“Good luck, Captain Gant,” the other prisoner said. “Our May Tanarest is in a bad way and not too fond of idle chatter these days.
May noted the captain’s frown, and felt a thrill of fear, pushing herself further into the corner as if wishing she could disappear into it. She couldn’t, of course, she’d tried often enough to know. Deep down, she knew this man was her friend, that he would not hurt her, but what she knew and what she felt were two very different things. After all, didn’t the guards who accompanied Grinner wear similar frowns?
The captain must have seen something of her fear in her face. His frown deepened, and he walked closer, peering inside her cell. She knew well enough what he must see—a frightened animal abused for too long and now afraid of anyone it came across. A creature, in truth, not so very unlike those poor young girls the old her had once pulled off the streets, giving them new clothes, a new job. A new life. She wished someone would do the same for her, prayed for it every day, but she knew that they would not.
Even if help was coming—and she doubted very much if anyone would go through the trouble for a wasted woman such as herself—then she would be dead long before it arrived. Grinner had promised her as much, and for the first time in her life, she’d believed him. She could not even hope that the guards might come and arrest him, as they would have done in Avarest if only they’d known where to find him, for the guards worked for him. She’d seen their faces often enough when Grinner was beating her—unhappy faces, displeased with their task but silent for all that—to know it.
“May?” the newcomer asked again, holding the torch aloft, and his breath hissed out as he took in her appearance. Not that she was surprised. She was a horror to look at—filthy rags for clothes, torn where Grinner’s whip had done its work, long, striped wounds wherever her skin showed, and bruises covering her cheeks as if her face had taken it in mind to have a fight with a wall and been too stupid to give it up. “Gods, what has that son of a bitch done to you?” the captain demanded, and May was unable to keep the mewl of terror from escaping her throat at the anger in the man’s voice.
“It’s alright, May,” the captain said. “Don’t you know it’s alright? I wouldn’t hurt you. I’m your friend—you know me.”
It wasn’t alright, nothing had been alright for a long time. May could have told the man as much, if she possessed the courage, but she did not, so she only remained silent, watching him.
“That bastard has a lot to answer for,” the captain said.
“But will he?”
The captain turned to regard the prisoner who’d spoken. Hale stood, though not to his full height, for May knew that the beatings he’d taken had left their mark, and he could not stand as tall, as straight, as he once had. “What’s that?” the captain asked.
“Will he answer for this? For her?” the big man growled, gesturing at May, and despite spending the last days being beaten to within an inch of his life, his words carried a strength born of anger.
May could only see the captain in profile, but she saw him open his mouth to speak, saw him hesitate and close it again. Finally, he shook his head. “I don’t know. All I can promise you is that, if it’s left up to me, that son of a bitch will pay tenfold for every bit of harm he’s inflicted on her.”
The big man grabbed the cell doors in his massive hands as if he would rip them apart—and looking at the naked anger on his face, at his arms and shoulders, thick with tensed muscle, May almost believed he could. “But it’s not up to you, is it?” he said. “You’re only a loyal castle guard in fancy armor, pretty enough to look at, I reckon, but no more heeded than the barks of a favored hound. Oh, queenie throws you a bone sometimes, sure, but she wouldn’t trust you to counsel her any more than the mutt.”
The captain’s body tensed, and for a moment, May thought that he would strike the big man through the bars of the cell. “I serve my queen loyally, criminal. That’s something you could never understand.”
Hale hocked and spat. “And the people of Perennia? Those poor sons of bitches countin’ on you and yours to protect them. Do you serve them, too?”
“Of course I do,” the captain hissed.
The big man nodded thoughtfully, cocking his head as if to study the man before him. “Well, that settles that then—you really are a fool. I had my suspicions, understand, but I like to give a man the benefit of the doubt, when I’m able.”
“Me, a fool?” Captain Gant demanded. “Me?”
“Yes you,” Hale continued, “and you shouting about it ain’t gonna change the truth of the thing. Tell me something, Captain. Does the army march on Baresh?”
