Chapter 20 The Prisoner
As Hargreaves made his way to Newtorn Prison, he remembered the night that they’d caught that runaway prisoner, more than twenty years ago now.
He and Percy had been drunk. Too much youthful merriment; Percy had come of age only that year while Hargreaves still awaited his inheritance. Their empty pockets meant they couldn’t find comfort at the brothels nor pleasure at the gambling halls.
Hargreaves had stumbled into a hidden alley to spew his guts.
Once that endeavor was over, he’d looked up to find himself face-to-face with a gaunt, unwashed man who’d worn the striped uniform of the incarcerated.
They’d blinked at each other before Hargreaves sprang up and grabbed hold of the escaped convict’s arm.
The noise of the scuffle had drawn Percy, and they had caught the stranger in a death grip, pushing him onto his knees.
Hargreaves had never forgotten the man’s wild gaze as it roved across their faces, looking for a shred of clemency.
His skin had been as brown as Hargreaves’s own.
Percy had laughed in delight. “An escaped convict. How capital! Shall we tie him up and take him to Lord Shevington’s ball?”
Since Percy practically worshipped debauchery, it was left to Hargreaves to be the perpetual voice of reason.
“No, I’ll go hail a soldier. He may be a cutthroat—hardly a fitting guest.”
The prisoner had begun to speak then, quick words in Algaraan, his eyes fixed on Hargreaves’s face.
“What did he say?” Percy asked him.
Hargreaves shifted, irked that he had to be the one to translate. He closed his eyes, trying to make sense of the prisoner’s words through the haze of wine. “He denies being a murderer. He stole from an unattended shop till. He’s a thief.”
Percy watched the man, his eyes slitted from the effect of strong drink. “Let’s not be hasty to condemn. Let’s consider this man’s situation. He might’ve been starving; to be thrown onto these unforgiving Golborne streets is no blessing, either. It can turn anyone into a desperate creature.”
Hargreaves glared at Percy. He knew his friend was neither merciful nor kind. “What do you suggest, Avon?”
“Justice, my friend,” Percy responded, raising his hand as if he were standing on a pulpit. “Ask this man how many years he’s been sentenced to.”
Reluctantly, Hargreaves complied, though he knew it was a dangerous thing to indulge Percy. What isn’t learned in the cradle will be learned too late.
“Fifteen years,” the man responded uneasily, in stuttering Morish.
Percy shook his head. “Is the punishment not too harsh for such a crime?”
Hargreaves gritted his teeth. “Do you suggest we let him go? Likely he’s lying; no sane magistrate would give fifteen years for mere robbery. Perhaps he is a cutthroat, and the next throat he slits may be ours.”
“Of course we won’t let him go, but we could grant him a greater mercy,” Percy said. “We won’t return him to Newtorn Prison.”
Hargreaves’s stomach tightened. “Where would you take him?”
Percy’s pale-blue eyes widened in excitement.
“Orley. That old demon told me that the underworld will pay good money for living human bodies to feed on. We can take him down there, allow him to serve just a year with one of the demon nobility—a fair amount of time for his crime—and collect him the next spring. It would be fair. It would be just.”
Hargreaves swallowed. “I thought we’d put the matter of demons to rest. You are soon to be wed, Percy, too old for these childish fancies. The law may have been harsh, but it’s the law.”
Percy stared at him, then yanked the prisoner upward by his hair until he was on his feet.
“Hargreaves, this is your countryman. He bleeds like you. He shares your tongue. Do you think that a Morish man would have received the same punishment? Yet you allow your kin this unfair fate due to…legalities?”
Once again, a feeling of annoyance built in Hargreaves’s breast at being compared to this prisoner, at being othered by his friend in such a way.
Hargreaves was also a noble, and was far wealthier than any Avon had ever been.
He had no further kinship with this prisoner than a tepid tie to a country that Hargreaves had never even seen. Why must he be responsible for the man?
But just then the prisoner started humming, as if to calm himself. It was an Algaraan lullaby—one Hargreaves’s mother used to sing him to sleep with. It jarred him to hear such a nostalgic tune come out of the mouth of such a despicable creature.
Hargreaves looked at Percy. He knew that the choice was his.
If Hargreaves insisted on calling for the soldiers, then that was what they would do.
Making up his mind, Hargreaves sighed. “This is the first and last time, do you understand? We take this one prisoner to the underworld, then that is it. No more dealings with the demons.”
It had not been the last time.
The Warden greeted Hargreaves now at the entrance of Newtorn Prison. Twenty odd years had passed, and Hargreaves was a middle-aged viscount. Percy was long dead.
“Your Lordship.” The Warden bowed deeply before ushering him up a flight of stairs and into his own office. It was a comfortable room, with a scarlet carpet to cushion the hard stone floor, but even here the walls vibrated with the ever-revolving assembly lines that existed within the prison.
“I have five prisoners who I think would be suitable for your…ah…purposes,” the Warden said eagerly, his eyes bulging from his thin face.
Hargreaves waved for him to start, a headache building in his temples.
It was a grim business, but one Hargreaves didn’t trust to anyone else.
Years ago, when the Wake was the only group to be trading in convicts, there was profit to be made.
At present the market was saturated with freelance traders who had ventured into the underworld, with the Warden happily taking bribes from any of them who paid in full.
Now Hargreaves only performed this discomfiting task as an act of clemency.
While it unsettled him to link himself to these Algaraans, they were still his countrymen, and he now knew how unfairly the law viewed them.
