Arctic Prison: King's Convicts I

by Gail Z. Martin

  Contents

  Title Page

  Part One: Edgeland

  Part Two: Welcome to Velant

  Part Three: Inside the Walls

  Part Four: Down in the Mines

  Part Five: Bribes and Paybacks

  More from Gail Z. Martin

  About the Author

  Arctic Prison

  King’s Convicts I

  A Blaine McFadden Adventure

  by Gail Z. Martin

  ISBN: 978-1-939704-37-5

  © 2015 Gail Z. Martin. All rights reserved. This story may not be retransmitted, posted or reused in any way without the written permission of the author.

  PART ONE: Edgeland

  “Get back on your side, or by the gods, I’ll put you back where you belong.” Blaine ‘Mick’ McFadden growled. He stood at the forefront of a line of men, shoulder to shoulder inside the dark, stinking hold of the Cutlass, a convict ship bound for Velant Prison.

  “He’s already killed one man,” Verran Danning added, standing slightly behind Blaine. “He’s got nothing to lose.”

  Coan Atwell glowered at the men who had formed a cordon to separate him from his intended victim. Large, thick-set, and hot-tempered, no one had to guess what won Atwell his sentence to the notorious prison colony at the northern edge of the world. “We’ve got the rest of our lives on that godsforsaken block of ice,” Coan snarled. “I’ll get you, sooner or later.”

  “Not if we see you coming, mate.” Dunbar Colling taunted from beside Blaine. “Best keep one eye open for a shiv in the ribs.”

  Forty long days and nights had passed at sea aboard what might as well be a floating coffin. The Cutlass bore its human cargo to Edgeland, in the arctic north, where years of hard labor in a notorious prison awaited them. Exile was King Merrill’s idea of ‘mercy,’ sparing them a hanging—or worse.

  “Watch your mouth, Dunbar,” Coan replied. “You won’t always have someone to hide behind.”

  “You think you can take me?” Dunbar stepped forward. Blaine brought a heavy hand down on his shoulder.

  “Not now. Not here,” Blaine murmured. “There will be plenty of time—and better opportunities—in Velant. We’re almost to Edgeland. Let’s make it off the boat alive.”

  Reluctantly, Coan and his bully boys stood down, returning to their side of the fetid hold muttering threats. Blaine and his mates held their line until they were certain Coan was not going to reverse course and rush them, and then warily headed back to the part of the hold they had claimed as their ‘territory.’

  “Would have served him right if we’d have mashed him to a pulp,” Dunbar muttered. He bleated in surprise when Blaine grabbed him by the neck and hoisted him off his feet.

  “We don’t need more trouble,” Blaine said in a low voice that brooked no argument. “Unless you want to leave this ship in chains.” He gave Dunbar a shake for good measure, and set him back down.

  “Yeah, sure Mick,” Dunbar muttered. Sulking, he retreated to his group of friends, but did not try to make trouble.

  “Nicely done,” Verran said as Blaine found a seat where he could keep an eye on Coan and his crew.

  Blaine raised an eyebrow. “Do you have to play the ‘murderer’ angle quite so often?”

  Verran grinned. “I say, stick with what works.” And with that, he pulled a small pennywhistle from his pocket and began to play. Blaine was certain that no small part of Verran’s desire for an impromptu concert came from his knowledge of how much Coan had grown to hate the tunes during their long sea voyage.

  How in the name of Charrot did I end up here? Blaine wondered. But the answer was no mystery. Blaine and his siblings had endured a lifetime of blows and cruelty at the hand of his father, Lord Ian McFadden, violence that had killed their mother and a number of unfortunate retainers. But when Lord McFadden took indecent liberties with Mari, Blaine’s sister, it was the breaking point. Blaine killed his father in cold blood, and had no remorse. King Merrill himself had ruled on the case. It would have been well within the king’s pervue to hang Blaine for his crime, but Merrill knew just what sort of man Ian McFadden had been. And so the king granted ‘clemency’ in the form of exile instead of execution.

  One week aboard the Cutlass had convinced Blaine that hanging would have been more merciful, and they had not yet reached the arctic wasteland where they were to live out the rest of their miserable lives. Now, nearly forty days had passed, and they were nearing the end of their journey.

