by Angus Wells
Lofantyl glanced like some cornered animal at the blade and the soldiers.
Abra saw him look toward the window and weigh his chances as Amadis raised his blade. She screamed and threw herself at the captain.
“Thank the gods you came! He burst in on me!”
Her slight weight took Amadis by such surprise that he was flung back. Lofantyl gaped.
“I thought it was a bird.” She clung to Amadis. “You saved me! The gods alone know what might have happened, else.”
The captain lowered his blade for fear of damaging Abra, and barked that his men take the Durrym.
Lofantyl stared at Abra as he was dragged away, confusion and resentment in his gaze.
SIX
ABRA KNEW BETTER than to scream as they carried Lofantyl away, though it was hard to bite off her horror and her grief. She saw him struggle, and a thick-knuckled hand slammed against his jaw, so that his handsome head was snapped back even as another fist landed in his belly and doubled him over. Then Amadis stepped forward and drove the heavy pommel of his sword into Lofantyl’s face. Lofantyl gasped, blood running from his nose, and slumped unconscious against his captors.
Amadis raised his blade and looked to Per Fendur for instruction. “I could slay him now.”
“No.” Fendur raised a hand, and set the other on Abra. “Best we hold him alive and question him.”
“He’s Durrym,” Amadis spat. “Let’s be done with him now, the bastard!”
“Hold him,” Fendur insisted. “Take him to the dungeons—and keep him alive, eh? I will question him, so I need him sensible.”
Amadis scowled, but lowered his blade.
“He can tell us much,” Fendur said. He smiled horribly at Abra. “And you, also, my lady.”
Abra struggled in the priest’s grasp. It was surprisingly strong, his fingers biting like claws into her arm so that she felt it go numb. Pain shafted up into her shoulder and neck so that even her jaw ached and she found it hard to cry out as Lofantyl was dragged away. Fendur thrust her back into her chamber.
“So you entertain the Durrym?” he murmured when Lofantyl was gone.
“I thought it was a lost bird,” she reiterated. “I had no idea it was a man. Ask my attendants.”
“I shall,” the priest promised, his dark eyes glinting with a wicked light. “I shall question them and the Durrym. And you.”
“Me?” Abra broke from his grasp and faced him with all the courage she could muster. “You’d question me?”
“A Durrym was found in your chamber,” the priest said, and shrugged eloquently. “That renders you suspect.”
“I explained that.” Abra heard the terrible threat in his voice, saw it in his eyes, and struggled to maintain her composure. Was she found guilty of consorting with Lofantyl she’d be executed beside him. “Do you suggest that I consort with the enemy?”
“I know what I know,” Per Fendur said ominously. “And I know what I suspect.”
“I think,” Abra said, with all the dignity she could find in the midst of her terror, “that you should speak with my father.”
“I am the Church incarnate,” he returned with a smug confidence. “I speak for the prelate and the king, and do I find you guilty, you’ll decorate the gibbet beside the Durrym.”
Abra felt a terrible cold then, as if the ice she’d felt on Lofantyl filled her veins and set her skin to prickling. She was tempted to fall on her knees and beg Per Fendur’s forgiveness but she could not. She loved Lofantyl and despised this oily priest, so she steeled herself and fought the trembling that threatened to wrack her body.
“Shall we speak with my father? I believe he might have a view on this. And does he not agree, I wonder if you might not find yourself on the gibbet.”
Fendur started back at that. “Treason!” he gasped. “Is all this keep given over to treason?”
“My father is a just man,” Abra said, sensing an advantage. “So shall we go speak with him?”
LORD BARTRAM WAS NOT HAPPY to be roused from his bed, though his wife seemed not to mind: they consented to an audience in their private chambers, where anxious servants stoked the hearth and lit candles, and brought wine.
Amadis was there, and Per Fendur and Abra, and a sleepy-eyed Laurens.
The hearth was built high against the cold and filled the room with somnolent heat. Abra’s father wore a bearskin that covered his belly and muffled him as if he were the animal. His wife wore a thick silken gown and fluttered her eyes at Amadis. Laurens stood stolid, dressed in his usual leather and metal. He kept, as ever, a hand on the hilt of his sword.
