Michael felt the joy and goodwill begin to drain away, and he knew he should leave. He knew he should go now and find a good hiding place not only from the encroaching highborns but also from the soon-to-be drunken Fensgate inhabitants who would eventually turn their high spirits toward less generous games.
But he was starving for more than food, and he’d been deprived of human company for even longer than he’d gone without bread.
.:It isn’t safe. You need to go. Now!:.
Startled into practicality by the Voice’s insistence, Michael made a quick grab at the nearest table. He plucked rolls for later and stuffed them into his pockets and tried to slip away from the crowd unnoticed.
But he had not been unnoticed for some time, and as he neared the edge of the festival crowds, he saw his path blocked by a masked man. A wave of panic washed over the boy as he realized that the man was blocking his way on purpose. This man was after him. He’d waited too long, enjoying the festival without the proper caution, and now he was in trouble.
Michael quickly shifted course, wending his way through the crowds and hoping the man would lose him in the crush. He was too short to be seen, and he tried not to leave a noticeable wake of the annoyed as he darted hurriedly past. He cut across the crowd, changing course several times in hopes of confusing pursuit, before he dared approach the perimeter again. But standing in his way was another masked man, and this one was staring at him openly, grinning.
“No.” Michael abandoned strategy and simply ran, shoving at bodies blocking his way and biting the inside of his cheek to keep from crying. He didn’t ask for help. Though his panic must’ve been obvious, no one asked if he needed help nor offered him any. He knew no one would help him, but it was all he could do to keep from begging. The masked man’s eyes had been terrifying.
The first masked man was suddenly standing in his way a few feet ahead in the crowd. He, too, was smiling at the boy.
Michael darted away, splitting the difference and running blindly. Again and again, one or the other of the two men blocked his chosen path, and it was some time before Michael comprehended what they were doing. He was being herded away from his own, familiar Fensgate to the unknown sectors, but he couldn’t understand how they were doing it. How did they know where he’d be? How could they always be right where he’d run when even he didn’t know where he was going?
He kept running, too frightened of finding out what they wanted to stop and give up. He was soon too exhausted to notice the crowd thinning, too lost to blind panic to realize he was no longer on the festival grounds. He only saw an opening and ran for it.
The empty streets of Fensgate were eerie, and the realization that he was now running away from the crowds horrified him. He spun around to look behind him, to try to go back, and saw a man’s shadow looming out from a just-passed corner, and when he turned around again to keep running, he saw the first man standing ahead of him, still smiling. Laughing.
Robyn! The name cut through his mind, suddenly obvious. It’s Robyn. He lied to Sirra Avram. He’s here to punish me.
Michael whirled and darted down the nearest alley, but he could hear the footsteps of his pursuers now, the sound so terrifying he nearly screamed. The alley jogged to the left and then split. He started toward the right branch and again saw someone’s shadow looming. He stumbled back a few steps and turned to go the other way, only to find there was no where left to run.
He launched himself desperately at the smooth, wood-slat wall, trying to find a hand hold, but he fell back to the ground, catching himself with his hands. He struggled to his feet again and stood stunned and panting, more exhausted than he could ever remember having been before. The brand on his hand throbbed almost as if it were newly-burned and his palms stung, scraped by the broken bits of gravel and debris strewn across the alley. A stitch knifed through his side with every breath, and he knew he was going to be sick. He had no strength left to turn around and face the men, though he could hear their footsteps as they came up behind him. He tried to take a step, to stay out of their reach for even one more moment, but his legs buckled, and he fell against the wall, leaning on it as if it were his last hope.
“It’s a pity, really,” a stranger’s voice said.
Not Robyn, Michael’s mind offered, but it seemed worse that the stranger spoke first.
“What is?” the other man’s voice. Robyn’s voice. He’d been right, but the familiarity of this attacker did not make him feel any less terrified.
“That he’s about to lose the only proper meal he’s had in moons,” the strange man said. His voice was idle, almost disinterested. But he was right. And Michael threw up a moment later.
The stranger came up behind him and held his hair, his hands cool on Michael’s feverish skin, his touch shockingly gentle. Michael was too sick and frightened to sense anything from the man at first, and he was distantly grateful for this one, small mercy.
“It is SanClare Black,” the stranger said. “But you said he would beg.”
Michael could hear the shrug in Robyn’s voice. “He’s broken.” He dismissed the question. “He’ll have been had by every lowborn in Fensgate by now.”
Would it help to beg? Michael didn’t think so. He didn’t think the stranger would be pleased if he offered up begging now as some sort of bargaining chip. What was there to bargain for, anyway? They would do whatever they wanted to do to him whether he cooperated or not.
“Is that true, child?” The stranger stepped back and allowed Michael to pull himself together. He even handed the boy a flask of water to rinse his mouth and a handkerchief. “Every lowborn?”
Michael didn’t answer. He didn’t look up to meet the man’s gaze which he knew would only mock him. He wanted to tell them to go to the Fires. He wanted to tell them to just get it over with. But mostly he wanted to die.
