KeYnNamM 

The Man-with-No-Name,

the King of No-One’s-Land

By: Ruwen Rouhs
(© 2022 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

RRouhs@tickiestories.us

Chapter 25
New Beginning

The three separated when they came back in the dry valley. KeYnNamM and Ikken rode southeast to Ennan's homestead, Anir west to Tinghir. In the late morning the prosecutor arrived the city gate where a messenger was already waiting impatiently. "Sir, Sir you are to come immediately to the governor's office. The new governor and the City Commander are already waiting. Around noon, the notables of the city, want to make the new governor their respects!"

Anir spurred his horse and when he was at the town house, sweating and still smelling of the previous night, he rushed into the council chamber.  "Hey Anir, have you overslept?" greeted him Yattuy, the new governor, "I'm not used to that from you, Anir boy! Has the province made you lazy?"

The City captain's fine nose had already guessed what Anir had been up to during the night and stated dryly, "I bet our prosecutor had something extra important to do tonight last night. Otherwise, he's still here before me!"

"Then you do have a secret girlfriend? When are you going to introduce me to her?" But before Anir could answer his childhood friend, the city captain steered the conversation in other directions. "Governor Yattuy wants to appoint a board of advisors since he is a stranger here. You and I are to be members of it.  Now we need woman to belong to the city board, since neither the governor, nor you or I know about the concerns of the women of this town." He scratched his head, "Mine is out of the question for that. She's just too close to me and it shouldn't be a market woman either, although they may best know what is of concern here!"

Anir contemplated for a moment, "My housekeeper is kind-hearted but not smart enough for such a task." Then he beamed, "Tirizi, the owner of the Thirsty Camel Inn certainly knows everything that’s going on in town She knows everyone and as a businesswoman is experienced in many other things, also! However, " and he pondered for a moment, "as a madam running a caravanserai, her reputation may not be the best one?"

The city commander debated with himself for a moment, "Governor Yattuy, Anir's suggestion is a good one, although the distinguished women will turn up their noses. Tirizi is a capable businesswoman, self-reliant, experienced in all things in life, and she has the ear of the poor women as well. So far, as the chief policeman of the city, I can’t blame her for anything, and with me all complaints end."

"Is that your girlfriend in the end?" grinned Yattuy. When Anir shook his head, the young governor ordered the hostel mother to be summoned to the courthouse as soon as possible.

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Tirizi became nervous when the governor's order arrived. However, the messenger reassured her. "The governor, the prosecutor and the city captain need your help, and you must not refuse such an honor."

When she arrived at the governor's official residence, the notables were already crowding impatiently outside its main entrance. "Why is she allowed in, a woman of the lowest class?" the gaunt slave trader and importer of illegal goods asked his colleagues, the fat brothel owner and the even fatter grain merchant. The latter snorted angrily through his nose, "Even an inexperienced governor wouldn't allow himself to prefer such a woman to us!" But the brothel owner beamed, "The prosecutor is inside, what should he want from her, arrest the woman. The likes of her are hurting my business!"

In the great hall, the three and the other notables were astonished to see Tirizi sitting on the platform to the right of the new governor, next to prosecutor Anir. To the governor's left, the city captain had taken his seat. The city captain rose when the invitees had taken their seats. "Gentlemen, notables of this town and surrounding villages!" he beckoned them to rise, "Governor Yattuy has the honor of meeting you today for a brief reception. The great, official reception will take place as soon as the necessary preparations for the celebration in honor of the new Emperor have been completed. It will be held in front of the gates of the city with minstrels, jugglers, clowns and buffoons. The invitation will go out to all the inhabitants of Tinghir and the villages belonging to the governorate."

The notables rose and bowed to the new governor. Then Governor Yattuy also rose, bowed, and then gestured to those present to sit down. Then he addressed them, "Notables of the governorate, may I first thank you for yesterday's reception at the city gate, especially our City Commander and Anir, our Prosecutor. I have been on friendly terms with the Prosecutor since our days as students." He eyed the rows of guests at length and continued, "I see, by your astonished faces, that you are surprised to see the City Commander and Prosecutor sitting here beside me on the stage!" He smiled, "Surely even greater is your amazement at the lady at my side. I am sure she is known to all of you. For those who don't know her," he paused and bowed to Tirizi. "Yes, it the owner of the Thirsty Camel Inn, it is Tirizi. I have appointed her as the representative of all the women of the town and villages, for tradition in my homeland dictates that women also have their voice in the governing body. I have asked these three to help and advise me in all matters."

