by Robin Hardy
Roman twisted his head from side to side to relieve the cramp in his neck, then let his head drop and closed his eyes. Waiting quietly had been easy the first hour or so, but now that the time for Tremelaine’s return drew near, it was harder to keep his mental composure. He had prayed so much he no longer knew what to say.
That door, the one to the corridor, began to move. Roman gazed at it as if the power of thought could keep it shut. But through it stepped a grinning Blood with a black beard. Shocked, Roman murmured, “Kam.”
“Surchatain,” he whispered, saluting. With Colin at his back, he crossed the room to quickly ascertain Roman’s condition.
“Kam—Colin—you’re in grave danger here.” Roman jerked his head up as Lew entered and knelt beside the rack.
“We’ll only be a moment,” whispered Kam. “Surchatain, you must try to recall—did you see what they did with the key to your chains?”
“One of the Bloods took it with him. It hangs on a chain from his belt,” Roman said.
“One of them? Can you tell us which one?” Kam asked.
“About your height, with brown hair and beard,” Roman said, describing any one of thirty Bloods.
Kam scowled at this setback. “Have they given you food or drink?”
“I’ve had only what Deirdre brought me,” Roman said wearily. There was a sharp clang as a handle fell from the rack Lew was working on. “What are you doing?” Roman asked Kam.
“What we can, sir,” he winked. Then he and Colin took up tools under Lew’s direction to dismantle the working parts of the machines. They removed the hinge pins from the iron maiden and set the door delicately back on empty hinges. They frayed the ropes of another machine to a thread. Roman watched, increasingly heartened, as they moved from piece to piece, wreaking destruction.
Colin stopped before the furnace. “What are we to do with this?”
Kam’s thick black brows gathered. “Dump the brands in it.” Colin gingerly opened the door, gathered up an armload of branding irons, and dropped them clattering within amid a flurry of sparks.
Kam stood before Roman as Lew worked on the last machine. “If they’re intent on torturing you, they’ll still find means. But this should frustrate them a bit till we can free you.” He paused to reach up and jerk on one of the chains that held Roman. It was most secure.
“Meanwhile,” Kam growled, “we’ll see about getting you more grub.” He stepped back and saluted. Roman nodded, somewhat stupefied.
“Surchatain.” Colin also saluted, then whispered, “You’re not alone. We’re in the shadows around you.” After that the three counterfeit Bloods stealthily exited.
Roman pressed his back to the stone wall, taking great breaths. “Thank you, Father. You do care.”
As Colin, Kam, and Lew strolled down the corridor, they were arrested by a sharp command: “Halt, you three! Present yourselves!”
They about-faced to see the Captain of the Bloods. “What are you doing up here?” he demanded.
“Sir!” Kam said crisply, hiding well his fear that the Captain would recognize him, “we were—we were—checking out reports of escaped prisoners!”
Captain Berk sneered, “Not here, stupid! In the town! Present yourselves to the Ninth Division to search houses!” He stopped, waiting.
Kam remembered the salute he had seen the Bloodclad give Tremelaine in the audience hall, so he gave it now. Colin and Lew instantly followed suit. The Captain stalked away.
The three marched downstairs with an air of ruthless determination. But they turned into the corridor leading to the dungeon and slipped into the storeroom. Colin sank up against the door. “We must be more careful about appearances. If we look like we’re doing something, we might not get called down.”
Kam shrugged, thinking. “That’s always a danger. It’s clear we’ll have to split up, though. Colin—you post yourself as guard in the upper corridor, to keep an eye on the comings and goings to that torture room. Watch closely for that key! If the Captain asks you why you’re there, tell him the Surchatain ordered it. Lew—you see if you can get more provisions and uniforms to those below.”
“What of you, sir?” asked Colin.
“Why, I’ll do as the Captain ordered,” Kam replied genially. “I’ll attach myself to the Ninth to see how I can foul up their operations. If I’m able, I’ll meet you in the dungeon tonight after dismissal.” The three clasped hands in fervent camaraderie before Kam and Colin slipped away.
