by Sharon Shinn
Nico came behind them all, glancing around as if to memorize the faces of everyone gathered in the hall. He saw me, if no one else did, but he did no more than grimace and nod.
The guards and the prisoners marched into the throne room. “Quick, let’s follow!” Leonora exclaimed. But before anyone could react, guards on the inside shut the doors with a thudding finality.
There was a moment of uncertain silence. “Now what?” Nigel asked. “Do we wait?”
“I don’t think it will take very long,” said a nobleman from Sammerly. “Judgments tend to be swift in cases like this.”
“What will happen if they find her guilty?” Vivienne asked.
The nobleman looked at her. “They will condemn her to death and carry out the sentence tomorrow morning.”
The others all reacted with dismay.
“So soon?”
“It’s shameful and unfair!”
“What about her family?”
“Can’t she mount an appeal?”
“I am leaving this city the minute I can pack my bags.”
I wished they would all be quiet. I wished I could creep forward, and press my ear against the door, and hear the evidence that Malachi had gathered. I hoped with all my heart that he was describing the location of the lake, the condition of the bodies, and the statement made by the landlady. I hoped he was not offering as evidence of Marguerite’s guilt the testimony of her perfidious maid.
It turned out that the man from Sammerly was right. Barely ten minutes later, the doors opened again and a small man hurried out. He was dressed in palace livery but didn’t look like a footman or a personal servant; I guessed he was a scribe or a herald. A man whose sole function was to carry news.
“What’s the word?” Dezmen demanded.
The small man drew himself up to his full, unimpressive height and tried to look imposing. “Marguerite Andolin of Orenza has been condemned to death for the crime of murder. She will be executed at eight o’clock tomorrow morning in Amanda Plaza.”
Nico didn’t want me to go. We argued about it half the night, since both of us lay awake for hours.
“Why should her death be the last picture of her that you carry in your head?” he demanded.
“If she can endure it, I can witness it.”
“Your witnessing changes nothing for her and everything for you.”
“It is the last gift I can give her. It is the least I can offer in return for her last gift to me—which was my life.”
We were still at odds when we finally fell asleep, and we silently agreed not to discuss it any more in the morning.
Nico had to leave before I did—to him had fallen the dreadful chore of making sure the six archers arrived at the square before the prisoner even left her room. Malachi had reserved for himself the task of escorting Marguerite from the palace to the plaza. Making sure, I supposed, that Marguerite was not in the hands of someone who might be bribed to set her free.
Nico was ready a few minutes before I was. He kissed me, said “I’m so sorry,” and left. I finished dressing, choked down a chunk of bread, and headed out the door—to find Daniel there standing guard.
I glared at him. “I hope Nico didn’t tell you to prevent me from leaving.”
The boy shook his head. “Said I was to go with you if you want company.”
“Thank you, but I don’t.”
“It’ll be crowded in the square,” he offered. “You have to go early if you want to see.”
“I thought maybe I’d get a place on the bridge.”
Daniel shook his head. “Too late by now. Some people will have spent the night there, just waiting.”
I shivered, passionately hating all those ghoulish lowlifes who found the spectacle of a public execution to be great sport. But maybe some of them, like me, felt obliged to attend, to bear witness to the unjust ending of a gentle life. “I’ll find a place,” I said.
I headed toward a side exit that Nico had showed me the night before, not wanting to encounter servants in the back halls or Lourdes in the front foyer, then made my way across the great courtyard half-enclosed by the curving walls of the palace. I found the space crowded with spectators—some of them residents of the palace, some ordinary citizens, all buzzing with excitement. It wasn’t hard to guess why. Waiting in front of the grand door was a simple cart drawn by a pair of matched black horses. Marguerite’s transport to Amanda Plaza.
As I stood there a moment, trying to decide if I should linger there or hurry on ahead, the doors swung open and the crowd broke into a roar. A knot of people emerged from the palace, moving in one awkward clump. There was Malachi at the forefront, striding over to swing into the driver’s seat and take the reins. He was followed by a handful of guards surrounding Marguerite, her echoes, and a brown-haired priestess wearing the black robes of justice. I was unutterably grateful to see that Taeline had been allowed to accompany Marguerite this morning since this was the last act of mercy the goddess would ever be able to grant her.
I fixed my eyes on Marguerite. She and the echoes were all wearing simple white dresses and the rose-encrusted headbands I had just made for them. Her face was so pale and so set that if her headpiece hadn’t been more elaborate, I might not have been able to pick her out from the others. She seemed unsteady on her feet, as if she could hardly remember how to walk. Indeed, Purpose and Patience had positioned themselves on either side of her, and they were holding her hands as though to keep her from tripping and falling. She watched her shoes as she proceeded and never once looked up to notice the crowds gathered to savor her humiliation. Taeline helped her into the cart and the four of them crowded together on the single bench. The guards fell into formation around the vehicle, and Malachi slapped the reins to set the horses in motion.
