When We Were Executioners (7 page)

He used river water to rinse the bloody spots on his leg from the leech’s teeth. Jona had to wait for the wound to clot before he could touch his clothes lest the blood burn through the new uniform. He didn’t mind. He wanted to be drier. He wondered if he had a leach dead on his back that he couldn’t see, but he couldn’t do anything about it now.

He had to get back to his post. He pulled on his new clothes, and now he was a river tout, ready to give directions around the canals for a coin to the other ships, and sometimes a lift to a fellow left by a ferry that didn’t mind paying a bit more for the hurry.

He tied a ratty bandanna over his hair, and smeared some fresh mud on his face and arms. People see a dirty river tout, they don’t look twice at him.

He shoved his new rowboat into the water. He jumped into the boat so his momentum pushed it out of the black and into the water. He rowed silently. He dodged the few ships running through the canals without a singsong cry about his own presence on the water.

He had to go down the canal, into the bay, and north to the island, where he’d change clothes one more time tonight, back into his uniform, and sink this little rowboat with the clothes inside of it.

Jona wasn’t far from the edge of the canal, where larger vessels full of fruits, fish, vegetables, and wheat unloaded precious cargo into the flat canal vessels. Perishables usually ran after dark, to get to the markets by morning light.

Jona turned the corner to the bay, where bustling brothels and bars spewed disease and terrible music like a house vomiting buckets into the gutters.

Someone cried out for a river tout. Jona didn’t look up. He was going to keep rowing as if he didn’t hear. Then, the voice cried out again, and Jona recognized the voice.

Lord Elitrean’s son in a sailor disguise waved his arm at Lord Joni, whose tout disguise was better. The boy had draped himself in filthy rags like a sailor, and wore rags over half his face like a wound. The boy was not covered in filth or mud. His skin was pure and white, as if he had come directly from a bath, and no salty sea air or sunlight had browned his white skin.

(
I think everyone puking in the gutter, and spinning to foreign noise among foreign prostitutes was a noble in disguise. Even the prostitutes were bored rich wives, looking for some excitement, unconcerned about passing down the face of the father to the sons and daughters.
)

Jona slowed his little boat. He shouted to Elitrean exactly what a tout should shout. “What, you?”

“Ahoy, tout,” shouted Elitrean. His accent was all wrong. He sounded like a nobleman trying to sound like a sailor. “Run me to my boat,” he said.

“How much you got?”

“I got enough, tout. Nine do it for you?”

“They foreign coins or local?”

“Local.”

“I’m your boy,” shouted Jona, “Nine’ll get me all night. Something wrong with the ferry?” The ferry would recognize him, and report his travelings to the boy’s father, especially after dark. Jona knew that.

“Something wrong with nine coins?” said Elitrean. “Nothing wrong, then, sailor,” said Jona.

Jona rowed the boat to shore, and held up his hand to this boy who did not know he would be king.

Lord Elitrean’s son plopped on the damp bench across from Jona like he had never been in a boat before, but he was just pink and uncoordinated. The boat rocked. Jona held out his hand to the passenger. Jona put the nine coins into his pocket. 

He dropped his oars, and pushed off the sidewall of the canal.

He rowed into darkness. He didn’t say a word. Jona aimed his boat where he was told to aim it. Lord Elitrean’s son was heading for the Island, not some boat.

Jona imagined Lady Sabachthani in a red wedding dress, lifting her veil to this fellow that Jona had thrown out of a whorehouse once. She wasn’t pretty, and she was twice as old as him.

She was smart enough to know the hollowness of men’s smiles. And the rumors are out there, this boy picking his teeth with

the jagged end of his little signet ring (a better disguise would have hid the ring), his eyes swamped in pinks and his body the victim of every disease that washed into the brothels from the

sailors’ ships.

Jona said to himself that he didn’t care. Then, he asked himself why he had to say to himself that he didn’t care. For all her wealth and power, Lady Sabachthani may never know the joy of love. Even if she were naked, she would have more armor wrapped over her flesh than Rachel’s warm scales.

She had stood in the night, stared into her betrothed’s assassin and stepped, calmly, away.

And Elitrean’s son would never know love. He could not separate his own desires from his self. Beneath the surface of his skin, this noble child was unformed, all impulse.

