Free When We Were Executioners by J. M Mcdermott Page B

blood,” said Jona.
    “Why you always get so much blood all over your shirt all the time? Is it your blood? Whose blood is it?”
    “I told you,” said Jona, “It’s duck blood.”
    Lady Ela Sabachthani touched Lady Joni’s hands. Ela smiled at Jona.
    “Milady,” said Jona’s mother. She pulled away from Jona.
    Lady Sabachthani took over for Lady Joni’s hands, adjusting Jona’s dirty, bloody, wrinkled uniform. “Lord Joni, I haven’t seen you in some time. Is there somewhere we can talk alone?”
    Jona looked at Lady Sabachthani standing in his foyer in her fine dress. He bent down at the knee, stiffly, to pick up his boots. He nodded at her.
    “Well?” she said.
    “The roof, milady,” he said.
    “The what?” said Lady Sabachthani. She leaned forward, like she hadn’t heard.
    Jona pointed up. “We’ll go to the roof,” he said.
    Lady Sabachthani cocked her head. “The… roof?”
    Jona smirked. “You’ve never been to your own roof?”
    She straightened his collar one last time. “Of course not,” she said.
    Jona gestured to the stairwell near the door. “Well, I’ll show you mine. Just climb the stairs up. Keep going until you run out of stairs, and you’re there,” he said, “You want something to drink? I don’t think our tea is as fine as yours, but I bet we got some brandy hiding somewhere.”
    “Anything will be fine.”
    Jona’s mother rushed off to the kitchen to find brandy. Jona knew he had already drunk all the brandy, but he wanted his mother to disappear awhile looking for it.
    At the roof, he walked her to the edge. They looked down at people bustling. Singsong cries of the street vendors rose above the dwindling birdsongs of early nightfall. All the parasols in the misty streets like confetti-colored blood pulsed through the city’s black dirt veins.
    Jona turned his back to the city. He placed his boots on the ground next to his bare feet. He leaned against the boundary wall. He looked at Lady Sabachthani in the lamplight spilling up from the street. “I’m glad you came, but it scares me that you came here alone. People will question your motives. That heart of yours…” he said. He shook his head.
    “What about my heart?” she snapped back.
    “Well,” said Jona, “your heart is a deadly thing to give to a man these days.”
    She smiled, sadly. “Not my heart, Jona, just my hand,” she said. “My heart is the only thing that keeps me alive, sometimes, through all of this.”
    “Right,” said Jona. Jona looked past her, at the door where he worried his mother might be eavesdropping. “So, let me get this down solid on account of my ma’s ears. You aren’t here to ask me to take that deadly little hand of yours, are you?”
    Lady Sabachthani placed her hand next to Jona’s on the wall. She leaned over, looking down at the street. She sighed. “Not today, Jona. I’ve been playing a few suitors against each other, all convinced the throne is theirs once I settle a few accounts in the city. Two of these suitors are gone. One is dead, the other missing. I have to find out if young Elitrean is still alive. He is the most-logical choice, considering his wealth and his father’s prestige.”
    Jona moved his hand away from hers, into his own lap. “You would let yourself be rumored into a marriage with that disgusting thing?”
    She nodded. “No. His father would be too much trouble. If I don’t marry before the king dies, I don’t know what will happen,” she said, “The council won’t vote for just a queen. Once a king is chosen, his hand is his own, and he might never marry. I am not beautiful enough to have royal bastards, Jona. Elitrean is a powerful man, even if his son leaves much to be desired.”
    “So, you want me to find out about Elitrean’s boy for you?”
    “I do,” she said, “I need someone I can trust. You’ve been out of all this mess, but you know all about it. And you know Elitrean’s other life better than anyone else I trust.