by C. J. Archer
Gerald waved his tankard around, sloshing ale over the sides. "That ain't why he got sent to prison. You don't go to a prison mine for stealing a horse."
"It was a minister's horse," his friend said.
Gerald shook his head. "Prison mines are for the worst offenders. I heard he started a fire. People died."
Max pushed back his chair and strode out. Theodore went to follow him, but Meg caught his hand.
"Give him some time alone," she said.
"It might not be true," Theodore told her. "I don't trust their memories any more than I trust ours."
"Oi." Darry looked offended. "We got perfec'ly good memories." He tapped the middle of his forehead, leaving a red mark. "And I remember Max good and proper."
"What was he like?" Meg asked.
Darry and Gerald looked at each other and shrugged. "Like anyone else," Darry said. "Always on the look for the next soft mark, the next meal, the next ship, the next game to play. Gotta fill in time before Merdu takes us." He swiped up his tankard, a thoughtful frown on his face.
"That doesn't sound like Max," Quentin said.
"What do you know of his past?" Meg asked the men. "Did he have a family?"
"Don't know, don't care," Gerald said.
"Is he from near here?" Dane asked.
"He didn't say, but he got on the ship at Noxford. He wasn’t a real sailor. I reckon it was his first voyage."
"I reckon he ain't never seen the sea neither," Darry said. "He looked scared to get too close to the edge of the deck."
Max couldn’t swim. So why did he get on a boat in the first place if he couldn't swim?
Like Meg, I couldn't believe that he'd been a thief, let alone started a fire deliberately. The men must be mistaken.
Dane studied the door through which Max had gone with his arms crossed over his chest and a frown. He looked as though he doubted the picture these men had painted of Max too.
Balthazar leaned forward, engaging the men for the first time since meeting them. His quiet authority had them eyeing him with caution. "I hear those prison mines are harsh places. I hear prisoners die there all the time and have no hope of release."
"Aye, all true," Darry said with a serious nod. "But that ain't why I thought he was dead. He hadn't been in prison long enough to wither away in there. I heard he went to the prison mine near Gull's Wing. You ain't from around here, so you wouldn't have heard, but there was an escape from that prison."
"How many prisoners escaped?" Dane asked.
"All."
"All?" I exchanged a glance with Dane. "How many is that?"
Darry shrugged. "Hundreds. Maybe a thousand."
There'd been just under a thousand palace servants.
My heartbeat quickened and my mind raced, all the way back to a conversation I'd had with my father after first meeting Dane, Max and Quentin on Lookout Hill near Mull. He'd been worried about me talking to strangers, reminding me of the prison escape that had occurred some months earlier. We'd heard about it from the sailors entering the harbor, and he'd been worried the prisoners would come to Mull to disappear. I'd dismissed his concerns. Dane and his men had worn palace uniforms, and I'd not known about their memory loss or magic at the time.
But he might have been right. The servants could quite possibly be the prison escapees.
Quentin pushed back his chair and lowered his head into his hands. "Merdu and Hailia. Prison."
Dane put a hand on his shoulder to quieten him. The last thing we wanted was to let anyone know they were all escaped prisoners.
Theodore left the taproom and came back with Max. "He needs to hear this," he told us as he resumed his seat.
"Tell us about the escape," Dane said to Darry.
Darry and Gerald exchanged glances, having sensed our keen interest. They sat back in their chairs and regarded Dane. "We want extra. Four more ells."
Dane handed it over without question. Going by Darry's disappointment, I suspected he wished he'd asked for more. Max's fist thumping down on the table put an end to his hesitation, however.
"You've got your money, now talk," Max snapped. "Tell us about the escape."
Darry shrugged. "I don't know how it happened. I was on a ship at the time. It weren't until we docked in Noxford that we heard about it. Apparently there was a riot, and the guards were killed with mining tools."
"Not mining tools," Gerald cut in. "Their own weapons, that's what I heard."