Lew sat back down glumly in the dusky storeroom. How was he going to get more uniforms and provisions? Sure, they needed to stockpile food because they did not know how long they would have to hide down there. But where did they keep food in this huge palace? The kitchen? And where was that?
Pondering this, he leaned into a burlap sack. Then he caught a faint scent. Growing excited, he untied the sack and plunged his hand into a mixture of nuts and dried fruit. “Dunce, this is a storeroom!” he muttered.
As he lifted the sack, his eye dimly caught something beneath it. Bending, he took up a discarded servant’s dress. “Maybe someone can make use of this.” He stuffed it under his arm and peeked cautiously into the corridor. Then he strode to the dungeon door, earnestly praying not to be seen.
Kam stalked out to the grounds wearing his toughest face. A unit of soldiers on horseback was just returning to the stables. Tied to a nearby post a horse stood idle, thoughtfully provided for Kam’s use by a careless owner. So the Second quickly loosed its reins and hopped up on it, then merged with the forty men as they dismounted and stabled their horses.
All of the horses should have had assigned stalls, but Kam observed them being put anywhere, so he led the horse to a vacant space and untied the saddle cinch as he listened to the talk around him. “Why all the fuss over those Lystrans?” one Blood was muttering in complaint. “Since they were only emissaries, why not let them go? Why does that crazy ape on the throne want to start a war with Lystra?”
“Best hold your tongue—the Surchatain hears things like that. No one can hide from him,” a Blood nearby warned him.
“No? Those Lystrans have done it.”
“Shhh!” whispered the other, agitated. “They’ll be found, and when they are, you’ll see them hanging along the thoroughfare. No one can fight Tremelaine—not even his brother. So don’t try.”
“Hmmph,” snorted the first, unconvinced. “I still say he’s full of wind.”
The Captain of the Ninth barked into the stables, “Make it quick, you cripples! Chow!” The men curried the horses a few strokes, then joined the others hustling out. Kam fell in with them.
They marched to the soldiers’ dining hall, where they jostled for places in line to grab plates of mush and bread. Then they jostled for places to sit at long tables and benches. The huge hall, built to accommodate many soldiers, made the number of men here now look pitifully few. Kam estimated there were no more than two hundred.
He sat near a few who were glumly eating. “This here is slop,” muttered one. “Have you ever eaten such garbage?” he asked Kam, who shrugged.
The fellow looked more closely at Kam. “I don’t know you.”
Kam gave him only a sidelong glance. “I don’t know you either, and I want to keep it that way,” he said sullenly.
“Huh,” the other grunted. “You can count on it.” He turned back to his companions, and Kam was able to eavesdrop on their conversation without being dangerously drawn in to it.
He listened to them talk about, of all things, the weather. It had been hot and dry for five weeks running, and this fact concerned them very much. “If we don’t get rain soon, my sheep are going to choke on the dust,” complained one. Sheep? wondered Kam.
“You say,” agreed another. “I’ll be lucky to harvest a fourth of my rye.” Rye? Sheep? Are these men the dreaded Bloodclad? Kam mulled.
As he listened to them further, he realized, no, they were not the Bloodclad—not like those under Tremaine. These were simply farmers w
ho had been pressed into service for lack of real soldiers. They were not so much concerned with conquest or killing as with maintaining their fields and feeding their families.
Kam shook his head. The fearsome Bloodclad, it turned out, were no more awesome than any other conscripted army. They were a sham, like Tremelaine’s “gold” robe. Whatever was to be feared here, it was not them.
Dinner over, Kam ambled out with the rest of the men to find a spare bed in the ample barracks and learn what more he might.
Half an hour after Lew had gone down below, the dungeon door opened again. Out stepped a girl wearing a servant’s dress. She paused to put on a saucy air, then strolled down the corridor toward where she knew the dining hall and kitchen were.
Before opening the doors into the dining hall, Deirdre put her eye to the crack between them. This hall was paneled with seamless sheets of glass on silver, making the whole room a colossal, flawless mirror. It was not only captivating, but unnerving and disorienting to guests, as Deirdre had learned from her visit here years before. No doubt that was the reason Tremaine had it constructed so.
