Martha. She had laughed when he asked her name as they had walked through St. Giles, and said that he could call her anything he pleased. But he had wanted her name and so she gave it. Of course, he had known it before he asked, known she was the one, carefully chosen and watched for two days before he approached her. Luck had set her in his path, but if it had not, he would have found her nonetheless because of who she was and what her death would mean. He used her name now, calling out a singsong greeting as he let himself into the empty warehouse by the river and listened for the faint, frightened whimper that told him she had heard. Dust stirred as he walked briskly to the back of the building, to the room beneath the teetering, rotted stairs. He dragged open the door, paused to turn up the lamp, and savored the sight before him. She lay on the makeshift table—a plank stretched over two wooden kegs—tracking him with wild, desperate eyes. She was clad only in her thin shift, so much of her skin bare to his touch and the kiss of his blade.
