'Where do we want him?' someone new asked.
'Lower level, over towards the sea.' With these words the confident voice that had brought him went away towards the gate. The outer door opened to admit unexpected laughter just as abruptly cut off by its closing.
'Let's have no nonsense from you.' Kheda's new captor untied the cloth blinding him. Kheda gasped for air, wincing partly from the light and partly from the feeling he'd lost half the hair on his head.
His captor studied him with frank curiosity and Kheda instinctively assessed the man in turn. Copper-skinned with a close-trimmed beard peppered with grey, he wore a mossy leather coat of nails rather than chainmail and boasted a brass-trimmed round helm and ornate, burnished vambraces as fine as any Kheda had ever seen.
So lengthy service has earned you lighter duties than running up beaches to beat beggarly travellers into submission, twenty men against one. Which authority probably means you could kick me to death without anyone raising so much as a murmur.
Kheda hastily dropped his gaze.
The jailer made a non-committal noise. 'Follow me.' He turned and walked away without waiting to be sure that he was obeyed. Kheda stood stubbornly still, looking briefly upwards and around. Above the fortress's two rows of shuttered and blind inner windows, archers on the roof walk watched him, bows ready, quivers hung at their belts. Someone unseen laughed derisively.
How long would you give me, before you shoot?
Deciding not to find out, Kheda hurried after his jailer, pulling the rags from his mouth with savage hands. His captor had already reached a door, sorting through keys on a chain around his waist. Opening the door on to steps sinking into darkness, he disappeared. Kheda followed, blinking, twisting his bound hands awkwardly to feel for the wall in the gloom.
'This way' The jailer was lighting a tallow-caked candle lantern. He led Kheda down a windowless passage past a succession of iron-barred doors. The only sound was the smack of the jailer's sandals on the stone floor and the softer scuff of Kheda's bare feet. A chill settled on Kheda that had nothing to do with the dark cool of the underground passage.
If there are other prisoners here, they're either past making a noise or these cells are solid enough to keep any cries locked inside.
The jailer halted, raising keys to his candle lantern to see them more clearly. He grunted that same noncommittal noise and unlocked a door with nothing to distinguish it from the others he'd led Kheda past. 'In you go.'
There's nothing else I can do, friend.
Kheda complied. At least the cell proved to be clean and dry, with close-fitted stone walls and bare floor. Some light filtered through a grille set high in one wall and Kheda realised it gave on to the inner courtyard.
'Let's have your hands.' The jailer reached for Kheda's manacles with another key ready. Taking the heavy steel cuff off, he swung them thoughtfully by their linking chain. Kheda braced himself for a blow but the man merely made that same non-committal grunt and left the cell. The solid clunk of the heavy wood against the rebated jamb was as demoralising as the well-oiled snick of the key locking it tight.
Kheda rubbed at the bruises the manacles had left around his wrists. His mouth was dry and not only from the cloth he still clutched tight.
Are you awaiting my lord Shek Kul's pleasure? Does he want his palms read? Or are you dumped down here to see if fear or thirst kills you fastest? This isn't going to be a comfortable stay regardless, on a bare stone floor with nothing to soften it. Some beach scavenger will have claimed your bag by now, maybe even that mangy little bitch who betrayed you. She'll doubtless think herself well rewarded, the poor little fool.
'What can't be mended must be endured.' Daish Reik told you that often enough. Forget what you've lost and consider what you still have to call on: clothes, torn but still serviceable. That disgrace of a knife gone, fallen from the sheath or taken by one of Shek Kul's soldiers, no great loss either way. You'll hardly be fighting your way out of here with a blade that barely cuts cloud bread. Spark maker still in your pocket, remarkably enough, not that there's anything to kindle in here. Ah, but there is, once it's dried, anyway.
Kheda knelt to spread the cotton that had gagged him out on the floor. That done, his movements slowed. He rubbed a shaking hand over his beard. Then his fingers closed around the ivory spiral still hung around his neck. At least he still had that.
He couldn't bring himself to sit and ponder what the next twist of unforeseen fate might bring him so he paced the length and breadth of the cell. Ten paces by eight. He measured each wall in the other direction to confirm the measurements. Standing beneath the grille, he tried to reach the lower edge. He couldn't. He took a pace back and did his best to estimate the height of the grille, how far short his reach was, how high that made the ceiling above.
Once he'd calculated every dimension and even the volume of water it would take to fill the cell, Kheda sighed and sat down beneath the grille, face upturned. He could just see a clouded fragment of sky high above the hollow square of the fortress. He studied the scrap of grey intently. A figure passed the grille. Kheda tensed but nothing came of the occurrence. He came to ignore the fleeting shadows, even growing irritated at the momentary obstruction of his view.
Late in the afternoon, the sky darkened and rain began to fall, pattering softly at first then pouring down on to the cobbled court. Kheda stood beneath the grille, tormented by the scent, by the dampness softening the air. His throat ached with thirst but Shek Kul's fortress had been built with excellent drainage. All those countless measures of water flowed away into hidden cisterns, barely a drop falling on to Kheda's sweat-smeared face. Dispirited, he sat down, ignoring the steel-hued sky and the voices he heard passing across the courtyard.
Two of the cloud breads popular in these northern reaches tumbling through the grille took him entirely by surprise. One of the puffy, hollow rounds bounced off his head. He managed to catch the other before realising fruit of some kind was following, hitting the floor with soft splotches. Kheda's hands searched the floor, pulling apart the husks, cramming the softness into his mouth, licking at juice running down his fingers, the sweetness inexpressibly welcome in his parched mouth even with its hint of decay. He was so hungry, so thirsty, he'd eaten three before he realised they were lilla fruit.
Overripe and so bruised a penned hog would turn its snout up at them. With all the wonderful variety brought by the rains, they couldn't offer me better than this? Why should they? Or then again, perhaps they know exactly what they're doing? Overripe lilla fruit on a totally empty stomach?
Kheda grimaced. Exploration of the cell had proved there was not so much as a drain hole. He set the two remaining lilla fruit aside and forced himself to eat the bread, chewing slowly, hoping it would give his stomach some belated defence. Then he found he had to eat the last of the fruit, desperate to quench his agonising thirst. Setting aside the pungent, empty rind, Kheda took a deep breath.
Now what? Back to the fruitless circle of apprehension and denial your wits have been endlessly scurrying round? Fruitless? Not lilla-fruitless, not any more.
The food putting new heart in him, Kheda grinned at the feeble joke in the gathering dusk. Reaching for the scrap of cotton cloth, he scoured the stickiness out of his beard as best he could. One of the lilla seeds pattered to the floor.