There were no guests in the hall yet, only servants putting out dishes and candelabra. Deirdre came in and a maid glanced up. “Captain Berk sent me down for a tray,” Deirdre said carelessly. “He’s got someone in his room and he doesn’t wish to be bothered to come down, if you understand me,” she added, rolling her eyes and praying that Captain Berk would not choose to appear in the hall any time soon.
“I hate that filthy Blood,” whispered the girl, then glanced at Deirdre, wondering how loose her tongue might be. But she tossed her head as she took Deirdre into the humming kitchen.
“What does he want?” the maid asked, pulling out a serving platter.
Deirdre glanced down the work tables. “The veal and potatoes, the boiled onions—and two bottles of wine.”
“Two?”
“As I said, he has someone with him,” Deirdre tossed off. She stood by as if bored while the maid filled the tray. The girl was quick and lithe, with almond-shaped eyes and light brown hair that curled around her face in ringlets. Something about her was appealing, so when Deirdre took the platter from her hands, she said, “Thank you.”
The maid knitted her brows at the expression of courtesy. “Who are you?”
“Goldie.” Deirdre’s old servant name returned to her immediately. “And what is your name?”
“Izana,” the maid replied.
Deirdre could not linger for any more questions. She took the tray and clay bottles down the corridor to the dungeon door, which she opened just enough to set one bottle behind it. Then she carried the tray up the stairs toward the living quarters, watching for Colin standing guard in the corridor.
When he saw her, his eyes grew large. “Is Roman in there?” she whispered, nodding to the door across from him.
“Yes—but don’t go in! Tremelaine and two Bloods just went in there!”
Tremelaine stood glaring up at Roman. “I can’t find out the reason for your coming,” he said in his nasal whine. “There is a dark veil around your purpose that won’t open to me. But one thing is clear—you are at my mercy. And I intend to make you plead for it on your knees to me!” He stabbed a finger at the iron maiden. “Open it!” he commanded to the Bloods.
Captain Berk unlatched it and swung the door open. But it swung right off the hinges and fell to the stone floor with an ear-shattering clang.
Tremelaine and the Bloods jumped. In wordless astonishment, they gazed at the incapacitated maiden. “Idiots! Idiots!” shouted Tremelaine, pummeling the air as the Captain raised his hands helplessly. “The rack, then!”
They unchained Roman from the wall and laid him on the rack, fastening his wrists and ankles in its fetters. As one Blood took the handle, Tremelaine glowered over Roman, “It will be a pleasure to hear your bones crack.”
The guard began turning and the gears began moving. But just as steadily, they began slipping. With every notch forward they slipped a notch back, so that as much as the soldier cranked, all he could do was tire his arm.
“Turn, fool!” ordered Tremelaine.
“I am, Surchatain!” the soldier answered, breaking into a sweat.
With an oath, Tremelaine yanked him aside to look down into the workings. “The teeth have been broken,” he seethed. Turning on the Captain, he demanded, “Execute the man responsible for maintaining these machines!”
“Yes, Surchatain,” Berk said desperately. “But—” He was thinking of sabotage, knowing the machines to be in recent good condition. But when it occurred to him what methods Tremelaine would use to find the culprit, Berk strangled the rest of the sentence.
“On the rope!” decreed Tremelaine. Urgently, the Bloods unlocked Roman from the rack. They stripped the rest of his clothes from him and put him face down lengthwise on a thick coarse rope, suspended a yard high between two wheels. The rope sagged from his weight as his wrists and knees were pulled to the floor and strapped down. The rope now ran tightly from one wheel down his front and out between his legs to the other wheel.
“Draw the rope,” Tremelaine commanded. “And don’t stop until it severs him in two. Which will not be for many hours,” he grinned unpleasantly at Roman.
This time the Captain took the handle of the back wheel and began cranking. The rope started to move, scraping and burning. Roman sucked in his breath with the pain of it while a panicky thought flashed by: Had they gotten to this machine, or overlooked it? He could not remember.
