Chel watched the drip form, watched the water congregate and swell, marking the heartbeats until it fell. His estimation was improving.
‘What are you counting?’ Rennic glowered from his straw-covered pallet in the cell’s opposite corner. His jaw was still swollen, but he could see through both eyes again now.
‘Nothing.’
An icy wind blew from the grille at the top of the cell wall, carrying a few drifting snowflakes from the courtyard beyond with the shouts and clatter of activity. The scaffold was being prepared again. From down the cell-block came the perpetual sounds of captive misery, the shuffling, whimpering aimlessness of multitudes held against their will. More had come, over the days that followed; the bulk of the Rau Rel force, the regulars and mercenaries, even some of the minor nobles who had lent their arms, then anyone who could be identified, however hazily, beyond that. The scaffold had gone up pretty promptly afterward.
Chel pondered, between the drips. He thought of the tower-top. He thought of the princes. He thought of Brecki the reaver’s smile as she’d watched them in the camp.
Footsteps echoed on the stairway, the clanking, juddering steps of an armoured company approaching. Torchlight flared against the walls beyond the cell’s screen of bars, lighting the grim stone with an almost cosy warmth it did not deserve. The monstrous gaoler stirred in her chair, shifting in discomfort at the arrival of someone of presumed importance.
Corvel marched straight past them to the cell beyond. He didn’t even turn his head to look in as he passed. The thin band of gold at his temple gleamed as he walked, his bearing regal, his rich cloak the colour of cream edged with crimson. A silver brooch in the shape of a familiar flower shone from his throat. Chel wondered if he was still pretending to be stupid. A phalanx of armoured confessors followed him down the steps, the massive form of Brother Hurkel at their head.
‘Who else, Palo?’
No reply came from the next cell.
‘I know the late Watcher was your blood. What about the rest of your family? Who are they? Where are they? You have to tell me something. You know people are suffering. You’re supposed to care about the people, remember? That was the whole point.’
No answer again. Corvel leaned back against the wall, into Chel’s eyeline.
‘This is all very noble, but you’re only making things worse.’
Silence.
‘Very well.’ The prince made a quick signal with his hand. Armoured footsteps sounded, and a familiar, urgent terror gripped Chel until he heard one of the cells at the block’s dank end opened with an ominous groan, its occupants dragged struggling and screaming from within: two more of the regulars sent by the Names. Still no sign of Lemon, Foss, Loveless or Whisper. Perhaps they’d done as Rennic ordered and escaped the citadel after all. He dearly hoped so.
‘I shall be king soon,’ Corvel said, quite conversational, as the men were dragged away. ‘Word’s out about Father, and, well, Primarch Vassad’s end was rather public, wasn’t it? Strangest thing, it turns out he took the trouble to name me successor to both his estates and sacred duties, even though I’m not even a man of the cloth! So now I have to organize a coronation. We can wait for spring, I think, get a good turnout on the free way, grubby little hands waving in the sun. Perhaps I’ll strike a new coin. The plebs love a new coin, don’t they?’
Corvel grinned. His smile was nothing like the amiable jollity Chel had witnessed when he was Mendel.
‘I shall miss our chats, Ayla. Until next time.’
He turned and swept from the cells, the red-robed battalion in pursuit after Hurkel’s lumbering steps. Chel avoided the big man’s gaze as he departed. One of the guards lingered, hesitating before their cell, a flickering torch in hand. A narrow figure, small for a confessor, hood pulled forward over the head. Chel leaned forward, squinting into the hood’s darkness.
A pair of silver-grey eyes looked back, tearful but burning with purpose.
‘Don’t give up, Brother Bear. I’m going to get you out of here.’
Then Sabina was gone, footsteps echoing from the cold stone of the under-cells, her torchlight fading from the harsh, ugly walls.
Heart thumping in his chest, fingers tingling, Chel shuffled back on the creaking bench, stared up at where a new drip was forming, and dared to hope.