The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER TWO

  Mr. Crofford was standing outside the prisoner’s cell when Weldon arrived there; with him was Mr. Boyd, Weldon’s senior day guard. Mr. Crofford’s face was screwed up with such intensity as he looked at Weldon that the Seeker concluded that his senior day guard had been lecturing Mr. Crofford on his duties.

  “The Codifier’s watch-dogs” was what the junior guards were sometimes called, for one of their duties – their most important duty, the Codifier would have said – was to report to the Codifier any Code-breaking by the Seekers and the senior guards. Weldon had been a Seeker for three months when he was reported by his own junior day guard. What had followed from that reporting had left Weldon, perhaps unfairly, with an everlasting distrust of junior guards.

  And now, he knew, he was about to enter the cell of a prisoner with whom he would be more than usually tempted to break the Code of Seeking. With his best effort, he managed to keep from glaring at his junior day guard. Rather, he addressed himself to Mr. Boyd. “How is the prisoner?”

  “Quiet, sir.” Like Weldon, Mr. Boyd kept his voice low so as not to be heard through the door, though they were both speaking in the Yclau language. “He refused to respond to us when we first introduced him to his cell.”

  Weldon nodded. The prisoner’s refusal to cooperate might be due to simple fear, or it might be more. He would know once he had seen the prisoner’s demeanor.

  He resisted the impulse to look through the door’s tiny watch-hole. Some Seekers were accustomed to watching the prisoner for as long as an hour before they entered the cell, but Weldon preferred to gain his first impression of prisoners from their reactions to his entrance. Instead, he cast a quick glance at Mr. Crofford. Mr. Boyd had good command of the Vovimian tongue, Weldon knew, but whether Mr. Crofford’s schooldays training in Vovimian would pass muster remained to be seen. Clear communication between a guard and his prisoner was essential; Weldon would have to check at some point to be sure that this prisoner understood what Mr. Crofford was saying to him.

  Weldon nodded to Mr. Boyd, who unlocked the door with such quietness that Weldon could barely hear the bolt withdraw. Mr. Crofford had his eyes narrowed, watching Weldon. As junior guard, he had the right to stand sentry at the watch-hole any time that a Seeker was alone with his prisoner, and Weldon gathered from his expression that Mr. Crofford planned to exercise this right. Feeling his back prick as though Mr. Crofford were poking him with his dagger, Weldon walked through the cell doorway.

  The prisoner was sitting on the floor in the corner of the cell. This was not unusual; Weldon had lost count of the number of prisoners who had adopted pitiful positions in hopes of convincing their Seeker that they were harmless lambs. Those were usually the prisoners who physically attacked Weldon at some point. What complicated matters was that prisoners who truly were harmless lambs would also adopt this position. It took an experienced Seeker to know the difference between a prisoner who was being defensive out of a desire to destroy and a prisoner who was being defensive out of simple innocence.

  As the door clicked shut behind Weldon, the prisoner lifted his head. Normally this was the point at which Weldon allowed himself to scrutinize the prisoner’s appearance. Instead, Weldon found himself running through verb tables in his head, as though he needed their help in order to speak. Which was ridiculous. He had received a thorough training in Vovimian at school – had in fact been privileged with a teacher who had lived in Vovim and could give him much better training in the Vovimian language than commoner children usually received.

  He forced himself to spare at least a quick glance at the prisoner. The boy was much darker than Layle; he looked like pictures of the Vovimian hell-god that Weldon had seen in his schoolbooks. He tried to remove this image from his mind. “Good morning, Mr. Hallam,” he said, in the time-honored words of a Seeker greeting his prisoner. “I am your Seeker, Mr. Chapman.”

  The boy said nothing; nor did he stir from his place. His gaze had narrowed in a manner that reminded Weldon of Mr. Crofford. The prisoner’s gaze slid over the Seeker, pausing at Weldon’s hands, and finally returned to his face. Still he said nothing.

