When We Were Executioners (4 page)

Jona stroked her cheek. “He’ll come when he can,” said Jona, “Sneaking into a prison is not for a thief. He’ll come when he’s leaving with you. Until then, eat something.”

“I don’t want to eat! I want Salvatore!”

Jona clutched the wailing girl to his chest. He stroked her hair. He didn’t try to speak. He didn’t know what to say. He let her cry, and he looked over at the food he had brought her and the flies that swarmed upon the bread. He hated that Aggie wouldn’t eat first. He hated seeing those flies eating her food in tiny crumbs, planting maggots in the meat.

He held the girl close.

* * *

Jona stopped on his way out of the prison. He handed a bunch of tea-stained letters to the carpenter that had sent Jona off on so many killing jobs. He set up shop at the gates to catch the prison workers coming and going out the main gate. Some of the tea stains had flecks of blood. Some of them, just drops of ink.

The carpenter scanned the letters quickly. Jona watched the merchant’s eyes light up. He pulled Jona into a back room.

“You know what this says?” said the carpenter. He had these tiny glasses on his eyes wrapped in cloth to hold them together. They were far too small for his huge face. He read slowly.

“I wrote it, didn’t I?” said Jona. “I copied it out of Calipari’s papers.”

Jona had been looking for any sign that Calipari was investigating the Night King. He found nothing. He had planted another document into the pile of papers, with news of a Senta killed, and bodies tumbling into the water, for no reason. He found rumors that Mishle and Ela Sabachthani were checking the laws to see if he could be king despite being a commoner. In this, Jona saw a life for Aggie.

“We don’t like Mishle,” said the carpenter.

“I’ll do what I have to do,” said Jona. “I’m hoping for a different kind of payment.”

“Commoner’s shouldn’t try to be the king, you know,” said the merchant, “Ain’t right.”

“He’s a good man,” said Jona. “I want something good in exchange.

“He’s not
our
man.”

“Give me Aggie. I’m doing right. I’m earning my keep, ain’t I? I killed that Senta for you.”

“We’ll arrange Mishle for you quick. Keeping an eye out for our interests is smart. Maybe the Night King’ll give you a pretty little prize for your sharp eyes. Maybe.”

“If Ela doesn’t go for the Chief, she’s going to be married to Elitrean’s son, right?”

“Rumors say so, even if she hates the boy. We can rumor them together, make it look good. He’s our boy. He’s better for us.”

“I guess he would be.”

“The Chief is impossible. He’s owned by the lords, not by us.”

“He is impossible. No commoner should be king while a lord like me is nothing but a blood monkey. You can always count on me. I don’t think Sabachthani’ll be the queen. Sabachthani’s too smart to want the throne. She’s smart enough to know where power really is.”

“Yeah? Where’s that?”

“This city is built on mud. You and me, and all the people like us. We’re the mud. We’re holding everything up and wiggling around, pushing things up out of the mud and pulling ’em back down again. Night King is the power of the mud.”

“You’re mud. You’re not even that. You’re bloody Elishta. Don’t be getting any ideas. You don’t deserve to be alive, and don’t you forget it.”

The carpenter looked down at Jona’s papers like staring into a fire. “We got mud, but we got something else. We got the King, and the Night King. Everyone in between the kings got nothing.”

Jona took out his knife. “We’ll see how the Chief feels about mud like us when I gut him like a hog.”

“I’ll send a boy for you,” he said. “This might be dirty. We didn’t expect this. We don’t have a plan in place.”

“I’m ready when you’re ready,” said Jona.

“Good lad,” said the carpenter. “And all you want is that girl, Aggie? Never pegged you for the type to want another demon’s used up whores.”

Jona felt no anger, anymore. He felt nothing. All he felt was tired. He wondered what it was about killing people that made him want to sit in a dark room, by himself, and never come out.

* * *

Do you want to go to one?

What? Of course not.

Why not?

They’d kill me!

They’ll bounce you. But, they won’t bounce you with me around.

I’m the one who introduces you, so I’m the one they’d be shaming if they bounce you.

Then I don’t want to shame you. Why do you want me to go to one of these horrible things, anyway?

