When We Were Executioners

by J. M. McDermott

  “They can. Let’s go home, Jona. We can just leave.”

  “He’ll get here, else I’ll send a bouncer after him. He’s a faker. I’ll show you what I mean. Lots of grinders find the clothes somewhere, and they run a little grind at the docks where nobody knows better.”

  The Senta didn’t come out; Jona tossed the bouncer a few coins, and told him to fetch the old fellow telling fortunes for a king’s man.

  The bouncer returned quickly, with one hand on the old Senta’s shoulder.

  “Thanks,” said Jona.

  The old man folded his hands. “You need something, king’s man?”

  “Yeah,” said Jona, “Thing is, when fellows show up down here in a dive like this and start reading fortunes, they’re usually a grinder in someone else’s clothes. So, I want you to show me that you are what you say you are. You got any fire, or ice, or wind?” “I have studied the koans,” said the old man.

  “So, show me.”

  “No,” said the man.

  “So, you’re a faker. I’ll toss you in the tank, and you can think about what you’re gonna wear when we strip those clothes off you in the morning.”

  The old man pulled out his cards. “A student of the koans came to an old Senta,” he said, “A Senta older than I am. The student asked for the old woman’s assistance with some of the more difficult teachings. She hit the student over his head, and hobbled away from him. She shouted ‘I will do what I like.’ The young man, thinking on her words until he understood them, looked down at his hands, and saw that he had aged, too, even older than the old woman had been. He became one with the Unity not long after.”

  The old Senta turned back towards the pub. The bouncer blocked him. The bouncer looked up at Jona.

  “I’ve never heard that koan before,” said Rachel. Rachel snapped her finger. A flame jumped into the air. She held the fire in space, like a floating ball of burning paper. She called the winds to carry the fire to the old man’s face. Rachel, concentrating hard, wrapped the fire in a ball of ice that spread inward. The ice snuffed out the fire, and fell into the mud, lifeless and melting.

  The old man didn’t blink.

  “I told you he was a grinder,” said Jona.

  “Would you like your own fortunes read?” said the man.

  Jona laughed. “If that’s all you got, you’re going to be sleeping in the tank tonight.”

  The old man looked at Rachel. “I can read your fortunes if you like, just as I have read the fortunes of the poor folk in this blighted tavern.”

  Rachel nodded. “Fine,” she said, “but not here. Jona, do you know somewhere we can go that will be private?”

  Jona looked down at Rachel. He huffed at her. “Sure,” he said, “We can go to the Old Brewery. It’s big, it’s mostly empty, and I don’t think the rats will pay us any mind.”

  * * *

  The Old Brewery was open to the night. The street doors, unlocked let in the animals and homeless drifters collected in the corners, mostly sleeping, like bits of paper blown in off the street, accumulating in damp piles. In the center, the huge crane, leaned over the water like a limp fisherman’s pole.

  Jona led Rachel and the old Senta to the center of the brewery, near the crane.

  “We’re mostly alone,” said Jona, “but eyes are watching us here. Try anything funny and word will get back to the people that can do something about it.”

  “This spot will do just fine,” said the old Senta. He pulled his cards from his belt and shuffled them in the dark. “Funny thing, the future. So strange, yet so easy to see. People don’t see the patterns of their own life. Do we even need the cards or do we use them to help the one who seeks the future? What do you seek, young one?”

  “I am not your pupil, do not address me like one,” said Rachel.

  “You can call upon the sound in the air, but you cannot call what connects them. I shall draw a card for you.”

  The man pulled a single card from the center of the deck.

  Rachel snapped her finger and the card burst into a ball of flame. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said, “I know my future. Do you know yours?”

  “I shall remove my clothes and give them to you. I shall walk away. I’ll die in these streets. I have embraced my place in the Unity. What have you embraced, young one?”

  “I am not your pupil,” said Rachel. She turned away from the man. “Do not address me as one. Now take off your clothes. I need them.”

  Jona, confused observer, said, “Rachel? You think his clothes will fit you?”