  “I heard that we’re only a few days out from Skalgerston Bay,” Rinne said. “Maybe tempers will cool once we’re not packed on top each other like herring in a barrel.”

  Verran paused his playing. “You think it’s going to get better? Forget that. These are the good days. Haven’t you heard about Velant? Only two convicts in ten lives long enough to earn a Ticket of Leave. That’s what I’ve heard.” He went back to his playing.

  “Verran’s a bit dramatic,” Blaine said with a glare in his direction which was promptly ignored. “But I suspect grudges and revenge are all that keep people alive in Velant.”

  Velant Prison was notorious for sadistic guards and brutal conditions. Commander Prokief, the prison warden, was as much an inmate as his charges. A war hero known for his utter remorselessness in battle, Prokief and his soldiers earned their assignment to Velant because civilized society could not tolerate their bloodthirstiness.

  Yet hope remained. Prisoners hardy—or lucky—enough to survive three years in Velant could earn a Ticket of Leave, which allowed them to leave the prison and become a colonist of Edgeland. In reality, they were just as much exiles as before, but as a colonist they gained some distance from the prison and its guards, and a chance to make some kind of life for themselves far from Donderath and the homes they would never see again.

  “Thanks,” Dunbar said awkwardly. “I mean, for keeping him from taking me apart,” he added with a nod toward Coan, who glowered from across the hold.

  “Just keep your damn mouth shut until we’re in port and I don’t have to be around if someone spatters your brains all over the hold,” Blaine grumbled.

  It was a long way from his family’s manor at Glenreith to the vomit-crusted, shit-covered hold of a convict ship. A very long way to fall. But Blaine had managed to trade his life as the son of a down-at-the-heels nobleman for that of a convict and exile. The price of freedom from his father was dear.

  Four-hundred tortured souls languished in the hold of the Cutlass, just one of the ships that would bear their wretched human cargo to Edgeland before the year was done. Blaine counted himself lucky that on their ship, the decks were spaced far enough apart to allow the unwilling passengers to stand up, and that they were not shackled for the duration.

  Mercies were few. The sea was rough this time of year, and those who were seasick frequently either learned to keep their dinner down or grew weak from throwing up their meager rations. Fever took more than its share among the convicts, so much so that the hold that had been tightly packed when they left Castle Reach harbor now only had a third as many occupants. The dead were consigned to the sea, and Blaine wondered more than once whether they were the lucky ones.

  “Don’t look so gloomy,” Verran prodded, elbowing Blaine. “While there’s life, there’s hope.” At that, he struck up a tune that had been popular at dances, and despite everything, Blaine could not help a wan smile.

  He had met Verran Danning—sometime thief and occasional minstrel—as the Cutlass sailed out of Castle Reach. Verran was mouthy, short, and wiry and had immediately struck a bargain for Blaine’s protection in return for Verran’s share of grog. It was an unlikely friendship, but over the weeks Blaine had grown to l
ike his light-fingered companion. Verran was full of entertaining tales that helped to pass the long hours in the dark, stinking hold. Whether or not the stories were true mattered little.

  The tunes he played reminded Blaine of better days, and of Carensa, the red-haired lass he left behind on the docks of Castle Reach. They had been betrothed to wed come spring. She had insisted on coming to the waterfront to watch the Cutlass sail for the horizon, silent and brave in her gray cloak. Though Blaine had begged her to forget him, he had kept his eyes on her until the ship left the shoreline behind.

  Maybe it’s for the best, he thought with a sigh. At least I don’t have to protect her—or anyone else—from Father anymore.

  He looked around the hold. In the dim light, he could make out the desperate faces of strangers who had become, if not exactly neighbors, then equally imperiled sojourners. The brand on Blaine’s forearm marked him as a murderer, the worst of the lot. But many of those aboard the Cutlass had committed far less serious crimes. A disgraced lord might cheat the hangman with exile, but for those from the ginnels and closes, stealing a loaf of bread or a few coppers was enough to rip them from their homes and families and send them to the frozen reaches of the world.

