Prisoner of the Iron Tower (13 page)

Pavel glanced up. This was his moment. In the golden candleglow, he saw that all the guests were looking expectantly at the Emperor. Astasia had inclined her dark head toward her husband.

She looks at him as if she worships him. Is she a skillful actress—or is that genuine, unfeigned affection?

“And it is my pleasure, this evening, to honor the loyal service of one whose actions preserved much of this beautiful palace in the recent insurrection—Colonel Anton Roskovski.”

Eugene must have an ironic sense of humor, Pavel thought, to have chosen his old nemesis from the Military Academy. This should prove interesting.

“What?” muttered Valery Vassian to Pavel under the cover of the polite applause that greeted the announcement. “Rabid Roskovski?”

Pavel shrugged, watching the colonel rise to acknowledge the applause with a stiff military bow. Any moment now—

“Colonel, in recognition of your service to Muscobar and the empire, I am pleased to bestow upon you the house and country estate that belonged to the late Count Velemir. As the Count died without legitimate heirs, it seems to me only fitting that you should—”

“Without legitimate heirs?” cried Pavel, leaping to his feet and upsetting his chair. “That estate is rightfully mine!”

“Steady there, Pavel.” Vassian rose too, catching hold of him by the arm. “You must have taken a drop too much—”

Pavel shook off Vassian’s restraining hand and started toward Roskovski. Everyone was staring at him. “I am Velemir’s nephew!” Pavel reached the head of the table. He could sense the stir among guests and servants, knew that at any moment now, he would be wrestled to the ground and thrown out.

“How dare you, sir!” spluttered Roskovski. If Eugene had forewarned him, he was more than adequate to the role of the insulted party. “How dare you make a scene in front of the Emperor and Empress!”

“I demand my rights!” Pavel shouted. “I’ll duel you for it, Roskovski. Pistols at dawn in the Water Meadows—”

“I believe your fight is with me, young man,” Eugene said coolly. “The Velemir estates are mine to dispose of as I choose. You are quite obviously not fit to take on the responsibility.” He clicked his fingers and four of the Imperial Household Cavalry hurried in. “Remove this man immediately.”

“You Tielen lackey, Roskovski! Call yourself a Muscobite—”

As the guards wrestled him to the polished floor, Pavel caught a glimpse of Astasia’s pale face staring at him, her dark eyes wide with dismay. And for a brief moment, he felt ashamed.

What must you think of me, Astasia? One day, maybe you’ll learn why.

Then one of the guards struck him a stinging blow on the chin and he sagged in their grip. As they half-dragged, half-carried him from the dining room, he heard the shocked whispers begin.

They flung him out onto the square at the front of the palace. As he picked himself up off the cobbles, he yelled out for good measure, “d’you think you can treat me like this, Eugene, and get away with it? You haven’t heard the last of me. You haven’t heard the last of Pavel Velemir!”

His jaw throbbed. That guard had hit him pretty hard.

And so my new career begins. With a jawful of jangled teeth and a swollen face.

Ruefully, he limped away in search of some ice.

CHAPTER
11

Gavril opens his eyes. It is past midnight in the Iron Tower and his cell is utterly dark. And yet he senses that he is not alone.

“Who’s there?”

Eyes glimmer in the darkness, blue as starlight. And something blacker than the darkness itself rears up out of the night until it towers above his bed.

“I have returned, Gavril Nagarian.”

“Drakhaoul?” His heart is pounding with fear and a wild, unbidden joy. “Why have you come back?”

“You could not live with me—but now you cannot live without me. Do you want to stay here until your body withers with age?”

Stay here until he is a frail old man too senile to remember how long he has been imprisoned, too damaged to care? He springs up from the bed. He turns to face his banished daemon, arms wide to embrace it.

“Take me, then. Take me away from this place.”

The Drakhaoul enfolds him, close, closer, until he is drowning in an ecstasy of shadows . . .

His body spasms, arching in one final convulsion of possession—and from somewhere buried deep within him he hears that subtle voice whisper in triumph.

“Now you are mine again, Gavril. Now we act, we think, as one.”

His sight blurs, then clears. Suddenly he can see everything in the moonless dark of the cell. He can hear the sounds of the night, from the wheezing snores of the prisoner in the cell below his to the tick of the clock in the exercise-yard tower. He can even smell the tobacco smoke wafting from the warden’s pipe and the brine of the waves pounding the cliffs below the Iron Tower. Until now, he has forgotten how the Drakhaoul sharpens every sense.

“What are you waiting for, Gavril?”
the daemon whispers.
“Go to the window. Tear out the bars. Feel the salt of the sea breeze on your face. Launch yourself out onto the wild wind . . .”

Gavril opened his eyes, the Drakhaoul’s soft voice still echoing in his mind.

It was raining. The drab brown of the cell walls enclosed him, lit by the dull dawn light that streaked the stones.

