The darkness of the dungeon made the light from the end of the tunnel too bright for Alicia to see beyond it. She squinted her eyes as they wrapped her chains around the rail of the ox drawn wagon that would bring her to her execution.

  The guards weren’t as rough as they had been until then. They didn’t toss her around or shove her. When they had come into her cell to put the shackles on her, she could feel their pity. She refused to show that she wanted that. She refused to show that she was afraid. That she had spent the entire night pacing and praying. For forgiveness, for mercy, for a quick death. For it to have purpose.

  The wagon shuddered as the ox was led forward. The bustling roar of the crowd ahead reached her long before the arching stone tunnel came to an end and she was doused in sunlight. She hung her head to shield her eyes, standing as straight as she could as she swayed with the roll of the wagon. It creaked and jutted over loose stones. She didn’t stumble. She kept her hands folded in front of her, where her bodice would have met her skirt, and, once the light no longer burned her eyes, she lifted her chin with pride.

  The square was filled with dirty faces, matted and greasy hair trickled from coifs and straw brimmed hats. There were children on shoulders, there were men with hate in their looks, there were women with more pity. Some were silent but most were shouting when they saw her. Some cheered. Some rocked fists at her. She lifted her eyes to the platform that became visible as the crowd parted before the guards leading the wagon. A wooden platform with a hooded man whose face she couldn’t see because of the mesh cover and a tall, thick log. Beside the man, her eyes became fixed on the large, long handled axe resting, waiting.

  Perhaps she should pray. Perhaps she should beg for her life. For it to be fast. There were ropes lying in wait around the log. She turned her eyes to the rising cathedral. No, she turned away, she won’t pray again. She looked to the windowed walls of the palace on the opposite side. Its gray stones with marks from the many fires it had survived, from the hundreds of years that her house had lived and died there. She eyed the tiled roof and the facades of Lady Liberty and past kings. She concentrated on those, the glory of House Strasse. She concentrated on what she was there to do. She was determined.

  The wagon stopped. Her heart began to pound in her chest. Her breathing shallowed. The shivers became violent. The guards unwrapped the chains and helped her down from the wagon onto the stone ground with a splash of a puddle over her bare feet. Her knees buckled.

  Her elbows were gripped tighter. Her toes scraped as they lifted her up after dragging her a few steps. The tears, she wanted so badly to hold them back, but they kept pouring. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want this to be how she was remembered. A whimper escaped her lips, pitched and begging. The guards led her up the wooden steps.

  She remembered stories of the old noble families who once lived here. Of the King and Queen, their children, their friends, family, allies, all being brought to a place just like this long ago. To the guillotine. Their heads falling into a basket and then lifted up for the crowd to jeer and roar at while the eyes still looked around at them. But there was no guillotine. Just an axe and a log. Her knees wouldn’t bear her weight, the guards were carrying her toward the log.

  The executioner nodded at her, a dark mesh with the features of a man. She wanted to ask, her voice stuck in her dry throat scraped by bouts of weeping between bouts of reassurance throughout the night, ‘Will you make it quick? Will I suffer?’ She only whimpered instead, her eyes hanging on those features in wonder.

  “Do you need us to hold you up or can you stand for yourself?” One of the guards asked. She didn’t recognize this one. She had never seen him before.

  She nodded shakily. She mustered all her strength to lock her knees against the indomitable shivering.

  “Alright, then. Stand here.”

  That was when she saw them again. The faces. The many faces. All crowded together, angry and pitying. She felt condemned, like some murderer or thief. All she did was touch the Prince’s hand. All she did was stop him from degrading her House, her family. Why did she have to die for it? Why would they execute her? Why did the Baroness hate her? She had been nothing but honest and caring toward her, nurturing her as if she were her own daughter, a sister, a friend. And now, her husband, whom Alicia had always served the way he wanted, properly, as the Head Mistress should, was having her executed.

  The Cardinal walked a staff topped by a cross to in front of her, his red robe lined with white trim and gold embroidery. Beneath, he had white robes and a hanging rosary. Where was God now? Is that why he was here, to remind her of the sin she would have to profess when she met her judgment?

