The Bastard, page 4
At least when I’d been here before, I’d known how I’d got here.
This time, my mind drew a blank.
I remembered the kidnapping attempt well enough, and knew what the outcome of that had been. But what had happened between then and now? How had I gone from getting knocked unconscious in the storage room to waking up here?
I had no idea, and as I glanced around, I saw no one to ask. These men in the cell with me seemed a surly lot. Shifty and suspicious, as if each of them feared the others would take the tunic from their backs.
As it appeared they would.
With my head still throbbing, I decided not to start any conversations. Instead, I rested my aching head against the wall and contemplated the fading images of my dream. I’d never had that one before. It was as if the beating had dislodged it from some long-forgotten memory.
At some point, there was a commotion up front as one of the guards tossed a few stale ends of bread through the bars, and the prisoners did their best to kill each other and take what they could. I watched from my place against the wall but didn’t join in. I’d already suffered one beating and didn’t care to experience another.
Not long after that, one of the rat dragons feasting on the corpse took note of me. Most people didn’t like the diminutive monsters, treating them as the vermin they hunted—shooing them out of the way or kicking them aside.
But I’d always found the rat dragons fascinating.
This one seemed curious. A mix of vibrant gold and green scales, it looked me up and down while standing on its hind legs. No bigger than my two clenched fists joined together, it resembled the dragons of old, complete with horns, wings, and a sinuous tail.
Out of instinct, I held out a hand in a gesture of friendship.
“Come on,” I said to the creature. “I won’t hurt you.”
The rat dragon puffed a small cloud of smoke in defense and leapt backwards. I laughed quietly, acknowledging that in a place like this one, the creature was probably right to react suspiciously. If the inmates could catch it, they might be tempted to eat it, and probably wouldn’t even bother to try to cook it first.
I kept my hand out and repeated my greeting. “Come on,” I said again.
This time, the rat dragon approached with more courage, coming right up to me and sniffing my fingers. I waited for some seconds, gaining its trust, then slowly moved my hand until I could scratch its head.
To my infinite surprise, the rat dragon stayed where it was, although at first it seemed to do so out of shock. Then it relaxed, and even nuzzled against my fingers.
I smiled. “There’s a good boy,” I said. “Or are you a girl? Either way, see? I told you I wouldn’t hurt you.”
The rat dragon seemed happy to accept my scratches. In fact, it came closer, making a noise deep in its throat that wasn’t like anything I’d heard from a rat dragon before. It was a low drumming sound that seemed to indicate pleasure.
“You’ve got a friend for life, there,” said someone. I glanced over and saw that a wiry old guy who looked to be made of grime and rags had come up next to me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
The old man chuckled. “I knew a youngster who had a way with the rat dragons, much like you seem to do. It was fun to begin with, having them follow him around, but he soon learned they wouldn’t stop. Few people seem to have the knack of it, but if you tame one, he’s yours for life. But then, I guess that ain’t very long for either of us anymore.”
I frowned, not completely sure what the old man had meant, but the rat dragon chose that moment to butt my hand with his head, a gesture I took to mean that he wanted me to keep scratching.
I felt a sense of kinship with the creature that surprised me, and immediately forgot about the old man.
“You like that?” I asked. I reached out with my other hand as well, and after a moment of uncertainty, the green and gold creature accepted double scratches at once, enjoying both the eye ridge rubs and under his jaw.
“Watch out for his teeth, though, mind,” said the old man. “They have quite a nasty bite, and the wounds can get infected.”
For some reason, I didn’t think my new friend would bite me. It seemed that in this foul, stinking place, I’d found a friend.
I didn’t know how long I sat there playing with my new friend before there was another disturbance. This time, it wasn’t a guard with a few ends of stale bread.
Someone was running a club back and forth along the bars, making an awful racket. The effect on the prisoners was dramatic. To a one, they cowered away from the front of the cell, giving me a clear view of who was there.
Rolf.
He was looking over the prisoners with a sneer on his face, and I knew he was looking for me.
I surged to my feet, spilling the rat dragon from where he had nestled himself in my lap. He made a grumpy trilling sound and turned away in a huff.
But my focus was on Rolf at the bars.
He saw me then, and his face split wide in a shit-eating grin.
“Mordie!” he said. “There you are, you bastard!”
8
I was caught midway between suspicion and relief. My first thought was that Rolf was here to get me out, as he’d done a time or two before. In fact, that’s how I’d met him. I’d been caught running a scam a few years ago, a betting thing with a simple wooden ball and three cups, where the marks had to bet on where the ball ended up. The way I worked it, I played it fair for the first go, but upped the bet on the second, and palmed the ball so the mark couldn’t get it right.
I’d made the mistake of targeting a young man with a heavy coin pouch and not much going on behind his eyes. But he turned out to be the kind to rat to his father, who just happened to be a noble in the King’s Court.
End result, I ended up in jail, with the prospect of losing a hand in my future.
Except Rolf had whispered a few words in the guard’s ears, slipped a coin into the right palm here and there, and I was back out on the street, bemused at my luck, but more than happy to accept the strange twist of fate.
