‘You stupid old woman!’ Dwalia did not roar the words but spoke them in a dark, cold voice. Two men with spears seized her by the arms and dragged her away but even as they did so, she spoke on as coolly as if they hadn’t touched her. ‘You refused to read what my examination of the dreams told me. You wouldn’t listen to me the first time that I warned you about that creature you had taken in. I told you he would free the dragons. You said he could not. I begged you to let me go with Ilistore, that I might protect her. You all refused. You said Kebal Rawbread would be enough. But he wasn’t, and so she died. She died horribly, alone and broken and cold, and the dragons you so fear were loosed upon the world.’
Dwalia was not struggling. The guards held her arms but looked as if they felt foolish. Vindeliar was rocking back and forth where he knelt, breathing in noisy nose gasps. I lay where I had fallen, trying for air, watching her.
‘Beloved is dead,’ she went on. ‘I know it, I feel it. I’ve killed him in the worst way he could possibly imagine, and I’ve stolen the weapon he and his Catalyst were shaping to use against us. I’ve brought you the Unexpected Son from the prophecies, and all you can do is sit up there and refuse to let me enlighten you! I expect Capra to ignore my revelations; she has always hated me. And all Fellowdy can think of is his lechery, while Coultrie fears that if he speaks any truth, you will all turn on him and rebuke him for the imposter he has always been. But Symphe? I thought better of you. I thought you were wiser. I always believed that one day you would throw the other three down and rule Clerres as it should be ruled. But no. You hold the threads of all time in your hands and yet you will let them unravel in our lifetime! I’ve brought you what you need to make up for how stupid you were about Beloved, but you sit there like toads on stones and do nothing.’
‘How dare you attack me? How dare you speak to any of us in such a tone? Guardsman! Ten lashes.’ Capra ordered one of the guards who held Dwalia, her voice as cold as ice.
The man released Dwalia to his companion’s safekeeping and caught her by both wrists. Still she did not struggle. The first guardsman bowed precisely to the Four and swiftly left the room.
‘Twenty,’ Coultrie countered. ‘Those were exquisite horses. All lost to me now.’ There was no regret or sympathy in his voice. He might have been asking for a drink of water.
‘Twenty!’ Capra was outraged. ‘How can you pretend your injury is greater than mine! How dare you!’
‘Ten, then. Ten! But those were fine horses.’ Coultrie subsided into a sulk, fussing with a green silk handkerchief he pulled from his sleeve. ‘Irreplaceable,’ he muttered, drawing another glare from Capra.
‘So messy. So … physical. Ten. Now. Let us be done with this.’ Fellowdy closed his eyes wearily as if it were all too inconvenient for him even to consider.
The beautiful woman, Symphe, spoke last. ‘Dwalia, you have gone too far. Too often I have allowed you to speak in blunt terms, but your insults are beyond honesty. I cannot protect you from this. Five lashes,’ she suggested. There was regret in her voice, but not a great deal of it.
Capra turned a furious gaze on her. ‘Five? FIVE? You insult me, too! You insult Coultrie, who lost a generation of steeds. She does not say she killed Beloved, only that she believes he is dead! She has disobeyed and defied us and—’
‘Ten then,’ Symphe amended. ‘Let it be ten, and let it be over. It has been too long a day already.’
Capra was shaking her head. ‘We will have this be over, and leave this chamber. But this evening, I wish to see all of you in my tower chamber.’
I heard the guard’s boots, his heels striking the floor very precisely, the jingling of the chain a music to the beat of his footsteps. I sat up slowly, my back to the dais, feeling dizzy and sick. I watched dully as the guard lifted a small panel of the smooth white floor and attached the chains to a ring there.
Dwalia still sounded very calm and rational. ‘No. It’s not fair. It’s not right. No.’ The guard who dragged her forward paid no attention to her words or her attempts to sink her nails into his forearm and free herself. She braced her feet on the smooth floor yet he dragged her effortlessly. When he reached his partner, the other man seized her hair and clacked two pieces of metal around her throat. She struggled while he put the clips through the collar. Both guards stepped back abruptly and there she was, Dwalia who had terrorized me for so long, chained like a dog, the heavy loops of metal from the collar around her neck secured to the ring in the floor.
It was a short chain. She could not stand upright. For a moment, she stood bent over, glaring at the Four. Then she hunched down, crossing her arms on her chest and tucking her face in as tightly as she could.
I could hear Vindeliar breathing loudly, a shrill note to each breath he expelled, but he did not move from where he knelt. This was not new to either of them, I realized as the two guards stepped back. One gave the other a stick to match the one he held. No. Not a stick. Each unfurled short lashes attached to heavy braided leather handles. Whips. They shook them loose in an expert fashion and each took a position to either side of Dwalia.
‘You are fools!’ she shouted in one last attempt at outrage, but her voice shook with fear as one of the guards made his lash whistle in a practice swipe.
Then it began.
It was not ten lashes. It was forty. Ten decreed by each of the Four. The guards alternated their blows, the lashes rising and falling as rhythmically as a smith’s hammer. Dwalia could not escape. Terribly, between blows, she almost had time to decide where the lash would next fall. But the guardsmen were experienced or perhaps just cruel. Always the lash seemed to fall on fresh flesh, or cleverly bisect the welt his partner had just created.
Her garments leapt at each blow. At first, she stayed hunched where she was. The lovely cloth of the back of the dress the captain had bought for his lover frayed and finally fell away. She began to give short shrieks and to scuttle like a beetle all around the ring in the floor. The guards did not care. She could not evade them. Her flesh welted and oozed, and droplets of blood began to speckle the floor and the strong bared arms of the guardsmen. Before they finished, the lashes were slapping raw meat and flinging arcs of blood. Forty had never seemed so large a number before.