It was his personal brand of justice that he took them away from a life sentence here.
They could spend only a few years in the demon world before they’d be set free.
Providing they survived it.
Lord Kilworth was the only member of the Wake to have ever opposed the trade of prisoners. He did not view it as an act of mercy, as Hargreaves did, but an unnatural act of human submission to another, lesser being.
“How dare the demons think they could steal from a human? Cow us into compliance, into shells to serve their purposes? Feed on us to grow their own powers, to prolong their lives?” Kilworth’s voice had been laced with abject disgust. “Mark my words, Hargreaves, we ought to shoot ’em before they take the notion into their heads to enslave us. ”
It was a tired argument, one born out of fear. The demons could be managed, could be controlled. Hargreaves had told him that he would manage them.
Kilworth had taken a swig of hard liquor, mouth twisting from the taste. “Beings like that can only be managed through strength. Especially that demon who works for the Saint. I guarantee you she’ll know where the Limitless Vessel is. We ought to force the information out of her.”
Hargreaves had not bothered to respond, the foolishness of the suggestion grating on his ears. They’d had this argument before, but Kilworth was stubborn in his certainty. The demon servant did not know; neither Hargreaves nor Percy had ever allowed her to have that information.
No, the only person to know the location of the Limitless Vessel was Percy, now ten years in his crypt.
The first two prisoners the Warden presented now were simple cases of larceny that had been given a disproportionate amount of prison time. Hargreaves gave them both three years in the underworld. If they lived through that, they’d earn their freedom.
The Warden turned to him before leaving to bring in the third prisoner. “The next one is the convict you asked for, the father of the Saint of Silence’s new companion.”
Hargreaves had kept updated on St. Silas. That he had employed a new secretary had not escaped his notice.
“Bring him in,” Hargreaves ordered the Warden.
The prisoner entered in chains, his beard scraggly and gray, his steps shuffling. Oddly, he didn’t give the same fearful half glances as the other convicts. Instead, his gaze was steady.
“What have you been sentenced for?” Hargreaves asked, eyeing the man with distaste.
The prisoner’s Morish was heavily accented. “A lifetime for treason.”
Hargreaves switched to Algaraan effortlessly. It was better this way, away from the Warden’s understanding. “What sort of treason?”
“I attempted to start a union.” The prisoner smiled. “You are Effendi Hargreaves?”
Hargreaves inclined his head.
“My dearest daughter worked for you once.”
Hargreaves raised a brow. “In the kitchens?”
“She was a lady’s companion for your mother. Not for long. Her name is Leena Al-Sayer.”
Hargreaves straightened and stared at the man.
A lady’s companion? Who worked for him? He had gone through many lady’s companions with his mother as her memory increasingly deteriorated.
The name rang a bell in the recesses of his mind—a young girl who had handed in her notice without any explanation. She was St. Silas’s new companion?
His Lordship studied the prisoner. “You attempted to start a union? For what purpose?”
“For progress, Effendi. For better wages, for safer conditions.”
“Is that it?” Hargreaves’s tone was derisive. “I’ve seen men like you—men who yearn for destruction, for chaos. You were hoping to start the same revolution that occurred in the homeland.”
“Have you called me here to speak of politics?” The prisoner glanced disdainfully at the manacles encircling his wrists. “I used to lecture in history at the Algaraan University. You Morland nobles fear an uprising—and, yes, you are right to fear one. If the Algaraan revolutionaries win the war—”
“They have won. The Malik is soon to hang.”
The man stepped back, shock widening his eyes.
“What did you say that surprised him so?” the Warden asked, but Hargreaves ignored him.
“The war is over?” the prisoner whispered, then let out a booming laugh that ended in a coughing spasm.
Anger stirred in Hargreaves’s chest at the prisoner’s joy. “It is men like you who make orphans. What does Algaraa have to show for its revolution? An unstable country, derided by all. I am trying to set right what you and your kin have done wrong.”
“Your kin as well, my lord,” the man interrupted him. “Do not forget this. We are countrymen. We share a homeland.”
Hargreaves turned to the Warden, speaking in Morish. “Fifteen years in the underworld is fair for this man. That will serve to stabilize his more dangerous sentiments.”
The Warden bowed. Just as the prisoner was dragged from the room, Hargreaves called at him in Algaraan, “Are you aware that your daughter is currently working for the Saint of Silence?”
The man started, his face paling under the layer of dirt. “My daughter? Leena? You must be mistaken, Effendi. I have warned both my children never to have anything to do with that con man.”
Ah, interesting. He indicated to the Warden to take the prisoner away. Hargreaves would keep an eye on him in the underworld until he found a use for him.
As the door shut behind him, Hargreaves leaned back and closed his eyes. His thoughts trailed back to that first prisoner they had traded all those years ago, and the memories that had sunk their teeth into him.
Percy, you fool, Hargreaves thought to himself. If you had stuck with this endeavor, if you had learned to practice economy, if your greed hadn’t corrupted you, then you would have kept Weavingshaw. And the Avon line would not have ended.
Hargreaves was going back to Weavingshaw.
Weavingshaw—where his wife had walked into the ocean. Where he’d met Percy for the last time on that barren field, blade in hand. The same Weavingshaw that had brought them all peace as boys, before taking it back with an unyielding hand.
No, Hargreaves was never to have peace again.
Not after Weavingshaw.
Somewhere far off, he heard a distant scream. It was likely the Warden marking the prisoner with seven brutal letters seared into his forearm: The Wake.