Well of the Damned

Chapter 14





Adro was sitting on his bed, lacing his boots in preparation for his mission. The king had asked him to retrieve the prisoner from the Lordover Tern’s gaol, which, in Adro’s mind, was one more way to prove his loyalty and worthiness. He imagined himself standing before the king and queen, being named Queen’s Champion. Perhaps the position would come with a new sword, for his current blade was one he’d pried from the cold grip of a dead warrant knight killed by beyonders several years earlier.

His reverie was interrupted when one of the kitchen boys stuck his head into the barracks. “The queen’s with child!” He was gone again before Adro was even sure he’d heard it right.

With child? His hands continued to work his laces while his mind whirled. It was joyous news. He was glad. That was what he would tell anyone who brought the matter up. A part of him was numb with shock and something else. Maybe a little jealousy, maybe disappointment. He’d never actually believed Feanna would leave Gavin to be with him, but he realized he’d dared to dream, and now that dream was all but destroyed. She was having Gavin’s baby.

That was how it should be, he reminded himself as he donned his mail shirt, a gift from the king for Adro’s pledge of service. He grabbed his cloak from the hook on the wall, hung it across his shoulders and pulled the hood up, and then tramped through the rain, head down, to the stable. This was good news. Great news. If the king somehow met his end, an heir would take his place. The two hundred years Thendylath had gone without a king wouldn’t be in vain. It was up to the king and queen to ensure that never happened again. Adro spat the bitter taste of disappointment from his mouth into the wet straw and mounted his steed, glad he could spend some time away from the palace before having to offer his congratulations to the joyous couple.

As he rode through the wet, dismal streets of Tern with a second mount in tow, he set his jaw, determined to reset his dreams, to be happy about this new prince or princess, and vow to protect this child for as long as he could hold a sword. No one must know he felt anything but gladness, for his loyalty to Gavin was deep and true, and coveting the wife of his friend and king was a crime against not only the crown but his own soul.

Adro finally arrived at the Lordover Tern’s complex and left the two horses hitched to the post outside the gaol. He shook the rain off his cloak before following the warden and a guard through the door to the cell ward. The stench of human waste and mildew hit him so hard, he staggered back a step. The two other men seemed not to notice as they led the way down a narrow corridor, past iron doors lining the hall on both sides. Each had a small window in which ugly, dirty faces appeared. The prisoners shouted at him as he passed, some begging to be released, others begging for something to eat or drink and claiming cruel treatment by the guards. Adro had delivered his share of brigands to the gaols of lordovers during his years as a warrant knight, but never had he smelled one this rank. He tried to breathe through his mouth.

“The lordover held a hearing already,” the warden said as he led the way to the cell. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the beating of rain on the roof. “He was ready to set her free, but me? I don’t believe a word she says. It’s a good thing she’s King Gavin’s prisoner and not Lord Celónd’s.”

“Lord Celónd found her innocent of the charges?”

“‘Not responsible,’ he said. Not the same as innocent in my mind, but he’s the lordover.” The warden unlocked and opened a door on the right. “Come on. Let’s go.”

A woman with shoulder-length, black hair and brown eyes exited the cell wearing a sleeveless beige tunic and trousers that were patchy with brown grime and old sweat. Her face and hands were dirty, and she stank like a privy. She looked up at Adro with a curious expression. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Adro Fiendsbane, soldier for King Gavin. The king’s agreed to grant you an audience.”

“Finally,” she said. “I started to think he’d leave me in there to rot.” She presented her wrists to the guard, who affixed the shackles and handed Adro the key.

“She’s crafty,” the warden said as they marched her down the corridor. “Beware.”

“Do you have a rain cloak she can borrow?” Adro asked as he put his cloak over his shoulders.

“No. Be glad. The rain’ll wash away her stench.”

This prisoner was possibly the filthiest person Adro had ever seen. Her odor made his eyes water. He’d have preferred to let her walk a step or two ahead, but he thought she might try to run, and so he kept a firm grip on her upper arm as he guided her to the horses. If she hadn’t been so dirty, he’d have let her wear his rain cloak, but he worried that her smell would linger for weeks to come if he put it on her. Taking the captain’s warning to heart, he made Cirang ride facing backwards. He held onto the reins of her horse and started back across Tern towards the palace.

