Discord | Website | Twitch

  I stared into the torch light. The fire raised high to the ceiling. It was morning and I knew that because they’d just been reignited with fresh tar. It leaked down the wooden handle. I had to count torches. One, two, three, four, five.

  I had to count the seconds of rain. Thirty. Sixty. One-thousand forty-five. I had to count and keep track to tell the time because the place was so dark and well-lined that not a single draft or line of light existed from the outside world. Gunther came in. Black armor off, he wore what I could only describe as ‘peasant’s clothes’ which I knew to still be better than whatever the peasant’s actually wore. The quality was so fine, pearly white too. Everything was white or beige or gray about him, save for his stained ankles and his rugged boots that plopped down onto the puddles below.

  He walked over to the table and the surgeon’s apron that draped down the side. I looked up. Three of my nails were gone. He started with my mutilated hand last night, and only stopped because I had three fingers left. There used to be rods in my arms, that made me ache whenever I flexed. So the more I gripped my hand when he tore my nails, the more I felt pain up my bicep. Those were gone, maybe thanks to Ritcher. Maybe because we were coming to our end.

  And there Ritcher was, swift footed through the door before the iron closed in on him.

  “What have you been doing, maggot?” He asked.

  “Remembering.” I said.

  “That’s good. See, Ritcher?” Gunther said. “I told you I’d make him talk.”

  His eyes darted between Ritcher and myself. They both sat, Gunther closest who kept his hands on the spine of a chair and his glance at me.

  “What’d you remember? Hmm?”

  “The ocean waters were clear. It was a hot day. I was confidant.” I said. “Obrick was there, so was Kal and they both cheered for me.”

  “Obrick.” Ritcher asked.

  “Nevermind your dreams, fool. Tell me about Chaucer.” He said.

  I looked at Ritcher, then to the tools, then to Gunther.

  “Chaucer? What would I know?” I asked.

  Gunther rose. The chair knocked back, he put his hand on my chin and squeezed. I turned away, to Ritcher who only nodded and put his head down.

  “You’ve been playing stupid for a week now. Now I need you to come up with something so we can get that rotten rat.” He said. “Do you understand Virgil? You are going to die. For a rat. For someone who cares little for you, for a schemer who was too preoccupied with his own vanity to worry about you.”

  My eyes fell. My body was limp, both arms were held by the long chains above.

  “Then I die.” I said.

  “What?” Gunther asked.

  “Then I will die.” I said. I looked him straight in the face, eyes glaring. And for the first time I saw Gunther take a step back. His grip removed from the chair. His hand gripped a hammer, he raised it high. Ritcher grabbed his arm.

  “He will be prosecuted and executed by law, not by you.” Ritcher said. Gunther shoved him off. He pointed his hammer at him.

  “You’re not royalty in here, boy.” He said. They faced each other, one crazed and the other narrow-eyed and taking a hard look at that hammer-wielding hand. Their bodies straightened. There was a door knock.

  “Ser Gunther.” The knocking continued. “Ser Gunther! Sire!”

  “What is it Pip!” Hannibal threw the hammer past the metal table, onto the floor.

  A man came in, skiddish looking with a helmet too big for his head, with hair that came past his eyes, hair that hid two big blue eyes without an ounce of violence or an ounce of need of violence. A child. Bony. With shoulder-pads that rivaled the size of his heads so he looked like the friendliest Cerberus you’d ever seen. A Cerberus pup more like it.

  He fixed his helmet, his hands fumbled for the paper tied to his side.

  “Chaucer has confessed.” He said.

  Gunther looked back. “I told you, fool.”

  Pip worked for the paper tied to his waist. Gunther ripped it from him and pushed him back, he unwound it; read it. Subvocalized. Processed. His eyes widened.

  “Chaucer has confessed. The transcript flopped by his week hand. “He’s confessed to being a lone conspirer. Lone.”

  Gunther looked at me. His face tight, not quite uncomfortably so but certainly miffed.

  “You see that, fool?” He slapped my face with the paper and rubbed it into my cheeks. “It ended the same way. You could have saved yourself some pain.”

  The relief I felt was like a swollen balloon popped, the warm water running over me. A pure sigh escaped me. I looked to Ritcher who seemed…glad? To Gunther who scratched his head.

  “He’s to be executed tomorrow.” Gunther said.

  My stomach dropped. My feet dragged. Oh, it was relief I felt. Relief that gave way to that deeper sadness. The cruel sadness - the kind only weak men feel when the futility of their strength becomes a revelation. Chaucer confessed? For me? And he’d die, for me?

  Oh, I was glad to be alive - at least I told myself. And as they dragged me out, the sadness in me deepened until I wasn’t quite sure anymore. My head drooped. My body went slack and two guards lifted me up. The fires felt cold, the light dim. My face turned away from the sun that slipped through cracks. Away from the rats who looked up on their hind legs. Away from the other prisoners.

  Why me? Why was it always me to live and others to die?

Discord | Website | Twitch