A Place of Greater Safety

by Hilary Mantel

freedom and illusion, and then there is the real world, in which we watch, year by year, the people we love hammer on their chains. Rising from the floor, she feels the fetters bite into her flesh. I’m bound to you, she thinks: bound to you.

“Oh no, no. He is fond of reasoning, and we don’t want people who reason. No, I’m afraid we’ll have to go ahead with a jury of seven. Oh well, they’re hardly in a position to argue. You see, I’ve been talking as if there were some sort of contest. But we aren’t, here, playing any game we can lose. See you in court at eleven o’clock.”

Committee of Public Safety dance before his lids. It is fifteen minutes