A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
He was moving. His arms hoisted painfully high. He felt sweat drip down his arms from beneath the press of hands on his skin. Hands bloodied and calloused, much like his own.
Hair stuck to his cheek soaked in blood, sweat, and pus. A clumped curl of hair caressed his cracked lips. It tasted of blood.
The air damp with sweat and reeking with the stench of bodies and urine. The heat clawed at his face with tendrils of humid air.
Searing wounds laced his body. He didn’t have to see them. Feeling each cut in his skin was enough. Each gash screamed its own note. Along his ribs, across his chest, down his side, on the inside of his thigh, along his palms.
He felt the familiar cobblestones against the tops of his feet. The same bumps in the floor. The same grooves between stones. Another few hours of restless sleep before it began again.
The rattle of keys. And chains. The sound of iron on iron grating and crying.
A short drop. The cobblestones rushed towards him as his supports let go. Dry straw pressed against his face sticking to bloodied arms. At least his arms no longer hurt from the press of strong hands.
He sighed a weak shaking breath.
The slam of an iron door and the rattle of keys.
Bending his leg rattled a chain and scratched the floor. He lifted his foot. It was overly heavy. His feet bound with iron cuffs.
He pushed himself up with what strength he could summon. Enough to get onto his side. He coughed as he ran his hand against his chest to remove the dry straw stuck to his skin through sweat and blood. He sucked his teeth as his wounds stung from the glancing touch.
He rolled onto his back. The cold stone causing him to jerk suddenly. Cobblestones damp with humidity.
‘Coward,’ someone whispered from the darkness.
Nemo’s mind throbbed with pain and tiredness. All he wished was to sleep. He barely heard the man speak. Let alone had the energy to respond. He remained on his back, eyes shut, every nerve in his body burning in torment.
His mind whirled and he fell into an abyss.
Clunk clunk clunk.
Eyes spinning awake.
‘Hey,’ someone whispered.
Nemo groaned waiting for the agony to return.
‘I know you. You were there when that beggar was murdered,’ he said.
Right on time, Nemo thought as the stinging, aching, pain swept up from his legs and assailed his body in waves and spikes of persistent torture. This was the true torture. The continued throbbing of every vein, every patch of skin, every muscle. The dull throb in his head as he attempted to comprehend the damage but instead was left in a haze of anguish.
‘What did you do?’ The persistent voice continued.
‘He tried to kill the governor,’ another answered for him.
‘You what? How would that help anything?’ The first man said.
Nemo remembered him now. Leaping to the defence of the defenceless only to be cast in chains and left to rot underground in a dank cell with other ingrates.
‘Revenge? That would make more sense. Killing him will only make it worse for the rest of us,’ the merchant continued.
‘It already has,’ the other piped.
Nemo lay on his back wishing for restless sleep to take him from his dreary cell. At least there he couldn’t feel anything. Or hear.
‘Fool,’ the man cursed and sucked his spittle before launching it.
It landed on Nemo’s ribs. Cool against his skin, easing wounds for a second. That was enough. He didn’t bother wiping the spit from himself. Why bother? It would simply be replaced.
The cell door at the far end of the gaol rattled the second bell. Next would come a hunk of mouldy bread thrown through the gaps in the bars. One for Nemo, alone in his cell. Then three for each of the other two cells.
Nemo had the cell opposite the door out of the prison. Curved wall and a trickle of water. Luxury for a gaol cell. Nemo smiled to himself. The bread, solid as rock, thudded against the back wall and he fell back into drifting slumber.
The third bell rang. The rattle of the keys. A cursory glance from a prison guard and the door closed and locked before the keys had time to stop clinking.
A day was six bells down under the city. Six visits from a guard. Two with a serving of food. Often bread. Always a week passed its prime. Two others with a cup of water. Two more with nary a whisper.
His mind drifted back into his body. Leaving its unknowable realm to experience ever more pain. Nemo waited for his mind to catch up with his body. The pain to register again.