It wasn’t until a few weeks after when Rolf had approached me to take part in a job.
However, I wasn’t entirely sure where I stood with him now. Or where he stood with me.
I picked my way across the cell, doing my best to avoid all the unpleasant things on the floor, and approached the bars simultaneously wanting to throttle him and hoping for freedom.
“Mordie, Mordie, Mordie,” he said. “You’re not half so pretty as usual, you know that? You really should learn how to protect that face of yours in a fight. It is by far your most valuable asset, and you’ve gone and made it look a right mess.”
He said it without the slightest shred of sympathy. In fact, unless I missed my guess, he was almost gloating. I felt a hard knot of anger form in the pit of my stomach and wanted to wipe the smirk from his face. But Rolf had always been a bastard, and just because he was sneering at me didn’t mean he wasn’t there to let me out.
So as much as I felt like reaching through the bars, gripping his balls, and giving them a hard twist, I gritted my teeth and kept my tongue civil.
“Yeah,” I said. “Next time, maybe tell your thugs to aim their kicks away from my head.”
At this, Rolf barked a laugh that I would have sworn was genuine, and for just a moment, I allowed myself to hope.
When he calmed down, I ventured a broken smile.
“So, you going to get me out of here?”
He didn’t answer directly. Instead, he stepped back from the bars as if to give himself room to look me over.
“You know,” he said finally, “in this world we live in, there’s two types of people. Those who have what it takes to get by, and those who do not. Winners and losers. Leaders, and the rest.”
He paused then as if chewing things over, and I felt a buildup of dread in the pit of my stomach, next to the hard knot of anger. Yet I didn’t say anything in return. Instead, I just waited, and eventually, he continued.
“Look at you, all beaten up, your boots missing, standing there in just your tunic and breaches. You’ve got nothing, don’t you? Nothing at all. And the funny thing is, when I first saw you, I figured you for someone who could have had it all.”
I didn’t know where he was going, and despite everything, my confusion must have shown most of all, because he laughed again.
But this time, his laughter was malignant. Aimed at me. And there was little in the way of humor in it.
“You’ve got the looks, that easy charm of yours. People are drawn to you, like flies are drawn to a pile of shit. Men, women, it’s like you lead a charmed life, and I once thought you were destined for so much more.”
And then he paused, as if waiting for me to confirm or deny the truth of his words.
Again, I said nothing, even though his words rang partly true. But it wasn’t by chance. I’d learned early on that some people were drawn to me, and that they would often give me things as a result. Just offered to me, out of the blue.
I liked it. It seemed an easy way to live. Not only did it lead to all sorts of fun times, especially where the women were concerned, but it also helped me out of the old tight spot as well.
What Rolf didn’t know was that I’d worked hard to broaden my appeal as much as I could. Because I liked being that guy, the one everyone wanted to know.
So I learned how to say the right thing at the right time, how to give a gentle nudge just when I needed, to get the outcome I wanted.
Rolf hadn’t finished, though, and when I didn’t respond, he continued. “But that’s just the half of it. You’ve got skills as well. As a thief, there aren’t many better than you, and as a con artist–well, you had our friend Anwen wrapped around your pinky within seconds, didn’t you?” he barked another laugh. “Why, I bet she would have got down in the mud and polished your knob with her tongue right there in public if you’d asked her to. Am I right?”
I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of an answer to that, so I said, “Do you have a point?”
His grin returned, but there was nothing friendly about it. Instead, it was wolfish. Predatory. And I was his prey. That hard knot in my stomach grew.
“Of course I have a point!” he said. “My point is that you could have had it all! Skills like yours, you’re not even that bad when it comes to a fight. But you have no ambition! No drive for success! Here’s you, five years after I pulled you out of this place and where are you? You’re right back in here!”
“And whose fault is that, exactly?” I asked him, trying my best to keep the anger out of my voice, but I was fighting a losing battle.
He ignored my question. “In five years, you’ve done nothing! If I had your gifts, I’d be fucking the King’s consort herself, and ruling this godforsaken place! But you! You are still the same petty thief and wannabe crook you’ve always been.”
I was starting to wonder if Rolf had come here just to gloat. But I was largely content with what I had, and had never really asked for more. I had friends all over the city, mostly women who were happy to put me up for a night, and I never went hungry. Beyond that–what else could I possibly want?
“So, you think I’m the loser,” I said finally. “The follower to your leader. So what if I am? What’s wrong with that?”
His wolfish grin remained firmly in place. But again, he didn’t answer my question directly. “You know, that woman, the merchant’s daughter. Anwen. Turns out, she was more than just a pretty face. She had been marked, you see, by the King’s seneschal as a future consort of the King himself. She was set to be part of his harem. And you know what that means?” he asked.
I had no clue what he was talking about, so I shook my head.
“It means kidnapping her was a much more serious crime than any of us knew.”
At Rolf’s words, a number of pieces fell into place. I began sweating with anxiety, and I stared at my one-time friend with increasing concern.
“Are you going to get me out of here?” I repeated, and this time, I could hear the way my voice broke at the end.
