His words fumbled to a halt as he realized exactly how wrong it was for me to be standing in my cabin.

“Hang today,” I finished the sentence for him. “Yes. A lot of people thought that.”

He stared at me, puzzled, but continued to sit in the bed. I decided he was no threat to me. We’d been friends for most of a year before everything went wrong. I hoped he would not judge it his duty to interfere with my escape. Casually, I walked past him to the shelf where I’d kept my personal possessions. As Spink had promised, my soldier-son journal was gone. A wave of relief washed through me. Epiny and Spink would know best how to dispose of those incriminating and accusatory pages. I felt along the shelf to be sure that no letter or scrap of paper had been missed. No. But my sling was there, the leather straps wrapped around the cup. I put it in my pocket. It might be useful.

The disreputable long gun I’d been issued when I first arrived at Gettys still rested on its rack. The rattly weapon with the pitted barrel had never been reliable. Even if it had been sound, it would soon have been useless when I’d expended the small supply of powder and ball I had. Leave it. But my sword was another matter. The sheathed blade still hung from its hook. I was reaching for it when Kesey demanded, “What happened?”

“It’s a long story. Are you sure you want to know?”

“Well, of course I do! I thought you were going to be lashed to pieces and then hanged today!”

I found myself grinning. “And you couldn’t even get out of bed to come to my hanging. A fine friend you are!”

He smiled back uncertainly. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but I welcomed it. “I didn’t want to see it, Nevare. Couldn’t face it. Bad enough that the new commander ordered me to live out here and keep an eye on the cemetery because you were in prison. Worse to watch a friend die, and know that I’d probably meet my own end out here. Every cemetery sentry we’ve ever had has met a bad end. But how’d you get out of it? I don’t understand.”