Arctic Prison: King's Convicts I

by Gail Z. Martin

  “What about your group?” Blaine asked. “Other than Stefan and Piran.”

  “Piran and I were on the boat from Donderath together, about six months ago,” Dawe said. “Nearly everyone’s here for theft or brawling—or debt. Jakk, Roz, and Delf, the ones playing cards, were stable hands who got blamed when a couple of the horses got sick and died. Tadd got caught stealing coins from the shrine to Charrot,” he added, indicating a balding, thin man with dark, close-set eyes. “Albert and Horace were sailors who got on the bad side of their captain. Bincy cheated the king’s tax collector, One-Eye stole rabbits, Shorty tried to loot a guardsman’s saddlebags out behind a bar. Foss lost more than he could pay playing cards. Whinney sounds like a horse when he laughs. He stole a donkey and got caught when the damn thing refused to let him ride it.” He grinned. “Got kicked in the nuts for his trouble, too.”

  Dawe shrugged. “Evan was a cook until someone got sick and blamed the food. Peters was a mean drunk, and Eddles didn’t pay his taxes. That’s everyone except Stefan, but he’s a mean son of a bitch and his buddies are trouble.”

  “Do they move the barracks assignments around like they do the work crews?” Verran asked.

  Dawe shook his head. “Nope. You’re stuck with us until you earn your Ticket or drop dead—whichever comes first.” He raised an eyebrow. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but one of those is a lot more likely than the other.”

  PART FOUR: Down in the Mines

  Blaine’s dreams were dark. He was back at Glenreith, his family’s manor. The night was dark, and the wind was cool. Blaine heard his boots crunch on the gravel path as the wind tugged at his cloak and hair. The old formal garden hadn’t been properly tended for years, but the bones of its structure still remained: overgrown boxwood hedges that had once formed a neat maze and pathways that still wove in and out to make a complex pattern.

  The flowers were dry husks, and overhead in the trees, dead leaves rustled with the cold wind. But Blaine was listening for just one sound—footsteps, behind him and growing closer.

  He picked up his pace, moving deeper into the garden. A broken statue stood beside a stagnant reflecting pool dark with algae and fallen leaves. Blaine pressed on, shivering as the wind made the hanging bells of a garden decoration shimmer and ring. This night, they sounded like a dirge.

  The steps behind him were not far away. Ahead of him was the old garden gazebo where he had often taken shelter as a child and hidden from his father’s tempers along with Carr and Mari.

  Just as Blaine reached the shadows of the gazebo, the footsteps caught up to him. Strong arms seized him, spinning him around to face his attacker. The features were nearly obscured in darkness and fog, but Blaine knew his father’s eyes and recognized the malice in them as a hand tightened around his throat.

  Old reflexes took over. Blaine swung hard with his right hand, landing a solid blow to his attacker’s chin. His left hand slammed palm-out against his father’s face, breaking the nose and gouging at the eyes. The man’s hand loosened its grip on Blaine’s neck, and Blaine bucked and twisted, throwing his attacker off-balance and then tackling him and wrestling his assailant to the ground.

  He woke in Velant’s barracks on the floor, with his hand around Coan’s throat. His blanket and cloak had been kicked clear in the struggle, and the rest of the men were awake. Verran and Garrick tried to pull Blaine off of Coan, while Dawe and Piran warned for the men to stay quiet and disperse.

  “What in Raka is going on?” Piran demanded. “Do you want to get us all thrown in the Hole?”

  “If I were you, mate, I’d ask what Coan is doing out of bed,” Verran retorted. “No good reason for him to be over here, anywhere near Blaine.”

  “Well?” Piran demanded as they pulled the two combatants apart.

  Somewhere in the tussle, Blaine had gained a split lip, but Coan had definitely taken the worst of the fight. Coan’s nose was bloody and in worse shape than before, and a bruise on one cheek looked like it might blacken his eye. Moonlight streaming through the barracks window cast the room in shades of gray and deepened the shadows.

  “He tried to throttle me while I was sleeping,” Blaine said, glaring at Coan.

  “He had it coming!” Coan protested. “I had to get back some of my pride.”