Adro had gone a week without bathing at times, but he’d always kept a couple changes of clothes to keep from knocking himself out, or those around him. Cirang’s clothes were filthy, stained with sweat and needed washing as badly as she did. He wondered whether she’d been denied rags or water for bathing during her menses. Even her breath was foul. He imagined her trailing her stench through the palace after everyone had worked so hard to clean and repair it from the demon’s abuse. He didn’t want to shame her, but he had to do something.

“Can’t bring you to the king like this,” he said, breaking the silence. “How long since you last bathed?”

She tossed him a scowl over her shoulder. “You think I’m this filthy by choice?”

“Not at all. All the lordover’s prisoners reeked. It wasn’t just you.”

She lowered her head and said softly, “Three months. I haven’t been given so much as a comb for my hair, let alone enough clean rags for—” She cleared her throat. “My feminine needs. I had to tear the sleeves off my own tunic and rinse the bloody rags in my drinking water.”

“That’s despicable,” Adro said. With all the rain, the lordover wouldn’t lack for water, and judging from the well manicured grounds, he had plenty of hired help to tend the plants and flowers, but he spared his purse the expense of ensuring his prisoners’ basic needs were met.

Cirang barked a laugh. “You think that’s despicable? I haven’t even told you about the warden and his guard. They ravished me during the night. Held me down, tried to choke me. When I complained to the lordover, he came to my cell and made it hurt even worse.”

Adro couldn’t believe it. “Do you have proof?”

She moved her hair to show him a bruise in the shape of fingers on the side of her neck. “The lordover refused to even question him about it.”

His thoughts were pulled in two directions. He resisted the notion that the lordover would refuse to investigate any accusation of wrong-doing in his own gaol. Yet, he knew some men abused their power to prey on women. He knew it first hand. With a shake of his head, he cleared his throat and swallowed down the shame and self-loathing the memory brought up. “The king should know about this. About everything. It isn’t right. At the very least, maybe he’ll make the lordover clean up your cell before you go back.”

“I’m not going back,” Cirang said. “I’m innocent of the charges, and once I convince the king, he’ll release me.”

“Well, King Gavin’s nothing if not fair. I know it for a fact.”

“And how do you know this?”

Adro rolled up the sleeve on his left arm, revealing the scar on the tender side of his forearm, and held it out for her to see. It shamed him, which was why he kept the brand covered, but Queen Feanna insisted he reveal it to any who had need to trust him.

“He branded you, and you think him fair?”

“I was young, foolish, and on the wrong path. He set me right. Gave me a second chance.”

“So now you’re loyal to him. How touching,” she said drily with a roll of her eyes.

“If he gave you a second chance, wouldn’t you be?”

“The king wouldn’t give me anything I wasn’t due.”

He rolled his eyes at her. As a former Viragon Sister, she was used to the support of a guild full of like-minded fighters. Adro’s mother had been a drunk and a whore, doing things in front of him that his young eyes should never have seen. At seventeen, he’d been fighting hunger and the darkness inside him when he met Gavin Kinshield. Having someone care enough to take him by the shoulders and turn him about had been a sobering, life-changing experience. Cirang had a lot to learn about being on her own. She could use an ally like King Gavin, but she was too proud to see it.

“Besides,” Cirang went on, “Kinshield believes me guilty of crimes I had no part in. If anything, he’ll judge me unfairly when I’m no more guilty of his brother’s murder than I am of his first wife’s and child’s.”

“You don’t know him like I do,” Adro said.

“Perhaps you don’t know him as well as you think you do. He extorted a priceless necklace from me. Does that sound like an honorable buck to you?”

Adro lifted his lip in a snarl. Telling lies would be her undoing. “Shut up. Gavin Kinshield’s the most honorable man I’ve ever known. I won’t listen to your lies.” He urged the horses faster, wanting to deliver her before he did something he would regret.

Many of the roads were empty of people, none wanting to spend a minute longer in the rain than they needed to. The run-off from the mountains flowed so quickly down some streets that even walking down them on horseback was worrisome. Adro took the same route back as the one he’d used.

At last, they arrived at the palace. He led her across the bridge, saluted the guards at the gate, and headed to the stable. After they dismounted and saw the horses into the care of the stable hands, Adro took Cirang to the women’s barracks.

“I doubt the king’s in here,” Cirang said, a challenge in her voice. “You’re not thinking to ravish me, are you?”

