Medalon dct-1

by Jennifer Fallon

  The sergeant who held her frowned as he looked at the young captain. “Don’t get too excited, Loclon. She’s still a Probate.”

  “Go to hell, Oron,” Loclon snapped.

  “Not at your invitation, thanks,” he retorted. The sergeant thrust R’shiel at Loclon and marched off.

  Loclon stood back and let her fall. “Get up,” he ordered.

  R’shiel stood slowly, aware that she was in some kind of danger. She grimaced at the ugly scar marring his once-handsome face. Loclon took exception to her gaze. He backhanded her soundly across the face. Without thinking, she lashed out with her foot in retaliation. Loclon dropped like a sack of wheat, screaming in pain, clutching his groin with both hands.

  “You bitch!”

  “What’s the matter?” R’shiel shot back. “Haven’t felt the touch of a woman there for a while?”

  She regretted it almost as soon as she said it. Loclon was livid, and she had little chance to enjoy her victory. She was overwhelmed by the other guards who held her tightly as Loclon pulled himself up, using the corner of the table for support. This time he punched her solidly in the abdomen, making her retch as she doubled over in agony. He drew back his fist for another blow but was stopped by his corporal.

  “Don’t be a fool, sir,” he urged. “She’s a Probate.”

  Loclon heeded the man’s advice reluctantly. “Get her out of my sight.”

  R’shiel was dragged across the hall into a waiting cell. The door clanged shut with a depressing thud. Holding her bruised abdomen, she felt her way along the wall, using it for support. Barking her shin on the uneven wood of the pallet, she collapsed onto it. Shaking with pain, R’shiel curled into a tight ball on the narrow pallet and wondered what they had done with Tarja.

  Time lost all meaning for R’shiel in the days that followed her arrest. Only sparse daylight found its way into the cells. Only the begrudging delivery of meals and the changing of the guard regulated her days.

  R’shiel soon learned there were two shifts guarding the cells. Following the abortive escape attempt, the guard had been trebled. The prisoners were no longer in the care of an easily distracted corporal. The first detail left her to herself, ignoring her and the other prisoners in favor of their gaming. The second shift was a different matter. It took R’shiel very little time to discover Loclon was nursing a grudge against the world in general and the Tenragan family in particular.

  She knew Tarja was incarcerated in the next cell but never saw him, although she heard him sometimes, talking with the guards on the first shift. When Loclon was on duty though, he remained silent. R’shiel very quickly followed suit. A wrong word, a misdirected glance, would earn a slap at the very least, and on at least one occasion she heard Loclon deliver a savage beating to her unseen cellmate. R’shiel turned her face to the wall and tried to ignore the sounds coming from the next cell, hoping she would escape Loclon’s notice.

  It was a futile hope. Loclon searched for excuses to punish her. After one meal, when she had refused to eat the slops she was served, he belted her across the cheek with his open hand which sent her flying, her head cracking painfully on the stone wall. She lay where she fell, forcing down the blackness, and made no move to fight back. If she did, he would call the other guards and use it as an excuse to beat her senseless while they held her down.

  “Get up.”

  R’shiel obeyed him slowly. His face was flushed with excitement rather than anger, his scar a fervid, pulsing gauge of his mood. She noticed the bulge in the front of his tight leather trousers and realized with disgust that her pain was arousing him. She backed away from him, inching her way along the wall.

  “The only job you’ll be allowed is a court’esa, once they’ve finished with you,” he sneered in a low voice that wouldn’t carry to the guards outside. “I bet you’ll enjoy it, too.”

  “You’d have to pay me, before I’d touch anything as pathetic as you,” she retorted. It was dangerous in the extreme to bait him like this.

  “You smart-mouthed little bitch,” he snarled. “You’ll get what’s coming—”

  “Captain!”

  “What?”

  “The clerk is here with the court list. He says you have to sign for it.”

  Loclon looked at her and rubbed his groin. “Later, my Lady.”

  R’shiel sank down on the pallet and let out her breath in a rush. She crossed her arms and laid her head on them. That way she couldn’t feel them shaking.

