Quite willingly. For good measure, she took off all her clothes, wondering if she shouldn’t have done something more to prepare her body for this. “It was rather short notice, after all”, she mused.
Ordinarily, the piper piped from the top of the hill and the bravest of the warriors, or maybe just the chief, would slice the throat until all life pulsed out and then marble would stain red with blood, which took many rains to fade. It did not happen often, or perhaps it happened too often, no one agreed.
This time, however, there was no music. Instead everyone took a stone, the largest they could carry – child, woman, man – everyone coming again and again with cool, hard stones, and they lay them on her body, covering skin and hair and flesh with stone. They buried her there under rock and stone until she could not be seen under the great, grey mound. Then they all walked away and left her there.
It was easier that way.
