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.”
The house was dark inside, great somber brocade hangings on every wall, and the drapes all drawn closed. I followed the servant through a snarl of narrow passageways and small interconnected rooms, wondering if the house had ever been renovated since it was built. Given the candelabrum the servant was carrying, it seemed unlikely that they had gas lighting; if anything, the house was becoming darker as we went. On the other hand, the house did not smell musty at all, and I admired the housekeeper.
We came to a closed door. The servant knocked and called, “The Witness for the Dead is here.”
“Let him in,” replied a voice from inside the room.
“The Marquess Ulzhavel,” the servant said and swung the door open.
Inside, at least there was candlelight, showing a somewhat larger room, though with the same dark brocade hangings on the walls. Against the far wall was a desk, and behind it an old elven man, with a stony face and bright, pale, angry eyes. He was dressed in formal mourning, black-on-black brocade with black lacquer combs and onyx beads in his hair. The emperor’s court would call him old-fashioned, but in Amalo, this was no more than was expected.
“We are Thara Celehar,” I said. “A Witness for the Dead.”
“Yes,” said the marquess, in a voice as stony as his face. “We have been expecting you. Please take a seat if you wish.”
I sat down, though cautiously, for the chair looked none too sturdy. “How may we be of service, dach’osmer?”
“You come straight to the point. We shall be equally forthright. We wish you to witness for our wife, Tomilo Ulzhavel.”
I knew, of course, that the Marquise Ulzhavel was dead. It had been in all the newspapers. It had also been three months ago.
“We beg your pardon,” I said, my heart sinking, “but after so long, there is nothing we can do. There is nothing of the spirit left.”
“Not that,” said Ulzhavel. “We meant what we said. We want you to witness for her. For we have discovered evidence that she was murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“Here,” he said and tapped something lying on his desk. “We found it among her papers.”
I stood up and came closer. The anger in the marquess’s eyes did not become less discomfiting. The thing on his desk was a note, creased as if it had been folded and opened and refolded many times. Printed across the paper in bold letters was the message STOP INTERFERING OR WE WILL MAKE YOU STOP. “We” was plural.
After a dumbfounded pause, I said, “Do you know what this note is about?”
“No. We have no idea. She never mentioned it to us, and she was involved in a number of charitable undertakings that might be construed as ‘interfering.’”
That was alarming. I said, “Surely a judicial Witness—”
“No,” the marquess said flatly. “We want a proper Witness for the Dead for our wife.”
He was well within his rights to insist, though again old-fashioned. “Is there anyone in particular you think we should talk to?”
He shook his head with obvious regret. “We paid little heed to her activities.”
“Is there someone we might speak to who would know?”
He thought for a moment. “Her closest friend was Dach’osmerrem Cretheno Cambesharan. But Dach’osmerrem Cambesharan does not believe that our wife was murdered, so we do not know if she would speak to you. You can ask Osmin Tativin, our wife’s secretary. She kept track of the marquise’s engagements.”
“Where might we find Osmin Tativin?”
“She is still here. She is a cousin of the marquise, and she has nowhere else to go. We have told her she may stay until she secures another position. She is badly shaken by the marquise’s death.”
“How did the marquise die?”
“It was very sudden,” the marquess said bleakly. “A thunderclap coronary is what our cleric decided.”
“Had the marquise any history of heart weakness?”
“None,” said the marquess. “We should have been suspicious from the start—but we could not imagine anyone wishing to harm her.”
“She had no enemies?”
“None that we knew of. But she did not tell us everything.”
“She did not tell you about the note?”
“No. We found it entirely by accident.”
“Would she not have told you if she were afraid?”
“She would have told us. We can only conclude that she did not think it was serious, but we do not understand, in that case, why she kept it.”
“Sometimes people’s reasons are unknowable,” I said. That was cause to regret that no one had had suspicions at the time of the marquise’s death, for it was a question I might have been able to get an answer to. She might even have known from whom the note had come.
“Yes,” the marquess said. “There is much about our wife we do not know. But will you witness for her? Not knowing the truth about her death will drive us mad.”
“Yes,” I said. “We will witness for the Marquise Ulzhavel. Although we must warn you that we may not discover an answer.”
“We understand,” said the marquess. “Any effort is better than nothing at all. And we have heard of you, Othala Celehar. We think it more likely that you will discover an answer than that you will not.”
To which I could only bow and say, “Thank you, Dach’osmer Ulzhavel. We will make our best endeavor.”
Copyright © 2022 by Sarah Monette