Amadis pranced in fancy armor as he described his capture of the Durrym, and Per Fendur folded his hands into the wide sleeves of his black robe and agreed with the captain.
According to them, they had taken a Durrym captive—a foul fey who’d seduced Lord Bartram’s daughter and suborned her to his wicked purpose.
“And where is he now?” Bartram asked.
“Locked safe inside the dungeons,” Amadis replied.
“To be questioned later,” Fendur added.
“And what’s my daughter to do with this?”
“Seduced!” Fendur declared, his dark eyes flickering hostilely at Abra. “She welcomed the Durrym to the keep—and that’s treason!”
Vanysse nodded eagerly.
Bartram looked at his daughter. “Is this so?”
“Seduced?” she returned. “No. I’ve not slept with him.”
“But you’ve … consorted with him?”
“I’ve known him as a friend, an admirer.”
“A Durrym?” her father asked. He was torn between disbelief and horror. “How could you?”
“I knew him only as a handsome man,” Abra lied. “He complimented me. How should I know he was Durrym?”
“But even so,” Fendur declared, “she admits that she consorts with the Durrym, and that’s treason.”
“That,” Lord Bartram said, “I shall decide. Did she not, originally, know he was Durrym, then there’s no sin or treason.”
Fendur spluttered. “And meanwhile?”
“We hold him in the dungeons. Until I decide what’s to be done with him.” Bartram looked at his daughter. “You speak the truth?”
Abra nodded, forcing herself to meet her father’s eyes as she said, “Yes.”
“Then go back to your room.”
“No!” Per Fendur cried. “She’s guilty, and must be punished.”
Abra saw her stepmother nod agreement. But her father shook his head and stared angrily at the priest. “She’s my daughter,” he said, “and I trust her before you, so still your accusations and be gone. I shall consider this matter in the morning.”
Abra saw the priest study her father, and wondered what trouble she had initiated. But then he waved a hand and said, “Go back to your chambers, daughter, and we’ll speak of this tomorrow.”
Abra curtsied and quit the room, grateful to be gone. She hurried to her chambers and flung herself on the bed, weeping as she thought of Lofantyl.
LOFANTYL REGAINED HIS SENSES in a pool of ordure that seeped from a crack that he supposed must bleed from some midden above. He heard the door slam shut and picked himself up, groaning as his ribs ached, wiping at the blood that still ran from his nostrils. He stared at the horrid, blank stone walls. He could climb them, for Abra’s sake, but that was outside—where wind and weather shaped the stone and gave it some semblance of nature. Here—in this dungeon—it was all confined and unnatural. Here there were only cold, man-made blocks of granite that were designed to hold prisoners. There were bars of thick metal on the solitary window, and more spread down across the door. The floor was all stone—cold—and spread with so little straw that he could not find any warmth. Moss grew down the walls, and rats scuttled over what little straw covered the floor.
His body hurt and he wondered what his fate might be. He went to the window and saw a sky that faded from night to dawn, and thought of the forest and
Coim’na Drhu, and wondered if he had made a terrible mistake. He had not thought to fall in love with Abra, and that emotion confused everything. And now he was captured, and consigned to this horrid dungeon. He sighed, turning from the window, and curled on the floor. He summoned the rats, which curled around him and over him, and kept him warm with their bodies until the sun rose and the door opened. Then they fled, as if terrified.
Per Fendur stood there, smiling. Amadis stood behind the priest, and four soldiers behind him.
“I’d talk with you,” Fendur said mildly. But his face was stretched in a gloating smile. And to the soldiers: “Pick him up.”
Lofantyl rose of his own accord, but still they grabbed him and carried him out of the cell and down a long corridor of dank stone to a room where strange machines waited. He had never seen such machines, but he felt them malign, and wondered why so many irons sat in glowing braziers.
“Put him there!” Per Fendur indicated a contraption that seemed to be a wide table equipped with straps at either end, and a wheel between.