  Piran cocked an eyebrow and looked at Coan. “Looks like you got taught a lesson twice in one day,” he observed. “Best keep to your own bunk, on your own side of the room,” he warned.

  Coan’s glare let Blaine know the matter was far from settled. Garrick and Dunbar grabbed Coan and hauled him toward his assigned bunk, throwing him onto it for good measure. Blaine sat up, rubbed his bruised, bloodied knuckles and twisted his neck to work out newly sore muscles.

  “Damn!” Verran muttered, careful to keep his voice down. “You’ve got good reflexes. I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Yeah,” Blaine replied. “Something I learned the hard way,” he added, unwilling to mention that his skills had been gained fighting off his own father more times than he cared to recall.

  “Might be best to have someone sit watch, at least for tonight,” Garrick said when he returned. “I’ll take the next candlemark, and rouse someone else after that. We’ll all take turns for the next couple of nights, until things settle down.”

  Blaine nodded and rubbed his neck where Coan had gripped hard enough to bruise. “Yeah. Count me in—tomorrow night.” Wearily, he climbed back into his bunk, but he did not expect to sleep well, maybe not for the duration of his time in Velant.

  Despite the uncertainty of his new surroundings and valid worries about being knifed in his sleep, Blaine woke with a start a few candlemarks later to the banging of a drum. It was still dark outside, but then again he reminded himself, it would be dark for months. Dark, cold, and far from home.

  “Move it! Move it! There’s work to be done, you malingering dogs!” The guards at Velant appeared to be chosen for their sheer size, surly disposition, and lung capacity. Blaine and the others stumbled from their bunks, pulling on their boots and grabbing their cloaks as they ran to comply.

  “Half of you are going to the mines,” Captain Jumon shouted above the wind. “The other half will go to the farm.” He slashed with his arm to denote where to cut the group of assembled prisoners. “Make it easy on yourselves. Don’t give my men any reason to make an example of you.”

  Blaine was in the group chosen for the mines. He looked around to see who else was with him. Verran and Dawe were in the farm group. Probably just as well, he thought, and wondered if Dawe’s smithy skills might keep him out of the mines for good. Piran was in Blaine’s group, as were Garrick, Dunbar, Torr, and Ernest—and Coan. Fortunately, half of Coan’s group of toadies were assigned to the farm, but in exchange, Blaine noticed that several of Stefan’s hangs-on were assigned to the mines. That made the odds of an ‘accident’ in a dangerous place higher than they already were.

  They trudged a mile through the cold to get to the mine entrance. It was outside the main fortifications of Velant, but a wooden stockade had been erected on either side of the wide road, just in case any of the reluctant miners got ideas of escape. At least the fence blocks the wind.

  “Hold up!” Chester, the mine foreman, shouted as they neared the entrance. “Here’s where you get your chains—and your breakfast. Line up!”

  “What’s going on?” Blaine muttered to Piran, just loudly for him to hear.

  “They chain us together by the ankles,” Piran replied. “Once we’re down in the mine, some poor sap comes around with food and water twice a day—you can pretend it’s breakfast and lunch. We have dinner back in the barracks.”

  “Rowse! Shut up. I’m not telling you again!” Chester yelled, and Piran grinned. This was apparently a long-standing source of consternation.

  Blaine took a deep breath to quell his anger as one of the soldiers clamped a leg iron around one ankle. Several feet of heavy chain connected him to Piran, and an equal length of chai
n connected Piran to Ernest.

  “You three—down below,” the soldier said, pointing to Blaine and then to the tunnel mouth. Other soldiers shouted orders to different groups of men. A wide area outside the mine mouth was filled with dozens of heaps of rock. Soldiers handed out pickaxes to the men assigned to the rock heaps, separating the rubies from the rock to make for a more compact load on the ships back to Donderath.

  “Don’t worry; you’ll get your turn there, too,” Piran muttered. “We all do. Can’t say that one’s better or worse than the other—they’re both miserable.”

  The men on the rock piles stayed above ground, where the air was likely better and they were spared the claustrophobia of going below. But Blaine had used a pickaxe back on his family’s lands, and he knew that wielding one took strength and stamina. Going into the mine was likely to require just as much effort in a smaller space. The miners would be out of the wind and perhaps warmer, but the air in the cramped tunnels was likely to be foul with sweat and smoke. This is Velant, he reminded himself. There are no good choices here, only worse ones.

