Go With God.

Warning: The story pertained to a heavy subject of guilt.

There was once a newborn named Kersed, because the folks in town remembered him so. There was once a kid named Pale, because kids were an honest bunch without any filter. And as for the yellow note that had just released him from the prison hulk, there was once a title, a number, and a sin: Prisoner 50661. And on that wooden giant that was about to pull anchor, there the sinner spent the best years of his life. Now, the man stood near its left broad side, dressed for the occasion in the finest, flea ridden dregs offered to the souls that dwelled onboard.

“Here.” Valio the warden crouched down, his voice like the gavel “Your things.” He spat.

All in one wooden crate badly rotted, because that was all they were willing to part with. Nothing he would miss.

“I do not need it.” Kersed frowned.

“Then I presumed you won’t need this as well, then?” Valio held up a pouch, and a grimacing grin.

“How much?” Kersed startled, as he greedily grabbed the crate with both hands.

“Not much.” Shrugged the warden, for he felt the bag, and knew better than to rob a beggar.

“One cuprum for every day served, not counting rest days and mandated holidays…” he started counting with his fingertips.

“How. Much?” Frowned Kersed as his patience ran thin, his blood even thinner beneath veins. Because something else was approaching and approaching fast.

“Bah” Valio dismissively waved “…Give me a second… One cuprum for every day… a sil for every twenty-five… a geld for every four…”

“Jesus Christ…” appeared Yannis from behind the warden like a hungering beast “It’s thirty-two gelds and 2 sils. Now get on with it!”

There Valio gave a fright. There Kersed stood, stunned and cowed.

“Get a move on. Come on man, do you mean to stand here all day?” Yannis groaned, as he grabbed Valio and pushed him aside.

“But…” protested the slow-witted warden.

“But what?” stared Yannis

A pursed-lip stare that sent the slow-brained underling scurrying to the lower decks. And as he did, both could still hear the fool counting between his fingers. Which left Kersed all by his lonesome self, and at the beast’s full attention.

Now, Years of toiling, of breaking boulders, then carrying them up the ship; then down; then about; had turned a boy into a man. But a man was just a man before Valio. Because Valio was a warden. Thus by laws of nature and men, he stood a cut above, cladded in his black warden cuirass not even the midday could put a shine to.

But Kersed pursed his lips, and stood still like a statue. For it wasn’t Valio that put the fear of Christ into Kersed. No. It was the shadow of Yannis that did so.

It was the shadow of Yannis that he had lived under for the better part of a decade. That he had slept under; Breathed under; Toiled under. And now, having once again come into that dark domain, he shuddered, yet dared not show that he was shivering.

“And as for you…” Yannis turned, and Kersed flinched.

Even now, the eye of the beast was too much for his nerves.

“Relax.” Yannis sighed, closing his eyes “There is no more need for that.”

Relax? Was this another one of his trap? Kersed thought.

Even more so was the face of the beast towering before him. Like all inhabitants of the hulk, Kersed knew well that scar running across Yannis’ lips; that left fake eye with the insignia of the crown etched into the golden pupil; And the hairless, bleached leather that the beast had for skin. For all he cared, Yannis was the hulk made manifest, the very will of the crown to punish the wicked, and in Kersed’s world, the unfortunate.

“Look at me.” the beast growled. Kersed, dared not.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, look. I don’t bite. Not anymore.” Low hums broke his laughter.

When the face of the titan suddenly became human, his voice silk instead of the gavel, his staring gaze, a glance.

“Relax.” Breathed Yannis “You’re now a free man. So, go, as a free man.” He patted him on the shoulder. And Kersed, for the first time that he could remember, felt not the need to flinch.

“Go with God.” Yannis continued “And no matter what they tell you, you are a sinner, no longer.” Then, he handed Kersed his ticket out, in the form of a yellow note that proclaimed his title, number, and sin; All in black printed words.

“The accused, prisoner number five-zero-six-one-one” Kersed remembered a voice that boomed like gunpowder “You are hereby charged with the first-degree murder of Ser Oulan…”

“Murderer!” Kersed remembered the shouting voice of a woman interrupting.

“Order!” The Judge struck the gavel, cleared his voice, and continued:

“As I said, you, sir, are accused with first-degree murder of Ser Oulan; With the maiming of three imperial servants; and lastly, with one count of first-degree manslaughter. Have you any last word before your proper punishment, and justice, be meted out to you, prisoner number five-zero-six-one-one?”

Here, Kersed remembered mumbling something. He remembered the standing gigantic rises of the gleaming court room, made of the finest mahogany oiled dark. On it, Kersed saw the faces of his peers. He had known then, his fate was sealed.

Then, he remembered a gavel strike, and the bitter, shaky air that he sucked in.

“Thirty-two gelds, and two sils…” he muttered, his breath still shaky.

