The Founding of the House of Vanois

(A family history written by the first Duke of Vanois)

Purse-slitting was a fine art. You slipped up behind the man, a short, razor sharp knife palmed in your fist. You spotted where the bag of coins hung from his belt -- no one had thought of putting pockets in pants yet -- and, when he was distracted, put a slice in the bottom of the bag. Then you grabbed the coins and kept moving. If all went smoothly, it might be hours before he realized his pouch was empty.

The girl didn't have the technique down. She waited for her victim to cheer the King as he passed, but then she picked one with too full a pouch, and the coins overflowed her hand. Others in the crowd grabbed her before the last gold Louis hit the cobblestones. A couple of the King's Archers came over to seize the prisoner.

Ordinarily, she could have looked forward to a swift and perfunctory trial before she paid the price of theft. But she had been caught red-handed in the presence of the King himself. A breach of the King's peace was summarily punishable by Henri himself, and he had ordered her to be hanged forthwith. He could not himself stay: there was a voyage to begin. The hangman knew it must be important. Louis had often remarked that he knew but four fine sights -- a priest at the altar, a soldier in the field, a beautiful woman in bed, and a thief on the gallows.

The hangman moved quickly. The two archers had finished binding her hands behind her back, and were ready to turn her over. He could see that she was young, maybe 18, probably still in her apprenticeship as a cutpurse. Long red hair and a pretty figure were nicely set off by a simple green dress. Her light skin was pale with shock. A few seconds before she had been on the verge of copping a fistful of gold: now she was gallows bait. She was still trying to babble out an explanation: someone else had slit the purse and then was frightened away, she had just tried to keep the man's gold from falling.

It might even have been true, he reflected, but that made no difference in the face of a royal command. "Let me have her," the hangman told the archers. Turning to her, he said simply, "You have had your trial, before the King himself. Let's get it over with." He slid the noose from his belt (you kept one ready when attending the King). It was just a slipknot in four feet of hemp, easy to carry and good enough for a criminal. At the sight of it the girl leapt back and gasped: only the archers holding her bound arms kept her in place.

"I pray thee ... not this," she begged.

A pretty young lass, barely beginning her life, pleading for its full span. In the fullness of time she might become a wife and a mother, and die decades from now in bed, surrounded by her descendants. Aye, the hangman thought, he had ended too many of those, but it was his job. That was not her fate: she would die today, spinning and squirming in anguish while dangling on public display, a proof of the King's justice.

The hangman slid the noose over her head; she struggled, but the archers held her firm. He got it in place, the knot snugged under her chin, her hair still inside its grasp; the details could be worked out at the gallows. "I've got her now, you can release her." The archers let go and the hangman worked through the crowd, already thinning out as it followed the King. He used the noose as a choke collar to pull her behind him. The members of the crowd opened a way for him. Many looked with pity toward his young victim, who was weeping and still trying to persuade them of her innocence.

Three blocks to the gallows, and he had to force her most of the way. With hands bound and the noose gripping her neck when she balked, she

had little choice, but she used what she had. The rope would tighten as she dug in her feet, then he would hear her pleading stop as the hemp cut off her breath, and a few seconds later the rope would go slack as she gave up and took some more stops, panting before she tried to stop again. The hangman kept going. There was no sense in being gentle about it. That just prolonged their fear. It also gave them more chance to talk, and he did not care to get friendly with someone he, in a few minutes, would have to turn off and leave dangling and strangling.

At the sight of the gallows she let out a scream and dug her heels into the cobblestones. The hangman just kept pulling; there was a wheezing noise and then her voice was silenced. Still she yanked at the rope like a fish on the line, finally falling face-down in the street. He turned around and faced her; she began gasping as the line went slack. She lay there, her green dress spread on the road, her head turned to the side, gasping and gagging through the folds of her hair. It was a rather thin dress, the hangman noted with interest. Then, grabbing her by the shoulders, he lifted her up. He spread the hair out of her face and slid it over her shoulders, and then pulled at the rope somewhat more gently. "Come, lass, there is no escaping. It must be done. You only prolong your fears and your pain by this."

"I will give you anything," she replied, "anything. I will give you what I never gave my lover. Anything, to escape dying this way." Tears ran down her cheeks and a bit of foam escaped her mouth as she panted.

It was a tempting offer. She was young and slender, and the light dress clung to her pale body. Still ... if anyone passed the gallows, and noticed it was missing its rightful occupant, the hangman himself would take their place. Louis called his hangman the "first servant of my Throne," and expected absolute loyalty.

"Let's get it done with," he replied, and a few moments (and struggles) later they were at the foot of the gallows. Now she fell to her knees, sobbing. Standing over her, the hangman shifted the knot to the back of her neck, and pulled the long red hair through it. Still keeping a grip on the rope, he made sure that the ladder was firmly positioned. They were ready. He stood her up and turned her around, with her back to him and the ladder.

