Chapter 37 James
James
James’s head bumped against the side of the wagon.
Every inhalation smelled of dust, and his ears rang with the teeming noise of a city.
Merchants shouted their wares, aggressive and loud as they bargained with patrons.
Animals bleated and brayed, some pulling carts while others were intended for slaughter.
Bells rang out from the fourteen cathedrals, tolling the hour, tolling various ceremonies, tolling as one of the largest cities on the continent toiled.
Riomar.
It was the capital of Amarid, and while James had never stepped foot in Riomar, he knew its reputation well.
It epitomized the extremes of human existence.
Wealth built on wineries that shipped their bottles throughout the known world, the families who owned them equal parts nobles and criminals, each of them running an extended network of deeply illegal activities that earned them as much as or more than the wine.
They lived like kings in their walled palatial estates as they conducted what amounted to warfare against one another.
Battles fought by street thugs and urchins in the dark of night.
By poisons slipped into cups and or dusted across pillows.
By riots and marches, the middle class pitted against one another to achieve their master’s ends.
Yet there was also poverty and misery of an unrivaled magnitude.
Tens of thousands who lived on the streets, great slums that multiplied only blocks away from white stone buildings capped with enamel-tiled roofs.
Children starved on the streets while carriages passed them by carrying children playing with golden rattles.
Every morning, hundreds of city workers swept through the slums with wagons to retrieve the dead, and James had heard that great pits outside the city limits never stopped burning the corpses spat out by Riomar.
Above it all, in her palace of gold, ruled Queen Katarina.
Ahnna shifted where she lay tied on the other side of the wagon, both of them trussed like hogs and gagged so they could not speak.
As they’d been since they were dragged out of the river, both of them half drowned.
Carlo had shrieked above the cacophony that he hadn’t realized fishing was so enjoyable.
He cast handfuls of coins into the air so that they showered down around the civilians who had aided his hunt.
As the civilians had fought over the gold, Carlo’s soldiers had fallen upon them.
Killed them with sword and knife and arrow, merciless in their need to keep his and Ahnna’s fate a secret.
The wagon rocked and bounced over ruts, the man driving shouting oaths at anyone who got in his way. Which meant the soldiers were not making a fuss. Katarina did not want anyone to know who her new prisoners were, most especially not Alexandra.
A bead of sweat rolled into James’s eye and he blinked at the sting, desperately thirsty.
It was hot and dry, made worse by the canvas over the wagon, and it felt like he’d sweated out every drop of moisture.
Though he anticipated that it would get much worse once they were delivered to Amarid’s infamous prison.
The Furnace.
Its reputation rivaled that of Devil’s Island.
Not the main prison, which contained petty criminals who would be released upon serving their time.
It was the infamous cells at its center that put fear into hearts.
Cells where those who would never again know freedom were incarcerated.
It was said there were thirty of them. Small cells made of solid stone set into the earth within which prisoners were sealed with only a small hole left open for food, water, and waste.
There was no way out of them, no locks to pick, no bars to break, no guards to bribe.
Because there was no way out unless the masons were called to break a cell open.
And that only happened when the prisoner was dead.
James was not one to dwell on fears, but the idea of being effectively buried alive for the balance of his existence filled him with irrational terror.
A terror made worse with the knowledge that the woman he loved would be confined in the cell next to him, which he knew would be a fate worse than death for Ahnna Kertell.
Yet as her hazel eyes gave a slow blink, he knew it wasn’t herself that she thought of. It was Ithicana. Her people.
If Carlo and his soldiers had heard any updates on the escalations of tensions between Harendell and Ithicana, they’d said nothing.
Yet James could only assume that in the time that had passed, William, on Alexandra’s urging, had escalated to blockades.
Possibly all-out attacks, though at this time of year it was possible that the storms were keeping the Bridge Kingdom safe.
Likewise, James had learned nothing about Cardiff, but that concerned him far less.
His mother’s homeland was in a much stronger position, and right now, James did not think that Cardiff was Alexandra’s primary focus.
