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Tru supported me carefully as we walked out to the carriage. Ancil came up to us as we were about to get in.

He knelt before me. “Thank you, your Majesty, for all that you have done. I can see the price this has taken on you and I had to tell you of my gratitude.”

“Get up, Ancil! Get up!” I cried, embarrassed. “I am no one’s queen yet. And to you, I am, and always will be, your granddaughter-in-law. Please don’t embarrass me like this?”

Ancil returned to his feet. “How then am I to address you?”

“Call me Patra, or if you have to be formal, Lady Patra. Yes, we hardly know each other yet, but I hope that this will change. I hope that my children will get to know you as their grandfather?”

“Yes, I would like that very much. Let me know when you are well enough for visitors.” Ancil turned to Tru. Ancil wrote on a piece of paper and then gave it to him. “Here is my address.” Tru wrote on a note pad of his and completed the exchange.

“Please forgive me, Ancil, but Patra is at the edge of exhaustion and I need to get her home and put her to bed. We will be in touch later, I promise this.”

“Of course! I totally understand.” He then took my hand and kissed it. “Rest well.”

Tru then lifted me into the carriage and joined me. The rest of the family and Captain Quinton had already gone home. I waved ‘goodbye’ to Ancil as we drove away.

True to his word, Tru took me immediately to my rooms and ordered my maids to put me to bed and to keep me company at all times. He was very surprised at dinner time, when I came to the dining room to eat. He looked very stern at me.

“I am sorry, Tru, but I have conflicting orders. Fiorenzia ordered that I had to eat all meals with the family; that I was not to eat alone. I believe that her orders trump yours, don’t you?”

Tru laughed and smiled at me. “You are right. I confess that I am happy to have your company. But you are to return to bed afterwards.”

“But Tru, my children have not seen their mother all day. Don’t you think that they need to have some ‘mommy’ time before they go to bed?”

“All right,” he conceded. “It has been a while since I have seen them myself. We will both go visit them, if you don’t mind?”

“Mind? Of course I don’t mind. The children adore you. They ask after you all the time. They will be thrilled to see you.”

“Then I will be in for a big treat tonight.”

After dinner, Tru walked me to the nursery. Just as I predicted, the children were very happy to see their Pahpey. After he helped me into my rocking chair, he turned his attention to the children. And he did give them his attention and his love. Watching him with them, reminded me so much of Donal and his way of giving of himself to his children. You could just see where he learned his parenting skills from. After giving each of them some individual attention, he then started to play a game with them on the floor; one in which most of them could participate in. It was amazing to watch such a reserved man open himself up so fully to my children. The difference was night and day. While they were playing, I paid attention to my youngest two, as they were just too small to play.

While they were in the midst of playing, Yusaf wanted to nurse, so I put him to my breast. During a lull in the play, Tru looked up and had such a look on his face. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Tru had seen me nursing my children before. I was surprised by the longing I saw there. Perhaps it just reminded him of his younger days, when he and his wife were making their family together. That must have been it.

By the time the game was finished, I had already put Yusaf and Eryssa to bed. I then noticed that the younger children were starting to droop and get a little cranky. They protested when I told them it was time for bed. But with Tru’s help, they went to bed without further ado. It was past ten o’clock when everyone was finally asleep. I was very tired myself.

Tru walked me to my bedroom door. Before I went in, I turned to him. “Thank you so much for giving my children such a treat. They will remember this night for the rest of their lives, I think.”

“You are welcome. But it was more my treat than anything. You have such wonderful, well-raised children. They are a joy to be with. I am making it my duty, from today on, to help you raise them. They have lost of their father. I want to make sure that they don’t suffer for it. I cannot be as active with them as Donal was, but I am going to clear my calendar to make time for them as often as I can.”

As tears of gratitude welled up in my eyes, I said, “Thank you Tru. You are such a good man. I know that even an hour or two per week would be of great benefit to them. Thank you.” I kissed him on the cheek and then went into my bedroom. It wasn’t long before I was in bed and sound asleep.

The next morning, I got up at my usual time. I took a bath and had Ellyn help me dress in the same dress I wore to the funeral. Afterwards, I went to check in on my children and spend some time with them.

By the time I got to the dining room, Tru was already there eating breakfast. He looked up in surprise as he saw me walk in on my own. “Good morning, my dear! I didn’t expect you up so early. I thought you were going to stay in bed today and rest.”

Chef Ifon came out and asked me what I wanted for breakfast. I told him, “My usual. One egg, scrambled, with a hint of dill; a piece of bread, lightly toasted and buttered; a small bowl of fruit and a large glass of milk.”

When he left to fix it for me, I said to Tru, “I could not stay in bed today. I have to be ready and prepared for his execution.”

Tru looked intensely at me, “You are not going!”

I looked back at him equally intensely. “Yes, I am. I have to.”

“An execution is not the proper place for a delicate lady as you are. You will fall apart and make a scene. I cannot and will not have that happen to you. You don’t know how gruesome executions are.”

“You make it sound like I have never seen someone die, or that I have not witnessed someone being tortured. I have. Too many times in my life. It is not something I wish to witness, but it is something I have to do, in this case. I have to see Dashal suffer and die, just as he has made me suffer and he made Donal and your daughter die. I am going whether you like it or not.”

“You cannot possibly have seen such things! No one in their right mind would make you witness such atrocities!”

