by Rob Kinsman
When they were done, which felt like several lifetimes later, Nigel produced a key from within the folds of his robes and unlocked the cell door. Zoe stepped tentatively out into the room beyond, taking care to avert her eyes from the torture implements. She mustn’t let guilt and fear cloud her decisions about what to do now.
Her instinct was to run. Nigel was a sleight man, wearing what to all intents and purposes was a long dress. Zoe was sure she could push past him and flee through the far door. It wasn’t the thought of the guards who could be waiting beyond that stopped her, however, but the realisation that she wouldn’t know where to go or who to trust. With no memory of this place, she had no way of telling friend from foe.
As it was, she let Nigel lead her up the stairs. What she saw when she emerged from the door at the top nearly blew her mind.
They had come into a grand square at the heart of the castle. The whole place was impossibly beautiful. Unlike the grim stone of the dungeons, the square was fashioned from materials which Zoe’s eye was almost unable to take in, so unusual were they. The walls shimmered, their smooth, polished surfaces an unearthly combination of marble and water. The sky was covered over by a great dome, which sparkled as if it were made from diamonds. Everything was so perfectly arranged that it felt like the castle had been willed into being fully formed, rather than built brick by brick.
As well as being an area of aesthetic beauty, the square was clearly a vibrant central hub. Various citizens meandered casually through it, stopping to talk with friends they encountered on the way. Near the opposite wall some men were building a small stage, joking and laughing as they worked.
The clothes people wore bore close resemblance to the civilised ancient cultures of Rome and Greece. Unlike the crude equivalents Zoe had once seen at a drunken toga party, during which she’d witnessed more slipped testicles than an A&E department, the rich cloths here all hung elegantly from their owners.
‘This way, Your Highness.”
Nigel closed the door they had entered from, before immediately opening it again. Suspecting some trick, Zoe peered through the portal. Beyond was a staircase, but not the one she had come up. This one was made from polished marble, rather than crude stone, and led up instead of down.
“Where did they go?” she said. “The stairs we came up.”
Nigel seemed confused by her question.
“We left them behind us.”
“But this is the same door.”
“All paths lead away from the central square,” he said, as if this was the most logical thing in the world. “We should move, Your Highness.”
Too confused to argue, she followed him up the new staircase.
What awaited her, after another climb, was an impressive series of rooms that turned out to be her own private chambers. There was a wardrobe larger than Zoe’s flat in London and a room with a bath big enough to breed sharks in. Everything about the rooms, from the décor to the furnishings, spoke of opulent luxury.
There were doors leading out to a balcony, which commanded an impressive view of the central square. Now she could see it from a better perspective she realised that there were only four doors in the entire square, one on each of the outer walls. Whether through magic or illusion, they apparently led wherever anybody wanted to go.
Of more concern was the stage the workmen had been building. Now it was complete they had moved onto their next task, which was erecting a gallows on top of it.
“What’s that for?” asked Zoe, hoping against hope that it was just a piece of abstract art.
“You’ll see.” There was the faintest hint of menace in Nigel’s voice, which bled through his air of permanent politeness. “You best get ready.”
Zoe didn’t dare ask what for.
Getting ready turned out to be more difficult than it sounded: the wardrobe contained more period clothes than the stock room at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Despite the circumstances, Zoe found some small crumbs of pleasure running her hand along the fine silks and rough cloths. While she accepted that the hoodie and jeans she was wearing were probably inappropriate in the surroundings, most of the dresses on offer looked like they would make the wearer struggle to do useful things like move or breathe.
She eventually settled on something whose style she though of as Grecian chic, a one-piece silken tunic with a waistcoat and high boots. Whatever horrors she was about to be subjected to, she would at least look stylish. She tried to ignore the nagging voice in her head which whispered that she was dressed like a pantomime Dick Whittington.
Nigel seemed to intuitively know when she was finished, reappearing after a brief knock on the door. His timing did rather make Zoe suspect that he’d been watching her the whole time.
“Are we ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
When they returned to the central square it was heaving with people. This seemed barely possible, considering that the place had been half empty when she’d looked out from the balcony only a few minutes earlier. Zoe supposed this was just the kind of crazy shit that happened in alternative realities / dying fantasies / whatever the hell was going on.
When people caught sight of her they parted, as if she were a wave crashing through sand. Everyone respectfully bowed their head as she passed, although she did catch more than one curious citizen sneaking a peek at her. She felt like a disgraced celebrity everybody had been told to be nice to.
In the middle of the square a small raised platform had been constructed, from which the king was overseeing the festivities. The throne he sat on clearly hadn’t been designed by someone who believed in understatement: it was carved from a block of pure gold, with rows of diamonds and rubies thrown in for decoration. It looked like a particularly stereotypical drag queen reimagined as a piece of furniture.