“Of course not. There’s a wash tub here. You can’t stand before the king smelling and looking the way you do.” He asked one of the attendants to bring a woman to help clean the prisoner up. Three women attended the former Viragon Sisters who now served as the king’s guard.

Adro was one of only three male battlers in the garrison so far, including the new Minister of the Militia, who had a room in the palace proper. Somehow, that just seemed wrong, but since the coronation, few warrant knights had come willing to relinquish their warrants and serve the king. The warrant knight life had its appeal, Adro knew, but loyalty to the new king should have been more important to more men.

He guarded the doorway, while the serving women came and went with buckets of steaming water, gradually filling the tub. Cirang stood at the window, looking out at the rain on the lake that fed the River Athra. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Three months in a gaol cell would have driven him mad, especially in the conditions she was forced to live in. At least the bath would help her feel more dignified, less like a caged animal.

Adro stopped one of the serving women. “Can you find her something clean to wear?”

“I can bring her a servant’s uniform,” she said.

“No skirts,” Cirang said without turning around. “I don’t wear skirts.”

A redheaded battler with a stern, angular face walked into the barracks. Her eyes went immediately to Adro, and she put a hand on her sword. “What are you doing here? These are the women’s barracks.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m seeing to my prisoner’s needs. Maybe you can help. She could use some clean clothes for her meeting with King Gavin. Can you spare something for her to wear?”

“I have only trousers and tunics,” she said, “no dresses or skirts.”

“Don’t give her the king’s colors,” Adro said, “but old battler clothing’s fine. She was a Viragon Sister, after all.”

“What?” The battler looked past him into the bathing room. “Cirang, what’re you doing here? What’s going on?”

“Mirrah, thank Yrys,” Cirang said, turning around, “someone with some sense. Tell this addlebrained meat puppet I’m no malefactor.” She held up her shackled wrists.

Adro shifted to block Mirrah from entering. “She’s here to answer the king’s questions, not yours. May she borrow your clothing or not?”

Mirrah shot him a cold glare. “Does Daia know about this?”

“She was present when the king told me to bring her.”

“We’ll see about that.” Mirrah marched out of the barracks.

Adro and Cirang shrugged at each other, and then shared a smile. She wasn’t bad looking — full lips, square jaw and calm, brown eyes. If she was acquitted as she expected, he would invite her for a tumble, or two if it went well.

A few minutes later, Mirrah returned with Daia, who gave Adro a nod. “Is everything all right?”

“She hasn’t had a bath in three months,” Adro said. “Thought she wouldn’t want to go before the king smelling like sewage. She just needs something clean and dry to wear.”

Daia turned to Mirrah. “What’s the problem?”

“I didn’t know— I mean, I have nothing to give her.”

Daia went around the barracks opening satchels and chests, rummaging through other battlers’ belongings until she found a clean set of beige clothing, which she shoved into Adro’s arms. With a wordless glare at Mirrah, Daia stormed out.

“How about taking the shackles off while I bathe?” Cirang asked.

Adro unlocked and removed them. “Don’t try anything you’ll regret.”

He waited in the doorway, his back to Cirang, while she bathed with the assistance of two serving girls. The temptation to turn and look at her, to see her lean, muscular and completely nude body was strong. The fact that she sang to herself and chattered at him made resisting even harder. The muscles in his neck twitched, and every time she asked him a question, like was he married or wasn’t it difficult to get a warrant tag with a brand on his arm, he felt the overwhelming need to clear his throat before answering. Old urges bubbled to the surface, and he tamped them back down as best he could. A visit to the brothel later would help.

Finally, the sounds of water splashing stopped. “Give me the clothes,” she said.

“Please?” Adro prompted.

“Give me the clothes now, or I’ll go before the king naked.”

Adro sighed and tossed the clothes onto the floor behind him. “It wouldn’t hurt you to be polite.”

Cirang snorted. “On the contrary. It would wound me deeply.”

The sumptuous sound of cloth rustling made sweat break out in his armpits. It had been years since he’d been with a woman who wasn’t being paid for her company.

“All right,” she said. “I suppose you’ll want to put the shackles back on me.”

When he turned around and saw his prisoner, clean and dressed with her wet hair combed back, he breathed a sigh of relief. His eyes went to her full lips, now pink and alluring. He didn’t know what it was about her, but she tempted him in ways he hadn’t been tempted in many years. Not since Gavin Kinshield had carved his initials into Adro’s forearm, branding him as a malefactor for his crimes of seduction and debauchery.