The Unsuitable Slave. (NC-17) Part 19/34
On the fifth morn there were no distant hills to stare upon, no sky to share with Jensen and no sun to bless him upon. Fog shrouded the fortress, clung to it, insidious and choking. He had instructions, completed the act with a fast physical release and a spurt of warm fluid which he wiped quickly with a cloth. He felt no connection to his Master, wondered if he still existed, out there, beyond his own confined world.
He wandered through the rooms, trailed his hand over smooth polished furniture and pondered the various paintings. His fingers feathered over the contours of De’ith and worried on a replica of Mount Burma. He stood in the middle of the study and turned slowly, taking in the models, the open books and the stacks of parchment on Jensen’s desk. He removed his cuffs with deliberation and placed them on the side of the muddled work surface.
Jared started with the documents in the center. He glanced at each paper, dismissing them quickly. Beneath the stack of parchment he found two volumes. One ancient tome and another, modern edition, were dog eared, bookmarked and folded in on each other. More peculiarly, they had been marked with notes written in the margins in Jensen’s neat hand. Jared took them in his hand and his breath caught as he recognized the formal edition of The Sciptures and then noted the faded and dusty antique version presented in a long disused dialect. He touched it reverently, smoothed across the decaying pages and frowned. He had never seen such an old version of The Scriptures, even the most secure vault of the library, in his childhood home, had no such thing.
***
The fog started to dissipate as the mid-morning sun burned at its edges. Jared stirred in the chair where he sat with the two books of Scripture. He checked Jensen’s translations of the key sections over again. His nails were bitten to the quick, frayed and with blood leaking at the fingertips. He finished reading and stared into space. The sheer scale of the betrayal of his family, of his people, of the entire Realm was overwhelming. He gripped at the modern book, he wanted to rip it, let it flutter in tiny, hateful confetti, into a fire. Sense won over. Some way, somehow, there would be a way to reveal all of this and put it right. The research was needed. He raised his arm and threw the book hard at the opposite wall, let it slam and slide against the stone. He smacked his own hand onto the solid desk top, felt it bruise and hit harder until there was a crack of bone shattering in his smallest finger with a splintering sharp pain that could compete with the agony of this knowledge. He deserved this damage, stupid foolish, unquestioning sheep that he was. Jensen deserved for his property to be damaged because Jensen had known and said nothing.
The pain in his hand screeched for his attention, he wrenched the desk drawers out looking for something to use as a splint and binding. He tipped them on the floor in anger, watching herbs, quills, and papers spill, roll, and settle. There was an essay on plants for use in treatments of all types of illness and injury and another on their use in poisoning and simulation of ailments. He passed them over with a cursory glance but his attention caught on a description of the use of poisons to produce the symptoms of heart weariness. He had seen the interest in plants from the first days with Jensen, they were littered about his rooms in bundles but it still seemed a strange hobby for a warrior.
He found a silk tie and bound his hand then surveyed his surroundings and repeated his actions on the cabinets and storage throughout the study. He ransacked the room and found no trace of Jensen’s whereabouts or of his mission. He didn’t think he’d even found a clue to the man’s true character or allegiances. Standing in the scattered debris of his destruction he saw the sunlight finally break through. A ray shone bright across the study and lit the cause of his meltdown, where it lay on the floor. A small piece of parchment had fluttered from its covers. He picked it up between the long fingers of his undamaged hand, traced over the short note, in Jensen’s neat writing;
Jared
Did you really think I’d leave details of my whereabouts?
I guess you’ve read my research. You aren’t ready to know this, how can you ever be ready for this? I wanted to tell you but I think I already mentioned that I’m selfish. I couldn’t risk losing you.
Forgive me for what I am about to do, just know, I did the only thing that I could.
Jx
A realization seeped slowly into his consciousness, lodged and grew until it spilled in spoken word, gushed loudly to the empty space “I am not deviant. There is no such thing as deviant.” There was never a choice, never a distinction. No form of love was ever supposed to be ostracized or twisted. “I am NOT wrong.”
He came to himself in horror as more sunshine pushed through the window and he looked again at the disorder created by his outburst, noted the position of the sun in the sky and observed that Chad was late to practice. He had broken the rules, disobeyed his Master on every level. He had damaged his property and searched through his study, a stipulation which had so recently been reinforced with punishment. He ached for discipline, needed the absolution of carefully applied censure and the hurt of Jensen not being there to enforce it, was almost physical.
