeth, told a story that was as plain to read as the letters of the alphabet. Prince Claude knew very well that nothing Lord Pennington said could be taken for what it was. So the answer came very simple:

“Ok,” said the Prince as he followed Lord Pennington out of the castle, out to the gathering.

The ceremony was a well-attended affair. Many had come from great distances to vent their vengeful frustrations against this prolific executioner. The magistrate looked outside the window of his stately office, Prince Claude sitting there quietly. He watched the crowd as it gathered in the town square, gradually until it rose to a mass attendance. There were snack vendors and merchandise retailers, all ready to profit from the long-awaited execution of the executioner.

“Lord Pennington, may I go to the bathroom?”

Lord Pennington didn’t even bother too look at the boy. “Yes, go on. Guards, take the prince to the nearest restroom.”

Two guards came and escorted the boy out into the hall. Lord Pennington, in his own world entirely, could barely contain his excitement. He was ready to watch it from the comfort of his chair. His leg shook uncontrollably, and though he tried to calm it down with a firm hand planted on his knee, the excitement only grew with every minute that flew. Then there came a knock at his door– it was the two guards once again.

“So quickly?”

Neither said a word. The burlap bag in one of their hands was stretched wide, ready to be wrapped.

The sentries came into Frederick’s cell. They grabbed him by the shoulders, forcefully taking him out into the square. There, he emerged with a face of cold indifference, a face that a man of his ilk was in the habit of keeping in even in the most dire of circumstances. Yet this collected facade could not withstand for very long. When confronted by a mighty plethora of vengeful widows and bereaved brothers, his heart struck an excruciating cord that he could not contend with.

Frederick was brought out with his hands bound behind his back. He looked out, past the crowd, into the kingdom court, looking for the window where the magistrate was. He could see the window, but there was no one there. Yet his presence loomed, like a malevolent spirit, smiling glum, watching him as he faced his fate. Frederick was afraid, not for himself, but for the future of his family of the kingdom, and mostly of the prince.

He felt confronted by the demons of his past, ghosts of mournful moans, shrieking and jeering in every direction he looked, left, right, up, down, in, out, there they were, tormenting him, screaming as they laughed, screeching as they cheered. Their symphony of jeers rattled in his ears, drowning out his hearing with their incessant taunts. Even the most stoic of demeanors had its limits, and here was Frederick’s With the full thrashing singes of guilt and remorse searing into his soul, he broke down in a flood of tears, bawling as an infant, begging for their forgiveness.

“I’m sorry!” He cried. “I’m sorry!” Again he repeated it, everything he had bottled and suppressed after a lifetime of dutifully following orders, bursting forth from the bottom most pits of despair.

He lost all sense of self amidst that fury. It was like a dream. He could practically picture himself there among his captors, amongst his tormentors, hollering along and waiting to watch the spectacle of his well-earned demise. And that was a surreal sensation, as exhilarating as it was excruciating.

He waited quite a while for the time would come when the first stone would be thrown. But that time was never to come. Instead, he saw that the guards returned, this time to untie him and free of his restraints.

“You are free to go,” said one.

Frederick snapped back into clarity. There was confusion among the masses, who still seemed so eager to pummel him with rocks. It did not register for him what was occurring until he looked off into the distance, and regarded a different set of guards escorting the magistrate, a burlap sack wrapped around his head, as he struggled and writhed to break free.

A guard spoke to the crowd: “The executioner’s execution had been dismissed. In his place, it is the Magistrate Supreme Lord Pennington who will take the punishment.

They were roughing him up as they walked him to the center of the square. They removed the sack from his head. He cried out as soon as he could:

“You fools! You imbeciles,” cried The Magistrate. “How dare you put your hands on me in this way? You godforsaken philistines have no idea what I am capable of? I am the master of the law, the king’s interpreter of all his kingly rule. Do you believe that simply because the king is ill you may do as you wish? What you engage in is treachery of the highest order. Release me before I order all your houses burnt to the ground. I demand to know who is responsible for this mess!”

On cue, a soft voice murmured from the crowd. “That would be, me, Lord Pennington.” It was the Prince.

Frederick looked at The Prince, standing proudly before the crowd of riled-up citizens. He seemed completely calm, relaxed, and though still a tiny human being, he now possessed a grace and authority reserved for the eldest of men.