It seemed strange, in a way. He was accustomed to working before immense crowds, and the square was entirely empty. The only ones who knew of the execution were those near the King, and they had gone off with the royal procession. Would it be harder or easier on her, he wondered? Was it easier to dangle without others watching your ignomy and disgrace, or harder to die without one sympathetic face in view?

He would never find out: she would be the only one who could say, and in a few moments her throat would be seized by the hemp, whose grip would not release while she lived.

He lifted her to her feet and she fell back against him. Just as well, he thought as he mounted the ladder for a few steps, keeping the rope as taut as he could without stopping her breath. Now came the tricky part. The first step, the point when they left the earth forever, was the hardest to coax.

Slowly he pulled the rope tighter. Her sobbing turned to a high squeak and then ceased. She yanked on the rope, twitching her head forward as hard as she could. Finally she had to have air, and stepped backward onto the first rung of the ladder. He'd done it. As the noose loosened, she gasped in the precious air. He let her have one breath and then pulled again. This time she could only hold out for a few seconds, and another rung passed under her.

It took a full minute, but the hangman was now high on the ladder, his shoulders above the crossbeam; the victim's head was between his feet. He hooked one arm over the beam to steady himself, and prepared for the final hoist.

He spread his knees and dragged her up between them. Her feet were between his; being shorter, her head was now just below his chin. He could feel her soft rump pressing against his loins, her heaving chest pressed his belly. And, he realized, he was hard as a rock. Well, he reflected, there is nothing wrong with liking your work.

He cinched the rope around the crossbeam, so that she would die in the traditional place, about a foot of hemp between her and the wooden beam. Glancing around the empty square, he stopped to take in the unusual sight. They were seeing the view from ten feet up. The experience was nothing new for him, but for his victims it was a strange sight, and he let them gaze for a few moments before beginning their last trial. He thought that it was probably easier to die alone, at least if you had to die this way. With a woman, the crowds could gape at her loins as her legs kicked and flew or, worse yet, snapped up. With a man, his erecting codling might push out of its cod-pouch, leaving the ladies to giggle as it finally sent his seed flying into the air together with his soul. And for either, there were the stains that told of bladder and bowels releasing in their body's last agony, the jeering crowds clapping out a dancing tune as the victim's legs jerked. No, alone would be better, less degrading. He would be the only witness, and he at least would not laugh or mock, but simply do his job.

Her hands tied, her neck already linked to the gallows, her feet perched unsteadily on the ladder rung, she was perfectly helpless now, ready for the slow dying to begin when the hangman chose. She found strange sensations building within her. She was no longer in control, but completely in his hands. The release from control was somehow attractive. Deprived of all choice, her body was free to dwell upon itself. She felt her breath coming faster and her head began to spin.

He flattened one of his legs against the ladder. One slight push and she would be spinning and kicking in the air. In the air, yet dying from inability to inhale one bit of it. He placed his hand on her shoulder and prepared to give that push. His palm would be her last contact with another person, her last contact with anything but the rope that was killing her.

Then he noticed it. Her sobbing had changed ... now it had a pattern. She would inhale, then stop as if holding her breath, then gasp it out and repeat. It was strange, not at all like the usual panicked gasping. As an experiment he tightened her grip on her shoulder, as if ready to push her off, and her breathing became even more forceful, and each exhalation became a faint moan. Her arms began to writhe; pressed as they were against his manhood, he noticed he was beginning to breathe a little more forcefully as well.

Glancing down her body from his vantage point, he was awestricken. Of her head he could see only the long red tresses and her white forehead; she was beginning to roll her head back and forth against his chest. But below that he could see her breasts heaving with each breath, the soft, pale flesh expanding within the green cloth. The pink of one nipple was barely visible above the green. And both it and its sister seemed ready to poke through the cloth. Her moaning became louder and she rolled her head on his chest in time. In her mind she was now drifting, the pleasure building up in waves, sweeping softly through her young body, filling every bit of it, yet even as the pleasure grew the desire for it grew yet more rapidly.

By now, he was so hard that he felt as if he would burst through the dress and his own pants as well. It was strange, he thought, the similarity of the beginning of life and of its end, of the ultimate pleasure and the ultimate anguish. Here they were pressed in close contact, her between his legs, the scent of her tresses in his nose, a contact nearly as intimate as .....

Then her entire body began to writhe. Each breath now ended with a passioned "E-e-e," each growing higher and louder, as if her body was straining to contain an explosion. Her shoulders moved back with each gasp, and he could see her belly heaving. Inside her loins she felt a warm glow, rising into fire, and she felt a strange warm moistness in her innermost feminity, a moistness that flowed downward, covering her soft lips as if preparing to welcome entry into the center of herself. She could not explain why she was crying out, and could have cared less.

