I turn away and find myself studying the man’s armor. It’s barely noticeable from a distance but up close I can make out gold inlaid into the surface, somehow under the black enamel. It forms the shape of a heraldic phoenix, wings outstretched, with arrows and swords clutched in its claws.
I’m shocked to find women back at the camp, dressed the same as the men, and armed. The crown prince lowers me onto a stretcher and Melissa sits behind me.
They make me hold still as a nurse examines me, and stand in a circle around me to give me some meager privacy as I dress in a plain black uniform like the ones they wear. Melissa changes as well, and hugs me.
“I’m so sorry,” she whimpers. “I’m so, so sorry—”
I shush her as the female guards give me a sharp look.
I can’t take my eyes off him. Two of his guards come from behind and clasp a cape to two points on his shoulders. It’s cloth of gold, so heavy it doesn’t swing or sway when he moves. They carry a heavy steel chair into the ruined mess hall, and he sits down.
The general, Brad, and a few other stragglers kneel in a row along the side of the room. I hold my breath, leaning forward to listen to him speak.
He starts in Kosztylan, but slowly and clearly, with a harsh, aristocratic accent, very precise and deliberate. I can make out enough of it to understand what’s going on.
He’s declared a trial, and the resistance fighters and Brad are the defendants.
He looks over his shoulder and glances at me. I can’t see anything of his face. I only know he’s looking my way because of a narrow slit in his helmet. I can just barely make out his eyes through a smoky material, too hard to be glass.
“You. Come forward.”
Shuddering, I get up and start limping toward him. One of his guards, a woman, slips under my arm and helps me over, and provides me with a folding chair.
“You can’t do this,” Brad spits. “You have no right to put me on trial. This is a farce. You can’t act as judge and jury.”
“You do not need your tongue. You will lose it if you continue to speak.”
Brad shuts up.
“Tell me who you are and where you came from. Do not lie. I will know.”
I shiver.
“You may speak freely.”
“I’m an American. My name is Penny. I was working across the border in Solkovia in an aid camp.”
Oh God, I can’t tell them Melissa was involved.
“The truth. All of it,” the prince booms.
I swallow and look at Melissa.
“It wasn’t her fault,” she cries out, sobbing. “It was me. I was helping Brad bring stuff here. I’m so sorry. Don’t hurt Penny, please don’t hurt Penny, I swear I—”
“Silence,” he booms. “Continue.”
“As she says. I followed Melissa out of our tent and found her helping Brad load a truck with boxes. We didn’t know what was in them. Please don’t hurt her, she thought it was food. She just wants to help people, she didn’t know what this place was like.”
I feel like I’m talking to a statue. I look away from him.
“They brought us here and talked about us in Kosztylan. I don’t speak your language very well but I understood what they were saying. They were going to sell Melissa. That man,” I point at the general, “said he was going to keep me. He already had another girl. Danielle. She’s the one who was shot. He…hurt her.” I can’t make myself say it.
The bearded general calls me a name that doesn’t have a direct English translation. It’s a mix of slut and cunt and it compares me to a female cat.
The butt of a rifle silences him.
“I don’t want to tell what happened when he took me. Please.”
“Did he…?” the question hangs unasked.
“No,” I take a deep breath, eyes closed, “but if you’d arrived a minute later he would have.”
“What is the role of the American man here?”
“He brings weapons. They said something about selling drugs. He didn’t explain it to me. I don’t know any more than that. He left us to be sold or killed. He was going to leave us here.”
It spills out of me with a sudden intensity, until I start to shake.
“I want to go home.”
“I will decide that. I saved your life. Now your life belongs to me.”
I freeze.
Brad laughs. “I told you.”
“I have heard enough to pass judgement,” the prince says, rising to tower over all of us. He turns and barks a single word in Kosztylan.
It means sword.
One of his men marches forward stiffly, like this is some kind of ritual. At the same time, two others drag the bearded general to the center of the room and force him to his knees, kicking him forward until his chest lands on a crate, his head hanging over the side.
Oh my God.
The prince draws the sword from the scabbard. The blade is five feet long and as wide as a man’s hand, the grip big enough for him to hold two-handed in his huge gauntlets.
There’s some kind of connector on the grip. It touches a plate on his gauntlet and the sword starts humming, crackling like a high-tension wire. He steps beside the bearded general.
“I, Prince Kristoff of the House Kosztyla, Crown Prince, sentence you to death by beheading. Speak your last words, have you any.”
The general bellows out a string of profanities, accusing the prince of fornicating with apes and insinuating that his mother is a whore who lies with pigs, among other obscenities.
The prince listens to him for a good thirty seconds then looks at me like he’s noticing me for the first time. The blade hovers over the general’s neck.
“Take the women out,” the prince commands. “They need not see this.”
Walking outside feels like floating, even limping on a sore ankle. Once I’m outside the tent, I hear it. The general lets loose a string of obscenities, his last words, as it were. Then they cut off.
I giggle. Cut off. Good one, Penny. My laughter breaks down into sobs.
I can hear Brad.