“Everyone, please listen to me. This man here, Lord Pennington, is the real enemy. My friend, Frederick– he is a good man. He has been good to me and he has been so friendly and so generous and great, and anything he did that made me hurt now I know is because of him.” He pointed at the Magistrate. “And though I think we should all be friends, I see now that there are some bullies out there who, no matter what, refuse to play fair. And bullies like this need to be taught a lesson. So people, please. Please. All your hate, all your anger, all your stones, must not go to Frederick. They must go to Lord Pennington and only Lord Pennington.”

The Magistrate pleaded for mercy. “Your majesty, you are mistaken. I am not the enemy. I am your friend. Your trusted advisor. Everything I did I did for you, your father, your kingdom. Listen to me.”

Frederick, too, was shocked by what was unraveling. “Prince, don’t do this, I beg you. Don’t let their hate bring you down with them. Whatever you’re doing, do not. You must not save me, please I beg you. Please, please, please. I am no-good. I do not deserve your mercy, majesty. Just do not let them–”

“Quiet,” said the Prince, “I am rescuing you. Be grateful.”

Frederick did not realize the Prince was capable of such despicable sternness.

The Magistrate, restrained, bound up and tied, was shuddering, sweating, so drenched with the pheromones of primal fear.

And then the stones began to land.

One after the other.

At first in just small little pebbles, but very soon, in hard, heavy rocks. They landed across his chest, beating his face, his shoulder. Some were thrown well, some missed the mark, but those that landed hit like a meteor of hellfire, breaking down at his rubbery flesh, ripping it apart, bruising him from left to right, as suddenly he could feel a rainstorm of stones firing at him, overwhelming all his pain receptors until he was nothing but a screaming mess of mob rule agony.

Frederick could not bare to witness it. He had to look away, he had to gaze distantly from the carnage. But what he saw was multitudes worse than the stoning itself. He saw there, standing amongst the crowd, delighting in the sights, the prince smiling with a big grin on his face, as though it really were one big circus show all for his own amusement. It was then that Frederick saw what kind of person his lessons had turned the prince into. It was then that he saw the prince very much was the son of his father.

And screamed as the Magistrate did, the rocks only kept coming, until finally he stopped screaming. It took several minutes before anyone realized he had long stopped breathing. And when they did, the still rocks kept flying, until there were no more rocks left to be thrown.

Frederick looked down at the ground a good long while. He lost track of the time and by the time he looked back up, he saw that the whole crowd had long been gone. Even the Magistrate’s body was no longer there. The only one remaining was the Prince, smiling that smile that once seemed so innocent and pure.

“It’s alright, Frederick. We’re safe now. Now we can go to the circus and eat pretzels anytime we want. And you don’t have to worry about anybody getting in the way. Isn’t that great?”

“Your highness, I– if I did this to you. I–”

The Prince did not let him finish. He merely came in and hugged him as tight as he could.

“You will always be my friend.”

It was too much for Frederick to handle. He had to push the child away, as if he were a disease, as if he was cursed. And yet the force by which he did it, and the hurt in Prince Claude’s eyes, made him instantly regret it.

“Listen to me when I say this,” Frederick began. Forget everything I taught you. Forget everything you learned from me. You will be king. In fact some day very soon, perhaps before you even feel you are ready. If there is one lesson I can impart on you, oh great future king, it is this. You must rule with love, not fear. Understand?”

The Prince nodded, doting on every word of his teacher.

“Build, do not destroy. You should do only that which betters the lives of your people. Never and I mean never do a thing like this ever again. It will follow you for the rest of your life and it will gnaw at the soul, not just of you, but of everything you touch. I know you think this is justice. I know you think this is fair. I know because that’s what I told you, and that’s what I made you believe.” Frederick’s eyes were getting glassier by the second. “Many people are starving, many people are without shelter. If you want to be a great king, start there.”

The Prince nodded.

And with that Frederick rose again, slowly he walked farther and farther away from Prince Claude.

“Where are you going? Aren’t we going to get pretzels?”

He turned to face him one final time. “I’m sorry, dear prince.” Frederick walked and never came back.

A pair of merchants rode on their animals of choice. Ignatius a gray horse. Pollen a brown mule. Merrily they trotted through the forest. Chanting and clapping, Pollen playing a charming little melody on his lute.