He confined Hope to her box and busied himself tidying the mess he had made.
Chad never arrived.
The study was practically restored to its natural state when Alona breezed in. “We’re going to try something different today,” she said, too cheerfully, and picked up his cuffs. “Here, you’ll need these on.” She snapped a medium chain between the ankle cuffs and gave a small smile which didn’t reach her eyes and he knew.
Jared spoke softly “It’s alright Alona. It's orders, you have to follow them. Just tell me what I have to do.”
She looked as if she were about to cry. She rubbed at her eye, “Er, wrists behind your back Child.” She fixed them and tested the hold before clipping a heavy leash to his collar and snapping it to a ring on the nearby wall. She clicked the ball gag into place in his mouth and stepped away. “I have to let them in now.”
He nodded.
Ethan kissed Alona’s forehead, “Good Girl. You should go now.” She took one last, sad look at Jensen’s slave before turning into the hallway, lost from his sight.
There were two large and surly sentries with Ethan. He closed the door and locked it. The chocolate eyes burned with hate and rage, the small body was held stiff as he stood before Jared. The slave dropped his gaze in submission and waited for the small man to speak. He was caught off guard as Ethan barreled into him and swung a hefty punch to his guts. “I trusted you. He trusted you. He loved you. Where is he? What did you do?” He was yelling, voice high with passion and loss.
Jared dropped to the floor, wheezing for breath and banging his broken hand against the wall, his vision blacked briefly but he gathered himself rapidly, stayed on his knees before them.
The sentries fought Ethan off, pulling him away as he kicked a harsh blow to the slave’s ribs. “Nobody likes a traitor, Child.” Ethan spoke coldly as he struggled to be allowed to stand. “You have no idea what I want to do to you for this. I imagine the King will let me have my way, but first you are going with these gentlemen. You are going to tell them where Jensen is and what you plan to do with him.”
The leash was removed and Jared was hauled up with a sentry grasping each arm and dragging him to the corridor.
“Wait!” Ethan reached to a pocket and returned his hand with a set of bolt clippers “I came prepared.” He grabbed at Jared’s hair and pulled his head back. “Leave it there or I won’t be responsible for the damage.” he hissed. He pulled the black collar forward, slipped the cutters in and pressed the handle. Suddenly Jared saw the intention and he could no longer stay still and silent. He struggled and writhed, screeched behind the ball as the collar was destroyed and slid from his neck. The small man held the broken loop for him to see. “You’re not worthy of this. You never were.”
A tear slid down Jared's cheek as they dragged him away. The punishment was already too much to bear.
***
They dressed him in a simple prison shift and chained him to a solid, stiff backed chair by a wrought iron table. There was large ewer of water and a mug within reach but his hands were chained. His gag was removed and he was forced to be still while a vile paste was painted in his mouth and a funnel placed to the back of his throat.
“This should be simple enough for you to swallow.” The paste burned an acid path down Jared's throat to his belly, where it roiled and flared bubbling pain. They reinserted the gag, left him and closed the door with the clatter of a heavy lock. The cell was solid, no light penetrated from any source and there was not a single noise to be heard. Jared waited for his eyes to adjust to the cloying dark but there was no relief with time. The pain in his guts grew until it was an unrelenting, savage blade, serrated, twisting and cruel. The thirst started soon after, raging and dizzying in the force of his need for water. Still he was left alone here. He could not see the water, the jug and the mug but he knew it was there, could shut his eyes and recall its position and the tantalizing vision of its clear, cold medicine.
He wondered if he should be flattered by the expense his tormentors had gone to, Dragonweed and Witches Wyrt are the most tortuous combination of poisons when mixed with common salt. They are a rare and inordinately expensive form of torture with an incredibly simple cure, water, gallons of it, taken within six hours to prevent a hideously painful death through the rapid dessication of internal organs.
He tried to calculate the passage of time but he was disoriented and confused. There were pin sharp pains through every nerve of his body and his bowels lurched ominously.
