Prince Aldric Thorne's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

The bolt scraped back before Aldric had finished the last of the bread. Owen stepped in first, quicker than usual, and set a bucket of clean water on the floor. "Wash your face," he said. "A court man is coming down. Amfridus. He questions you now." Aldric's hands stilled on the wood plate. He knew the name. His father had spoken it once at table, with the small careful voice men used for people who could not be bought. Aldric wet his fingers and dragged them through his hair. Amfridus came alone. He was short and round-shouldered, with a monocle, a quill already uncapped, and a folded sheet of paper pressed to a small board. He did not greet Aldric. He looked once around the cell, noted the chains, noted the linen under the cuffs, and wrote something down. "Prince Aldric Thorne of Vael," Amfridus said. "The pouch bearing your seal held white powder. The king's taster is dead. Explain." Aldric had rehearsed this a hundred times in the dark. He had planned to weep, to plead his youth, to name his father's enemies. He looked at the quill and understood that any story he told would be written down and read back to men who would hang him for the parts that did not fit. He set the plate aside. "I did not carry that pouch into the hall," he said. "I have not touched my seal since I was given over. Someone in this castle used it. I do not know who. I will not guess, because a guess on your paper will kill me." His voice held. He did not add anything else. Amfridus wrote for a long moment. Then he raised the monocle and looked at Aldric properly for the first time. "Sixteen," he said. "Your father dressed you like a whore and sent you to war. Now you sit in iron and refuse to lie." He paused. "Irritating." "My lord?" "I came to ruin you on paper." Amfridus tapped the quill against the board. "You have made it difficult." He folded the sheet. He drew a short, thin dagger from inside his coat and laid it on the straw within Aldric's reach. "Not for me. For the next man who comes. If the guard is honest, you will not need it. If the guard is not, use it once and use it well." He looked at Owen without expression. "Blackwood. You heard nothing." "Nothing, my lord," Owen said. Amfridus left. The bolt shot home. Aldric stared at the blade on the straw, then at Owen, who had not moved from the wall. The charge was not dropped. The rope still waited. But a court official had walked out with his quill dry, and Aldric was still breathing, and there was a knife in his cell now that no one had written down.