***
It is cold and grey in the courtyard. I have not been warm for weeks. My gown is dirty and torn, my limbs beneath bare and smeared with muck from the floor of my cell. My feet are numb and grazed by the straw. The crows are calling in the trees somewhere beyond the walls.
Don’t cry, Salcie–I promise it won’t hurt.
That’s what he had said but it was a lie. It hurt because he had broken his promise to let me die like him, to show my love for him. I would not be there at his death like I hoped. He would make me desert him and leave him to go alone, and I was worried that we would never meet on the other side if we went there apart. The three men sat with solemn faces behind the table, waiting to witness my death. I only realised my time had come when they brought me to the courtyard. I