  The fifth day of her confinement was Judgment Day. All the cases to be tried and judged were brought before the Sisters of the Blade. Rumor had it that Tarja was to be tried before the full court. Her own case would receive the attention of Sister Harith.

  She was awakened at first light and marched from her cell to a tub of cold water on the table in the center of the guardroom. One of the guards handed her a rough towel and ordered her to clean up. Glancing around at the men, she began to wash her face as the other prisoners were assembled with the same instructions. Seven other prisoners were brought out. All men but for a small, chubby woman with a painted face which was tear-streaked and dirty. R’shiel glanced at her, recognizing the court’esa from the Blue Bull Tavern. For a moment, R’shiel thought she saw an aura flickering around her, an odd combination of light and shadows. She blinked the sight away impatiently.

  “Sorry I dobbed you in,” the court’esa whispered as she leaned forward to splash her face. “They didn’t leave me any choice.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” R’shiel shrugged. She of all people knew how overwhelming Joyhinia could be.

  “No talking,” Loclon ordered, grabbing the court’esa by her hair and pulling her head back painfully.

  Suddenly another voice intruded. “Leave her alone.”

  R’shiel glanced up and discovered Tarja standing behind Loclon, loosely flanked by two guards. He was unshaven and bruised, with one eye so puffy and purple it was almost shut.

  “Friend of yours, is she, Tarja?” he asked, then plunged the court’esa face first into the tub of water. Tarja lunged forward but the guards held him back. The court’esa thrashed wildly in the water. Tarja leaned back into his captors and using them as support brought both legs up and kicked Loclon squarely in the lower back. The captain grunted with pain and released his victim, who fell coughing and choking to the floor. R’shiel grabbed her blouse and dragged her clear as Loclon turned on Tarja. Loclon clenched his hands together and drove them solidly into Tarja’s solar plexus. With a grunt, he collapsed in the arms of the guards who held him, as Loclon drew his fist back for another blow.

  “That will be enough I think, Captain.”

  Loclon stayed his hand at the sound of the new voice and turned to discover Garet Warner watching him with barely concealed contempt.

  “The prisoner was attempting to escape, sir.”

  “I’m sure he was,” Garet agreed unconvincingly.

  R’shiel helped the court’esa to her feet, the movement catching the eye of the commandant. He turned to one of the Defenders who had accompanied him into the cells. “Take the women to the bathhouse and let them clean up, then escort them to the court.”

  The Defender beckoned the women, neither of whom needed to be asked twice. As they followed him up the long, narrow corridor R’shiel glanced back at Tarja. His gaze met hers for an instant, and she saw the despair in his eyes, then she was out of sight of him.

  The court to which R’shiel was arrayed was crowded with a long list of pagan cases in addition to the two women and four men brought up from the cells behind the Defenders’ Headquarters. The court’esa, whose unlikely name turned out to be Sunflower Hopechild, was called up first. She was accused of aiding the Defenders who had helped Tarja escape. Apparently, merely being in the Blue Bull with Davydd Tailorson the night before the escape was enough to convict her. Sister Harith gave the woman barely a glance before sentencing her to three years at the Grimfield. The court’esa seemed unconcerned as she was led ba
ck to her place next to R’shiel.

  “The Grimfield. That’s supposed to be pretty bad isn’t it?” whispered one of the prisoners, a red-haired bondsman.

  Sunny looked annoyed rather than distressed. “I’ll still be doing the same thing at the Grimfield as I’m doing here, friend. Just irks me to think they’d reckon I’d help any damned heathen escape.”

  “R’shiel of Haven.”

  As her name was called a Defender stepped up and beckoned her forward. She shrugged off his arm as she walked to the dock. R’shiel of Haven, Harith had called her. She no longer had the right to use the name Tenragan. I am truly free of Joyhinia.

  “R’shiel of Haven is charged with theft of a silver mirror and two hundred rivets from the First Sister’s apartments and aiding the escape attempt by the deserter Tarjanian Tenragan,” the orderly announced. R’shiel was surprised, and a little relieved, that the charges had not included the Defender in Reddingdale she had killed.

  “Do you stand ready for judgment?” Harith asked, not looking up from the sheaf of parchment in which she was engrossed.

