King of Foxes

  The blade grew red after a few minutes in the flame, and the Governor nodded to the guard who wasn’t holding Tal. He picked up a pair of bellows, like those a smith would use, and began pumping it, causing the wood to flare up and send a fountain of sparks spiraling upward.

  Tal’s mind was in turmoil. He was thinking up to this moment that somehow he could devise a way to escape.

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  As the Governor said, he could outrun these two and make it to the north beach, swim to the coast . . .

  Suddenly his chain was yanked hard, tugging him off-balance, and he felt powerful arms wrapped around his waist. One guard held him while the other used the manacle to pull his arm straight, across a wooden table. With a swift motion, the Governor grabbed the sword out of the fire and in a single sweeping blow, severed Tal’s right arm between the elbow and wrist.

  Tal cried out in shock, and his head swam. The Governor looked at the wound, then took up the iron and seared a bleeding artery. Then he tossed the iron back into the fire. He picked up the bottle of brandy and took a long drink. “This sort of work upsets me, Squire.”

  Tal could barely stand, and the pain that shot up his arm was excruciating. He felt faint, and the Governor said, “I’d offer you a drink, but we can’t give strong drink to the prisoners. Rules are rules.” Then he poured some of the brandy over the charred stump of Tal’s arm and said, “But I did happen to discover, purely by accident one time, that if you pour a little brandy over the cut, it’s less likely to fester.” He nodded to the two guards. “Take him away. North room, third floor.”

  Tal was dragged away by the two guards and fainted before they reached the first flight of stairs.

  __

  Tal lay in agony. The stump of his right arm throbbed constantly, and he was wracked with fever. His mind lapsed in and out of consciousness, and at times he was lost in dreams and visions.

  He occasionally got lost in memory, thinking he was once again feverish in the wagon on its way to Kendrick’s, _______________

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  after being found by Robert and Pasko. Other times he dreamed he was in his bed in Roldem or Salador, trying to wake up from a nightmare, knowing that once he was awake, he would be fine.

  On other occasions he came wide-awake with a sudden start, his heart pounding, and then he would look around the cold room with the grey light and cold wind coming in through a high window. Then he would relapse into unconsciousness.

  After some period of time, he awoke, drenched in perspiration, but clearheaded. His right arm throbbed, and for a moment he could feel the fingers on his right had.

  He tried to stretch and move them, then saw there was only a bloody stump, encased in rags and some sort of unguent.

  He looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He had seen the room before, many times, but now it was as if he was seeing it for the first time.

  The cell was fashioned from stone, containing no furnishings. His only items of comfort were a mattress filled with old straw and two heavy blankets. His bedding was sour with the smell of sweat and urine. He saw a single door, wooden, with a small viewing hole, locked from the other side. Opposite the door, at slightly more than his own height, a single window with two iron bars admitted daylight. In the far corner a hole in the floor, its edges crusted with filth, showed where he was to relieve himself.

  Tal stood up, and his knees threatened to buckle. Reflexively he put out his right hand, and was betrayed by the memory of a hand no longer there. He stumbled and fell, his stump hitting the wall, and he cried out, then fell back to the mattress, his head swimming.

  He lay gasping for breath, tears running down his face as his entire body echoed the agony he felt in his arm.

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  Shock ran up his arm to his shoulder and up his neck. The entire right side of his body felt as if it was afire.

  He forced himself to breathe slowly and attempted a meditation taught him at Sorcerer’s Isle, one that would help him master pain. Slowly the pain moved farther away and became smaller, until it felt as if he had somehow put it in a box that he could hold away from himself.

  He opened his eyes and stood up, this time carefully using his left hand to steady himself. His knees wobbled, but at last he got his balance. He looked around. There was nothing to see.

  He staggered to the window and reached up. He tested the bars and found them deeply set in the rock. The one on the left he could twist a little in the socket drilled into the rock. He gripped it hard with his left hand and tried to pull himself up so that he could see, but the effort caused his entire body to hurt, so he decided that investi-gating the view could wait.

  An hour after he had awakened, the door to his cell opened. A very dirty man with unkempt shoulder-length hair and a ragged beard entered, holding a bucket in front of him. He saw Tal and smiled. “You’re alive,” he said.

  “That’s a bit of all right, in’it? Thems who’s been cut don’t usually survive, you know?”

  Tal said nothing, just looking at the man. He could hardly see any of his features, under the dirt and hair.

  “I know how it is,” he said, holding out his left arm, which also ended in a stump. “Old Zirga cut it off when I got here, ’cause it was festerin’.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Name’s Will. Thief by trade until I got caught.” He set the bucket down.

  “They let you come and go?”

  “Oh, they do with some of us which has been here a _______________

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  while. I’m here ten years next spring. They’re a lazy lot, so they let us do some of the work if they think they can trust us not to cut their throats when they’re drunk, and besides, there’s not much to do around here, so fetchin’

  and carryin’ a bit here and there is all right. Besides, I get a little extra food, and if they’re not paying close attention, I can nick a bottle of wine or brandy every year or two.