It had been two hours since the hulk’s disappearance down the river Rhine, on that violent current that Kersed knew drowned all escapees. Even now, he still felt the waves in him, tugging him up, and down, as if he was still bobbing on water.

“Thirty-two gelds…” he wanted to cry out.

“A loaf of bread costed me one sil. And … twenty-five culprums made a sil. And four sils, made a geld…” He again counted the coins that laid tabletop.

“Thirty… Two… Gelds??” he bit down the bitter bread. The number made no sense.

In the dim light of the tavern and inn, which called itself The Tallowing, there Kersed sat, counting, and counting: a man possessed. By the good graces from places he never knew existed, he had on him good winter cloaks, good walking shoes, and warm linen on his shoulders and thighs. And even as he sat, counting; counting the mooring days; the three gavel strikes; the faces of his peers who stood on that cursed mahogany stand. Here, however, Kersed also remembered that one last scene most surprising. Old Yannis, of all people, waving goodbye with one last commandment.

Go with God? It made even less sense to Kersed than numbers.

“Anything for the night?” came by a young waitress.

Young, pretty, but with an eye that he understood well, that said One loaf of bread and cheese for a table? By Jove…

So, closing his own, he felt for the coins once more before relenting: “How much for one pint of ale?” At least he would get his drink.

“Two sils.” Smiled the waitress.

“But… that’s one more than what he paid.” He pointed to a wagoner a table to his right.

“Cheh.” The wagoner spat.

“Two. Sils.” Frowned the waitress. When she saw the anger flared in Kersed.

“So, are we playing games, then?” Kersed snarled between this teeth “Because I played games. And I don’t like playing. See this?” he squared a fist, years of hammering boulders had made him a sight when angered “I have worked too hard, and paid too much, to be playing games.”

“Are you buying? Or leaving?” she crossed her arms without as much as flinching. And the wagoner, unbeknownst to Kersed, had already gotten on his feet; His hand neared the right of his belt buckle. Silence ruled the air.

Glancing round like a rat in the night, the sudden quiet of the tavern caught Kersed off guard. And having disarmed the beast, the pretty waitress leaned in for the kill:

“I saw you walking in.” She sneered, and shook her head “By Jove, I knew you was trouble. Still let you in, much less let you have a table.”

Here she scoffed “Must have been sick as a dog to have done so. What was I thinking?”

The wagoner nodded, all too readily. But Kersed knew, by nature of one that had survived the hulks, the man did not nod because he agreed. He nodded, but his glance was forever fixed on the pretty young waitress. And hers, Kersed had seen it dart from the man, to himself, then back to the man. So, there he stood, grinded a few curses between his molars, and again bit down the bitter bread. There he chewed, as if he was chewing everyone there in between teeth and bloody gum. The righteous rage filled his mind.

“And don’t think I didn’t see your little ticket.” She pointed to his sash and satchel, and proclaimed to the room “Just off the hulks. Am I right?”

“Right…” Kersed muttered as if the air was suddenly taken from his lungs.

From the winds blowing in, Kersed thought the whole world sounded like ocean waves. Here, he heard in every hearbeat, a gavel; in every dancing shadows the hands of the gendarmes pulling him down. Here, Kersed felt the floor give in beneath heel, and unable to stand no longer, sat back down limp as lamb.

And like sharks smelling blood in the waters, she wasted no time in asking. Saying that she was asking here, however, would be giving her too much credit.

“So? Is it the door, or the ale?”

“The ale.” Kersed nodded, and handed her two sils. If not to get a drink, then just to get her away from his table. And away she did go, along with his fifty days of backbreaking labor; and with what little dignity Kersed thought he still had.

He wanted to hurl; to hurl out the bitter bread that bit at his tongue; the cheese that he barely tasted. But hunger had him in its vice, and on each bite laid twenty-five days.

He wanted to flip the table and scream; To scream bloody murder; to howl again the curses of righteous wrath. Oh, how it would have soothed his soul. But his soul was now his own to keep.

He wanted to cry, to weep. Because weeping was the only thing Kersed knew they would ever allow him. But that last goodbye tempered him.

Go With God, Kersed mused, A sinner, no longer. He shut his eyes as hard as he could.

And so he went, and spent another fifty days of labor for room and board where the wagon horses slept.

There, he felt the breeze of early winter on skin, and the cool ground instead of the shifting waves. There, the cloaks Yannis gave wrapped him in an embrace, and kept the night warm and companied. And for the first time in … however long, Kersed had lost count … he felt for the wrought rosary Old Yannis had stuffed into his pocket linings. And to the moonless, clouded night, he held it tight to skin.

For day would break. For he would be on his feet again. Ere the sun rise ever eastward, homeward bound.

Because Kersed knew, as Yannis knew, he would go with god; a sinner, no longer.