Brute

by Kim Fielding

  And in one wall, over near another corner, was a door constructed of heavy iron bars, with only darkness visible behind it.

  “Welcome to your new home,” said Lord Maudit from the doorway.

  “But… what?”

  “His Highness has decided that you will be a very specialized sort of guard, with only a single prisoner to watch over.”

  “Prisoner?” Brute’s eyes strayed back to the barred door.

  Maudit twitched one shoulder. “See for yourself.”

  With some degree of trepidation, Brute crossed the room.

  The bars separated the apartment from a small cell. He had to squint to see inside—there was no window slit in the prisoner’s space—but there wasn’t much to see. Bare walls, bare floor, and in the corner, a dirty pile of rags. But as Brute stared, the rags shifted slightly and chains clanked, and a matted mass of hair appeared from under the edge of the fabric. A man, Brute realized. He was looking at a man huddled under a blanket. Chains sounded again, and Brute noted the metal collar around the man’s neck, manacles on his wrists, and shackled ankles fastened by chains to bolts in the floor. It was impossible to make out any details of the man past his rat’s nest of hair and tangled beard until the prisoner lifted his head slightly. Brute gasped at the man’s obvious blindness: eyelids closed over sunken, empty sockets.

  Lord Maudit sighed. He still hadn’t actually entered the room. “Brute, meet Gray Leynham.”

  Chapter 4

  “AM I a prisoner here?” Brute asked.

  Lord Maudit was pacing the hallway outside the small apartment, clearly eager to be somewhere else. “No. You can leave whenever you want. Just knock on the main door and the guard will let you out. In fact, you’ll have to leave to fetch meals, your own and his.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the dark cell. “And you’re free to roam the palace grounds, even wander the city if you like. We’ll give you a pass so you can get in through the gates, although I expect you’ll be recognized by everyone soon enough. You just have to make sure you’re here to give the prisoner proper care during the day. And you must always be here at night.”

  Brute frowned, thinking about the chains and iron bars and guarded doors that stood between Gray Leynham and freedom. “I’m not here to keep him from escaping.”

  Maudit barked a laugh. “Hardly. Make sure he eats. Empty his waste pail now and then.”

  “And that requires me to actually live next to him?”

  For the first time, Lord Maudit gave him a small smile. “You’re smarter than you look, aren’t you? No, those small chores should take only a little time.” He sighed. “Your most important task will come at night, actually.”

  Brute frowned uneasily, shifting his eyes quickly toward the barred door. “Night?”

  “It’s quite simple. If he calls out anything in his sleep—and you’ll know he’s sleeping because the words will actually be intelligible—take note of it, then hurry off and repeat it to the guard at the door. It’d be better if you could write it down, but I suppose there’s no chance of that.”

  “Why do I have to do this?” Brute asked, not feeling at all comforted by these instructions.

  “It doesn’t matter to you. Just do as you’re told. You’ll be paid outrageously well for your services, by the way. Room and board, of course, plus you’ll be kept outfitted in something more… suitable. And you’ll receive a silver coin each month, and an extra for the Festival of the Harvest Moon.”

  Brute’s jaw dropped. As best as he could figure, a silver coin was nearly the equivalent of all the coppers he’d earn in a year of toiling for Darius. And not having to pay for his meals and the roof over his head! What would he do with such wealth?

  Maybe Maudit didn’t notice his astonishment, because he continued speaking. “You won’t actually be given the coins. Too inconvenient. But you’ll be added to the exchequer’s books, and he’ll keep track of your earnings. You simply ask him if you wish to receive some of it in hand. I’d suggest keeping very little. It’s always easier to spend it when it’s jingling in your purse.”

  “I… all right.”

  “Fine then. Come along. I’ve real work to attend to today, you know. I’ll find someone to show you where to get food and such, and I suppose you’ll have to be taken to the tailor and the shoemaker.” He wrinkled his nose slightly. “Someone will show you the baths as well. And maybe… maybe a haircut would help. Or maybe not.”