  Weldon flirted with the notion that his accent was to blame, but this could not be the case. He had searched a number of Vovimian prisoners over the years, and even Vovimians with the thickest provincial accents could understand Weldon’s accent, which was a bland, mid-class accent spoken throughout the Kingdom of Vovim. Layle, whose native accent was very thick indeed, had assured Weldon in the past that Weldon’s Vovimian was clear and distinct.

  Weldon sighed inwardly, taking care that his sigh should not be noticed by the prisoner. “Mr. Hallam, we have certain rules in the Eternal Dungeon. One is that prisoners must stand while in the presence of their Seeker.”

  Still the prisoner did not speak. He had moved, quite subtly, from a sitting position to a crouch. Weldon did not find this reassuring. Nor did he like the look on the prisoner’s face: the eyes were squinting in a calculating fashion.

  Weldon wondered, belatedly, whether he had addressed the prisoner in the wrong way. Vovimians could be touchy about such matters. He tried again. “Or perhaps you wish to be addressed as Mr. Zenas—”

  The prisoner moved then, like a snake. Weldon had long years of experience in handling prisoners with calculating looks; he had been prepared for a movement, and a quick one at that. But he had assumed that the prisoner would rise to his feet before attacking, thus giving Weldon time to retreat and call for help. This prisoner did not. He slid forward on his knees, with such deftness that he might have been a wild beast who lived low to the ground. By the time Weldon realized what was happening, the prisoner had already reached out and grabbed him.

  Weldon jerked back; then, belatedly, he jerked the rest of his body back as well. The prisoner froze. His gaze went past Weldon, and Weldon knew without looking that Mr. Crofford had seen what was happening and had alerted Mr. Boyd. Without turning his head toward his guards, Weldon waved his hand slightly behind his back. A moment later, the door clicked shut.

  The prisoner’s gaze moved back to Weldon. The surprise in his expression it was replaced once more by narrowed eyes. After a moment’s careful consideration, the prisoner slid back to where he had been and then slowly rose to his feet.

  Seen standing, the boy looked younger than twelve. If it had not been for the hardness of his slender muscles – which Weldon now guessed must be due to training in the arts of bodily defense – Weldon might have guessed him to be ten or eleven. His face was older, though. Whatever mask of innocence he had worn in public had slipped, showing the face of someone who was worldlywise.

  Weldon shook himself inwardly. He was making assumptions ahead of the facts, which was dangerous. Even innocent prisoners were known to attack Seekers, since the Eternal Dungeon had no reputation for mercy. This boy might simply be desperate for freedom, terrified that he would be unjustly tortured.

  If so, the worst possible thing that Weldon could do was to fulfill the prisoner’s expectations. He hesitated.

  And felt his back prickle. Mr. Crofford had witnessed three breakings of the Code so far: the prisoner had not obeyed his Seeker’s order to stand, the prisoner had attacked his Seeker, and Weldon’s body had come in contact with a prisoner’s. The last was the most heinous crime, and the fact that the prisoner had initiated the touch could not save Weldon from the consequences of being reported to the Codifier if he failed to make clear to the prisoner that the touch was a punishable offense. Weldon’s background would not permit such leniency.

  “Mr. Zenas,” he said and saw the prisoner’s eyes flicker. Grateful to receive that much acknowledgment of his words, Weldon continued, “I should explain that you have certain rights and duties in this dungeon . . .”

  He proceeded then with the standard speech about the Code, designed so that even the most ill-educated prisoner would understand that he had the right to report any abuse committed against him. Not that prisoners usually exercised that ri
ght. That was why the junior guards were there – to prevent the Seekers and the guards who had worked long with the Seekers from breaking the Code with prisoners. Weldon could almost hear the sound of Mr. Crofford drumming his fingers against the door, waiting to see whether Weldon would comply with the Code.

  There was no help for it. And yet, as Weldon signalled with his hand toward the door at the end of his speech, he wondered whether he was doing this for the prisoner’s sake or for his own.

  The prisoner was now biting his lower lip, but he paid no attention to the two guards opening the door, even though one of them – Mr. Crofford – had taken his whip from his belt and was unwinding it.