There was a hesitation before the other man answered and when he did his voice was low, angry. “No.”
“And what will happen, do you suppose,” the crime boss went on, “if it continues not to march? Do you reckon that dusty old wizard will forget all about us? Maybe decide that instead of destroying the world he’ll take up candle making?”
May watched the captain’s jaw working, as if he’d swallowed something he didn’t like. “No, I do not.”
Hale nodded. “Well, Captain, then why isn’t the army fucking marching?”
The other man seemed to slump at that, as if his shoulders were too weak to hold themselves up any longer. “The army waits…on the queen’s order.”
The giant barked a laugh, seeming bigger now even as the captain grew smaller. “The queen orders the army, sure. And who orders her?”
Brandon Gant let out a heavy sigh. “Grinner.”
Hale grunted. “Maybe not a complete waste of your father’s seed, after all. So then, Captain, if you know keeping the army here means certain death for all those poor saps depending on you and yours to keep them safe, then how, exactly, are you serving them?”
The captain seemed to consider the man’s words for a long time then finally he shook his head. “The queen’s order—”
“Ah, fuck the queen’s order,” the crime boss spat disgustedly, leaning back from the bars as if he’d given up on the captain. “You can wipe your ass with it for all the good it’s doing—shit, if you did maybe we’d all live a bit longer.”
“And what do you know of it?” Brandon snapped. “Any of it? You’re a criminal, a bottom-feeder of society who hurts others for his own benefit. Do you expect me to believe you care about them, any of them?”
There was a sound that May couldn’t identify at first, a raw, rasping sound, and it took her a moment to realize that the crime boss was laughing. “Gods, but you really are a fool. I don’t give a shit about those people out there, Captain. I’d be willin’ to rob, cheat, or kill every one of ‘em if it got me out of this cell. The difference is I know what I am. You, on the other hand, sit back and tell yourself that you’re a good man, a protector, maybe. Shit, you probably think of it right before you go to sleep, console yourself about the fact that you’re on the wrong side of forty, still single without any kids of your own, without anything to show for your life, but oh at least you’re a good man. I haven’t known many good men in my life, guardsman—my line of work doesn’t exactly give me much opportunity, and I wouldn’t want it anyway. From what I’ve seen, good men got a way of dyin’ young. But either way, I’ve met enough of ‘em in my time—killed a few too, matter of fact—to know that good men don’t sit back and watch the world burn. They don’t strut and posture and declare their anger while they watch innocents—if there is such a thing—slaughtered like cattle.”
Captain Gant seemed to wither with each word from the crime boss, and May wanted desperately to scream at the big man, to tell him to stop. There was no use torturing the man so, for even if he did try to do something it would accomplish nothing but having him thrown in a cell beside the rest of them. But even now, she could not bring herself to speak, and so she only watched as some part of the captain, some belief he’d had in the world, died.
Hale, though, wasn’t finished. He leaned forward again, gripping the bars, his bruised
and bloody face—nearly unrecognizable now, from Grinner’s attention—pressed tight against them. “I may be the only criminal here, Captain. The only murderer, sure, the only thief. But the gods know I ain’t the only liar.” He spat at the captain’s feet then shuffled back to the far end of his cell, seeming weaker now that the anger of the moment had left him. Once he reached the wall, he half-sat, half-collapsed with his back against it. May could see little but his eyes. A dark man, full of dark truths. She hated him then, for torturing the captain so, but she also loved him, for saying what she could not, for being brave enough to stare the truth in the face no matter how much it must have hurt.
“Go back to your room, Captain,” the crime lord said, not sounding angry at all now, only tired. “Tell yourself whatever lies you need to and go on with your life. Leave the dead to the dead.”
A sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a moan escaped the older man’s throat, and he lifted his hanging head to stare at May. “I had to sneak in here to see you,” he said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “The guards wouldn’t let me come—they were under strict orders to keep me out. Grinner’s orders. I had to lie to the guard on duty, tell him that Grinner had demanded his presence elsewhere.” He shook his head in disbelief at this, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “I came…” He hesitated, and when he finally did speak his voice was even quieter, little more than a whimper. “I came to tell you…they’ve scheduled your execution.” He shot a quick glance at the crime boss. “Both of yours. It’s to be the day after tomorrow. At noon.”
Hale gave a weak laugh from where he sat, his arms slumped over his knees. “We know, Captain. That bastard Grinner didn’t waste any time coming down here and gloating about it. Now, go on for the gods’ sake and let us get some rest—we’ve got a big day comin’.”
The captain turned to May, and his face looked haggard, as if he were near death himself. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and closed it again. Then, he turned took a step toward the dungeon’s exit and looked back at her. There was such pain, such grief and impotent anger on the man’s face, that through all of her own pain, her own fears, May felt her heart reaching out to him. “I’m sorry,” the captain said. “I…May, I…”
“I know,” she said, and the captain started in surprise.
Hale grunted a laugh. “Well, you got her talkin’ again and that’s somethin’ at least. Though based on the acid I normally get from her, I don’t suppose I ought to thank you for it.”
Brandon didn’t turn to look at the crime boss, only stared at May, his mouth working as if he would speak, but no words came.
“I know,” she said again. “You have done what you can, Brandon. I thank you for it. Now go. Leave the dead to the dead.” She turned at that, turned her back on the captain, on Hale in the cell opposite her own, on the whole world beyond her small, sad place in it. The captain tried to speak again, tried to talk to her, but she did not answer, for there was nothing to say, and eventually he walked out, leaving her alone once more. May found that she felt a sense of relief when he was gone. Perhaps, it was as Hale had said, perhaps the dead had no place among the living. She thought of Silent, of Adina. She thought of Thom. Look after them, she prayed, with no real hope that anyone was listening. Look after them when I’m gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Can’t say as I like this none, Princess,” Wendell grumbled as he smoothly ducked under a tree branch, a cry of surprise from behind him announcing that the Parnen captain had not been so quick.
“None of us like it, friend Wendell,” Leomin said, rubbing at his forehead where the offending branch had struck him. “But you, in particular, have made your position quite clear over the course of the last hour.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” the sergeant said again, realizing and not particularly caring that there was a sullen note to his voice. “Leaving the general with those…those people. Not to mention Caleb. Oh, that Speaker fella seems friendly enough, I’ll grant you, but the others won’t so much as say one word to me.”
“Surely, you can’t be serious,” Seline said from where she walked in front of him, frowning over her shoulder. Wendell appreciated a good-looking woman as much as the next man, and this one was fine enough to appreciate, at least from behind—he ought to know since there’d been little else to look at for the last hour except for trees and more of them—but it was clear she had a mean streak in her, and he didn’t envy the Parnen the future arguments they’d inevitably have. “They’ve taken an oath,” she continued, “to not speak.”
“Sure,” Wendell said, nodding, “and once or twice, when I was younger and a bigger fool than I am now, I took an oath to only be with one woman, but that ain’t stopped me from visitin’ brothels when I’ve a mind.”
“I imagine,” the woman said dryly, “that, in the case of such an oath as that, the woman leaving you because you’re a fool absolves you of any oathbreaking.”
“How’d you know she said that?” Wendell said. “You using some kind of weird Virtue power on me?”
The woman blinked. “I…yes. That’s exactly it. There’s no other way I could have ever reached such a conclusion than to use a mystical power from ages past.”
He grunted. “Well, I’ll thank you to keep it to yourself. I’ve already had to deal with Leomin cuttin’ our card games short every night to take a bedroom tussle with some new woman or another; oh sure, handy enough, I reckon, if you ain’t got the money to pay for the night’s entertainment, but I want no part of it.”
The woman glanced over Wendell’s shoulder, raising an eyebrow at Leomin. The Parnen had stopped too and was busily studying the ground as if the answer to life’s great mysteries lay scattered in the shin high bracken at his feet. “A new woman every night, is it?” she asked.