  Blaine was the tallest, which meant he had to duck as he entered the mine entrance. Piran moved with a halt-and-go gait that told Blaine his new barracks-mate was no stranger to the mines. Ernest was brawny and wide-shouldered, and he cursed under his breath as he tried to fit his broad frame through the hewn passageways.

  Lanterns hung at intervals from pegs sunk into the rock, lighting their way and darkening the top of the tunnel with greasy smoke. Blaine hunched, trying to keep from breathing the fumes.

  “That’s the good thing about being short, like me,” Piran quipped. “Air’s better down here.” Though he only stood a head shorter than Blaine, his comment was likely true, Blaine thought resignedly.

  “Don’t know how they can get mules in and out of here, let along men,” Ernest muttered.

  “They don’t bother with mules down in the mine,” Piran replied. “They’ve got us. The only mules are topside, to take the wagonloads of ore to the ships.”

  As they wound through the maze of tunnels, the ceiling grew lower. Moisture condensed on the rock overhead, dripping into their hair and sending rivulets of cold water down their backs. Later, that might feel good once they worked up a sweat, but now it made Blaine shiver.

  The lanterns were barely enough to light the way, and the rocky path made it easy to stumble. Finally the tunnel opened into a larger room deep beneath the surface of Edgeland. A huge area had been carved from the rock, leaving stone pillars as large as a man in places to hold up the ceiling. Pickaxes awaited them, and the experienced prisoners shambled off toward their stations and began to dig at the rock walls.

  “Over here,” Piran said with a jerk of his head. They let Piran lead the best they could, trying not to trip over each other or their chains. The fetters were just long enough to allow them to station themselves about arms-length distance apart, but made it necessary for Blaine and Ernest to shorten their stride so as not to jerk Piran long with them or bring themselves up short.

  “Why here?” Blaine whispered as Piran led them to an out-of-the-way corner.

  Piran looked to one side and then the other before replying in a tone so low they could barely hear him. “Air’s a little better, and there’s a vein of rubies that’s just been tapped, so we’ll have more to show at the end of the day. Trust me, it matters.”

  Boot steps alerted them to a guard coming up behind them, and Piran hoisted his axe and shouldered into the work. They fell silent until the guard had made his rounds.

  “Watch and learn,” Piran said. “Do what I do.”

  Blaine hefted his axe and mirrored Piran’s stance. “Swing with your hips, not your back, or you won’t be moving tomorrow,” Piran advised. “Take it out in little hunks. Less work for you, less work for the blokes up above, and it all weighs the same in the end.” He flexed his hands. “And I’d advise bartering for some leather gloves, when you can,” he added. “Keeps the axe handle from ripping the skin off your hands.”

  With that, Piran turned to his work, and began to whistle a tavern tune Blaine vaguely recalled, popular for its catchy melody and its bawdy lyrics.

  “Rowse! Stop yer whistlin’ or I’ll knock out your teeth!” Coan yelled. Other prisoners shouted Coan down.

  “Do another one, Piran!”

  “Can you whistle The Hand of a Lady?” someone else called out.

  “How about Sailor’s Lament?” For the next few minutes, one miner after another yelled out requests, while Coan turned back to his work in a huff as his companions, Vogo and Rall, argued him out of making good on his threat. To Blaine’s amusement, Stefan also looked seriously annoyed.

  Piran did his best to accommodate, switching frequently among songs from a well-known dance melody to a dock-yards work song, and then back to a ditty that was a favorite of tavern minstrels for its many verses, each more creatively obscene than the last.

  “Not bad, Rowse!” another prisoner yelled. “Mostly on tune today.”

  “Thank the gods he isn’t singing,” someone else put in, which got a hearty enough round of chuckles that Piran’s ears reddened, but he kept on whistling.

  Deep in the mine, there was no way to tell how much time had passed, or whether it was morning or afternoon. The air grew stifling with the exertion of dozens of men, and the cavern stank of sweat and unwashed bodies. Blaine found himself growing light-headed with the work, even though he tried to pace himself by matching Piran’s rhythm.

