asleep when the manacles were replaced.
Light filtering through the shutters woke him next, though whether one night, or several, had passed, he could not guess. Rwyan was gone, and the man who had sat with her, in their places two men who might have been twins. They turned toward him as he stirred, and in their eyes he saw suspicion.
Darys shrugged and brought him water, which he drank, the liquid prompting his stomach to rumble, so that Darys chuckled and spoke with Valryn, who went to the door and called through it.
After a while, Marthyn came to apply a fresh coating of the unguent and feed him droplets of a blue liquid, then spooned broth between his lips. It was a small bowl, but it filled him as if it were a feast, and afterward he slept again.
He woke to day’s light, once more not knowing how much time had passed, thinking it likely not much, for Darys and Valryn still played the parts of nurses, or guards. He needed badly to void his bowels, which was difficult to express, though he at last succeeded; Valryn drew his sword as Darys unlocked his fetters and helped him rise. The chains were fixed again about his wrists and ankles, and he was brought to an alcove. He was chagrined that he must still rely on another to walk, more that both men watched as he satisfied his need. He found some small comfort in the thought it were better men observed him than that Rwyan or some other woman had been present.
After, he was returned to the bed and chained again in place.
So the days passed, at first in confusion but then to an emerging pattern. He drifted less, remained longer awake. Under Marthyn’s ministrations his body healed, sun-ravaged skin becoming whole, his strength returning. He ate; at first only broth or gruel, but then more solid food-fruits and vegetables and meat. He saw that his guardian nurses were changed daily, and that while they were usually men, sometimes women took a turn. He liked none of them so well as Rwyan, for she seemed the only one not much afraid of him, nor so wary. Most seemed to perceive him as they might a wild animal, half-tamed and potentially dangerous. He knew somehow that he was strong and that he could fight, but he felt no animosity toward these people-save they kept him chained-and he did not understand why they held him so. He wished he understood their speech, or they his, for then he could tell them he intended no harm and would not seek to hurt his saviors. Rather, that he was indebted to them, that he owed them his life and would lay it down before offering them injury.
As he recovered, so his curiosity increased. He was a full-grown man, but of his life he remained innocent as a babe, as if the sea itself had birthed him on that miserable rock. He was of different stock to the folk who tended him-their language told him that much-but from whence he came and in what land he found himself, he had not the least idea. He determined to learn and commenced to ply those who sat with him with questions. It was a dissatisfying process, a matter of gestures and repetitions that enabled him to identify objects, to learn simple words. His mind, it appeared, was quick enough, for he soon could ask for water, or food, the latrine; he could offer thanks and greet newcomers, but true communication remained impossible. He gleaned more from the attitudes of his tutors: some refused to indulge him, some were reluctant, some few enthusiastic; but in all of them he felt still that wariness, and in some a loathing he could not at all understand. It emphasized his loneliness.
In time he was strong enough to stand and walk unaided, and then confinement began to chafe. He pantomimed excursion and felt resentful when he was at first refused. Rwyan was the most sympathetic, and to her he put, as eloquently as he might, his desire to walk abroad. She understood, and nodded, and later spoke with Marthyn, who frowned tremendously and muttered, mostly to himself, in a tone the prisoner knew was dubious. Marthyn left and returned with Gwyllym and several others, who stood in animated conversation as the man lay chained, watching their faces, cursing his incomprehension. He beamed and said in their language, “My thanks,” when finally his fetters were unlocked and they informed him he should be allowed to leave the room.
He was given a shirt and breeks, which reminded him for the first time of his nudity, though he did not feel embarrassed by that. The manacles were a worse indignity, but at least the chains were lengthened enough he might walk without too much difficulty. When he ventured out, two men were always with him, swords sheathed on their belts and heavy staffs in their hands. He did not mind: to walk again under the open sky was a joy, for all he must bear the curious stares of all he encountered, as if he were some strange-ling beast taught to walk upright.
Within a span of seven days he was fully limber, recuperated from his ordeal, vigorous enough he should, had he not been hampered by the chains, have outdistanced his escort. He was allowed the freedom of the open spaces but not the buildings, and those he avoided anyway, for there were always folk about them, and their reaction to his presence disturbed him. He preferred to wander the terraces and the heights, especially when he discovered Rwyan might be often found there.
When he found her, he would sit, a respectful distance off, and seek to plumb her mind. She offered no objection but took the role of pedagogue as if it were a welcome relief from troubled thoughts he could not comprehend, only wonder at. As best he could, he expressed his gratitude, telling her he owed her people his life. He felt she understood; he did not understand why she smiled so sadly. He thought there was much strangeness in the world.
One night, alone in his room-he was still chained, and both the door and the single window were locked, but none now remained with him-he remembered his name. He did not know how it came back, it was simply, suddenly, there in his mind, and when he said it aloud, it was familiar: “Tezdal.” He felt more whole for that, as if such knowledge of identity anchored him firmer in his confused world; he felt less a cipher.
In the morning, when the door was opened and his guards entered with food, he touched his chest and said proudly, “I am Tezdal.”
They looked sharply at him, and one fingered his sword, but then they spoke, and soon Gwyllym appeared, and the hunchbacked woman called Maethyrene, who pointed at him and spoke his name as if it were a question.
He nodded, smiling, and said, “Yes, I am Tezdal.”
Gwyllym spoke, but save for a few words and phrases the pattern and meaning remained a puzzle to Tezdal. He thought the big man both pleased and excited, Maethyrene equally disturbed, and then himself grew alarmed as they urged him to dress, suddenly impatient. He had thought they should be pleased by this small prize hooked from the fog of his amnesia, but it seemed instead to galvanize them, as if the utterance of his name rendered him somehow more dangerous. He was allowed no breakfast but was hurried from the room to a long colonnaded building, its white stucco brilliant in the morning sunlight. There was nowhere cool even so early in the day, but inside the building the heat was not so fierce, the hall to which he was brought shadowed and very quiet. His alarm increased as he was pushed roughly to a chair and his chains fastened, securing him in place. For an instant anger flared at such treatment, and he strained against his bonds. Then he saw a sword drawn partway from the scabbard and the unmasked hatred in the bearer’s eyes, and he subsided, panting and more than a little afraid: it came to him, for the first time, that there were some here would willingly slay him.
He sat, waiting as the hall’s quiet calm was lost to uproar, folk he had known only as tranquil bursting in with voices raised and startled eyes studying him with unfathomable expressions. For a while confusion reigned, the chamber filling, becoming crowded, and he could only look about, wondering what occasioned such excitement.
He saw Rwyan amongst the throng, but she was deep in urgent conversation with Gwyllym and gave him no more than a tentative smile, as if she, too, were become unsure of his intentions or his probity. Marthyn came, to place a hand upon his brow and stare into his eyes.
But he did not, and he could only sit silent as they debated …
