"The things I heard drove me to push myself back into the farthest corner of my cell, but that was no real withdrawal; I could still hear all of the ghastly business. I could not imagine the kind of men who would laugh and cheer at such terrible deeds as they were doing. Those poor womenthey had no one at all to help them, and no hope of rescue.
"One of the younger women apparently broke from the man holding her and in a wild panic ran for the stairs. I heard voices yelling out for the others to grab her. She was quick and strong but the men easily caught her and threw her to the floor. When I heard her begging for her life, crying 'please no, please no,' I recognized her voice. While one man held her down, another put a boot on her knee and lifted her foot until I heard her knee pop. As she screamed in pain and terror, he did the same to the other leg. The men laughed, telling her that now that she wouldn't be running away again she could put her mind to her new duties. And then they started in on her. I have never in my life heard such frightful screams.
"I don't know how many men came down into the dungeon, but more and more arrived in turn. It went on for hour after hour. Some of the women wept and wailed the whole time they were being assaulted. Such carrying-on brought great gales of laughter from the men. But these were not men, they were monsters without conscience or restraint.
"One of the soldiers found a stash of keys and went around unlocking the cell doors. He laughed and hooted as he threw open the doors, declaring the liberation of the oppressed, and invited the prisoners to get in line to have their revenge on the wicked people who had persecuted and oppressed them. The girl whose knees they'd broken—Elizabeth was her name—had never oppressed anyone in her young life. She'd always smiled as she went about her work because she was so happy to have employment at the palace, and because she was infatuated with a young carpenter's apprentice who worked there as well. The prisoners poured out of their cells, only too eager to join in."
"Why didn't they pull you out?" Richard asked.
Jebra paused for a gulp of air before continuing. "When my cell door was thrown open I pressed myself up into the darkest corner in the back. There was no question as to what would happen to me if I went out, or if I was discovered. What with the screams of the women, the hollering, the laughter of the soldiers, and the scuffling over places in line, the men somehow didn't realize that I was hiding in the darkness at the back of my cell. There wasn't much light down in the dungeon. They must have thought the little room was empty, as some of the others were, for no one bothered to stick a torch in and have a look—after all, the rest of the prisoners were all men, all criminals, and all only too eager to come out. I'd never spoken to them, so they wouldn't have known that there was a woman down in the dungeon with them or they obviously would have come in after me. Besides, they were all… quite preoccupied."
Jebra's face, twisted in anguish, sank into her hands. "I could not begin to tell you what terrible things were being done to the women only a short distance from me. I will have nightmares about it for the rest of my life. Rape was only part of the purpose of those men. Their real lust was violence, a savage desire to degrade and hurt the helpless, to have the power of life and death over them.
"When the women stopped struggling, stopped screaming, stopped breathing, the men decided to go find themselves some food and drink to celebrate their victory, and then snatch some more women. Like best friends on a holiday, the men all took vows that they would not rest until there was not a woman left in the New World that they had not taken."
With both hands Jebra raked her hair back from her face. "After they all rushed off it fell still and quiet in the dungeon. I remained pressed to the back of my cell, the hem of my dress stuffed in my mouth, trying to keep from making a sound that would betray me as I shook and wept uncontrollably. My nostrils were filled with the terrible smell of blood and other things. Funny how after a time your nose has a way of becoming dulled to smells that at first made you sick.
"Still, I couldn't stop trembling—not after I hearing all the ghastly things that had been done to those women. I was terrified that I would be discovered and receive the same treatment. As I hid in the cell, afraid to come out, afraid to make a sound, I could understand how Cyrilla had gone mad under such mistreatment.
"All the time I could hear the sounds from above, the sounds of battle still raging, the sounds of pain and horror, the screams of the dying. I could smell oily smoke. It seemed like the battle, the killing, would go on forever. The women lying out beyond my open cell door, though, did not make any sound at all. I knew why. I knew that they were beyond any concerns of this world. I prayed that they were now in the tender comforting arms of the good spirits.
"I was exhausted from my constant state of fright, but I could not sleep—dared not sleep. The night wore on and eventually I saw light coming down the stairwell; the iron doors to the dungeon were no longer there to shut out the world above. Still, I dared not go out. I dared not move. I stayed where I was all day, until the room fell pitch black again with night. The rampage and looting above continued without abatement. What had begun as a battle had turned into a drunken celebration of victory. Dawn did not bring any quiet from above.
"I knew that I couldn't remain where I was; the stench of the dead women was becoming unbearable, as was the thought of being down there in the dark hole among the rotting corpses of people I knew. Yet such was my fear of what waited above that I stayed where I was that day and then again the entire night.
"I was so thirsty, so hungry, that I began to see goblets of water on the floor beside loaves of bread. I could smell the warm bread only a few feet away. But when I reached for them they were not there.
"I don't remember exactly when it was, but there came a time when I so ached for an end to the constant paralyzing dread that I came to accept and almost welcome my end. I knew all too well what was in store for me, but I reasoned that the agony of my terror would at last be over. I so wanted it to be over. I knew that I would have to endure suffering, humiliation, and pain, but I also knew that, just like the women who lay dead not far from me, it would eventually end and I would no longer have to suffer.
