Prince of Thorns

A rattle of keys, and the door slid inward on oiled hinges. The wave of stench that hit me nearly took my breath. A warty old fellow in warder’s leathers leaned into view and opened his mouth to speak.

“Don’t,” I said, holding the business end of my dagger toward his tongue.

I walked on, Lundist at my heels.

“You always told me to look and make my own judgement, Lundist,” I said. I respected him for that. “No time to get squeamish.”

“Jorg . . .” He was torn, I could hear it in his voice, wracked between emotions I couldn’t understand, and logic that I could. “Prince—”

The cry rang out again, much louder now. I’d heard the sound before. It pushed at me, trying to force me away. The first time I heard that kind of pain, my mother’s pain, something held me back. I’ll tell you it was the hook-briar which held me fast. I’ll show you the scars. But in the night, before the dreams come, a voice whispers to me that it was fear that held me back, terror that rooted me in the briar, safe while I watched them die.

Another scream, more terrible and more desperate than any before. I felt the hooks in my flesh.

“Jorg!”

I shook Lundist’s hands from me, and ran toward the sound.

I didn’t have far to run. I pulled up short at the entrance to a wide room, torch-lit, with cell doors lining three sides. At the centre, two men stood on opposite sides of a table, to which a third man had been secured with chains. The larger of the two warders held an iron poker, one end in a basket of glowing coals.

None of the three noted my arrival, nor did any of the faces pressed to the barred windows in the cell doors turn my way. I walked in. I heard Lundist arrive at the entrance and stop to take in the scene, as I had.

I drew close and the warder without the iron glanced my way. He jumped as if stung. “What in the—” He shook his head to clear his vision. “Who? I mean . . .”

I’d imagined the torturers would be terrifying men with cruel faces, thin lips, hooked noses, the eyes of soulless demons. I think I found their ordinariness more of a shock. The shorter of the two looked a touch simple, but in a friendly way. Mild I’d call him.

“Who’re you?” This one had a more brutish cast to him, but I could picture him at ale, laughing, or teaching his son pitch-ball.

I hadn’t any of my court weeds on, just a simple tunic for the schoolroom. There was no reason for warders to recognize me. They would enter the vaults through the Villains’ Gate and had probably never walked in the castle above.

“I’m Jorg,” I said, in a servant’s accent. “My uncle paid old Wart-face at the door to let me see the prisoners.” I pointed toward Lundist. “We’re going to the executions tomorrow. I wanted to see criminals close up first.”

I wasn’t looking at the warders now. The man on the table held my gaze. I’d seen only one black skin before, a slave to some noble visiting Father’s court from the south. But that man was brown. The fellow on the table had skin blacker than ink. He turned his head to face my way, slow as if it weighed like lead. The whites of his eyes seemed to shine in all that blackness.

“Wart-face? Heh, I like that.” The big warder relaxed and took up his iron again. “If there’s two ducats in it for me and Grebbin here, then I reckon you can stay and watch this fellow squeal.”

“Berrec, it don’t seem right.” Grebbin furrowed his broad forehead. “He’s a young-un an’ all.”

Berrec pulled the poker from the coals and held it toward Grebbin. “You don’t want to stand between me and a ducat, my friend.”

The black man’s naked chest glistened below the glowing point. Ugly burns marked his ribs, red flesh erupting like new-ploughed furrows. I could smell the sweet stench of roasted meat.

“He’s very black,” I said.

“He’s a Nuban is what he is,” Berrec said, scowling. He gave the poker a critical look and returned it to the fire.

“Why are you burning him?” I asked. I didn’t feel easy under the Nuban’s scrutiny.

The question puzzled them for a moment. Grebbin’s frown deepened.

“He’s got the devil in him,” Berrec said at last. “All them Nubans have. Heathens, the lot of them. I heard that Father Gomst, him as leads the King himself in prayer, says to burn the heathen.” Berrec laid a hand on the Nuban’s stomach, a disturbingly tender touch. “So we’re just crisping this one up a bit, before the King comes to watch him killed on the morrow.”

“Executed.” Grebbin pronounced the word with the precision of one who has practised it many times.

“Executed, killed, what’s the difference? They all end up for the worms.” Berrec spat into the coals.

The Nuban kept his eyes on me, a quiet study. I felt something I couldn’t name. I felt somehow wrong for being there. I ground my teeth together and met his gaze.

“What did he do?” I asked.

“Do?” Grebbin snorted. “He’s a prisoner.”

“His crime?” I asked.