  “Mr. Zenas,” Weldon said with proper solemnity, “kindly remove your shirt.” Then he turned away. Ostensibly this was in order to direct his attention to the guards. In fact, it was in order to collect himself.

  This was not the first time he had ordered the beating of a youth. On the rare occasions that underage prisoners were delivered to the Eternal Dungeon, they were almost invariably given into Weldon’s care. Those prisoners usually emerged from their confinement unscathed. Weldon had a reputation among the other Seekers for having a special ability to avoid the types of confrontations that resulted in a prisoner being punished for breaking the Code.

  On the few occasions when Weldon had been forced to take measures against young prisoners, he had been helped by the memories of his own schooldays beatings. He was giving to the youths nothing other than what his schoolmasters had given to him, and for a similar reason: in order to maintain the order necessary to educate the youths.

  There was no reason, then, why sweat should have broken out on Weldon’s skin at this moment. He glanced worriedly at Mr. Crofford to see whether the junior guard had noticed his hesitation, but Mr. Crofford was not watching him. He was staring at the prisoner, openmouthed.

  The prisoner, having refused all previous orders, had chosen this moment to exceed orders. He was standing naked, his clothes neatly folded at his feet. His eye was on Weldon.

  Weldon felt his heart jerk. He turned his head away, which was the most foolish thing he could have done; suddenly Mr. Crofford’s gaze was upon him again, his eyes narrowed. Weldon swore inwardly.

  “Mr. Chapman.” His senior guard’s voice was soft, but Weldon immediately looked over to where Mr. Boyd stood, at the far end of the cell. Weldon found that the prisoner had already turned and placed himself against that wall, reaching his hands up toward an inconspicuous iron ring on the frost-colored wall. The firepit beyond the glass wall danced with light, outlining the prisoner’s body, and it was a moment before Weldon’s eyes were able to adjust to see what Mr. Boyd had sighted. Then he walked forward slowly, his heart thrumming in his throat.

  His first thought was that the boy’s father had done this to him. That notion, he knew, was the result of evenings spent talking with Elsdon Taylor about Elsdon’s childhood. But as Weldon drew closer, the absurdity of that idea became obvious. No father, not even a Vovimian father, would use a leaded whip on his son. Nor would any schoolmaster, not if he wanted to keep his position. In Yclau, only one authority was permitted use of the leaded whip. Weldon swore again, this time in a whisper.

  He ran his eyes over the prisoner’s back, trying to tell himself that he was misreading what he saw. The lines ran from the shoulder-blades down to the thighs, crisscrossing one another; the holes gouged in by the lead were clear. He tried to read from them how recent they were, but he had insufficient training in this. He had never before met a life prisoner, for the simple reason that such prisoners remained in their cells for life.

  Unless, of course, they were Seekers. Weldon felt an odd moment of kinship with the prisoner – a realization of a bond he had not known he shared with the boy. That feeling quickly vanished as he realized the seriousness of the decision he faced.

  He tried to concentrate his thoughts. How had a twelve-year-old boy ended up in a life prison, and how had he managed to leave it? Through his father’s influence? It would fit with what Weldon had been told about the ambassador. A man exceedingly fond of his son, who had taken that son on a foreign trip for mysterious reasons. Perhaps Mr. Hallam had managed to bribe the prison guards to release his son, and then Mr. Hallam had quickly departed the country in an effort to ensure his son’s future freedom.

  You will understand why I am bringing Zenas when you meet him, he had told his eldest son. Perhaps the ambassador meant that he would explain about Zenas’s recent imprisonment when he had a chance to speak privately with his son Grove, outside of the limited confines of diplomatic posts. Or perhaps Mr. Hallam thought that the signs of whatever had caused the boy to go to prison would be clear.

  The prisoner was watching him; his eyes were slits. It was futile, but Weldon tried anyway. “Mr. Zenas, how did you come to be beaten?”