"So, I finally dared to step out of the darkness of my cell. The first thing I saw was Elizabeth's dead eyes staring right at me, as if she were looking over, waiting for me to emerge, so that I could see what had been done to her. Her expression seemed a silent plea for me to testify on behalf of justice. But there was no one to testify to, no justice to be had, just my silent witness of her forlorn end.
"The sight of her, along with the other women, drove me back in.
Seeing the nature of the tortures they had been subjected to, I was finally able to connect those atrocities with my memories of their screams. It set me to weeping uncontrollably. I cowered in terror, imagining myself subjected to such things.
"And then, overwhelmed by a fit of blind panic, I covered my nose with the hem of my dress against the terrible smell and ran through the tangle of twisted, naked limbs and bodies. I bolted up the stairs, not knowing what I was running toward, only knowing what I was running from. All the way as I ran I prayed for the mercy of a quick death.
"It was a shock to see the palace again. It had been a beautiful place, the painstaking renovations after the previous attack a few years back having only recently been completed. Now it was beyond being a wreck. It was impossible for me to understand why men would take the effort to break things the way they had, that they could find joy in such tedious acts of destruction. Grand doors were ripped off their hinges and broken to bits. Marble pillars had been toppled. Parts of shattered furniture lay scattered about. The floors were fairly covered with the litter of pieces of other once grand things: shards of beautifully glazed pottery; fragments of little ears and noses and tiny fingers from porcelain figurines; splintered wooden scraps showing a bit of a once carefully carved and gilded surface; flattened tables; art that had been torn to shreds or the faces in paintings ground threadbare under heavy
boots. The windows were all broken out, drapes pulled down and trampled, statues defaced or broken, walls bashed in in places, covered with blood in others, elaborate rooms defecated in, the feces used to write vile words on the walls along with oaths of death to the Order's northern oppressors.
"Soldiers were everywhere, pawing through the residue left behind by yet other soldiers, picking over the dead, looting anything they could carry off, smashing elegant decorations out of sheer contempt, joking as they stood in lines outside rooms waiting their turn at the women captives. As I stumbled in a daze through the wreckage of the palace, I kept expecting to be grabbed and dragged off to one of those rooms. I knew that there was no avoiding my fate.
"I had never seen the likes of these men. These were men who inspired unbridled terror. Great, hulking, unwashed men in scarred and bloodstained leather armor. Most of them were covered in chains and belts and studded straps. Many had their heads shaved, making them look all the more muscled and menacing. Others glared out from beneath mats of long, tangled strands of greasy hair. They all looked savage and hardly human. Their faces were blackened with the grimy soot of fires and streaked through with sweat. Their language was loud, coarse, and boldly vile.
"Seeing such men stalking through the grand pastel pink or blue rooms seemed almost comical, but there was nothing amusing about the bloody axes at their belts, their swords greasy with gore, or the flails, knives, and iron-spiked cudgels hanging at hand around their waists.
"But it was their eyes that stopped you in your tracks. All had the kind of eyes that had not just become comfortable with the messy craft of butchery… but had taken a lustful liking to it. All looked upon every living thing they saw with a single evaluation: is this something to be killed? But their eyes had an even crueler cast when they took in any of the women captives being passed from hand to hand. That look was enough to stop a woman's breath, if not her heart.
"These were men who had abandoned any pretense at civilized manner. They did not bargain or barter the way normal men did. They took whatever they wanted, and even fought each other over the most insignificant plunder. They crushed and destroyed and killed on whim without consequence or conscience. These were men beyond the realm of civilized morality. These were savage brutes turned loose among the innocent."
* * *
CHAPTER 14
"If there were soldiers everywhere, then why didn't they snatch you and drag you off?" Cara asked with the kind of casual yet pointed directness that only a Mord-Sith could so effortlessly muster, as if the very concept of propriety was beyond her.
The same question had occurred to Richard, but at that moment he had not been able to summon his voice.
"They thought she had been designated as a servant," Nicci said in a quiet, knowing voice. "Since she was walking around unmolested that long after the onset of the assault, the men would have assumed that there was a good reason, that those in command had reserved her for other duties."
Jebra nodded. "That's right. An officer who spotted me right off pulled me into a room with other men who were gathered around maps spread out over tables. The room hadn't been ruined as had most of the others. They demanded to know where their food was, as if I should know.
"They were just as ferocious-looking as the rest of the men and I would not have known at first that they were the officers except by the deference paid them by the other soldiers who came and went with reports. Some of these officers were a bit older and had an even harder edge to them, a more calculating look in their eyes, than the regular soldiers who always gave them a wide berth. When they looked at me I knew they were men who expected immediate answers.
"I grasped at that glimmer of hope—that I might live if I played along. I bowed with an apology and told them I would see to the food at once. They said that I had better, apparently more interested in eating than dealing out punishment. I rushed off to the kitchens, trying to act with a sense of purpose while being careful not to run for fear that the men would see a woman running and react like wolves to a fawn bolting from cover.
