13

I walked with Charles a few mornings after her murder. He had been instated in Otieno's place and had made it a habit to talk with me. "You are not bound to Otieno, you know. You can leave on the next ship with my men and go to which ever city you like. Or stay here if you choose as a free man."

"Thank you, my noble lord." I looked around the island and its bright beauty.

"I would not be too upset if you stayed." Charles offered to me.

I smiled. "I shall have to consider it, my lord."

He nodded. "Tragic day. Two murders in the same week... They're hanging the groundskeeper today."

"Oh." I shook my head. "Most monstrous deed he did... Will Otieno be hanged?"

"No. Imprisoned for the rest of his life." Charles replied. "He's of noble birth."

"Oh." I answered. "I... if it's not to much to ask. May I visit him?"

"It won't hurt anyone." Charles nodded sadly.

*

The chains about his ankles clattered as he shifted and looked up at me. He waved the guards way as if he still had some control over them and I smiled and bid them to let me speak to him alone.

I had waited for the moment so long I didn't know how to begin it. He began it for me. "What have you come for? Leave and never return."

"I shall... in a moment." I replied and went to the edge of his cell to lean on the door. "Why do you think I came here?"

"I don't know. To comfort, maybe." He said into his hands as if it were the obvious. "I need no comfort. What I did was just."

"Was it then?" I replied, grimly.

Otieno looked up with genuine surprise and studied me a moment. "You know it was."

"I know it wasn't." I replied, leaning against the wall. I could not smile...not the proper happy sort anyway. "I know that she loved you... almost as much as I hate you."

His eyes widened a moment, a flare of sudden overwhelming emotion to which he could only stutter. "Hate...me?"

"Yes. Hate you. With all my heart, soul, mind, and wit." I flexed my scarred hands before his cells. "Not to mention my hands? Do you know where those scars are from, my lord? They date back into your military days."

He squinted at me as if seeing me for the first time. "I don't understand... you... she was loyal?"

"As loyal as the truest wife." I replied, sickened yet elated by the warping pain that quickened his breath. "And twice as loving."

I pushed away from the wall. "I see, sir, that you are speechless. So let me bid you my last farewell before you regain your voice and leave you with a present."

He gasped for breath his mind shattered to the far corners of the earth. I remembered the sensation and meant to bear him through it... bear him through it to the moment of sheer agony and torture I lived with every day. From my satchel I drew a picture I had painted, as many months in the making as this murderous plot. I hung Dianna's perfect portrait on the wall facing him and he let out a mournful cry. "Oh Dianna... sweet Dianna..."

I nodded. "I said something to that token once...long ago, on a beach to far for a slave to have traveled..."

"What have I ever done to you to deserve this hatred, putrid villain!" He glared at me and raged to the edge of his cage.

I hissed at him and held the bars same as him. "I have a picture like that too, Otieno. This is my justice!"

His eyes cleared a moment and he staggered back. "Death and damnation."

"You know nothing of death." I answered to him. "But maybe in here you will learn something of damnation. God knows I walk with it every day."

"You are a demon..." He groaned in agony.

I shook my head. "I'm a man."

He gave a fierce roar and suddenly charge the cell. "Then, I can kill you!"

A dagger cut my side, not more than a flesh wound for I stepped back. I laughed at him. "I bleed, but you killed me long along, good master."

"Demi-devil!" He shouted and gripped the bars of his prison as if to tear them loose.

I smiled at him, almost sickened by the wicked joy that crashed over me like the waves crashing against the breakers. I heard the guards pattering down the stairs at top speed. I put on my last face and stood with fear against the farthest wall from my tormentor. "Good master, please... Come to your good senses..."

"Evil!" He roared, driven to madness by the compassion he was at last seeing for what it was, an empty act of hatred. "Evil crippled bastard! Satan!"

Charles came with the two soldiers and I only returned their gazes with shock and horror. "I...I don't know what's happened... I only meant to speak comfort to him..."

"Liar! Villain!" He made a garbled sound of hate filling the caverns with the echoing sound. "There are not the words to describe your treachery!"

I let my eyes shine with tears and dropped my head to my chest. Charles retaliated against the haggard prisoner. "You are wrong, Otieno. This is perhaps your most noble servant."

Otieno calmed on the instant. "Noble? That thing. He's as twisted as his body... He's a vindictive spiteful hateful thing from the islands in the Parisian sea. An insurrectionist!"

"I was once in those islands." I looked at Charles then turned my eyes to Otieno with a glare. "But I was an art student and I don't ever remember seeing my good master."

"Wretched hypocritical creature!" Otieno raged all the more for the truthful remark.

I sighed and shook my head sadly."I...I'm sorry, good sirs... I must leave. I can't bear to see him like this."

Charles gave a gesture and the soldiers escorted me from the place.

"Charles..." Otieno reached out a hand to him, suddenly desperately quiet and pleading with the man. "Were you and my wife... ever lovers?"

"What? Never." Charles jolted back in surprise. He glanced down and shook his head."It must be insanity that leads him to this."

Unable to formulate his hatred his gave a roaring cry to the darkness. That was the most beautiful sound I had ever created.

*

Charles sighed to me sadly when we emerged from the darkness below. "This is a sad day surely."

I nodded, much aggrieved.

We walked into the main courtyard where the first gallows had been constructed on the pristine island. I looked up at the groundskeeper as he was carried to the platform where he was to be dropped. He had struggled so much they bound him hand and foot, crippling his efforts to escape.

He growled at the executioner just before the platform slipped out from under him. "She deserved what she got... I don't regret a damned thing."

A redness covered the earth and ocean that day. So the golden sun brightened the sky and stained the trees and ocean ruddy pink. It was not a shameful blush. Nor a rosy sickness. Merely the last discomfort upon the rocky scarred earth. The groundskeeper looked more like a black shadow swinging in the redness of the morning than a man who had met his death. It was quite surreal.

*

After that bloody morning, I decided... well, that's not really important to the story either, is it? This story is over and I can't think of a better way to end it. Conscience, I may not have told you all you meant to learn by this. Perhaps I have your loathing and you think me a heartless deceiver. You may be right. Perhaps I've garnered your sympathies and to you I am a tragic hero. You may also be right. But whatever may be said of me and I won't correct you either way... I've told you enough. And I won't trouble you with my meditations anymore.