"Were any of the prisoners recaptured?" Dane asked.
"That's what we've been telling you. All of them were and all of them were executed for murdering the guards."
"Executed," Dane said flatly.
"Aye," Darry said.
"All of them?" Balthazar asked.
"Aye. Except Max, it seems." Darry lifted his tankard in salute for Max.
"He's not the man you think he is," Dane said quickly. "His name's not Max, for starters."
Gerald frowned. "But you called him Max."
"It's a nickname. His real name is Mark but there was already a Mark in the palace guards so I changed his name to avoid confusion."
"But he looks like the Max who stole my boots."
Dane slid another four ells across the table. "No, he doesn't."
Darry pocketed two of the coins and Gerald the other two. "Aye, he doesn't," Darry agreed.
The two men left but we remained behind. No one spoke and soon the silence thickened so much I couldn't stand it.
"Meg, Kitty, do you both remember hearing about the escape?" I asked.
Meg nodded but Kitty shook her head.
Meg looked to Max. He'd lowered his head and was studying the ale in his tankard with intensity. "I didn't hear about their recapture and execution, however."
"Nor did I," I said. "That part never reached Mull."
"It's a long way from Freedland to Mull," Theodore muttered.
Another silence blanketed us. I tried to catch Dane's attention, but like the others, he was lost in his own thoughts. Meg nudged my foot to get my attention. She mouthed, "Say something."
"It doesn't mean you're all criminals," I said. "People are wrongfully jailed all the time."
"Josie," Meg chided. "It doesn't even mean they are the escaped prisoners from the mine near Gull's Wing at all. It could be a coincidence."
"They recognized me," Max said, snatching up his tankard. "They're sure I was sent to that prison." He tapped his chest with his thumb. "I'm a thief, arsonist and murderer."
"Not a murderer," Balthazar said. "If you murdered in cold blood, you'd have been hanged, not sent to the mine. It's more likely the fire was started accidentally and people unfortunately perished."
Max sneered at him. "Well that's a comfort. I'm just a killer, not a murderer."
Meg placed her hand on his arm. "You're neither."
He jerked away without meeting her gaze.
"You're a good man," she went on. "You're all good men. Learning this doesn't change that."
"It changes much," Erik said heavily.
"It explains much," Balthazar countered. "The lashes on your backs, for one. The undernourished bodies but big muscles of most of the servants when we first arrived at the palace."
Theodore nodded. "The rough look to many, and the filth." He stared at his hands. "I remember waking up wondering how I could possibly have dirt ingrained in every crease. My fingernails were in a terrible state too."
"We all smelled bad," Erik agreed. "And I was so hungry, I ate until I threw up that first day."
They fell into silence, no doubt remembering their confusion upon waking in the palace, the horror of their memory loss, the strangeness of their new situation. In their wildest dreams, had anyone considered they were all prisoners together? I doubted these men had. None were thieves or thugs by nature. It remained to be seen what circumstances had sent them down that path and landed them in one of the worst prisons on The Fist Peninsula.
"So…were we executed?" Quentin asked in a small v
oice.
Balthazar pinched the back of Quentin's hand.
"Ow!" Quentin cried. "What was that for?"
"To see if you are dead or not," Balthazar said. "I'm assuming not, if you felt that."
"No need for sarcasm."
"We were not executed," Theodore explained more gently. "It's more likely we were whisked away by the sorcerer and sent to work in the palace. Perhaps the sorcerer made it appear as though we were executed."
"Or the authorities could have simply put the word out that we were recaptured and executed," Dane said. "It would quell any panic that might arise from knowing a thousand prisoners were wandering around. In time, when the prisoners didn't cause any problems, the authorities must have thanked the god and goddess for their good fortune."
It made sense, and I could well believe the authorities manipulating the story to suit them.
Theodore suddenly sat up straight. "That's why there were so few reports of missing persons in all the cities and villages we’ve passed through. We weren't missing. We were in prison. Our friends and families knew that."