  Without looking at the prisoner or even acknowledging his existence, Lord Maudit led Brute from the apartment, down the hall, and to the front door.

  “What did he do?” Brute asked quietly as he ducked to avoid an especially low beam. “Why’s he being kept here?”

  “It’s no business of yours.”

  BRUTE was handed off to a half-grown boy with a shock of fiery hair. Once the boy decided that Brute wasn’t going to tear him limb from limb, he attacked his role with enthusiasm, preening as passersby watched him giving the monster the grand tour. They went to the kitchens first but didn’t eat anything, much to the dismay of Brute’s empty stomach. He’d never imagined such an enormous place for cooking, or such vast quantities of food. “You’ll fetch your meals from here,” said the boy, whose name was Warin. “Three times each day. Just ask one of the scullery maids or pot boys and they’ll fill plates for you and… him.”

  They left the kitchens through a side door, out into a courtyard that contained several brick ovens. Boys were carrying armfuls of wood and placing them under the bricks, presumably so the dinnertime breads could be baked. There didn’t seem to be much reason to tarry in this courtyard, but Warin walked slowly, and Brute realized his guide was enjoying the other youths’ gaping admiration. “Who is he?” Brute asked when they finally exited the courtyard and walked down a path of well-worn cobbles.

  “Who?”

  “Gray Leynham.”

  Warin glanced quickly from side to side, as if to check that nobody was listening, and whispered loudly, “He’s a witch.”

  Brute’s empty stomach gave an unhappy lurch. “A witch? But then can’t he use his magic to escape?”

  “He’s lost his powers.”

  Brute had no idea how such a thing might happen. Were magical abilities like a small coin, something that might slip through a hole in one’s pocket and disappear? Or were they more like a dog or a goat that might stray from home? He’d never met a witch before—just Hilma, who could speed healing with her chanting and herbs—and as a child, the stories he’d overhead of witches had scared him. He didn’t much fancy actually living with one, even if this witch was chained behind bars. “Why is he kept prisoner?” he asked as they turned down a wider street.

  Warin’s answer was fierce. “He’s a dirty traitor, that’s why!”

  “What did he do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If he’s a traitor, why didn’t they burn him?” Because that was the punishment for treason, at least in the tales he’d heard.

  “I don’t know.” Warin huffed at him impatiently. “It don’t matter to us anyway, does it? You just do as you’re told. Long as you can, anyhow. The last man that watched over him, he only lasted three weeks. Think you’ll do better?”

  With another sickening clench of his belly, Brute said, “What happened to him?”

  “Nothing awful. He just said he wasn’t gonna stay in there no more. I hear he quit the guard and became a sailor instead.”

  The boy’s answer did little to ease Brute’s misgivings, so he remained distracted as they ducked down yet another little alley and into a shop of sorts, where a man was measuring a length of fabric. The shelves were stocked with bolts of cloth in many colors—scarlet, cream, and black predominant. There were also racks containing spools of thread, and tables with chalk and string and scissors atop them. “I suppose I’m meant to make a uniform for that,” the tailor said to Warin, scowling at Brute.

  “Not a uniform, says Lord Maudit. Just decent trousers—three
pairs—and a half dozen shirts, and a cloak. Underclothes as well.” As Warin rattled off the list, Brute had to fight to keep his face neutral. He’d never before owned half that much. Was it possible that the boy was mistaken? But the tailor didn’t seem to think so, because he immediately began to poke and prod at Brute, turning him this way and that so every bit of him might be measured.

  The tailor paused when he saw the condition of Brute’s left arm. “How do you manage to dress yourself?” His curiosity seemed to be honestly professional.

  “Not very well,” Brute admitted. “It’s hard to tie things.”

