An Exchange of Hostages

by Susan R. Matthews

  “Oh. For the love of God. Leave over. I don’t know.”

  He had to concentrate on what the prisoner was saying in order to make out the words. He didn’t want to be listening at all. The rest of the Security seemed capable of closing themselves down. How long would it take him to learn how to protect himself? The officer used him neither more nor less than the others; Koscuisko had not played favorites. St. Clare was grateful for that. What little he had been called upon to do had strained his self-discipline badly, but he knew better than to let even a hint of hesitation show in his responses to his officer.

  “I don’t. Believe. You,” Koscuisko said, punctuating his mocking words with precise movements of the knife, nestling ever more deeply beneath a fingernail. Two days, and the prisoner could still speak and be understood. Two days, and Koscuisko could still evoke such sickening sounds of agony from the man who shuddered trembling on the floor in front of Koscuisko’s chair.

  Koscuisko had his prisoner’s hand stretched across his knee, convenient to his knife, and the three-vices kept the fingers steady and immobilized at Koscuisko’s pleasure. The officer had dealt more kindly with him, although the pain was troubling to remember. Koscuisko had not made him watch his own torture so deliberately as this.

  “What . . . else is there to tell you? Ah, Your Excellency? Please . . . ”

  Koscuisko toyed idly with the knife, and the blood ran fresh. Robert could smell it.

  “Please, I’ve told you about my buyers. My suppliers. My contracts, everything . . . ”

  And so he had; St. Clare had heard him. Leaning forward, Koscuisko lifted the prisoner’s head by the hair on his head and purred at him. “But not enough. I don’t think you’ve said all the truth you know, and that offends me, do you understand?”

  It seemed to St. Clare that the man’s eyes rolled back in his head; and Koscuisko responded to the threat of loss of consciousness by taking his prisoner by the throat and shaking him savagely. “Pay attention, when it is that I am talking to you.”

  “Ah . . . there’s Alden for the factory, and I told you about Foratre and even Kuylige, Glenafric services the school yards . . . what? What?”

  “Tell me more about Glenafric,” Koscuisko suggested, and transferred his attention to another fingernail. “The school yards, is it? A relative of yours, this Glenafric, I understand?”

  “My brother, and damn him for his greed. He has contacts . . . the older children . . . ”

  They hadn’t heard anything incriminating about this Glenafric person before, not that St. Clare could call to mind. He was sure he’d have remembered if they had. It would have helped him insulate himself from the fearful pity of what Koscuisko did to his prisoner had he known all along that there were children involved.

  It was a gesture too horribly like stripping bark off of a switch, like paring the rind of a cheese away at the tail end of the wheel. It was a small movement of Koscuisko’s hand, merely, but the prisoner choked with it. Fortunately for St. Clare, there was too much blood for him to be able to see anything but a confused sort of mass of flesh, like the leavings after fall slaughter before the scavenger birds came chortling in to feed. “Where would one find this Glenafric Whomever, I wonder?”

  There was horrified denial in the prisoner’s voice, now, even past all of his pain. “No, he’s my brother . . . I didn’t mean . . . a mistake, your Excellency, please . . . ”

  Koscuisko moved the knife against the prisoned hand, and the prisoner screamed. “Tsamug! Glenafric Tsamug! He keeps his stores in his grain bin-at home, at his home, you can find the stuff there.”

  A man could sell addictive drugs to children, and take whatever coin he pleased in the eager self-prostitution of flesh not even sexually mature. And still try to protect his brother, at the last.

  “It is a shame that we lack medication,” Koscuisko said sorrowfully, turning the dagger with delicate care. “You

  need to suffer much before your sin is healed. Oh, and I could help you, if we had but time.”

  Leaning back now, Koscuisko spurned his prisoner away from him with his foot and rose to his feet slowly like a drunken man, reaching out a hand to steady himself against Vely. “But we must be content with what we have, and trust the saints to take care of the rest. And therefore, Mister Haspir, if you would for me the gel-club find, I mean to make the best start that I can.”

