How could I convince them?

They sentenced me to public execution the same evening, which attracted a huge crowd. Even the king was in attendance, although I couldn’t quite see him from my place.

“…as is tradition, you might have a last word,” said the executioner.

“If I may.” I stepped to the edge of the gallows to address the crowd.

I cleared my throat, trying to recall the exact words that Max had written. I used my loud voice. 

“Friends, yeomen, countrymen, lend me your ears.

“The evil men live after us, the good ones are oft interrogated to the bones.

“So let it be with me. I’m cursed to speak the truth, so listen well.

“I was accused of three things, which I did do. I don’t come asking for forgiveness, I do not. But what I ask of you is this: who made this king a king?

“He isn’t taller than any of you, and neither is he nobler. He made the laws that see all crime as one, be it an apple theft or a murder.

“On his orders, the history books were falsified. Ask any dwarf who lived to see it happen—he’ll tell you if he trusts you not to rat him out.

“The system is unjust. But what I hear you mumble, ‘What can I do when I am but a man?’—you all are honorable men. There is a lot of you, it’s he who is but one. There is another man I know, who goes by the name of Max. He dreams of days when peasants, craftsmen, merchants wouldn’t know the king’s name.

“Because there’d be no king.

“I’m sure that some of you have heard of him. I can’t tell lies: there is a lot of you.

“He’s but a man. But then again, so is the king.

“With that, I’m satisfied. Do as you will.”

The executioner kicked the small stool from under me and I hung there, legs dangling.

I pushed the panic down, and summoned Harl, catching him before he fell. I held him up, and he understood what he had to do: he bit the rope that held me. We fell to the stage.

“What!” shouted the executioner.

Meanwhile, the crowd was ablaze. The torches were lit, and the mass of people was moving toward me. Toward the castle, to be more precise.

Max was very effective at organizing, it seemed.

I hugged Harl. “You did well.”

The executioner grabbed his dagger. “I ought to do my job.”

Some people take the fact that they’re doing their job and turn it into a moral obligation to do the job, or to see the job to its end. But some philosophers argue that you can’t get to the “ought” from “is,” or, in other words, you shouldn’t do things only because they were always done this way. Maybe that’s not what they meant exactly, but that was good enough of a justification for me to defect from my job as the hangman. I ducked.

I needed to find Dolly and Max, so I jumped down from the gallows and ran from the square, which was tough because there was a lot of people there. They all walked in the other direction.

The sound of the crowd was loud and scary, and it took a lot of pushing the panic down to not sit down and cry. In a sense, I was grateful to that square in Sheidy—it prepared me for that, if only a little.

I found Turner at the corner, he led me to a roof. Max watched the crowd with glee. “You did it, Alice!”

“I don’t think I did. That was your words.”

“If words could do such things,” he chuckled.

“So what’s the plan? I need to find Dolly.”

“Yes,” he became serious. “I searched for her too. Apparently, the nobles aren’t kin on anything public, including public executions.”

“They want private executions?”

“What? No! They slapped a fine on her and let her be. After all, they got you—or so RIP thought. Her father took her.”

That might be even worse than execution for her, I thought.

I saw smoke in the distance. “Is that the castle?”

“Oh, what a terrible coincidence—the guards there are woefully underarmed. And what arms they do have are of terrible quality.”

“Huh,” I said. “The smiths are peculiar people. Well, I have to find Dolly—can I entrust all this to you?”

He grinned, which I took for a yes.

“La Enrouette have a residence in the capital,” he added. “A few blocks from here, in fact.”

I tried to remember the directions he told me and ran down the stairs, through the crowds, through the backstreets. Harl followed me as fast as he could.