And then da-da-da-da-da went the metal drum. All of the actors on the stage began to shout and gesture at the militia-puppets, and the screen came up with the word everyone! and even the sceptical audience played along and began to shout over here, over here. That was how it had been-a diversion from some in the crowd, orchestrated or chance was debated, though Ori had his own thoughts. As the militia dangled across the little puppet-stage, Ori remembered.

It was a young memory, a child’s memory-he did not know why he had been in the plaza or with whom. It was the first time for years the militia had been seen like that in their uniforms, had been a forerunner of their turn from covert policing, and in a grey wedge they had targeted the shouting segment of crowd. The overseer had drawn a flintlock and dropped his whip and joined them, and left the tethered figure.

Ori did not remember seeing the rough man who had ascended toward Jack Half-a-Prayer until he was near the top. He had a vivid image of him, but he did not know if that was his six-year-old’s memory or one constructed from all the reports he had later heard. The man-here came his puppet now, look, on the stage, while the militia’s backs were turned-had been distinctive. Hairless, viciously scarred, pocked as if by decades of ferocious acne, his eyes sunken and wide, dressed in rags, a scarf pulled over his mouth and nose to hide him.

The puppet that skulked exaggeratedly up the steps called out to Jack Half-a-Prayer with a harsh voice, a twenty-year-old echo of the real man’s loud and piercing call. He called Jack’s name, as he had that day. And neared him and pulled out a pistol and a knife (the puppet’s little tinfoil constructions glinted). Remember me, Jack? he had shouted, and his puppet shouted. I owe you this. A voice like triumph.

For years after the murder of Jack Half-a-Prayer the plays had followed the first conventional understanding. The pockmarked man-brother, father or lover to one of the murdering Man’Tis’s victims-was too moved by rage to wait, overcome and righteous and straining to kill. And though it was understandable and no one could blame him, the law did not work that way; and when they heard and saw him it was the militia’s sad duty to warn him off, and when that didn’t work to fire at him, putting an end to his plans, and killing the Half-a-Prayer with stray bullets. And it was regrettable, as the legal process had not yet been completed, but it could hardly have been in any doubt that the outcome would soon have been the same.

That was the story for years, and the actors and puppeteers played Jack as the pantomime baddie, but noticed that the crowds still cheered him.

In the second decade after the events, new interpretations had emerged, in response to the question, Why had Half-a-Prayer shouted in what sounded like delight when the man came for him? Witnesses recalled the torn-skinned man raising his pistol, and thought that they had perhaps seen Jack strain as if to meet him and then of course a mercy killing. One of Jack’s gang, risking his own life to bring the humiliations of his boss to an end. And maybe he had succeeded-could anyone be sure it was a militia bullet that had ended the Remade captive? Maybe that first shot was a friend saving a friend.