Lofantyl was picked up and deposited on the table. He fought his captors as best he could, but they beat him down and fastened the leathers around his wrists and ankles.
Per Fendur smiled at him. “We’ll stretch you now,” he said, and turned the wheel. Lofantyl felt his body drawn taut. “And stretch … and stretch … until you admit your guilt and tell me what I want to know.”
“I’ve nothing to tell you,” Lofantyl returned. “Save that I fell in love with Abra.”
“Who consorts with Durrym.” Fendur turned the wheel a notch tighter; Lofantyl felt his limbs stretch. “Such as you.”
“She did not know!”
“Are you sure?” The wheel turned another notch.
Lofantyl felt his body drawn out, as if all his bones and muscles threatened to tear apart.
“Yes!”
“So what did you do here? Why did you consort with her?”
The wheel turned again, and Lofantyl thought his shoulders must tear loose from his arms, his legs and knees and ankles from his body.
“I disagreed with my father,” he screamed. “I came across the Mys’enh—the Alagordar—and I met …”
He hesitated, and the wheel turned, dragging his body tighter against its own limbs.
Then: “Abra!”
“Who aids you?” Per Fendur asked.
“No!” Lofantyl groaned. “No help at all. I met her in the forest and fell in love with her. She did not know what I am.”
“No?” Per Fendur turned the wheel another notch tighter. “Then why come to her chamber?”
“Because I love her,” Lofantyl screamed as he felt his limbs stretched out again. “Because I love her!”
Fendur eased the wheel. “Enough for now,” he said, turning to the guards. “Take him back to his cell.” And to Lofantyl: “We’ll speak again—soon.”
HE HURT as he was flung into the cell. His limbs ached as if all his joints had been prised apart. He wondered if his feet were still connected to his ankles, his knees to the bones above. His arms ached and he was unsure he could move his hands, for they felt dismembered from his wrists, and those from his elbows, and he could not, in the magnitude of his pain, feel his shoulders at all.
He tasted the filthy straw in his mouth and lay there as the rats—his only friends, it seemed—gathered around him. They were nervous, but they once again warmed him, so that after a while he felt his body reconnect to its strained limbs and was able to crawl to the bucket some guard more caring than his torturer had left. He dunked his face and sucked up water, and then forced himself upright that he might stare from the barred window at the sun, and wonder on his fate.
It seemed that the Garm’kes Lyn had the better of him, and he doubted Abra’s intent. She had protected him against the Garm priest—who stank of evil—but … Could he trust her? She was Garm, after all, and clearly her father’s daughter. Faced with the choice of execution at his side, would she still support him, or deny him? He felt his wrists ache as he clutched the bars and stared at the sun; and wondered if he was to die here, in this stone prison.
“NOW TELL ME THE TRUTH,” Lord Bartram said. “We are alone, and you can be honest.”
Abra smiled wanly and said, “I love him.”
“A Durrym?”
She shrugged. “He seems not so different.”
“He’s Durrym.” her father said.
“And the priest would have you go to war against them. Lofantyl would make peace.” She rose from her chair to pace the room, summoning arguments for Lofantyl’s survival. “He’d see this enmity finished! He’d see men and Durrym live together.”
“He told you that?” her father asked.
Abra nodded.
“Then why not approach me? Do the Durrym truly seek peace, why did he not come to me?”
“How could he trust you?” she asked. “A Border Lord, sworn to defend the frontier against such as he?” She shook her head. “And Per Fendur speaks of war—he’d invade the fey lands, and drive Lofantyl’s people off again. How could Lofantyl come to you?”
Bartram sighed. “There’s more to it than that, my daughter. Do you not understand? We grow too strong, too fast. We took this land from the Durrym, and now we increase in numbers, so that Kandar becomes too small for all its folk.”
“So we must invade the fey lands?” she asked. “Because we are threatened, we must threaten others?”
“I’d sooner it were not so,” her father replied. “But our king sees it differently. He’d prefer to place his trust in the Church, and hope the priests find a way east—across the Alagordar. Into new lands.”