When an unwilling murmur arose, he ignored it and announced, "Now my notables, you will be introduced to me individually by Tirizi and the City Captain." Now he turned emphatically loudly to the prosecutor, "My friend Anir, you will in the meantime go ahead with the investigation into the murder and monstrous crimes of former Governor Gwasila. Interrogate Lalla and Kella, the aides of the mass murderer. If necessary, put them in the witch's chair. I want to know everything, when the first murder was committed, how many murders they can remember, whether the governor had aides, and who his confidants were." A murmur arose; questioning voices from the notables of the villages, approving ones from those of common town people, and protesting ones from the governor's clique. The latter included the slave trader, the fat brothel owner, and the grain merchant. They had turned pale, shuddered with fear and the sweat run down their foreheads.

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Anir descended the dark stairs to the torture chamber. Today the underground path from the governor's mansion to the Gwasila's torture chamber seemed much shorter than the day they had discovered the governor's body in the smoke-filled house. Gray light streamed into the hallway from the door to the torture chamber, and as he got closer, he heard the two servants inside whispering to each other. However, he did not understand them. From the doorway, he surveyed the room. Lalla and Kella were sitting tied to chairs with their backs to him, facing in direction of the torture chamber's exit to the city wall. Stretcher and dolls were in their old places. Between the chairs with Gwasila’s servants a high-back chair was placed.  Anir did not recognize its purpose at the first glance. Then he remembered. It had to be a witch's chair. He had heard of this instrument of torture during his studies, but never seen it in use. But here on the border of the Empire to the realm of the Desert Sons, one of the most remote places in the Empire, it still seemed to be in use for interrogations.

He remembered how the witch’s chair was built, as well as it was used. Actually, the witch's chair was nothing more than a huge chair, not unlike a throne but very different also. In front of its proper seat a narrow board was attached slightly higher than the seat itself. The delinquents were stripped of their overgarments so that their backs and rear ends were bare. Then they were loosely tied to the chair so that they sat with their thighs on this board and their naked buttocks hung over the seat. The seat was not comfortable furnished with a soft cushion but spiked with finger-length, sharply sharpened spines from the wood of the iron tree. As soon as someone sat down on them, these spikes would pierce the naked skin and penetrate the flesh.

The armrests of the chair and the footboard were covered with similar but shorter spikes. As long as the interrogated person was strong enough to hold themselves on the narrow board, they did not touch the hard spikes protruding from the seat board with their buttocks. The same applied to his back, which immediately would be pierces by the spikes of the backrest, his arms and his feet, as the armrests and the footrest were also spiked with spines. 

This chair was a terrible instrument of torture. Hardly any interrogated could tense his muscles long enough in such a way that he could stay sitting upright for a longer time on the narrow board. As soon as his strengths was slackening the spikes of the armrests and the footboard would penetrate into the flesh of the arms and the feet. Shortly thereafter the spikes of the seat board and the backrest would begin to perform their task. The delinquent thus impaled himself little by little and his pain increased immeasurably.

Anir was aware that with the help of this chair he could force any confession from the interrogated, whether it was true or not. His conscience opposed this kind of interrogation, but he had to know the truth. He crossed the room, stopped in front of Lalla and Kella, eyed them one by one, and then began to pace back and forth in front of them. Their whispers died away and they stared at his dark silhouette against the light filtering into the room from the exit. There was excruciating silence for a long time. Finally, Lalla, the older of the sisters hissed at Anir. "Prosecutor Anir, you want to interrogate us? Do you think this is your duty? No! You are neglecting your duty! Who is the murderer of the governor? Have you caught him yet? Who are his helpers? Have you caught them yet? Do you think we have murdered our Gwasily, the one we raised as our son?" Kella added, "You and the city captain owe everything to him, Tinghir owes everything to him, even the emperor owes everything to him! Did you have him murdered? You and the city captain, were you behind the crime? Shame, shame on you! His blood will be on you and the city!"

Anir stopped in front of Lalla. For a moment, his shadow fell on her and allowed her to look at him closely. But she saw nothing good. "You know what stands between you, Lalla! You knowthat’s the witch's chair! Consider with your life that you will soon sit on this throne if you do not reveal everything. All the secrets of Governor Gwasila, all his crimes, all his helpers and accomplices! I advise you to stick to the truth!" Then Anir fixed Kella, "Or do you want to answer first, Kella?"

Before either of them could make further accusations, Anir began, "Tadla's body was found only a few days ago, the body of the girl from the Border-Land a few months before, and before that, the one of a murdered boy! Her clothes adorn these dolls like a hunter's trophies adorn his house. The governor was the hunter, but he did not hunt lions or other wild beasts. No! No, he didn't hunt men! He hunted innocent girls and boys, defenseless, innocent children! He was the hunter, for only through his bedchamber does one enter this room!" Anir pointed at the sisters with his outstretched arm. "You are both old, but not so old that you could have forgotten who the hunter was and when he killed his prey!"