  Finally, two men came around, one with a bucket of water and a dipper, and the other with a basket of food. The men moved slowly from one grouping of prisoners to another. More than once, heated words were exchanged but too quietly for Blaine to catch what was being said. Finally, the two reached Blaine’s group.

  One of the men was just taller than Piran, and even more muscular. He had a head of graying brown hair tied back in a queue and squinted as if the dim light did not suit him. On his left was a thin, hunched man whose gestures reminded Blaine of the rats in Castle Reach. “Got some nice cold water for ya—and some buns and sausage for breakfast,” the big man said.

  “But you’ve got pay for it,” the rat-man added with a sly twitch of his mouth, not quite a smile, less than a leer.

  “Bugger off, Welton. You too, Tanner,” Piran snapped. “The guards sent you down here with that food. It’s not yours to sell.”

  Tanner, the big man, gave a nasty grin. “You know better, Rowse. The guards don’t care what happens to it, once we’re out of their sight.”

  “They’ll care plenty when men can’t finish their shift for hunger when you were supposed to be feeding them,” Piran returned, letting his voice rise enough to carry.

  Welton, the rat-faced man, made a gesture for silence. “Don’t cause trouble, Rowse. You know how it works. Pay us in coin or pay us in food.” He leered at Blaine and Ernest. “These your new friends? You don’t want trouble, Rowse. Just pay up.”

  “This is their first day,” Piran snapped. “What do you expect them to pay with? They haven’t been here long enough to earn any coin.”

  Tanner chuckled, a ghastly, wheezing noise. “Then I guess they pay with half their rations, like everyone else, unless you want to cover their share and yours too.”

  Blaine kept his face neutral, though his stomach growled. He had no idea how prisoners earned coin, and what manner of coin they earned, but he had nothing in his pockets of value except for the knife Verran had stolen the night before.

  Piran cursed creatively. “All right, just this once,” he muttered. He dug into a pouch on a leather strap beneath his shirt and pulled out a coin. “Here,” he said, holding it up in the faint light. “Enough to cover our food today—breakfast and lunch.”

  Tanner elbowed Welton, who reached for the coin, but Piran snatched it back. “Oh no,” Piran said. “Not until we’ve got our food.”

  Welton grumbled and his eyes narrowed in a glare. Tanner elbowed him again, and Welt
on dipped out water for the three men and shoved three meat pasties into their hands. “Here, pox take you. Now give me the coin!”

  Piran flipped the coin so that Welton had to grab for it, nearly taking himself and Tanner off balance as Welton dove to catch the coin and his chain dragged Tanner with him. Welton pocketed the coin and muttered to Tanner, and they shuffled off toward the next marks.

  “I’ll pay you back,” Blaine said, wary of Piran’s generosity and of being indebted to anyone at Velant, but too hungry to argue.

  Piran shook his head. “Don’t mention it.”

  “Thank you,” Ernest said, taking a bite of the meat pie.

  Piran looked both ways and dropped his voice. “No, seriously. Don’t mention it. That coin was counterfeit.”

  Blaine ate his food quickly, before Tanner and Welton had a chance to come back for it. When they were back to working on the rock ahead of them, he looked over to Piran. “If the food is from the prison, how do they get away with selling it?”

  Piran let his axe rise and fall. “Tanner pays a percentage to the guards. The piggy-faced one keeps a tally book.”

  “And Prokief lets them get away with it?” Ernest asked in a whisper.

  Piran shrugged. “For all I know, the guards give Prokief a percentage. That’s how things work here.”

  “How do prisoners earn coin?” Blaine asked, taking a chunk out of the wall.

  “Usually for jobs no one wants, like digging latrines or burying the dead,” Piran replied, and this time, his swing bit into the wall a bit deeper. “Even prisoners have their limits, and Prokief must have figured paying out a few coins was cheaper than putting down riots.” He shot Blaine a sidelong glance. “Oh, and Prokief’s snitches get paid, too.”

  “Spies?”

  Piran nodded. “You’ll figure out who’s who soon enough. No use killing them, because someone else will just take the job. Easier to tell them what they want to hear and be on your merry way.”