  Would it make a difference? R’shiel was tempted to ask. But she held her tongue. Harith was never a friend to Joyhinia. She might be lenient, simply to annoy the First Sister.

  “Do you stand ready for judgment or do you call for trial?” Harith asked again.

  “I stand ready,” R’shiel replied. Calling for trial would just mean weeks, maybe even months in the cells, waiting for her case to come up. Better to plead guilty. It was the faster road to an end to this nightmare.

  “Then the court finds you, by your own admission, ready to stand judgment for your crimes. You stole from the First Sister. You aided a known traitor in an attempt to flee justice, and by doing so broke the laws of the Sisterhood. Your actions prove you unworthy. You were offered a place in the Sisterhood as a Probate, which is now withdrawn. You were offered sanctuary in the Citadel, which is now withdrawn. You were offered the comfort and fellowship of the Sisterhood, which is now withdrawn...”

  R’shiel listened to the ritual words of banishment, with growing relief. She was being expelled. Thrown out completely.

  “You defied the laws of the Sisterhood, and therefore the only fit punishment is the Grimfield. I sentence you to ten years.” Harith finally met her gaze. The Sister was savagely pleased at the effect of her decision.

  “Next!” Sister Harith ordered.

  Ten years in the Grimfield. Hanging would have been kinder.

  The holding pens for the prisoners were outside the Citadel proper, located near the stockyards and smelling just as bad. Sunny latched onto R’shiel as they were herded like cattle, guiding the stunned girl through the pens to a place in what little patch of warmth there was in the cold afternoon sun. She made R’shiel sit down on the dusty ground and patted her hand comfortingly.

  “You’ll be fine,” the court’esa promised her. “With that clear skin and nice long hair, you’ll be grabbed by one of the officers, first thing. Ten years will seem like nothing.”

  R’shiel didn’t answer her. Ten years at the Grimfield. Ten years as a court’esa. R’shiel had no illusions about what the Grimfield was like. She had heard of the women there. She had seen the look in the eyes of the Defenders who had been posted to the Grimfield. Not the proud, disciplined soldiers of the Citadel, the Defenders of the Grimfield were the dregs of the Corps. Even one year would be intolerable.

  She was shaken out of her misery by a commotion at the entrance to the holding pen. The gate flew open and a body was hurled through, landing face down in the dusty compound. The man struggled groggily to his feet as the guards stood back to allow their officer through. With a sick certainty, R’shiel knew who he was.

  Loclon surveyed the twenty or so prisoners. “Listen and listen well! The wagons will be loaded in an orderly fashion. Women in the first wagon. Men in the second. Anyone who even thinks about giving me trouble will walk behind the wagons, barefoot.” He swept his gaze over them in the silence that followed. No prisoner was foolish enough to do anything to be singled out – with the possible exception of the man who had been thrown in prior to Loclon’s arrival. As he finally gained his feet unsteadily, Loclon laughed harshly. “At least we’ll be entertained along the way, lads,” he told his men. “I hear the great rebel has a great deal to say when his neck is on the line.” With that the captain turned on his heel and the rough, barred wagons rolled up to the gate.

  A circle opened around the staggering figure, and R’shiel realized it was Tarja. He wore a dazed expression and a nasty bruise on his jaw that was new since this morning. Much as she wanted to run to him and find out how he had escaped the noose, she had her own concerns. Loclon stood near the gate, arms crossed. He had a sour expression on his disfigured face and a savagely, black-streaked aura. R’shiel lowered her eyes, as the black lights around him flickered on the edge of her vision, wondering what they meant, not wishing to attract his attention. But he saw her. At a wave a guard grabbed her arm and pulled her across to face him.

  “So you’ll be joining us, will you, Probate?” he asked curiously in a low voice. R’shiel realized he had been drinking. Was he being sent to the Grimfield as a punishment as well? Garet Warner didn’t seem particularly pleased with him this morning. “I could make this trip a lot easier for you.”