  The prisoner said nothing; nor did he remove his gaze. Against the brightness of the fire-wall, the pupils of his eyes had turned enormous, like that of a cat hunting at night.

  Weldon knew without looking that Mr. Crofford was watching him, weighing his every word. He felt as though a noose were tightening around his neck. He nodded briefly to Mr. Boyd, who reached forward and tied the prisoner’s hands to the ring with a strip of leather he carried for such purposes. The ring was not designed for youths of Zenas’s height; the prisoner ended up on his toes, straining to reach it. Weldon thought of delaying proceedings until a longer bond could be found. Then he thought that he ought to consult with the High Seeker to see whether he had gone astray in his deductions about Vovimian imprisonment. He felt Mr. Crofford’s gaze prick him, like a warning.

  He cleared his throat and stepped back. “Mr. Zenas, the rules of this dungeon require that prisoners be beaten in accordance with their offence and with their past experience in receiving punishment. Therefore you will receive . . . twenty medium lashes.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mr. Crofford give him a look that was like a blade-slice along the skin. Weldon knew that his punishment was far too low. Anyone who had committed an offense in the past that merited punishment by the leaded whip should receive twenty hard lashes at the very least. But he could not bring himself to make the punishment that hard.

  He knew why, of course. Bloody blades, why had that fool of a High Seeker assigned him this prisoner now, of all times?

  He did not even bother to ask the prisoner to count off his own punishment, as was usual. He nodded again to Mr. Boyd, and the senior guard, in a colorless voice, began counting each stroke in the moment before Mr. Crofford delivered it.

  This was Mr. Crofford’s first occasion using his whip on anyone but Mr. Boyd; as Mr. Crofford’s trainer, Mr. Boyd had received the dubious privilege of serving as the guard-in-training’s lash-post. Weldon could not spare any attention for the junior guard, though. He would have to depend on his competent senior guard to halt proceedings if Mr. Crofford’s technique proved less than adequate. Weldon’s attention was where it always was, on the prisoner’s face, and within a single lash he knew that something was wrong.

  He had given beatings this hard to prisoners before, and even to young prisoners. As one example, there had been that boy transferred from Alleyway Prison, who had slit the throats of three old women simply in order to lift their purses. The boy had physically attacked, in successive order, his junior night guard, his senior night guard, and Weldon. And he had not flinched under the whip; he had merely bared his teeth like a wild animal.

  This prisoner did not flinch either. He did not try to move his body out of the path of the lash or turn his gaze from his torturer. But within a moment of the crack of the first lash, the first tear had fallen, followed closely afterwards by others. The prisoner’s worldweary expression did not change.

  Weldon waited until the fourth lash. When he began to hear sobs emerge from the prisoner’s throat, he knew that something was seriously wrong. No prisoner so hardened as to receive the leaded whip should be reacting t
his way to a small number of medium lashes. It could simply be play-acting, of course, an attempt to raise sympathy. But the prisoner was making no effort to screw up his face as a sign of pain; he was simply biting his lip, his chin trembling as he sought to hold back the sobs.

  The pain within Weldon grew too great to bear. He held up his hand. The fifth lash landed anyway, earning Mr. Crofford a sharp rebuke from Mr. Boyd. At Weldon’s gesture, the senior guard came forward quickly to free the prisoner.

  The prisoner, released from his straining bond, collapsed to his knees with a thud upon the stone floor that made Mr. Crofford wince. Leaning his forearm against the warm wall, the boy proceeded to smother a series of sobs against it.

  Weldon’s uneasiness grew. He knew that he should keep his distance – one of the most common methods of attack by prisoners was to pretend to be crying in order to lure their Seekers near them. But Weldon found himself stepping forward to see the prisoner’s face.

  He was standing within arm’s reach of the boy when the prisoner stopped sobbing suddenly and looked up. Weldon felt his muscles tense. Even so, once again he was not prepared for the boy’s quickness. This time the boy managed to get one of Weldon’s trouser knots undone before Weldon stumbled back.

