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Dedication

to my parents-in-law,

Bill & Elizabeth,

with much love

and many thanks

Begin Reading

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.