She wanted the bridge, as did Katarina, and they would stop at nothing to get it. Even if it meant working together.
The wagon bounced and jostled, the quality of the noise telling James they were crossing over a bridge. Wind rustled the canvas, smelling of surf and sand, and faintly, he heard the cry of seagulls circling above.
Ahnna’s eyes sharpened into focus, and she struggled to prop herself upright on the moldy straw.
Her head turned into the wind, her eyes closing as she inhaled the scent of the sea.
For her, he thought, it must smell like home.
No sooner did the thought pass through his mind than a tear leaked out of the corner of her eye, rolling down her cheek to soak into her gag.
Don’t give up, James silently chanted. Not at Ahnna, because he knew she never would. But at himself.
There has to be a way out. A way through this.
The cart stopped. A portcullis rattled, and muttered conversation filled the air. Dozens of footfalls against stone, and then the canvas was jerked back and Carlo looked down at them.
“Hello, my friends,” he said, his tone loud and not unlike the ringmaster in a traveling circus.
An effect ruined in no small amount by his gaping eye socket.
“It has been an exciting journey, so I am pleased to share that we have made it all the way to the end. Welcome to Amarid’s Furnace! ” Carlo held his hands wide.
James blinked, taking in thick limestone walls and ceiling, which was all he could see of the prison from this angle.
“Get them out,” Carlo barked. “Get them washed. Mother’s nose is easily offended.”
The Beast stepped off the back of the wagon, and men and women approached. Not uniformed prison workers, but black-clad individuals, their plain and unremarkable faces turning James’s palms cold. Because unlike prison guards, Katarina’s dark guild made no mistakes.
Two men reached for his ankles and yanked, dragging James out. They hauled him upright while two of the women reached for Ahnna.
The best-trained members of Katarina’s military, they were infamous for their ability to blend in and call no notice to themselves, their faces carefully selected to be so ordinary that no one remembered them.
They served as spies and as assassins, but also as Katarina’s bodyguards and her jacks-of-all-trades for anything she didn’t trust anyone else to achieve.
Which James supposed was why they were here.
Yet Carlo only wagged a finger at the women who had Ahnna suspended between them. “Clean as a whistle,” he sang. “And perhaps some cosmetics to cover up the most exciting moments of our adventures. Mother does hate ugly things.” Reaching over, he dragged a finger along the scar on Ahnna’s face.
“Yes, Your Highness,” one of the black-clad women said. “She will be pristine.”
“Wonderful!” Carlo snapped his fingers at the men restraining James with an iron grip. “Bath time!”
Ahnna lifted her head. “Where is my horse?”
“On his way back to Harendell with James’s mount.” Carlo grinned. “Those who sought your deaths will understand the message.”
With his bare feet bound, James had to shuffle across the empty yard while Carlo sang children’s bathing songs about ducks before moving on to one about sea creatures and sponges.
James forced the noise out of his head, taking in the prison’s defenses.
The walls were thick, and the portcullis was solid steel.
Beyond it a bridge stretched over what he expected was a moat, with another heavy set of gates on the far side.
Their progress took him out of sight of the entrance.
The dark guild soldiers led him into a chamber with a floor of polished stone that was slightly sloped toward a drain in the center.
They proceeded to fasten him at ankles and wrists with steel manacles set into thick posts, and then began cutting his filthy clothes off him.
Carlo sat on a stool, now singing a song about muddy animals being instructed on washing by their exasperated parents.
As James met his gaze, the Beast broke off and grinned.
“I used to sing to my babies when they were little and did not want to wash. They never said no when I sang, so we shall see if it works for you.”
Carlo had three daughters. All by different wives.
Every one of those wives had met a violent end.
James said nothing, only ground his teeth and stared at the drain as the men tossed buckets of water on him.
All dignity was lost as they set to scrubbing him with soap that smelled like bergamot, of all things.
The men were thorough, their eyes bland in the way of someone performing a mundane task of little interest, and they inspected him down to his fingernails, which were cleaned and clipped and buffed.
All while Carlo kept fucking singing.