Chapter Four #2
She didn’t know for sure, though. Innocent men ended up in jail all the time.
Still, it was better if he remained hungry and weak until she decided whether he was indeed guilty, and if he was, what she was going to do about him.
She drank one cup of water and saved the second one for later.
She was still severely dehydrated, but they only had one bucket for their needs.
The thought that she would eventually have to use it made her want to throw up what she’d just eaten.
Feeling infinitesimally better, she wrapped the blanket tightly around her body and tried to make herself comfortable in the corner where the wall met the door hinges.
An hour passed. Rune’s breathing was regular, though she could tell he wasn’t sleeping.
Moans and cries echoed down the corridor as night and its nightmares fully enshrouded the prison.
Seraphina tuned them out as best as she could, her attention tight on Rune’s side of the cell.
Another hour passed. Her eyes felt heavy, her body slumping despite herself.
When her forehead hit the wall, she jerked awake and pinched herself.
She couldn’t afford to fall asleep. She chased away the fog that had taken over her mind, and that was when she heard it – the sound of a pointy object scratching against stone.
She lifted and inclined her head, trying to determine where it was coming from and what it meant.
“Rune? What are you doing?”
The scratching stopped. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
“I wasn’t sleeping. What is that noise?”
“I’m just...” He sighed. “I will stop.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing, I’m writing.”
“Writing?”
“Sometimes I write on the walls. I managed to pull a rusty nail out of the cot, and I use it for writing. Or drawing. Sometimes I draw.”
Well, now she was wide awake. Rune had a rusty nail? Fuck. Could he eviscerate her with it? But if he’d wanted to do anything to her, he would’ve moved already. She couldn’t afford to spiral; she had to take things slowly.
“What are you writing?”
“Things I remember.”
“What things?”
“Words... that rhyme.”
“Do you mean poems? Are you a poet, Rune?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
This was infuriating. Trying to make him talk was like pulling teeth. Two hours ago, she’d decided she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, but now she was reconsidering that strategy. Maybe if she learned more about him, she would understand why he was so contradictory.
“Tell me one,” she said.
“What?”
“A poem you wrote.”
“I... What I write... I don’t know if it’s any good.”
“It doesn’t matter, I want to hear it.”
“It’s not done. I’ve been working on it for a while.”
She let out an annoyed sigh.
“All right,” he conceded. “It starts like this.”
“Upon the road, sour winter’s time is cast.
Let peace that leads to Heaven now recoil,
And idly fill your mind with dreams that spoil.
From gaping graves, the hungry dead break fast.”
A chill ran up Seraphina’s spine. She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. How could someone who wrote like that kill women?
“Rune, I need to ask you something. I’ve asked you before, and you were vague. I need you to tell me the truth. The answer can either be yes, or no.”
She wasn’t na?ve, she knew he could lie. But she would listen for it, all her senses on high alert. If he lied, she’d be able to tell.
“All right.”
“Did you kill those women?”
He was quiet, of course. What else did she expect? She leaned forward and touched her forehead to the cold stone, then gently banged her head against it.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Then answer me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you killed those women?” A disbelieving laugh escaped her.
“The truth is...” He gulped. “You said you wanted the truth, and the truth is... I don’t remember.”
Seraphina groaned. “You can’t play the memory loss card every time it suits you.”
“I’m not.” He said it so quietly that if Seraphina’s hearing hadn’t been near supernatural, she would’ve missed it.
“I know you don’t believe me. Do you think I don’t hear myself?
How I sound? Sometimes it feels like my mind is made of tiny little pieces.
Shards. Like bone shards, you know? Except they were cut all wrong and now they don’t fit. ”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“About the women?”
“Yes, about the women!”
He dragged a breath in and pushed it out slowly, forcefully. It was his turn to bang his head against the wall, but she didn’t tell him to stop. She waited.
“I remember one woman. I think. There was blood everywhere. On my hands, on my apron. The leg couldn’t be saved, so I cut it off, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop.
I tied the big vessel, then heated the iron until it glowed, and pressed it to the stump.
The smell...” He paused, and Seraphina heard him swallow.
“I thought I’d done it right. But hours later, something gave way.
The bleeding started again, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
The hospital only had a few Quietus Nets, which helped keep the patients sedated, but for her, I needed a Staunching Lattice, and the last one had broken weeks before. ”
It took Seraphina a minute to wrap her head around what she’d just heard.
“So, you were a surgeon?”
“Maybe.”
She let out a groan. She’d asked him about the dead women, and he’d told her about a woman he’d presumably tried to save.
A weaver, a poet, and a surgeon? Not possible.
Not if he’d lived a sheltered life, like he’d said.
And for someone who claimed he didn’t know about relics, the Sarumite Order, or the four currents, he knew an awful lot about lattices.
The Quietus Net was a class B lattice, which meant that it was fairly powerful and could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
Mostly, it was used for medical purposes, as an anodyne.
To a certain extent, it could blunt pain, steady respiration, and induce mild sedation while keeping the patient from losing consciousness.
In hospitals, it was used for surgeries, preferred over laudanum, which often caused shallow breathing, a low pulse, and sometimes worse – stupor that led to coma.
However, ill-meaning people could use it in a variety of ways: interrogation, control, and even crowd suppression if the lattice was large enough.
The Staunching Lattice did exactly what its name said – it slowed bleeding.
Medical grade as well, and not as interesting to those who would’ve wanted to use it in other ways.
Though Seraphina had heard rumors about the Staunching Lattice being a favorite of the opposition when they wanted to extract information from their prisoners in less pleasant ways.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she finally said. “You make no sense.”
“I know.”
She shifted in the small corner she occupied. Her back popped. It was impossible to find a comfortable position.
“If we’re going to share a cell, we need rules,” she said.
“I agree.”
“I’m glad. Here are mine, and they’re non-negotiable. The first one we’ve established already – no looking at each other’s faces. The second one – no touching. I realize at some point we’ll have to stand up, move around. I propose we always sit or stand back-to-back.”
“Yes, that works for me.”
“Good. I will move away from the wall now. I’ll face the door, but I need some space to stretch.”
“I’ll face the back wall,” he said. “I can push some straw toward you, if you want. The floor is hard.”
“All right. Slowly.”
He used his hands to sweep straw to the middle of the cell, and she reached behind her and pulled it toward her. She made herself a little nest and stretched in front of the barred door.
“Rune?”
“Yes?”
“I can’t stay awake anymore.”
“Then sleep.”
She let out a laugh or tried to. It came out as a strangled sob.
“Don’t kill me,” she said.
“Seraphina. I won’t even come near you, I swear. We have rules.”
“Do rules even mean anything to a murderer?”
He didn’t answer, which certainly didn’t make Seraphina feel better.
“Just don’t kill me.”