by Clayton, Jo;
She forces herself to sit up, crosses her legs so she doesn’t have to put her feet down on the filthy floor. She is cold enough to shiver now and then. Again Ildas helps, warming away the chill of the stone. The shutters on the single small window are winter-sealed; the air is stuffy and stinking but the icy winds are kept out and the sense of smell tires rapidly so the stench is bearable. She keeps her eyes traveling about the room, deeply uncomfortable with her nudity, growing more stubbornly angry as the morning drags past. No one comes. There is no water. No food. Though she doesn’t know if she could force anything down in that noisome filth. Ildas paces the walls then comes and curls up in her lap.
Early in the afternoon they come for her.
The air in the dim round room is heavy with the smoke of the drugged incense, the sweet familiar smell she remembers from the night she and Teras sneaked round the old Granary and heard Nilis betraying their father. It makes her wary. She tries to ignore the way her nakedness makes her feel, the helplessness, the vulnerability, the absurd urge to chatter about anything, everything, so that they will look at her face and not at her body, those men staring at her, their eyes, those leering, ugly eyes. Then Ildas curls about her shoulders, a circle of warmth and comfort and she is able to relax a little, to let the heat of her anger burn away the worst of the shame and wretchedness. She lifts her head, meets the Agli’s eyes, sees the speculation in them and knows she’s made a mistake. She should have come in sobbing hysterically, flinging herself about like the child she wants to seem. Maybe rage will do instead. She crosses her arm over her too-tender breasts and glares at the Agli, at the acolytes waiting with him, snatches her arm from the guard’s hand, letting rage take possession of her, the old rage that carried her out of herself—funny how she couldn’t invoke it now when she needed it yet once it came so easily she frightened herself. Faking that rage and calling on all the arrogance she hadn’t known she possessed, the fire of the fireborn running through her, energizing her, she curses the two acolytes and the Agli, curses the guards silent behind her, demands to be given her clothes (lets her voice break here, only half-pretense). And as they watch, doing nothing, the rage turns real. Before they can stop her, she flies at the Agli, fingers clawed, feels a strong satisfaction when she feels his skin tearing under her nails, sees the lines of blood blooming on his skin. Caught by surprise, the guards and the acolytes take a second to pull her off the Agli. She will pay for this, she knows, even through the red haze of rage and fierce joy, the payment will be high, but it is a distraction and will put off her questioning. She doesn’t exactly think this out, it leaps whole into her head. She struggles with the guards, kicking, scratching, trying to bite until one of them loses his temper and uses his fist on her.
Shock. Pain. Blackness.
When she wakes it is an indefinite time later. She is in the same round room, but her hands are bound behind her, her ankles are in irons with a short chain between them. There is no one in the room with her. She still feels some satisfaction. She has forced them to put off their questions. But she regrets the leg irons, they are going to make escape difficult. Have to find Rane, she thinks. Her picklocks would take care of the irons. If she is alive, if she has her boots.
Ildas is titupping about, sniffing at things. He lifts a leg and urinates liquid fire into the incense bowl, flashing its contents to sterile ash. He knocks over the charcoal brazier, plays in the coals, drawing their heat into himself. Almost immediately the air around Tuli begins to clear. She realizes after a bit how dulled her reactions have been, how sluggish her body has been feeling. The drugs and fumes from the charcoal have been poisoning her, softening her up for the Agli. She snarls with fury, wrenches at the rope, but it is too strong, the knots too well tied. Ildas comes over to her, curls himself onto her shoulders; she can feel his heat flowing through her, burning those poisons out of her. She laughs and croons to him, telling him what a beautiful creature he is, what a wonder. He preens, nuzzles at her face with his pointed nose, his laughter sings in her. Then he stiffens, his head comes up and the laughter turns to a hostile growling.
The Agli is returning.