  St. Clare was not quite sure of what Koscuisko was getting at, with his vague talk of sins to be healed. The rest of it made too much sense entirely.

  “I do not like your choice of relations; such brothers as you have offend me deeply . . . ”

  How many years was he condemned to stand and help, in this?

  St. Clare stood silent at attention-rest and tried to find some sanctuary deep within himself. Where he didn’t have to see. Where he didn’t have to hear. Where he didn’t have to think about Koscuisko, at least not while Koscuisko was wearing the wrong pair of hands.

  He’d made it this far, after all, he reminded himself. He could complete the exercise.

  As long as he didn’t have to think about it he would be all right.

  ###

  Andrej stood with his back to the room, smoking his lefrol, waiting for the disposal team to take the body away. He was well finished; he’d been able to keep the prisoner going for rather longer than he had expected, and that measure of success gratified him. Did they save the most offensive prisoners for the last? Did they understand that it was easier to torture a man when one could honestly feel a certain degree of personal moral outrage, even though the ferocity of the punishment still could not be said to fit the crime?

  Because when it came right down to the threshing of it, Andrej didn’t care about political crimes. Treason was only against Jurisdiction, and the Combine, while forced to acknowledge Bench supremacy, simply didn’t take Jurisdiction as seriously as the Jurisdiction was apt to take itself.

  He could hear people behind him, probably the disposal team. Another moment or two and he would be ready to leave; Joslire would take him back to quarters. He was tired. It had been two days, two long days.

  “Attention to the Administrator!”

  Haspir’s warning call took Andrej by surprise. Pivoting on his heel, with a lefrol in one hand, he stood to attention as well as he could. What could this mean? Administrator Clellelan, Tutor Chonis, Provost Marshall Journis. Joslire Curran, behind Tutor Chonis, and Joslire was carrying a driver-and a fresh pair of gloves, perhaps? Andrej made his bow, a sudden sense of dread dispelling the euphoria that the lefrol had created in his mind. Joslire carrying a driver, and St. Clare had been posted to his Security team for this exercise. St. Clare had done well, as far as Andrej could remember. But he was tired, tired and physically weary, how could they ask that he discipline St. Clare after the end of two days of an Eighth Level exercise?

  Lora and Vely had cleared away the table, setting it against the back wall. Cay had brought a basin of water for him to wash his hands. It was a supportive gesture, but now Andrej was unsure whether he could get away with the apparent hesitation that it would entail. One thing was certain: He was not the only person here who thought he knew exactly what was going on. St. Clare was as white as an Iselbiss snowfall. Had everybody known? Everybody except for himself, and Robert St. Clare?

  “Carry on, Student Koscuisko.” The Administrator seated himself in Andrej’s chair, Chonis and the Provost posting themselves behind him at either shoulder. “Take a moment, if you need it. What was it, Chonis? Six-and-sixty?”

  Andrej held his panic to himself, firmly, and Tutor Chonis hastened to his rescue. “I have instructed Student Koscuisko that four-and-forty will be acceptable, if the Administrator please. A reasonable compromise, under the circumstances.”

  “Indeed? Very well, then. At your convenience, Student Koscuisko.”

  Cay and Haspir were on either side of St. Clare now, as if he had reverted to prisoner status — no surrogacy about it. Joslire had gone to st
and by the table at the back, waiting for Andrej beside the basin of water. All right, he had time, and if he was to do this, he did want to wash his hands, because his hands were filthy with the prisoner’s blood that had soaked through the gloves. He had noticed that with the Chigan, with the Cynergau, and it still surprised him. Blood and the sweat of his palms together made a slippery combination. He wanted to be quite sure about his control over the driver.

  He was glad that Joslire had brought another whip; the one he had been using for his practices, perhaps? The one he had been using on his prisoner was wet, and would fall with that much more brutal a stroke accordingly. As if any touch of that black braided thing could be called less than brutal . . . but he was going to concentrate. And he was going to concentrate with all deliberate speed. The longer he made St. Clare wait, the more St. Clare would suffer in the waiting.