The whole crowd surged after them, and I was carried along in its wake. Like Marguerite, I was unsteady on my feet, stumbling and almost falling as the people around me shoved and shouted. The streets were so crowded it was clear the cart would not be able to manage a very fast pace; I could take a different route and make it to the plaza first. So at the first opportunity, I turned down a side road and hurried through back alleys toward Amanda Plaza. I could still hear, from two and three streets away, the sound of fresh voices raised in excitement as the cart carrying Marguerite passed every new corner.
I arrived at the plaza a good ten minutes before Malachi, but Daniel was right—the place was mobbed, and the stone bridge was so packed with spectators that some of them were hanging from the railing. I would never be able to push my way to the front; I would not be able to see a thing. I would not be able to bear witness after all.
Unless … I glanced around quickly to orient myself, then elbowed my way back out to the edge of the plaza. Just one block over I found myself in front of the decrepit old building that recently had served as a trysting spot for more than one pair of lovers. Now it would be my observation point for the saddest day of my life.
I didn’t have the key but, as arranged, Taeline had left the lock open. I slipped inside and barred the door, not wanting any other enterprising onlookers to join me. I hurried up to the fifth story, cast only a cursory glance at the rumpled blankets on the floor, and pressed my face to the window overlooking the square.
From there, I could see everything. Tightly pressed throngs were packed into every inch of the plaza; small boys had even climbed into the branches of the century-old tree and onto the shoulders of the statues of Queen Amanda and her echoes. The only clear space was right before the dais where the prisoners would be arrayed. There, a line of guards kept the unruly crowd about twenty-five feet from the stage.
Just inside the line of guards was a second human chain, this one composed of about twenty priestesses. Half of them wore black robes for justice and half wore white for mercy. Unlike the guards, they faced inward, so they could serve as witnesses to the execution.
A few steps closer to the dais were six archers, all dressed in black, all
wearing featureless hoods with small holes for their eyes and mouths. They stood motionless, tilting their heads down and appearing absorbed in staring at the brickwork of the plaza They seemed oblivious to the thousands of people gathered to watch them carry out their task. Off to one side of them stood Nico.
There was a sudden roar from the crowd as the cart pulled into view. The palace guards forced a brutal path through the dense sea of onlookers, and the cart inched closer and closer to the dais. Finally, it couldn’t make any more headway. The guards hauled Marguerite and the echoes from the vehicle and fought their way through the crowd on foot until they passed through the line of blockading soldiers.
Then suddenly everyone was silent. Everyone was in place. Marguerite stood between Patience and Purpose, each of them with their backs against the tall stone wall, facing their accusers and executioners. Taeline had dropped back to join her sister priestesses, and I saw her clasp hands with the women on either side of her; then all the priestesses joined hands in one unbroken line. Nico and Malachi stood together just behind the executioners.
The archers raised their bows and took deliberate aim. I didn’t see a signal, I didn’t hear if someone ordered them to shoot. But suddenly, simultaneously, disastrously, impossibly, six arrows flew across the slim space and buried themselves in their targets. Patience. Purpose.
Marguerite.
They cried out—they staggered and flailed—they fell to the ground and were still.
I couldn’t believe it. I stood with my hands and my nose still pressed against the glass, my whole body tingling with shock. They couldn’t be dead, they couldn’t be. Not until this moment did I realize that I had kept expecting something to avert the catastrophe—I had believed Nico would manufacture an escape or the king would grant clemency or the crowd would rise up in protest or the bricks and stones of the plaza would fly apart as the world itself rebelled.
But none of that had happened, and Marguerite was dead.
No one in the crowd had much interest in the aftermath of death; the plaza started clearing out surprisingly quickly. Even the official palace delegation didn’t seem disposed to linger. I saw Malachi bend over each body to double-check that the execution was complete, then he turned to wave the archers to disperse. He called Nico over for a brief consultation while the guards broke ranks and huddled together, talking and occasionally laughing, waiting for their next set of orders.
The only ones who cared about the corpses were the priestesses, who knelt between the three bodies and began unrolling simple canvas stretchers. They gently moved the dead women onto the stretchers and assigned one priestess to each corner. Carefully they rose and carefully began carrying their sad burdens through the plaza in the direction of the temple. The few spectators who still lingered in the square either gawked with curiosity at the bodies, or turned away, oddly unnerved. I saw Malachi cast them one indifferent glance before resuming his conversation with Nico. Nico’s eyes followed the funeral procession as long as it was in sight.
I ran headlong down the stairs and fled from the building, desperate to join Taeline and the others. I had to wind my way through streams of departing spectators and cross two narrow roads before I was able to meet up with the small parade of priestesses. They all seemed to recognize me; several of them nodded, and one or two came close enough to touch me on the arm or shoulder. No one spoke.
I fell in step with the women carrying one of the echoes and I stared at the corpse’s face so hard I was in danger of taking a misstep. It was Purpose, I thought; even in death, she wore an expression of determination. I wondered how quickly her features would lose their particular individual stamp—how quickly she would stop resembling Marguerite. How quickly everyone in the world would forget that Marguerite had once existed.
