Jacques only scowled in reply, but he knew that _this_ rumor, at least, was true. The last woman had been back in the Fifth Judicial District. A flint-faced murderess with the shoulders of a man. But the horror of firing the coup du mort into her naked, contorted body still came back to haunt his dreams. For weeks afterwards he hadn't been able to touch the women who came so eagerly to his tent during the wild execution night Festivals. The Bailiff's coarse voice continued to prod at him: "I'm sure you'll remember this one, once you see her! I've just come from watching her being dressed for Court!" The Bailiff's bloodshot right eye winked suggestively. "My duty, y'know, to protect their Judicial Highnesses by checking for concealed weapons." "Get out of here!" The Bailiff fell back a step, but continued talking. "I'd say she's your type all right--full of fire! Too bad you have to kill her instead of...." Jacques ripped the white tunic from his squire's trembling hands and hurled it into the Bailiff's face. Guy de Archambault waddled back out of danger, then finding that he was not followed, poked his head around the edge of the door. "Prithee, Sir Jacques, have ye any message for their Judicial Highnesses?" "Yes, damn you! Tell them to get someone else for this infernal execution--and be quick about it!" With a gleeful chuckle, the Bailiff disappeared again. The little squire picked up the white tunic and brushed it off dejectedly. If he missed this opportunity to serve as squire to the Lord High Executioner, his name would rotate to the bottom of the list and he might not have a chance to serve again before it was time to make up new lists. Jacques strode to the window. Lady Ann of Coberly. The name could mean anything or nothing, according to the whimsy of the lower courts. Lady Ann.... Ann! But it couldn't be her--Or could it? Jacques looked far down the years to a youngster just out of training, eager to prove himself in the execution arena. There had been an Ann then, and she had left one morning taking a young man's heart with her, leaving behind only the unfathomable look of reproach and disappointment that he had come since to know so well. But it couldn't be that Ann! He tried to create the image of her face, but saw only the acres of spectator tents, their bright pennants snapping in the wind, and the open squares teeming with spectacular costumes copied from medieval history books by an atomic age which found in the pageantry of execution-day its one escape from safe, sanitized, prescribed living. The Arthurian song of a strolling minstrel drifted up to him.... "To the fairest of all maidens, To Argante, the Queen, most beauteous elf, She will make my wounds all sound, And with a healing draught make me full well...."