“You want to be silent,” the stranger said. He took the flask back and waved the handkerchief away. Michael let it fall to the ground.
The man stepped closer to stand in front of Michael and stare down into his face. “I’ll let you be silent, then.” His hands settled on Michael’s shoulders then slid caressingly down to stop right above his elbows. The grip tightened until Michael understood he was being held still.
The man stood so close, Michael could feel the heat of his body. Robyn moved behind them, and soon he was so close behind Michael that all the boy could think of was the first time Robyn had hurt him. Their closeness was slowly overwhelming his shock; their feelings and thoughts and desires bled through his numbness until they were all he knew.
“Look into my eyes,” the stranger commanded, though his voice remained unchanged. Michael obeyed, looking up what seemed a very long way into the man’s frightening eyes, visible through the slits in his mask. They were such a dark blue they seemed black, and there was no mercy reflected in their depths. “And no matter what happens, don’t look away. Don’t close your eyes. And don’t make a sound.”
# # #
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cyra was there when Michael began to notice the world once more. Tamarath and Tresta stood across the sky from one another, their light making the wretched cul-de-sac shimmer. It had begun to rain again, and the air was heavy with mist soaking through everything, turning the cobblestones slick. The air around Michael glimmered as the moons-light shone through the misting rain. It was beautiful.
Tears welled in Michael’s eyes. He hadn’t let himself cry in a long time, knowing that if he gave in to his misery, there would be nothing left.
But there was nothing left. Robyn and the stranger had destroyed him.
He lay on his side, curled up around Cyra’s warmth, and stared into the future—another thing he hadn’t let himself do—and saw nothing but pain and hunger and loneliness and misery.
He was a heretic, damned and discarded. No one would help him. No miracle was going to happen. Strangers would keep hunting him down and hurting him until he was dead. Perhaps one of them
would even kill him.
“For fun.” He thought about Robyn and the obscene, delighted monologue he’d recited as he’d hurt him.
All the while, the other man had stared into his eyes. He’d smiled at the agony he saw written there.
That had been all the stranger had done. But somehow it seemed worse to Michael than Robyn’s brutal, physical assault. Those eyes had burned into him, taking in everything he was experiencing as if it were all a joy to behold.
“If you want to survive...” His answer to that implied question had finally changed.
The moment his eyes met the stranger’s, Michael had known he didn’t want to live in this world anymore. He felt foolish for not having understood the reality of his circumstances any sooner. What had he imagined would happen to make things better? What had he hoped for? Even allowing himself to think the question hurt more than he could bear. And the question had only one answer: There was no hope.
The moons-light glittered all around him, shining off the rain-wet stones...but it sparkled even more brightly off of something else. Something he’d seen before but had not noticed.
Broken glass littered a small strip of the cul-de-sac his unseeing eyes had been staring at for who knew how long. Glass.
Michael pushed himself up on one arm and stared at the glass. He was freezing cold, as wet as if he’d been in the harbor, and mostly naked. Robyn had torn his already tattered trousers. They weren’t fit to wear, and they didn’t contribute any protection to him now against the cold and wet.
A long, thin shard of glass glinted invitingly. It was almost within his reach. Cyra stood up as he inched his way toward it, but she stayed near him and settled back down when he stopped.
He stared at the piece of glass for what felt like an eternity. But very little time had really passed. In the deep silence surrounding him, he could still hear the faintest notes from the musicians playing at the festival. Since he’d run from the men, no more than an hour had passed. The moons above had not moved far enough across the sky for it to have been more than that.
It amazed him just how little time it took to destroy someone. He’d been repeatedly destroyed, always in short, sharp bursts, and he’d bounced back each time as if he had a cat’s lives. He wanted it all to stop.
Michael picked up the shard of glass, staring at its razor edges. He squeezed it and felt it cut into his palm and was pleased at the pain, pleased at the ease with which it cut him.
.:Don’t do this! We’ll figure out some way—!:.
“Shut up.” Michael hated the Voice at that moment more than he’d ever hated anyone in his life. “You don’t have to live like this. You don’t know what it’s like. I just want it to be over.”
He’d heard stories. He’d seen things at the charity hospital and in the minds of the men who would not stop touching him. He knew what to do.
He pushed his left sleeve up to his elbow and studied his slender wrist and the fine, violet-blue veins showing through his translucent skin, bruised again and again by brutal fingers which had wanted him to hold still.
The cuts on his palm stung, and the blood ran between his fingers, making his hand sticky. This would hurt. It would have to hurt. But then it would all be over.
#
The sharp odor of mingling herbs and antiseptics told Michael his location long before he had the strength to open his eyes.
He didn’t want to be alive, but for some reason he still was, and he couldn’t understand why someone had finally decided to help him just when he’d decided he no longer wanted to be helped. It was an unbearable, filthy joke to still be alive.
He remembered the whiteness, too, from before. He felt ridiculously clean for someone who would be thrown back on the streets as soon as he was well enough once more. But it surprised him more that they’d taken him in at all.
He did not remember how he’d come to be there this time, either, but he was heartily tired of waking up surrounded by white canvas curtains and astringent smells and dull, inescapable pain.