Because she is warned, he finds her hunched over in a miserable lump, apparently drugged to the back teeth, dull and apathetic. The acolytes straighten her up, force her onto the hard bench, then go about cleaning up the mess she and Ildas have made of the room. When she dares sneak a look at the Agli, she almost betrays herself by a snigger of delight at the sight of his face, three raw furrows down one side of it, two more on the other side. Hope they poison you, she thinks, then understands she must banish that sort of thing from her mind, or the triumph and spite in her will seep through and spoil the picture she wants to present. There is a tie-girl in the Mountain Haven that she despises, even more than that creepy sneery Delpha. Susu Kernovna Deh. Who as far as Tuli can see has no redeeming virtues, who is sullen and stupid, who would rather pout than eat, who is lazy, giggly, spiteful and fawning. You hit her and she licks your feet and doesn’t even try to bite your toes. Why she isn’t one of the more avid Followers Tuli cannot understand, she seems made to be a follower. Susu is the image she wants to project, figuring she is such a nothing the Agli will get disgusted and toss Tuli-Susu out. She begins fitting herself into the role, looking out the corner of her eyes at the Agli, keeping her shoulders slumped, holding her knees together with a proper primness that seems to her only to emphasize her nakedness. She hates that, but thinks it is how Susu would act.
The acolytes settle themselves at the Agli’s feet. He sits in a high-backed elaborately carved chair. It is raised higher than an ordinary chair, his feet rest on a small round stool. The acolytes kneel like black bookends on either side of the stool, what light there is—from the flickering wall-lamps and the high window slits—shining off their shaved and oiled pates.
The Agli speaks. He has a deep musical voice that he keeps soft and caressing. Not yet time for torment, it was the hour of seduction. “Who are you, child?”
She licks her lips, opens her eyes wide, looks at him, looks quickly away, hangs her head. “Susu Kernovna Deh.”
The Agli taps fingers impatiently on the chair arm, raises a brow. She wants to laugh, but forces herself to pout instead. Briefly she wonders why the drugged smoke which is again billowing up from the brazier does not affect the agli and the acolytes, then dismisses that as unimportant. After all, an Agli is a norid and can most likely do such small bits of magic as keeping the air clear about himself and whomever he wants to protect. After a minute, he speaks again. “You are not tie, child. Who are you?”
“Susu. I’m Susu Kernovna Deh.”
“Mmm. Who is your father?”
“Balbo Deh. He says.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Hansit Kern took me into his house and had me taught.” She makes herself smile a prim, soapy little smile. “Many say it is he and not Balbo who fathered me, that I’ve got a look of his oldest girl.” She lets a touch of boasting enter her voice.
The Agli settles into the chair. “What is your tar?”
“Kerntar. It’s out on the edge of the plain, near the pehiiri uplands.” She shrugs. “I don’t know exactly. It’s a long way from here.” More discontent in her voice. “Eldest daughter threw me out, Soäreh wither her miserable.…” She sneaks another sly look at the Agli, lets him catch her at it, looks away in confusion and fear. She is tempted to elaborate on her tale, but has just sense enough not to. Ildas on her lap is warm and supporting, and more important, he is keeping her head and body clear of the drugs from the smoke—especially her head, giving her strength and energy to maintain her efforts at deception. She can’t afford to become too complacent, though, there is always Rane who knows nothing about this story or about the names, nothing about the original Susu. Rane, if she says anything at all, if she is still alive, will tell an entirely different story. Tuli chews on her lip, her unease not wholly pretended.
“Who is the woman?”
“Who is the woman?”
“Oh her. Just some wandering player. Well, you couldn’t expect me to travel about alone. She was going to take me to a cousin in Oras. Stupid Delanni paid her to. I didn’t want to leave the tar, don’t blame me for it. But when he got sick, Kern I mean, Delanni took over running things and I was the first thing she run off.”
“Who is the woman?”
“Look, I told you, aren’t you listening? Player or something. You want her name? Ask her. I forget, I mean, who cares what’s the name of someone like that.”
“What were you doing at Appentar?”
“Me? I wasn’t doing nothing. Eating, getting out of the cold. What do you think I was doing? Watching those two snippy twits sucking up to her.” She puts a world of venom in the last word.
