When We Were Executioners

by J. M. McDermott

  He waited for her to wake up. He watched the rats slip in from their hidden places in the walls. They had whiffed the rot in the bandages. Jona watched them dragging the cloth into the hall. Six rats, each as big as a shoe, cautiously tugged at the bandage like sneak thieves. Other rats followed, sniffling after the smell of the food in the pan.

  Jona practiced his words in his mind.

  I know Salvatore set this up, girl. He told me himself. I’m not turning my buddy over a stupid nobleman’s dog. Everyone knows Sabachthani is the blood monkey on your back. We’re arranging things for you, Salvatore and me. You’ll be out of here as soon as we can fix it, and you won’t burn, and you’ll never go back to Imam, either, and it’ll be just you and Salvatore. Just relax, and do what I tell you, and everything’s going to be fine.

  Salvatore will be here, soon. He just has to make some arrangement to get you out.

  Salvatore will save you.

  Jona closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to say any of these things. He was going to sit with her, and hold back how angry he was at Salvatore. This is Salvatore’s fault.

  Salvatore would have to fix this. Jona opened his eyes. He washed away the worst of the grime with the hot water. He tried to straighten the girl’s hair. He’d have to bring her a comb.

  If Salvatore did come here, it’d be better if Aggie was still beautiful.

  When he looked down at her, he thought about Rachel. If this were Rachel, what would he do for her? Would he break her out? Would he burn the city down for her? Would he walk away?

  Did he love her the way Salvatore was supposed to love this girl?

  Did anyone love like that?

  Through the drug haze, her lip curled. It must have hurt bad if she could feel it through the demon weed. All this pain, and Jona had helped cause it. He could fix it, too.

  (How had she survived so long with the stain of Elishta? She had been sleeping with Salvatore, exposed to Jona’s blood. Now, she lay in filth, gangrenous and weak. I ask my husband if he knows how she could survive so long. He does not know either.

  We think it must be the Temple of Imam, during her days, when they washed themselves with holy water, scrubbed the floors with it. It must be something like that.)

  * * *

  In a street café north of the Pens in the early afternoon, where breakfast was mostly uneaten and waiting for someone to give up on it. The sun was high in an afternoon sky. Night workers had emerged, blinking, into the sun at this café, pale and bruised. The remaining pastries, coffees, and teas were sold cold and cheap. The men and women were laughing, happy pickpockets and troublemakers and thieves.

  Jona walked up, and a silence fell over the room. Jona sat down across from Salvatore.

  “I was saving that seat, King’s Man,” said Salvatore.

  Jona’s face was cold. “You were saving it for me.”

  “I wasn’t,” said Salvatore, sneering like a thief, “You got nothing on me, King’s Man.”

  “Do you remember Aggie, Salvatore?”

  Salvatore squinted at Jona, and then nodded. He snorted. “I think so.” Salvatore blinked. His face wasn’t in pain. “She dead yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” said Jona.

  “Poor kid, in over her head,” said Salvatore, “Wouldn’t listen, you know?” She had stolen magic from Sabachthani, and tried to plant it at her Mother Superior. It was exactly the sort of thing Jona was supposed to prevent. Salvatore was too addled by his eternity to remember much in the way of instruction.

  Jona sat down across from Salvatore. He reached for Salvatore’s tea. He took a sip of it. He grimaced—too sweet. He wanted Salvatore to think of his blood, his demon stain. Salvatore held his breath. Jona coughed after drinking.

  “I know she wouldn’t then, but she’ll learn,” said Jona. “She doesn’t talk to king’s men anymore.”

  “She’s getting smarter.” Salvatore snatched his tea back from Jona. He threw the cup on the ground, stomped on it. It shattered. “Don’t drink my tea,” he said.

  “I want you to visit her, with me.”

  “I won’t. I don’t walk into prisons on purpose. I got friends help me stay out.”

  “You know their names?”

  Salvatore sneered at Jona. Of course he didn’t know their names. He barely knew his own.

  “Will you write her a letter that I can take to her?” said Jona. “I’ll even tell you what to write.”

