She came to the platform willingly, and for this I was grateful; sometimes the execution attendants broke bones as they pinned the condemned. Sifri chose to lie on her back rather than kneel, and I could feel her body trembling as I straddled her torso with my knees.
Her hair spread around her like a void, and my fingers tangled in it as I placed my hands against her neck. How many times had I braided this hair as a child? How often had she run her own hands through mine?
The words whispered out of my mouth before I could stop them. “What did you do, Sifri, to end up here?”
It was a scandalous question, one that would cause the Emperor consternation if he learned I uttered it. His word was law and I was a tool of enforcement. Sifri’s answer would have no bearing on that; she would die by my hands regardless of what she said next.
But she said nothing as my thumbs found the thrumming arteries along the edge of her windpipe and pressed. It was a gentler death to cut the blood to the brain before choking off the air. Her breaths came frantic, her ribs straining against my thighs where they kept her pinned.
I was proud of her grace in this moment, as her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted in an anguished and frightened gasp. I was the last person she would see, and I wondered if she thought of me as friend or executioner in that final moment before her brain pulled her to darkness.
Strangling someone takes more patience than most people realize, as such a death does not come quickly. I spent several minutes sitting atop my best friend’s body with my fingers tight around her throat, staring down into a face I’d once known as well as my own.
I realized then that I craved to understand what brought people to such a fate by my hands. Not that I proposed to question my duties as Gardener or my role as a tool of the Emperor. I simply felt that I owed it to those I executed to know what guilt they were atoning for.
Thus I began a new routine as Gardener. Before my races I’d stroll through the cage dungeons and visit with those against whom I’d be running. I quickly found that my red collar caused many condemned distress and resulted in most refusing to speak with me, so I took to wearing high-necked gowns and bright scarves that concealed my true identity.
I was often assumed to be merely a courtier coming to give a final bit of comfort in the form of a willing listener to their confessions. I heard from murderers and thieves, rapists and adulterers. But there were also those whose only offense was to have whispered a rumor about the Emperor or to have amassed too much power.
The Gardener wasn’t expected to just prune the obvious dead leaves, but to ensure the shape of the overall hedge, and sometimes this meant trimming branches that grew out of place, no matter how healthy they may have been.
None of my forays affected my ability to continue my duties just as I had before. I was still the fastest runner, still lethal in my ability to kill any who raced against me and lost.
And not once had I lost. Not before Sifri’s execution, and not after.
There were a few condemned who came to the platform and expected leniency from me when they realized I was the one who’d sat patiently outside their cage, hearing of their guilt and fears. But I disabused them of any such thoughts the moment I wrapped my hands around their throats and squeezed.
The condemned still begged, but only the Emperor could grant them mercy.
The dungeons were never pleasant. They were situated deep enough underground that my ears popped as I descended the winding stairs, and the darkness was so oppressive that even the air felt heavy. I never relished visiting the cages strung about the echoing chambers, but I saw it as my duty to speak with the condemned and I never wavered in the face of what was expected of me.
On this particular visit I pulled a wooden stool in front of one of the cells and smoothed the silk of my skirts around my legs as I sat. “I hear you are to race in the killing garden soon,” I said.
The condemned lay on his side, curled in a ball with his back to me. When he heard my voice he stretched and turned, his movements sinuous and fluid like a tiger’s. His cage was too small for him to ever be able to straighten himself out fully, but it was suspended in its own corner of the dungeon, away from the worst smells and sounds, which was a benefit in and of itself.
He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes amber in his dark face. If he was surprised by my presence, he didn’t show it. “I am,” he said. “I hear the Gardener is fleet of foot and that I’m unlikely to win against him.”
I toyed with the scarf hiding my collar. “Yes, she has yet to lose a race since taking the position.”
“She?”
“Our Emperor’s Gardener is a woman,” I told him. “She claimed her role from her father several years ago.”
The condemned thought on this as he slid his legs around beneath him and leaned against the back of the cage, facing me. “I’m sure there are many who think this must give them an advantage, assuming someone of the gentler sex would be too weak for the job,” he said.
I bowed my head a moment to hide my smile. “They may think that until her hands close around their throats.”
“Why are you here?” He asked the question quick and sharp, so different from the languidness of our earlier banter. Briefly I considered whether he’d been toying with me and knew my true identity, but I pushed the thought aside. If he didn’t even know the Gardener was a woman, he wasn’t a man of the court who would recognize me on sight.
“I’m here to ask what brought you to your execution,” I told him.
He frowned. “Why?”
This was the trickier question. I stood from the stool and paced behind it. I’d already run three races that morning and my legs hummed from spent energy. “I like to understand those who are taken to the garden.”
“Does it ever make a difference?” he asked.
“In what way?”
“Has anything you’ve ever been told spared a condemned from the race?”
