ravenna_c_tan

(Continuing the weekly serial by Cecilia Tan! Need to start at the beginning? Click here.)

60: Jorin
There is a span of time I do not remember. No, I am not speaking of the misty time after I was born and before I could speak. I speak of the hour after the king finished with me. Indeed, I have no memory of his actual finishing, for my mind had fled to some safe corner of my dreams before then.

When at last I surfaced, it was because there was a soft murmuring from somewhere, coaxing me back with a promise of gentle warmth. I gradually became aware that I was lying on my side in a bed somewhere, and that a warm body was wrapped around mine from behind. At the recognition of Sergetten’s scent on the sheets I had the sudden hope that he had transported us back to the keep, far from Maldevar.

“Hold onto it,” he said, quite clearly, into my ear, as if he were aware that I had returned to my body.

He did not say what “it” was, but I knew at the very least he was going to hold onto me until I felt ready to move. It was more of a comfort than I can adequately describe and I was grateful he was there. Had I woken hooded and chained somewhere, I do not know what I would have done nor how I would have borne it.

As my awareness returned, so did my memory.

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59: Kenet

At dawn Roichal and I continued traveling south. We had passed out of the blighted farming area and into the rocky hills that were not good for farms nor orchards, and toward the end of the day after we had paused at a stream to drink our fill, Roichal took us higher into the hills, both of us walking and his horse, Kinsall, coming up behind us.

“Ah, here we are,” Roichal said, as we rounded one bit of outcropping to a flat area wide enough for Kinsall to turn around. All I could see up the steep hillside on our left was bushes, while to the right the slope tapered sharply downward.

Roichal handed Kinsall’s reins to me and then pulled back the branches of one of the bushes to reveal a stony crack in the hillside, large enough for a man to fit through if he stooped over. He shouted into the hole and stepped back, listening. When neither man nor beast emerged, he gave a satisfied grunt and then disappeared into the earth.

“Sir?” I asked, unsure whether I should follow. And what of our horse?

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58: Jorin

(Warning: this is a particularly brutal chapter.)

The King and Sergetten left me chained to the foot of the bed when the time for afternoon audiences arrived, and for the first time since Sergetten had explained his reason behind collaring me I felt once again like a lowly pet. I curled up and pretended to sleep, like a dog would. The hood covered my eyes in any case, so they could not tell if my eyes were open or closed. Through the door to the outer chamber, I could hear them speaking to each other as Sergetten helped him to dress.

Their voices were light and they spoke familiarly with one another, and I wondered how long they had known each other. Had Sergetten been apprenticed or fostered in the castle as a youth? At the keep where he was called lord there was no indication of a family, though, no parents or siblings, no paintings or tapestries depicting his line.

My heart ached a little to hear their jaunty camaraderie, both because I knew that was a side that neither man would ever show outside these private circumstances and how wearing that must be, and, in truth, because being here in the castle I was so very much reminded of myself and Kenet. Of how we had once been.

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57: Kenet
I woke in darkness, with Roichal spooned around me as usual, but I spent a moment in confusion wondering what was different.

Then I shifted and heard the rustle of the straw ticking wrapped in the general’s cloak under us, followed by the whicker of a horse close by. Now I remembered. Our flight from the wildfire, Roichal not slowing until the horse needed to, dismounting and walking while I continued to ride. He only looked back when there was a river and a line of hills between us and the former mustering grounds.

The sunset had been blood red that evening with the smoke lingering in the sky at the horizon, and we had set up camp exhaustedly in what looked to be an abandoned barn.

The grain harvest here had failed from the blight, and the people and their animals had moved on. The small barn was plenty for our horse and us to shelter in, and the well still gave fresh water.

The first grey of dawn showed me the edges of the stall in which we slept. Roichal grunted and cleared his throat.

“Good morning, my prince,” he said, his voice hoarse.

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56: Jorin

Sergetten spoke to the royal messenger alone and returned to me in a foul temper.

“Eyes down. No, close them. Don’t you dare look at me. Peek and I shall know, and your punishment shall be severe. On the floor. Hands and knees. Do not move. Don’t even tremble.”