  “Bloody blades!” The Yclau words burst from him. Then, switching back to Vovimian, he shouted, “What in Hell’s name are you doing?”

  Without warning, the boy turned and flung himself prone upon the floor. His sobs had returned, and now they had a hysterical note to them. Mr. Crofford’s gaze had finally shifted away from Weldon; he was staring at the prisoner. Mr. Boyd frowned, as though he too were trying to penetrate the mystery of what was occurring.

  Weldon’s heart had settled into a hard, sickly thump. He decided it was time he started paying attention to that heart. He crouched down next to the prisoner, ignoring Mr. Crofford’s disapproving look. Once again, the prisoner sensed his presence and went still. The boy twisted his body and ended up leaning on one elbow, staring up at Weldon. His free hand started to reach out toward Weldon’s groin, and then stopped, hovering in mid-air.

  “Mr. Boyd,” Weldon said without moving his gaze from the boy. “Please clap your hands.”

  Standing behind the prisoner, Mr. Boyd obeyed the order. Startled, the prisoner looked behind him. Then, apparently treating this as a signal, he scrambled to his feet.

  Weldon rose to join him. “All right,” he said slowly in Yclau, “you’re not a deaf-mute.” He added in Vovimian, “Mr. Boyd, at my signal you will plunge your blade into the prisoner’s back. . . . Now!”

  As he spoke the word, he gave the subtle hand signal indicating a negation of his order, but it was unnecessary. The senior guard had not even bothered to unsheathe his blade. The prisoner, standing with his back to the guard, stared up at Weldon, waiting.

  “Sweet blood,” Weldon said slowly in a reverent voice. “You can’t understand me. You haven’t understood a word I’ve said since I walked into this cell. . . . What an idiot I am!”

  He turned away abruptly and smashed his fist against the light-filled wall. Ignoring the sharp pain this brought, he said, “You’ve been trying to follow my orders since I arrived. You’ve tried to guess what I’ve wanted and have tried to do it. And I beat you – I beat you—”

  “Sir!” Mr. Boyd’s voice was abnormally sharp, halting Weldon in the midst of thumping the wall a second time. In a quieter voice, the senior guard said, “Sir, you’re frightening the prisoner.”

  Weldon turned. The boy was where his Seeker had left him, standing further along the wall, staring up at him. But now the boy was hugging himself with his arms, and his body was shivering.

  They stared at one another for a moment, the boy and his torturer, and then Zenas seemed to make up his mind. Quickly he swirled round and pressed his body against the wall. Standing on tiptoe, he reached up toward the ring and waited.

  That was the moment when Weldon felt sickness enter him. He stepped forward, and in a voice as soft as he would have used toward a baby, he said, “No. That’s all over now. No more.”

  He shook his head, hoping this gesture meant the same in southern Vovim as it did in the rest of Vovim. Evidently it did, for the boy slowly lowered his arms and settled back onto his heels. He remained facing the wall, though, his eyes narrowed again as he sought to decipher his next order.

  Weldon swallowed heavily. “Mr. Boyd,” he said, keeping his voice soft and his eyes on Zenas, “please help Mr. Zenas return to his clothes. Mr. Crofford, be so kind as to fetch the healer and have him care for the prisoner.” He turned away.

  “Where are you going, sir?” The junior guard’s voice was quick, and under it was a note of accusation.

  Weldon turned to look at him. After a long moment, Mr. Crofford flushed. Weldon received no satisfaction from that fact. He said carefully, “I am going to see the Codifier. Unless you would prefer to speak to him first?”

  Mr. Crofford gave a little shake of his head; his face was now thoroughly red. Weldon looked briefly at the prisoner, who was watching all of this with uneasiness beginning to travel into his expression. Then Weldon beckoned to his senior guard.

  Treating his Seeker’s commands in their proper order, Mr. Boyd handed Zenas his clothes and waited until the boy had dressed himself before making his way over to the Seeker. Speaking in a low voice, as though he might be understood by the prisoner, Weldon said, “I want a watch placed on him.”

