Chapter 7
"Well, Silas," Penticott said. "I didn't think you had it in you."
Silas was sitting on his straw bed, looking up at the Constable. Two soldiers were wrapping the body of Aziz in a cloth so they could take him out to be burned.
"I didn't do it," Silas said. "He slipped or something, and hit his head on the wall. He almost killed me. Who was he?"
Penticott looked back at Aziz's body. "Nobody," he said. "A criminal."
"He said his soldiers killed his family."
"They might have, if someone in his family was Cursed, and they were protecting them. You know that."
Silas nodded. "I just don't know why he attacked me for it. I've never been a soldier, have I?"
Penticott laughed. "No. You haven't. I'm sure of it."
"How do you know?" Silas was sure he hadn't been, but he wanted someone else to confirm it.
"His soldiers serve for life. That is the oath we take when we join. When we're too old to be out in the field, we move on to do whatever we're capable of doing, whether that's as a steward of one of the provinces, or a cook in a barracks kitchen."
"What if you don't want to serve for life?"
Penticott gave him a strange look then, as though he couldn't even fathom the question. "We always serve for life," he said. "It is a noble and just service, and we are well cared for. Nobody has ever changed their mind."
Silas sat there, thinking about it. There was something in him that wasn't so sure Penticott was right, but maybe that was his hangover. He watched the soldiers take Aziz away.
"I'll send a healer down to with a salve for your bruises, and to make sure nothing is broken," Penticott said. "I can't have you looking such a mess when Roque arrives. For now, just rest."
Silas laid back down on the straw and stared up at the ceiling. Constable Penticott left him, locking the cell door as he did. If Silas had been looking, he would have seen the questioning stare the man gave him before leaving the dungeon.
***
The healer came down a few hours later with bandages and a smelly, oily substance that he spread liberally across Silas' chest and stomach. He had gasped when he had seen the scar running across his upper body, and remarked that he had never seen anyone survive such a nasty looking wound. For his part, Silas remained silent. He was lost inside himself, searching for answers to questions he had never known to ask.
He woke up a few hours after the healer had left, his body trembling uncontrollably and his mind racing out of control. The shaking was painful on its own, but even more so with the injuries Aziz had given him. He cried out in agony and begged for someone to come and help him, but of course nobody could hear him, and nobody came. He closed his eyes and held them shut tight, praying to Amman that the tremors would stop, even though he never prayed to Amman, and didn't even believe he existed. After the prayers didn't help, he began to cry, leaving his eyes blurry and sore.
After that, he began to hear voices.
He didn't know who they belonged to, but at first, there were two of them, a man and a woman. They were arguing, these two voices, arguing about rumors and hope, about an ocean and a ship and a land far away from theirs. They were arguing about life and death, about freedom and tyranny, and about justice. In the end, the woman said she was leaving, and that she wished for him to stay and die.
He stayed, and a least a part of him died.
His mind returned to the seashore, to the ship sailing out across the blue waters. He realized then that the male voice had been his, and the other, his wife's.
Next came another voice, the voice of a soldier, a commander, ordering men out into a village. He could see what was happening now, see it as though it were right in front of him. He didn't know how he had gotten here, but it was so real. He was riding a large white destrier, and he had a torch in his hand. When he got close enough to each building, he would hold the torch out against its thatch roof, sliding it along the distance until it was well aflame. Then he would move on to another, and another, until the entire village was on fire, and many of the villagers dead. He had helped them burn it all down.
No, he had done more than that. The voice was his own. He had commanded it.
More voices followed, each a memory that had been locked inside the bottle, now free to bubble out and into his delirious state. He could only understand some of what they were saying, and some of what he was doing. He would open his eyes sometimes, and he would be in some other place and time, and sometimes he would be on the straw bed staring up at the stone ceiling, shivering and shaking and trembling.
During both occasions he would cry out in pain and ask for it to stop. He would beg for a drink; of the healer, of Penticott, of the devils in his nightmares. He would beg for the bottle to be stoppered once more, so that he didn't have to relive the terror and the agony and the cold hard truth.
