When We Were Executioners

by J. M. McDermott

  “No,” said Jona, “Don’t miss my meaning. Not all girls, just these kind. Never missed a meal in their life, and their only work is handing babies to a nurse.”

  “It’s still not very nice, Jona.”

  “They’re not very nice. Only rich. Without the money, they’re nasty, lazy, and fat. You’re beautiful, and you don’t have anyone to buy you pretty.”

  The music started again, a languorous waltz. The girls in dresses like cotton altars, and the men in their stiff suits spun around and when Jona closed his eyes a little, just to a squint— and he couldn’t really see the money hanging off of every limb in silk and gold thread—then the waltzing crowd looked just like the Nameless’ dancers underground, bobbing and weaving around. Jona squinted at the crowd, and tried to pretend like he’d open his eyes and be underground.

  He had this sudden urge to escape into the darkness, and hurl his body against other bodies, against the giant drums. He wanted to jump and push and dance where dancing hurt. He gritted his teeth. He looked at Rachel’s face while she watched the ball.

  Rachel was in bliss. She leaned into Jona’s shoulder. She sighed into his chest, again.

  * * *

  How do you get the power of the wind? What do I have to understand for the wind?

  Power? It’s not really power over the wind. It’s more like… like a silent sound.

  Well it looks like you control the winds.

  I can tell you the koan. A student of the Unity heard of a Senta who could make ribbons dance like ghosts. The student sought out the Senta. The Senta stayed in his hut, and when someone knocked on his door, he always grabbed any visitors quickly by their hair, shouting at them to speak. The first time the student tried to see the master, the master grabbed her and shouted “What is it?!” and before the student could speak, the master threw her into the yard. The second time the student tried to speak, she was thrown further, against some rocks. This bruised her badly along her back. She rubbed her back in pain and tried one more time. She knocked on the door. The master grabbed her and threw her as hard as he could. The student shoved her foot in the doorway before she could be thrown. When the master slammed the door, the student’s footbones broke like glass. In that moment of pain, the student understood the master’s lesson, and the gasp of pain in her chest swallowed the sound in the air with the wind.

  Rachel, you know that sounds like nonsense, right?

  Well, it may sound like nonsense, but when you understand it, it will fill your chest with pain, and the sound will bend to you, too.

  Pain. I understand pain.

  You only think you understand pain, Jona.

  * * *

  Jona’s mother stirred the porridge for her breakfast. She hummed to herself while she stirred.

  Jona sat drinking tea behind her. His uniforms were all on the roof, drying in the winds. He had washed them last night with the rest of the clothes, mostly naked and standing on the roof with the night breeze running over his sweaty back over the washboard. The uniforms took forever to dry in the wet air. Jona leaned against the chimney, and then he paced over to the uniforms and tested them with his fingers—still wet. He went back to the chimney. He paced.

  He snatched the uniform from the line. He pulled it over his body damp.

  He went downstairs, where his mother stirred porridge. She daydreamed a little, she hummed a little, and she stirred porridge.

  “Hey, Ma,” he said, “I’m thinking of grabbing a chicken. Want me to bring back a chicken?”

  “Rather you didn’t. It’s so much trouble to pluck them and gut them,” she said. She tested the porridge, and frowned. Too hot. She took it off the fire, and kept stirring. “I’m getting some sausage on the way back from the shop.”

  “Oh,” said Jona, “that stuff ’s all sawdust and gizzards.”

  “It’s cleaner and easier than chickens.”

  Jona stood up. He held out his porridge bowl. “Ma, I can afford a chicken now and then,” he said. “We don’t need to eat shit sausage all the time.”

  She filled his bowl with the slightly burned porridge. It smelled sour. “Better set the money aside, Jona,” she said, “Today we can afford chicken. What about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow I’ll have enough for another chicken. Ma, I’m sick of sausage. We make good money between us. Let’s get a real chicken now and then.”