“That’s madness,” Abra said. “To fight the Durrym to gain what’s theirs?”
Bartram shrugged. “Khoros commands me. He’s my king—and yours.”
“And listens to the whisperings of such as Fendur,” Abra snapped.
“And rules this land,” her father reminded her. “And I am pledged to him.”
“So you heed Fendur?”
Bartram’s ruddy face flushed at the accusation in her voice. “No more than I must,” he said. “But he represents the Church, and Khoros trusts the priests. Do I argue, he’ll replace me, and then what might happen to you?”
Abra frowned, confused. Her father laughed cynically and said, “You’d be given to Wyllym like some prize. You’d be wed and I’d be … executed? Or …”
“No!” Abra cried. “Not even the king would dare that.”
“Perhaps not,” Bartram allowed. “For that might well foment civil war, but even so … I might be ordered to some lesser hold, stripped of my position.”
“And who’d hold this keep?” Abra gestured at the walls of the chamber.
They were composed of hard gray blocks, albeit decorated with tapestries and paintings, and the hearth blazed bright in rejection of the cold. Rugs covered the stones of the floor and there were trophies set about the walls: old swords and boar tusks, ancient banners. The memorabilia of several lives. The windows were thickly glassed, and set in polished wood—her father’s work—and she thought that all this keep was his, and could not imagine him losing it. And certainly not because of her.
“I think,” her father said, “that Khoros might give it to Amadis. Or hand it all to the Church—to Fendur.”
Abra felt her eyes fill with tears. “And this is my fault?”
“It’s not come to that yet.” He leaned forward to take her hands. “I’d not see you unhappy; nor Kandar delivered to unreasonable war. I’d sooner see us make peace with the Durrym.”
“Then free Lofantyl,” she asked. “Let him go.”
“I cannot,” he said. “He’s Durrym—the enemy. But I shall do what I can. Believe me, eh?”
Abra had no choice save to agree.
LOFANTYL LAY IN HIS CELL, hurting, and waited for Per Fendur to return.
He knew the priest would, for that had shone like evil lamplight from his black eyes: a dis
mal promise of pain to come. And the next morning he did return, smiling.
“Shall we speak again?”
“I’ve not been fed,” Lofantyl replied. “And I’m mightily hungry.”
“No doubt.” Per Fendur aped apology. “You must forgive me my faulty memory—I thought only of getting answers from you.” He bowed, elaborate and mocking. Then, to the hulking soldiers who accompanied him, “Bring him!”
Lofantyl was once again dragged from the cell and flung onto the rack. Per Fendur smiled at him as the straps were buckled about the wrists and ankles.
“A little tighter, today,” he said. “Perhaps enough to break your joints. Are Durrym limbs stronger than ours? We’ll see, eh?”
“I cannot tell you anything more,” Lofantyl declared. “No more than what I’ve said.”
“We shall see.” Per Fendur smiled equably and turned the wheel.
Lofantyl screamed, for all he’d vowed he’d not. He could not help the shriek that burst out as his hurting body was stretched farther.
“That hurts, no?” Per Fendur leaned close, smiling. “I cannot imagine how much it must hurt. And so much more to come. Until I’m satisfied.”
“With the truth or the pain?” Lofantyl moaned.
“Are they not the same?” The priest swung the wheel a notch tighter. “Truth is often painful—and the sooner you give me yours, the sooner this can end.”
He turned the wheel again; Lofantyl howled.
Per Fendur laughed.
And then the dungeon door slammed open and Lord Bartram entered. Laurens stood behind him, and six solid men.
“What is this?” Bartram’s voice echoed the expression of disgust on his face.
“I question the prisoner,” Fendur said.
“You torture him.” Bartram stared at the rack. “I’d forgotten this existed.”
“It’s a useful tool,” the priest returned.
“Let him up!” Bartram gestured and Laurens stepped toward the horrid table.
Fendur darted in front of the master-at-arms. “Leave him be! He’s mine to question.”
