He hadn’t thought he would survive what Terac had done to him. Experiments...he called them experiments. He wasn’t sure he had survived them. The way he felt at this moment didn’t seem to promise longevity.
He looked down and saw a blood-soaked rag wrapped around his thigh. Numerous cuts on his hands and arms and chest still bled, too. He stabbed me.
The kiss had only been the beginning. Along with the chains there had been knives—Don’t think about it...just...don’t...think...
The man had used the knives in ways his mind couldn’t even go near without his body wanting to vomit—to purge itself of the horrors the man had forced him to experience.
At some point when Michael had been far past doing anything but sobbing, the man had driven one of the larger knives into his leg, saying as he did so, “I do not want you to run from me again.”
He was so calm through the whole thing, even when I was begging him.
Michael closed his eyes again and concentrated on breathing. Pain had grown quickly into a sourceless thing, screaming to his brain from everywhere, making it almost impossible for him to inventory the wounds he’d suffered, though one thing was too obvious to miss even through the pain.
Oh, Dear Vail, I think it is broken. His arm lay useless beside him, a dead weight. He’d panicked after the first “experiment” and had tried to escape the shackles, struggling to pull his hands free and cutting his wrists badly in his terror. The man’s eyes had widened in delight at the display but almost in the same breath, he’d slammed his fist into Michael’s arm. The sound of the bones snapping still echoed through his brain, but it was the casual carelessness with which Terac had done this that stunned him. The pain of it had knocked Michael out—he didn’t know for how long.
.:You’re in the street,:. the Voice told him. .:You have to find help.:.
“Shize. It’s you again? Why can’t you ever leave me alone to die?”
.:You aren’t dying yet! You aren’t far from the Red Boar. It’s only a few lengths away.:.
Lengths. Might as well be posts. Can’t move any farther. So tired. Hurts too much.
.:You have to move! You can’t stay where you are—You’ll die!:.
The Voice sounded uncharacteristically frightened, and Michael knew he must be in a very bad way. I must really be dying. He almost laughed when he realized all he felt at this thought was relief.
His cruel memory flashed with images of his ordeal which rang like blows against his senses.
Terac picking up the knife, talking calmly and sanely all the while.
Terac slashing the palm of Michael’s hand and sucking blood from the cut.
Terac reciting completely incomprehensible poems or spells or something and during each, a new wound.
“Who’s there?”
Michael flinched awake again, fear spurring him into movement. He tried to crawl away—panic dictating his actions more than any sense—but he only drew the person’s attention to himself.
Pol knelt beside him. “Michael?”
Michael breathed in his friend’s confusion and fear and breathed out a previously undiscovered calm. So...at last I’ve found Pol. Too late, but I’ve found him. He would’ve known better this time, too. Why didn’t Vail give me any of his sense?
“Dear Vail, what’s happened to you?”
“Pol—It’s all right. It’ll be all right when I’m dead.”
“What? You aren’t going to die!” The older boy slipped one arm gently around Michael’s shoulders and the other under his knees, staggering a little as he stood even under Michael’s slight weight. Michael sucked in his breath sharply as his vision went gray.
“Sorry,” Pol said. “I know it hurts.”
When Michael could focus on something besides the pain once more, he lay on the bed in his Red Boar suite. There were several people in the room with him and a great deal of seemingly directionless activity.
Daren shouted over all the commotion, issuing orders in an uncharacteristically strident voice. “Pol, go for a healer. Don’t let him put you off.”
“Take a horse!” Risa added. She’s crying. “Give it to the healer if he needs it.”
“Yes. Good! Do as she says, lad!”
“Will he be—?”
“Don’t stand there yakkin’, lad. Go!”
Nella’s voice somehow broke through the din. “I found his pack, Daren. It was right on the street where Pol found him. There’s five hundred clinks here!”
A frozen silence followed this, lasting several beats.
“That isn’t possible,” Risa said. “That’s more’n a year’s profits.”
“It’s right here!”