  “I’ll make them fit when I get home.”

  The old man stripped. He folded his clothes, ceremoniously. He placed them on the ground in front of him.

  “Let him go, Jona,” she said, “And don’t ever do this to me again.”

  * * *

  Jona’s mother stirred the porridge for her breakfast. She hummed to herself while she stirred. Jona was on the roof, listening to his mother through an open window. The street had only just awoken, and Jona leaned over listening for his mother.

  His uniforms were all on the roof, drying in the winds. He had washed them last night with the rest of the clothes, naked and standing on the roof with the night breeze running over him.

  He didn’t tell his mother about Lady Sabachthani’s visit. The uniforms took forever to dry in the wet air. Jona leaned against the chimney. He stood up, went to the uniforms, and tested them with his fingers. Still wet. He went back to the chimney.

  He gave up waiting. He snatched a uniform from the line. He pulled it over his body, still damp.

  He went downstairs, where his mother stirred porridge. She daydreamed a little, she sang to herself the songs of her youth, and she stirred porridge. She wasn’t singing because she was happy, but because she was trying to push something away from her mind, and Jona knew it because he knew his mother.

  “Ma,” he said, “what’s wrong?”

  “Stay safe out there, Lord Joni,” she said, “I’ll see you later tonight.” She placed the bag with her sewing needles over one shoulder. She walked out the door.

  Jona looked at his porridge on the table. He poked at it. It tasted terrible.

  CHAPTER II

  Inn beds acquired too many old smells for wolf noses. In this little room, a thousand lovers have left the ghosts of their affections in the sheets. With the loamy soap smell and the sea wind and the maid sweat from all the trips down

  the stairs, through the wash, onto the line, and back again for more lovers, I’d only dream of the mechanical motion of anonymous lovers and anonymous maids like clock hands tearing at the white linen skin of the sheets. I’d wake up dizzy.

  We slept, my husband and me, on the floor near the iron stove. We rested our wolf noses in a light film of coal ash that had drifted here with hair and dead skin. Tea leaves that had escaped the boiling pot curled like desiccated ants in the lint and dust near the baseboards. We smelled it all, as we slept, seeing everything.

  When we woke, my husband and me, we woke up hungry. His eyes opened first, with the songs of the birds. He pulled the wolfskin off his back to make himself a man. He lit a single candle near the stove. He scratched behind my ears.

  Not yet.

  He yawned. I’m hungry.

  I stretched, and I yawned. I felt the papers beneath my back when I rolled over. I pulled the wolfskin off completely. Me, too. It is my turn, isn’t it?

  Yes, it is. Hurry up. I’m hungry.

  When I stood, I faced the mantle. Three demon skulls in wicker boxes slept there. When we finished with the skulls, we’d leave them with the church for servants of Erin to study. Imam’s inquisitors have already requested the skulls, but they must wait.

  Our paper map filled most of the floor. Wax landmarks followed our daily paths through the room where our candles had spilled.

  From outside, I heard the bird songs of sunrise. Inside, we lived in darkness. We did not want windows. A curious eye might see our map across the floor fr
om another window, and our papers. City folk frowned upon different households so close to their own beds.

  When I found my way to the street, there was rain.

  The good men and women of Dogsland hid below parasols. Some wore wide hats to keep the rain off their faces.

  I bought soggy bread from a skinny girl no taller than my hip. She should have been at home, but she was out working. She had a sheet of canvas over her cart that was too old to keep the rain out. She probably didn’t notice because she had trouble seeing through the sheets of rain in her eyes. I touched her cheek. Her skin felt so cold. She shoved my hand away. She held one hand up over her eyes. “Don’t touch me, lady.”

  I laughed at her. I stepped into the street. I opened my arms and praised Erin for the blessing.

  “Lady, ain’t you got the head to get out of the rain?”

  What was rain to me? If Ela Sabachthani found my husband and me in her city, we’d be dead by nightfall.

  I bowed to the shop girl. I went inside with the sopping bread that tasted like the blessed rain and the blessed waters were all over me. I handed the wet food through the door to my husband. I stood in the hall until I was dry. I didn’t want to get the maps wet.

