There was no longer any room for question, no more defense — even in my own heart, twisted as it was. With that relentless, unbidden clarity that comes to a man at the very end of life, I could no longer believe my own trusty lies and excuses. Oh, certainly I had a story … one that explained, perhaps, but did not excuse. Hadn’t, my mother deserted me when I was small? And my father had been cruel and drunken, as quick to slap me as look at me. I had sought out companionship with the rough crowds early in life, happy for any mockery of a family I could find. They were the ones who taught me to steal. And they —

No, just explanations, not excuses.

If I could recognize my parents’ guilt, then I knew what right and wrong looked like, didn’t I?

I couldn’t deceive myself any better than I had the judge. I had believed my own lies most of my life, but it wasn’t working anymore … not here. Maybe some of the early, petty crimes were excusable. But I was a man of thirty, now. I was the one teaching the kids how to … do it all. And when we decided to rob the merchant, I had fought for the privilege of being the one.

Perhaps it really was his fault I shot him, his fault for pulling a knife on me, and shouting. He was going to bring the Guardsmen. But the damage was done. I could have run right then, instead of killing him first.
I hadn’t counted on that turn of events, and I wasn’t half so cunning as I had imagined myself. The sound of the pistol drew a crowd and the King’s Guardsmen were on me in an instant. You never know they’re around when you’re minding your own business. But if you’ve got evil on your mind — and I usually had, hadn’t I — it’s as if they know what you’re going to do before you do it. As if nothing’s hidden from their sight.

So why hadn’t they stopped me before? I had sensed them watching, even when I got away with my lesser crimes. I’d had a feeling. Why let me kill the merchant?

It was almost as though they were letting me condemn myself once and for all. And oh how I obliged. They took me with so little effort that it shamed me after all the boasts I’d made.

What if I lived in one of those other places I’d heard of, I wondered, where trials can drag on for years and men like me sometimes walk out free, smirking, and sometimes even innocent men are sent to the death-house? Maybe there I’d have a chance.

But it’s not like that in the Kingdom. That old saying, “Never an innocent imprisoned, never a guilty gone free” … it’s true, so far back as anyone can remember. My sentence was swift and (I knew it now) just.

But even in my death-house cell I hadn’t abandoned faith in myself. I was going to be that one, wasn’t I? The first ever to beat the King’s law — the one that got away.

And with no help from the “family.” They had dropped me like a piece of steaming crud the moment I got caught. Ha! They even stood there accusing me at my trial.

It didn’t matter though. I was smart and tough. I had bartered whatever I needed to for the parts, and put together my little pistol right there in the prison, right under their noses. And that very morning, just as they were leading me out to my execution, I made my move.

I closed my eyes, remembering.

It had gone so smoothly. The guard went down, and I was out the gates faster than even I could believe. I was the one that got away.

I almost laughed to think of it.

Then opening my eyes, I saw them there through the chink in the wall … saw their gleaming rifles. And the laugh turned to a gagging sob.

Look at me — the one who beat the King.

I wouldn’t have made it even as far as this if it hadn’t been for the old lady passing by. The Royal Guardsmen were on my heels and every ordinary citizen would recognize a dead-man’s tunic. But the Guardsmen backed off when I grabbed the frail old woman, pushing the gun up under her jaw. I held her so close when I dragged her around the corner I still remembered how she smelled. Like lilacs and fresh laundry.

She had shaken all over.

She couldn’t keep up, no matter how much I shouted at her. And anyhow, she had served her purpose by getting me around the corner into an alley, out of their sight; now she was slowing me down.

I was still holding her tight against me when I pulled the trigger.

I began to tremble as I thought of it now, my arms wrapped around me, around my filthy, stinking dead man’s tunic, the front all soaked with her blood. It had been sticky at first, clinging to me. Now it was hard and dry, a dark reddish-black.
I was shaking now, but not then. For that instant I’d been a god, the power of life and death all mine to wield. I had been the King himself!

And I had enjoyed it.

Shaking so hard I could no longer stand, I slid down against the wall until I was sitting in the dirt, staring at my bare feet.
I had left my floppy prison sandals beside her body in the alley so I could run faster. I had heard the boots of the Guardsmen in the street, closing in without hesitation after the sound of the shot, but with the lead I’d gained I was sure of my escape. Since they would be expecting me to keep to the shadows of the alley, I would fool them. A bold dash across a deserted clearing and I would duck inside the doorway of that old concrete shed and let them pass right by. Then I would double back.

I would be the one who got away.

But I was still here. And they never passed by.

My worst murder, I realized, wasn’t the merchant or even the old lady. It was my own disguise.