“Well, and it’s his, then, ain’t it?” Daren barked. Michael opened his eyes just enough to see the strong-arm grab his pack from Nella’s hands.
“I wasn’t going to keep it!” she protested and flounced off.
“Daren?” he breathed. “I don’t think it’s going to matter. If I die, you can all divide it up, all right?”
Risa nearly leapt on him, anger and fear warring for dominance within her. “You aren’t going to die, Michael! You’re going to get well, and then we’re going to go after the bastard that did this to you!”
He shook his head feebly. “No. Can’t. I was stupid, Risa.” He took a breath, closing his eyes against the pain. “I didn’t think about anything...but the money.”
I must’ve passed out again, Michael thought. The healer had arrived and was examining him. His face was vaguely familiar, and Michael wondered from where. Had he been at Landsend Charity one of the several times Michael had been a patient there? Or was he a Red Boar patron? Or is he mine?
“I’ll have to set this arm, and he’ll need sewing-up on his leg here and here...and on his arm here. And bandages here and here and...Shize! What in all the hells happened to him?”
“Don’t know,” Daren muttered. “He wouldn’t say.”
“Ah.” The healer smiled into Michael’s barely-opened eyes. “He’s awake. How do you feel, my boy?”
“Like all the hells happened to me,” Michael breathed.
The healer’s smile turned bleak. “And so they seem to have done. I’m sorry, but they’re going to happen for a bit longer.”
“I know. It’s all right...” It took him several moments to gather his strength for the question. “Am I going to make it?”
The healer had taken Michael’s hand in his own to examine it, opening his mind quite clearly to Michael’s senses. A harsh, breathtaking wave of frustrated fury swept over Michael, and he nearly lost consciousness again. The healer’s anger, however, wasn’t directed at Michael.
Stupid, self-righteous bastards! Calling such a child a heretic. He’s barely more than a baby. They’re as responsible for this as the monster who held the knife. Killing him on the spot would’ve been kinder than branding him and throwing him to such scum to use up.
But all the healer said was, “Yes. You’ll be just fine.”
He spoke softly, explaining what he was doing as he began to clean the blood away to get a better look at Michael’s wounds. He was trying to be soothing, but Michael felt the man’s shock spike through him like fire as he cleaned the blood from Michael’s right hand, uncovering an arcane design tattooed around his wrist like a shackle.
“Holy Vail Over Us,” he gasped. Risa inhaled sharply, and she and Daren exchanged wary looks. Terac had stabbed the design into Michael’s flesh all at once with his horrifying magic. The pain had ripped a scream from him that still rang in his ears.
From the reaction of the three adults, Michael now knew it meant something terrible, something dangerous. At least now they understand there won’t be any revenge.
Only someone very highborn and very powerful—someone who was completely unafraid of any repercussions—would’ve had the nerve to so blatantly display his mark. The witch-seekers would find plenty of reasons never to discover a royal heretic. Since the tattoo marked him as the duke’s po
ssession as surely as the brand marked him a heretic, it was all but certain they would overlook the mark on Michael’s arm as well.
Daren carried Michael back to Senna MaGlen’s just after midday. Harly had seen to it that Michael’s landlady was informed of his condition and, at Pol’s insistence, had made arrangements for his nephew to be allowed to visit whenever he wanted to.
Michael’s broken arm would be useless for more than a moon, and his other injuries rendered him practically helpless. The knife wound on his leg was the worst of them all, having damaged the muscle, and the healer had said nothing definite about that. Michael suspected he’d have a limp.
Ma Fitz met Daren at the servants’ door and gave Michael a pitying smile. She shook her head at the sight of him. “Blessed Vail protect us. How do you feel, poor little thing?”
“I’ve felt better,” Michael said. Daren had asked him, whispering the question during a stolen moment of privacy, if Michael couldn’t heal himself.
I wish I could, he thought. But as best he could tell, his healing powers worked by taking the pain and hurt into himself and away from whomever he was healing. Since he was the one who’d been hurt, there was nowhere for his own injuries to go.