  “You confessed yesterday,” Cardinal Olivier said weightily to her, barely inches away from her.

  She wanted to see the crowd beyond him, the thousand faces watching her shivering, watching her pride drain away. She wondered if the children were still staring at her or jeering. Were they shouting like their parents?

  “Do you wish to confess now so that you are sinless in death?”

  Alicia hesitated. She tried to think. What was she guilty of since then? What sin did she commit? Was it her grief? Her pride? Her fear? “I wish to confess that I have been…” She stammered. It took a second to breathe in between the crying that caused her face to twist, “I have been prideful. I confess that I have…forgive me, Father, please forgive me, I’m so scared.”

  Cardinal Olivier had turned his ear to her and now nodded. “Recite the Lord’s Prayer and receive holy communion and be absolved, my child.”

  Alicia’s nods were frantic. Her eyes were on a blue eyed child with sallow cheeks and topped with hair a color that reminded her of mahogany. “Our Father, Thou art in Heaven,” Her breath was stifled. “Hollowed be thy name.”

  Cardinal Olivier lifted a canister of oil and dipped his thumb.

  “Thy kingdom co—co—come, Thy will be…” Her teeth rattled. Tears were shaking from her lashes down her face. “…done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily…” She tried to think. The words were lost on her. She didn’t go to confession. Not often anyway. She was always tending the Baroness. Always being where she needed to be for her duties. The Cardinal began to whisper the words to her and she repeated them, nearly as quietly. The child’s blue eyes almost looked like blue rose buds.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  She was certain the child was crying with her. “…Bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Prince Dietrich did this. A tyrant, through and through. A barbarian. No, she trembled, the tears truly flowing now, I forgive you. “And lead us…na—na—not into temptation, but deliver us from…”

  Her knees buckled. The guards leapt to catch her by her elbows and lift her back onto her feet. She tried to find the child again. That face, that innocent little face, was lost, blended into the thousands like a crumb in a pile of crumbs.

  “Evil,” Cardinal Olivier whispered.

  “Evil,” she repeated as she locked her knees again. They’re all watching, as if she were a spectacle, as if she were some evil thing herself. She wasn’t evil. She was a good servant. She loved her House, her home, her many employees. She loved Valmond. Where was Valmond? Why isn’t he here? Why isn’t he beside her, like he always had been, always saving her when she made mistakes, always ensuring that every detail was just the way she knew it needed to be even when she was unable. Where did he go? “Amen.”

  The Cardinal’s thumb drew a cross on her forehead. She tried to see over his shoulder as he lifted a bit of bread to her, whispering, “This is the body of Christ given for you.” He pressed it into her mouth.

  She swallowed down the soft bread through the dryness in her throat. Valmond, she searched the faces. He was willing to give up all that he had done, all that he was for her, and she didn’t see it. She had no idea. She never knew. She never understood why even when she forgot things, they were always done. Why she always had extra hands on her birthday. Why he always looked pleased when he saw her. She never noticed.

  “This is the blood of Christ shed for you,” Cardinal Olivier lifted a steel cup to her lips. She searched and searched. Faces upon faces. Eyes upon eyes. No glasses. No long noses. No collared coats. Just faces. “In the name of the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit, and the authority they have given to me, you are absolved of all your sins. Amen.”

  “Amen,” she said through a breath. Valmond wasn’t there. She was alone. Once the Cardinal stepped down from the platform, once the guards put their hands to her back to usher her forward a step, there was no one left who cared. No one who knew her, greeted her each day, helped her even when she was too proud to ask. No one who loved her.

  “Alicia Reneaux, you are found guilty of assaulting La Grande Dauphin de Principalitèe d’Alcalia, for sedition against your sovereign, for dishonoring the unspoken and spoken vows of your station as servant to the House of Strasse,” another whom she had never met before or seen called out after beckoning the crowd to silence. She saw the log, saw the ropes wrapped around it, saw the marks of a dozen beheadings that had been committed with it. “Speak your words if you wish them to be remembered.”

