Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

I saw the abbot, waiting in the shadows of the wall, as we approached the altar. He had the look of an unwilling conscript gathering himself to draw steel and to fling himself into battle. The bishop in his finery shot Castel a vicious glance. Soft and fat he might be, but another life could have put the bishop amongst my road-brothers, red in tooth and claw. Another life would just have made Castel a different kind of victim to men such as Rike and Row and Liar.

Three more monks until our turn. Two more. One. Orscar stepped up, thirsty for communion wine. The orphans normally got the body not the blood. And, quicker than I had thought he could, the abbot strode forward, swept the boy up, and bore him from the church. Orscar, made mute by surprise and by the speed of his abduction, didn’t manage even a yelp before the door to the chapterhouse swung shut behind them. Every other person in the great hall of the church held still, watching the door until the echoes of its closing died away. Murillo, already red in the face, shaded to purple. Another heartbeat of silence and then the bishop looked my way, furious for reasons I couldn’t fathom. He stamped the heel of his crook to the floor. The priest, silver thread tracing the scarf that draped the black velvet of his gown, fixed cold eyes upon me and held out the communion cup, almost empty now. I drank, and the wine was bitter.

More monks, more filing past, more drinking, as we stood and waited. The wine still burned my tongue, as if they had fermented gall rather than grapes. A lethargy rose through me, from the cold stone of the floor, through leg and belly until my thoughts swam in it and the drone of liturgy lost its meaning. And finally, with the witching hour behind us, the bishop spoke those words all children long for in any mass.

‘Ite, missa est.’ You are dismissed.

I staggered on the way to the door, catching at a monk’s arm for support. He shook me off, a stony look on his face, as if I were diseased. The church stretched and squashed, the walls and pillars dancing like reflections on a pond.

‘What?’ I tasted the bitterness again and my tongue ran out of words. My hands sought the knife that should have been on my belt. My hands knew the danger.

‘Jorg?’ I heard Arthur’s voice, saw him bundled away by the monk with the ticks and foul stinks.

Somehow I came to the doors that led outside, and leaned on them. Cold night air would help. They gave, opening by degrees, and I slipped through. Strong arms wrapped me. One of Murillo’s men-at-arms. A black hood, taking away the world, throttling hands. I threw my head back and heard a nose break. And fell into a confusion without up or down, without sight, straining against bonds, and drowning, choking, retching in the dark.

Memory gives me only pieces of the time spent in the bishop’s chambers, but those pieces are clear and razor-edged. I had never fought Katherine when she pulled me into nightmare. Now I fought her as she tried to leave. I fought her as I drew each part of those broken memories through the channel she had opened – like Brother Hendrick and his Conaught spear, I didn’t care if they tore me, so long as she felt some fraction of it too.

The smell of Murillo, perfume and sweat. The corrupt softness of his bulk. The strength that twisted my limbs until they creaked, until the pain reached me through the fog of whatever drug the wine had hidden, and tore thin screams past the gag. I made Katherine watch and share, made her share the pollution, the crude stink of his lust, the delight he took in his power, the horror of being helpless. I let her hear his grunting. I made her understand how dirt can get inside you, too deep to be scrubbed out, too deep to be bled out, perhaps too deep even to be burned out. I showed her how that stain can spread, back across the years turning all a child’s memories to rot and filth, out across a future, taking all colour and direction.

I kept her with me, lying soaked in blood and filth and pain, bound, blindfold, sick with the drug and yet clinging to it for fear of the clarity a clear head would bring.

I won’t say rage kept me alive. Those poisoned hours offered no escape, nothing so tempting as dying, but perhaps if I could have slid away into death, if it had been an option, then my anger might have been the thing to keep me back. As the drug faded from me and focus returned, a need for revenge started to build, quickly eclipsing all minor desires such as escape, the easing of pain, or the need to breathe.

Chains can hold a man. A well-fastened manacle will require the breaking of bones before the prisoner can win free. Ropes in general cannot be broken, but with determination they can often be slipped. Lubrication is the key. Sweat will normally start the process, but before long the skin will give and blood will help those rough fibres slide over raw flesh.