  “Good money?” she said. “You think we make good money?” She poured the rest of the porridge into a slop bucket. She dumped the slop out the window, into the gutters of the street. She slammed the window shut. She sat down, and picked up her cup of tea. The cup was beautiful, laced with gold.

  “At my wedding,” she said, “each and every guest had goose liver, and chicken, and fruit from across the sea like sweet jewels. I wore silk and velvet, all of it red with gold thread. And when your father brought me into his home, we rode a carriage through the trees that used to be outside these windows.”

  She looked out the kitchen window, and a shop girl glanced in the window with her cart of flowers. She gestured to Jona’s mother to open the window to buy flowers. Jona’s mother glared at the girl.

  “Ma,” he said, “what’s wrong?”

  “Stay safe out there, Lord Joni,” she said. “You’re all I have in this world.” 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 the porridge. It smelled terrible.

  * * *

  Jona slipped Aggie a bag of coins to keep in her cell.

  “Lotta good that does, Corporal,” she said. “Let me just hop off to the kiln for a bite, mayhap I get my own meat-pies.”

  Jona nodded. “Never know when a few coins come in handy, girl. Fellow might turn a blind eye, or encourage another fellow to turn a blind eye. Maybe bring something to you that you won’t want to ask me about. Never know when a little bit helps.”

  “You can’t bribe me,” said Aggie. “These letters you bring me are all fake. Salvatore’s not the kind of man that writes letters.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” said Jona. “Maybe he don’t write them. I don’t know where Salvatore gets them.”

  “Well, they’re fake. Salvatore could be here if he wanted to be here. An Anchorite convent was no barrier to him, and a prison has to be easier than a convent.”

  “The convent was no barrier to you,” said Jona. “You’re the one who escaped it. Not him.”

  She covered her eyes with her hands. Tears crept through the cracks in her fingers. “Leave me alone,” she whimpered. “You know folks’re going to come and check you out soon,” said Jona. He reached out to her hair. He stroked it. “Your belly’s not growing. Then, they’ll make a decision and everything will happen fast.”

  She pushed his hand away. “I’m sick of blood pie,” she said. “You want something else?”

  She ignored the question. Already her mind had drifted away into the ether of the pinks that she had devoured. “I pray to Imam when you aren’t here, Corporal.”

  Jona listened to her talk, and fade into dreams.

  “I pray to understand the perfect love of selflessness with Imam, the fountain of all joy and sorrow. This prison is the whip to purify my love so I may die in peace.”

  Jona said nothing.

  “When I see you, I doubt my god. I turn instead to the heat of pain that keeps my soul locked inside this incarnation of my undying self. I will throw my soul away from Imam to see my love again, Corporal. Bring him to me. I must see Salvatore again.”

  Jona stood up from the edge of her cot.

  He bowed slowly, like a courtier.

  He backed out of the cell, and shut the door.

  * * *

  Rachel was waiting in Jona’s dining room.

  His mother was at work, and Rachel should’ve been at home, asleep, but she couldn’t sleep, so she came to his back door. She knocked on it. He opened it. She said she was having bad dreams.
This was the second time she had been inside of his house.

  And he let her in. He was off today, and he was reading an old book of fables he had liked when he was a kid. He was waiting for nightfall, when he was catching a night shift out on the Island district, arranged by the Night King to let him kill an important man.

  They sat in the dining room, and he made her a nice lunch, and they drank cheap tea. She poked through his bookshelves and read an old seamstress’ guide, unbound, to the dresses of a season long past. He casually picked up the book of fables from his childhood. They read like easy koans with animals. Rachel and Jona talked in bursts.

  Pieces of the conversation stick to his head. He said things, but he was only saying anything to keep her talking to him.

  She responded as if he really meant what he had said, when he couldn’t remember it the moment the words passed his lips.

  She said to him, “You don’t know what it’s like underneath. You’ve seen my arm, in the dark. You’ve never seen the rest.”