One of the women carrying the stretcher lifted her free hand to pat my back. I nodded at her and let my pace slow just enough that she and her sister priestesses were able to pull ahead of me by a few steps. Before we made it all the way to the temple, I would speed up again. I would come alongside the canvas sling holding Patience, the one holding Marguerite, and pay my respects to the dead. But I didn’t have the heart for it just yet. I tilted my head down and forced myself to keep walking.
Another priestess came up beside me and put a gentle hand on my forearm. I didn’t even glance at her, just nodded in acknowledgment. To my surprise, she didn’t pull away and stride on. Instead, her grip tightened with such urgency that it was actually painful. My gaze flicked to the fingers so insistent on my wrist.
She was wearing my triskele ring.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I was suffused with astonishment so profound that my whole body flashed with fire; my chest caved in from the lack of air. My eyes instantly went to the priestess’s face. She wasn’t wearing her brown hair pulled back in the usual severe style that the priestesses affected, but let it fall loose along her shoulders and drift across her cheeks, partially obscuring her features.
But this was no priestess. It was Marguerite.
My lips moved to shape her name, but I couldn’t speak. The only reason I kept moving was that she retained her hold on my arm and I dumbly allowed her to pull me forward. The smile she gave me was weary and threaded with pain—and also limned with amazement and wonder. I was too emotional to smile.
“How?” I finally managed to ask. I knew how she’d gotten the robe, and the brown wig was the very one I had purchased a couple of weeks ago when I bought a blond one for my own use. But how could she be alive when there were three dead bodies and only two echoes?
She shook her head. “I can’t explain it,” she said, her voice so soft no one near us could overhear. “When I woke up this morning, there was a third echo in the room. It is as if the other two made her for me.”
My head was spinning, but I remembered the tale Nico had told me the very day I met him. How King Edwin had lost most of his echoes in battle, but later regained one when a new echo spontaneously appeared overnight. But I had thought it was a myth, a story Nico might have made up on the spot.
“I didn’t know that was possible,” I whispered.
She shook her head again. “I didn’t, either. Even so, I didn’t want to let her take my place. I didn’t want them to die for me. But Purpose insisted. Every time I would reach for my white dress, she would pull it away from me and hand me the black robe instead. I finally gave in.”
I remembered how unsteady that third echo had been, how Purpose and Patience had kept her hands in theirs as they guided her to the cart. She had been a newborn, an entity created for a single purpose. Such a short life, such a noble one. “Did you name her?”
Marguerite nodded. “Purity.”
“The guards did not suspect?”
“They were a little surprised when they came into the room because, of course, they hadn’t been told that a priestess had spent the night with me. I could see the confusion on their faces. But the king’s inquisitor entered right behind them, and I suppose none of them wanted to confess that they hadn’t kept close track of all my visitors. So they said nothing.”
I glanced around, but I couldn’t tell who was who among all the priestesses in their white and black robes. “Does Taeline know?”
“Yes. When the cart arrived at the plaza this morning and I joined the line of priestesses, I took Taeline’s hand. She almost fell over from the surprise and joy.” She nodded at the cluster of women walking ahead of us. “Word spread up and down the line. They all know.”
“I can’t believe—I don’t have words—I thought you were dead.” My voice trembled. Now, now, when there were so many reasons to rejoice, I could feel myself starting to cry.
“I know. I am still nearly dumb with wonder. And gratitude and sadness and emotions I don’t even know how to name.”
I lifted my free hand to touch my face and body in the ritual benediction. “The goddess is merciful,” I whispered through my tears. “She is just.”
Marguerit
e mimicked my gestures. “And she graces our lives with joy.”
As we approached the temple, the women carrying the stretchers veered off toward another building, which I assumed held materials for preparing the bodies for burial. The rest of us clattered across one of the bridges and into the sanctuary, entering through the door for justice just in case anyone was watching and might wonder why a funeral delegation considered joy a proper emotion. Not until we had all filed through the hidden door and down the spiral staircase did anyone speak. And then it was pandemonium, a babble of rapid voices and delighted laughter and quiet whoops of excitement. I think everyone there hugged Marguerite, hugged me, hugged each other at least once and maybe a dozen times. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen so many happy people together in one place.
“But what happens now?” someone asked, and that caused the group to settle down a little.
“Here—let’s all sit and discuss it,” someone else replied, and we passed into one of the larger underground rooms where we could all fit around a square wooden table. There were ten or twelve of us, so the space was somewhat cramped, but no one seemed to mind. I found myself across the table from Marguerite, who had pulled off her wig and was leaning her head on Taeline’s shoulder. They both wore smiles of almost transcendent peace.
“You can stay here as long as you like, Lady Marguerite,” said the abbess whom we had met on one of our earlier visits. “But it is hardly a permanent solution.”
Marguerite straightened up, but I was pretty sure she was still clutching Taeline’s hand under the table. “I think I have to leave Camarria, which I was planning to do anyway,” she said. “But I don’t think I need to leave the Seven Jewels after all. If everyone thinks I’m dead, no one will be looking for me.”