  The tailor nodded thoughtfully and chewed at his lip. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  After the tailor, they visited the shoemaker, who seemed actually eager to make a pair of boots in Brute’s size. “Give me two days,” he said.

  “Deliver them to the Brown Tower when they’re ready,” Warin ordered, a bit grandly.

  “The Brown Tow— Oh. So he’s the new— Ah.”

  Brute was getting tired of people talking about him as if he weren’t there, or at least as if he were too stupid to understand. But he didn’t say anything, not even to ask whether the shoemaker thought he could make boots that a one-handed man could get on.

  The next stop was a barber, who waved his blade around a little too freely for Brute’s taste. The barber made him sit on a stool, and then, as an assortment of children watched and giggled, he chopped Brute’s thick black hair so short that hardly more than bristles were left. Brute didn’t mind—easier to care for this way, and he certainly wasn’t vain about his looks. The barber shaved him as well, washing Brute’s face afterward with tepid water scented with astringent herbs.

  Their final visit was to a low wooden building. The heat and dampness hit Brute as soon as they entered a small entryway, and Warin smiled. “Usually we gotta pay three coppers if we wanna use the baths, but His Excellency says you get in for free this time.” He explained Brute’s presence—at some length—to the matronly woman who appeared from the back. She looked intrigued but simply handed Brute a stack of towels.

  “Wait here,” she said.

  Brute and Warin waited, both of them sitting on the foyer’s lone wooden bench. Brute would have liked to ask more about his new charge, but Warin instead droned on about the palace’s various rules and schedules, and the names of who was in charge of what, until Brute’s head was spinning and he felt as stupid as he looked. Fortunately, the woman reappeared. “The one on the left,” she said.

  The door on the left led to a small chamber, in the center of which was a round copper tub filled nearly to the brim with steaming water. The room was floored in smooth stone. “Well?” said Warin. “I don’t got all day.”

  Brute had rarely bathed before, at least not like this. Usually he made do by overturning a bucket or two of well water on his head or, if the weather was cold, wiping at his body with damp rags. He almost never had the coins to spare for the White Dragon’s tin tub. On the infrequent occasions when the weather was fine and he had a few hours to himself, he would make his way to the secluded bit of river near his hidden cave and wade in as far as he dared. The idea of immersing himself in a giant bowl, as if he were an ingredient in an exotic soup, seemed strange and a bit decadent.

  “Hurry up,” Warin whined.

  Brute hesitated a moment longer before he drew off his cloak and pulled his shirt over his head. Warin took the discarded clothing. “You always been that strong?” he asked.

  Brute glanced down at himself. He didn’t feel especially strong. He’d lost weight and muscle tone since the accident, but his chest still bulged impressively enough beneath its coating of dark hair. “I used to be small,” he said. “Until I was about your age. Then I grew.”

  “Is your father that big?”

  Brute’s father had seemed very large indeed, when Brute was a boy. At least until the day Brute watched him hanging from a rope. That day his father looked very small. “Not like this,” Brute answered.

  “Huh.” Warin shrugged, and then gestured for Brute to hurry things along. But when Brute managed to unlace his trousers and unwrap his breechclout, Warin whistled long and loud. “I guess all of you grew,” he said, clearly impressed.

  Brute blushed and climbed hurriedly into the tub, splashing a good bit of water over the sides as he did so. His sex organs were proportionate to the rest of him. It wasn’t only his ugly face that made the whores demand double their usual price. The boys complained that, even if he took care with them, they’d be sore afterward, and their master claimed they’d be useless for at least a day.

  The water felt unimaginably wonderful. It was lightly scented with something minty and astringent, and just hot enough to make his skin tingle. The tub would have been roomy for most men but was a bit of a tight fit for him. Still, he felt buoyant and light. He would have sung if he hadn’t had an audience. Instead, he hunched down and submerged himself completely, staying underneath for as long as he could hold his breath, wondering as he did so how he’d managed not to drown when he fell off the cliff and into the river.