  “We’re being beautiful fools,” he said. “Perfect fools. You’re leaving soon. I know it. I know you’ll have to leave, and I’ll still be here.” He was rubbing his thumb over her hand. They were holding hands, and he was rubbing his thumb over her hand. Her gloves were off, and her collar was loose, and her hair was all over her shoulders in a beautiful disaster of clean, dry tangles.

  “I am not,” she said. “Do you know what happens to a woman? I know what happens to a woman.”

  “What are we doing? What are we to each other?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I like you.”

  “I like you, too. I’m going to miss you.”

  “Then, don’t leave.”

  “It isn’t my choice. You should come with me, but I know you won’t.”

  “I can’t leave my ma. I can’t leave my responsibilities here.”

  “Right. I’m not really pretty, am I? I mean, not like a real person. I’m a monster.”

  Jona took a deep breath. He let go of her hand. He stood up. He tugged at his collar. He pulled the uniform jacket off his shoulders. Then he pulled his filthy grey shirt—it was white once—from his back. He stood over her, with just his pants and boots. He turned around. He looked over his shoulder at her.

  “See these scars?” he said. Across his shoulder blades, skin had been ripped away in two jagged curves down his whole back, leaving deep, dirty scars.

  “It’s not the same. Men are supposed to have scars. Djoss has lots of scars. Women are supposed to be pure, and beautiful. And besides, I’m not just talking about a couple scars. I’m talking about…”

  “So,” said Jona, interrupting her.

  She halted. The tone of his voice wasn’t pithy. He was trying to lead her somewhere. She knew where. “So… So, what?” she said.

  “So show me,” he said.

  “What?” Her hands trembled.

  “Let me see you,” he said, again. He put a hand over hers.

  “I’m… What?”

  “Stand up,” he said.

  “It’s all scales and they make sounds when I move and it’s awful.”

  He touched her cheek with his hand. He pulled her eyes up to his. He let go of her hands to unbuckle her belt.

  She dropped her tea cup and tea spilled over the table. They both ignored the tea. “So, you…” she said, “You think you…”

  He nodded. He pulled her to her feet from her belt. She couldn’t keep her hands on her buttons. She was trembling too much.

  He took her hands in his. He helped her hands unbutton the buttons on her jerkin. He looked directly into her eyes. She was gasping for air.

  “I’ve never…”

  Then they were kissing. Her lips tasted like purple gold.

  She unlashed the laces along her jerkin, and threw it off. The shirt came next, and Djoss saw this woman rising up from her serpent skin. Her breasts were human, enough, but below her nipples thick scales reflected light like obsidian. Above, the line of scales at her nipples, scales splashed, like pockets of freckles up to her neckline.

  He touched the scales along her stomach, smooth and hot. He ran his hands up to the human skin at her shoulders.

  “I’m ugly,” she said.

  “You’re an eclair,” he said. He tugged at her skirt. “A beautiful, delicious eclair.” He leaned into her chest.

  She leaned back and closed her eyes. “What’s an eclair?” she said.

  Jona stopped kissing her. He pulled away and looked her in the eyes. “You’ve never had an eclair?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the best dessert in the world,” he said, “Soft and sweet and expensive. I’ll have to get you one.”

  “Tomorrow,” she said, “Not now.” She grabbed him by his hair. She pulled him close.

  * * *

  Poor hearts, that never reach true love.

  CHAPTER XII

  The carpenter opened crates of marionettes made in the shape of animals. Cows, dogs, pigs, horses, cats, rats, all white wood and bright paints and jointed like insects in the camouflage of mammals.

  Jona didn’t help. He sat at the table, sipping some brandy. These two men never met each other until the toymaker handed Jona a letter in the middle of the street. Jona read it fast, and nodded. He followed the toymaker to the back of his workshop.

  Jona sat down on a counter covered in sawdust, and he waited. “What’s your name, anyway? What should I call you?” The carpenter said nothing. He made Jona wait until he had

  a crate open. The carpenter piled wooden marionettes in a heap on the floor. The strings twisted together in a net over the rigid body parts connected by tiny chains. Beneath the marionettes in the crate, pieces of a hookah were hid. The puppets were all just filler to hide the hookah. The carpenter pulled the parts out while he talked. He put the hookah together casually. Underneath the hookah and the marionettes, piles of demon weed lay like giant, pink tea leaves.