I saw now that I had always harbored a secret notion of my own decency buried deep inside. Whatever crimes I had committed had been justifiable. Justified by my past, by my lack, by my nature. “I’m not really an outlaw, you know. I simply reject the King’s laws, so I’ve written my own. In fact, I’m like the King that way … free to make up the laws I choose to follow.” Yes, I lived by my own law, freer and braver than ordinary men (whom I secretly despised).

How many times had I preached that sermon? I don’t know if the young ones really bought it, but I’d sold it to myself. I had woven those tissue paper lies into a fine, handsome-fitting garment. And now it had been torn from me as surely as the old woman had grasped my convict’s tunic, tearing at it as she died.

My limbs were growing numb again. Shaking, I rose and paced to warm myself, in a pattern I had been repeating for hours. That patch of spring sunlight streaming in through the open doorway looked so warm. But it was the one place I couldn’t go without stepping into their line of fire.

I stuck my hands under my arms to warm them and fought down the nausea. That wretched tunic! If I could only get it off! Its big black X splattered all over with that dark red stain looked like some kind of ugly art. Self-portrait, that’s what I’d call it. They should hang it up in a museum after I was gone so everyone could come and stare.

Finally I stopped and stood very still, studying the doorway, the only way out.

Now, I told myself. I’m going to do it now. Walk straight through that doorway, out into the light, and let them have me.

Now.

Alright.

Alright, now.

And, once again, the plain terror of death overwhelmed me. Again the spasms of fear and self-loathing, and I was back in the corner, pacing.

No, no, not the tears again! They would come in here and find me like this, crying like a … a …

Why couldn’t I at least die like a man?

If I was innocent, maybe I could. Then I would square my shoulders and look them in the eye.

And the strange fantasy came again.

I imagined myself a soldier of the King, pinned down by the enemy — an evil enemy. Perhaps they had tried to make me talk before I escaped, tried to make me betray the King, but I had stood fast. I’d done what was right. And now they had me
cornered in this shed. Then I could die like a man, walking out calm and brave, looking the enemy straight in the eye before they gunned me down.

I could almost make myself believe it.

Almost.

Only, I was the King’s enemy.

And they were going to gun me down barefoot in this filthy, stinking dead man’s tunic, with the tear-stained face of a coward.

Sobbing uncontrollably, I pressed my face against the concrete wall, trying to get control, hoping the Guardsmen couldn’t hear. I was utterly without hope.

“What are you doing here?”

The voice was right behind me, quiet and unhurried.

I whirled in terror, nearly losing my balance.

And there he was. Standing there in the shadows of the ruined shed, erect and still, as easy as if he were in his palace garden. I had never seen him in person before, but I had seen his image countless times on postage stamps and paintings and a thousand telecasts. Ambassador, Secretary of State, Chief of the Judiciary, Captain of the Guard … His Majesty, the Prince.

If I hadn’t known the King’s son by his face — and there was really nothing so remarkable about it, after all — his cloak would have told me in an instant who he was. It was the one he wore at every official function, but more magnificent than

the pictures could possibly convey. Whiter than anything I had ever seen (I couldn’t tell what it made of), it enveloped him, falling in heavy folds from his shoulders all the way to his feet. And its workmanship was breathtaking, woven throughout with intricate patterns of gold and purple threads and precious jewels. Even with my thief’s eye for valuables, I couldn’t begin to guess it’s worth.

His appearance was so sudden I forgot to raise my laughable little handgun to threaten him. It slipped from my fingers, landing with a soft thud on the dirt floor.

With my back flattened against the wall, I stared as at a phantom. How could he have come in without my hearing? Then I saw his bare feet, looking strange beneath that royal cloak. He must have come in softly while I had my face to the wall, choking on my own tears.

“What are you doing here?” he said again, as if it were a real question.

I was breathing hard, but thankfully the sobs were gone, shocked out of me.

For a moment we stood like that, me panting wildly, he waiting for an answer.

“I … I …”

Finally, I jerked my head toward the door where the Guardsmen waited. He had to know; he was their Captain. Maybe that was why he had come — to end it? Up close, where he could watch my fear. My eyes snapped to his hands. But they hung at his side, unarmed.

Why was he here? My head reeled with confusion and terror.

“What do you want?” he asked.

He looked me in the eye, but I couldn’t bear it and turned away.

“To live.” My whisper was so low I could barely hear it myself, and I was sure he couldn’t. So I was startled when he replied.

“You know that no murderer can live.” His voice was gentle, as though he were speaking comfort to a child. But the words were pure terror.