Leomin shifted anxiously, refusing to meet her eyes, and Wendell did his best to hide the grin that came on his face. Let them chew that over some, and it’d serve the bastard right for all the trouble he’d put him through. The Parnen muttered something about it not being every night, and the woman’s scowl deepened.
Wendell watched happily, wishing he had a chair, maybe a beer to go along with the show that was about to start, but Adina, who’d been walking in the front, had noticed they’d stopped and walked back to find them. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Nothing yet,” Wendell said, pretending not to see the angry look the Parnen shot him. “But give it a minute or two.”
“Forgive me, Princess,” Gryle said, “but Sergeant Wendell was expressing some…doubts about our course of action.”
Adina sighed. “We’ve been through this, Wendell. We can’t do Aaron any good back there, and you know it. Besides, don’t you want to rescue May?”
It was Wendell’s turn to fidget. “Well, of course I do, Princess. It’s only…well, shit, when I was a kid I wanted a pony and one of those long caps with the stars on ‘em like the actors wear when they’re playin’ a magician.” He sighed, remembering. “Never did get the pony, nor the hat neither. Wantin’ ain’t enough to make a thing happen. If it were, I’d be laid up in Sallia’s bed instead of traipsin’ through the woods with you all.” Adina frowned at that, and he cleared his throat. “No offense, o’course.”
“Of course,” she said without inflection. “But we discussed this back at the barracks, Sergeant, all of us, at length.”
“Just don’t seem right,” Wendell said, “leavin’ the general and the boy. Especially not with those bastards.”
Adina raised an eyebrow at him. “In case you’ve forgotten, those ‘bastards’ saved our lives and, what’s more, have sent two of their number to escort us safely back to Perennia. The same two,” she said, gesturing to the black clad figures that stood silently at the sides of the company, “who are listening to your opinion on them even now. As for Caleb, he and the Speaker thought it best that he stay and help plan the attack on Baresh, given the nature of his bond with the Intellig
ence Virtue, and considering that we intend to march into what looks to be a hostile city and stop an execution that—by all accounts—is supported by its rightful ruler, it’s probably best he stayed behind anyway.”
Wendell couldn’t argue with that. He’d been at the meeting and had spent his time trying to find a reason to stay himself but, unfortunately, had come up short. Sure, staying with the Akalians had its own risks, but once the headsman’s axe started swinging back in Perennia, well, the blade wouldn’t much care whose head was on the block . “Sure, they saved us, Princess, in the clearin’. I’ll be the first to admit it. And I’m grateful and all but…well, when I was a kid, see, my father raised pigs.”
The princess only stared at him, and Leomin let out a soft, barely audible groan. “Pigs,” she said.
“That’s right,” Wendell agreed. “Pigs. Not many, understand, but enough that when some celebration come up—weddings and birthings mostly, ain’t a lot else to do in a small village—there’d be bacon for any man, woman, or child as wanted it.”
“I’m sure that was quite nice, Sergeant Wendell,” Gryle began hesitantly, “but I’m not certain if now is the best time—”
“There was one time, I remember,” Wendell said, casting his mind back through the years, “when I was checkin’ on ‘em, feedin’ ‘em and the like as it was one of my chores, when I found one of the poor bastards dead, all cut up and missin’ chunks and covered in bloody teeth marks, like somebody had taken it in mind they wanted some bacon but weren’t ready to wait for the cookin’ of it. You’d be amazed how much a pig’ll bleed,” he said, shaking his head, still amazed at the memory. “I’d never seen anythin’ like it at the time, and I ran to my da as if that dead pig was an army marchin’ down on us.” He shrugged. “I was a kid, understand, and I guess I had it in mind that they was bandits as done for the pig, a whole slew of ‘em just sittin’ in the forest surrounding our little village. Lookin’ back, it seems ridiculous to think it was the work of bandits.”
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