  “And you get to haul out the dead, which is a bit of all right.”

  “Hauling out the dead?” said Tal, not believing his ears.

  “It’s a good time. You’re outside for the afternoon, first burning the body, then digging up some ashes, then you carry it down to the cliffs over there above the north beach, and scatter them to the wind with a prayer. It’s a nice little break from the ordinary, in’it?”

  Tal shook his head. “What’s in the bucket?”

  “That’s your kit.” Will reached in and pulled out a metal pan, then a wooden spoon. “Me or one of the other lads will be by twice a day. You get porridge in the morning and a nice stew at night. Not much by way of variety, but it’ll keep you alive. Zirga told me you was one of the specials, so you’ll get more.”

  “Specials?”

  “It’s a bit of a joke, actually,” said Will, smiling and letting Tal see there was a face under the dirt and hair.

  “Duke Kaspar gives orders for some extra food and an extra blanket, maybe even a coat, so the prisoner’s around a long time, to ‘enjoy the stay,’ as Zirga says.

  “Most of us are in the middle. We’re just ordinary blokes, and if we don’t make trouble, they feed us and don’t beat us too often. We used to have this one guard, name of Jasper, he’d get crazy mean drunk and just beat _______________

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  someone to be doing it. Got drunk one night and fell off the cliff; broke his neck. No one misses him.

  “Then the ones the Duke really hates are down in the dungeon. They don’t last long down there, maybe a year, maybe two.

  “You, you get some bread with your meals, and on special days, maybe something else. You never know. Depends on Zirga’s moods.”

  “Does anyone ever leave?”

  “You mean like is anyone pardoned or se
rve out their sentence?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” said Will, shaking his head. “We all come here to die.” He sat down on his haunches, and added, “Well, strictly speakin’, if I can last another twenty years, then I should be freed. Of course, by then, I’ll have to remind them my sentence was for thirty, and then I’ve got to hope someone here cares enough to send a message to Opardum, and that someone there can find a record of my trial.

  Then someone else has to review the trial record, and get a magistrate to sign an order to release me, and bother sending it back to Zirga or whoever’s the Governor here in twenty years. So, you can see, I don’t put much faith in it. Mostly because no one’s lived thirty years in the Fortress of Despair.”

  “You seem uncommonly cheerful for a man condemned to live his life on this rock.”

  “Well, the ways I look at it, you got two choices: you can curl up and be miserable, or you can try to make the best of things. Me, I count it lucky they didn’t hang me.

  They called me an incorrigible thief. I’d been caught three times. First time, I got sent to the work gang for a year, ’cause I was only a lad. Second time, I got thirty lashes and five years hard labor. This time, they could _______________

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  have hung me, but for whatever reason, they sent me here. I think it was ’cause the last time I got caught it was breakin’ into the magistrate’s home, and he thought hangin’ was too good for me.” He laughed. “Besides, you never know what might happen. One day I might just wander down to the dock and find a boat there, or maybe those murderers up at Bardac’s Holdfast will decide to attack and kill off all the guards, taking the prisoners with them to be pirates.”

  Tal found himself laughing, despite his pain. “You’re quite the optimist, aren’t you?”

  “Me? Maybe, but what else can you do?” He stood up.

  “They say your name is Talwin Hawkins. That right?”

  “Call me Tal.”

  “Tal it is.” He looked around. “Well, I’ve got to head back to the kitchen and get the meal ready. You should be hungry by now.”

  “I could eat. How long has it been?”

  “They cut off your hand three days ago. Didn’t know if you were going to make it or not. After I bring around the meal, let me take a look at your wound.” He held up his own stump. “I’m somethin’ of an expert.”

  Tal nodded, and Will left. Tal leaned back against the stones and felt cold sucking the warmth right out of his body. He pulled his blanket around his shoulders, fum-bling as he tried to do it with only one hand. At last he had it around him, and he settled in. He had nothing to do but wait for food.

  __

  Will looked at the wound, and said, “That’s healing nicely.” He rewrapped the bandage. “I don’t know what that muck is Zirga puts on the rags, but it works. Smells _______________

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  like a pig died under the house a month ago, but it keeps the wound from festerin’, and that’s what it’s about, in’it?”

  Tal had eaten the stew, a watery broth with a few vegetables and a hint of flavor that suggested that meat had once touched the pot the broth was made in. He had also got half a loaf of a very coarse bread, which Will said was to last him the week. He said only the specials got bread every week.

  Tal asked, “So, how does someone become like you, someone the guards trust?”

  “Well, you got to not make trouble, and do what you’re told. Sometimes we get turned out to work, but not often. If a storm hits really hard, we might have to go clean up debris, repair the dock, or fix leaks in the cook-house when it rains. If you do the work good and the guards like you, then you get out of your cell.