  Mr. Boyd had worked in the dungeon too long to have to ask why. He nodded and asked, “Shall I fetch you if anything happens?”

  “Please. And see that the night guards have the same orders.”

  He turned away and waited for Mr. Boyd to unlock the door. Then he stood for a moment, staring at the dim corridor. Sweat covered him once more, and this time he could not pretend that it was without cause. Taking a deep breath, he walked through the doorway and made his way down to the dragon’s den.

  o—o—o

  “It’s my fault,” said Weldon, raising his voice to be heard over the clatter of metal nearby. “I’ve been a Seeker for fourteen years – I should know the difference between a prisoner who is calculating how to attack and a prisoner who is calculating how to survive.”

  He said nothing about Mr. Crofford’s part in the matter. If a Seeker was such a fool as to let his twenty-year-old junior guard unnerve him into acting against his instincts, he deserved any punishment he received.

  Layle slipped the straw of his cup under his hood and sipped a moment before replying, “The fault is mine. I knew quite well that some of the more backwards inhabitants of southern Vovim have never learned the Common Speech. If I had been thinking . . .”

  He fell silent. Nearby, a jagged-toothed wheel fell with a thud onto a man’s boot, eliciting an outraged yell. The other man laughed, and then belatedly made a solicitous enquiry as to the first man’s health.

  Weldon began to open his mouth to respond to the High Seeker. Then he changed his mind and relaxed back against the wall behind the bench, stretching out his legs. He was grateful to be off his feet. It was nearly midnight, and he had spent most of the day standing in the Codifier’s office as his past was paraded before him.

  It had not been a full-scale investigation, the type demanded when a Seeker was suspected of deliberately breaking the Code. But it had been bad enough. Weldon’s records had been brought out, both the public ones kept by the Record-keeper and the private ones in the Codifier’s possession. The records had been pored over, line by line, as the Codifier recollected all of Weldon’s past transgressions, large and small. Then the Codifier had disappeared for several minutes to learn what he could from the prisoner’s demeanor, and when he returned, grim-faced, he had summoned a stream of witnesses: Weldon’s guards, the retired Seeker who had trained Weldon, and every Seeker and guard who had worked closely with Weldon for the past three years. All had been questioned carefully to determine whether Weldon’s infraction was part of an ongoing pattern. Ev
en the Queen’s guards who had delivered the prisoner to the Eternal Dungeon had been summoned from the palace to give witness to what conversation had taken place between the High Seeker and the Record-keeper at the time that the prisoner was assigned to Weldon.

  Weldon was not at all surprised. Only the most careless Seeker would have done what he did, for all Seekers were trained to be on the alert for any sign that their prisoner did not understand what was being said to him. Although the Eternal Dungeon had never before undergone the trauma of having a prisoner searched by a Seeker who did not know the prisoner’s language, commoner prisoners often had difficulty understanding the more refined speech of their Seekers. Weldon, who had first entered this dungeon as a commoner prisoner, was the last man who should have ignored clear signals that a prisoner did not understand the orders he was being given.

  From the direction of the Codifier’s questions as the day lengthened, Weldon gathered that the Codifier placed the primary blame upon the High Seeker, for not giving over the prisoner to the Seeker most qualified to search him, namely the High Seeker himself. Weldon wished that his conscience could shift the blame that easily.

  Layle was still watching the men working a few yards away. The High Seeker had not yet been summoned to see the Codifier, since he had spent the day having his injuries tenderly cared for by Elsdon Taylor. The moment Elsdon had returned to work, however, Layle had slipped out of bed. Weldon had discovered him half-fainting near the inner dungeon cross-passage that was close to the rack rooms, and had helped the High Seeker to his destination, namely to supervise the repair of the malfunctioning rack.

  Layle took another sip of the tea that Weldon had fetched him. Then he said, “Whoever is to blame, the question of Mr. Zenas’s future remains. You say that the Codifier has not suspended you from searching the prisoner?”