  Salvatore grunted. “I don’t write nothing. What am I supposed to say, anyhow? It was her doing. I’m out of it.”

  And the men of the café, nibbled old pastries. They all stared at Jona, in his uniform, like they were going to do something if he didn’t leave. The café was dead silent. Jona touched the riot bell in his breast pocket, just to make sure it was still there. It was. He pulled it out and turned it over in his hands, like he was ready to use it.

  The waiter came, and poured tea for Salvatore. He offered Jona a cup. Jona shook his head. When the waiter left, Jona leaned over. He spoke softly, because he knew the whole café would hear better, the softer he spoke. “Write a letter. Tell Aggie that you love her, and that you miss her, and that she should listen to me for a while because I’m working with you to save her.”

  “Sounds like you got it down. You write a letter, King’s Man, and I’ll sign it later,” said Salvatore, “I’ll meet you after a ball. ’Tis the season for balls, I think. You crash those, too, right? I’ve seen you at them before. I’m certain of it, actually.”

  “When? Which one?”

  “Day after tomorrow. Sabachthani’s the only one throwing them these days. You aren’t burning the girl right away, are you?”

  “No, she’s got a few more weeks. She said she was pregnant, once. She hasn’t said anything about it, since. We don’t know. No one’s going to check her with the demon stain. If she’s pregnant we have to let her have the kid before we burn the kid, too. Law’s always weird like that, but it isn’t built for of-demons. King won’t make a new law for just one case. Aggie’s father’s raising a holy stink. He had to be tested, I hear.”

  Salvatore laughed. “Fool girl’s not pregnant,” he said, “Anchorites don’t know pregnant from a stone on the street. How come she’s testing pure?”

  Jona glanced around at the quiet tables on this stretch of empty road. “You want me to tell you here?”

  Salvatore smirked. “No,” he said, “Best not.”

  “Yeah,” said Jona. Jona looked around at the eyes in the room, staring at him like killers. Jona stood up. He tossed a few coins on the table to cover Salvatore’s breakfast. “A pleasure to meet you, again, Salvatore Fidelio,” said Jona. “I’ll be around. Look around every corner.”

  Salvatore touched Jona’s arm. “Will they let her with all the noise on her?” asked Salvatore. “I mean, I want to and all, I do. Just tell me, though, will they let her with all the noise on her?” He meant the Night King.

  “I’m trying,” said Jona. He sighed. He rubbed his temple like a headache. “I’m trying.”

  “Yeah? Wasting your time, then. Best thing is to kill her quick, before she can say anything about anyone else.”

  “If you want to put her down…?”

  “No,” said Salvatore. “Just no. King’ll do it for us soon enough. He’ll even feel good about it.”

  Jona looked around him at the quiet men, one last time. A thief and a king’s man trying to save a girl? That had to be some kind of code. That’s the rumor that spread, anyway. Jona heard it later from a birdie talking about a ship named Aggie, and Jona knew what it was right away. He rolled his eyes and told Pup not to write that one down in the report later. When Pup asked why, Jona said it was him and it was his birdy, and it wasn’t a conversation about any boats.

  * * *

  Grabbed from the street, Jona felt the push of something in his uniform pockets. A ragpicker kid wasn’t looking for spare change. He put something in and left it there. Jona grabbed his arm, but couldn’t hold i
t long enough to stop the child’s escape. The boy’s arm was greasy, as if dipped in hot wax. It was all just grime, the unwashed and unclean boy. Jona walked for blocks before he touched the note. Did he even need to read it? His boots found a way to the shadow of the eaves outside the carpenter’s shop. Night King always kept Jona here, with this carpenter.

  A carpenter’s shop was the front for the Night King’s operations in the Pens. He was hard at work on a bottle of wine when Jona came in. The carpenter didn’t smile. “You, again? Must not of thought too much of you handling that thing with the girl.”

  Jona said nothing. He folded his arms.

  “Got someone for you. Seneschal is coming into the Pens looking for sausage and cheap wine. Thinks he’s going to throw himself a party for his lord. The gangs in the Pens are too dangerous. Oughtta teach that seneschal to stay on his own.”