I just think it might be fun, you know. You love to dance. We’ll go, and you can dance with men who dance for a living. It might be fun.

It might get me killed.

Aren’t even a little curious? We’ll go, and just watch.

What do you mean, just watch?

We’ll hang out in the trees and we’ll be in the shadows, and I’ll pretend like I snuck you back there for a tryst and no one would stop us, and we could just hang out forever and watch and listen.

I don’t know. Maybe.

* * *

Jona slipped a coin into the palm of a coachman, with a little note. The coachman slipped the note into his pocket. He pointed up to the wall next to his couch.

Jona led Rachel to the back of the couch. “Climb up,” he said. She looked at him like he was crazy.

He jumped up to the back bumper of the carriage, clinging to the golden luggage rack on top with one hand. He held his other hand out to her.

She frowned. She took his palm, and let him pull her up to the bumper. He planted a boot on the wheel just beside him. The carriage lurched and pulled back, but he was able to pull himself all the way to the top. Rachel didn’t try that. She held up her hand. “Pull me up,” she said.

He took her wrist in both hands. He leaned back, and tugged her up to the top.

The coachman shouted. “Best be quiet up there, else someone’ll see.”

Jona rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the warning,” he said.

From where they sat, they had a good vantage point on the garden beyond the wall. Two musicians played a stringed instrument that sounded like a peacock’s mournful wail. One man pushed down black and white keys, plucking long strings of a harp. The other man gently pulled the bow across the strings. The pitches bent and warped at the edges. Below them, dresses as delicate as Fabergé eggs twisted in a painted whirlpool. Luxury vessels pushed to the center in time to the song. The passengers—young women, all, and as pretty as wealth could buy them—hummed along to the music.

Jona looked at Rachel’s face. Her jaw hung open. Her eyes were as big as two white moons.

A drum beat kicked into the end of the women’s music. The men cheered. They could return to the dance, at last. Jona caught a familiar angle from the corner of his eye. One of the men collected his siren from the clumped center and twirled her into the new song. Jona sucked wind in from his teeth.

Salvatore.

A new young woman, with red hair and a laugh like huge splashes of water—she wasn’t a noble and she didn’t belong here and when she laughed anyone could see that. The young woman and Salvatore spun around the floor for a few measures until Salvatore danced apart, into the arms of an older woman.

“Something wrong?” said Rachel.

“Nothing,” said Jona, “I just remembered something, is all.”

“What?”

“See how everyone’s dancing?”

“Of course. It’s beautiful.”

“Well, nobody ever dances with the person they really want to dance with. You never dance with the person you came to the party with, unless you’re married.”

“That’s stupid.”

“That’s how it is. These only look like fun. But they’re work. Two fellows meet for a drink, and negotiate a treaty that opens new ports for new products. Two fellows fight over the same girl, and they dance the night away and in the morning they’re too tired to visit again, and they’re too late. Her father contracts their wealth away by marrying her off to someone else. Two girls fight for the hand of the richest man, whether they like him or not, so they can live as they like until they die. It’s all work.”

Jona watched for Salvatore to make his real move. Salvatore slipped a string of pearls off the neck of his dancing partner fast as a hummingbird’s wing. Jona wouldn’t have seen it if he wasn’t watching close for just that.

The red-haired girl with the huge, beautiful laugh approached an older man who wasn’t dancing at all.

The girl offered her hand to be kissed. The man scowled like she was a fool. She spoke.

He responded rudely.

The girl smiled. She swayed her hips to the music.

He huffed at her.

She spoke, and poked him in his fat stomach. People around them laughed.

His face lowered to a glare. Red spread up the back of his neck.

Salvatore took the red-haired girl’s hand, and swung her into the dance. The necklace Salvatore had stolen passed from his sleeve to her bosom. They parted, with their eyes still locked.

She danced away from him with an adolescent boy looking up at her like he was in love. She was laughing and laughing and sharing long glances with Salvatore over the young boy’s head.

The dancers stopped to breathe. Servants with drink trays fanned out through the crowd. The musicians bowed to applause.

Rachel sighed, amazed at how beautiful everything was. She leaned deeper into Jona’s arms.