On and on it goes—simple questions repeated over and over, questions that fold back on themselves, trying to trap her. She clings to Susu with a faint spark of hope growing in her when the questions change nearly imperceptibly until they are centering on Rane. On and on, until she is mumbling and drifting in a haze in spite of Ilda’s efforts, a haze that is far too real for her comfort. She no longer knows exactly what she is saying, can only hide herself in the persona of Susu, answering as best she can in Susu’s voice and Susu’s life.
The questions are thrown more quickly at her, they blur in her mind until none of them make sense. After a while she just stops answering them and drifts into herself, no longer trusting mind and body, drawing in until she is closed up in a tight knot, no ends left out for them to pull. Again Ildas helps her, running round and round her, spinning threads from himself, weaving her into a cocoon of warmth and darkness that no one but her could break through. She lets herself fall away, protected, into her cocoon and fades back into darkness.
She comes out of the haze and confusion back in the cold and stinking cell, stretched out on the plank bed, Ildas a warm spot on her ribs. She sits up. Her hands are untied. It seems odd to notice that so belatedly, but that nonetheless is the order of things. She looks at her legs, grimaces at the crusts of blood on her thighs. What a luxury a hot bath could be. When we get out of this, she thinks, when we get to Oras, I’m going to live in a bathtub. The irons are off her legs. She smiles, flushed with a sudden optimism. It looks like Susu has won the day for her, like the Agli isn’t taking her seriously any more, Maiden be blessed. She rubs at her ankles where the irons had been, then at her wrists. “Ildas,” she says, drawing the word out as she thinks. “Ildas, go see if you can find Rane. Let me know if she’s here. Please?”
The fireborn scampers uneasily around the room; he doesn’t want to leave her, but he recognizes her urgency. After some vacillation, he melts through the door. For some time after he vanishes, she can still feel his grumbling like a shiver in her bones; it makes her teeth ache and she is annoyed with the little beast, but finally has to smile.
They come for her again before he returns. Because she can feel the drugs in the smoke sapping her will, she withdraws into herself, says nothing, answers nothing, tries to not-hear them, doing the best she can to show a degree of sullen petulance, clinging desperately to Susu to help her withstand the drugs and the hammering of the persistent questions. The questions are thrown at her by acolyte and Agli alike, taking turns, coming at her from the right, from the left, from the throne chair, beating at her: who are you/ why are you here/ what are you doing/ who is your father/ where is your tar/ why are you spying/ what do you hope to find/ tell us about the outlaws in the mountains/ where are they/ who are they/ what are they going to hit next/ where are you going from here/ who is the woman with you/ she’s a meie isn’t she/ who is she/ what is she doing/ what information have you gathered/ are you lovers/ is she planning to assassinate the regent Floarin or the son/ who are you going to see in Oras/ who have you seen so far/ who are the spies and traitors in our fabric/ tell us the names/ where have you been/ tell us the name.…
And on and on and on. Sometimes prurient questions of what activities passed between Tuli and Rane, a spate of these coming unexpectedly in the middle of the other hammering questions, almost startling her out of her silence. But she tightens her grip and fights the deadening pull of the drugs. She finds her mouth loosening to babble and catches herself again and again and begins to fear she will give in. The drug is making her sick, her concentration breaks more and more frequently. Her will is eroding all the faster as her fear grows, as her sense of helplessness grows. She opens further and further from reality like the spiral dance when she found Ildas, but spiraling out this time, not in, out and out and out until nothing seems to matter, until she is sick of herself, sick of them, sick of Rane and the mijloc and everything that has happened and is going to happen, until she is at the point when nothing matters anymore.
