I didn’t know how to reach Sir Michael Anders directly without giving myself away to the rest of Arentia’s officialdom. But he’d been quite free with the details about his young lady friend Rachel, and I recalled her highborn family from my own youth. I sent a messenger boy to her requesting she forward my confidential request to Anders. It took several days, but eventually he showed up at the pub, dressed like any other tradesman on a day off.
He sat down next to me at the bar without a glance, and when the bartender moved out of earshot said softly, “You look awful.”
“That’s because I work for a living,” I murmured back. “We need to talk; meet me out in the barn in ten minutes.” His nod of assent was so slight I barely caught it.
I paid for my drink and went behind the building to the stable, where Lola stood patiently in her stall. I picked up a brush and stroked her neck and mane while I waited for Anders. He arrived casually, although I knew he’d verified that no one followed him. If I hadn’t been alone, he would have feigned confusion and asked for directions back to the main road.
He leaned against the door of the stall. “Hey, that’s the same horse you stole in Pema.”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you would’ve made horse stew of her by now.”
“She’s not so bad. Better than some people I know. Excluding present company.”
“Thanks. So what’s so urgent you had to worry my girlfriend to reach me?”
I stopped brushing Lola and looked at him seriously. “I need a huge, possibly career-ending favor from you.”
He didn’t blink. “Like what?”
“I need to get in and see Rhiannon alone.”
He chewed his lip for a moment before saying, “I guess you know about her sentence.”
“Just what I’ve heard second-hand.”
“The king imprisoned her for life at the main city gate. Her cell is built into the actual wall itself. During the day she has to come out into a cage, sit on a stool and basically take any shit anyone wants to throw at her, symbolic or literal. At night, she’s locked into her chamber. The guards are forbidden to let anyone else near her; even they can’t speak to her except to give instructions. I know them; they won’t bribe, and I’d hate to take them on in a fight.”
“Can we trick them?”
He shook his head. “If it were any other prisoner, maybe. Not this one. She’s all they have to worry about.”
“I have to see her alone, Mike. I can’t tell you any more than that right now, but it’s the only way to get Phil back his son.”
It took a moment for this to register. He only reacted with his eyes. “The prince is alive?” he whispered.
I nodded.
“And you know where he is?”
I nodded again.
“Then why aren’t we going to get him?”
“Because he’s safe where he is. If we bring him back here, I have to be sure there won’t be another try on his life. And to be sure, I need to be alone with the queen.”
Anders nodded. He climbed onto the stall gate and idly swung back and forth, like a thoughtful adolescent. Finally he said, “I outrank them. I can order them to leave their post. It won’t stay secret for long, though.”
“I don’t need long. Twenty minutes will be enough.”
He stepped back to the ground. “You’re right, I’d be risking my career to trust you. If you let me down, my new job will be kicking your ass.”
I grinned. After the sleazy folk I’d met in Cape Querna, working with Anders was like rain on a hot afternoon. “Fair enough.”
We scheduled our jailhouse visit for the following evening. The next day I entered Arentia City on foot with the rest of the proletariat during the morning rush. I wanted to see Rhiannon’s public punishment for myself.
The walls around Arentia City dated from a time when their strength meant the very survival of the culture. Fifteen feet thick and thirty feet high, they now served mainly as traffic control, funneling pedestrians and wagons onto the four main thoroughfares. Every few years a city commissioner or busybody noble would suggest either tearing down the old wall or knocking extra gates in it, but nothing ever happened. For one thing, it would mean redesigning all the money, which prominently featured Arentia City’s walled skyline.
The wall, though, wasn’t a solid barrier. It housed a network of passageways and rooms designed to shelter soldiers under battle conditions. One of these rooms had been remodeled and secured to function as Queen Rhiannon’s permanent prison cell. It contained a cot, a small table and the basics of toiletry, but nothing else was allowed. She could have no comforts or personal belongings at all. Food was delivered through a slot, and dishes passed out the same way. She was issued one candle a month.
Her cell opened straight out of the wall on the city side. A metal cage bolted to the stone enclosed the doorway and the space in front of it, where a crude stool became her new throne. The exposed sides allowed the citizens an unobstructed view of their fallen queen when, every day, she emerged at dawn to take her place in the cage and endure her public punishment.
In the time I’d been gone, a cottage industry had sprung up around the queen and her crime. Two books had been rushed through scribing, and there was talk of a major theatrical production. A singer named Stephanie something was packing them in with her song about Rhiannon. An enterprising artist had produced a line-drawing parody of the queen’s official portrait, modified to show a tiny foot hanging from her mouth. He sold this image on flags, tunics and ale mugs.
Folks working the early shift had made the queen’s morning humiliation part of their breakfast routine. A hundred people had already gathered around the cage by the time I reached it. Some sipped tea and nibbled on toast, others exchanged gossip or greeted old friends. It felt more like a temple social than a public shaming.
Then a hush spread through the crowd. The metal door inside the cage opened, and Rhiannon emerged from her cell. She was now gaunt and pale, with dark circles under her eyes and hair frayed and ragged with neglect. She wore a dress made entirely of old muslin rags haphazardly sewn together. Her bare feet and legs were dirty. She shuffled to the stool without looking up at the crowd.
I stayed far enough back that I doubted she’d either spot me, or recognize me if she did. I saw an awful lot of sympathy on the faces of the folks watching, who’d witnessed the gradual breakdown of the once-proud beauty. As far as they knew, she’d committed one of the worst crimes imaginable, but that had happened out of sight, in the great castle that looked down on them. Her slow decay in the cage was front and center every morning, and I doubted anyone could see it day after day and not feel something.
Rhiannon settled onto the stool. The frayed dress revealed generous amounts of skin, but there was nothing erotic about it. She was too drained and insubstantial. Finally she looked around at the faces, some of which must have grown familiar. Her eyes shone with either fever or tears. She lowered her head and her posture collapsed as she prepared for the day’s abuse.
No one spoke at first. Some folks muttered “bitch” and “murderer,” but not loudly enough to be identified. A few walked away in disgust. Had the novelty of tormenting the queen worn off so quickly?
Then four teenagers, two well-dressed rich boys and their adoring, giggly girlfriends, wormed their way to the front of the crowd and pressed their faces against the bars. They hooted and laughed at the despondent queen. Rhiannon glanced at them for a moment, then cast her eyes back down.
“Hey, do you know how a baby is like a grape?” one of the boys loudly asked.
“They both give a little whiiiiine when you stomp them!” the other boy cackled.
The girls laughed as well. A few onlookers tittered or glared at the kids, but most of them simply looked elsewhere. No one spoke up for the queen.
“Hey, you know what’s pink and spits?” one of the girls asked. “A baby in a frying pan!”
Again they laughed. And still no one chastised them or defended Rhiannon. She sat, head down, hands limp in her lap. My own temper raged at these amoral punks, but I reminded myself that, for them, Rhiannon was guilty of a truly ghastly crime. This was part of her legal punishment. Still, the cruel enjoyment they got from it turned my stomach, and I saw from other faces in the crowd that they felt the same way. But no one stepped forward to do anything. Including me.