The rope drew down his skin, over the fresh brand, and Roman trembled with the pain of it. The urge to vent his pain by crying out was intense, but he clamped his mouth shut. As long as he could stand it, he would not give Tremelaine one whit of satisfaction. Abruptly the rope snapped, sending Roman to the floor. He lay on the cool stone, breathing thanksgiving.
“AARGHH! Ayaiah aai-ai-ai!” Tremelaine went into a screaming fit that exceeded anything Roman had ever seen, even from Deirdre. He ran cursing from one machine to another, kicking them and tearing them apart with his bare hands. Then he lit on the door, calling back over his shoulder, “Bring him!”
The Bloods unlocked Roman, hoisting him up. They took him naked out into the corridor behind Tremelaine. Roman saw the serving girl with the food tray and the guard in the corridor, but turned his eyes away. The girl gasped and the guard went ashen. Tremelaine and his soldiers never glanced at them.
They took Roman through corridors and up stairs, in full view of anyone who happened to be along the way. Roman kept his eyes straight ahead, making his heart stone to the indignity. What was coming was liable to be infinitely worse.
They ascended a long flight of steps which ended at a narrow door. The Bloods opened it to reveal the roof of the palace—the highest point in the entire city. The view from here of the sun setting on the horizon was magnificent.
Roman was led to a tall pole set within six feet of the crenelation at the edge of the roof. Using a short ladder, the guards strapped his hands above his head and his feet to the base of the pole, stretching him so that he stood precariously on tiptoe.
“See how tall you are now, big man!” sneered Tremelaine. “Where is your mighty God now? When I am done with you, you’ll beg to serve me! What do you say to that?”
Roman looked down on him silently. “Still too proud to answer! Then I will give you time to think on it. Days!” Tremelaine spun in his yellow-gold robe and went back into the palace. His guards followed, carrying the ladder.
Alone in the twilight, Roman tested the leather straps, finding them unyielding. He rested his feet against the pole to make himself as comfortable as possible, ignoring the spasms in his calves. He kept watching for sentries patrolling the roof, but never saw one. Apparently they were unneeded this high up.
Hearing a slight rustle behind him, he froze. Something was set on the ground, then a soft hand touched his side. “Oh, Roman!”
He wrenched to look into her tear-filled eyes.
“Deirdre, please get away. Please get yourself hidden. The only thing worse than what they can do to me is what they would do with you!”
“I’m getting you down from here,” she whispered through gritted teeth, drawing Colin’s knife from under her dress. But she could not reach his wrists. “I’m going back for Colin,” she said.
“No! Deirdre, listen to me,” he said in a voice low with urgency. “You must not endanger yourselves to rescue me. You would not be able to get me through the palace unnoticed.” She got that look of heedlessness on her face and he hissed, “Deirdre! If you never obey me again, do this for me now!”
She weakened, with a look of pain. He went on, “It will be well, Deirdre—God is here. I don’t know exactly what is taking place; somehow, it’s a test of wills. I don’t know why, but it’s important that I submit to this—that I not be distracted from my purpose here,” he said in sudden insight.
She wrapped her arms around his taut body, pressing her face into his chest. “I can’t bear to see you like this.”
“Give me up, Deirdre,” he said tenderly. “I had to give you up, once.”
She wept, kissing his chest, as she could not reach his lips. “Can you eat and drink?” she moaned, anxious to stay near him as long as he allowed.
“Yes,” he said quickly. So she bent down for the platter and bottle she had carried up. She fed him every last piece of meat and potato and onion, then held the bottle up for him to drain. That need filled, he looked down on her with clearer eyes. “Thank you, my love.”
She started to cry again. He said, “Deirdre, there is one more thing. Don’t try to come to me again—you’re bound to get caught. Instruct the others not to come to me. Concentrate on rescuing the townspeople who are in danger and keeping yourselves hidden. Do you understand?” She raised miserable eyes to him. “Deirdre, I ask this not as your husband but as your sovereign. Will you obey me?”
She breathed brokenly, “Yes, my lord.” He smiled, relieved. She embraced him a final time, then slipped back into the palace to descend to the dungeon.