The man’s free hand flew out and struck Michael across the face. It sounded as loud in his head as a slamming door, and his ears rang painfully. He found himself half-sprawled on the floor when he’d gathered his wits once more, and all he could taste was the sharp, metallic flavor of blood.
Impatiently, Robyn yanked him to his feet again, wrenching his already bruised arm. He was still talking but Michael could barely make sense of what the man was saying.
“If you’d just drunk the brandy! Now you’ve spoiled everything! I would’ve done anything for you. Anything! But you’re so beautiful, I should’ve realized you couldn’t possibly be as innocent as you seemed. I should’ve known JhaPel wouldn’t have thrown you into the streets without good reason.”
“Let me go.” Michael’s head throbbed from the blow, and his balance was destroyed by it. “Please, just let me go!”
“Not yet, darling child,” Robyn sneered. “You owe me for all I’ve done for you. You’re an ungrateful little whore, and I’m going to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.”
A senseless shriek ran through Michael’s brain while his lips moved soundlessly, trying to form words and failing. He swallowed and nearly choked on a mouthful of blood. A whimper escaped his throat.
The man leaned in close to him. His free hand reached up and tangled itself in Michael’s long, black hair, holding the boy’s head so that he couldn’t escape.
Shock shut down Michael’s imperfect mental defenses, and the full force of Robyn’s thoughts and feelings overwhelmed him the moment the man’s lips touched his. The boy recognized Robyn’s strongest emotion, and though he had felt it directed at himself before, he had never sensed it from Robyn until that moment—nor had it ever been so overpowering. It was a grasping, suffocating thing which wanted to smother him in its own desires.
Images and feelings and ideas that seemed weirdly familiar forced themselves into his awareness. He didn’t want to know what they meant, didn’t want to understand what was happening, but it was too late for escape. He knew Robyn meant to hurt him.
Robyn’s mouth scrubbed against his face, his tongue filling Michael’s mouth. The man made sickening noises and ripples of pleasure rolled off of him. Finally, he pulled back as if to study the boy’s battered face.
“Are you afraid of me, dear?”
Michael felt numb and stupid. He could feel the blood running from his nose and taste it on his lips. “Yes.”
Robyn smiled like a hungry dog, and, still holding tightly to Michael’s arm, turned and strode through the foyer toward the staircase.
“Don’t do this!” Michael tried to break free of the man’s painful grip while still keeping his feet under him, but Robyn seemed to fully intend to drag him up the stairs if he didn’t walk. “Let me go! Let me go!”
They reached Robyn’s bed chamber, and the man pushed the boy through the doorway. Michael tripped, fell to his knees, and burst into tears. “Leave me alone!” he sobbed. “Go AWAY!”
“We’re not done yet, sweetheart. There are some things it’s about time you learned. Get up.”
“No!” Michael’s anger pushed away his tears for the moment.
“Have it your own way, then,” Robyn muttered. He yanked the boy to his feet again, hurting his arm so badly with this new violence that Michael screamed. The man dragged him to the bed where he shoved him down.
Michael squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face with his hands as if this could hide him from whatever Robyn meant to do. “Holy Vail, protect your child in this hour of need—”
The man pulled Michael’s arms away and caught his face in his hands. He kissed him again, full and hard on the mouth, and Michael knew at once it was supposed to hurt, which it very much did, but he couldn’t understand why.
When Robyn finally drew back, Michael could see that the man was almost laughing. “It’s too late for a protection prayer, my darling innocent,” he whispered. “You should have prayed that prayer the day we met. Perhaps then it might have done you some good.”
“Robyn, please!” Michael pushed on the man’s chest, desperate to push him away. The taste of liquor was now strong in the boy’s mouth, the smell of it thick in his nostrils. His stomach lurched, and he swallowed, trying to keep from being sick.
Robyn ignored his struggling and unbuttoned Michael’s shirt before pushing it down over his shoulders.
Michael swallowed carefully and put his words together with painful slowness. “Please. What are you doing?”
