The blond haired woman sat. This, however, was nothing new, as she had been sitting in pretty much the same position for the last four days and looked like she would continue doing so until someone intervened, which they were likely to do sooner or later.

Sooner, rather then later, really, as her execution was scheduled for tomorrow at noon.


A spider crawled across her knee, and though the woman's tired eyes followed it's progress, she made no move to brush it off.

Instead, she kept perfectly still, more out of habit then anything else, really, and the spider, unaware that she was alive, started to spin a web between her knee and the wall.


The woman's mind was, for the most part, about as active as her body. She has stopped thinking for the exact same reason as she had stopped moving for: there was nothing to be done. Nothing left to think about. Everything that could be done, had been done, and thinking about it, or raging and gnashing her teeth or throwing things at the walls wasn't about to change that. Treasure her last moments? What for? Her last moments were taking place in a prison. What was there to treasure about that?

For her first few days of imprisonment, she had raged and thrown things, but that was futile, so she had given it up. Instead, then, she paced. Paced and thought. Tried to figure out exactly where she went wrong.

And after a while, she realized that that would do nothing for her either. So she sat down on the bench and went blank.

The guards had worried, at first - what was she scheming at? - but then she didn't move and didn't move, so they relaxed. She was looking gaunt. Months of near-starvation were not standing her in good stead now, and she, who had always been skinny, was now nearly a skeleton.

Since she had been sentenced ten days ago, several people had been in to visit her. At first, she had screamed at them, but now she just sat and looked blank, as her lover, her daughter or her closest - now only - friend talked with false cheerfulness about the weather or the harvest.

No-one from her husband's family came to see her, but that was to be expected. In fact, if she had been up to thinking, she would have been surprised that her daughter managed to get away from them for a visit.


The sun had set and the changing guards saw something they hadn't expected to see: the woman stiffly stood up from her sitting position, came to the bars and in a cracked, almost nonexistent voice, asked quietly for some dinner.

A plate of stew and a mug of milk was brought to her, but, even though she must have been starving, she shook her head and pushed it away.

"I don't eat meat," she said dully, and the plate was taken away, replaced by some wilted lettuce and dry bread.

This, she tore into, hardly stopping to chew or breathe.

When she was finished, she begged a comb and some water from the nearest guard, who brought them to her with a resentful air.

"Thank you," she whispered.

In reply, he spat.


When she sun rose the next morning, the woman was clean and tidy. Her hair was washed and neatly coifed and her clothes brushed out as well as possible. She sat down on her bench and waited, listening to the sounds of people getting up, going about their business. This, this would be the last time she would hear the laughter of children playing, the buzz of adults talking.

Somehow, though she knew this, she found it hard to care.


Ten to noon, and the guards came to get her. Roughly pulling her to her feet, they dragged her out of her prison, to the town square and the gallows. They weren't above making jests and cursing at her, and she pretended not to notice.

Led up the steps to the gallows, she continued to pretend not to notice things. She pretended not to notice the happy, almost festive-like air everyone had. She pretended not to notice the women who jeered when they saw her. She pretended not to notice just how large the turn-out was.

For almost the whole town had come to see the death of one of their own, found guilty of murder, and finally caught after all these months.

One thing, however, that she couldn't not notice was her mother-in-law, holding her little son, Gregory in her arms. Gregory was laughing, looked so excited. Did he even know his mother was going to die today? His eyes swept the crowd, and as they tightened the noose around her neck, she waited for his look of recognition. There was none.

And then the ground dropped out from under her.

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