They sang, with tremendous energy–

Oh, back in the dark ages

When so many bad men

Lived to be old ages

But one man came then

He was a good man

A friend to princ,e yes

Blessed be his name

Frederick the Hangman

Oh, Frederick the Hangman

Though he was fearsome

He was a man of reason

Frederick the Hangman

Oh, Frederick the Hangman

He was strong and smart

Stood for peace and

loving in his heart!

Frederick the Hangman

Oh, Frederick the Hangman

But Pollen stopped playing. “Look over there, hear that?

“Hear what?” perked Ignatius’ ears, trying to listen past the wind and the leaves.

“There, see that? That there shuffling in the bushes?”

“A bit early to be seeing things, don’t you think? Have you been perusing my flask again?”

“Can’t you see it? Yes, it appears to be a man.”

Rarely did these visions amount to much. Pollen was often prone to these fantastical bouts of imagined fancies. So it was to Ignatius’ surprise, when half tilting his head in the direction point, out of the corner of his vision, eerily out of place and startling, that there indeed was someone old and scraggly coming down from the trees.

The old stranger stood at the top of the hill. He was a very old man with a long disheveled beard and an emaciated frame. It was clear he had had gone quite a while since experiencing warmer nights and less hungry days, yet he was still able to stand tall, proud, and unafraid before these strangely dressed merchant men.

He had a full bushy beard that extended all the way to his puffy, hunger-bloated belly. One eye darted wildly in every which way. The other was milky and visionless. The stranger had lost most of his teeth, and the ones that remained still were quite yellow to the core.

“What is that song you were singing?” asked The Stranger with a glimmer of dense wonder, as if it was the first thing he’d uttered out loud in years.

“Oh, well. It’s called The Song of Frederick the Hangman.” answered Pollen.

“Such a strange name for a song.”

“Why is that?”

“Frederick wasn’t a hangman. He was a beheader.”

“I can see why they changed it. That doesn’t sound like a jolly subject for a song.”

The Stranger shook his head. “Where did you learn it?”

The two merchants could not make heads or tales of why this old stranger was so intrigued by the song.

“Well it’s a nursery rhyme. All the schoolchildren learn it when they are young,” Ignatius responded.

“School?”

“Oh, yes, there are many schools. Where all the children can learn, peasant or noble. All throughout this kingdom and the others. Have you been to the kingdom before?”

“Once upon a time. There weren’t schools back then. Nothing like that. Tell me more.”

“Well our king has enshrined many treaties with the neighboring kings that once we were at war with. Lots of ample trade between the lands, merchants building their riches from nothing, gah– It’s exciting really. My friend Pollen and I, we’ve been doing quite a bit of speculation ourselves. We expect to be finding our pot of gold in the marketplace very soon. Yes, the king built many great things during his long reign. Schools. Libraries. Homes. Hospitals. King Claude has been quite occupied.”

The Stranger’s eyes, the good one and the bad one, seemed to smile when they heard the words ‘King Claude. Tell me,” said the stranger with hoarse severity in his weakening throat. “How long has the young king reigned?”

“One would not call him young sir, he is well into his middle-age..”

The sound of that brought a smile to the Stranger’s face.

“Is he like his father? The old king?”

“In what way?”

“Has he send a great many folks to their death?”

“None that I can recall?”

“Really, you mean he’s… peaceful? He lets people live?”

“Supposedly there was one incident very long ago that occurred, but not since, no. Oh, our king is most humane with his criminals.”

“An incident?”

“Yes, an incident, but don’t ask me to elaborate on that. You never know who may be listening, even out here.” Pollen looked around, seeing if anyone else was nearby.

“Why would they be listening?” The Stranger wondered.

“They are always looking for someone to punish.”

“To punish. How does the king punish? Tell me. Does he let them learn from the errors of their ways? Does he rehabilitate his criminals so that they do not repeat their sins?”

“I don’t understand that to be part of his strategy, no. The Magistrate, Lady Melinda–”

“Lady Melinda. A woman is magistrate?” the Stranger repeated in disbelief.

“Oh yes, our king is quite enlightened. Very very fair-minded when concerning matters of the fairer sex. He does not discriminate, which sadly I can’t say about the other kingdoms that he trades with, but that's beside the point. Yes King Claude trusts Lady Melinda very much in regards to finding him builders for his projects.”

“Builders?”

“Well of course, all those builders, all these spectacular pyramids and ziggurats have to be built by someone don’t they? So the King sources his builders from the prisons.”

“He–” the stranger was not following.