This was wrong, he was Jensen’s. He wasn’t permitted to damage this body. They only had to ask and he would tell them everything that Jensen had instructed him he could, but they had taken his collar and clothed him as a captured enemy. They had taken his coveted position as Court Slave and reassigned him ‘spy’. Only my Master can do that, he thought with a sudden flare of anger, only Jensen could tell him he was disowned. He would refuse to accept it from anybody else and would do everything in his power to wait for him, to be there for him, however long it took.
***
The pain should have driven tears down his cheeks in rivulets, except he couldn’t cry. His eyes were sticky with heat and every blink scratched and scraped across the drying orb. There was no saliva to swallow and still he remained alone in oppressive coal-black silence. If they didn’t come soon there would be no recovery.
The arrival of his interrogator was announced with the shocking glare of a bright potassium-lantern and a crashing thump of the door. It was a deliberately impressive entrance. He blinked and flinched at the agony of it.
The man had the posture of a senior officer with fine clothing and an elderly face. “Hello Child.” he said and raised a cup of hot coffee and a horse whip in salutation. He took his time dragging his own chair into a comfortable position and sipped at his drink as he stared thoughtfully at the young brunette. There was the sound of a grate being opened in the cell door, but there was no way of seeing who was watching them.
The man put his own cup and the whip on the table and made a show of lifting the ewer and pouring water into the mug, he pushed it to the very extreme of the table, within inches of Jared, so he could see the air bubbles rise and the meniscus settle as the fluid calmed. Jared gave a rasped whine and raised his yellowing eyes in a silent plea. His torturer got out of his seat and moved to perch on the table by the water and next to Jared. He picked up the whip and flicked it casually. The end caught on the slave’s arm and air whistled through his gagged mouth as he gasped in pained shock.
“I am told that once the body is dry, the skin loses its elasticity and the application of such a whip becomes, far, far more painful. What do you think, Child?” Jared nodded an agreement and he placed the whip back on the table. “Do you know what it is that we had you swallow Child?”
Jared nodded affirmation.
“Good. You have been here for three hours so we both know how much time you have left if I choose not to give you water. What I do not know is what sort of danger Prince Jensen is in and how much time he has left. Will you speak to me if I let you drink?” he spoke deliberately kindly.
Jared nodded again, tried to move his tongue behind the gag, but it was stuck dry to the roof of his mouth.
***
He drank thirstily from the mug that was tipped to his lips and the officer withdrew it “Ah, ah! Just enough to allow speech.” Jared moaned at the loss. The water was like nectar, refreshing and delicious he kept a little in his mouth without swallowing and rolled it around his gums and over his tongue in an attempt to wash the paste away.
“Where is Prince Jensen, Child?”
“He would not tell where he was headed Sir, and it is not my business.”
“Tch.” The whip came down hard behind him, landing in a red hot stripe of pain over his hands. Jared tried to order the thoughts in his fading, dried mind.
“He left a note with Lady Victoria.” His tongue was thick and heavy, the words were slurred and hoarse. The interviewer was a blur of color in his fading vision.
“Speak up.”
Jared tried but he couldn’t form words. His interrogator poured more water and let him drink. He dipped his hand in the jug and allowed a merciful drip over the young slave’s brows and into his eyes.
“He wrote a note. He made a letter and gave it to Lady Victoria.”
The officer looked to the observer behind the grate and shook his head. There was the sound of it shutting and the man sat again on the corner of the table by Jared and proffered the mug. He drank it dry and sighed. His breath was rattling in his chest and he coughed. His ribs were too tight on his lungs and he gritted his teeth with the effort of breathing in.
“Why did you continue with the charade that the Prince was present? How long has he been gone?”
He tried to remember, to count the dawns but it was muddled. “Five I think, five days. He commanded me to do this. I am his slave.” He repeated himself, allowed himself to feel the familiarity of his Master’s cuffs on his wrists and ankles. “I am his slave.”
“No. That was your cover. You are a spy. You need to think harder Child. He would not trust a slave over his brother, over Ethan. How can you think we will fall for that?” He lifted the whip once more and Jared shrank back into his chair, ready for the blow but it didn’t come.
He struggled to find the right words, to make this man understand. “I am Jensen’s slave. My Master trusted me to care less than The King and Ethan. They love him too much to let him do this, they would have saved him from himself and Jensen didn’t want that. He wanted the opportunity to save others, to save them.”