Michael looked down at the bed, trying to make out the state of his body. His wrists were tightly bound in pristine white bandages. His right palm was wrapped up, too, but on his left hand, the brand was still properly visible.
At least they won’t burn me for breaking that rule.
Over the next day, he watched the comings and goings of the nannas and healers as they moved past his tiny, curtained cell. He never saw Whiltierna, though he never stopped looking for her in the faces of all the nannas who took care of him. No one stayed very long nor did anyone meet his eyes. They spoke to him only if it was absolutely necessary. No one came into his area alone, either. They communicated to him through what they said to each other. It was an odd feeling, like being a ghost or an animal. He could count the number of words spoken directly to him on one hand.
Early the following day, Michael had a visitor of his own. At first, he didn’t recognize the man and was certain there had been some mistake which the man would soon realize before making a hasty exit, but after a moment, Michael began to see familiar things. The soft brown skin and curly hair reminded him of...
“Pol found you,” the man said without preamble. He made an effort not to stare at Michael—a reaction which had become so rare the boy was briefly shocked by it. “I told him not to look for you. I tried to stop him, but he heard what happened. That they chased you. He ran off. I couldn’t stop him.”
Slowly, Michael understood that this was an apology. This man was apologizing to him for Pol’s having saved his life.
“You’re his uncle,” Michael said.
The man nodded, looking awkward, embarrassed to be there. “I’m all the family he has, and I haven’t done much for him,” the man said softly. “He cares about you like family.”
Michael looked away, releasing the man from the awkwardness of trying not to stare, but the painful thought ran through his mind. If you’d kept your promise to Pol... Aloud, he only said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I’m not blaming you,” the man said. “From what I’ve heard...well, it sounds very complicated. But your being a heretic makes it difficult to help. And I do want to help.”
The word came out like an exhaled breath. “Don’t.”
The man shook his head and looked up at the ceiling as if seeking guidance from Vail Herself. “I understand, child. I understand you just want it be over. But if you die—if you die like this—Pol will blame himself. He already blames himself for what happened to you. He thinks if he’d pushed me harder to file papers, or if he’d stayed there, at the orphanage, he could have protected you. He’s tearing himself up, and I can’t stand to see it.”
Tears stung Michael’s eyes. It wasn’t fair that Pol needed him. It wasn’t fair at all. He swallowed, taking control of his fragile emotions, and asked, “So what can you do about it?”
Pol’s uncle—Harly, Michael remembered. Pol calls him Uncle Harly—hesitated again. “You are not going to like it, but it is the best I can do with you in this situation.”
Michael caught the edge of the Harly’s plan before the man spoke again, and he did not like it. Nor did it become any more appealing as Harly explained.
“As you know, I run an establishment of no small repute. It is a point of honor for me that no one dares touch any of my people without their permission. No one dares. I protect my own. The Red Boar is known for this.”
“A whore.” Michael knew that’s what he already was. Hatred of that truth was what had driven him to try and take his own life.
“A streeter,” Harly corrected. “Don’t call yourself a whore unless you wish to be treated like one.”
Michael mentally dismissed this ridiculous statement. As if what he was called was what mattered.
“But you can say yes or no as you please, and the Red Boar will back you up. You need only do what you can stand to do. No more. As long as you pay the protection—”
“How much
is that?” He asked the question in a dull voice, having no intention of ever needing to remember the amount in the future.
“I’m afraid it’s a rather complicated system. You pay us twenty-five crowns a quarter-moon for the protection plus ten percent of what you charge your personal clients. However, you also earn a percentage of the night’s take in exchange for working the central salon, entertaining the guests, flattering them, socializing.”
The man might as well have been speaking backwards. Michael stared at him, horrified by the thought of the twenty-five crowns. It was a huge sum of money! One crown alone would have fed him for moons and moons. The memory of the few coppers he’d been given rose up. How many men...?
“Looking as you do, and considering the Red Boar’s reputation, you will be able to charge a great deal for your time. There is a certain clientele we have long been unable to accommodate, but once you make your debut, I expect word to spread quickly.”
He means first-borns, Michael thought, remembering something the older boys used to talk about at JhaPel. Highborns who were also first-born sons lived in fear of siring their own, Vail-sanctioned first-born heirs before they were safely married to proper highborn ladies. Michael remembered the sniggering stories he hadn’t really understood at the time, detailing what these men did instead to satisfy their desires safely, and bit his lip hard, realizing he’d already been fulfilling that role for some of the men who’d raped him in the streets.
Harly pursed his lips thoughtfully, then nodded as if ending an internal debate. "In all honesty, I expect the members to vie for your attention. Money need not concern you."
Michael’s shattered expression seemed to make Harly talk faster, as if the man were trying to hit on some piece of information which would make it a good offer rather than simply the only way out of a bad situation.
“The twenty-five-crown fee buys you the Red Boar’s protection as well as food and the use of a suite for entertaining guests. For a bit more, the suite will be yours during the day, as well, so you may live there if you wish.”
SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) Page 19