The king himself showed no interest in Zoe as she approached; he just continued staring silently at the main stage and its ominous gallows. Like his castle, the king exuded qualities which hadn’t been captured in the drawings Zoe had seen. Every aspect of him seemed to fade between different realities: young and old; wise yet cruel. His eyes would appear heavy and burdened at one moment, bright and fresh the next.
And then, finally, it hit her.
Oh fuck. I’m married.
Although she did seem to have married into royalty, the circumstances were hardly every girl’s dream. There was an age difference of centuries, and Zoe’s husband was a power mad tyrant – literally, not just in the way that her ex who used to hog the remote controls was. Zoe was just glad she couldn’t remember the wedding night. Despite all this, she was sure her mother would have approved. The neighbours would never hear the end of it.
A cheer rose up from the crowd, collectively sensing something about to happen on the stage. It seemed perverse, the square’s fountains and décor made it look more like the sort of place people would go for a relaxing weekend mini-break than to see a man have the life squeezed from him. But maybe this was simple cultural difference. For all Zoe knew, executions were a daily source of cruel and unnatural entertainment, this world’s equivalent of Deal or no Deal.
For the first time, Zoe saw a flicker of movement on the king’s face, the corner of his lip curling up into a humourless smile. Great boos rose up from the crowd as the condemned man was brought out. People almost immediately began hurling fruit and vegetables at him. Zoe felt ashamed that her immediate reflex was to try and borrow a cabbage so she could join in. She had good reason though.
The condemned man, his arm held up to protect his face from projectiles, scanned the crowd until he saw the king. He shouted out the same phrase a few times. It couldn’t be heard over the general hubbub, but Zoe knew what Nick was saying.
“We had a deal!”
Nigel swept his arm towards the stage.
“This way, Your Highness.”
Zoe missed a breath and felt her eyes moisten, all before her conscious brain had registered what he was saying. She remained root
ed to the spot.
“Would you prefer the guards to escort you?”
She numbly forced her legs into action, now unable to see anything other than the looming gallows. The king still hadn’t even acknowledged her, and now she was being executed for his entertainment. She’d already died once in the past few hours, it seemed harsh to put her through it again. Who knows where she’d end up if she met her end in this reality.
Perhaps nowhere. Would that be better than this?
All too quickly she reached the stage. As she put her foot on the first step, Nick finally noticed she was there. Despite her anger towards him, this wasn’t a situation anything in her life had prepared her for. She found herself giving him a weak smile. It was, all things considered, a generous gesture considering he’d stabbed her to death the last time they’d met. Shock does funny things to people.
The hooded executioner pushed Nick over to the gallows, tightening the rope around his neck. Nick had stopped trying to plead with the king, having realised the futility of it. His eyes were animated, dancing around as he tried to imagine some other way out of this predicament.
Do me first. Don’t make me also have to watch this.
As Zoe ascended onto the stage, hush rippled across the crowd. She was only a few feet away from the man who’d been both her lover and her killer. Perhaps this was what the “it’s complicated” relationship status on Facebook was meant for.
Zoe knew what her crime was, Nick had told her the truth and she’d foolishly scoffed at it. She had been a queen who’d run away with her lover and enraged the jealous ruler of a magical kingdom. Together they had escaped into a dream, and now they’d been found and brought back home to pay the price.
The crowd was a blanket of silence, a breathless sense of anticipation hanging in the air. The pelting and jeering was finished, the only thing left to do was die.
The hooded executioner examined the knot in the rope around Nick’s neck.
“Put your hand here.”
Zoe had almost forgotten about Nigel. He placed her hand on a lever at the side of the stage. The realisation of what it did was fast and brutal.
Oh no. Please, no.
She’d been nominated to perform the sentence.
From somewhere in the crowd drums started beating, a slow, steady heartbeat. Nigel, a supporting player awaiting his cue, looked towards the throne. The king nodded.
“Pull the lever, Your Highness,” said Nigel.
Zoe’s hands were trembling, although some dark pit inside her craved the feeling of revenge this act would bring. Nick had hurt her, emotionally and physically. All she had to do was pull the lever and he would get what he deserved.
But when she glanced up at him all she saw was a frightened man who’d finally given up hope. She hated herself for having wished such stark vengeance on him.
“Your Highness,” repeated Nigel, more insistent.
Nick’s frightened eyes met Zoe’s. She mouthed two words at him, before she finally pulled the lever that would open the trapdoor beneath his feet.
I’m sorry.
They were still looking at each other long after the crowd began to laugh. Eventually Nick broke their stare to examine the platform beneath his feet, as if needing reassurance that the trapdoor really had remained closed.
Zoe looked around, confused. The king was laughing. The crowd was laughing. Even Nigel was laughing, although in his case probably only because it was the done thing.
The king rose to his feet and swept off his platform. The crowd followed his lead and started to disperse. Their need for blood could wait; they had seen the fear and humiliation on Zoe and Nick’s faces. That was entertainment enough for one day.