  “Want me to improvise?”

  “Bloody Elishta, no! You do exactly what we say. To the letter. Lucky you still alive after the thing with the girl.”

  “I obey,” he said. “For my mother’s sake.”

  “That’s right. I went down and had me a discussion with one of you king’s men. Didn’t see you around. Hmph. Wasn’t about you. Night King said to tell you that if you see me around, it’s not about you. You’re nothing. You’re not worth handing over, even with you blowing this opportunity you had. You’re less than nothing. You see any of our people around, it ain’t you.”

  The carpenter was as hard and knotted as the wood in the shop. His eyes looked like knots, black and deep in his skull. All Jona had to do was do the seneschal beside an abandoned brewery, and drop him in the water. That was it. Not even getting his hands dirty, or setting up the kill this time.

  If Jona had any doubts he was on the outs, this would clear that up.The Night King was calling on her blood monkey again. A seneschal had to die in the Pens.

  “I’ll obey,” said Jona. “And, you tell the Night King I am pleased to serve. I’m still keeping up with the girl, and I’m still improvising.”

  The carpenter snorted. “Yeah. I heard. You do that. See where it gets you.”

  “You tell the Night King that it’s only a matter of time before Calipari figures me out. There’s lots of birdies around, lots of eyes and it only takes a few loose lips.”

  “That’s your problem, isn’t it? Why don’t you improvise?” The carpenter turned away from Jona, and started planing a cabinet top. He was shaking his head at Jona. The loyal blood monkey knew he was dismissed.

  A dead man walking in a crowded street, always looking ahead at something in the distance, never seeing behind. A moment pulling him into the alley with the king’s man uniform to make him obey the command. A single knife shoved up into his lung with a long cloth around the hilt to catch the blood, keep it off Jona’s clothes, and the splash of meat in the water, with the knife behind it.

  All of it over so fast, it was like it hadn’t happened at all.

  A wipe of rags on the hand where the blood spilled. A splash of it into the water.

  And, like nothing had happened, Jona is back in the street, alone. He’s walking away with his eyes up and cold.

  He made it twenty paces before the nausea struck. He ran back to the water’s edge and vomited into the canal. It came up green and orange, and floated on the water’s surface like something dead and steaming. Looking at it only made him feel worse.

  He didn’t want to kill anybody.

  * * *

  Jona and Rachel, out of a rainstorm in a doorway. They had both been smeared in lime. It was deep night, when all good people are asleep. There wasn’t anybody good in the area. Lots of lights were burning, all over the city. It was dark, but they could see each other in the reflected light from puddles and windows. She’s leaning over his shoulder, pulling at his collar. “Your clothes are wearing thin.”

  “So are yours,” said Jona. “The seam is already torn at the collar. See?” He reached over and touched the collar. It needed to be rethreaded where the seams were pulling apart.

  “Can you help me get new ones?”

  “Maybe tonight. What about your brother? I thought he did that?”

  “I saw him last night. I think he’s upstairs sleeping, still. I think he’s, well… He hasn’t been a lot of help lately.”

  “I can.”

  “No. Nevermind. You wouldn’t know where to look, would you?”

  “Not a lot of Senta around here. I know where I can get some thread, maybe some cloth. I could ask my mother to make it for you.”

  “Definitely not. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. Nevermind.”

  “I can…”

  “Just, no.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Is it? Because I don’t know.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m confused about something.”

  “What?”

  “What are we doing, Jona? What are we… doing?”

  He held his hand out for the rain. It wasn’t raining too hard, but it was enough to fill his palm with rainwater. He drank it, then dragged his hand along his leg. “We’re staying out of the rain, that’s what. Bloody Elishta, you’d think it wasn’t so close to the dry season, with all the parties.”

  “Just staying out of the rain?”

  “What else is there?”

  “For us, I don’t think there’s much more than that.” “You see your brother, lately?”

  “Yeah, but… I don’t know.”

  “I won’t roll him. Promise. I can tell you he’s doing something he should worry about if you think he’s up to no good. He probably is.”