Robyn smiled a strange, frightening smile. “I’m undressing you. I’ve done it before, remember? We’re going to play a game tonight, Michael, and you won’t need any clothes for it.” He bent down, kissing Michael again while his hands worked on undoing the boy’s trousers.
“Stop it!” Michael squirmed backwards to escape. Robyn climbed up onto the bed, following Michael until he’d pushed himself up against the headboard and could go no farther. Laughing, Robyn rested his hands against the wall behind the bed, penning Michael between his arms.
“Please, Robyn,” he hiccupped. “I don’t like this game. I don’t want to play!”
Robyn laughed. “This is just one of those games, darling. You have to play whether you want to or not. Unfair, I know, but you’d better get used to it.”
“Why are you doing this?” Michael couldn’t understand what had happened. He couldn’t comprehend what Robyn wanted. His only thought was that he must have done something horribly wrong and this was his punishment. “What did I do?”
“You took everything I gave you, my dear, and gave me nothing in return. Now I’m afraid your debt is rather large. I’ve taken very good care of you and my housekeeper waited on you, hand and foot. Such service does not come cheap.”
Frantic for a way out of whatever was happening, Michael seized on Robyn’s explanation. “I’ll pay you back if you’ll please just let me go! I’ll work—I’ll scrub floors! I’ll—I’ll do anything!” Emotions pounded into him like fists, and Robyn’s desire focused on him so strongly, he felt he was drowning in it. “Please!”
“Yes, beg me, Michael.” The man leaned in closer to nuzzle his cheek and lick his neck, his unshaven face hurtfully rough against the boy’s soft skin. “It won’t matter in the end, but I like to hear it.”
“NO! Let me GO!” Michael scrambled frantically, spurred by fear into trying to escape under his captor’s arm.
Robyn caught him too easily, too tightly, his fingers sinking more bruises into the boy’s upper arms. He shoved Michael back against the headboard, pinning him again, and the two stared for a long moment into each other’s eyes.
Finally, Michael managed a fragile whisper. “This is wrong. And Vail will punish—”
This slap exploded across his face and threw him down onto the bed. The pain of it branded itself into his memory forever. It hurt worse than the other blows, bringing on fresh bruises and reminding his body of the wounds he’d already suffered that night. His desperate tears turned to broken sobs, and the only defense he knew was to cover his face again.
“Shut up, or I’ll hit you again.” Robyn yanked Michael back up to a sitting position and pulled his hands away from his face. “You listen to me and listen well. You’re a little kiska streeter now. No one cares about you. No one is going to care what I do to you. If you want to survive, you’ll accept that. Do you understand?”
Michael nodded, tears spilling silently down his cheeks. He felt sick and dizzy and faint, and he hurt all over. He wanted to fight, but he could barely move in the man’s brutal grip.
Robyn’s expression softened. He smoothed the damp, ebony hair away from Michael’s face with ironic care, whispering, “SanClare Black, indeed.” He tilted the boy’s chin upwards, surveying him proprietarily.
“You are so beautiful.” And he kissed him again.
#
Michael stayed huddled on the floor next to the bed for a long time after Robyn had finally finished with him, rolled over, and gone to
sleep.
He felt worse than he ever had, and his thoughts refused to flow in any way that made sense. Robyn’s words whirled around in his head mixing with the sound of his own screams.
“If you want to survive...” This phrase was the only thing he could make out, echoing in Michael’s mind, relentless and inescapable. He didn’t know yet what his answer to the implicit question would be.
At some point Michael had stopped crying, but he couldn’t remember when. Time seemed both stretched and collapsed, stumbling along erratically around him.
“If you want to survive...”
After an eternity had passed, someone or something answered the question.
.:You do. You must. It isn’t your time.:. The Voice from his dreams. The Voice that had tried to warn him. The Voice that had tried to get him to run away.
Why didn’t I listen before?
.:Listen to me now,:. the Voice urged. .:He won’t let you go.:.
