It was harder to let go of the battle, to leave his plans at their midway point, to accept that the deadline had come and gone, and that whatever now happened on the border, he would not be a part of it. The Akielon slave would (of course) assume treachery on the part of the Veretian forces, after which he would launch some sort of noble and suicidal attack at Charcy that he would probably win, against ridiculous odds.
He thought, if he merely ignored the fact that he was injured and tied up, it was one on one, which weren’t terrible odds of his own, except that he could feel in this, as he could always
feel, the invisible guiding hand of his uncle.
One on one: he must think about what he could practically achieve. On his best day, he could not take on Govart in a wrestling match and win. And his shoulder was dislocated. Fighting free of his bonds at this moment would accomplish, precisely, nothing. He told himself that: once; then again, to quell a deep, basic urge to struggle.
‘We’re alone,’ Govart said. ‘Just you and me. Look around. Take a good look. There’s no way out. Not even I have a key. They come to open the cell when I’m done with you. What do you have to say to that?’
‘How’s your shoulder?’ said Laurent.
The blow rocked him back. When he lifted his head, he enjoyed the look he had provoked on Govart’s face, as he had enjoyed, for the same reason—if a bit masochistically—the blow. Because he couldn’t quite keep that from his eyes, Govart hit him again. He had to strap down the impulse of hysteria, or this was going to be over very quickly.
‘I always wondered what it was you had on him,’ Laurent said. He forced himself to keep his voice steady. ‘A bloody sheet and a signed confession?’
‘You think I’m stupid,’ said Govart.
‘I think you have one piece of leverage over a very powerful man. I think whatever it is you have on him, it’s not going to last forever.’
‘You want to think that,’ said Govart. His voice was heavy with satisfaction. ‘Want me to tell you why you’re here? Because I asked him for you. He gives me what I want. He gives me whatever I want. Even his untouchable nephew.’
‘Well, I’m an inconvenience to him,’ said Laurent. ‘You are too. It’s why he throws us together. At some point one of us will dispatch the other.’
He made himself speak without undue emotion, just a mild remark on the facts.
‘The trouble is, when my uncle is the King, no leverage in the world will stop him. If you kill me, whatever it is that you have on him isn’t going to matter. It will just be you and him, and he’ll be free to disappear you into a dark cell too.’
Govart smiled, slowly.
‘He said you’d say that.’
The first misstep, and it was his own. He could feel the distracting beat of his heart. ‘What else did my uncle tell you I’d say?’
‘He said you’d try to keep me talking. He said you had a mouth like a whore. He said you’d lie, wheedle, suck up to me.’ The slow smile widened. ‘He said, “The only way to make sure my nephew doesn’t talk his way free is to cut his tongue out.”’ As he spoke, Govart pulled out a knife.
The room around Laurent greyed; his whole attention narrowed, his thoughts attenuating.
‘Except that you want to hear it,’ said Laurent, because this was only beginning, and it was a long, winding, bloody road till the end. ‘You want to hear all of it. Every last broken syllable. It’s the one thing my uncle never understood about you.’
‘Yeah? What’s that?’
‘You always wanted to be on the other side of the door,’ said Laurent. ‘And now you are.’
* * *
By the end of the first hour (though it felt longer), he was in quite a lot of pain, and was losing touch with how much, if at all, he was delaying or controlling what was happening.
His shirt was now unlaced to the waist and hung open, and his right sleeve was red. His hair was a tangled mess ribboned with sweat. His tongue was intact, because the knife was in his shoulder. He had accounted that a victory, when it had happened.
You had to take pleasure in small victories. The hilt of the knife protruded at an odd angle. It was in his right shoulder, already dislocated, so that breathing was now painful. Victories. He had come this far, he had caused his uncle some small consternation, had checked him, once or twice, forced him to remake his plans. Had not made it easy.
Layers of thick stone stood between him and the outside world. It was impossible to hear anything. It was impossible to be heard. His only advantage was that he had managed to free his left hand from its bonds. He couldn’t let that be discovered, it would gain him nothing. It would gain him a broken arm. It was growing harder to stick to a course of action.
Because it was impossible to hear anything, he reasoned—or had reasoned, when more detached—that whoever had put him in here with Govart would return with a wheelbarrow and sack to take him out, and that this would happen at a prearranged time, since there was no way for Govart to signal. He therefore had a single goal, like moving towards a retreating mirage: to reach that point alive.
Footsteps, getting closer. The metallic scrape of an iron hinge.
Guion’s voice. ‘This is taking too long.’