or a knothole big enough for him to see through, but he dismissed the idea as requiring too much energy. Later, perhaps, when he started to feel bored. Instead, he considered the rapier-blades of light and the dust specks, like stars, that glittered in them for a while before floating away into the shadows. It turned out to be a pleasure, sitting still and letting his mind slip out of focus. That was all wrong, of course. A condemned man awaiting execution in a pigsty shouldn't be enjoying himself. That thought made him smile. He had a duty to feel miserable, but he was neglecting it. No more duty. Often in the past, when he'd heard that someone had killed himself, he wondered how anybody could possibly choose to die; such a strange choice to make, the prey failing in its obligation to evade the hounds for as long as possible. But sometimes the deer did just that; they stopped, not from exhaustion or injury or because there wasn't anywhere for them to go. Not often, but it happened; and Miel wondered if they came to this same place, the point where the obligations of instinct become weak enough to be put aside. An animal lives to serve a function, its duty to survive long enough to procreate and so maintain and propagate the species. Apart from that obligation, its life is mere tiresome necessity, the need to find enough to eat every day, the need to escape from predators. He thought about love, which was just a sophistication of that duty; something you were required to believe in, like a state religion, but only so that you'd do your otherwise unpalatable and irksome duty of acquiring and raising children. Of course, the deer has its duty to the wolves and hounds, who depend on it for their existence (obligation of the prey to the predator; obligation of the individual to society; of the beloved to the lover). In that case, the willing surrender after going through the obligatory motions of pursuit made perfect sense. The deer must run in order to keep the wolves fit, to give them a criterion by which to choose their pack leaders; the wolves must hunt in order to keep the numbers of deer in balance, so that they don't overpopulate their habitat and wipe themselves out through starvation and epidemic disease. Balance; as in the relationship between a great lord and his people. Miel wondered if this was the lesson he should've been learning-the hints dropped all round him had been heavy enough: that duty to friends and lovers is solemn enough, but no more valid than duty to enemies; quite possibly the most sacred duty of all. Or perhaps the distinctions were artificial and there was only one duty, and dependents, lovers and predators were really all the same thing.
He noticed that the blades of light had almost faded away, like the last melt of snow; so much for being bored, lying in the dark with no work to do. He felt no inclination at all to sleep, and his only regret was that his presence stopped Framain and his daughter from talking to each other. Something scuttled over his foot, but to his surprise he felt no shock of revulsion. Have I forgotten how to be afraid? he wondered. Normally I'd be halfway up the wall by now if a rat ran over me.
He found that as the light died away, his vision actually improved; he found it easier to make out shapes in the gloom without the distraction of the bright glare. His two fellow prisoners were slumped heaps in the opposite corner; there was also a barrel, four or five sacks and something that puzzled him for quite a while until he worked out that it was a small log-pile. Odd, because he'd always been disappointed with his poor night vision. The obvious conclusion was that he'd been trying too hard all these years. He let his mind drift through a range of reflections and sudden perceptions; he felt both relaxed and wonderfully sharp, as though he could solve any problem just by thinking it through from first principles. It's not supposed to be like this, he scolded himself. A man facing death should be wretched, sobbing, screaming with misery and fear, or frantically trying to divert his mind with pointless trivia. He'd heard of kind-hearted jailers who sat up with their prisoners through the last night, playing chess or cards, making a point of losing. He admired the principle, but what a wasted opportunity to be alone with the thoughts that really matter, all irrelevant distractions cleared away.
At some point, they must have fallen asleep. He heard the rhythm of their breathing change. He forgave them, since they were probably going to make a deal with the Mezentines and survive. He bore them no ill will on those grounds. It would have been nice to know if the experiment to make vermilion had worked, just as he'd have enjoyed watching the men repair the wheel. If they had the vermilion formula, they'd be better placed to bargain with the Mezentines. He hoped so. In the state they were in, death would be wasted on them.