Michael bit down on a sob and pulled himself into a smaller huddle. He’d never before been in such pain nor would he have believed it possible. The attack had been so torturously painful, he’d feared Robyn meant to kill him. And the blood...
Robyn laughed! Laughed at Michael’s ragged, horrified screams. Laughed at his revulsion and useless struggling. Called him names that only now, afterwards, he understood. Robyn had made certain he understood.
Michael choked on a sob and took a rattling breath to control it, but he couldn’t control his memories. The images haunted his mind, visible even when he squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at them with his fists. He felt numb and sick by turns, fear and disgust tearing through his mind in a never-ending scream.
He’d been in a stupor at first, hating everything Robyn forced him to do, everything he did to him. The man’s words and thoughts and touches humiliated Michael, but it had been bearable. Horrible, but—
Why? Why didn’t I know what he wanted to do to me? Why didn’t I know?
.:It isn’t your fault:. the Voice insisted. .:His mind was shadowed.:.
I still should have known.
.:He drugged you. He must have.:.
It made sense, or as much sense as anything was making to Michael at that moment. He always wanted me to drink wine...and that brandy...I should have suspected something. He was always so strange. But Michael had never suspected he might be a monster.
He knew he would remember it forever: Robyn’s voice whispering behind him, his hot breath tickling Michael’s ear as his hands caressed their way down his body and forced his legs apart, bruising him again. Robyn’s hands stroked his bottom, his hairy, muscular body crushing, burning against Michael’s.
His voice had sounded so odd, his mind so full of violent, red-stained emotions, that Michael had known whatever Robyn had been about to do would be worse than anything he could ever have expected.
The man’s big, sweaty hand had clamped roughly over his mouth, the thumb pressing a bruise into his jaw, a fingernail scratching into his cheek.
“Now, I’m afraid this might hurt a little, my darling.”
Even as it happened, Michael had tried to get away. The hand smothered his screams, torn free by such unimaginable agony he still couldn’t believe Robyn had done such a thing to him.
But he didn’t want to keep me from screaming. The realization made his stomach twist and a gag push at his throat. He wanted to feel my pain...he wanted to know how badly he was hurting me.
.:You have to listen! You have to get away now! It may be your only chance.:.
Michael sniffed back more tears and rubbed ineffectually at his runny nose. “Leave me alone. Please. I just want to die.”
.:He isn’t going to kill you. He’ll keep you alive so he can hurt you whenever it pleases him.:.
Michael whimpered and nearly blacked out from fear, but he began the slow, painful process of standing up.
His clothes lay strewn across the bed chamber floor, and he picked them up and put them on, biting his tongue to stifle outcries of pain. He wasted precious moments untangling his bootlaces again but was thankful he’d have them. He wouldn’t have a coat, and it was always chilly at night.
He’s a monster. I trusted a monster. I’m never going to be able to do this. I’ll never make it away from JhaPel!
.:You will survive. You have to survive.:.
The bed chamber door seemed lengths away, and Michael moved slowly, trying not to wake Robyn and trying not to cause himself too much pain. The door creaked when he opened it, but Robyn didn’t stir.
The corridor beyond was pitch-dark and Michael had no idea how to turn on the expensive electrical lights even if he dared to, but once through the door, the Voice guided him, and he moved through the night-dark house, certain of his way. The stairs loomed, and he hurried down and to the door.
He suffered a brief, panicked moment over the lock until he spotted the key sitting on a small table nearby. He slipped through the front door at last and out into the chilly night.
A feverish wave washed over him, leaving a film of clammy sweat coating his skin and leaving Michael feeling violently ill. He leaned over the railing and vomited onto Robyn’s rosebushes before he slid down into a pain-wracked huddle on the top step. The cold of the stones seeped easily through his thin clothes.
I can’t do this. I can’t.
.:Get up!:. The Voice sounded loud as a shout. .:Run! He won’t be any more kind if he knows you’ve tried to escape.:.
Michael wanted to scream, but he wrapped his hands around the cold iron rails and pulled himself to his feet once more.