Now Daren’s grumbling, angry emotions roiled around him, trampling over everything else including his own feelings. Daren’s thoughts were still shadowed.
He wished they’d hurry up and take him to his room so he could sleep again. It was small comfort to him that Daren seemed to care about what had happened to him beyond how it upset his plans to use Michael’s powers. He even seemed to have his own sort of pity for the heretic whore he carried in his arms, but Michael was weary of being pitied. Even Terac had done that, and what good had it done?
Ma Fitz followed them up the stairs to Michael’s tiny room beneath the rafters while Daren issued orders as if he had the right. “Don’t let him leave the house for the next moon without Pol or me being with him. And Harly don’t want him coming back to work for at least that long. Healer said so, too.”
Michael bit into his lip to keep from crying out in despair. A whole moon doing nothing! His clink would drain away while he ate and slept and did nothing to replenish it.
How much of his savings would vanish in a moon? Too much, he feared. The idea of using the money Terac had given him made him ill, but if he didn’t use it and didn’t accept it, the money to pay for a moon’s worth of idleness would have to come from his Mirthia savings.
Daren settled him in his cot. The extra blanket he’d been wrapped in for the trip over from the Red Boar was tucked in around him without comment. Again without comment, Daren hung up Michael’s cleaned and mended clothes on their nails, gave Cyra an idle pat, and left.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Michael whispered to Cyra as tears filled his eyes. “I’m too stupid. I’ll get killed next time. I’m lucky I didn’t this time.” The cat nestled down beside Michael, purring as she pressed her warm body against him.
“Or unlucky.” He fought back thoughts of the tattoo and what it might mean. “What am I gonna do now? What can I do now?”
#
Pol proved his friendship over and over again during this period. If Pol hadn’t come to see him every day, Michael would never have been able to leave his room. Pol helped dress his wounds, helped him down and back up the stairs, helped him dress, helped him do almost everything.
One day, however, Pol didn’t come, and when Michael called out, “come in,” to the person knocking on his door, the unexpected arrival sent a sick cascade of almost-remembering through him of another door, another unexpected person coming through it.
“No.” Michael huddled on his cot and drew his knees up against his chest, though every wound protested this movement.
“It’s just me, darling,” Varian sang out as he ducked under the beams. He froze when he saw Michael, and his shock spiked so sharply that Michael saw everything through the musician’s eyes for a long, nauseating moment.
Nobody told me I looked so bad. There were fingerprint marks on his jaw, and bruise-like circles under his eyes. An abrasion scraped across his cheek, probably from when he’d been thrown out of the carriage into the street. His lip was split—Michael vaguely remembered being slapped but couldn’t remember what Terac’s reason for doing it had been—and that only accounted for the damage to his face. Wounds were visible even above his nightshirt’s collar and on his hands.
“Blessed, merciful Vail.” Varian sank to the floor with a hand outstretched to balance himself as he all but collapsed. “What—? Monster—! Pol said you’d been hurt, but I didn’t think—”
“I’ll be fine.” Michael tried to convince himself as much as Varian. “The healer said so!”
Tears streamed down Varian’s face, and he shook his head as if denying everything. “This should never have happened to you! I mean...what happened? Who did this?”
Michael cringed away from the young man’s blazing emotions. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the sensations of the almost-memory and the horror of seeing his own ruin. He almost killed me. Maybe he meant to. Maybe he’ll come back and finish the job.
“I can’t—”
“Don’t protect this monster!” Varian shouted. “The Red Boar can bring pressure to bear—punishment! They have power, and they’ll use it for you. You pay the protection, and they owe you. This man should be destroyed for what he’s done to you—”
“They can’t!” Michael insisted. He looked at Varian again, trying to make him understand. “I can’t tell them, and even if I could, they couldn’t do anything about it! He’s too powerful!” Tears stung his eyes, and he desperately tried to stop them from falling. “Varian, I made such a stupid mistake. This is all my fault!”