"E-e-e... ungh, uh. E-e-e ... ung, uh." He slid down just a little, and found his membrem virile caught between her buttocks, swept back and forth as her hips moved. "E-e-e, UNGH, uh" Her body was now acting on its own. Her hips lifted upward as if called to the heavens, as if some force of spasmodic pleasure was trying to fly free. Almost without his consent his own hips began to move. As her shoulders pressed rhythmically into his chest he felt that rising sensation in his male glands which told him that his own moment was quickly approaching. "EEEE, UNGH, UH!" He took his hands from her shoulders and slid them around her, carefully stroking each breast. There was no one to see and he could not have cared less if the entire town were there. His stroking grew carried away and her dress slipped from her shoulders. Her pale breasts were now bare, but neither person noticed or cared.

She sucked in a lungful of air, held it for a long second. He felt her shoulders drive backward into him, her body arch forward on the ladder, and she let out one last "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Her hips thrust outward and her loins locked tight as the fiery pleasure exploded in her belly and spread outward in powerful surges through her stiffened body, heating it until it seemed as if her very bones would melt. He clutched her breasts firmly as at the same instant his own pleasure peaked, the muscles and glands in his loins seizing tightly in pleasure, changing to pulsing as his sensations, bursting outward with his seed, contained by his clothing rather than by her warm moistness. For an instant they were together on the gallows, two bodies pressed upward, both bodies seizing hard, pulsing together. Her last cry of pleasure changed to a long moan that surged louder and softer as her body jerked with the cycles of its joy and release.

Then it happened. In her ecstasy, her feet slipped from the rung and went through the ladder. Still contained by his legs, she slid straight downward on his body, dropping a few inches. Her moan gave way to a high-pitched wheeze and then was choked into silence. Her body still shivered as the last waves of pleasure ranged up and down. His body relaxed, spent, the pressure and shivering of her soft form adding to the completeness of his release.

Her ecstasy ended, and suddenly she awakened to the pain of the noose. Her feet jerked as he tried to pull them through the ladder and find footing again. The hangman awakened, too, and moved by reflex born of long practice. His hand left her breast, found her shoulder, and rolled her off the ladder.

It didn't quite work. One of her feet hooked the side of the ladder and she struggled to keep its grip and to pull the other foot back on. Unbalanced as she was, and hands bound behind her back, she had no chance, but with her need for air mounting toward pain she struggled for anything. The hangman bent down, pulled her foot free, and let it go. Now she was suspended by nothing but her neck. She swung away but on the return swing her feet again tried to grip the ladder. Her toes snagged it but then pulled free. By now the pleasure was fading, replaced by panic. The noose bit into her neck, squeezing it tighter than she could ever have imagined, driving her tongue upward into her mouth, sealing off the air. She awakened to the realization that she could not breathe, that she had already taken the last breath she would ever take, that she was helplessly danging between heaven and earth, unable to touch anything that would save her ... except perhaps the ladder.

The hangman descended a few rungs and grabbed her by the back and stomach, holding her free of the ladder. She could feel her feet swishing through the empty air, her lungs craving for a breath. He could feel her belly muscles tighten and heave, this time not in pleasure, but in an attempt to pull air past the noose's vicious squeeze. Her legs snapped up to her chest, enfolding his hand against her belly as he held her in the air.

He glanced upward. Her head was twisted to the side, her face half covered by her tresses. He could hear some gurgling which told him it was too far forward. She could feel some tiny movement of air in her chest ... perhaps just a little more, just one breath. Her eyes, clamped shut in suffering, opened a bit and looked at him as she grimaced. As her blue eyes met his, she seemed to be begging him to stop holding her away from the ladder, let her stand free again, let her inhale one more sweet breath of air. He shook his head no. "The best I can give you now is a quick death," he whispered sadly, then looked away. Her eyes closed again and her body began to shake in the beginning of her death agonies. The spasms became more and more violent. Her bare breasts quivered as her body shook and her chest heaved, striving to draw in a bit of air to allay the body's horrendous pain and desperation.

By now her lungs were burning, her chest jerking as she fought desperately for life. Her arms and legs ached as the muscles longed for oxygen. The pain was excruciating. Her legs jerked down, feet fully extending to the ground, and held there. Then they snapped up again and, after a few seconds, back down. Each move made her body pitch back and forth, but he steadied her. Her desperation, the mounting agony overwhelmed her mind and she began to lose control. She felt her legs beginning to jerk, without coordination, but with increasing speed and violence. A long dark spot on the front of her dress showed that in her distress her bladder had released. She could feel the release and the liquid spewing down, but in her agony no longer cared. He knew that she was now so far lost in suffering that he had nothing to worry about, and he let her go.