  Weldon shook his head. “He seemed to feel that, at this point, the prisoner was more likely to be frightened by the introduction of a new Seeker than by my continued presence. At least Mr. Zenas has seen me stop a beating. Do you agree with the Codifier’s assessment, sir?” Like Layle, Weldon took care to speak formally in the presence of the blacksmith and his brother, and like Layle, Weldon had his hood covering his face. From this angle, Weldon could not see Layle’s eyes, which were often impenetrable in any case.

  Layle nodded; his head remained turned toward the rack. “If Mr. Zenas has heard anything about Vovimian prisons, then transferring him to another Seeker will only increase his fear that he is to be passed from torturer to torturer. I’ll give Mr. Daniels my recommendation that you remain at your post. You will need a translator, though. I’ll send a request to the Queen’s Secretary for a good translator – not one of the palace translators, but a native Vovimian who knows the old tongue. In a city this size, it shouldn’t be hard to find one.”

  “Mr. Smith, why the bloody blades would an ambassador deny his son knowledge of the language spoken by the great majority of Vovimians?”

  Layle was slow to respond. He had leaned forward to watch the painstaking process of reassembling the rack. “The ambassador may have had his reasons,” he said finally.

  Weldon waited. After a minute, Layle added, “I have two pieces of advice for you, Mr. Chapman. One is that you consult tomorrow with Mr. Taylor about your prisoner. The second is that I think you should take great care henceforth as to what orders you give Mr. Zenas. I believe it’s likely that your prisoner will obey any order you give him, even if he believes that the order will cause him harm.”

  Weldon continued to wait, but no further advice was forthcoming. Finally Weldon said, “Sir, you know some of the old tongue. And you evidently have surmised more about this prisoner than I have. Wouldn’t it be better if you—?”

  “No.” The High Seeker’s voice was flat. “Under the circumstances, I believe I would be the worst possible person to search the prisoner.”

  Weldon drew in a breath, and then let it out again as the blacksmith approached. The man held up a small ball with spikes jutting out of it, like an iron chestnut. “Sorry to disturb you, sir. But neither my brother nor I can make anything of this. We found it in the workings within the bed.”

  Layle took the ball delicately between thumb and forefinger, held it up toward the oil lamp bracketed to the wall, and said, “Someone in the manufactory placed this in the rack by mistake. This is used only in Vovimian racks, in order to— Well, never mind. You can safely leave it out.”

  The blacksmith murmured his thanks and retreated to where his brother was struggling to return the wheel dial to its proper position. Layle, rolling the sharp-needled ball in his palm, said, “You had something to add, Mr. Chapman?”

  Weldon opened his mouth, and then shut it again. His eye was on the ball, which Layle was playing with as though it were the toy of a child. A familiar toy.

  A boy that age would be lucky if his torturers merely racked and executed him. Sweet blood, he had failed to understand what the High Seeker was telling him. This seemed to be Weldon’s day for ignoring clear signals.

  He told himself that Layle had been only fifteen when he became one of the King’s Torturers. He told himself that, by Vovimian standards, Layle had still been a boy when he left Vovim’s dungeon. It made no difference. Weldon still felt sick as he thought of what Layle might have done – of what he had undoubtedly done to at least one young prisoner placed in his hands.

  Little wonder that Layle wanted to stay as far away from this prisoner as possible. The High Seeker had abused prisoners of all ages during his time in Vovim, and Weldon had good reason to know that Layle’s greatest temptations to abuse lay with women, not boys. But a prisoner like this – young, vulnerable – must be a special temptation.

  Weldon thought to himself that he ought to say, “You did not abuse Elsdon when he was your young, vulnerable prisoner.” Like Elsdon, Weldon had complete faith in Layle’s ability to control himself in the presence of prisoners. But Weldon did not have the High Seeker’s dark past. Who was he to tell Layle that the High Seeker should return to work before he felt ready? All that Weldon could do was remain patient and hope that Layle would soon recognize that neither Mr. Zenas nor any other prisoner need fear unnecessary harm at the hands of the High Seeker.

  Weldon could only hope that the Codifier would be equally patient.