“You have forgotten who my first husband was. Jaizel was Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Armies of Freedonia. He frequently made me watch battles from the sidelines. I have seen thousands of men die in battle. The ones who did not die immediately are the ones hardest to watch. I can still hear their screams, their calling out for their mothers or wives, and the sounds of their final death rattle. I was there for the “Night of a Thousand Agonies”, when Jaizel and his men rounded up the last of the Elfstonian rebels. In the town square, he had them tortured and mutilated. He forced me to watch. Then he had each and every one of them impaled on a razor sharp stake and left them to die agonizing deaths. It took them hours to die. Jaizel kept the windows open to the square, so he could hear the screams, loud and clear, as he raped me over and over again. The next day, I tried to kill myself, but Jaizel caught me and prevented me from doing so. A month later, I found out that I was pregnant. That night was the night that Melia and Melisant were conceived.”

“But you must have been a child then…”

“I was sixteen.”

“And you want to watch another execution?”

“Want to? No, not really. Have to? Yes. I do. If this was anyone but Donal’s murderer, no, I would not want to watch. I need to see him die so that I can put to rest the memory of seeing him kill my Donal. To know for sure that he has been made to pay for his crimes. To watch him being sent to Tophrean and suffer for eternity.

“You cannot stop me from going. I will go any way that I have to. But if you love me, you will go with me and keep me safe from others. This will be a place that Count Torfen would find amusing, I am sure. If he sees me there, I know that he will try to abduct me. But even such a threat will not dissuade me from going.”

He looked at me for a long time. His face was unreadable. I couldn’t tell what was going on in his mind. Finally, he said, “I think that this is a big mistake, but we will go together. We will bring guards and perhaps Izshaq, if he wishes to come. You probably are correct about Count Torfen. If you insist on going, you are going to be heavily guarded.”

“Thank you, Tru. I am not doing this for fun. I don’t get a thrill watching people suffer. There have been several executions that have taken place since we came to live here. I never went to witness any of them, nor will I willingly do so again. But I feel an obligation to Donal to see this through to the end. Perhaps I am wrong, but I feel as if Donal will not rest peacefully until Dashal has been punished, and I feel that I have to be his eyes in this. If I become overwhelmed, I can assure you that you will be the first to know.”

We ate our breakfast in silence after that, until other members of the family came straggling in. With them came lighthearted talk and banter. It was a pleasant diversion from the coming unpleasantry.

An hour before noon, Tru and I got into the carriage. I noticed that Thom, our usual driver, had been replaced by several guardsmen. Captain Quinton and Izshaq joined us also. It then occurred to me that these were all of the men who shared the early morning training exercises with Donal. I never felt safer in my life.

The ride took us outside the walls of Daihor to a place that I had never been to before. After that day, I never intended to return. There was a permanent gallows platform built on top of a small hillock. The platform was nearly twelve feet tall, with a broad staircase leading up to the stage. On the stage was an inverted L shaped gallows to one side, a central stanchion to which chains and manacles were attached. A beheading block was to one side. There was also a coal brazier, inside of which were placed many pokers and other instruments. I could also see several buckets with water in them and a slop bucket.

To one side, a distance away was a raised gallery, with seats and a roof to protect its occupants.

There were a lot of people already at the site. There were four executioners, standing still as they waited for the criminal to arrive. They wore dark woolen clothes covered with leather aprons, and black leather gauntlets on their hands. The expression on their faces was somber.

Down on the ground were hundreds of people waiting to see this spectacle. The mood of these people was almost celebratory.

The gallery seemed to be solely occupied with Count Torfen and his adherents . At first he seemed on the verge of approaching the carriage, but it seemed that when he saw my protectors, he returned to his people and spent the entire time indulging his sexual desires.

Our carriage came to a halt near several other like vehicles. The view we had was clear and unobstructed. We were able to see everything without having to leave our carriage.

At precisely noon, a carriage with the three justices arrived. They alit quickly and ascended the stairs of the platform. Immediately following came the tumbrel. It was closely guarded by a dozen burley prison guards. In the cage on the back of the tumbrel, in shackles, stood Dashal. He was still wearing the same outfit he had had on yesterday. He was cursing, swearing and shouting as he struggled against his restraints. The tumbrel came to a halt in front of the stairs. The guards quickly unlocked the cage and extracted their prisoner. He resisted them and all that they did, but their joint strength overcame his and they dragged him out of the cage, up the stairs and then quickly restrained him to the stanchion with manacles, shackles and chains, so tightly that he was unable to move any part of his body.

In a loud, clear voice, Chief Justice Zinovas spoke, saying, “Dashal conAgri, you have been tried and found guilty of three murders. You have been brought here today to this place of execution to pay for your crimes. Do you have any words of penitence to say before you die?”

Dashal continued to spew invectives and defiance.

Zinovas seemed unmoved by the hate filled words. “May you continue to find punishment in the afterworld as you have found here.” He turned to the executioners and said, “You may proceed.” He and the other justices left the platform and returned to their carriage.

I watch in horror and fascination as the executioners first disrobed their prisoner and exposed his naked body to the cheering and raucous audience. They slowly and excruciatingly painfully castrated him, tortured him and then gradually dismembered him, starting with his sensory organs and finally his limbs and head. Dashal died in extreme agony while the people clapped, cheered and laughed. His severed body was then placed in a burlap bag and tossed into a nearby cesspool.

The moment the execution was over, Tru ordered the guards to drive us home. We returned in total silence. Once inside the house, I ran immediately to the privy where I spent the next hour throwing up.