  “If there’s something special you can do, that helps.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Zirga says he wishes they’d convict a smith so he could get some things around here repaired. We had a fellow claimed he was a smith, but he wasn’t, so Zirga put him in the dungeon. Problem was, Zirga forgot he was down there, and the bloke starved before anyone remembered.”

  “What other things?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask. But even if you can do something they need, specials never get out of their cells.”

  Tal shrugged, trying to get comfortable and finding it almost impossible. “Why didn’t you say that to begin with?”

  “Well, you didn’t ask me if you could get out of the cell; you asked how someone could get like me.”

  Tal laughed. “You’re right. I was just thinking you were wasting my time, but then that’s the only thing I have anymore, time.”

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  Will turned to walk away. “You’ve got that right, Tal.

  Still, you never know. Zirga doesn’t always do things by the rules; he likes being in charge too much, and no one ever comes out here to check on him. So, I’ll mention you to him. What can you do?”

  Tal thought. “I used to play instruments.” He held out his stump. “I guess that’s pointless.” He said, “I can cook.”

  “Cookin’s pretty simple around here.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” said Tal. “But I was thinking maybe Zirga and the guards might like something a bit more tasty.”

  “Could be. I’ll mention it to him. What else?”

  “I paint.”

  “Not much call for that, leastwise not so I’d notice.

  Haven’t painted anything around here since I’ve been here, ’cept this one time we had to whitewash a fence out where they keep the pigs.”

  “I mean I paint portraits and landscapes.” He looked at his severed arm. “At least I used to before—”

  “Oh, like them fancy pictures the swells have on their walls. I’ve seen ’em a time or two when I was boostin’.”

  “Yes, like that.”

  “Seems we got less call for that than whitewashin’.”

  Tal said, “I used to play music, too, but . . .” He waved the stump for emphasis.

  “That’s a shame, in’it?” Will smiled. “But I’ll mention the cookin’ to Zirga.”

  “Thanks.”

  Tal lay down when Will left, trying to keep his feelings under control. He felt like a caged animal, and he had seen trapped beasts throw themselves against the bars of their cages until they bloodied themselves. He knew that he could not escape as things stood, and that his only hope for getting off this island was to first get out of this _______________

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  cell. He would bide his time, for that he had in abundance.

  __

  Tal pulled hard, lifting his body up to the window. He had seen the view a dozen times in the last half hour, but he wasn’t interested in another look at the frigid winterscape he could see once he pulled himself up. He was trying to regain some strength, and after a month of sitting in his cell, occasionally talking with Will, the boredom was threatening to take his sanity. The first time he tried to pull himself up by his left arm, he managed one quick peep out of the window before having to let himself down again.

  From his window he could see the north yard of the fortress. He couldn’t see the livestock pen, but he could hear the pigs, sheep, and chickens. Occasionally a dog would bark. He could see what looked to be the old marshaling yard, now under a sheet of white snow, broken up with patches of grey and brown.

  Over the last month he had come to prize that little view of his world, a patch of snow-covered earth, a section of wall, and a cliff beyond. In the distance, he could see the sea when the weather lifted enough. Otherwise, it was a grey blanket beyond the cliffs.

  He found the food monotonous and barely sufficient.

  He knew he had lost weight, because of the injury and simple fare, but he wasn’t starving. The bread for all its coarseness was filling and had bits of nut and whole grain in it. The stew was little more than thin soup
with a vegetable or two in it, but as Will said, occasionally there was a piece of meat as well. The porridge was merely filling.

  He wished he could bathe, and realized how much he _______________

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  had come to enjoy being clean. As a child of the Orosini, he had gone most of the winter without bathing and thought nothing of it, but now he was a “civilized” man and enjoyed hot baths, massages, unguents, and oils.

  He had asked Will if he would be given clean clothing, and was told that if someone in Opardum or City of the Guardian purchased clothing for him, and paid a bribe to the captain of the next ship that came bringing prisoners or supplies, then he could have them, as long as there was a bribe for Zirga included.

  Realizing that was more than unlikely, Tal knew he would have to do with what he had, unless someone died.

  Then he might get that man’s clothing, said Will, if they didn’t fit someone else the guards liked better.

  Tal fought every day to keep despair at bay, for he knew that he would not give up and let death take him without a struggle. He had also wounded or trapped animals that stopped struggling, that just lay back and let the hunter take their lives. He would not be such an animal.

  He would survive.

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  FOURTEEN

  COOK

  Tal awoke.

  Sitting in the window was a bird. He moved slowly, so as not to startle the creature. He tried to identify what variety of bird it was, but couldn’t. It looked somewhat like the mountain finch of his homeland, but the bill was different, longer and narrower, and the feathers had a slight white band on the wings the mountain finches lacked. He tried to get as close as he could, but when he approached the wall, the bird flew away.

  He jumped and grabbed the bar and pulled himself up. He peered through the window and saw that the last of the ice and snow was gone. The breeze was cool, but not bitter. He let himself down.

  Another spring had come.