Lalla snapped at the word hunt, "Yes, the governor hunted, he hunted evil! Tadla was evil! He had to kill the dance girl because she refused to repent! He had to kill her so that evil would not prevail in Tinghir! Tadla was the evil, she fought back, scratched him, bit our Gwasily, bit his hand, the hand she was trying to cure her!" "So, you admit that he murdered her, mutilated her? So, you admit that the governor is her murderer?" "The governor is not a murderer! The governor is the judge, he is the avenging angel of God himself, whose mission was to eradicate evil!"

"Why do you Prosecutor think the boy had to die, the dirt-smeared boy and the boys before! He refused to have his sins washed away. He refused the cleansing bath we had prepared for him! When the governor put him in the water, he roared and cried! Not only was his body sullied, no, his soul was soiled, he was rotten! He was one of those who would have murdered the Emperor if the Governor had not thwarted his plans!"

"And why did he stake him, why did he cut off his testicles!" "Such birds survive their deaths, rise again from their graves, unless a stake is driven into their flesh!" screeched Kella, shaking her bonds.

The scrivener, who had been making notes in the background seemingly unmoved, suddenly cried out indignantly, "Stop it! Stop it, you witches! The boy? The one a potential regicide, rotting away? The boy was related to our neighbor. I knew him well. In no way he was evil! He had a pure child's soul! He a potential murderer?" he groaned. "These are accusations of the devil!" "You're right Scrivener! Is this still sanity or is it already madness? But we must continue in the interrogation!"

The prosecutor turned back to the sisters. "So, you watched the murder of the boy, you helped the governor to commit this act of madness? You were the governor's helpers, his volunteers, in the murder of the other boys and girls? How was it with Tadla and the other girl and the girls and boys before? When did the governor kill the first time?"

Lalla now hissed like a snake, "There was no first time, no, there was no first time in Tinghir. Since he was a boy, the governor has pursued the evil, eradicated the evil! Even as a boy he destroyed the evil, long before he came to Tinghir. Ever since he was a boy, he has been the hand of our Righteous God!"

Anir sighed. He was indignant, despairing, and dejected. In his despair, he had not noticed that the city captain had entered. "These statements are enough for now, because I want to check in the archives in which year the first murdered girls and boys were found. I want to check if that date coincides with date the Emperor sent Gwasila to Tinghir as governor!"

"Agreed! But before we interrupt the interrogation, let's clarify whether any other citizens of the Empire were involved in the murder besides the governor himself and his servants." Anir turned back to Lalla and Kella. "Who brought the children to the governor? He could hardly have roamed the town to catch the children himself. Have you done it, Lalla?"

When neither made any effort to answer the question, the town captain stepped over to the witch's chair, stroked its back, and looked first at one, then at the other, then looked to the prosecutor and back to Kella and asked, "You or you?" That was enough for the women. "We only let them into the house when they knocked on the door. But often they were also sent by the brothel owner! Isn't that right Lalla?" asked Kella her sister, "And the girls he sent over were possessed by the devil, all possessed by the devil!" "You're forgetting the grain merchant, Kella!" talked herself into a frenzy, "He sometimes brought girls back from his travels, ugly, unwashed peasant whores. He brought them over himself, so that the governor could drive the evil out of them!" "Yes, don't forget the one with the black beard, he sometimes brought boys from his buying trips, boys from far away, from No-One's-Land, or the Border-Land or from the desert in the south. The governor even tried to convert these heathens!"

"Yes, the three of them then locked themselves in down here with the girl or the boy. They prayed with them, begged them to admit their guilt, asked them to convert. They prayed loudly and their cursing could be heard all night. The devil in the children moaned and cried, screamed and cursed, but the governor and his friends always won. They chased the evil spirits back to hell. Only the lifeless shells of the wicked stayed in this room!” "Yes! Yes! Yes! Those shells were found later the foot of the city walls, as a deterrent and a reminder for the whole city!"

Governor Yattuy had overheard the last part of the confession. "That's enough! Scrivener get guards. Have them take the two sisters to their cell, shackle them there to opposite walls until I order a court date."

Then the Governor Yattuy, Prosecutor Anir, and the town captain left the torture chamber. On the way to daylight, Anir asked, "How do we proceed? At this stage, it would be unwise to arrest the brothel keeper, the grain merchant, and the caravan operator based on the accusations of the two witches. We must have more definite evidence."

At this, the new governor turned to the town captain. "You make sure that none of the three accused leave the city or send messengers out of town. Their arrest will have to wait." "Let's take our time, perhaps the right strategy would be to confront the three with their testimonies during the trial of the witches, convict them and then put them to court." Anir suggested.

As they stepped out into the daylight, Yattuy sighed "A bad day friends, I didn't imagine the beginning in this city to be this bad. It’s a nightmare! However, I am proud of what we accomplished. I am proud that the sun will shine again over Tinghir!" Then he turned to Anir, put his hands on his shoulders, looked into his eyes for a long time, "I have so many questions for you my friend Anir. Relax and let's have a reunion in the evening light!"

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To be continued...

Posted 10/21/2022