The officer tipped his head and tapped a finger on his lip. He seemed to consider Jared’s statement carefully. “You still call him Master. You would prefer to die a lowly slave rather than a hero of the Realm, the man who gave them Prince Jensen?” He gave the brunette another drink, fixed the hazel eyes open with his fingers and dripped water into them then closed the lids briefly with his thumbs and dripped more on the lashes.
“No. I would prefer to live and serve at my Master’s side when he returns.”
“Child of the Realm, why should you assist the Kingdom that enslaved you? Soldier, why would you betray your own people?”
Jared gave a sarcastic laugh which degraded into a wheezing and pained cough. “My people are betrayed already, by their own Governance. Jensen thought he could return a Treaty. He will return a Treaty.” Jared had so little left to trust in, he would not think on the forgiveness his Master had asked for, he would believe in Jensen until the stars burned out and his bones were earth.
More water. It bathed his mouth and sated his throat but his stomach cramped and seized at the contact, he was being ripped apart from the inside out. He tried to double over, curl in on himself but the bindings kept him straight and he keened with a pathetic whine.
“Is it too much?” his interviewer asked coolly.
Jared gave a strangled sob and nodded. No false courage remained, only desperation.
“There are faster treatments, if you co-operate.”
“I am giving you everything.” It was a wretched plea.
There was the sound of the door grate being opened and his interrogator pushed off the table. “Think on it for a moment Child. I will be back.”
He took the lantern with him and slammed the door behind him, Jared found himself couched in dark silence once more. He was sure the time was too long. He could feel the paper tightness of his skin over cramped muscle and screeching innards. Every breath was a fight against his stiffened lungs.
***
The door opened and a lantern was gradually introduced. His tormentor brought a second ewer of water with him and poured some straight away, put it to his lips and rubbed at his belly while he drank. The touch surprised him and his eyes widened as he tried to focus on the man. More water was dripped into his eyes.
“Who were the men that Prince Jensen departed with, Child?”
“If he wanted you to know, he would have written it for you.”
The soft touch on his belly was removed as a sharp back-handed slap met his cheek and had him reel in his chair. “Don’t be stubborn. I will remove your water. If you are being truthful then you know that the Prince would not want you permanently damaged. Will you defy your Master, Child?”
The gentle massage of his stomach resumed.
Five days, his Master was five days out and whatever it was that he hoped to achieve he was either committed to the task or failed and dead, or worse. The Realm’s troops were closing in on the fortress within weeks or days of them. He could see it making no difference if he told. “There was a Captain of the Queen’s Guard and his soldier. They were familiar to me. He was not forced but neither were they. They were amicable, allied in some way. Please, it’s all I know Sir.” He turned blurry, begging eyes on the man before him and slumped, defeated and agonized, in his chair.
The questions continued, answers were repeated back to him in twisted variation and he struggled to answer correctly. There was a peculiar sense of superiority that they did not seem to know the right questions to get the best answers. Never once did they question the lowly slave's birthright or name. If he could have smirked at that, he would have. He didn't because his sensibility was fast disappearing into the dark, swirling void of coma.
“One more thing,” the man looked toward the door, as if taking instruction, “Are you in love with him? Child, do you love Prince Jensen?”
He couldn’t see the relevance of the question, it had to be a trick. He remained silent. Water sloshed into the mug and he reached his lips for it. At the last moment it was pulled away and he heard the awful splash of wasted liquid upon the floor. He was dying and too weary to lie. “I love him. I didn’t want to die without him beside me.” He rasped the last with labored breath and a deep frown upon his features. He felt the mug upon his lips but he was too weak to take it. Cold hands grabbed at his face and tipped his head back. He felt a funnel tube being forced into his throat and the rush of cold liquid into his protesting gut.
The officer left him there, with the funnel still in place and he heard whispered consultation at the door of the cell and an instruction to fetch the Physician. There was Ethan’s voice, a shade louder now, “…as much water as you can…”
He let his eyelids scrape down over his aching eyes as he descended into the flickering, flaming, black fires of Hell and that was fine because he had always known he wasn’t good enough. He was always going to end here.
Masterpost
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Part Twenty