the black eyes and swollen lips. Handsome, strong, and defiant. It was not hard to see why he had so much sympathy among the heathens and a lot of atheists who should know better.
As they reached the Great Hall he looked around him at the thousands of Sisters, Novices, Probates, Defenders, servants, and visitors to the Citadel who were lining every balcony and roadway of the city to watch him brought in. R’shiel thought that Tarja did not look like a defeated man – angry perhaps but not defeated. He rode as if his escort was a guard of honor. He even wore the same slightly mocking, vaguely patronizing expression that he did when he was teasing her.
“The poor man,” someone in front of her whispered. “How humiliating for him.”
“He’s so brave,” a female voice sighed wistfully.
“He’s a traitor,” someone else added.
“They said he was going to be the next Lord Defender.”
“He’s going to be a corpse, now,” another wit pointed out, which brought a chuckle from a few and a sorrowful sigh from the others.
The column came to an impressive, synchronized halt in the center of the street. The Lord Defender, with Garet Warner, came down from the shadowed steps of the Great Hall, or rather Francil’s Hall, as it was now known, to confront them. R’shiel thought it strange that the Sisterhood was allowing the Defenders to deal with Tarja and not taking a direct hand in his arrest. She half-expected to see the entire Quorum standing there, ready to condemn the traitor. But Tarja had been a Captain of the Defenders and was a deserter, in addition to his other crimes. Maybe Joyhinia thought the Defenders would exact a more fitting punishment. Draco wheeled his horse around to speak to the Lord Defender.
“I wish we could hear what they’re saying,” someone whispered. The crowd was strangely quiet, straining to catch a few words of the exchange. Anticipation charged the air like a summer storm. It seemed the entire Citadel was holding its breath. R’shiel watched and listened as the voices floated across the street on the preternaturally silent air.
“It is my pleasure to hand over the deserter Tarjanian Tenragan, my Lord,” Draco announced, obviously aware of the huge audience he was playing to. It was not often the Spear of the First Sister took a direct hand in any action, and Draco had achieved the impossible. He had done what Jenga had been unable to. He had captured Tarja.
“Has he been any trouble?” the Lord Defender asked, glancing at Tarja.
“Once he realized he was overwhelmed, he came quietly enough.”
“And the rest of his rebels?”
“He came alone,” Draco said. “Bearing in mind that the First Sister ordered him taken alive, I thought it better to leave his interrogation to you.”
“Just as well, I suppose,” the Lord Defender grunted. “He probably would have died before he told you anything. Bring him here.”
Tarja must have heard the exchange as he swung his leg over the saddle and jumped nimbly to the ground before anyone could reach him. He bounded up the steps and bowed to the Lord Defender, unhampered by the binding that held his hands behind his back.
“Good morning, my Lord, Commandant,” Tarja said pleasantly. “Lovely morning for a hanging, don’t you think?”
“Tarjanian, don’t you think you could act just a little repentant?” Lord Draco asked.
“And disappoint all these lovely ladies?” he asked, glancing up at the crowded balconies. “I think not. How is Mother, by the way? I thought she might be here to welcome her wanton son home.”
“The First Sister is probably signing the warrant for your hanging as we speak. Escort the criminal to the cells,” the Lord Defender ordered Garet. “And search him.”
“I have searched him already, my Lord,” Draco said.
“Do it again,” Jenga told Garet, making R’shiel wonder at the exchange. Jenga did not look pleased that it was Draco who had brought Tarja home.
“My Lord,” the commandant replied with a salute. A brisk wave of his hand brought more guards rushing forward, but Tarja shook them off and marched past the Lords toward the huge bronze doors of Francil’s Hall. Just before he disappeared into the shadows, he turned and bowed mockingly to the assembled crowd, then vanished inside.
As R’shiel watched him go, she decided it no longer mattered if she confronted Joyhinia or not. Six weeks of silently rehearsed conversations were suddenly unimportant. Her anger no longer seemed important. The energy it took to sustain it could be better directed elsewhere. That odd child by the river had been right. It was time to get over it. She had much more important things to do.
And the first thing was finding a way to rescue Tarja.
chapter 25
Pain was an interesting area of study, Tarja decided. He was close to becoming an expert in the field. He’d had plenty of opportunity to reflect on the matter over the past few days. To experiment on how much the human body could withstand, how much it could take before blessed unconsciousness pulled him down into the blackness where the pain no longer existed. The annoying part was that he kept waking up again and the pain was always there, waiting for him.
He’d stopped trying to count his injuries. His fingers were broken on both hands and burns scarred his forearms. He had several loose teeth and so many bruises he must look like a chimney sweep. His right shoulder felt as if it had been dislocated, and the soles of his feet were blistered and weeping. There was not a single pore on his skin that did not cry out when he moved, not a hair on his head that did not hurt. The cold cell made him shiver, and even that slight movement was agony.
But despite the pain, Tarja found himself in surprisingly good spirits. Perhaps it was the unimaginative torture of his interrogators that gave him something to focus on. Perhaps it was the fact that he had not uttered a word about the rebellion. He had betrayed nobody, said nothing. Mostly, Tarja suspected, it was because he knew that Joyhinia had ordered this punishment. It made everything he had done seem right, somehow.
He shifted gingerly on the low pallet that served as his bed and listened to the sounds of the night, wondering how long it would be before Joyhinia decided to hang him. There would be a trial of course, a farcical affair to satisfy the forms of law, with a gallows waiting at the end of it. The thought was oddly reassuring. It gave him comfort to know that when news of his hanging reached Mandah, Padric, Ghari, and the others, they would know that Draco had lied. Tarja knew they had escaped in Testra. He had heard it from Nheal during the voyage upriver.
Of course, he did have one regret. He was sorry he would not have the chance to find Brak. Words were insufficient to describe what Tarja would like to have done to the sailor for deserting him in the River’s Rest. He had watched him enter the tavern, certain of his support, but when he arrived only moments later, Brak was nowhere to be seen. What had the miserable bastard done? Simply walked out through another door? Tarja cursed himself for not trusting his instincts more. For not insisting on some sort of proof that Brak was truly on their side. That he could think of nothing that would have satisfied him did little to appease his anger. Tarja hoped the pagans were right about reincarnation. Maybe one’s spirit did get an opportunity to return to this world again and again. If that was the case, he very much wanted to come back as a flea so that he could find Brak and keep biting him until he went mad with the itching and killed himself.
His images of Brak writhing insanely in agony were disturbed by a noise in the guardroom outside his cell. Tarja wondered vaguely at the noise, but it did not concern him unduly. His world was defined by pain now, and the noises from the other room were not part of that world.
He passed out for a time, though he had no way of determining how long. It was night, he thought. He was unsure of what had woken him, or if it was merely the pain that had dragged him back. He turned his head fractionally and discovered a silhouetted shape moving toward him, small enough to be a child.
