When We Were Executioners (19 page)

When the cart reached their little corner of the city, she had Djoss placed gently on the sidewalk, where they could wait for him to wake up and carry himself up the stairs.

She let him rest there, in the street. She took what was left of her night’s pay to the landlord, and handed all of it over to him.

She went to work. She knew she had to let him heal himself a little. Give him a chance to heal.

She knew it was time to leave this town, and this time it was because of Djoss instead of her.

CHAPTER XXII

Jona’s mother had the smallest hands. She sipped tea. She dipped tiny cookies into the brown liquid and gently placed the cookie on her lips.

“Jona, do you remember what your name was before your father died?”

“Ma, I’m Jona now. This is the only name I’ve ever known, and the only one I want.”

“You should remember these things, Jona. It’s important to know where you come from.”

“Elishta?”

Her lips pursed. She placed her tea on the kitchen table, and her cookie next to it. She folded her hands on her lap. “I say something, Ma?”

“You didn’t come from Elishta. You came from me. I’m a good woman, aren’t I?”

“Ma…”

“I’m no harlot, no harpy. And you’re a good man. You’re a king’s man. You’re a good man. Don’t say that you come from some awful place. You don’t. You came from my body.” 

Jona stood up. “My father has been dead a long time,” said Jona. “I’m not saying you’re evil, ma. I’m just saying how many people did my father kill in the dark? How many died when my father wasn’t chained down?”

“He was a good man.”

“He was good for a thing like me. And he wasn’t even the best there is. I’ve found some more like me, children of demons.”

“They’re lying to you.”

“They don’t know enough to lie.”

“They’re trying to trick you.”

“Ma, they don’t know about me. Nobody knows. I don’t tell them. I found some more like me because I’m a king’s man and I find people. Girl got burned at the stake was like me, but she was better than me, easy. Couple others out and about. One of them’s the sweetest girl in the city. She’s beautiful, and she’s kind, and she’s just like me.”

“Jona…”

“Don’t even say it, I know my future fine. Anyway, maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about the past. All the past ever did was break us. Our life’s seed has landed here, and we have to bloom where we land.”

“Sentas say that. Jona, you know you should avoid Sentas.”

“I can take care of myself, Ma. I can take care of you, too. I brought you fine tea, and fine cookies. I got them from the same place the other nobles get theirs. I want you to have them. I know you want them. Don’t sit there like you don’t have an appetite on account of all this talk.”

Jona finished his tea in one burning gulp. He coughed. He didn’t want to stop to put his boots on in the foyer. He picked the boots up. He opened the door. He walked down the street with his bare feet until he had gone down a few doorways. He squatted on a milliner’s stoop. He pulled his boots on.

All around him, people walked from shop to shop on the land that used to be Lord Joni’s garden. Under his feet, the ghosts of tree roots dripped into the sewers. All these people walking on the streets they’ve known forever didn’t know whose land they were on.

And Jona liked them here. This was his garden.

He stood up. He adjusted his uniform on his back, making sure it fell right. He walked to the Pens District.

* * *

A handwritten note was tacked to Jona’s bedroom door, on elegant paper. Jona knew exactly who had put the message there when he read it.

Come to the roof, Lord Joni
.

He didn’t go up right away. First, he went into his room, stripped off his dirty uniform, and washed his face and shoulders in a bin. He put on a clean uniform. He looked at himself in a mirror. He combed his hair. He touched his cheeks to see if he needed a new shave.

He didn’t think shaving would help him look any better. He left his boots downstairs, in the foyer. He went to the roof barefoot.

He saw her, draped in layers of black like a dark chrysanthemum unfolding at her pale face. Jona saw the line on her ear where the powder ended and her skin truly began. Right at the edge, he saw her weary wrinkles of age.

She stood where she had always stood on his roof, against the edge. Below her the city lamplights spilled up across her skin. This only made her look less human, with her gown and her thick layers of make-up.

Jona looked her in the face. He smiled. He bowed.

“You found my note?” she said.

He walked closer to her. “I did,” he said.

“Have you found anything about my lost suitor?”