"There were several hundred others in the kitchens, mostly older men and women. Many of them I recognized, as they had long cooked for the palace. There were younger, stronger men there as well who were needed to manage some of the work that was too heavy for the scullions or the elderly, work such as handling the carcasses for butchering or turning the heavy spits. They were all working frantically among the roaring fires and steaming pots as if their lives depended on it, which of course they did.
"When I entered the kitchens people hardly noticed me, as they were all rushing about, preoccupied in various tasks. Seeing everyone was already working at a fever pitch, I grabbed up a large platter of meats and offered to take it back up to the men. The people in the kitchens were only too happy to have someone else who was willing to go out among the soldiers.
"When I returned with the food the officers who had sent me abandoned what they had been doing. They appeared to be ravenously hungry. They sprang up from the couches and chairs and used their bare, filthy hands to snatch the meat off the tray. As I set the heavy tray on one of the large tables, one of the men peered up at me as he chewed a mouthful. He asked why I didn't have a ring in my lip. I didn't know what he was talking about."
"They put rings through the lower lips of slaves," Nicci said. "It marks them as the property of men of rank and keeps the soldiers from taking them as plunder. It gives those in command servants at their disposal for menial work."
Jebra nodded. "The officer yelled orders. A man grabbed me and held me while another came forward. He pulled my lower lip out and shoved an iron ring through."
Nicci stared off into the distance. "They use iron as a reference to iron kettles and such. An iron ring signifies kitchen workers and such."
Richard saw the glaze of suppressed rage in Nicci's blue eyes. She, too, had once worn a ring through her lower lip, although hers had been gold to denote that she was the personal property of Emperor Jagang. It was no honor. Nicci had been used for things far worse than menial tasks.
"You're right about that," Jebra said. "After they put the ring in my lip I was sent back to the kitchens to get them more food and wine. I realized then that the other people in the kitchen wore iron rings as well. I was in a numb daze as I ran back and forth to get the officers what they demanded. I snuck a gulp of water or a mouthful of food whenever I could. It was enough to save me from collapse.
"I found myself thrown in with other frightened people who worked at the palace who were now taking orders from the officers. I hardly had time to consider how I had by chance managed to escape a worse fate. As much as it throbbed and bled, I was glad to have that iron ring through my lip because when any soldier saw it he changed his mind about his intentions and let me be.
"Before long I was sent out with heavy satchels of food and drink for officers in other areas of the city. Out in the countryside surrounding the city I began to discover the true extent of the horror that had befallen Ebinissia."
When Jebra sank into a distant daze, Richard asked, "What did you see?"
She looked up at him, as if she had almost forgotten that she was telling her story, but then she swallowed back her anguish and went on. "Outside the city walls there were tens of thousands of dead from the battles. The ground for as far as the eye could see was covered with mangled corpses, many bunched in groups where they had died making their last stand. The sight seemed unreal, but I had already seen it before… in my vision.
"The worst of it, though, was that there were a number of Galean soldiers still alive, though grievously wounded. They lay here and there on the field of battle beside their dead brethren, wounded and unable to move. Some moaned softly as they lay near death. Others were more alert, but unable to move for one reason or another. One man was trapped, his legs crushed under the weight of a broken wagon. Another had been pinned to the ground by a spear through his gut. Even though in great pain, he wanted so desperately to
live that he dared not pull himself off the shaft and release what it held in place. Others had legs or arms so badly broken that they were unable to crawl over the chaos of dead soldiers, horses, and rubble. With soldiers constantly patrolling, I knew that if I stopped to offer any comfort or aid to these wounded men I would be spotted and killed.
"As I made my way back and forth from the outposts I had to pass through this awful battlefield. The hills where this final engagement had taken place were dotted with hundreds of people slowly making their way among the dead, methodically picking through their belongings. I later learned that they were a small army of people who trailed behind the Imperial Order troops—camp followers—living off the scraps that the Order soldiers left in their wake. These human vultures pawed through the dead soldiers' pockets and such, making their living on death and destruction.
"I recall one older woman in a dingy white shawl coming upon a Galean soldier who was still alive. Among other wounds, his leg had been gashed open to the bone. His hands trembled with the endless, solitary effort of holding the massive wound closed. It seemed a miracle that he was even still alive.
"As the old woman in the shawl pulled at his clothes, looking for anything valuable, he begged her for a sip of water. She ignored him as she tore open his shirt to see if he had a neck chain with a purse, as some soldiers did. In a weak, hoarse voice he again pleaded for a sip of water. She instead pulled a long knitting needle from her belt and, as he lay helpless, shoved it in the man's ear. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth with the effort of twisting the long metal needle around inside his brains. His arms flinched and then went still. She drew the length of her knitting needle back out and wiped it off on his pant leg as she muttered a complaint that that would keep him quiet. She replaced her knitting needle in her belt and went back to rifling through his clothes. It struck me how well practiced she had seemed at the grisly task.