I did as he asked, but I could not stop the sudden hammering of my heart. I tried to draw deep breaths, reassuring myself I had done nothing to draw this ire. I was burning with curiosity over what the messenger must have said, but either he would tell me when he wanted to, or he would not. This was certainly not the time to ask.

I heard him moving back and forth at the work table, opening and closing things, and ruffling the pages of a book. A sulfrous, burnt scent came to me as he set to doing something. Burning the message? Brewing something?

Don’t look, I told myself, though my head had cocked a little at the smell. Don’t look, don’t look.

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55: Kenet
I was aiding the General with a revised tally in the afternoon when a young soldier in a wide-brimmed hat came seeking him. I was surprised to learn that he was only looking for Roichal because he was hoping to find me. He introduced himself as Van, and as he swept off the hat once he was inside the tent I recognized him by his brown curls as one of the boys Harman had rescued from a Night Mage’s keep. One of the eldest, and it appeared they had made a soldier of him, now that his eyes were adjusting to the light.

Roichal exchanged a glance with me, as if to tell me he would be right outside if my virtue needed defending, but that he would leave us to speak in private.

Indeed, Van wanted to speak in nearly a whisper. “I want to ask your help. We know not who to turn to.”

I held one of his hands as we sat upon a chest. “What do you need? I am no mage.”

“Not that sort of help,” he said, glancing back and forth.

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54: Jorin
I have likely been remiss in relating what being beaten is like. There is quite a difference between being struck with a fist, as in a fight, and being strapped or whipped, as in the punishments I accepted, first as Kenet’s ladra’an, then as Sergetten’s bound slave.

There is no less violence in the whip, and indeed, far greater intensity of pain in the burn of leather across skin than in the mere crunch of knuckle or bone against flesh. A man is much more likely to scream upon a single touch of the strap than he would upon being kicked or punched.

I am not singular in this regard.

The punishment lash, though, does little damage when compared with a fighting blow. It raises a welt, perhaps draws blood, and it may leave a bruise, but the damage it does is largely to a man’s pride rather than his flesh. That is, unless one’s ability to withstand a beating is one’s main source of pride.

As mine is.

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53: Kenet
I gathered from the bits and pieces I heard that there was quite a bit of disagreement about how the military campaign was to be waged, and that this was the main reason we had not yet moved to attack. There were some towns refusing to send their men for fear of the Night Riders and the military leaders debated what to do about that. Then word came that a delegation from Pellon was at the castle and all planning ground to a halt. None of us could guess whether their ambassadors were there to sue for peace on Frangit’s behalf, declare their alliance with us, or merely allow our army to pass through their lowlands to attack Frangit where the border was not mountainous.

Roichal and Marksin spent an hour after nightfall, after the news had come, drinking some of the whisky that had come from the castle on the same wagon as me. They were both a bit redfaced as they got ready for bed.

“Lightning strike me if we must sit here ten more days,” Roichal swore as he sat heavily upon the pallet while Marksin and I, already naked and on our knees, pulled his boots free.

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52: Jorin

If there was a lesson to be learned over the next few days of training under Sergetten, it was that my cock had a mind all its own. I could no more make it rise on command before him than I had been able to make it lie quiet the night the king had banished me. Sergetten snarled and snapped at me, as if he were more frustrated by my inability than I was myself.

He had me on all fours and was merely strapping me with full force across the buttocks when I thought to ask whether he truly expected me to be able to accomplish it, or whether it was merely a test–an excuse to lay into me. When his arm grew tired and I caught my breath, that is what I asked.

He threw down the strap and I saw it skitter across the wooden floor, coming to a stop just to the side of my hand. He reached under me, where he found, to my chagrin, that I had stiffened during the beating. “I need no excuse to stripe or flay you,” he reminded me.

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51: Kenet

Something was going to happen. Something soon, it seemed, given the number of strategy sessions Roichal held among his top commanders, and the duration of them. One night they continued far past sundown, and I fell asleep sitting on the floor of the tent, leaning against a chest.

When I woke, Marksin was pulling my boots off. We were in his tent. From here, closer to the main camp, I could hear men singing along while one played a drum and another bowed a string. I tried to sit up, but he just twisted the other boot off and tossed it aside, his firm hands on my ankle.

“He’s given orders for me to feed you,” he said quietly. “And then I shall remain here as your guard.”

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