Jona shrugged. “Does it really matter?” he said, “Even if he showed up again, would you want the strange scandal hanging over his head with the sudden death of his rival?”

She turned, leaning on the edge. She looked out at the night city, with the dotting streetlights into the distance like a golden road above the ground. “Of course not. I didn’t actually expect you to find anything about him,” she said, “I didn’t really want you to, either. I just wanted you to look for me, is all. It was important that you look for me, Lord Joni.”

Jona looked down on her. She looked so old to him, so tired.

“This kingdom needs a king, Jona,” she said.

“You’ve got plenty that want it,” said Jona, “Just hold out your hand and take anyone you want. None of them’d say no to you.”

She touched his arm. “I don’t just want anyone. I want someone that can be a good king. I look around at all the men I know and all the ones who could be king have already fallen into the bay. I’m not just looking for a powerful husband, Jona. I’m looking for the man who deserves power.”

Jona slowly pulled out from under her palm. “Nobody deserves it,” he said. He snorted at her. “
You
don’t deserve it.”

She turned back towards him. “But I have it if I only extend my hand.” Her arm rose up, and her fingers extended out to him. “Jona, your mother sewed my dress. Do you like it?” She pulled away from the wall. She spun slowly, letting the silk in the dress dance as she stepped around.

“It’s lovely,” he said.

She finished her turn. She put her hands on her hips. “Do you really like it, or are you just saying you like it?” She was trying to be beautiful. She was trying so hard to be beautiful, that she looked pathetic to him and looked old. He looked at her, and all he could see were the lines around her mouth, around her eyes.

Jona grimaced. “I think it’s lovely,” he said.

She smiled at him. She cocked her head. She spoke softly. “Lord Joni, I can get you a fleur with the snap of a finger,” she said, “I can return your lands to your family. You can start charging rent to all these squatters outside your door and you’ll be richer than Lord Elitrean in a matter of months.”

Jona stepped back. “I don’t need anything from you. I’ll do it on my own or I don’t deserve it.”

She didn’t believe him. She raised an eyebrow, twisting her smile into a wry grin. “Don’t you want to be the king?” she said.

“
What?
” said Jona, “No.”

She took one step towards him. “Think, Jona,” she said, “You know this city better than anyone else who might rule it. You know the lowest sewers and the tea houses and the street gangs and the grifters. You know the seamstresses and the craftsmen and the king’s men and they know you. You’ve been drinking with bakers. You’ve been living with butchers. You’ve been fighting the wickedness of the streets instead of hiding from it or riding on top of it or feasting on it from a cloaked carriage.” She took another step towards him. “This city would embrace you.” She reached up to his face.

Jona pulled back from her hands. “I don’t want anything from you, Lady Sabachthani. This city isn’t yours to give. The King is still alive. Long live the King.”

Now she was angry. Her grin curled into a snarl. “You could place your mother beside the throne in silk and pearls,” she whispered, “It’s been decades since she’s done anything with silk but sew.”

“No,” said Jona. He took another step back from her.

She stared at him, in disbelief. “You can’t be turning this down,” she said, “You simply can’t. You’ve worked so hard to achieve this.” Her ears slowly reddened. Undoubtedly her cheeks were flush beneath the powder.

Jona took another step back. He was almost back at the doorway to the stairs. “I don’t want your life,” he said, “I hate that life.”

She stomped her foot. She was still whispering. “Don’t say that Jona. What was all of it for if not for this?”

He took a deep breath. “I hate you, too,” he said.

She stomped her foot again. “Please don’t say that, Jona,” she whispered.

He looked away from her, to the empty sky. “Maybe I don’t hate you,” he said, “When I walk about these streets, nobody who smiles at me wants to stab me in the back.” He looked back at her. He felt sorry for her. She’d never know love. “You ever been to the Pens?” he said. “Used to be my father’s lands, and I still take care of it. Meals you ate came from here. And you’d eat me, too, and use my streets for your power, but have you ever
been
there?”