His world was bathed in a wash of sepia. The rain showered against the Iron Tower in erratic bursts—a dirty-colored rain, not silver shot with sunlight. The clouds hung low in the sky, layer upon layer, heavy with more rain to come.

So it had just been a dream. A cruel illusion of escape and freedom, made crueler still by the fact that it had seemed so real.

Gavril lay motionless, staring up at the square of rain-wet sky, striped with metal bars. Once, when he and the Drakhaoul had been one, he could have used the daemon’s strength to wrench the bars from their sockets, then flown free on powerful shadow-wings. But now there was no hope of escape from this bleak prison. Even his name had been taken from him.

Gavril blinked in the daylight. The paving slabs glistened, wet and slippery underfoot. A warder was taking him to the exercise yard. Gavril walked slowly, dragging his feet, hearing the clank of his shackled ankles. The touch of the rain on his shaven head was cool and refreshing. There was a slight smell of damp earth in the air that reminded him of spring. He wondered what day it was. What month.

“I will come for you. . . .”
He heard himself making the promise to Kiukiu that he would now never be able to keep. He pictured her going to the door of her grandmother’s cottage and gazing out over the empty moors, day after day. Who was there to protect her, now that he was gone? What would happen if the Tielens came searching for her?

“Keep up, there.” His warder sounded impatient.

As he walked, Gavril examined in his mind the events at Kastel Drakhaon. Every day it was the same; he found himself obsessively going over what had happened, trying to work out how he could have better planned the defense of his domain. The Tielens had outmaneuverd him; their military strategic experience was far superior to his own. Karonen had taken out his lookouts before they could even raise the alarm. By the time the warning reached the kastel, it was too late to run.

But where could I have run to? And what price would my people have been forced to pay for my cowardice?

“No!
No!
” It was a man’s voice, almost incoherent with rage and despair. “Let go of me!”

Gavril’s warder ran ahead through the archway. Gavril tried to run too, but the shackles tripped him and he fell to one knee. In the courtyard beyond he saw another prisoner struggling with several warders.

“I’m not mad! It’s all a fabrication!” yelled the man. “I know secrets! State secrets that could bring down Eugene’s empire!”

“Silence, Thirteen.” One of the warders struck him hard across the mouth and the prisoner’s wild shouting changed into a yelp of pain. The next moment, Gavril saw him kick out and send one of the warders flying.

“I
will
be heard! I will—”

It took four warders to hold him down, kicking and writhing, on the wet pavement. The one who had struck him hit him hard once more, causing a fountain of blood to spurt from his nose. The prisoner let out a gargling cry, but still twisted and fought in the hands of the warders.

“Enough!” Gavril started forward, with no idea in his head but to stop the beating.

“Stay back, Twenty-One.” His warder glanced around. “Stay out of this.”

“Let him be. Can’t you see he’s hurt?” cried Gavril, still coming on, fists clenched.

“And unless you want a taste of the same treatment, you’ll stay back.”

Gavril halted. He looked down at his clenched fists and saw the shackles around his wrists. He was as powerless as the wretched Thirteen.

“I want to see a lawyer.” The protests began once more, more mumbled than shouted this time, from a bleeding, broken mouth. “I demand another trial. A fair trial!”

“Get him back to his cell.”

Still protesting, Thirteen was dragged away. By now his coarse prison shirt and breeches were torn and stained.

Gavril’s warder exchanged quiet words with Thirteen’s warder, a little distance away. “This has happened once too often. Tell the director.”

Thirteen’s warder nodded and followed after his charge.

“Was it necessary to hit him so hard?” Gavril said, anger still simmering.

His warder did not reply.

“Well? Was it?”

His warder turned and stared at him, his eyes hard with hostility.

“What makes you think you have the right to express an opinion?”

Gavril stared back, at a loss for words. The prison clock struck the hour, a dull, unmelodious chime.

“Speak out like that again and you’ll be disciplined. Severely disciplined. Now, back to your cell.”

“And my exercise time?” Gavril demanded.

“You heard the clock. Exercise time is over.”

In the darkness, Gavril lay awake, unable to sleep. Somewhere in the Iron Tower below, another prisoner was weeping, a crazed, droning sound that went on and on.

Had he been tortured to let out such wretched cries? Or was this the madness that set in after years of incarceration in Arnskammar? Surely he must stop soon. . . .

Gavril tried to block out the desolate sound of weeping, burying his head under the thin, scratchy blanket. If only he could sleep. But his mind was restless, churning over the thoughts and fears that the daylight kept at bay. The only escape was in dreams. He lived more in the world of his dreams than in the drabness of his cold, rain-chilled cell. In his dreams he was not a prisoner. In his dreams he was not Twenty-One, or even Gavril Nagarian. In his dreams he was free. . . .

Colors shimmer in the air around him, so vivid he can taste them: yellow, tart as lemon zest; purple, heavy with the musky sweetness of autumn grapes; sea-aquamarine, tinged with a hint of brine; fern-green and gold of anise-savored fennel . . .

