Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “My friend has a fruit stand, and sometimes he gives me what he hasn’t sold at the end of the day.” Graegor watched him reach into the sack hanging from his shoulder and pull out another apple. “Here. You’re still growing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Graegor ate both apples, all but the seeds and the stems and very toughest parts of the cores, and it was amazing how much better he felt. He wasn’t even tired anymore. He’d never thought twice about apples before, but apparently they were some sort of miracle food. The idea of a miracle made him realize that he hadn’t recited his meat-thanks before eating, and since the apples were all the meal he was likely to get for some time, he belatedly traced the Godcircle.

  All right, he told himself once he had finished the prayer. It’s night now. A night, a day, another night, then they’ll let me out.

  It could be worse.

  Of course it could also be a lot better. God, seven silver ounces! And still two months until the horse fair.

  It was so dark in here. He’d always been able to see pretty well in the dark, but here he could see absolutely nothing.

  Nothing to see. Nothing even to hear. He listened to the silence for a long, unnerving moment before another prisoner broke it with a cough. No noise came from the street above—no voices, no traffic, no chapel bells, nothing.

  Nothing to see. Nothing to hear. Only the thoughts in his head, swirling in circles like the leaves swept off the street by fall breezes.

  Nothing to see. Nothing to hear.

  And then, when his eyes had just fluttered closed, approaching footsteps brought him back. He blinked rapidly as the jailer brought the lantern close to the lock and fiddled with the ring of keys. “Wake up,” he said, sounding like he himself just had. “Your father’s here.”

  Graegor gaped at him. Was he dreaming? “My father is here?”

  “Yep. He said he’d make sure you didn’t get into any more trouble, so I figured I could let you go.” He tried different keys in the lock.

  “Leave me here.”

  The light showed the jailer’s raised eyebrow. “You want to stay?”

  “The magistrate said two nights in jail, so I’m spending two nights in jail.”

  The jailer looked at him for another moment. “Lad ...”

  “I’m staying.”

  The jailer shrugged, let the keys fall back among the others on the ring at his belt, and took the lantern back up the stairs.

  Graegor let out his breath and ran his fingers back through his hair. He had thought himself safe. He’d stayed out of Johanns’ neighborhood, and had largely avoided the marketplace and the bridge gate for the entire month of Ebrul, specifically to avoid his father. He hadn’t considered that his father would stay beyond his usual week or two in Farre, and he really hadn’t considered that by fighting in the street he would make himself conspicuous enough to be talked about.

  He started to stand up, but instead leaned back against the wall, resting his arms on his bent knees in as casual a posture as he could manage in these circumstances, for he was sure that his father wouldn’t take the jailer’s word as final.

  A few moments later the lantern’s light bobbed back down the stairs. “Right there,” the jailer said, and the lean shape of Graegor’s father stepped around him and into the light pooling at the bars of the cell door. Graegor studied the black ceiling.

  His father said, “Your mother is very worried about you.” He said it like he said almost everything, emotionlessly, like he was reading off a thermometer.

  “You can tell her I’m fine.”

  “I’d rather she saw that for herself.”

  “She’ll have to trust you.”

  A small silence. His father asked, “What happened?”

  “Ask the magistrate.”

  This time the pause was longer, but the words when they came were as careful and controlled as ever. “I know I went wrong with you somewhere, but I can’t believe that you’ve turned into a common thug.”

  “I can’t help what you believe.”

  His father sighed. “Graegor, get up.”

  “No.”

  “You’d rather stay in jail?”

  “I’d rather rot here than live under your roof.”

  That sparked something. “My roof? My roof? If you weren’t such a—” He broke off the name he was about to apply, but Graegor finished it for him: “Thug?”

  “Um ...” the jailer said, and the light wobbled as he shifted his feet.

  “Would you just open this—” Graegor’s father slammed the heel of his hand against the lock panel, and a bass tone rang through the cell block, loud and trembling. He quickly subdued his voice into a growl: “—so we can go.”