  “Might as well enjoy the comforts here,” Verran said. “Velant won’t be as homey.”

  “Aren’t you just cheery,” Blaine replied.

  “Whole new pecking order. Plus bigger guards,” Verran said with a shrug, returning to his music as if the comment had no bearing on their future.

  Blaine had never intended to emerge as a champion in the cramped, miserable conditions aboard the Cutlass. But over the course of more than a month, it had become clear that Blaine’s wretched father was not the only one who delighted in taking advantage of those who were weaker. There was little left to lose, and Blaine gave vent to his temper, discovering that he could be a fearsome fighter when circumstances demanded. It helped that he stood a head taller than many of the other men, was strong from working on Glenreith’s lands to escape his father’s reach, and quick from a lifetime’s practice dodging blows. He had gathered a group of like-minded prisoners who had sufficient nerve and muscle to stand up to the worst of the bullies and ruffians in the Cutlass’s hold.

  That led to an uneasy truce in the dark, cramped space. On one side were the convicts who sought protection, at least until they reached Edgeland’s frozen shores. And on the other side of the hold were their rivals, the ruffians and their hangers-on. Once they reached Velant, they would all be strangers in a strange land, far from home, and at the mercies of a harsh and unforgiving wasteland and its remorseless masters.

  I’m nobody’s hero, Blaine thought. But I’ll be damned after all I’ve been through if I’ll be anybody’s whipping boy, ever again.

  “Think it’ll smell any better, once we get to Edgeland?” Dunbar asked. Now that the prospective entertainment of a fight had been eliminated, the Cutlass’s passengers went back to playing cards or dice, talking quietly amongst themselves or more likely, staring straight ahead, looking at nothing, lost in private thoughts.

  “Maybe,” Blaine allowed. “But it’ll be a damn sight colder, too.”

  Dunbar nodded. “Aye. Not a bad thing, perhaps. I’ve heard freezing to death isn’t the worst way to go.”

  “If that’s your plan, you might as well pitch yourself overboard and there’ll be more food for the rest of us.” Garrick’s gaze slid to appraise Dunbar as if he were measuring him for a coffin. Garrick was stout and hairy, with a full, long beard and unruly light-brown hair. From what little Blaine had gathered about his shipmate during the voyage, Garrick had gotten into one too many bar fights and been exiled so that the Castle Reach constables did not have to deal with him anymore. Dunbar was tall and thin like a stork, with a short temper and a talent for theft. Blaine wasn’t sure which had gotten him passage to Velant.

  Dunbar glared, but to Blaine’s relief, did not seem inclined to cause trouble. “You think you’re going to be one of the ones who makes it to colonist?” he sneered.

  Garrick shrugged. “Yep. Don’t see why not. Won pretty near every fight I’ve been in, and the ones I didn’t no one else can claim to have won, either. Ain’t no stranger to cold or bein’ hungry, and I can work hard if I have to.”

  “It’s not Edgeland you have to worry about,” Verran said. “It’s Velant.”

  “I hear that if you make it three years in the prison without causing too many problems, you get some money and a bit of land to call your own,” Garrick went on as if he had not heard Verran. “Pshaw. That’s a better deal than the likes of me would ever get back in Donderath.”

  “I heard that’s just a lie they tell you to keep you in line.” Fultz looked up from where he played dice with Jern. “The guards down at the Rooster and Pig would tell stories when they were good and drunk. They said that the prisoners mine rubies and fish herring to send back to the kingdom, so why would anyone let such good slave labor go?”

  Garrick gave him an irritated look. “Because it’s not letting them go far, you dumbass. We don’t ever get to come home. Being a colonist still means you’re on Edgeland until you die, just not in the prison.” His features took on a crafty expression.

  “See, I figure that it’s actually to their advantage to let the strongest prisoners go be colonists. After all,” reckoned Garrick, “They’ve got to feed prisoners. Colonists have to fend for themselves, and someone’s got to grow food and tend the livestock. There ain’t but three or four ships to Edgeland in a year, and they’re mostly stuffed with convicts. So the prison and the colony aren’t gettin’ most of their food and things they need from back home.”

