CHAPTER 11 – SNOW AND BLOOD

Snow was falling. Not the little cute puffy snow that everyone loved at Christmas or Chanukah or the Sacrifice of the Virgins, or even the brown snow at the down hill race off the backside of Mount Sodom. No, this was heavy heavy wet snow. The kind that got in your boots and mittens and melted, but never really melted, so that the little crystals could steal your all your body heat, make you miserable, make you sniffle and have your mother yelling at you about tracking in muddy slush on her newly steam cleaned carpet.

The Inuit had a name for it “oi’t” which translated as “Wet frozen ice crystals of indeterminate size and dimension but with a mass exceeding the allowed load factors for a malamute’s nose and making the moose to think about taking up a job in the city as an accountant and moving to a nice warm cottage in the burbs.”

From her refrigerated basement cell, Little Ben could see the falling snow from the tiny window high above her as she lay shackled and chained to the stone wall. She could see the little pile of frozen ice crystals that filled her lap as she seemed to exhale little blasts of snow with each breath in the closed confines of the famed Cell of Traitors, Malcontents, and the Doomed. She was Doomed she thought. She knew because they had told her so.

Justice had been done. They had taken the statue of lady justice from the courthouse, blindfolded her with duck tape, stolen her swift sword, overweighed one pan of the scale of justice with sacks of gold coins and small children, as many as would fit. Little Ben’s tiny soul lashed down to the other pan and lady justice choking on a ball gage, her hands lashed behind her back with those nylon twist and ties, bleeding the blood of benevolence, charity and compassion onto the lustful jackboots of the mob. Unsatiated in their perfidy they assaulted justice again and again until even the marble statues of the great jurists lining the halls of the Veterinarians of Domestic Wars Courthouse began to shed tears, which children gathered and used to play gaipar until the older kids came along and stole the aggies and cats eyes.

“Guilty.”

“Guilty,” the jury had said.

“Guilty-ist,” said the judge.

“Most Guilty” said the fourth estate

“Hang her high,” said the mob.

The trial had lasted less than an hour and then it was over. The sentence -- death by hanging. Then by electrocution, followed by drawing and quartering, firing squad, running of the bulls, and finally drowning in the witches hot tub.

Little Ben, shivering as a cold blast of arctic air worked its way through her tiny window, shed a single frozen tear. She thought of her mother toiling in the fields harvesting the butterfly crop, now that father has passed away when the great jdbgmgr.exe virus swept the village of Lapis Lazuli and sent one out of three avatars to an early reboot. Mother Ben must be close to 98 seasons she thought. Some, like Little Ben’s father who was over 100 years old at the time, never returned. And of Big Ben, her strapping brother with the broad chest, cheerful smile, and famed stinky breath who died young in a rake mishap long before Little Ben was born. And of sister Teeny Ben, the apple of her father’s eye, who had fallen into the well on Saint Golphus day. Father had cursed The Order and swore never to return to chapel from that day forward. The family had briefly changed their last name to Apostate, but then father realizing he would need new checks to be printed, reneged and returned to the old family moniker of “Ben the Chosen Ones” which they had shortened to Ben to save on expensive ink and paper. And then there was the prodigal son, Fenway Ben, who had left home at 13 to seek his fortune in the big city. Like all good prodigal sons he was never seen again and presumed dead. Little Ben was the last of the Bens. After her televised gala, the Ben line would come to the bitter end.

Little Ben sighed the sigh of justified grievance and prayed to whatever gods that might be listening that her final moments would be swift and painless. Unfortunately the God of Swift and Painless Death was upstairs in the courthouse participating in the Dutch Auction for 50 yard line seats at the execution. Little Ben could occasionally hear sounds from above as well as the drip of icy water into the filthy mat of urine soaked straw. Not her urine of course, but the urine collected by the volunteers for justice which had been generously given, and noted for a tax deduction, and then spilled on her prison floor with much mirth and laughter.

Little Ben faintly heard the call from above.

“Gimme40,gimmie40,whosgonnagimme40,2onthe50,fo40,gimme40,doihear40,35itis,doihear35,35,gimmie35,goingonce,goingtwice,lastchance2onthe50,going,going,gone. Sold to the gentleman in the Black Hood and scythe.”

Little Ben, suffering in her cell did not know that there were lots of seats to sell and it was going to take a long time. Besides the youtube crews from the Capital and from provinces as far away as Clissa were bidding for the broadcast rights, and the Managers of Justice Done, knew how to negotiate. Top dollar for a top attraction. Besides the stadium in Sonogno was too small. They were discussing moving the execution to the Capital itself. There were rumors that Governor Linden himself might appear, but it was only a rumor, for the Governor did not believe in corporeal punishment. However since Little Ben was a private it was speculated that he might appear. Arranging all the details, ensuring a sell out crowd to avoid a local broadcast blackout was the priority now. It would take days, three, perhaps four at the most. With all this hype the Managers of Justice Done could not afford to wait too long. Lupine news had bid 100,000 lindens for an exclusive with the condemned, that’s how lucrative the business of justice done could be in Second Life.

Little Ben had been given only a moldy fig Newton and some sour milk to eat. Her mind drifted back to her sweet mothers Onion and Pickle pie with the crinkly crust. And perhaps a bit of sour cream with bacon bits, or parsnip pudding and applejack sauce. No, perhaps the wonder bread with the cheese wiz. Little Ben was loosing it. Blissful beatific unconsciousness swept over her. As she lay sleeping the mark on her breast began to glow. First a little glow, then brighter. First a fain orange with a bit of pink, then brighter, and brighter, now a red hot blaze as the Worm Oborous began to consume its tail. The spiral of destiny had begun and there was not stopping it now until the final act had been played and the bodies were heaped like chord wood in the denemount of virtual life.

Murdstone lay unconscious in his hospital bed. His injuries were superficial but it was critical to The Order that he be kept under sedation. He was tied to the bed by rosy beads made of adnausium the strongest metal know to man or avatar. Control of the fourth estate was critical, and the Mother Superior could not take the chance that Murdstone in an attempt to sell papers might spill the beans. Or cut and run. Or for that matter blab at the Calves Head Club. She hated the Calves Head Club, they excluded women, especially women of the cloth and she knew they made fun of the Order in their silly skits at the Stern Grove in the summer. And the kidney pie she had had once, when she sneaked in disguised as a business typhoon, had made her sick. She had missed High Mass, midnight whispers, and shrieking louds for a week.

She nodded to Sister Tempest and Sister Fist of the Order Of Mercy and Security who stood guard over the unconscious form of Ruprecht Murdstone. How the mighty are made small in Her Name thought Adel. Small and frail indeed.

“He is to speak to no one, understood?” Mother Superior said to the Sisters. The Sisters nodded and double checked their automatic rifles, side arms, both of which were attached at the shoulders, and then the rosy beads. Murdstone was going nowhere.

If Sindy Blazer did as she was told, Murdstone would never leave the hospital. Well he would leave the hospital, thought Adel, but in a small pewter urn about the size of a milk carton and suitable for placing in the Great Mausoleum of the Martyrs of Order of the Bloody Stain of Saint Hymenos the Benighted - Mothers of Earth Druids (reformed). Adel Flossberg chuckled, “He might even make sainthood in a hundred years she thought.” The Mother Superior exited the room smiling, turned left and spied Dr. Benway and his students coming her way.