In spite of himself, he began to wander, sliding into the debatable region between asleep and awake. He was writing poetry and composing music. He had the verse and half the refrain of a wonderful song-he wasn't sure what it was about but he knew it was there, as though he had it on his lap wrapped in a sack. He knew it would evaporate as soon as he woke up. It always did. Perhaps life slips away like that at the moment of death, and the few fragments he'd manage to catch as it faded would turn out to be garbled nonsense, a dreamer's false impression of poetry and music, incomprehensible in the context of being awake again.
In his dream, something was tapping at the door. At first it was an old woman in a shawl, wanting to come in out of the cold; it was the Ducas' duty to provide hospitality, and he considered getting up to let her in. Then it was just the guard bringing them something to eat. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a nail being wrenched out of wood.
He opened his eyes. Needless to say, that fine night vision was blurry and thick, and for several seconds he couldn't make out anything. A board creaked under great stress. It sounded strangely like one of the slats of the door being prized off with a crowbar, but that made no sense at all.
'Hello,' he called out in a muffled, croaky voice (not at his best when he first woke up, the Ducas). 'Who's there?'
Somebody made a shushing noise. He felt properly remorseful. Maybe the guards had come to fetch him, but they didn't want to wake up Framain and his daughter. No, that didn't make sense either.
Another sort of creak; a hinge-hoop turning around a rusty, undersized pintle. In which case, someone was coming through the door, trying to be stealthy and quiet, but failing. That was completely beyond him, because why would the guards…
'Framain?'
Not a voice he knew, but whoever it was sounded painfully tense. It was the sort of whisper that comes out louder than a normal tone of voice. 'Framain, are you there?'
Long silence. Miel was about to point out that Framain was asleep when he realized that the regular breathing had stopped. Framain must be awake, but he wasn't answering. The door creaked a little more, and Miel could see a rectangle of the dark blue of the night sky. Whoever it was had opened the door.
If the door was open, maybe he could get out.
Immediately, he felt that he didn't want to. It was dangerous (yes, but not nearly as dangerous as staying put). It was inconvenient. It was the middle of the night. He felt the shameful resentment that comes with getting an unwanted present. He wanted to stay where he was.
'Daurenja?'
Framain's voice; and he couldn't interpret the tone of it at all.
'Come on, for crying out loud,' the unknown man in the doorway growled back. Daurenja; not a name he knew, but clearly it meant a lot to Framain, because Miel saw his shape move; he was standing up; they both were. They were leaving. In which case…
'Don't just sit there, you idiot.' Framain's voice, addressing him. They wanted him to leave with them. But…
But he'd got to his feet anyway; instinct, or simply that he didn't want to give offense by declining the invitation. He wondered if the enigmatic Daurenja would mind him coming too. Shocking bad manners to gatecrash somebody else's jailbreak.
'Who the hell…?' Daurenja started to say. Framain muttered, 'Later.' Nothing more said by either of them. Presumably that constituted a formal invitation. Hell of a time to discover that he'd got cramp in his leg.
From sitting still for so long, presumably. He wanted to laugh, mostly because Framain and this Daurenja sounded so serious; as if they thought they stood a chance of getting away with it-somehow evading the guards, crossing the inn yard without being seen, retrieving or stealing horses, mounting up, riding away (and where to? He knew for a stone-cold-certain fact that the Loyalty was the only habitable dwelling within feasible reach, unless you counted Framain's house). All that, and an unscheduled, hobbling freeloader. He decided to go with them simply to see how far they managed to get.
It was like an arrowhead stuck in his calf muscle, but he made it as far as the doorway. The other three were already outside, standing perfectly still, waiting for him. Any moment now, and the guards…
He saw the guards. One lay on his face, the other on his side. Lamplight from somewhere twinkled a reflection in a dark pool that probably wasn't water. Not one but both of them; and done so quietly that he'd dozed through it. If that was Daurenja's unaided work, he must be a talented man. He tried to feel pity for the guards, but couldn't quite do it. Perhaps they really were going to escape, after all.