For a while she knows nothing that is happening, drifts in and out of grayness, repulsive, stinking grayness, only dimly aware of herself as self, clinging only to one idea and not sure what she knows. Silence. Say nothing. Whatever happens, don’t answer, don’t even listen, say nothing, nothing, nothing.…
Warmth nudges against her hip, crawls into her lap; the haze begins warming out of her, the room firms around her again. She is sitting hunched over, staring sullenly at her dirty feet, at the rough stone floor, the muscles of her face hurting, her head throbbing dully. She stares resolutely at the floor, wanting to know if she’d let the Agli cozen her into answering his questions while she was in that floating state, wanting to know if Ildas had found Rane, frantic because she can think of no way to ask him without betraying herself to them. THEM. The word writes itself with major glyphs on the air above her feet. She can see them wavering over her toes. Ildas nudges her and the word pops like soapbubbles, even with the same tiny noise a soapbubble makes when it pops. She nearly giggles, then reverts to a sullen scowl. She sneaks a look about her. The acolytes are gone somewhere but the Agli is still in his throne chair, frowning at her. Sometime in her haze the questions have stopped. That frightens her a little, she doesn’t know why he stopped. Does he have all he wants or is he momentarily baffled by her silence. If he starts going at her again, at least that will mean she hasn’t done anything too awful. Her feet begin to itch, her knees burn. She has to move. But she doesn’t. Even moving her foot seems like a breaking down. Ildas coos to her, his silent chortles vibrating in her head. He is acting very chirpy. She tries to take comfort in that. Rane has to be about somewhere. Alive.
The silence is thick in the room. She can feel the Agli trying to push his will at her. She wishes he would say something, anything. She wishes she could move, could scratch the thousand itches that are tormenting her, wishes she were out of here, anywhere but here, even back at Gradintar with Nilis carping at her, no, mustn’t think of Gradintar, I might say something I don’t want to. No. Think of Susu. Susu Kernovna Deh of Kerntar out by the pehiiri uplands. She sneaks a glance at the path of the lightbeam coming in one of the high slit windows, and nearly betrays herself. It hasn’t been long, only a half hour of unknowing, if the slide of the light on the far wall meant anything. A half hour since she could remember questions coming at her. It feels an age. Her mouth is so dry she doubts she could speak even if she wanted to.
“What is your name?” The Agli speaks with unchanged patience.
Then the acolytes are back. One brings her a battered tankard filled with warm beer mixed with something else she can just taste over the musty staleness of the liquid. She drinks it avidly enough, though the taste makes her queasy. He takes the tankard away when she is finished and jerks her onto her feet, giving an exclamation of disgust when he sees the bloodstain she leaves behind on the wood. So give me some water to wash in, she thinks, and bring me my pants and rags. He handles her as if she is a bag full of slime after that, holding her at arm’s length. She could jerk away from him any time, but what is the point, where could she go? He holds her arm up and the other acolyte uses a bit of rope to tie her wrist to
a ring set in the stone. When they have dealt with the other arm, she stands with her face pressed against the stone, unable to put her heels down. She flinches inwardly at the thought of the pain to come, expecting it to come any moment from a whip or something similar. But nothing happens. Behind her she can hear dragging sounds, something metal pulled across the flags, footsteps, quick and busy about the room, some heavy breathiing, more clangs, a rattle, the snap of a firestriker, some breathy cursing, a little crackling, then an increasing feel of heat fans across her back. The charcoal brazier, she thinks, what.… She wrenches her mind to thoughts of the ordeal ahead and tries to decide how she will handle it. If she follows her instincts, she will grit her teeth and not make a sound, not give the creatures the satisfaction of hearing her cry out. Besides, once she starts yelping she isn’t too sure she can stop. Or she can still keep in Susu’s skin, though they don’t seem to be believing her too much. Trouble is, Susu would never be on this kind of cross-country trek, even if what she said was true and she was kicked out of her tar by a jealous half-sister. She would have whined and balked and made such a nuisance of herself any guide and guard no matter how well paid would have pushed her into a river two days out of the tar. Or at least dumped her somewhere and taken off. And there is Rane. If they know anything about her at all, they know she’d be the least likely person to take on such a task. The holes in her story get bigger by the moment as she strains upward, her nose pressed against the stone.
“What is your name, girl?” The Agli’s voice comes with a deadly patience.
“Susu Kernovna Deh,” she says and whimpers.
“I think we’ll leave that lie now, girl,” he says. “Have you ever seen a branding?”