  “Leave it,” Graegor told the jailer. “The magistrate sentenced me to two nights in jail. You don’t want to cross him, do you?”

  Then his father said, “He is not of age. Wake who you need to, but—”

  “How dare you!” Graegor leaped to his feet and to the door, his fists seizing hold of the iron bars, and both his father and the jailer recoiled from him. “I’m fifteen years old! I’m older than you were when you left—I’ve been taking care of myself for months! How dare you walk in here and lie!”

  But his father steadily returned his eyes to the jailer. “I am his father. You must let me take him home, or at least—”

  “I have no home!” Graegor shouted.

  His father turned and snapped, “If you insist on staying here, I can at least ask Johanns to get you a job and keep you off the streets!”

  “I don’t need your help,” Graegor told him through clenched teeth. “Just leave me the hell alone.”

  “Do not swear at me!”

  “Fuck you!”

  Silence, suspended like a drop of rain at the tip of a branch. The iron dug cold pain into Graegor’s clenching hands, and the whirling in his head was like the dark purple clouds in a thunderstorm. Fury contorted his father’s face in the dim light, and Graegor was sure that this time, this time, he would get a fist right in the teeth. He waited for it—

  But then, as always, his father mastered himself—relaxing his jaw, carefully stepping back from the bars of the cell. The jailer stood watching, the lantern rocking very slightly in his hand, and their shadows wavered against the walls.

  Finally his father said, “For your mother’s sake I hope you grow up.”

  “For my mother’s sake I hope you don’t drive Audrey away too.”

  A sharp intake of breath, another straining silence, and then his father turned on his heel and went back up the stairs. The jailer glanced at Graegor, then followed, and it was dark again.

  Graegor sat back against the wall and rubbed his upper arms, hard, to keep them warm. He savagely wiped his eyes on his sleeve and took long, deep breaths. He didn’t care what the other prisoners had heard. The day after tomorrow he would get his quarterstaff back and he would find work and everything would be fine.

  He wiped his eyes again, and bit the underside of his lip until he tasted blood.

  No sleep came after that. One of the other prisoners started moaning and calling for the jailer, over and over and over. Graegor wished the whiny voice would just stop, and at that moment the man started coughing hard. Once he was done, he became as silent as the rest of them, other than the one who had started snoring—raspy, arrhythmic snores that couldn’t possibly be healthy.

  After delaying as long as he could, Graegor had to use the privy, and he shuffled his feet around the perimeter of the cell until his boot hit the slab of wood covering the hole. Despite what the jailer had said, it smelled horrible, ten times worse than any latrine Graegor had ever known. He only just managed to not puke up the apples. Afterward he paced the cell, two steps one way, two steps the other.

  Was the blackness greyer? Was it morning?—Graegor suddenly realized that it was Godsday morning. Earthsday at Rooster’s, Firesday the fight, Godsday now.

&n
bsp; When was the last time he hadn’t gone to chapel on Godsday evening? Had he ever not?—Not going had not been an option back home. And once in Farre, he’d kept going because it hadn’t felt right otherwise.

  He’d heard that in Chrenste and other east coast cities, they didn’t keep the petty criminals in jail over Godsday, specifically so that they could go to chapel and mend their ways. But there was no such tradition here. The duke probably had a cynical view of the likelihood of the criminals going to chapel, or mending their ways.

  So he’d sit here all day Godsday, even through the week’s extra hour when everyone was supposed to be at chapel. But then on Sunsday, he’d find another job. In two weeks it would be Solstice, the first day of the month of Sheul, the longest day of the year. The Khenroxan horse fair was in Goctost, the hottest month of the year. It would be nice if whatever job he found would last all the way from now until then, but he wasn’t counting on it.