And slowly, oh so slowly, Zoe started to breathe again.
Twenty Three
Zoe had been allowed to return to her private rooms after the ‘execution’. Even now, several hours later, her hands were still trembling.
I had no choice.
Surely nobody could blame her. How could one person be expected to defy a crowd of hundreds?
Logic didn’t help. She had pulled the lever. Her hand, her decision. Maybe the torment she felt now had been planned, part of her punishment for crimes she’d committed in a life she had no memory of.
Sometime later, Nigel returned to check up on her.
“How long do I have to stay in here?” Zoe gestured around the room.
“You’re the queen.” Nigel tittered, as if it was ludicrous that she had forgotten this fact. “You can go wherever you choose. Subject to the laws of the land.”
Although she wasn’t locked up in the dungeons anymore, Zoe had no doubt that she was still just as much a prisoner.
“But I was humiliated earlier, in front of hundreds of people.”
“I don’t understand, Your Highness. You were simply delivering the sentence on behalf of the kingdom. It was the accused who was humiliated.”
Nigel spoke this revision of history casually, as if he had already convinced himself that it was the truth.
“Will he be killed? For real.”
“Eventually, of course. But where would the sport be if he knew when his end was really coming?”
“That’s cruel.”
“He is guilty of the most serious of crimes.”
“Which is?”
“Why, he was convicted of attempting to experience sleep stories, of course.”
“And you’d kill him for that?”
“Of course. Otherwise we would have anarchy on our hands.”
“But it was me, not him.” There was steel in her voice. She was damned if she was going to be lied to on top of everything else. “I was the one who had the dream... the sleep story.”
Nigel’s eyes narrowed, his voice hissed.
“I’d advise you not to repeat that, unless you want to find yourself back in the dungeons. As far as people are concerned it was the condemned who committed the ultimate sin.”
For Nigel that was the end of the matter.
“Can I see him?” said Zoe, backing down.
“I can make enquiries.”
Zoe suspected his reply was nothing more than a courtesy for something he already knew the answer to, but thanked him anyway.
Going mad was starting to seem an increasingly attractive lifestyle choice. However many times Zoe tried to rationalise what had happened, it made no sense to her. She was a queen, yet had no memory of the land she ruled over. Conversely, she could vividly recall so many details of a world they claimed she had created. Sunset walks across stony beaches. The ice cream van that used to play its enchanting song outside her grandparent’s home. Winning ten quid on a scratch-card, and giving her nine pound profit to a homeless man sitting outside the newsagents. All just phantoms.
It seemed these rooms, so grand and yet so stifling, were her new reality. The objects around her certainly felt solid, but it wasn’t enough. Rather than learn about this place it would be better to let her mind slip, absolve all responsibility for her own behaviour.
Madness, take me!
Several hours passed and Zoe was still frustratingly sane. The walls around her hadn’t dissolved, and the furniture hadn’t spoken to her. For now, at least, she was stuck here. Claustrophobia clawed at her throat. She had to get out.
Zoe opened the door and peered beyond. The corridor was empty. She didn’t doubt that she was still being watched, but that didn’t matter. All she wanted was to escape this place. If it was possible then she would go back to the world she remembered. Better to spend her remaining years in that familiar illusion than this sick reality.
Finding her way back down the stairs and into the central square was easy; trying to work out how to leave it for anywhere specific proved considerably more difficult. Although she understood that the same door could lead to several places, she couldn’t fathom out how to control her destination. As a result she variously found herself wandering around the kitchens, a boxing ring, and some kind of sauna.
These were all places whose denizens were more than a little surprised to find their queen lost and asking for help using a door.
When she emerged into the central square for the fourth time Nigel was waiting for her.
“I enquired about your request to see the prisoner.”
“Really?”
“You’ll have to apply for a pass at the Council for Interior Affairs.”
This was rather more than she’d been expecting.
“Can you take me there?”
The secretary at the Council for Interior Affairs had the gaunt look of someone approaching the end of a 17 hour shift dispatching cabs.
“Thank you for your enquiry,” she said without any hint of sincerity. “The council will reply to your request in seven to fourteen working days.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” said Zoe patiently. “The man I’m asking about is due to be executed. He may not have fourteen days.”
“The Council regret any inconvenience caused, but is unable to assist you at this time.”
If Zoe had indeed dreamt up all life and civilisation on Earth, creating it out of twisted fragments and memories of this world, then this secretary had a lot to answer for. Her echo could be heard in every automated message designed to prevent you talking to someone whose job it was to talk to you.
Zoe straightened up, trying to look as regal as possible.
“As your queen I command you to find someone for me to speak to.”
Completely unmoved, the secretary fished around in her desk drawer and produced a scroll of parchment. Zoe took and unfurled it. Her heart sank when she read the heading at the top.
