I worked blind, breaking free double florins from the linen strips into which they’d been sewn, unwrapping the used lengths of cloth and stacking the coins between my knees. I took exquisite care not to let them chink.
“What’re you doing?” Hennan close by.
“Nothing.” I damned his keen ears.
“You’re doing something.”
“Just be ready.”
The boy had the sense not to ask what for, where many grown men would not.
With even greater care I balanced a tin plate upside down atop the stacks of coins.
“I’m going to make a light,” I said loud enough for everyone. “You should shield your eyes.”
Loki’s key opened a lot of things, memories not the least of them. I reached down into the depths of my back pocket, down among the fluff, the old handkerchief that needed cleaning, scraps of parchment, a locket with Lisa DeVeer’s likeness inside, and found the small hard lump I’d been searching for, wrapped in cloth. I slid a finger past the covering to touch the cold metal. Immediately a glow broke through the handkerchief, through the questing fingers, and shone through the fabric of my trews. Had there been a wit among our number he might have commented that for once the sun did indeed appear to be shining out of my arse. I pulled Garyus’s orichalcum cone out, hidden in my fist and yet still bright enough to light the room in the rosy hues of my blood, the illumination pulsing and erratic as a heartbeat. Gasps of awe and shock went up on all sides. Even muted by my hand the light was enough to make everyone there, me included, shield our eyes.
The awe turned to horror within moments. On all sides my fellow debtors were screaming and shuffling back from the bars. Being closest to the source, the light blinded me for longer than most so that I had to unscrew my eyes against the glare and blink helplessly to try to see what had caused the panic. When I finally focused on the thing beyond the bars a shriek nearly escaped me too and only my greatest resolve kept me from bundling back to bury myself in the crowd.
Artos had scraped off most of the maggoty flesh and the eyes that regarded us from that raw and glistening face were oozing sockets, night-dark with shadow. Even so a hunger seemed to stare from the darkness of those eye-pits, a hunger that felt horrifically familiar. Dead hands gripped the bars and a jaw full of broken teeth ground out still more fragments whilst gargling incoherent threats at us.
“In a moment I’m going to unlock the gate,” I said.
A collective gasp and a chorus of “no”s went up.
“Even if you could open it I wouldn’t go out there!” Antonio, my longest-serving bodyguard, looked from the dead man to me as if I were mad, his eyes watering from the light. “Hell, I wouldn’t go out there even if that thing weren’t standing there! The guards would just catch me in the next corridor and I’d be back here with a fine added to my debt and a beating for my troubles. We need to wait until Racso comes. He’ll bring the guard to deal with. . whatever the hell that thing is.” He paused, squinting against the glow from my hand. “How the hell are you doing that?”
“In a moment I’m going to unlock the gate,” I repeated more loudly, holding the black key before me. “The next person to die in here will end up like Artos out there-only he’ll be locked inside with us.” I looked around meaningfully at Mr. Cough, lying semi-conscious on his back, chest shuddering up, wheezing down, shuddering up. “Just think about that.”
I went over to the gate and the thing that had been Artos moved to stand opposite me. As I approached the bars it stuck its arms through, reaching for me, the remains of its face pressing forward as if somehow it might squeeze its skull through the gap. I just about managed not to jump back. These people needed courage if they were going to get me out of here. They needed a good example, needed to see some bravery on display. I couldn’t give them that but I could give them a passable impression of it.
“Not too clever are you?” I kept just out of range of the clutching fingers. There was an intelligence in those dark and gory sockets, that same awful one that had stared at me through the eyes of dead men back in the mountains with Snorri, but hunger dominated the thing’s actions, a hunger to kill me at any cost. For what felt like an eternity I stood there, knowing I couldn’t back down but without a clue what to do. Eventually I patted my pockets for inspiration. After all, Garyus’s orichalcum cone had sat there forgotten ever since my return to the palace, something else useful might be down at the bottom of another pocket. . I glanced down and discovered that the useful thing was right at the top. I pulled free a length of the linen strip that had until recently had double florins sewn into it. I made a wide noose from it-no simple task while still clutching the orichalum. With the noose complete I advanced on Artos, after a few tentative tries, I slipped it over his right wrist. Throwing my weight behind it I pulled the arm sharply to the side. The elbow joint gave with a vomit-making cracking sound, and the arm bent at an impossible angle, allowing me to bind it to the bars out of reach of Artos’s left hand. I took another length of the linen and repeated the process with the other arm.
“There.” Artos now glared at us, pinned to the gate by two broken arms, his tongue protruding and scraping over shattered teeth as if it too were trying to reach me. I set Loki’s key in the lock. It fitted perfectly and turned without protest. Click. I took hold of the gate’s outer edge and pushed it open, lending my weight to overcome the resistance as Artos lunged at me. I held the gate open with one arm and beckoned the debtors with the hand clutching our light. At each of the seven other cells scores of faces pressed to the bars, watching on amazed.
The debtors, all terrified and confused, stayed where they were; some even shuffled further back, though giving Mr. Cough a wide berth.
I sighed, stepped back, thrust my hand into my pocket and pulled out all my smaller coins, two silver florins, three hexes, a dozen halves. A jerk of my hand scattered them into the room beyond the gate. As if scalded, half the cell’s population launched themselves forward, most of the other half jumping to their feet. A number of them got jammed in the gateway, fighting each other, desperate to be the first through, right under Artos’s nose, his hands twitching uselessly at them.
I moved quickly to Hennan’s side and handed him the orichalcum. “Hold that.”
In the resulting darkness I scooped up the pile of double florins from under my plate, some fifty in all, and tipped them into my shirt, folding it up over them.
“Give it back, now.” I had to raise my voice over the cacophony rising from the riot beyond the gate. After a moment or two of fumbling we made the exchange and the place lit up once more, my hand glowing, brilliance lancing out between my fingers. “Come on.” And I led the way out, Hennan at my heels, and others following, drawn by the departing light and fear of being left alone in the dark with dying men who might not die properly.
I would have given Hennan the key and let him open the other gates but it seemed cruel to let him touch it. I had to blink at that notion. A year ago the matter of my convenience would have outweighed any worry about cruelty to a child-in fact the cruelty might have been considered an added bonus. .
I stepped over three men wrestling for ownership of a hex, and unlocked the first gate. A few of the more healthy and larger men hurried out to join the struggle for small change, most held back, almost as frightened of me with my glowing hand and black key as they had been of Artos and his half-eaten face.
By the time I reached the fifth cell people were slowly edging out of the already-open cells. I unlocked the gate and immediately a big fellow pushed through. He didn’t join the struggle for the last coin out in the centre: instead he turned on me. I had to look up to meet his gaze. Belligerent dark eyes narrowed at me beneath a shock of black hair. The man had starved with the rest of the last-stage debtors but he’d been a bruiser in his day and he seemed far less impressed with me than his fellows did.