  When I was dry enough, I went inside to lie with him and wait among the papers and ink. I’d write what I could remember, if I hadn’t written it, yet.

  * * *

  Rachel sat on Jona’s lap. Her dark smell was more intoxicating than the ale—cheap soap, dirty leather, and her demon blood beneath like wet brimstone.

  Jona wanted to say something. He didn’t know what to say. Her gloves ran through his hair. Her Senta leathers scratched at his bare neck.

  Jona wanted to fill this silence. She listened while staring out the window. They whispered in each other’s ear about the forbidden thing.

  Fathers.

  “My father wrapped his fortune in running the enemy blockade so we could get more coal,” said Jona, “Every ship was lost. Pissed the king off big, so he tried to blame the loss on my father’s sabotage.”

  Rachel kissed Jona under his ear.

  “King offed a bunch of nobles by commanding they do the impossible. Called it treason when they failed,” whispered Jona, “He took our lands along the rivers. He took most of our estate in the city. When I was a boy, our house was surrounded with a beautiful garden full of pine trees that you could always smell first thing in the morning.”

  Teeth pulled gently at Jona’s earlobe.

  Jona breathed in, hard. “King sold the grounds out from under us. Got buildings pressed right up to the windows. Nothing left but the house. Can’t rent out rooms on account of... Well, you know.”

  “That’s awful,” said Rachel. Her hot breath on Jona’s neck. She kissed him under his ear again.

  “Wasn’t the only family it happened to. King needed the money. He did what he had to do to fight the war and build his city. Sure, I hate his guts, but he’s still the king,” said Jona.

  Jona fingered the frayed edges of her Senta leather collar as if these ragged places were fine lace.

  “Maybe my father was a traitor,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe he was an evil demon and should’ve burned for his sins and this was all they could catch him doing.”

  Rachel kissed his temple. “We won’t talk about him anymore,” she said. “We don’t need to talk about it. I mean, if he was like us, then he couldn’t have been so bad, right?”

  Jona pulled away. He cocked his head at her. “What was your father like?”

  Rachel smiled, sadly. “My brother’s father, I’ve heard he was a nice man until he was possessed by the doeppelgaenger. I was born after. The demon entered his nose, devoured his brain, and coiled on his spine. The demon stole anything he wanted, and did anything he wanted to anybody. My family traveled because my father made it so we had to flee. It wasn’t some grand scheme, either. It was petty stuff. Theft, murder, rape.”

  “Elishta…” said Jona, “Bloody Elishta…”

  Rachel kept talking like Jona hadn’t said anything. “My brother poisoned my father and killed the demon with a club, and don’t you forget that about him if you ever meet him. He did it for Ma and me. My father was... I never called him my father. He was something horrible. Something worse than us. So much worse. So, my brother took me to find our mother, but the body was found too soon. We hid. She was so sick. She couldn’t have run far. Djoss took care of me after that.”

  “That’s… Good for him,” said Jona. “Good for him, yeah? Ain’t as bad as all that, then? Demon’s dead, and your brother’s looking out for you.”

  Rachel shrugged. “It’s my life,” she said, “Not everybody gets to be happy and... We make the best of it, Djoss and me.”

  “Still…”

  “We can’t change the circumstances,” she said, “We just do the best we can.” She turned away from him. “I have to go home,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll find you later, okay?”

  “Yeah.

  * * *

  We were in for the night, my husband and me, carefully blowing out candles and holding down papers with stones and bricks.

  Someone knocked on the door. My husband coiled behind the door and pulled the wolfskin over his back. If anything happens, fall into the room.

  I listened at the door a moment, hearing breathing, cloth, no steel chains or armor. I held up a lit candle and cracked the door.

  A Sabachthani servant, armed only with an envelope, bowed gracefully to us, and presented to me his envelope. An official invitation from Lord Sabachthani. I took the paper. “How long has he been making us squat in here like cats?”