Jona didn’t notice. He was thinking about killing Salvatore.

Rachel pecked Jona’s cheek.

Jona blinked. He leaned into Rachel’s ear. His mind returned to the creature in his arms.

“My mother makes most of those dresses,” he whispered, “She doesn’t recognize the girls unless she sees them in the dress she made. She never knows who’s pretty or who isn’t. She just knows whose dress cost more, and who’s always sending the dress back to let out a seam. Girls get fat quick if they aren’t careful.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say,” said Rachel.

“No,” said Jona, “Don’t miss my meaning. Not all girls, just these kind. Never missed a meal in their life, and their only work is handing babies to a nurse.”

“It’s still not very nice, Jona.”

“They’re not very nice. Only rich. Without the money, they’re nasty, lazy, and fat. You’re beautiful, and you don’t have anyone to buy you pretty.”

The music started again, a languorous waltz. The girls in dresses like cotton altars, and the men in their stiff suits spun around and when Jona closed his eyes a little, just to a squint— and he couldn’t really see the money hanging off of every limb in silk and gold thread—then the waltzing crowd looked just like the Nameless’ dancers underground, bobbing and weaving around. Jona squinted at the crowd, and tried to pretend like he’d open his eyes and be underground.

He had this sudden urge to escape into the darkness, and hurl his body against other bodies, against the giant drums. He wanted to jump and push and dance where dancing hurt. He gritted his teeth. He looked at Rachel’s face while she watched the ball.

Rachel was in bliss. She leaned into Jona’s shoulder. She sighed into his chest, again.

* * *

How do you get the power of the wind? What do I have to understand for the wind?

Power? It’s not really power over the wind. It’s more like… like a silent sound.

Well it looks like you control the winds.

I can tell you the koan. A student of the Unity heard of a Senta who could make ribbons dance like ghosts. The student sought out the Senta. The Senta stayed in his hut, and when someone knocked on his door, he always grabbed any visitors quickly by their hair, shouting at them to speak. The first time the student tried to see the master, the master grabbed her and shouted “What is it?!” and before the student could speak, the master threw her into the yard. The second time the student tried to speak, she was thrown further, against some rocks. This bruised her badly along her back. She rubbed her back in pain and tried one more time. She knocked on the door. The master grabbed her and threw her as hard as he could. The student shoved her foot in the doorway before she could be thrown. When the master slammed the door, the student’s footbones broke like glass. In that moment of pain, the student understood the master’s lesson, and the gasp of pain in her chest swallowed the sound in the air with the wind.

Rachel, you know that sounds like nonsense, right?

Well, it may sound like nonsense, but when you understand it, it will fill your chest with pain, and the sound will bend to you, too.

Pain. I understand pain.

You only think you understand pain, Jona.

* * *

Jona’s mother stirred the porridge for her breakfast. She hummed to herself while she stirred.

Jona sat drinking tea behind her. His uniforms were all on the roof, drying in the winds. He had washed them last night with the rest of the clothes, mostly naked and standing on the roof with the night breeze running over his sweaty back over the washboard. The uniforms took forever to dry in the wet air. Jona leaned against the chimney, and then he paced over to the uniforms and tested them with his fingers—still wet. He went back to the chimney. He paced.

He snatched the uniform from the line. He pulled it over his body damp.

He went downstairs, where his mother stirred porridge. She daydreamed a little, she hummed a little, and she stirred porridge.

“Hey, Ma,” he said, “I’m thinking of grabbing a chicken. Want me to bring back a chicken?”

“Rather you didn’t. It’s so much trouble to pluck them and gut them,” she said. She tested the porridge, and frowned. Too hot. She took it off the fire, and kept stirring. “I’m getting some sausage on the way back from the shop.”

“Oh,” said Jona, “that stuff ’s all sawdust and gizzards.”

“It’s cleaner and easier than chickens.”

Jona stood up. He held out his porridge bowl. “Ma, I can afford a chicken now and then,” he said. “We don’t need to eat shit sausage all the time.”

She filled his bowl with the slightly burned porridge. It smelled sour. “Better set the money aside, Jona,” she said, “Today we can afford chicken. What about tomorrow?”