And then he looked straight at her, and the shock of it was a physical blow. This was Ann, all right. Even after all the years there was no doubt about it. She was as tall as he remembered her, and there was the same softness and warmth in the curve of her sun-brown shoulders. He suddenly felt the old ache for her. She held a velvet robe around her shoulders, but she held it loosely, disdainfully. Under it, she was already dressed in the translucent death gown. Her thick, blond hair, much longer than the fashion of the day, fell nearly to her shoulders. On her feet were the silver sandals she would later remove, along with the velvet robe, just before stepping up on the pedestal in the execution circle. The two jailers, each in skull cap and long black sleeveless robe, led her to the prisoner's bench below the dais where the judges would sit. The sight of her was a torment to Jacques, the ripping open of an old scar. He knew that in a moment their eyes would meet, but there was not enough strength in the corded muscles of his neck to turn his face away. Time had been kind to her, Jacques thought in one corner of his numbed brain. There were signs of its passing, around her mouth and her eyes, but it had given her what youth could not. There was a knowing in the curve of her lips, and he wondered what her eyes would tell him now. But she glanced first, with some amusement, at the two jailers, who held their crooked staffs at the alert position. Next, her eyes contemptuously swept the semi-circle of empty judicial chairs. They passed by the Bailiff so quickly that he looked cheated, and then they stopped full on Jacques. He read in their calm appraisal the knowledge that she had expected him to be here, and that she was not surprised at what the years had done to him. Perhaps she had seen his pictures in the faxpapers, or even watched some of his executions. But he wanted to know more than this, and he tried to look deeper into the light and shadows of her eyes. It was still there, he discovered, feeling a selfish sense of pleasure that she had not found what he hadn't been able to give her. The endless seeking, the search for something never put into words, the want unfulfilled--all this was still there. He knew that she was reading him in the same way, but he could not tell what she found. Finally, it was she who looked away first, not in retreat, rather to appraise him thoughtfully. He felt her eyes on the knotted muscles of his cheeks, on his arms, on the whitened knuckles of his scarred hands, on his boots, now grey with dust from the walk across the arena. When her eyes came back to his, her unpainted lips parted in a faint smile.