Jona was impulsive, too.

Jona pulled one oar from the water, and swung it into the rowboat next to the boy’s leg.

The boy looked at Jona. “Something wrong, tout?” Jona nodded. “Oar’s broken.”

“Looks fine to me.”

“You can’t see it?” said Jona. He pointed at the edge of the oar in the boat.

Elitrean leaned over the oar, frowning.

Jona swung the other oar with both hands.

Elitrean’s eyes rolled like marbles. He collapsed into the floor of the boat.

Jona swung again. The skull cracked like a jar. Inside, the boy was unformed. Globs of brain and chipped bone pooled on the floor of the rowboat like spilled soup.

(
Jona saw Tripoli’s death in his mind, and choked down bile that suddenly jumped in his throat. Tripoli lying in a puddle of his own intestines and liquid shit and weeping blood and screaming.
)

Jona placed the paddles back into the water. He started rowing again, blood from his oar trailing behind in the water. Jona reached the tall reeds at the edge of the island. He slipped Elitrean’s signet ring from his finger, and pulled off a rag to use as a rope. Jona tied the ring to a heavy stone from the shallows.

He tossed the ring and the stone deeper into the bay waters. Jona slipped Elitrean’s own knife from the boy’s boot. Jona cut off most of the clothes. He wanted this body to look like exactly what the boy was in life: a foul, murderous, bloated dog. If the body managed to float far enough towards the shore, he’d be buried in a pauper’s grave, or burned with the dead in the sewers. The body floated off into the currents.

Jona kicked a hole in the bottom of his rowboat. He lashed the oars down to the boat with the rest of his canal tout clothes.

He had a uniform near here, placed just for him. He pushed the sinking little boat into the bay currents.

Jona walked through reeds at the edge of noble compounds.

He strolled back to his post, through empty streets. He felt eyes on him, and he didn’t care. Estate Guards wouldn’t think much of a king’s man walking through the king’s streets. Night

birds and insects sang moon songs from the gardens. A few stars pushed through the night clouds and city lamps.

Jona looked behind himself every few steps. He half-expected the Night King herself to be standing there, or Lady Sabachthani’s men. The further he walked, the more he was afraid.

He slowed down so he wouldn’t look conspicuous. He choked down his own heartbeat.

Jona felt safer when he returned to his post. His alibi had fallen asleep.

Jona kicked Christoff ’s chair. Christoff startled awake, reached for his weapon, but saw it was only Jona. Christoff stretched and yawned.

“Don’t snore,” said Jona, “It’s unbecoming of an officer.” “I’m no officer,” said Christoff.

“Sleeping’s what officer’s do,” said Jona, “Corporals don’t get to sleep.”

“You all right?” said Christoff.

“I’m starving. Do we have anything to drink?”

“I got some rum,” said Christoff, “but it’s piss water. Foul stuff.”

“I need something.”

“Cool yourself,” said Christoff, “Lots of night left for you to piss me off. Don’t need to make it all in one go.” Christoff slowly pulled his leather flask from beneath his chair. He tossed it at Jona’s head. Jona caught the flask in the air. He tugged at the stopper and drank as much as he could in one swig. Christoff leaned back in his chair, and let his eyes drift closed again.

Jona sat down and watched the night. He thought about what he had just done, and it scared him.

Sunlight threw a lonely eye over the city from the east. Jona kicked Christoff ’s seat to wake him up again before they got relieved. Jona thrust the rest of the rum back into hiding under Christoff ’s chair.

Relief came, and he and Christoff went back to their stations to report and sign off.

Then, Jona walked home. He filled up a bath with hot water, and rolled into it. He closed his eyes. He tried to imagine that he was sleeping.

He wondered if he would face the souls of all the men he killed in dreams like a normal blood monkey if he could only fall asleep.

Killing was so easy without dreams to wake the dead. Then, Jona thought about love.

* * *

Another conversation, hidden in many corners inside the ofdemon’s mind. Two voices, bodiless, but clearly Calipari and a mixture of other men, and other times. A sea of tobacco smoke, and sweat. I’ll call the other fellow Jona, because Jona was one of the voices, once or twice.

“How in Elishta you meet Franka, anyway?” said Jona.