  When he stuck his head out of the tub again, Warin was standing there and looking amused. “You look awfully happy to be getting clean,” the boy observed. “My ma used to have to just about throw me into the water when she wanted me to bathe.”

  “She doesn’t anymore?”

  Warin’s face tightened. “She’s dead. Two years back. Childbed fever.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Brute, although really he envied Warin a bit. The boy’s mother might be gone, but by the looks of things, he wasn’t faring too badly. Not like Brute, who’d been stuck with a mean drunkard of a relative, a man who’d resented the child with which he’d been saddled.

  “Here,” Warin said, and handed Brute a hunk of soap. It wasn’t coarse and lumpy like the stuff Cecil supplied at the White Dragon. Brute had always half suspected that Cecil’s soap took off more skin than dirt. But this soap was smooth and almond scented, and it produced a rich and creamy lather. There were definite benefits to living in a palace, Brute decided.

  Brute scrubbed and then soaked, but eventually Warin grew impatient again, right around the time the water began to cool. Brute’s stomach was clamoring louder than ever for dinner, so he climbed out of the tub and took the towel—large and thick—that Warin handed him. Drying off one-handed was a little awkward, and he was forced to put on his old, travel-smirched clothes again, which he regretted.

  To Brute’s considerable relief, the next bit of their journey took them back to the kitchens. He was still hopelessly lost, and vowed to note the route more carefully when they left. But in the meantime, Warin dragged him to a young woman with rosy, dimpled cheeks, her red hair arranged in a thick braid. “What’s this then, brat?” she asked Warin, and Brute realized that they must be siblings. Fond ones, judging by the way she rumpled his hair.

  “Brute.”

  “Uh-huh. And what am I supposed to do with him?”

  “Feed him, of course.”

  She grinned, revealing a chipped front tooth. “Looks like he’s apt to eat the cupboards bare.”

  “Lord Maudit says Brute’ll be staying in the Brown Tower now.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh. I guess His Excellency’s run out of volunteers here, and now he’s having to hire one-pawed trolls instead.”

  “I am not a troll!” Brute said indignantly.

  “Course not. Trolls are better dressed.” Her smile was too warm for Brute to take offense, and he found the corners of his mouth twitching.

  “Wait here. No—you’re in the way.” She pointed at the wall. “Wait there instead.”

  Brute pressed himself against the smooth stone, and Warin joined him. “That’s Alys. Try to find her when it’s mealtimes. She’s bossy, but she’ll set you up real good.”

  “Do you have other brothers and sisters too?”

  “Yep. Four sisters and two brothers. Alys is the oldest.”

  Brute
wondered what it would be like to grow up surrounded by so many other people. Crowded. Noisy. Never any privacy.

  Alys returned a short time afterward with two tin buckets. She passed them to Brute, who was able to hold them in his one hand. “See you in the morning,” she said before hurrying away.

  On the way back to the Brown Tower, they took a brief detour and stopped at a well. Warin filled an earthen jug and hoisted it onto his skinny hip. “This oughta be enough to last you until tomorrow. If you need more, just tell the guard at the door and he can send someone.”

  Brute nodded and followed the boy again.

  Warin stopped several paces from the tower’s entrance. As the guard watched them curiously, Warin helped Brute steady the jug in the crook of his left arm. “So it’s pretty easy for you from now on. If you need something, let me know.”

  “Where can I find you?”

  “I’m always around somewhere. Just ask someone.”

  Brute felt an odd sense of abandonment as Warin waved and then scampered away into the growing dusk. The guard unlocked the front door, not quite looking Brute in the eye as he passed. It occurred to Brute that he had no idea whether there were other prisoners here as well, other caretakers. Maybe the place was full of treacherous witches and maimed giants. If so, they were all silent. The only sound Brute heard was the padding of his own bare feet and the slight sloshing of the water in the jug.

  The door to his new quarters stood open.