Now he can glimpse translucent forms darting and swooping around him. He senses the beat of wings, fast and light as a bird’s, stirring soft whirring vibrations in the scented air. Brilliant eyes glimmer close, staring at him with curiosity, then blink and vanish. He feels the kiss of gossamer-soft lips, breathing spice-scented breath . . .

He raises his hand to greet these fleeting apparitions, overcome with delight and wonder—and feels himself slowly borne upward with them, light as a drift of soap bubbles . . .

Gavril awoke to hear the splatter of wind-driven raindrops against the roof slates of the Iron Tower. His mind was still filled with swirling colors; his body still felt light enough to float. The Drakhaoul’s memories must be seeping into his dreams again. The images were richly sensual, yet tainted with a disturbing aura of darkness. He did not want to be drawn back into the darkness.

In prison in Mirom he was sure he had heard the Drakhaoul’s voice. But if the Drakhaoul was still at large in the world, why had he not heard it since that night? Madmen heard “voices” that told them to commit terrible deeds. Did that mean he was truly mad?

He pulled his blanket closer, listening to the incessant patter of the rain overhead. He wished he could dream of more comforting things. He tried to picture his bedchamber at the kastel: his father’s hunting tapestries of red and gold; the warmth of the burning pine logs in the grate, the aromatic scent of the curling smoke evoking the green shadows of the great forest of Kerjhenezh that lay beyond the kastel walls. And Kiukiu kneeling at the grate to tend the fire; Kiukiu impatiently pushing aside a straying strand of golden hair as she raked the glowing embers, wiping a smut of ash from her cheek with the back of her hand. . . .

“Stay with me, Kiukiu,” he whispered. He was cold, and dawn was still hours away. “Help me keep the dreams at bay.”

Gavril sneezed a wracking sneeze that left him shivering.

“One more circuit.” His warder lounged against the wall of the exercise yard, picking at a hangnail.

Gavril pushed himself on. His head ached, his nose was blocked, obliging him to breathe through his mouth, and his throat was sore. Just a head cold. How could a simple cold make him feel so wretched?

He sneezed again. Now his nose began to stream and he had no handkerchief. He stopped, obliged to wipe his nose on his sleeve like a little child.

“Keep moving, Twenty-One.”

Elysia would have made him a hot drink of honey and lemon juice to stop the shivering. Palmyre would have brought him clean handkerchiefs, freshly laundered and ironed, smelling of lavender from the villa gardens.

He lumbered doggedly on, forcing one foot to follow the other. If they could just allow him one extra blanket to keep warm at night . . . But he had asked and been told bluntly, “No special privileges.” So he must endure the damp and the cold as best he could. . . .

The sound of voices made him raise his head. Through cold-bleared eyes he saw two warders supporting a prisoner who walked with a strange, lolling gait.

“Time’s up,” said his warder, jerking one thumb in the direction of the Iron Tower.

Gavril stared at the prisoner. He moved like one who has forgotten how to walk.

“Left foot now,” ordered one of the warders, but the prisoner did not seem to understand. “Left!”

The prisoner began to make some kind of reply, but the words came out all jumbled and slurred together. “Trying . . . am . . .”

He was close enough now for Gavril to see that the man’s head had been shaved and bandaged. Blood had leaked out and dried brown on one side of the bandages.

“Right foot.”

“Sh-shorry . . .” The man tried to raise his drooping head. Gavril recognized Thirteen, the prisoner he had seen shouting and demanding his rights a few days ago.

Gavril’s warder placed one hand on his arm, trying to move him on. Gavril shook the hand off.

“What have you done to him?” he demanded.

“None of your business.” The hand gripped harder.

“Those bandages. The blood.” Gavril stood his ground. “Has he been tortured?”

“Shut your mouth!”

Gavril’s cold turned feverish by nightfall. He huddled in the corner of his cell, cocooned in his threadbare blanket. In most prisons, inmates could buy comforts such as a brazier of coals to keep warm or extra blankets. But he had no money at his disposal and no family or friends nearby to pay for such necessities.

He could not keep from thinking about Thirteen. Those bloodied bandages, that shambling gait . . . Was it torture, or had Thirteen harmed himself in his rage and despair? His teeth began to chatter uncontrollably as he pulled his blanket tighter. If it was torture, when would it be his turn?

As hot and cold chills ran through his body, he tried to sleep. Fever-fueled images began to leak into his mind. He kept starting awake, only to see fleeting impressions of jewel-flecked eyes, daemon-eyes, staring at him in the dark.

“No,” he heard himself mumbling. “Leave me be.”

The air trembles. A thunderous darkness looms. A feeling of foreboding overwhelms him.

The bruised sky is rent apart. A ragged gateway gapes, as though some nameless power has ripped the very matter of this world asunder.