  He washed his hands and he dried his hands, but he didn’t want the gloves that Joslire had brought for him. Not quite yet. Andrej went to the front of the room and beckoned for St. Clare. The two Security made no move to compel him, though he did hesitate for a moment; and Andrej was grateful for the respect that they were showing for St. Clare.

  “It will be necessary for you to remove your blouse. And your under-blouse as well, Robert.” He couldn’t read the expression in Robert’s eyes. He didn’t know St. Clare’s face well enough to guess whether it was hatred and resentment, loathing, disgust — or merely fear, and resignation. He had not seen St. Clare above twelve times all told, and St. Clare had been unconscious during at least six of them. But he had yet to see an expression of hatred on St. Clare’s face. Fear was quite natural; but resignation — resignation, without any hostility directed at the man who was to punish him cruelly for a fault that was not his own — seemed clearly too great a charity for Andrej to hope for.

  Stripped to the waist, St. Clare waited for instruction. Andrej would have liked to have assured himself that a medical team had been called up, to be ready. He did not dare to press the issue, however, for fear that the Administrator or the Provost might speak against it. Better to wait till he could speak with Tutor Chonis alone.

  Andrej gestured toward the front wall. St. Clare bowed to him, formally, and turned toward the wall, posting himself precisely at arm’s length from the wall and directly in front of where the Administrator sat. Andrej knew the range, he had been practicing; and yet — as determined as he’d been to be prepared — there was an important point he had forgotten. Something he hadn’t ever thought to discuss with Joslire. There was no help for it now. He was going to have to simply ask, witnesses or none.

  St. Clare stood at attention-wait facing the wall, his head straight and steady on his broad shoulders. Reaching up, Andrej set his hand to the back of Robert’s neck in the traditional gesture of intimacy between master and man.

  “Would you be bound, Mister St. Clare? Or not?”

  St. Clare was surprised to be given the option; Andrej could feel it in the sudden tension of the muscles beneath his hand. But he did need to know.

  “I know better than anyone how well you can stand to it, but it will be difficult for you either way. It shall be your choice.” What would shame Robert least? To be chained at the wall, like an unreasoning animal? Or not to be chained, and suffer the shame of having to be restrained by his fellows if he so much as flinched away from the whip-stroke?

  Robert coughed, as if to clear his throat. “Let there be no reproach brought against the officer’s discipline,” he replied firmly. And raised his hands, stretching his arms out to where the shackles hung against the wall waiting for him and hungry for his pain.

  Truly, truly Robert was of good heart. It would make it easier for Andrej that St. Clare had consented to be constrained. It almost seemed to him that the gesture had been made for his benefit, a surrender of pride to help put the exercise forward.

  “Gentlemen,” Andrej suggested grimly. Haspir and Cay came forward to close the manacles and latch them at St. Clare’s wrists. It gave him an extra moment to examine the still-too-newly healed expanse of St. Clare’s back one final time, to see where the skin was thinnest, to find any residual bruising or tenderness. He had already studied up on Nurail. He’d spent a good half-shift poring over the nerve map for the Nurail body, to learn to his satisfaction where it was that he could strike the hardest blows and have them hurt the least.

  Taking the gloves from Joslire finally, he pulled them on, smoothing the palms carefully before he took the whip. He was as ready as ever he would be.

  “Who is to count, Joslire?” he asked. Tutor Chonis answered in Joslire’s stead.

  “The Provost Marshall represents Station Security. The official count will be hers. You may proceed, Student Koscuisko.”

  Wasn’t it unusual, to have so much rank at such discipline? Or was it in token of the unusual circumstances that had got them here, he and St. Clare together?

  Andrej paced his ground, and flexed the uncoiled driver to work any unseen kinks out of its braiding. “Stand clear, gentlemen,” he called, as much to warn St. Clare as to move the others away. Enough time to know that it would be coming, now. Not enough time to suffer the impact before it hit, in apprehension; St. Clare was to suffer enough from the whip’s lash itself without being forced to fear and suffer both.