  * * *

  He came to me last night before we went dancing. I got a full night’s pay for it, but when he came with his friends, I was sent home. Everyone was paid and sent home.

  That doesn’t sound good.

  If they paid her to leave, she left. Whatever happened at the brothel was none of her concern if she wasn’t cleaning up afterwards. Jona saw her. He ran across the street and asked her what was happening. What Rachel didn’t say: Her brother had bought the place for one night, to place a pipe in the kitchen. They didn’t want her around in case of trouble. What trouble? Dog sat at the hookah pipe, pushing coals underneath the water and stuffing demon weed into the bowl without a word. He smoked like he was sucking on a teat. He coughed up blood. With the blood, he painted three crowns over the door. Djoss was the watchout man. He pulled the owner aside, and pointed at his sister. Send her home. I don’t want her here. I didn’t know she was going to be here.

  Turco offered to walk her home.

  She said yes, because Turco had helped her, and because he was working.

  She changed her mind.

  Then, Jona was there, hid in a dark corner, and watching something in a tavern where people were dancing. He stepped over to her, waving hello. She smiled. She thought to introduce Turco to Jona, but she didn’t really know what to say about the men to each other. This is the king’s man I know. This is the ganger I know, smuggling demon weed.

  No matter. Turco was gone into the tavern like he wasn’t there at all.

  “Come on,” she said, to Jona. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  “That your friend?”

  “No. My brother’s friend. He’s… Well, he’s all right, but I just don’t… um… I don’t think he wants to say hello to you.”

  “Yeah. We were looking for a Dunnlander.”

  Then she’s laughing. “I’m sorry. Hard to imagine anyone looking for him. He’s not much more than a dog.”

  “If you say so.”

  Turco’s job, then, was a tout, if Djoss was on the door, and Dog was at the pipe, Turco was walking around, looking for people who wanted to smoke, and telling them exactly where to go. He knew the city better than Djoss. Dog had his tongue cut off, his ears mutilated, and too much weed to keep things straight. Jona pointed to the tavern Turco had entered, but Rachel shook her head.

 
; “Anywhere else. Anywhere at all.”

  Jona and Rachel escaped the night in this corner café. Jona ordered plain red tea. Rachel slammed three glasses of cheap gin. Rachel laughed. She tried to cool the alcohol burning in her throat. She conjured ice from midair and tossed the balls of ice into her mouth to cool the burn. When the cold stung her, too, she pulled it out, then back in again to cool the alcohol burn.

  Jona asked her if she felt beautiful when she was drunk.

  She shook her head, all fuzzy. “No, but you look beautiful when I’m drunk,” she said, too loud.

  Music from next door bounced between the cracks in the bricks. Rachel grabbed Jona’s arm.

  They danced in the middle of the café to the music from next door, and the café owner shouted at them for it. Jona waltzed Rachel into the street.

  Rachel grabbed at Jona’s hair and dug her lips into him. He pulled away when he ran out of breath, and took her by the hand and into the streets and into an alley. She asked him if he was taking her to a secret tavern for powerful noblemen.

  He said he was taking her to a secret ball for criminals and thieves, which was almost the same thing.

  She asked if there’d be dancing.

  He said there’d be the best dancing in Dogsland.

  He tossed a coin into a hidden crack on the wall. He tugged the correct stone, and the door opened. Rachel gasped because the door had opened from the side of the café where they had just been drinking brandy.

  And down below, he took her through the dank and the stink. She lit Senta fires in the air to light the way. The drumming echoed through the halls.

  She asked him what that drumming was and he told her it was a temple to the Nameless where people were always dancing and pounding their souls into the drums.

  “I will not worship at any temple of the Breaking,” she said. “Certainly not to the Nameless Ones.”

  “Don’t worship,” said Jona. “Just dance.”

  * * *

  Rachel breathed in like she was about to scream.

  Jona kissed her to silence her. He laughed and told her to relax. The people around her ran streaks of lime through her hair. They ran blue streaks over her face and over her grey and red Senta robes. Then, they pulled her in to join the crowd.