He was a murderer.
***
Silas opened his eyes. At first, he wasn't sure if he was awake or not, because he wasn't trembling. For once, his body was still. He took a deep breath, and tried to figure out what had happened to him. Everything was so jumbled together into one giant mess of memory and emotion. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn't know anything for sure. He stared at the ceiling, and waited.
The jailor came down a few hours later, finding Silas staring ahead, unblinking. He unlocked the cell and walked in, then went to kick the old man in the ribs.
Silas surprised him, turning his body and catching the jailor's foot, then shoving with a grunt. The jailor tumbled backwards and fell to the floor.
"Tt... Ti...Time to wake up, Morningstar," the jailor said, stumbling back to his feet. "Constable Penticott ordered me to bring you to the bath and make sure you clean yourself up."
Silas glared at him. "If you ever try to touch me again, I'll kill you," he said. He shook his head, trying to clear it. "How long have I been in here?"
"Six days," the jailor replied. "You were sick. Had a fever or something. Healer's been to see you, and so has the Constable. You were mumbling the whole time, something about a ship, and a kid, and being a murderer. I don't know, I didn't hear that much. Anyway, he sent me down here to get you. Roque rode in this morning, and they're eager to get their hands on the Cursed boy."
Silas held his head in his hands. He couldn't remember most of what he had thought he'd seen and heard. He did remember coming to the Constable's office to turn in a Cursed. He took a deep breath of himself, his nose clear for once. He smelled worse than a fertilizer cart.
"A bath sounds like a good idea."
He got up and followed the jailor out of the cell and to the right, down a small stone hallway to another room. This room had a series of clay pipes running along the ceiling and down the walls into the floor, suspended by thin metal brackets. In the corner of the room was a stone ledge with a hole through it, and in the center was a large pool of water. Silas had never seen anything like it before.
"It's the one benefit to rotting in the dungeon," the jailor said, puffing out his chest with pride, even though he had nothing to do with the room's construction. "The pipes carry the water in from the river, past the ovens where we cook the food for the barracks to heat the water, and then to different pools throughout the grounds." He pointed at the ledge with the hole. "Another pipe carries the waste out to a pit a a few miles away."
It may have been interesting, but Silas didn't care that much. He was thirsty. Not for ale. For water.
The jailor shoved him in, handed him the razor and soap, and then started closing the door. "I'll be right back with your new clothes. You have one hour to get cleaned up."
Silas had removed his clothes and thrown them into the corner before the door had finished closing. He carried the razor and the soap over to the raised basin and stuck his finger in, finding it comfortably warmed. He looked down at the bandages wrapping his body, found the end, and unraveled them, noting that most of the bruising had begun to fade, from a dark purple to a less horrible brown. Once again, he ran his finger across the scar.
Murderer.
He heard Aziz's voice in his head. He closed his eyes. He remembered that much. He had murdered people. He had ordered their deaths. Innocent, unarmed people. Farmers and merchants, mothers and fathers. Even children. He didn't remember the details, but he knew that it was so. The thought made him sick.
He leaned over the water, looking at his reflection, at the wild hair covering his face. "This won't do," he said. He dug the blade of the razor into the soap, and began to shave.
Silas had just finished removing the hair from his face when the jailor returned, carrying a bundle of cloth. "You almost look human," he said. He put the clothes on the floor near the door and left.
Silas decided to take that as a complement. He put his hands on the edge of the bath and lifted himself up and over. The jailor had been right, it was one good benefit. He leaned back in the warm water and closed his eyes, ready to enjoy the moment.
He didn't have the chance. No sooner had he closed his eyes then he was overcome with emotion, an emotion that rose from old memories that he couldn't bring back to mind.
Murderer.
It was Aziz's voice.
Murderer.
It was his wife's.
Murderer.
His son's?
Murderer.
His own.
Silas opened his eyes. Whatever had happened to him, whatever would happen to him, he knew one thing. He had to stop the Mediator from taking Calum Hess.