When We Were Executioners

by J. M. McDermott

  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.

  Jona yawned. He asked to be a scrivener for a day on account of how tired he was.

  Nic handed Jona a pass. “Go home,” said Nicola.

  “What?”

  “You worked all the other night, and if I know you, you spent all day and night in trouble, and you still need some sleep,” said Nicola, “Don’t think my eyes and ears in the city don’t tell me about your wanderings. Take two days off to get your head back. Sleep in. Sergeant’s orders.”

  Jona scowled. “I don’t get paid at home,” he said.

  Nicola rolled his eyes. He held the pass out further. “You don’t get paid if we kick you on account of disobeying,” said Calipari, “Get out of here, Corporal. Go home. Sleep. That’s an order.”

  Jona shrugged. He stretched his hands over his head as if he was tired.

  Jona signed his pass. He turned to the door. Nicola clicked his tongue at Jona’s back. Jona turned. A large bottle of red wine soared towards Jona’s hands. Jona caught the bottle. He read the label, and nodded at Nic. “Thanks, Nic,” said Jona.

  Calipari winked, and shooed Jona out the door.

  * * *

  And the engineers kept working. A new fellow found the mantle of Chief on his shoulders. He hid in the palace.

  Chief Mishle Leva’s funeral was lavish. Lady Sabachthani, in black, stood on the front row, gently weeping behind her thin, black veil.

  And down where the porters pulled crates from the ships and loaded them into the flatboats near the rivers and animals in crates rolled in from all over the world and passed through the slaughterhouses at the Pens and all the vendors walked barefoot in mud and ragpickers picked through the piles of trash and Jona and his boys walked about and Rachel lived and Djoss lived and thousands of people quietly tried to find their little piece of happiness—down there—no one batted an eye if they heard the news.

  Didn’t bother the Pens and Docks and Warehouses a bit if some fellow got rolled. People got rolled everyday.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Jona took Calipari’s wine to Rachel’s apartment.

  He wanted to see if she was home alone. He had been to her apartment a couple times. Her lock was worthless. He shook the handle and lifted it up until the old gears fumbled loose. When he opened the door, he saw her dozing in her bed. She hadn’t even looked up at the door noise.

  Jona had never seen her brother, but he had seen the signs of the man. Bread, half-eaten, staled and molded on the counter. Huge, mud footprints led to his bed. His sour sweat smells spread across the room from his filthy bed on the other side of the apartment. Djoss wasn’t home now. He was rarely around in the daylight, unless he was sleeping.

  Jona placed the wine on the floor next to Rachel’s bed. He sat down in front of her. He watched her eyes moving behind her eyelids. She was dreaming.

  On the other side of the room’s wall, a young boy read aloud to an old woman. The old woman kept correcting the boy’s mistakes. Farther away in the building, a baby cried, a man snored, and even farther, women shouted gossip between windows while pulling in their wash. All around them, people were falling in and out of love, behaving lewdly, and everyone ought to be ashamed of themselves, because there was gossip about everyone.

  Jona couldn’t find a corkscrew in the kitchen. He couldn’t find wine glasses, either. All he found were little tea cups and a tea pot with no smoke stain on the bottom like every other tea pot in the world.

  He gave up. He pulled off his shirt. He slipped into bed next to her.

  She smelled him. She woke slightly. She nuzzled into his neck, and drifted off again.

  * * *

  What do you do when you’re alone and don’t know what to do with yourself?

  Nothing.

  When a Senta doesn’t know what to do, the Senta closes her eyes. The Senta tries to breathe carefully and continuously. Each breath must fill the lungs, burn a little, and then fall like liquid from the mouth in a steady, flowing breeze. To seek the Unity, first the Senta seeks to find the places inside that are unharmonious.

  Sounds like doing nothing to me, but I’m no Senta.

  Sit up straight, allow the blood to flow freely, and feel the breath seeping in through the body to each relaxed finger and toe. Close the ears next. Close the skin. Seek a heartbeat, and the swell and sink of the lungs like bellows. The Senta seeks to purify the being into Will alone. In a limitless universe—our unbroken one—the center of the universe is the point of strongest Will.

  I bet it’s nothing like a good bottle of wine. Do you have a corkscrew?

  Listen. Look at your hands. We of the winds and the sun do not question Will. We see it in our hands. We see that animals have feet, teeth, hair, milk, faces, shit, sex, and blood. We see that only monkeys and men have hands. Monkeys use their hands to climb trees. Men use hands to cut down trees, or plant them new.

  So, you don’t have a corkscrew?

  When I dreamcast of monsters, they are men with giant palms, all colored pink or black or red as blood. When I dreamcast of the dying men, their bodies end at the elbow. Blind men see with their hands. Deaf men talk with their hands. Men with no corkscrew use their hands. Use your hands, Jona.

  I don’t think I’m strong enough for that.

  Well, I didn’t really want any wine, anyway. I don’t want to work drunk. That place is unpleasant enough wit
hout an unharmonious mind.

  This bottle will never open without a corkscrew.

  Then, the bottle is empty of wine. It contains only the hope of wine.

  If we go to my place, we’ll have a corkscrew.

  I will stay here and sleep some more. I am not like you, Jona.

  Do you want me to go?

  Yes. Goodbye. Knock, next time. My brother might be here, you know.

  * * *

  Aggie with her sad eyes, and her face all dirty and her nose a bit crooked, and her hands reaching out for Jona’s gifts. Letters, blood pie.

  Blood pie laced with demon weed, and demon blood. She ate the pie, and opened the letter and didn’t speak to Jona. She read the letter again, while finishing the pie.

  The letter was a forgery Jona bought from a professional letter-writer who wrote what Jona told the fellow to write and made the letters romantic and hopeful and said Salvatore’s coming to save the girl.

  Then Jona took the letter to Salvatore at his café, or his ball or his tiny little rented room, and Salvatore fumbled for something to write with. Salvatore read the letter and shrugged it off and made his mark.

  And Jona took the letter here.

  “Imam, I am too grateful for this torture,” she said. She fell back to her cot, her eyes glazed and the letter pulled against her chest.

  Flies and gnats swarmed all over her filthy, thinned face. She didn’t bother knocking them away. When her mouth dangled open—while she read—flies landed on her teeth. They sucked at the thin, sick rot with their greedy little legs.

  Jona washed her face off with a bowl of water while the demon weed held her mind still.

  One time—just once—he touched her breast through her rags. He frowned at himself afterwards. He cursed Salvatore. He stood up over her. He watched her sleep, until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He walked out of the room. Her soft warmth lingered in his palm, like a rash.

  He tried not to think about the girl.

  Instead, he thought about killing Salvatore, just like he had done Lord Elitrean’s son.

  * * *

  Jona slipped into the door at evening twilight, a little juiced from the liquor and the duck sausage that was barely cooked and mostly made of bloody oats all drenched in malt vinegar. He shoved his way in, kicked his boots off in the foyer, and stretched his arms over his head.