“That is not for me to give—only the Emperor may grant mercy,” I reminded him.
He leaned forward. Like most condemned, he wore only a cloth tied at the hips and I watched his abdomen contract as he shifted to the front of the cage. The muscles along his legs were long and lean, the mark of someone used to running. It was rare that my speed was tested, and my stomach fluttered brightly at the idea of having a real race.
“Have you ever asked the Emperor for mercy?” he asked.
The question unsettled me, and I felt my hands clench into fists behind my back. I took a deep breath. “Only once,” I told the condemned. “For my father,” I added.
“And did he grant it?” The man’s fingers slipped around the bamboo bars of his cage.
It took me longer than it should have to answer him. For some reason I was compelled to tell the truth as I never had before. “That would depend on whether my father felt his life was worth living after that moment.”
The condemned wasn’t done with his questions. “Did you think his life was worth living?”
I was caught fully off guard as I realized my answer: that I lived my father’s life every day. I didn’t tell this to the condemned, though. Instead I gave him a tight smile and bade him good-bye.
When I was several paces away he called out after me: “You never found out why I’m here.”
I turned and dipped my chin. “Perhaps another time.”
He’d shifted to his knees, tilting the cage forward with his weight. “What if I’m sent to the gardens before then?”
“Only the Emperor knows when that day will come,” I answered him. It was mostly the truth.
For several days my stomach tightened every time I entered the garden, and it took me a few races before I understood what this new feeling meant. I was worried that I’d step up to the mark and I’d find that condemned man with the amber eyes waiting.
I realized with a sudden sinking clarity that I wasn’t ready to kill him yet, but I didn’t understand why. At first I avoided the cage dungeon
s, hoping to purge the memory of him from my head, but this only made my thoughts more frantic and focused until I could take it no longer.
Late one evening I strode down the steps into the dungeon but didn’t bother dragging a stool to the same condemned man’s cage. I remembered too late that I’d forgotten to cover my collar and I hissed in irritation. I wasn’t ready for him to know who I was. Before he could turn to face me I ripped the torches from the wall and threw them to the floor, casting the corner into deepest shadow.
His voice rippled from the darkness. “You seem angry.”
It was impossible to see much of him, only the flash of his eyes now and again. I heard the shifting of his body, the protest of the chains keeping his cage aloft. He’d yet to take on the stench of most condemned: the combination of desperation and starvation.
“What is your name?” It wasn’t what I’d intended to ask. I wanted him to tell me why he was here, that was all.
“You’re pacing,” he said in answer.
I realized he was right. My legs itched to move, even though I’d endured seven races that day—more than any other day since I’d taken the role of Gardener. I forced myself to still, the hem of my silk dress whispering as it settled around my feet.
I said nothing more, waiting for him to fill the silence with his name.
Instead he asked his own question. “Have you asked the Emperor for my mercy yet?”
I laughed, a sharp, barking sound that surprised me. “The Emperor is the one who condemned you. Why would he change his mind?”
“I had hoped.” There was less bravado in this statement.
“Hope is useless,” I told him, not to be cruel but to be realistic. “You will race the Gardener and you will lose.”
His response came softly spoken. “Will you be there to watch?”
My back bristled and I forced myself to squeeze my hands together tightly. Never had anyone had the ability to catch me so off guard as this man. “Why would you want me there? I’m no one to you.”
He shifted, setting the cage swinging slightly, like a pendulum ticking away the seconds of his life. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the squeaking of the chains rubbing against one another, measuring time.
“Down here there may be days or hours, but all I ever know—all that exists for me—is you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that or how to feel. So I did neither. Instead I turned on my heel and walked away.
As I left he called after me: “My name is Rete.” I don’t know if he heard how my steps hesitated or that I opened my mouth to tell him my own name but then thought better of it.
On my way from the dungeon I paused by the keeper’s pedestal. He was used to seeing me here, though I had never once spoken to him. “When is the condemned Rete scheduled to race?” I asked.
The keeper ran his finger along a scratched wooden board with a list of names written in charcoal. He didn’t meet my eyes as he answered. “The Emperor has yet to set a date, Gardener.”
I nodded once and left.
• • •
My nights became restless, and more often than not I started the mornings stiff, with sleep in my eyes. I became distracted, once almost losing an afternoon race to a swift political prisoner when a member of the court accidentally stepped in front of me as I ran through the garden.
To win I had to push my way through the hedge maze, something I hadn’t resorted to since I’d run against my father years ago. I beat the man to the platform, but my hands were slippery with my own blood, which made it difficult to keep a firm grasp on his neck. His was not an easy death.
Nothing had changed in my life and yet suddenly everything felt duller. Appearances in the Emperor’s court became more difficult to endure, and I grew less patient when, during conversations, people’s focus invariably drifted to the collar at my throat.
The only time my heart ever truly raced was when I ran, but even those moments seemed bare and ordinary.