“You can’t do this!” he shrieks, high and thin. “I’m a fucking American! I’m with the CIA! Do you know who I am?”
I turn back and look.
They push him down, and the prince brings the sword close to his face. The very tip touches Brad’s cheek with a hissing pop and I can smell him burning.
“Oh God, please don’t…”
“You plea to God for help now that you reap what you have sown, American?”
Brad just stares at him.
“God will tire of your pleas by the time I am done with you. I, Prince Kristoff of the House Kosztyla, Crown prince, sentence you to death by torment. Take him to the castle.”
Brad is silent for a moment, puffing as the prince takes his sword and sheathes it. Then he screams, his pleas turning into wails and sobs as they pick him up, bind his hands and feet, and carry him out.
“Hang the rest,” the prince says, as casually as he might tell his men to throw out a bag of garbage. “Leave them for the crows.”
Then he turns to me.
“You,” then to Melissa, “and you. Come.”
Melissa stands up, shaking like a leaf.
Surrounded by his men, we walk. He keeps pace with us, moving with ponderous, careful slowness, as if the armor suddenly weighs him down.
He looks at Melissa.
“You will be taken to a hospital. There you will be examined and treated for any injuries.”
Melissa starts to cry.
He looks at me.
“You’re scaring her. Take off your helmet.”
Those black eye slits study me hard, and then he gives the slightest of nods, a movement so tiny I wouldn’t have noticed it if I didn’t hear the tiny whirr his suit makes when it moves. He reaches up and sinks his clawed fingertips into notches at the base of the helmet, and it pops open with a soft hiss.
He lifts it off and hands it to one of his guards, who strugg
les to bear the weight. I hardly notice. I’m too busy staring at him.
He’s gorgeous. He has a long and severe face with dark-blue eyes that study me hungrily, like they’re going to swallow me up. His dark, straight hair is pulled back and bound into a knot behind his head. His jaw looks carved from stone, and his high, angular cheekbones give him an austere, lean look.
“You said your name is Penny.”
I swallow hard and try not to let my voice crack. “Yes, that’s right.”
“A penny is a coin.”
“Yes.”
“The coin of lowest value.”
I blink. “Yes, but—”
“I don’t like this name, Penny. This is a diminutive, yes? A…” he searches for the word, “nickname.”
“Yes. My real name is Persephone.”
He’s quiet for a moment that stretches until I swallow, hard.
“It would be.”
He turns and speaks to his men. His command is given slowly, clearly, so that I can understand it.
“Take this one directly to the castle. See that she has a change of clothes and a chance to bathe. She will dine with me.”
“You can’t keep us here. We’re American citizens.”
He turns back to look at me again.
“I am the crown prince. I do as I like.”
3
I’m not sure if I was expecting him to literally pick me up and carry me off, but he doesn’t. He strides past me, big metal boots thudding on the ground as he walks, and sharply throws the tent flaps open as he passes. I feel a hand on my arm and blink.
Taller than I am by a foot, heavier, and blonder, the woman who just took my arm is dressed the same as the men and fits in perfectly with them from the neck down. From the neck up, she could have a modeling career. Her short military bob actually looks good on her.
“The prince orders that you be taken to the castle. This way.”
It’s not an invitation. He ordered it, so I’m going. In spite of myself, I lean on her. Melissa grabs my hand and I give her a tight squeeze before they pull us apart and lead her out. I swallow hard and hope we haven’t just fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire.
A big, wide-bellied helicopter with two rotors sits outside. I hobble on my bad leg to the big open door, where two of the prince’s men (I can’t bring myself to call them Phoenix Guard) lift me inside by the arms, drop me into a seat, and clip a harness over my chest.
The rotors spin up, and I grab a set of earmuffs from a hook above my shoulder and slip them on to soften the thumping roar. The chopper shifts from side to side and turns a little as the wind catches it, and I grip the edges of the seat with white knuckles. The only time I’ve ever flown was on my two flights out of the States to Madrid and then out here, and never by helicopter. It feels rickety and unstable as it lifts up, the ground sinking away below. The door is still open and the only thing holding me down is the safety harness on the seat.
I feel like I’m falling off the world. As it lifts up I look around at the grim-faced, soldierly men and women surrounding me, and avert my eyes when our gazes meet. I sink into the seat and try to shrink up into a tiny little ball and disappear, but no matter how hard I suck up into myself, I’m still here.
Once in the air, the difference between Solkovia and Kosztyla is night and day. At the door itself a member of the Guard sits at a complicated-looking machine gun with a bunch of barrels, sweeping it back and forth as if he expects an attack at any moment.
I can mark out the border easily. The mountains are all dark, of course, but on the western side, in Kosztyla, the world is alive with light—lights in buildings, street lamps, cars flowing in orderly procession down the roads. The Solkovian side of the mountain range is dark, except for a few points of light in the distance, in the capital.
The chopper goes higher and swings around, and the gunner on the door visibly relaxes, even lighting a cigarette that somehow doesn’t go out or snap away from his lips as he puffs on it, casting a harsh red glow on his face and thick gloves.