Her lips were pinched like the mouth of a closed purse. Her head was down. She kept whispering. “You wear your king’s man uniform when you walk about and everyone smiles?” she said, “And you have the sand to stand in this city—my city— and tell me about hating power?”

“I got nothing else for you, Ela. I’m just a Corporal, in it for the parcel. I’ll take my girl into the woods and farm the fields and raise my children far away at twenty years.”

“So you really hate me, then?”

“I hate people like you,” he said.

“But me,” she said, “You hate me.”

Jona looked her in the eyes. He tried not to crumble.

She waited for him to speak. She didn’t move. The breeze blew across her dress. When her dress rippled, her body’s stillness seemed to break the breeze.

Jona broke. “I’m in love with someone else, and I don’t want you to hurt her,” he said. “I want you to leave her and me alone. I’ll say anything I have to say for you to leave us alone and away from your deadly hand.”

She raised a fist and pounded her own palm, hard. She kept whispering. “If you take that filthy whore’s maid to my ball again, I’ll toss you both into the river, and we’ll see how you swim.”

Jona shook his head. He looked at her with open eyes. He knew what to say now, to keep him and his love safe. He wrapped his face in evil. He let evil into his tongue. He looked down on the small, middle-aged woman on his roof. “I pity them that lay one finger on my beloved,” he said, slowly.

She didn’t flinch. “You must love her a great deal,” she whispered. “You must love her a great deal to threaten the future queen over a whore’s maid.”

Jona laughed at her, cruelly. “You call her that, and maybe that’s what she is sometimes, but she’s the only thing in the world I want,” he said. “If you were as smart as you think you are, you’d forget the throne, and find a nice fellow with a kind face and let him teach you how to love.”

She stepped close to him. “Jona…” she said. She reached hands to his face. He slapped them away. “I know what love is,” she said, “I have lost more lovers than you have known. This foolishness is just the fire of your youth. What about your mother’s love?”

Jona took another step back. “You’ll say anything to get what you want,” said Jona.

“So will you,” she said.

Jona stepped back all the way to the door, never turning his back on Ela. He slipped inside. He closed the door. He flipped the lock on the inside. He went downstairs, pulled on his boots, and fled into his city streets.

* * *

Though I cannot verify my suspicion, I believe that Lady Ela Sabachthani broke down when Jona left her. I believe that she cried all the powder off her face. It melted into the ruffles of her black chrysanthemum gown, leaving trails of white ooze down the center of the petals. The mascara bled, too, two black canals along the white.

I have seen her through Jona’s eyes. I am not clouded by the preconceptions of Lord Joni’s feelings. I believe she cried on his roof.

* * *

Jona wasn’t thinking about what would happen after he had betrayed Lady Sabachthani.

He drank himself into a stupor that night because he wanted to puke thinking about her.

In the wee hours, when even the night in Dogsland grew too long and too calm, he sat in an alley, and stared up at a white moon.

For the first time in his whole wicked life, he knew exactly what he wanted.

He didn’t care about the Night King. He cared a little about Aggie, and he loved his mother, still. But, he didn’t care if he had to kill people to get what he wanted. He would have killed anyone he had to for his dream of love.

He looked up at the moon, and thought about a life with Rachel, on a farm, raising children and chickens and staying away from all the people that would burn them.

They could live there, and be together, and stay together, and nothing would come for them in the night, leaving cryptic messages or calling upon their sense of duty. They could just live.

Jona loved Rachel. He would do anything for her.

* * *

My husband, sleeping in a heap before the coal fire, was long and lean. All this hunting, and cleaning.

We had spent days interrogating the ragpickers, handing out apples. We had spent weeks pouring holy water over tainted ground. We had burned down the most-polluted place in the city: the home of Lord Joni. We did not even bother asking for the help of the guard to aid us in it, because we knew it was better for the fire to spread on its own, and burn uncontained. There was too much old stain in that ground.

My husband and I were alone in our room, far from the open hills and wild places of the world.

We were no closer to Salvatore, or Rachel.

Jona knew what he wanted. What do I want? I asked my husband what he wanted.

I want to do something that gets us permanently thrown from this horrible city, that we can go home.