  Letting the leader out, he swung a long slow stroke for the left side of Robert’s upper back, and knew by sound alone that he had bruised deeply enough for blood to flow.

  “One,” the Provost said.

  He had to find a rhythm, he had to take a regular count early and consistently. Five was too long. Two was not long enough. Three would give him time to contain the stroke, to control the stroke, ensure that it would bite deeply enough to be counted.

  “Two.”

  Start at the upper part of the back, work down. Leave enough space to show each single welt, to make it clear that every stroke should be counted as good. He had not taken the width of the welt into account. The spacing was going to be difficult.

  “Three.”

  And above all he had to be sure that he would hit hard enough, be sure that four-and-forty would not compound to five-and-fifty or worse just because he was desperately reluctant to hurt Robert St. Clare.

  “Four.”

  He found his pace and held it grimly as the whip cut a series of increasingly blurred and bloody lines down one side of St. Clare’s naked back. He was not going to be able to go twenty on a side; the welt was too wide for that. And he had to bring one in every eight in at the lower part of the shoulders, just to one side of Robert’s spine so that the snapper-end could do its dreadful damage — what had the Tutor said? Provide its taste of “real” punishment — where there were the least number of pain receptors to register a protest.

  “Seven.”

  He laid the eighth stroke in straight and solid, and Robert’s body rocked against the impact of the pain. It would be hard. And it was only starting.

  “Eight.”

  It was going to be important to maintain a balance if he was to deal honestly with St. Clare. Pain messages gathered from two directions at once could overload the tolerance of the spinal transmitters, so that two blows would cause Robert to suffer torment equivalent to one and one-half. If he managed really well there was a chance that he could achieve a kind of interference that would cancel out some of Robert’s pain before it had quite come to Robert’s attention.

  “Thirteen.”

  He could hear St. Clare’s breathing, now, shaky and strained — but only breathing, still. He set the snapper to mark the second eight, and heard a sound as Robert’s body jerked against his chains with the shock of it. One in eight, Tutor Chonis had told him. One in eight, and for four-and-forty that meant that he dare not stop at five of them.

  “Twenty.”

  At least he had not lost a single stroke, so far. Oh, almost halfway through, he had won fair count from the Provost so far.

  “Twenty-two.”

/>   Half over, halfway done. It was becoming more and more difficult to find a place to strike that was not already compromised with blood. He had been very careful, he knew that he had been, but he could not see well enough at this distance to judge the interval between two strokes — not as well as he would wish. It was different when it was a prisoner; it had been different when St. Clare had been his prisoner, come to that. Then it hadn’t mattered if the strokes overlapped each other. Andrej took the driver in his other hand, frowning in his concentration, trying to ignore the sweat that was running down his forehead, into his eyes.

  “Thirty-one. Put your back into it, Koscuisko.”

  St. Clare had begun to collapse against the wall, not standing so much anymore as hanging by his wrists. Andrej could not afford to permit himself to hear that St. Clare cried when he was struck. He had been warned. He would not make St. Clare suffer a single extra stroke. He would not.

  “Thirty-two.” The snapper, and St. Clare caught his breath too loudly and too sharply for it to be interpreted as labored breathing. But close to finished, close, and the Provost was pleased with his effort; she had not disallowed the previous blow —

  “Thirty-three. That’s more like it. Don’t lose your timing, now.”

  He was at a loss as to where he might strike next, and eleven yet to get past. He would have to do the best that he could, and never mind the placement now. At least St. Clare, adrift within a greater sea of torment, seemed no longer conscious of the blows as separate shocks.

  “Forty.”

  A little too far toward the shoulder blade; his aim was beginning to fail him. It was difficult to see as well as he would like for the sweat in his eyes. He’d spaced the whip-strokes a little generously when he’d begun, perhaps he could fit another four in between them without the added cruelty of striking over an already-burning welt.

  “Forty,” Marshall Journis repeated.