Now he could concern himself with easing her passing. As he climbed the ladder again he passed her body. She was now jeeking and vibrating violently, every muscle quivering as her legs spasmed and her chest heaved in futility. The dress had slid down a bit and one nipple, no longer erect, was fully visible. As she slowly spun he saw the noose biting the side of her neck, elongating it in a way it was never meant to stretch, the stretching tendons popping out of the skin, the veins pulsing as they tried to pump her blood past the merciless hempen grip. Tiny bubbles of foam slipped from her pink lips as bits of air, all too little to save her, slipped back and forth in her throat, and he heard a faint squeaking.

Above her, the hangman braced his arms on the beam and put one foot on her shoulder. It was just enough to steady her while he swung the other foot on her body. Then he released his full weight. The squeaking noise became a clicking ond and then stopped; her throat was sealed.

The last sight her eyes took in was the courtyard slowly rotating as she turned about, her green dress jerking as her body fought. Her hands twisted in their bonds, but could not pull free. Hands tied, neck squeezed, feet squirming in the air, she was completely helpless to influence her fate. Her anguish mounted and peaked: her last sensations were that of air swishing past her feet, of her neck twisting between his ankles. Then darkness ended her distress.

It did not end her body's struggles. The hangman could feel her body's fight through his feet. Her shoulders shook and heaved as her she fought in desperation, but with her throat tightly gripped, and his weight on her shoulders, her lungs were helpless. Beneath him he saw her red hair flying about as she thrashed, her pale breasts quivering with each powerful, desperate heave of her chest, a flurry of green as her legs flew about within her dress. For several minutes the hopeless struggle continued, as the noose remorselessly did its work. The hangman kept his station, like a spider perched above a fly.

Finally, her body stiffened. Now her legs and chest were simply vibrating; her muscles were starved of any air that would have given them more power. In a few moments, the hangman knew, she would be quivering in the last convulsive agonies of her death. He stepped back onto the ladder.

A group of townsmen passed by. From a distance, in the dim twilight, it looked as if she had already paid her price, and they shouted jests to the hangman about their having missed all the spectacle.

The hangman started: they had been just what he needed. Grabbing the rope just above her pale neck he swung her body onto the ladder. Her body quivered helplessly against his as he slashed the rope. One arm below her buttocks, another around her chest, and they slid down the ladder to the ground. She was warm in his arms, fully pressed against him, her head rolling back, wet gasping sounds in her open mouth, her pale breasts heaving beneath the green fabric, her whole body quivering and jerking against his.

The hangman got her body into his cart and snapped the reins. With the horse at a trot on cobblestones, the racket hid the sound of her gasping. More townsmen were visible, and they called jests as well; he took care to steer at a distance from them. He had what he wanted. A gallows with a fresh, severed, rope. People who, if anyone asked, had seen her lifeless body dangling as he prepared to take it down, and more who had seen her green dress as he drove her body to the paupers' mass grave outside the town. Yes, there were a dozen or more witnesses to the fact that the girl's young life had met its close on the rope.

He might be the King's first servant, but the hangman was still a bit of an outcast; his own home was outside the town ... on the way to the graveyard. This time he could stop short. It was hard getting her out of the cart. As the lifegiving air flooded back into her body, she was wracked with the same convulsions that the rope had wrenched from her. Finally he got her struggling body atop his shoulder and carried her inside. He put her down and, holding her on her side, cut the ropes that bound her hands. In his bed she continued the fight, legs kicking, arms clamped to her heaving chest, moaning as the air made its way back into her muscles. At length she lay still, breathing and moaning, still unconscious.

As he tidied her up -- no sense her awakening in clothing splattered with her urine -- the hangman made his plans. The King was always looking for servants in the smaller towns, where executioners' perks -- tips from a condemned looking for a quicker death, the victim's clothes, rings, and pocket money -- were smaller. Yes, a semi-retirement to a smaller town. A town where a certain red-haired lass would have no chance of being recognized again.

It was midnight before she awakened, and found herself in a warm bed instead of spinning above the pavement, warm compresses around her neck in place of a crushing ring of hemp.

Despite the pain in her throat, she could speak a few words.

"I had ... no idea ... it was like ... that."

"The pain?" he asked.

"And ... the pleasure."

The hangman smiled.

He was still smiling when the King's Archers crashed through the door, swords in hand.

I, the Royal Clerk Flaminbeau, do certify that the above is an authentic transcript of the account of the Royal Hangman and that, in accord with His Majesty's command, eight copies of this account were bound in red leather, one for His Majesty's bedchamber, one for that of Her Majesty the Queen, and six for the Royal mistresses.

The proceedings whereby the hangman was knighted as the Chevalier d'Vanois, and the cutpurse as Lady d'Vanois, upon the condition of their transmitting annually a written account of their deeds for the edification of His Majesty, is reflected in a separate roll.