Rosy streaks were beginning to lighten the sky, and silhouetted against them, far away, Michael could see the Fensgate Temple’s bell tower. He limped down Robyn’s front steps, ignoring the beautiful buildings and well-kept street surrounding him, and broke into a run.
# # #
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Michael burrowed deeper into the vines covering JhaPel’s garden wall and tried again to sleep. He’d run for blocks on a strong wave of panic and hadn’t slowed down until he’d reached the bridge to Fensgate Parish and crossed it to find himself at last back in the familiar square outside JhaPel.
By that time, his side ached from running, and he’d started to bleed again. He guessed he looked horrible and was glad he hadn’t passed close enough to anyone to be seen for what he was.
A whore.
That’s what Telyr had meant when he’d mocked Michael on the steps of JhaPel. It had just been a taunt, but now Michael couldn’t help but wonder if Telyr had expected it to come true.
I still need to find Pol. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave the relative safety of the garden wall. He couldn’t bring himself to do much of anything but sleep.
Hours drifted by, flowing around him with the lethargic indolence of a slow river on a hot summer day, and he drifted with them, in and out of sleep and in and out of awareness. He heard the sounds of his former companions rising over the garden wall, and he wished he could go back in time to many moons ago before Ethene became ill and everything had changed.
He had no idea how long he’d been there when Whiltierna found him. In the grip of a bad fever, Michael almost didn’t recognize her when she knelt beside him. He struggled feebly against her as she picked him up, trying to be gentle and soothing, but his glazed eyes blinked slowly, staring into her face, and a small spark of recognition kindled.
“Your little cat’s here, too, dear.” Whiltierna held him close as if trying to share some of her own warmth with him.
“She’s been here,” Michael rasped, closing his eyes again as he swallowed, trying to moisten his painfully dry throat. “Long time. Woke up an’ she’s sitting on me.”
Three days passed before Michael’s fever broke and he woke to find himself once more in the care of Landsend Charity where he learned that the healers already knew what had happened to him and had confided the facts written plainly on his body to Whiltierna.
She made promises,
and he chose to believe her. She promised she would speak to Sirra Avram, the Royal Magistrate of Fensgate, and plead Michael’s case. Then, maybe, Michael would be allowed another chance in JhaPel or at least be sent to Ptolorye, a work farm on the southern border of Camarat meant to reform delinquent boys. That would be unpleasant but better and safer than the streets.
“Don’t blame yourself for what he did to you,” Whiltierna said. Michael knew she blamed herself for it. She’d trusted Magister Vaznel; she’d asked him to find Michael. But Michael couldn’t bring himself to blame her. She’d meant to help. It wasn’t her fault that Robyn was a monster. He hadn’t realized it until it was too late. Why should she have been any wiser?
Another quarter-moon passed before Whiltierna managed to arrange an audience with the magistrate. The healers insisted on keeping Michael at Landsend until then, calming Michael’s fears for a few days. The healers’ kindness and Whiltierna’s loving concern gave him hope, and he dared to enter the magistrate’s chambers with some expectation of justice.
The magistrate’s secretary had shown Michael and Whiltierna into his master’s chambers and left them alone to wait. A fire, well-fed and tended, burned vigorously—another sign of the sort of wealth Robyn had used so carelessly and then made Michael pay for.
Michael perched on the very edge of his chair, too nervous and overawed to make himself comfortable in such a place. Whiltierna seemed not to notice it at all, but then, he’d heard her family was quite highborn. Perhaps she, too, had once been this wealthy.
Another door, this one just off to the left of the magistrate’s beautiful desk, opened and admitted a surprising string of people. The magistrate entered first, obvious in his official robes and with his enormous signet ring glittering on his finger. Another man dressed similarly to the secretary followed him. After them, Nanna Mabbina came in, casting a disdainful glare over both Michael and Whiltierna.
Michael heard Whiltierna draw a sharp breath, and his fear welled up again. But it was the man who followed Mabbina whose appearance drained the blood from Michael’s face and made him start up from his chair.
SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) Page 15