  He stopped pacing to check the wallet strapped to his shin, with all his remaining money. He thought about opening it and counting the coins by feel, but decided not to risk dropping any in the dark. Besides, he knew exactly how much he had. Five silver ounces, ten silver pennies, six nickel ounces, eight copper pennies. Five silver ounces, ten silver pennies, six nickel ounces, eight copper pennies.

  The glow of the jailer’s lantern was a shock, and for a strangled second Graegor thought his father had come back. But the jailer walked right by his cell without speaking, and his keys jangled against the lock plate of another cell as he let a prisoner out. The prisoner muttered something to the jailer, who seemed to disagree, and the prisoner—former prisoner—muttered something else as they walked back through the cell block to the stairs. The light retreated up, up, up, and vanished again.

  He tried to sleep. He couldn’t sleep.

  It was definitely lighter, but still just grey, with no colors. He could make out the iron bars on his cell door, and his hand when he held it in front of his face.

  He thought he heard bells ringing, but he couldn’t be sure. He’d never gotten used to the deep, iron tones of Farre’s bells, after the higher pitch of those from the chapel back home. Someone had told him that all the bells in Farre had been cast by the same bellmaker shop for the past three hundred years. Now that would be a good living—guaranteed work for the rest of one’s life. Too bad he had no more talent at metalworking than he did at woodworking.

  The same prisoner as before started yelling for the jailer again. Again Graegor wished he would stop. Again the fellow obliged by coughing hard and falling silent.

  Graegor slowly paced the perimeter of his cell, two steps along each of the four walls. He started to count his paces. He had almost reached five thousand, and was wondering why his legs weren’t tired, when the jailer came down with his blinding lantern and a bag of pears. He gave Graegor three. Graegor wondered where the fruit had come from, since the market wasn’t open on Godsday, and the jailer’s friend would not have unsold leavings to give to the jailer.

  Who cares? The truth was that he didn’t, but there was absolutely nothing else to do except wonder about pointless things. Like if he could have convinced Jolie to come with him. Like if he could have convinced Jarl to keep him as his apprentice.

  He tried to sleep. He couldn’t sleep.

  He used the privy hole again. The stench when he lifted the cover went far beyond what a man could be expected to tolerate, and it was even harder this time to keep his food down.

  Godsday. It was Godsday. Afternoon? It had to be afternoon, had to at least be afternoon, if not edging into evening. In the morning it would be Sunsday and they’d let him out and he’d find another job. If not Sunsday, then Mansday. Or Tearsday. Windsday. Earthsday ... suddenly he realized he was humming the days of the week song, and he stopped.

  How could anyone stay down here for more than a day without going insane? How long had the other prisoners been in here? How did they spend the time?

  Snoring intruded on his consciousness. Oh, yes. They sleep. Which you can’t do anymore for some reason.

  Breon’s blood! Why couldn’t he just go to sleep? What was wrong with him? He’d never had trouble sleeping before arriving in Farre. Farre was noisy, to be sure, but then he’d never had trouble sleeping when he was visiting Johanns’ house with his father. Why? Was it because he’d felt safe there, but now he didn’t? Was that why he absolutely could not get to sleep here, in jail, because it was the least safe place he’d ever been?—Except jail was safe, actually. Who or what could attack him here? He was likely safer here than he’d been at Rooster’s, and last Windsday night, he had slept like a rock.

  His father didn’t sleep much. He frequently got up in the middle of the night and spent hours in the workroom carving facings for drawers. Graegor now wondered if his father had started having trouble with sleeplessness when he’d left home. Maybe he’d never slept well even before that, fear of his own father keeping him always on edge. Or maybe the men in their family just didn’t sleep well.

  He’d never know.

  He got up and paced around the cell again, trailing his hand along the walls. One thousand paces. Two thousand. He was a mountain-lion stalking a fenceline, a dog chained to a post. He was a hooded and jessied falcon, straining to fly. His father knew it and had tried too hard to control it. His mother knew it but kept trying to deny it. Jarl knew it, had torn up his apprenticeship contract because he’d sensed this wildness beneath the surface and hadn’t wanted it under his roof. Jolie—

  He couldn’t think about Jolie. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

  Three thousand paces.