"Most knew," Dane corrected him. "Yen, Paddy and Percy's families didn't. Balthazar, too. The priests in Merdu's Guards thought he left Tilting for a reason, they just didn't know what it was. He must have been arrested after his departure."
"Paddy and Percy were in trouble with the law in Tilting," I pointed out. "It seems it caught up with them, unbeknown to their friends and family in the slum."
"Do we write to them?" Quentin asked. "Should we tell the others about this?"
Dane shook his head. "Not yet. I want to find out more, first."
"So we head to the prison near Gull's Wing," Balthazar said, pushing to his feet.
"But all the guards died," Kitty said. "No one left alive will know what happened."
"Someone must." Dane sounded hollow, as if the light inside him had been extinguished.
He strode out of the tavern and led the way alongside Max towards The Golden Trident. They streaked ahead, while Quentin and Erik lagged behind, carrying our packs full of produce from the market. Their pace was slow, as if every step took effort. Behind them, Balthazar and Theodore talked quietly.
"Have we lost them?" Meg asked. She stared at Max's rigid back while I stared at Dane's. He hadn't looked at me since finding out about the prison.
"Of course not," I said, trying to keep her spirits up as well as my own. I hooked my arm with hers and my other with Kitty's. "They just need to get over this shock and learn more about themselves. Their true selves. They need to know they're good people."
Kitty dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her pinky finger. "What if they learn they're not? What if the crime they committed is unforgiveable?"
I refused to believe that. I refused to even think about it. Getting them to believe it was going to take time, however.
It was a gloomy party that departed from Priest's End the following morning. I was glad to leave the village behind, although the prospect of crossing the western branch of The Razorbacks appealed to me less and less the closer we got to the mountains.
"Finally, some fresh air," Kitty said, breathing deeply. "It's no wonder the priest threw himself off the cliffs when he reached that revolting village. He wanted to get away from the putridity."
"Is that how the village got its name?" Quentin asked.
"According to legend."
"What was the village called before it was named Priest's End?"
"Does it matter?" Max snapped.
"I was just wondering," Quentin muttered.
"Do it quietly. No one wants to listen to your prattling."
Quentin pouted.
"At least he's trying to make an effort to fill the silence instead of wallowing in it," Theodore said.
Max stiffened. "Is that aimed at me?"
"Mostly, but there are others here who took the news of our pasts just as badly." He glared at Dane's back, as rigid as a pole.
Like Max, he'd hardly spoken since learning the news about the prison except to bark orders. It reminded me of when he was under pressure as captain. Brant's misdeeds brought this cool, steely side out of him, as did the grim days following the fire in Mull. I wish I could go to him, but my advances would be met with brusque indifference, even if he did want them.
"There's a lot for them to think about," Meg said. "We must be understanding."
"We are all in the same situation," Theodore pointed out. "We are all escaped prisoners. We all committed crimes that put us in prison in the first place. That doesn't mean we're bad people."
Max wheeled his horse about and rounded on him. I'd never seen his jaw set so hard, his eyes flashing with anger. He'd always been so agreeable and considerate towards his fellow guards and the villagers. "You think that because you haven't seen the sort of people who end up in prison. I've seen the evil residing in the palace cells."
"So have I," Theodore said.
"Not like we have. You don't know half of what they did. The captain kept the worst from you to protect you."
"Precisely. He protected us because he's a good man. As are you, Max. If you were inherently evil, you would have ended up in those cells too."
Max's response was to snarl and turn away. He rode off, streaking ahead of Dane. Meg started to go after him but changed her mind. She watched him with tears in her eyes, her teeth nibbling her lower lip.
Theodore pushed forward too but stopped in front of Dane, blocking the road. "Listen to me, all of you. We are not evil. The friends we left behind are not evil. Whatever crimes we committed that landed us in prison will be a result of our circumstance—poverty and lack of opportunity leading to desperation. Not acts of evil."
