On a cloudy autumn day, I attended the execution of Broset Sheveldar.

Anora tried to talk me out of it. He said, “Thou’rt punishing thyself, and it is pointless.”

“It’s not a punishment,” I said. “I don’t feel guilty about it. I feel responsible.”

“Thou art splitting hairs,” Anora said. “Well, if thou’rt going to insist, dost thou want company?”

“No,” I said. “I thank thee, for it is a most kind thought. But I have no qualms about going alone.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Anora said.

“What I don’t want is to make thee attend this execution.”

“I’ve attended my fair share,” Anora said. “Another will not harm me.”

“I know that. But…”

Anora looked at me over his spectacles. “Truly, thou wishest to go alone?”

“Truly,” I said.

“Then I must let thee go,” he said, although his ears said he would have preferred to keep arguing.

“I thank thee,” I said.

Executions in the city of Amalo took place on the broad plaza in front of the Ulistheileian. They had switched from hanging to beheading in the reign of Prince Orchenis’s father, Prince Orchena. Beheading was fast and could be expected to go right the first time, neither of which had been reliably true of hangings, even when the executioner was both competent and sober.

There was always a crowd for a beheading—in this way Amalo was like every other city I had ever lived in. People seemed to emerge from the flagstones to surround the dais, men and women, elves and goblins, manufactory workers and shop clerks and the idle sons of burghers and nobility, and the vendors, every dozen feet or so, of quickly printed pamphlets about the murderer and his victims and whether or not he had repented of his crimes. Another prelate of Ulis was unremarkable in the crowd, which suited me very well.

They brought him out at noon, the traditional hour for executions. They had cropped his hair and tied his hands behind his back, and the two big goblins from the Vigilant Brotherhood made Sheveldar look almost delicate, breakable. I reminded myself of the women he had murdered, after seducing each one into believing he loved her. There was nothing delicate about Broset Sheveldar.

He stumbled on the steps up to the dais, but the goblins, not breaking stride, kept him upright until he reached the reveth-atha, where they let him fall to his knees.

The executioner was waiting. He didn’t give Sheveldar time to think of resisting, whatever resistance he might have been able to make, but shoved his head forward and dropped the stock across the back of his neck. The crowd made a low noise, a sort of moan, and I flinched.

Thou didst choose to come, I reminded myself grimly, and then the blade came shining down with a thwack!, and the crowd’s noise was more of a roar. Sheveldar’s head fell into the basket, and that was it. He was dead.

Maybe now I could stop dreaming of his wives.

* * *

It was a few days after Sheveldar’s execution that I received a letter asking me to come speak to the Marquess Ulzhavel as soon as was convenient. I gave my black silk coat of office a close scrutiny for frays or dangling threads or other signs of wear, resolutely ignoring how faded it was, for about that I could do nothing. I braided and pinned my hair carefully, and went to visit the marquess that afternoon.

The Marquess Ulzhavel was legendary in Amalo for his stubbornness, he and his father before him. When all the other noble elven families had left the city for their country estates, the Ulzhavada had stayed put. Their property had become a slowly shrinking island amid the Airmen’s Quarter and was now down to the original compound walls, which were mortared stone like the walls of the Veren’malo.

There was a liveried servant on duty at the gatehouse, a middle-aged elven man who watched my approach with frank curiosity.

I said, “We are Thara Celehar, a Witness for the Dead. The Marquess Ulzhavel has requested that we attend on him.”

“Of course,” he said and unlocked the gate.

He could not leave his station, but the way to the main house was unmistakable, broad and straight and lined with elesth trees that had probably been planted when the compound wall was being built. There was a bell rope beside the front door. I pulled it and heard the bell’s muffled answer from inside.

It was a few minutes before anyone opened the door, another elven liveried servant, his hair very white and his eyes very pale against the plum-and-crimson-on-black livery of the Ulzhavada. I introduced myself, and he nodded. “The marquess is expecting you. Please come in.”


Copyright © 2022 by Sarah Monette