“Oh, it’s very humane, very fair. He simply imprisons any enemies, and anyone he deems troublesome. Arrests them all. Has the magistrate fill the jail cells, and there you go: an excellent resource for builders.”

The Stranger’s mouth stood agape. “Ah, you stunned the old man, Pollen. Listen, don’t worry about what he said. It’s really quite a nice system, much better than the old one. After all, he doesn’t enslave anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Only the criminals.”

“What was your name, my good man?” asked Pollen.

Frederick could not utter a single word more. Slowly, he backed away, back to where he climbed from, shaking his head from side to side, still reeling from the revelation.

The forest was not the kind of place where humans were meant to survive. Despite having spent many days and many nights, foraging for berries and drinking from the dirt living amongst the beasts in his self-imposed exile, he never got fully used to it. In that aged brain, there still yearned a sad man who wished to return to the comfort and stability of his executioner den.

Upon his interaction with the merchants, he had made a decision to go even further from the land he once called home, further than he already was.

And so Old Frederick kept walking, walking, walking. Days and days. Yet as far as he walked, the kingdom was never out of his sight. He would have to walk on further.

No matter how far he travelled, the great distances he marched, he was never far enough away from that immense castle structure which seemed to be always right behind him, pursuing him with every ensuing sun. It loomed eternally in the horizon of his vision, as it did in the pockets of his muffled heart.

On his long walk he went, crawling in strange places for many years, trying to find a final resting place that felt right to his brittle, aching bones.

Eventually, a time came when he arrived at a vast open space of grass, with many oak trees, where squirrels burrowed and scurried freely. A place where clouds flew by, and the sunlight was sharply attuned to accentuate the bright colors of the many, abundant flowers.

A wise man once said that an old man was twice a child. Frederick never quite understood that before, but now he had reached a point when he was all alone in this dream-soaked paradise. Now everything he saw filled his soul with glittering calm and reemerging softness he had long given up on. He closed his eyes, and fell to the ground, he rolled in the dirt, basked in the flowers, delighting, chuckling, and giggling like a boy, playing the part of a foolish old man who had finally accepted his need to have a foolish good time.

If it were something that he had to think about while rolling in his bliss, he might have realized that once again he believed in things he did not believe in for many years. Kindness, beauty, and forgiveness seemed to crawl their way into his aching brain. The mental machinery that had once taken such a hold of his operation had long since obliterated. He had shed his ego and become one with the world and all its marvelous creation. A world where all naive beliefs rang true as the mightiest forces of magic that could ever exist. Frederick was soaking in the vapors from a time, early in his development, when he still innately believed that kindness and generosity were pillars of a wonderful, functional society.

In his bliss, he eventually strode back into the realm of reality, back into his path forwards. Having walked so very much, he stopped and saw a sight that seemed so familiar, so drenched with deja vu, yet where he had seen it before, he could not guess. But he was so compelled by its mysterious, nostalgic luster, that he simply had to go and approach it. A large sumptuous home, painted white with a large oak tree and a swing beneath its branches. It had fallen into disrepair and clearly had seen better days.

When at last he was up close to the house, he was immersed with a profound sense of sadness that he no longer had the language or cache to rationalize it with. All he knew was that in this beautiful house, there was a presence which though once he would have welcomed with open arms, now he was reticence and wise enough to know to avoid at all human cost.

He walked from the house and went in another direction entirely. In his continued walk, he arrived at a pond of fresh, cool water. The koi were swimming gently, they glared at him and bid him hello. Frederick bowed his head and drank from thei water like a primitive beast. The water tasted so clean, so healing, so rejuvenating.

“Ah…” he uttered with a sigh, as he relaxed, losing all tension in his body, and giving into the sleepiness that was overtaking him, “this is it… this is it… this is it…”

And his unfocused into a blurry haze, far away from his, it was then and only then that he soaked the final sights that his eyes would ever glimpse,

It was there, quite so inconspicuously, unravelling miraculously there in the foliage–

An ethereal vision caressed by a verdant shuffle of leaning trees and fertile vegetation, serenaded by a gentle murmur of loving birds and boisterous crickets, the most exquisite and gorgeous sight he had ever laid eyes upon.

The herd of unicorns strode with noble gait through the dense woods. They sparkled, they glowed, paying no heed to the frail old man admiring them from afar, totally enraptured with astonishment. Not even when he gasped his last dying breaths.