  Was it night?

  Four thousand. Five thousand.

  Not too much longer. He’d either exhaust himself or pace all through the night until morning. If it was night. What if it wasn’t? What if he couldn’t see anything because he’d gradually gone blind? What if it was still Godsday morning? No, it couldn’t be. He was hungry again, so it had to be afternoon at least. Was he supposed to bribe the jailer to get more food? It irritated him that this was the first he had thought of that.

  Six thousand.

  Seven thousand.

  Not too much longer.

  Eight thousand.

  And suddenly, not longer at all. The jailer was there again, with the lantern bright as the sun and making Graegor’s eyes wince and water. He stopped at Graegor’s cell door and began to sort through his keys to find the right one. “Is it morning?” Graegor asked him. “Is it Sunsday morning?”

  “Stickler for the rules, aren’t you?—No, we just need the cell. Got four to put in, only three empty. I get to choose, and you’re the only one who hasn’t tried to bribe me. Come on.”

  Graegor stumbled as he left the cell, but caught himself and took a deep breath with his hands against the lintel. He expected one of the other prisoners to protest, since they’d been there longer than he had, but they were silent. His knees shook as he climbed the stairs, whether from relief or weariness he honestly didn’t know.

  Upstairs in the small room with the fire, the jailer had Graegor’s pack, belt knife, and quarterstaff sitting against the wall. “Here. Hope I don’t see you again.”

  “Thanks ...” Still a little dazed, Graegor reattached the knife to his belt, slung the pack over his back, and fought his raincloak to get it to lay nicely over everything. “Um, what hour is it?”

  “Mid of night. There’s a tavern at the end of the block here.” He gestured. “Their door’s still open, and they’ll fix you something to eat for not too much.”

  “Thanks.” He picked up his quarterstaff. Up at the front door, a bluecloak let him out without a word.

  A streetlamp at one end of the block glowed a fitful orange, near death. It was the only light he could see. He turned the other way, and gusts of wind blew back his hood as he trudged down the middle of the dark street. He passed at least two intersections before he realized that he hadn’t seen the tavern the jailer had mentioned. He kep
t walking. He was used to walking. He’d walked thirty miles in a single night to get here.

  His father surely had left town by now. He’d never stayed long in Farre. It was incredible that he’d been here this late in the spring at all.

  It didn’t feel like spring. The wind was cold and kept getting under his raincloak and billowing it up behind him. He didn’t even try to pull his hood back on his head, and his hair kept blowing sideways into his eyes. He needed it cut. And God, he was filthy. He probably had more fleas now than Rooster’s old dog. Even his beard was starting to itch, what little he had of one.

  Five silver ounces, ten silver pennies, six nickel ounces, eight copper pennies. Two months until midsummer and the horse fair.

  He needed a job. He needed food. He looked around the featureless street. He hadn’t been paying attention to where his feet were carrying him, but wasn’t this one of the neighborhoods where the bluecloaks had taken him on their search for heretics? Something seemed familiar about it, which was insane, because the night was so black he’d been using his quarterstaff like a blind man would, feeling out the ground ahead. There were no streetlamps, no candles at any windows, no torches at tavern rooflines. The moon was lost behind thick layers of clouds. He was walking in the middle of a city of fifty thousand people and he was utterly alone in the dark.

  God, what was he doing here? How had he gotten here? Here on this street with no place to go? When had this become normal? He felt like a rock hurled by someone impossibly strong, with impossibly bad aim. It was all up to physics where he landed now—the trajectory was set, and whatever he hit, he hit, and whatever he broke, he couldn’t fix.

  When had it become too late to change course? Which fight had decided it—the one on the street, the one in the stable, or the silent one in his father’s house?