I found that what I craved was to be caught off guard. I lived my life so rigidly that even the slightest deviation from course became a thrill.
And only one person had that ability: the condemned man in the cage.
More times than I cared to admit, I found my thoughts wandering to him, and any tether I was able to keep on myself during waking hours came loose the moment I fell into dreams.
When I slept his body prowled around me like the tiger I’d first imagined him to be, muscles long and languorous. He never touched me, not once, but that didn’t matter, as his eyes seemed to know everything and promise even more.
After one such torturous night I leapt from the bed at dawn and went straight into the dungeon to his cage.
“Tell me what you have done,” I demanded. “What brought you here?”
His body was sharper than it had been the first time I saw him, bones tight against the skin where before there had once been muscle. He moved slower, still with grace, but that of an aged cat rather than a prowling tom.
When he saw me he seemed genuinely surprised and pleased, his mouth tilting into a predatory smile. The expression couldn’t hide the gauntness of his cheeks; he was being starved and was growing weak.
My stomach clenched and I tightened my hands into fists. The Emperor was ensuring that Rete would have no chance against me in the race. He didn’t trust me to win on my own.
I inhaled a sharp breath and walked away. Rete called after me: “Wait! Wait!” his cries growing more desperate with distance.
The keeper didn’t even need to ask who I was talking about when I told him, “I will not race against him weakened like that. Feed him, and do it well. He comes to the marker at full strength or he doesn’t come at all. Understand?”
“But the Emperor dictated—”
“How many?” This cut him off. “How many have you starved before sending them to the garden?”
The keeper’s eyes glistened, his loyalties torn by fear. I leaned forward and placed my hands on the podium. “How fast can you run?”
He dropped his head. “He will be fed, Gardener. From now on, all of them will be.”
The next time I saw the condemned man his skin looked less like the ash of a broken fire. “You are being fed?” I asked, though the answer was clear by the satisfied swell of his stomach.
“Is it you I have to thank for that?” he asked.
I smiled. He had a maddening way of answering my questions with his own. Never had I been treated with such disrespect, especially not since binding the red leather collar around my throat.
“The Gardener requested that you be strong when it came your turn to race,” I told him.
He lifted a brow. “You said yourself I’ve no hope of winning against her.”
“You should at least be given the chance.” I realized, as the words slipped through my lips, that I’d spoken them gently, with a certain sort of yearning coating each syllable. Immediately the sheen of arrogance dropped from his expression.
He shifted to his knees, moving toward the front of the cage, where he curled his fingers around the bars. I stared at the half-moons of his nails and remembered how in my dreams I desired nothing more than for him to trail them along the deep curve in the small of my back.
“You would care if I won or lost?” he asked. His knuckles were white, his posture held rigid.
I nodded, feeling the stiff collar around my throat hindering the movement.
He still didn’t relax. “Which would you want more?”
Our eyes locked. I catalogued every speckle of brown scattered through the amber. His pupils flared wide, and this caused something warm to begin unspooling inside me.
“Your fate is not mine to decide,” I whispered. “That is for the Emperor.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It is for the Gardener.”
I swallowed, the collar around my throat feeling too tight. After my father first laced it on it took months for me to learn to live with the choking feel of it.
I had to figure out how to run all over again, taking shorter and shallower breaths. At night I’d wake up gasping, my lungs screaming for air. The stiff leather bit deeply into the skin along my chin and collarbone, chafing me raw until calluses formed.
The collar was more than just the symbol of the office, it was a reminder of the power we wielded. As we strangled, so were we strangled. Sometimes there were days I’d forget I was wearing it. Other times, like now, every breath was a struggle.
I stood close enough to the condemned man’s cage that he could reach his fingers through and twine them around my scarf. He tugged, pulling me even nearer, until only the width of the bars separated us.
My breathing was uneven, my heart racing as it never did in the gardens.
Slowly, Rete unwound the knots of my scarf. His fingers then fluttered over the buttons of my high-necked gown until he laid bare the red leather collar around my throat.
“Which will you choose for me, Gardener?” His words caressed me as his lips could not.
I felt a welling at the base of my throat. “Neither.” And then I added, foolishly, because I could think of no other way to keep him safe, “I’d keep you here.”
He laughed and pulled away from me so abruptly that it sent his cage swinging. It bumped against me, knocking me off balance and causing me to stumble.
“You would keep me trapped down in the dungeons like a pet, then?” he asked sharply. He crouched to his feet, hands tucked under his arms to make his elbows like wings. “Your pretty bird. I can sing if you’d like.” He began to belt out a raucous tune, off-key and loud.
I felt stupidly exposed with my scarf in a limp pile on the dirty floor and my dress unbuttoned and spread wide to show my collar and a stretch of skin beneath it. Other condemned began to join the song, their voices rising in a discordant cacophony.