  That was something Blaine had never considered. He had not thought beyond the prospect of Velant Prison and its brutal reputation. “Garrick’s got a point,” Blaine said. “There’s always plenty of herring in the market at Castle Reach. It’s not caught that far south, so it’s got to come from Edgeland. And I’ve heard sailors at the Rooster and Pig talking about making the Edgeland run, coming back with a hold filled with barrels of fish.”

  “Three years is a long time, mates,” Verran said, taking a break from his music. “Might want to hold off making plans.”

  The hold fell quiet, except for the creaking of the hull. The days had grown steadily shorter as the ship sailed north, until the sun seemed to almost disappear completely. That left the prisoners in near-darkness for much of the day. If the seas were not too rough and the weather was reasonably clear, they might get up on deck once a day, long enough to breathe the cold, fresh air, and glimpse the sun low on the horizon.

  Blaine could barely make out the faces of his unwilling companions in the gloom. Most of the convicts were men, but about two dozen women had been unlucky enough to be sentenced to exile, perhaps to ensure the eventual survival of the colony. The women looked hard-worn and ill-used, most likely sent away for theft, or prostitution. One or two looked capable of having killed men who treated them roughly. They grudgingly watched over the other female prisoners, keeping the men at bay as best they could in the tight confines of the hold.

  As for the others, it looked to Blaine as if someone had cast a dragnet along Castle Reach’s waterfront and hauled in its ruffians. Most looked as if they had started at the bottom of the city’s residents and managed to fall even farther. Blaine was grateful that no one knew his story, and had resolved to keep it that way. The old Blaine McFadden is dead. We’ll see who the new man becomes—and how long he lasts.

  Still, it had not dawned on Blaine until they were hustled aboard the ship that he might be one of the few convicts who could read and write, though he was unsure what good it would do him. And while many of the prisoners seemed to accept the sailors’ derision and their own reduced status as their lot in life, Blaine still struggled to reconcile himself with the idea that he would never again be a free man.

  If I’d intended to die and get it over with, I could have jumped overboard in Castle Reach harbor, Blai
ne told himself sternly. This is my inheritance now. And if I’m to have any future at all, it will have to be what I make of it, what I fight to get and keep.

  One good thing about the cold; it would probably kill the lice. The warm crowded hold had been a breeding ground. Blaine had learned to tolerate the itching like he had grown accustomed to the smell of unwashed bodies and spilled latrine buckets.

  “You think they’ll live long enough to see Edgeland?” Verran asked later that night, after the soldiers had brought down the wormy biscuits and brackish water. He inclined his head toward the far side of the hold. Now that the ship had quieted down for the night, the fevered moans of the sick carried in the stillness.

  “Only if the gods are cruel,” Blaine replied. “And we already know the answer to that.”

  Illness had taken its toll throughout the voyage. Some of the prisoners were sick when they boarded, infected in the wretched public jail or the miserable boarding houses. Packed into the stifling hold with its lack of fresh air, abysmal sanitation, and poor food, it was amazing to Blaine that they had not all come down with fever and died.

  “They say sharks followed the ship, because of the bodies thrown overboard, ’til the water got too cold,” Verran added.

  “I saw them,” Blaine confirmed. “Damn things seemed to know when someone died. Worse than vultures.” He wondered if the other prisoners had felt a twinge of envy for the dead, escaping their uncertain fate in Velant. On the darkest days during the voyage, he had certainly coveted their final rest.

  “Maybe they figure the voyage is a winnowing,” Verran remarked. “I mean, only the strongest survive, right? So the ones who probably couldn’t handle the cold and the work don’t even make it off the ship. Less for the prison guards to bury.”

  The same cynical reasoning had occurred to Blaine, though he assumed the real reason was that no one cared whether any of them lived or died. He had overheard the sailors say that they were payed to deliver their cargo by the ship-load, as if the miserable men and women stuffed into the Cutlass’s hold were no more than crates of tools or barrels of fish. Velant’s guards surely did not want more charges, unless they might be pressed to work the mines or the herring fleet in the absence of enough strong backs. And Blaine very much doubted the colonists wanted more mouths to feed. The sharks were the only ones glad to see them.