Rolf heard it too, and he once more laughed in my face. “Funny thing about the King’s consorts,” he said. “He thinks of them as his property. And you know how he responds to threats to his property? When news broke that Anwen had been kidnapped, he went into a fury. He sent precious Lancelot and the full squad of his personal guard to the dockside, to the storage room where Anwen had been kept. And you know what they found there?”
Me, I thought, but I didn’t want to say it.
“You!” Rolf said, sounding more than pleased with himself. “Just you, unconscious on the floor, with a number of fresh bruises on your face.”
Rolf licked his lips. “Of course, they brought you back in a cage, and asked Anwen if you had anything to do with her kidnapping. She fingered you right away. Said you were the one who led her into the ambush.” Then he shrugged. “So much for your charm. She made it clear that she blamed you most of all.”
My heart dropped at the news. But I couldn’t blame her. Anwen had only told the truth.
My only regret was that I had betrayed her at all.
“Are you going to get me out of here?” I asked for the third time, even though I already knew the answer. “Or what?”
Rolf stood there, just out of reach on the other side of the bars, and grinned his shit-eating grin. “The King takes any threat to his property very seriously, and he knows that your precious Anwen was kidnapped. He also knows that the main perpetrator has been captured. There won’t be a trial. Your guilt is already established. You are set to be hung from the neck, until you are dead, at noon tomorrow.”
“What?” I blurted. Even though everything Rolf had said rang true, I couldn’t believe it. I was to be hanged? I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Rolf, get me out of here. You can do it. I know you can.”
Rolf’s expression didn’t change. He kept watching me, kept smiling, kept gloating.
“Rolf? What are you waiting for? Get me out of here!”
“Mordie, Mordie, Mordie,” Rolf repeated. “Weren’t you listening when I started my tale? I told you. In this world, there are winners and losers. I am a winner, and you are a loser.”
“Rolf! Come on, you’ve had your fun, now let’s get this over with. Let me out of here!” I knew pleading was worthless, but I couldn’t help myself at this point.
“Sorry, but it can’t be done. The King demands blood, and someone needs to hang. And it isn’t going to be me.”
I grabbed hold of the bars and began to shake them. “Rolf! This isn’t funny anymore!”
“I find it as funny as hell! But if it makes you feel any better, then know I was going to have to kill you at some point anyway. You’re just not cut out for this type of thing.” His expression became even more of a sneer. “And, really, it’s your own fault that you’re here. I’ve seen you move. I know how quick you are, and how strong. You could have gutted Durstan before he could move, and maybe even Bryce, and we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation. But you didn’t. You don’t fight to win.”
Again, everything Rolf said rang true, and his words stung. I had held myself back. Always did.
Durstan was much slower than me, and I knew it.
Even when I picked up the pole, instead of using it just to keep the two Blackcoats back, I could have jammed the end of it against either of their throats or swung it hard at their heads.
But for some reason, I hadn’t done that. I’d fought as if it was a competition, as if I was practicing. And this was the result.
I shook the bars harder. Suddenly, that knot of anger I kept deep inside erupted. I was furious, both at myself and at Rolf. Because as sure as it was my fault that I was behind bars, it was his as well.
“You son of a fuck!” I shouted at him. “You let me out of here, or so help me, I’m gonna–”
Deliberately, the arrogant bastard took a step forward, close enough that I could reach him if I wanted to.
“You’re going to what?” he demanded, and I could sense the power coming off him in waves. Rolf wasn’t the biggest of the Blackcoats, or even the strongest. But he’d never lost in a fight. Not against anyone. No matter the skill with a blade or his fists, no opponent could match Rolf for sheer ferocity or willingness to win.
I could have reached through the bars and grabbed him by the throat, but he would likely break my arms. Instead, I grated at him.
“I’ll tell them that you were there, too! You, Bryce, and Durstan! If I am to be hanged for this, then I am taking you down with me!”
At this, Rolf laughed long and hard. Never once did he step back out of my reach.
“You can try,” he said. “Shout it as loud as you like. Keep shouting my name as you swing from the gallows. No one will believe you. And even if they do, they won’t give a shit.”
With that, Rolf did take a step back, but not to get out of my reach. He was just admiring the view one more time, maybe taking a mental picture that he could look at again and again in the future, and gloat in private triumph once more.
“I’ll be seeing you,” he said, and with that, he turned and sauntered away.
I watched him go, feeling a mix of emotions. I was distraught. Betrayed. Angry. At the same time, the horror of my imminent demise loomed large in my mind.
I howled for Rolf to return and began shaking the bars with all my strength. In moments, I’d worked myself into a frenzy, screaming Rolf’s name and hurling the vilest curses I knew at his retreating back. The guards listened to my fury for no more than a minute before taking Rolf’s place before me. I ignored them and kept shaking the bars, only stopping when the guards started beating my hands with their clubs.
Not even the fury of madness could stand up to that sort of treatment. I flinched my bruised and bloodied fingers back through the bars. I wanted to shout at Rolf some more, but the moment had passed, and my throbbing hands wouldn’t let me.
Instead, with my fury and hatred turning into emptiness and despair, I made my way to the back of the cell and reclaimed my spot next to the corpse that the rat dragons were eating.