Varian shook his head, sitting up on his knees which, in the close confines of Michael’s tiny room, put him right beside the cot. He froze when Michael flinched away from him, and a confused frown drew itself across his forehead.
“You really meant it.” His handsome face flushed, making him look overheated. “I thought you were just... I’m sorry.”
Michael drew back even farther at this, worried by what the man might mean. “What?”
“You don’t want to be touched,” Varian said.
Michael wiped angrily at the tears which had managed to escape his control. “Why is that so hard to believe? I’ve told you and told you I want to be left alone, but you never listen.”
“I always thought you were playing hard-to-get.” Varian looked down, away from the boy’s pain-filled eyes.
“No,” Michael muttered, also looking away. “But I couldn’t just tell you or anyone else to go to the Fires, either. Not when I was working.”
Varian smiled a little at that then grew serious again. “I’m sorry.” Michael shrugged, trying to be rid of this uncomfortable conversation, but Varian persisted. “Truly,” he whispered. “I’ve been selfish. I would have seen the truth if I’d wanted to. I promise I won’t bother you anymore.”
Michael nodded, discomfited by the musician’s new perceptiveness. He tried to catch a glimpse of sky through his narrow window to gauge the time. It had only been a few days, but as the days could be counted in clink, Michael felt the passing time more keenly.
“I’m scared to go back.” He almost didn’t notice it was Varian and not Pol who was hearing his confession. “But I don’t have any choice.”
“Why did you go with him? I don’t understand...did he force you?”
“No. I wish I could say he did, but no. He wasn’t even there. He sent someone for me. He offered me...so much money.” Michael swallowed back the anger he felt at himself for not listening to the Voice. “More money than I’ve ever seen all at once.” He coughed a laugh. “It’ll be gone by the time I’m well enough to go back.”
Varian frowned. “Why?”
Michael gave him a pitying look. “It costs a lot more than you think to be a heretic. I have to pay my protection to the Red Boar, my re
nt here, which is higher than anyone else would have to pay because there are special taxes for renting to heretics. Food and clothes cost more, too. No one can give me anything unless I figure it as payment and pay taxes on it. And the taxes are...sickening.” He closed his eyes again. “When I think of all the men I have to nik just to make the tax money.”
“So why did you need this man’s money?” Varian asked, still confused.
Michael hesitated for a long moment, wanting so much to tell someone but afraid of saying anything out loud. In the end, the desire to tell won out.
“To get away.” He shook his head at his own foolish dreams. “With what I’d saved and what he paid me, I could’ve bribed my way onto a Mirthian ship. I even have a connection—he was even in port! I could’ve paid the passage and the harbor bribes and still have had money left over to start a new life. It’s all gone, now. All gone.”
“But, with that much money—”
“It only would’ve worked if I’d left right after. The Auditor’s already taken this moon’s cut, and I had to declare what I earned—”
“Getting tortured,” Varian growled. He looked near tears himself, and Michael suspected he’d never really thought about what might lead someone to become a streeter.
Michael sighed and nodded agreement. “Now I’m not making anything, but I still have to pay the Red Boar and Senna MaGlen. I have to eat. I have to pay for bandages and salves... I’ll be lucky if I have enough to make it through until I can work again.”
“You can, though, can’t you,” Varian asked, his face red. “Start again?”
Michael let his breath out in another long sigh. “I’ll have to. What choice do I have?”
He looked at Varian again. “You have so much power over me, now, you can’t even imagine. You could have me burned for what I’ve told you.”
Varian gasped, apparently horrified that Michael would think him capable of such a thing. “Never! I’d never betray you. I swear it.”
“I’ll have to hope that you mean it.” He felt oddly indifferent about the subject of Varian’s trustworthiness. Maybe he’d confessed in hopes that he would be betrayed. He wondered about that, turning the idea over in his mind, and decided he didn’t know what he’d been thinking and that he really didn’t care. It had been good to tell someone. Anyone.
SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) Page 28
