“You have got to pay whatever it takes to get me out at the sale,” I broke in on Mellitha’s detailed explanation of her agreement with the jailer.
“Of course, I’ll do my very best—” she began, a little affronted.
“Bid whatever you need to,” I insisted. “Messire will repay you, trust me.”
“Of course. Try not to worry. Once you’re out of here, we can sort out what happened, find some answers.” Mellitha sounded just like my mother, consoling me over a lost hound-puppy. I wasn’t reassured. That hadn’t turned out at all well either; the poor little scrap had gone scavenging around the crab-boats, fallen into the harbor and drowned.
The guard snapped something at Mellitha and she responded with a curt rebuke. She still got to her feet however, pressing a bundle into my arms. “Just keep out of trouble in here and we’ll get you out at the sale.”
“See if Shiv has any ideas,” I called over my shoulder as the guard hustled me out with his stave jabbing painfully into my kidneys.
The rank-smelling turnkey led me through a couple of courtyards to a different wing of the lock-up. Mellitha’s coin had bought me a pallet lumpily stuffed with coarse husks in a wooden-floored, second-story room with a couple of handful others. I sat down carefully, my back to the wall, and unwrapped the bundle, the outermost layer proving to be a plain linen shirt and a pair of old breeches. Judging from the garb of my companions that was evidently the most clothing anyone here was allowed. A threadbare towel was rolled around a leather water bottle, some fresh bread and a creamy yellow cheese. The sharp scent made me realize I was actually starting to feel a little hungry again. I dampened the corner of the towel and cleaned the worst of the filth from my hands and face but gave up on the rest; the water would be more valuable in keeping me from the risk of prison fever lurking in whatever the turnkeys gave us to drink. Eating half of the bread put more heart into me and I certainly felt less vulnerable with some clothes on.
A few of the others in the long room were staring with a greater or lesser degree of curiosity. I met their gazes without a challenge but with enough intensity to make them drop their eyes first. Once I was satisfied that I was unobserved, I discreetly removed the wax-paper package molded into the cheese and tucked it down the front of my breeches. That done, I made my own survey of my fellow would-be slaves, making sure I didn’t catch anyone’s eye or look at any one of them for too long. The last thing I wanted was to get myself into a fight. The other men were slumped on their pallets or staring idly out of the barred window; most were a little older than myself, well enough fed, and about half had the weathered faces of an outdoor life. No one was talking so I had no means of identifying their origins, but since I was only going to be here for a short while I didn’t see any benefit in striking up a conversation with anyone.
A couple of younger men were coughing persistently, a soft but repetitive sound that was already becoming tiresome. It looked as if they had been forced to the far end of the cell, my pallet and another vacant place separating them from the other prisoners. I glanced at them and wondered how far over I could move myself before my neighbor on the other side would object.
“Sit tight, be patient and Mellitha will get you out,” I told myself sternly. If I kept myself to myself and didn’t share a cup or anything, I shouldn’t be at too much risk of contagion.
To my considerable surprise only the second chime of the day came ringing in through the unglazed window, from a timepiece quite close by, from the sound of it. I sighed; it was evidently going to be a long and tedious couple of days.
Noon came and went, a shower of rain pattered softly down on the roof tiles and a different turnkey appeared with a tray of wooden bowls of barley-meal, all unpleasantly crusted with the remains of old meals and with flies hovering eagerly above them. I left mine untouched, soothing my growling stomach with a little more bread.
“Hungry’s better than risking the squits,” I advised myself firmly. Besides, the less I ate, the less I would have to visit the reeking crocks standing against the far wall; one for excrement to sell for manure, one for urine to sell for bleach, I assumed wryly. Trust the Relshazri to find a way of turning coin from every situation.
That was about the most humorous aspect of the day. The afternoon’s entertainment came when we were herded to the window by a couple of guards with whips in order to watch a man being garrotted in the courtyard below. It took ten men to drag the heavy-set criminal out and lash him to the execution frame; he screamed obscenities at them until a leather gag stopped his mouth. At that point tears began to stream down his brutish face, already red and suffused with blood even before the guards drew lots to see who would turn the ratchet to crush the sad bastard’s throat.
I didn’t bother watching; there are no more lessons I can learn by seeing men die. Instead I looked at the other windows in the tall blocks ranged around the courtyard. The bottommost levels were evidently cells of the kind I’d woken up in; gaunt and filthy faces with matted hair were pressed to the bars, too many all too eager to see the spectacle. At the higher levels, men and women in decent garb looked down, some reluctantly, some with horrified fascination. I wondered how much they were paying for decent food and cleanliness; probably more than they would had they been lodging in the costliest inn the city boasted.
As soon as the guards allowed us, I returned to my pallet.
“What did he do?” one of the others asked, rubbing a hand over his ashen face.
The guard scowled. “Raped and murdered little girls.”
I was pleased to see everyone in the room grimace or spit with honest revulsion; perhaps it would be safe to risk going to sleep in here after all.
By the time evening came I was bored out of my mind. I’d tried doing some basic stretches to loosen up my bruised limbs but that attracted everyone’s attention, so I soon stopped. I ate the rest of the bread and cheese, reasoning it would probably be stolen while I slept if I didn’t. The window faced west, so we caught the last of the sunlight as the rain clouds passed and I watched the black shadows of the bars slowly crawl across the chipped and stained plaster as I dozed. I can’t have gone to sleep so early since the summer evenings when my mother would herd Mistal, Kitria and myself to our beds as we all protested that it was still light and it wasn’t fair, why were Hansey and Ridner allowed to stay up?
I woke in the dawn cool of the following morning with a nagging sense that something was not quite right. With a sudden shock I realized the coughing had stopped. Sitting sharply upright, I looked over to see one of the sick men lying rigid and silent, his glazed eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, lips blackened in an ashen face. His companion was prostrate opposite, skin pale and tainted with blue, his chest still moving slightly, a pulse hammering in his neck as the breath bubbled moistly in his lungs.
My abrupt movement had woken a couple of the others; one went to hammer on the door and bellow for the turnkey. When two surly jailers arrived, they dragged the corpse and the sick man away, treating both with equal indifference and leaving the stained pallets behind. I shuddered and hoped that no one had died on mine recently, certainly not of anything contagious.
If anything, that day was harder to endure than the first. I’ve never taken well to inactivity and although I continued to tell myself not to let it rile me—that Dastennin sends fish to the patient, anyway, that I’d been in worse places than this—it was all wearing a little thin by the end of the day. The only worse place I could think of was the Elietimm dungeon and at least I’d had people I could talk to in there, Aiten’s support, Shiv’s magic and Livak’s talents with locks as a basis for plans for escape. That started me thinking about the others, hoping they had some plan to secure my purchase at the auction, worrying in case the Elietimm had made some move while I was stuck in here. I finally concluded that what I hated most about my current situation was not the place I found myself in but the fact that I was having to rely on other people to get me out. That realization did nothing to improve my mood.