Nicola leans back in his stool. He looks at the horizon past the tavern walls. “Oh, I was out inspecting the guard towers,” he said, “Ran into her on the way out. She’s been a barmaid at Bill’s place for as long as she’s been walking. We hit it off. This was four years ago? About four years ago. Her kid was still a runt back then. He’s still a runt, but he was a punier runt back then.”

Jona squints. “You know the boy’s father?”

“Nah, but I know he ain’t around anymore. I think he’s dead. And if he ain’t dead, he better not come around again after walking on Franka like that. I’ll kill him.” No hint of exaggeration in Calipari’s voice. He wasn’t just talking, he meant that he’d kill the man as easily as men mean to wear a jacket on a cold day. “I like the boy, though. He’s a good kid, and it’s all Franka’s doing,” said Calipari, “When you and me walk about, we run thugs and rollers and drifters and ragpickers born just like Franka’s boy and their mothers drifted off like nothing happened, and the kid’s just sitting there by his lonesome turning into trouble. Franka kept her boy, and damn to them that’d shame her for it.”

Nic took a long drink of something. Brandy. Wine. Ale. Piss Gin. “Anyhow,” a pause to cough away strong liquor, “We both trade time so sometimes she comes around here, and sometimes I’m out there. We write letters. She can’t read, but some of the folks read letters to her. They write them back to me, what she tells them to write.”

Jona shook his head. He shouldn’t have said it. But, he’s drunk, so he said it. “You trust her out in the traveler’s bar like that and her already with one kid? I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t. I’d go nuts.”

Nic was calm. He looked at Jona with a little squint in his eye. Jona knew he had crossed the line. Jona wouldn’t say it again. He’d never forget the answer.

“I trust her,” said Calipari, “You’ve never met Franka. You’d trust her if you did.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Jona, “You’d know if she wasn’t honest.”

Nic said nothing. He just looked at Jona with that tiny squint. Nic threw the last of his drink back. He coughed at the strength.

“When you retiring, anyway?” said Jona, “I heard you got the land already.”

“Yeah,” said Calipari, “In the winter. I’ve already got my parcel assigned. I just have to not get kicked before winter, and I’m a farmer with my good wife and a good son.”

“Sounds nice,” said Jona, “You know who’ll be taking your corner of the pigshit?”

“Maybe Geek will. He’s ranking Corporal around here. Maybe one of you boys will get some stripes ’fore he does. That’s the Lieutenant’s problem, though. I’m just trying not to toss the place before my time is up, or roll into the bay,” said Calipari. “When you up for that stinking fleur, anyway?”

Jona shrugged. “When an officer kicks. Then, I can test for it,” he said, “Until then, I’m your boy.”

“You up for a little trouble?”

“I’m always your boy. What you got?”

“Everything in the city. Anything at all. I’ll miss it when I’m gone. I hear some fellows are racing ducks at this tavern. We bet on the ducks, then we eat the loser.”

* * *

Jona tried to hold the image in his mind of the moment the Chief died. He tried to recall the precise moment the Chief believed in his own death. At one moment the face slipped from shock into a death mask. Jona tried to remember that final face, when the face was still alive.

Jona wondered if death was like sleeping. Dead people looked like they were sleeping, sometimes.

He figured he’d ask Rachel about it, later.

He couldn’t remember when he was going to see her again.

He wanted to see her again, soon. He wanted to hold her warm body in his while she slept, so he could share her dreams with the messy words that mumbled out from her lips.

* * *

The King, himself, through his own hazy fog, called down the law on all Sentas. Bring all Sentas in, question them, and kick them out of town.

In practice, guards got burned pretty bad over it, if they got too rough with their fists. Most Senta just kicked town alone as soon as they heard, wearing someone else’s clothes for a while.

Rachel didn’t know. Down in the Pens and the warehouses and where the big ships stripped their cargos out along the flat river boats, nobody threw anybody out of town.

Sergeant Calipari had called all his boys together at muster and told the Pens District to leave the Sentas be for now. The guard was too busy watching out for real sneak thieves and rollers to worry about useless laws that’d be forgotten in a few weeks.

Anyway, the king’s men all knew that a fellow probably wore Senta leathers to let the Senta take the blame. Everybody hated foreign religions.

Then before Jona could leave with the boys, Nicola pulled Jona aside.