  R’shiel raised her eyes to meet his, full of contempt, but he was drunk enough for her scorn to have no effect. “How?” she asked, knowing the answer, but wondering if he was foolish enough to spell it out, here in the Citadel. With a bit of luck, Lord Jenga might happen by. But even if he did, she thought, would he care? I’m not his daughter, either.

  Loclon reached for her and pulled her close, feeling her body roughly through the folds of her linen shift. She glanced around her, thinking someone would object, but the prisoners didn’t care, and the guards simply looked the other way. “You look after me, and I might forgive you,” he said huskily.

  “I’d rather rut a snake.”

  Loclon raised his hand to strike her, but the arrival of the court clerk checking forestalled him. “All present and accounted for, Captain. Except this one, of course.” He placed the parchment in Loclon’s raised hand. “You can leave anytime you’re ready.” The man walked off, leaving Loclon standing there, glaring at R’shiel.

  “Get her on the wagon.”

  R’shiel was hustled forward and thrown up on the dirty straw bed. The barred gate was slammed and locked behind her, and the wagon lurched forward. Sunny scrambled back and helped R’shiel to her feet. “You’ve got it made,” the court’esa assured her. “That one likes you.”

  R’shiel didn’t bother to reply. Instead she looked up as they trundled out of the Citadel. Loclon and his men rode in front, followed by a full company of Defenders in the rear, leading the packhorses. The Sisterhood was taking no chances with Tarja.

  The Citadel’s bulk loomed behind them as they moved off. She felt no sorrow at leaving, only an emptiness where once there had been a feeling of belonging. She remembered the strange feeling of belonging in another place that had almost overwhelmed her the year her menses arrived. Perhaps her body had known then what her mind had only just begun to accept. The idea no longer bothered her; the senseless anger that had burned within her for so long had begun to wane.

  She looked along the line of wagons, considering her future. Loclon was going to be a problem, although R’shiel felt reasonably safe until they reached Brodenvale. With over sixty Defenders in tow, he was unlikely to try to make good his threats. But after the Defenders left the prison party at Brodenvale, anything could happen. She glanced at the following wagon. There were twelve men crowded into it, but they managed to leave a clear space around Tarja. He looked back at the retreating bulk of the Citadel with an incomprehensible expression. As if feeling her gaze on him, he turned and met her eyes. For the first time in his life, she thought, he looked defeated.

  part four

  THE GRIMFIELD
>
  chapter 30

  A full squad of Defenders had escorted Tarja down to the holding pens. Scorn, and even a little disappointment, replaced the easygoing manner of his guards. For many Defenders, even the loyal ones, Tarja’s refusal to betray his rebel comrades, even under torture, had earned him a degree of grudging respect. But then word had spread like a brush fire of his supposed capitulation, and he had lost even that small measure of esteem. Even those who didn’t think him capable of such a heinous act wondered at his sentence. By every law the Sisterhood held dear, Tarja should have been hanged for his crimes. Tarja wondered if people would think his mother had spared him out of maternal feeling. The idea was ridiculous. Anyone who knew his mother even moderately well would find it easier to believe that he had turned betrayer.

  As the wagons trundled forward, he glanced up at the Citadel. He should have died there. He should have demanded the sentence he deserved. He would have been honored for generations as a martyr. Now he would be scorned and reviled. He would carry the taint of the coward who had betrayed his friends to save his own skin. As the Citadel slowly grew smaller in the distance, his thoughts returned to the events of the morning. He cursed himself for a fool, even as he relived his trial and the farce his mother had made of it.

  “We have decided that in the interests of security your trial shall be a closed court,” Joyhinia had declared. She sat with the full court in attendance at the bench, the Lord Defender, Lord Draco, the four sisters of the Quorum and the First Sister. The ranks of spectators’ seats were empty. Even the guards had been dismissed. Tarja was chained to the dock in the center of the court. On the wall behind them hung a huge tapestry depicting a woman with a child in one arm and sword in the other. It hung there as a reminder to the court of the nobility of the Sisterhood. Its other purpose was less obvious. Etched into the wall behind the tapestry was a Harshini mural that no amount of scrubbing or painting had been able to remove. Tarja had seen it once as a child, on an exploratory mission through the Citadel with Georj.