  The servant smiled, mercurial and polite. She offered to send us a basket of fresh fruit, which I refused.

  In the morning, my husband and I left for the noblemen’s little island. We crossed the city. We took ferries over rivers, and carts over mud-patches. On the last ferry to the Island, we stood between the horses of two fine carriages.

  I touched the neck of a white horse. The horse told me about a strange smell on the ferry. I smelled it, too. I recognized it. I smelled the old blood, urine, and alcohol in the air. A wicked man stood behind us, hiding among the carriages. My husband and I did not make this journey unobserved.

  The ferry landed uneventfully.

  Two sleepy king’s men sat on chairs and waved at everyone to pass. We stepped onto the smooth cobblestones of wealth, power, and glory, cut away from the city by a man-made canal. How could they not see the destruction of the ground, the disconnection of power from place, and the dissolution of the city in this way of noblemen and kings? The commoners saw it. They talked of this place as if it were foreign soil.

  Once we arrived at Lord Sabachthani’s estate, he did not waste our time posturing through his seneschal as if Erin’s Walkers were as irrelevant as Corporal Jona Lord Joni and Sergeant Calipari. We were led directly up the main stairway, to Lord Sabachthani’s bedroom in the center of the hall. We had a private audience with him, an honor long overdue to us.

  We entered the room together. We saw the man who ruled this city in the king’s dotage. Lord Sabachthani had grown fat in his old age. He was poured into a large chair in front of an empty fireplace. His huge stomach rose and fell in little bursts like a slow tremble. It was breathing. He could barely breathe. He lifted a white hand. He gestured at us to step forward.

  His chamber smelled like the ocean. My ear wanted for the sound of gulls and water, but there was none. Magic, then. Illegal magic, and a blight on the natural world of Erin’s Holy Law. I heard the Lord’s labored breathing instead.

  Paper upon paper in neat stacks smothered every empty surface. He could not rule, in his condition, strolling from meetings to meetings. All had to be done on papers, from this chamber.

  I sniffed hard at the sea air, seeking the source in this windowless room. My husband coughed in the heresy as if it were smoke. I managed to hold back my own indignant disgust. This magic
caused us pain to breathe it.

  “The salty air helps my lungs,” said Lord Sabachthani, then, after a breath, “It’s harmless.”

  My husband walked to the fireplace, smelling after a source. He plucked a painted seashell from the mantle. He placed the shell in the hall. He closed the door behind us.

  The ocean smell faded. Candle-smoke, then, but this was also not real. I also smelled some tiny darkness hidden in the flames that must have burned eternally with small carvings of demon bones, not wicks. My husband and I blew them out.

  “I don’t have windows,” said the lord. “We’ll be forced to sit in the dark.”

  After the last candle was snuffed, I lit a match. I threw a handful of fireseeds into the fireplace, and stacks of his accumulated papers as fuel. I lit them with my match. He didn’t say anything about the papers he had lost. He had only watched me, calmly, burning requests and commands. It was fair price for his attempt to expose us to heretic magic.

  The flicker bounced around the crevices in the lord’s face, like a shadow dancing on a ghost. He was too calm to be anything but an adversary.

  “That will be enough light for us,” I said. “This light is natural. It will not slowly poison the lungs with the stain of Elishta.”

  “How little you know of what I do,” said Lord Sabachthani. “Did you bring me a present? Usually visiting dignitaries come bearing gifts.”

  “We did not bring back the skulls from your mechanicals. Nor will our Church pay you for destroying your shameful creations,” I said. “Our gift to you is allowing you to remain a free man, and not under arrest for your sins. This is more than you deserve.”

  He smirked. “I could still use those skulls for something, even if my guardians are gone. No one got sick from my creations. I made those beasts during the war, you know. Thirty years and no one’s sick from them.”

  “Those were children, not veterans. Where did you find them, I wonder? You are still engaged in illegal magic.”

  “My work is more academic these days. I have been trying to extend my life.”

  “You will fail.”

  “I have not been successful, I admit, but the research is young, yet.”