  Alicia’s teeth chattered. Her lips felt numb from trembling. She felt her nose trickling down to her mouth. Her eyes stung with the salt of her tears. She tried to speak. She wanted to say something, anything, that would tell her Baroness that it was all for her. Everything she had done was so that she could rise. Her entire life, Alicia was there, lifting her up with every washing, every stitch, every banquette, every letter. Then, that no longer mattered. None of that meant anything. A touch, a simple touch, and she is here without a single word from her. She knew who cared. She knew, in that moment, as tears blinded her from being able to search those faces again, that Valmond wasn’t there because he couldn’t bear to watch her die, couldn’t bear to watch her suffer. And she didn’t want him to.

  She would have shouted it. All she could muster was a breathily whispered, “Valmond, I’m sorry.”

  The man who called out her sentence nodded for the guards to press her to her knees at the log. Her chains were replaced by ropes as she laid her cheek on the wood. She closed her eyes as another rope was tightened over the back of her neck. Her hands clung to the bark of the log. The axe dragged across the platform, its iron ringing as it was lifted. She felt the sharp edge being used to shift her hair from covering her neck.

  Her fingers were raw as they dug into the bark like claws. Her arms scraped as she tightened. She couldn’t breathe, her chest was too tight. She sat on numb legs. Her long toenails were stuck in the wood of the platform. This was it. This was her end. All for nothing. All without what she now yearned for more than anything. All for what she would beg for. To hell with House Strasse! To hell with the Baroness! With Lisbeth and that spoiled rotten brother of hers, William. She wanted her Valmond. She wanted to know what it would be like to see him smile one last time, just for her. She wanted to know what his lips would feel like, taste like. What comfort his arms around her, his cheek against her would be. If only she had known. If only she had seen. If only she wasn’t so full of pride.

  “Please,” she begged in a whisper as the axe blade was lifted from her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut, winced in anticipation. “Please, Lord, give me one more day for him.”

  “Wait!” The Baron shouted with a loud running step onto the platform. “Wait!”

  Alicia’s eyes shot open. The rope was too tight for her to turn and look at him.

  His shadow covered her face. “Our beloved Grande Prince has ordered me to execute this women because she touched him. As if she were beneath him. But I say, nay.”

  The rope was loosened from around her neck. She stared, frozen with her cheek laying on the log. There were soldiers at the edge of the platform now. Halberds, armor, a few with grim expressions aimed at the crowd. There were boos and jeers, shouts and roars, erupting from within the gathered.

  “He may see you as filthy scum, may have you eating the rotting refuse of his armies, but I see my people. I see Strasse, I see brothers! Sisters! And this one, the most loyal of you,” a hand pulled her shoulder so that she sat upright, her eyes lifting to Christophe’s face in awe. “I am willing to risk my place, my home, my titles, for her. She has cared for my children, is the Baroness Clarissa’s closest friend, and she is one of you. Born of the landless and hard-working. I am willing to stake all of that for her…”

  She furrowed a brow at his hand before taking it and allowing him to lift her up. Her knees wobbled, but he wrapped her waist and turned to the crowd before shouting with his other arm raised in a fist, “And I will do it for you! FOR STRASBOURG!”

  There were members of the house gathered behind her, behind the platform, she saw now. Standing on the balconies of the palace walls, Clarissa and Lisbeth were waving tear-soaked cloths to the roars of the people.

  Below them, the Prince had a tilted head and a grimace. Not at her, she was sure of that. When his eyes met hers, there was a twinkle in them, a small grin that she knew only she could see. His look darkened before he disappeared into his room to a flutter of curtains.

  Alicia looked up to her savior, to her Baron, and beamed haphazardly. She was unsure now. Why did she feel ashamed? She was saved. Her prayer was answered, wasn’t it?

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Christophe said between shouts of ‘For Strasbourg!’ with his fist in the air. “Isn’t like I freed you.”