“Every crime must be punished,” he said. “There is no partiality with the King, no taking of bribes. We will not subvert the law, not even once, or justice would cease in the Kingdom. The penalty must be paid.” He nodded at my garment. “And anyone wearing a tunic so marked must die.”

Then he hesitated. “Unless, of course, that tunic is not your own.”

My eyes snapped back to his face with an electric surge of adrenaline. Could there be some doubt? Instantly, a story began forming in my mind: A man with a gun in the alleyway forced me, an innocent passerby, to exchange clothes. Frightened and confused I had fled at the sound of the Guardsmen ….

I opened my mouth. “The truth is …” I began, “… the truth is, I’m …”

I looked into his eyes. His gaze went right into me, like an act of violence. I dropped my head.

“I’m guilty.”

I could hardly believe my own ears, but there it was. I had spoken the words out loud, spoken the truth. Perhaps for the first time in my life.

“Yes,” he replied. “Of murder, and many other things.”

He studied me with his clear, untroubled eyes.

“So what would you have me do for you?”

I shook my head, gritting my teeth against another hot rush of tears, and succeeding just barely.
“Impossible.”

“Try me.” He said it like a royal command.

My head lolled against the wall. There was that little patch of sunlight at the door, mocking me.

“Make me innocent.”

Silence.

Then suddenly he stepped even closer.

As he moved, the hem of his cloak caught a stray shaft of sunlight filtering through a chink in the wall and flamed for an instant like sun off the blade of a polished sword.

“Will you trust me?”

I stared at him open-mouthed.

“There is a way,” he said. “But only if you trust me.”

What kind of trick was this? I dared to look him in the eye again, trying to guess what he was thinking. If there was one thing I could always spot, it was a con. After all, I’m a master. But I could find no trace of guile in those eyes.

“Impossible,” I whispered.

“The King is my father,” he said. “Everything is possible. Will you trust me?”

How could I trust the King’s son? I’d hated him and his father all my life.

And yet …. I nodded.

“Enough to follow me out that door?”

I glanced at the door, the hairs on the back of my arms bristling with fear. Then I looked back to his steady gaze.

“Yes.”
He nodded. “Take off your tunic.”

I blinked in surprise at this unexpected command.

“Take it off,” he said again.

Maybe it was the authority in his voice, or maybe I was just so anxious to be rid of it; before I could think, I was pulling it over my head, throwing it to the ground. I stood there before the Prince, no more ashamed in my nakedness than I had been in that bloody shame-drenched rag.

But what was this, what was he doing?

Calmly, the Prince undid the jeweled clasps that secured his cloak and slipped it from his shoulders. He held it out to me.

“Put it on,” he said. And there the Prince stood before me, no less regal in his nakedness than he had been in his royal garment.

I gaped, speechless. The Prince gestured again, and in a kind of terror and awe I reached out and took the cloak. He helped me on with it as if he were my butler, and my face burned with shame.

The Prince was taller than I (or perhaps just straighter) so the cloak hung loose and long about my ankles, but it didn’t slip off. In fact, as he secured the clasps, it seemed to fit better and better. To my surprise, I also discovered that it felt light as air. Looking down, I understood; throughout the shimmering fabric there were countless small holes carefully placed among the jewels to form part of the pattern itself, and they made the whole thick cloak feel cool and nearly weightless.

Most of all, it was clean … cleaner than anything I had worn in all my miserable life. Cleaner than my own skin.

But when I saw what the Prince did next, a new horror seized me.

Stooping, he plucked my filthy, ragged tunic from the dust and slipped it over his head. It clung obscenely to his body, barely reaching his knees. The black splash of blood across the front was even larger and more hideous than I had realized

when I wore it myself. And I was suddenly aware of the stench of the thing. It reeked of fear and gore and death. I gagged.
“Please … don’t!” I protested, turning my face away.

“It’s necessary,” said the Prince. He put his hand on my arm, turning me back to face him. I found him looking at me with a calm regard, at once tender and regal, with something of sadness mingled in. “Now, you must listen to me and do exactly as I say. I’ll go first. You follow me, and don’t be afraid. When it is over, go directly to the Palace. My servants will recognize my cloak and let you in.”

He turned his face to the sunlit doorway and I thought I saw a small shudder run through his strong body. But when he turned back to me his face was set and placid.

Trembling, I threw my self at his feet.

“Please … I don’t understand any of this. But don’t make me leave you. I’m not even sure where I am, or how to get to the Palace from here.”

But the Prince fixed me with a gaze that, though it seemed a little pained, invited no argument. A touch of his hand on my arm bid me rise.

“You can’t come with me now. Not for the moment. But don’t worry, I’ll come for you. Only trust me. You know the way.”

As he took a step toward the doorway I dared to touch his shoulder.