  “Come on,” said Jona. “I don’t even know what to call you.” “Yeah? Well, don’t call me. I’m almost done. You want to know what this is all about, all that you’ve done? Here it is. This is the stuff that owns the city. Where it moves, whole communities crumble. Where it is pulled away, strong men make money moving it in. This is the answer to all your questions.” “My only question is who you are.”

  “I’m this stuff. It’s all I am.”

  The carpenter kicked the marionettes into a fire pit, and put together a hookah and put it over a fire like he was going to use it. He started the fire and said what he said while the water warmed. Jona said nothing.

  Been fixed. Chief Engineer’s gotten in over his head, and it’s time to blood him. Simple plan, but hard to pull. Jump the coachman after the Chief gets in from the bear-baiting. Drive the carriage to the alley just south of the old brewery, at the edge of the animal pens. You know the one, right? Right. The empty warehouse—the one with the old crane—will be open and waiting. Move fast else the other coachman will know what’s going and catch up with you. Shut the doors behind you. Bar them. Slice the horses’ throats before they know what’s what.

  Jona closed his eyes and nodded. He visualized the furious ride through crowded streets. People jumped out of the way of the carriage, and some people fell under the wheels. Jona’d have to jam a tooth into the bench and hang on for it else the bumps would bounce him. Then, the alley.

  Then, the horses. They would jump, and kick, and scream. They would die in moments, with deadly hooves flying.

  Wait for the Chief ’s boy to pop out. The people in the carriage will be annoyed at the coachman for the crazy detour, and the younger one will jump out ready to punch the coachman.

  Tooth him in the lungs, so he can’t scream. He’ll make that weird sucking noise people make when they got a tooth deep in their lungs, like they’re trying to breathe from the hole in their side with all that blood drowning them.

  The old Chief will have his defenses, and who kno
ws what he built in his work room. Don’t attack him at all. Shut the carriage door. Tooth it jammed if you have to. Anything. Hook the yoke with the old crane’s chain. Grab the other end fast, and let the crane carry the carriage into the canal where the ships used to dock. Cut the counterweights. Let the carriage sink to the bottom and the Chief drowns. Stick around, and make sure nobody escapes. Push the other bodies—horse and man—into the water. Dump your clothes, and hop the rowboat home. There’ll be a rowboat there for you.

  Simple plan, Cutter. One blood monkey, and three to bleed with the horses.

  Jona took a deep breath. He nodded once, slowly. Jona asked about what to do if something went wrong, or if the engineer was with someone important.

  Improvise, blood monkey. It’s what you love to do, isn’t it?

  Jona had only one thought in his head, right then. The Chief hadn’t been alone last time, in the animal pits. If Lady Sabachthani was with him this time, he wouldn’t be able to follow orders.

  And Aggie, he asked.

  Do the job, and we’ll see. She isn’t burning yet, and that’s us saving her. We’re thinking on it. Could go either way.

  * * *

  Jona traded for a night shift on the Island District, at the station next to the ferry.

  The estate guards worked the Island District. The city ran a patch of ground where the ferries landed, and nominally managed the empty streets between the walls.

  Usually old Sergeants got the post. No ferries ran much after a bit, but the Sergeants waited until morning. Mostly king’s men just slept until something woke them.

  Nic got the letter with the shift change, and he asked Jona if Jona got in trouble where Nicola didn’t know about it. Jona shrugged, and said it was a favor for a friend.

  * * *

  Lady Sabachthani had smashed her levy again tonight to bring the Chief to her estate. She had done it before Jona’s shift. Jona saw the workers coming down the road for the last large ferry.

  The Chief Engineer’s carriage rolled to the ferry pulled by two brown mares. Workmen with huge tools trudged behind the ferry. A haze of sweat steamed off their bodies. Saltwater mud trailed their dirty boots.