"Hear, hear," Kitty said.
We all agreed. All except Dane and Balthazar.
Dane still had his back to me as we set off again, so I rode up to Balthazar instead. "You have something to say?" I asked, perhaps a little too harshly. "You don't agree with Theodore?"
"I do not," he said. "Because I choose not to believe those drunkards in Priest's End until we know for certain."
Quentin frowned at him. "Their story explains a lot, Bal. You said so yourself. The scars on our backs, our hunger when we woke up in the palace."
Erik agreed. "Even the king was thin and dirty. He was a prisoner too." He grunted. "Probably for lying."
"No one is sent to prison for lying," Theodore said. "Especially not a prison mine."
Leon's dying words came back to me. They had haunted me for some time, and now they finally made sense. "He said he saved you."
Up ahead, Dane half turned, listening.
"He said the magic was the only way to save you from a slow and painful death," I went on.
"Do you think he meant from the execution?" Quentin asked.
"I doubt it. If the escape was orchestrated by the sorcerer, you were never in danger afterwards. I think Leon meant he saved you from the prison mine itself."
"No one survives in there for long," Meg added.
"Let's not jump to conclusions," Balthazar said. "Not until we know each and every servant's story."
Theodore shook his head. "You need to get used to the idea you did something illegal, Bal. I'd hate for the truth to come as a shock to you."
"I am prepared for any eventuality. I'm under no illusions that I have lived a blameless life."
Theodore looked to Max up ahead and sighed. "Do you want to speak to him, Meg, or shall I?"
"You go," she said. "You're his friend. I'm nothing to him."
"If you believe that, you're as deluded as Balthazar." He rode off so did not hear Balthazar tell him he wasn't deluded.
"I simply choose not to jump to conclusions," he said to us.
Hailia's Pass was not as far from Priest's End as Merdu's Pass had been, and we reached the foothills by late afternoon and camped on the treed slopes beside a stream. I made a calming tea while the men hunted for our supper, but it didn't seem to soothe tempers. It certa
inly didn't break the dark silences.
I lay awake, thinking about the prison mine and what my friends must have endured there. It would have been an arduous existence. The prisoners would have hauled rocks all day, pushed heavily laden carts, and lived like rats in the tunnels. They would have been given just enough food and water to survive, and would have been kept in line with harsh punishments. Evidence of those punishments were still visible on their backs.
Quentin would have found it difficult with his small stature; Theodore too, with his delicate nature. I couldn't fathom how Balthazar had survived more than a day, and I dared not imagine Dane subjected to the horrors of the mines. I couldn't begin to know how he reacted.
I did know that he wasn't an evil man, and I waited until he took over the watch from Erik before joining him and telling him so. "Theodore's right." I sat on the rock beside him at the edge of the clearing, very aware that he didn't want me giving him a lecture. Too bad, because he needed to hear what I had to say. "Circumstances beyond your control forced you to turn your hand to crime. I won't let you think of yourself as a criminal, Dane."
He remained unmoved, his gaze on the dark plain below. "I agree that poverty and lack of opportunity are valid reasons for resorting to crime. But I'm educated, Josie, as are Theodore and Balthazar; Quentin, too. Educated men can easily find work. They are not poor."
"Then perhaps Balthazar is right, and those men were wrong about the prison escape, or about recognizing Max. They were very drunk."
He didn't respond, and I knew he didn't agree. He believed those men. As did I.
"Don't do this, Dane. Don't shut me out because you think your past is one of evil and cruelty. Don't you dare believe that of yourself, because I don't. No one does."
He stood, still staring ahead. "I was known as Hammer. There must be a reason for that." He walked to the edge of the clearing and crossed his arms. I was dismissed.
If I'd known how to get through to him, I would not have left. But my advances wouldn't be welcome, nor my words, so I returned to the patch of earth between Meg and Kitty and lay down again. Meg took my hand, and I clutched hers in return until I drifted to sleep.