I hug myself and rub my arms against the cold as the helicopter cuts swiftly over the lights. I can’t remember the name, but there is a city near the border, then open land. Even there, plenty of light illuminates the roads and small hamlets that pop up here and there among fertile fields.
Everything here is so small. Even as an East Coaster, growing up in America has left me with a skewed perspective on distance. A half-hour flight into Kosztyla and we’re in the center of the country.
There is a single mountain that spurs up in the middle of the tiny nation. The gold mines within are said to still be productive, and the capital surrounds it and climbs up its slopes but stops a third of the way up.
Near the top is an actual, honest-to-God castle. In the dark, lit by bright spotlights, it looks like something out of a fairy tale. Red lights blink slowly on the tops of the towers, glowing angry in the mists that surround them and flow down the mountainside in sheets. Some of the stone is dark gray, some is so black it swallows the light, like pools of ink. It’s bigger than it first appears, big enough that in one of the courtyards is a chopper pad that can easily accommodate the big transport helicopter carrying me in.
My grip on the seat tightens again during the descent, the vinyl squeaking under my fingernails. I close my eyes but that only makes it worse, and a gust of wind rips across my body and shoves the chopper to the side. It sways violently. When my eyes crack open on their own, I can look almost straight down at the helipad.
I snap them shut again and try not to scream. The chopper evens out but it doesn’t feel any calmer. There’s a thud and a sudden lurch and I’m sure we’re going to crash, but when my eyes open again I find myself looking out at worn stone walls and the same tall blonde woman undoing my safety harness.
She helps me to my feet, roughly but steadily, and two of the men lift me down to the concrete pad.
The castle is even more impressive from the outside. The courtyard is ringed by a curtain wall forty feet high and ten feet thick, topped with sharply pointed battlements that claw defiantly at the sky. The walls meet at sharp angles, giving the entire castle a star shape around an older fortress with lower walls, the heavy blocks of stone worn smooth and melded together by time. In the middle, three towers rise up, the tallest and widest as big as a good-sized skyscraper.
Flags, hundreds of flags, whip in the wind everywhere they can hang, the phoenix on a yellow field. Their constant snapping and flapping forms a chorus, like being trapped in a flock of angry birds. I gladly take the offered crutch and make my way toward an open door, flanked by two of the crown prince’s soldiers.
I feel like I’m floating. This isn’t happening. This can’t be real. I’m in some kind of crazy dream. I read The Lord of the Rings before I went to sleep and I’m having a nightmare about being trapped in Mordor.
I’ll wake up any second now.
Keep telling yourself that, Penny.
It’s warmer inside, at least. I expected a castle to be damp and drafty but it’s actually nice in here. It is a castle, though. The stone floors are covered in layers of thick rugs woven in intricate patterns, and the walls are plastered and covered over with tapestries.
Real tapestries, not some crap you’d buy at a mall. This random hallway is adorned with one fifty feet long, covered in scenes of battle. As a rough guess, I’d put the age at anywhere between three and four hundred years old, maybe even actually medieval. Hangings like this tell a story, and I try to puzzle it out as I hobble by.
It’s about a guy in black armor. I have that much down.
The corridor slopes up until it opens onto another one through an arched doorway. It quickly becomes difficult to keep track of all the turns. Without asking, my escorts support me by the arms as I hobble up a sweeping staircase that winds around a curved wall to a higher floor.
The one on my right opens a heavy oak door, banded with iron.
“You will sleep here,” he
says in clipped, accented English.
“Uh, thanks,” I mutter, and lean on the crutch to work my way inside.
I look around for something to light my way and my escort helpfully reaches into the room and throws a plain old light switch.
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
This room is bigger than my house at home. The ceiling soars twenty feet overhead, with electric chandeliers hanging on big chains that run from one end to the other. Situated between two thick columns holding up the ceiling, an enormous four-poster bed, much bigger than a king size, sits piled up with pillows and blankets as high as my neck, with a little staircase to climb up.
Another heavy door stands open, leading into a bathroom. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe a bucket and a chamber pot, but primitive this is not. The shower cabinet could hold ten people behind its smoky glass doors, and there would be a showerhead for each of them, plus a detachable one on a jointed metal hose. I half expect the toilet seat to be made of solid gold.
No. I’m pretty sure it’s oak, though.
Hobbling back out of the bathroom, I try the doorknob on the main door. It turns freely, but the door won’t budge. It’s barred from the outside.
Great.
I stand there for a good ten minutes trying to figure out what to do. I search for a phone but don’t fine one, though there is a huge antique writing desk that’s probably older than the United States. Stone stairs lead up to a balcony. I make my way up and out into the open air, and jump back with a yelp.
The stone railing is high enough, but on the other side is a sheer drop. I’m bad at guessing distances but it’s somewhere between five hundred and a thousand feet of nearly vertical rock to the lights below, and just a glimpse gives me vertigo that grips my stomach like a fist.
There’s a knock at the door and it swings open.
It’s the blonde guardswoman.
“His grace the prince regrets that he must rescind his dinner invitation to attend to matters of state. He instead commands that you join him for breakfast at dawn.”
Count On Me Page 27