The burning of wounds began again but this time a little less. The multitude of small incisions, of guts, of grazes, of nothing life threatening, was life threatening in itself after a long enough time. Yet, such wounds healed quickly. At first. He hoped forever.
Nemo turned onto his side and lunged towards where he remember the thud of bread thrown like a discus through the bars.
‘It’s gone. The others managed to reach it,’ a once glamorous merchant said. Nemo caught a glimpse of a well coloured robe beneath the grime.
Disappointing, he thought the lapping tide of pain receding for a moment. Oh well, the tide pushed ashore once more.
‘No matter,’ he spoke. His voice barely a croak in his throat. His teeth were not his own, his lips hurt to move as the skin peeled away in white flakes. How long had he been down here? A day? A week? He had slept fitful hours. Or maybe minutes. Six bells. Just count to six bells. How many had he counted? His mind reeled at thinking of anything but pain. Pain was easy. Pain was consistent. Comforting. Memories were hard, difficult, leading to unexpected conclusions.
Eight. It had been eight sets of six bells. But what if it’s twelve visits a day, not six? He wondered. He clenched his eyes shut and sat up. Stop it, he scolded himself. Pinching the bridge of his nose he picked away dried blood. He opened his eyes to the gloom of the three cells. The single sconce in the far wall waved a dull flame. Even the fire had given up.
In the room were four others. One is missing. Two in each of the cells leading from his towards the way out. His cell joined to both save for the gate in the middle that led to a short, slim, path, less than four steps long. Nemo had slept in beds larger than the entire gaol room.
‘Who is missing?’ He asked the merchant whose name he had forgotten from the days, hours, before.
‘He never spoke but he was taken while you were… away, and well. He never came back.’
‘Was he eating?’
‘No.’
‘By choice,’ Nemo asked.
‘Yes.’
Nemo pressed his hand against the wall and felt for the dampest stone. He pressed hard against the moss growing along the stone feeling for moisture against his hand. Trickles of water dripped along his fingers and he hurried his hand to his mouth. Tearing his tongue from the roof of his mouth he licked at the moisture. He pressed his finger into the moss again. And again. And again.
The velvet dark slowly rippled away and the faces of the men he shared his gaol with flickered into sight. Harsh shadows and harsher wrinkles etched across the mens faces, their eyes hollow with grief. Grief for themselves.
Save him, the merchant, and another who flitted between scratching in the dirt between the cobblestones and mouthing off. Both creating an irking sound.
‘What happened to your bodyguard?’ Nemo asked rememberign the man drawing his sword. Loyal but foolish.
‘I don’t know,’ the merchant hung his head. ‘I just hope he did not die on my account. He was an associate not a bodyguard but never felt safe without a weapon. He was always quick to draw,’ he sighed.
The man next to the merchant pawed at the cobblestone nearest his grime ridden foot. Running his finger around the compacted dirt ringing the cobblestone. His finger, with cracked skin and flaking nail, plunged up to the second knuckle and wormed its way down one side. He pulled it free with a flick and a few specks of dirt came with it. ‘So the failure speaks,’ he murmured never breaking eye contact with his precious stone.
‘At least he tried,’ the merchant said.
‘Like you?’ The stone-obsessed man chided. ‘Two failures side-by-side. Such romance in this gaol. As if fate had a sense of humour. Doubtless she does,’ he grabbed the stone and wiggled it. The stone was almost free of its confines.
‘What are you hoping to accomplish with that stone?’ Nemo said.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ he shot a toothless smile at Nemo. His beaded irises lost in white seas. Spots and boils littered his right cheek. Dirt liberally spread over his skin.
‘You aren’t going to tell me.’
‘Not a chance,’ the crazed man ran his finger down the side of the cobblestone again, giggling.
Keys rattled on the other side of the door.
‘Oh, here they are again. For you this time. For you,’ the man stared at his cobblestone.
The merchant edged nearer to the corner of his cell, as far away as he could get from his cellmate.
The door to the gaol swung open and two guards strode in.
A prisoner in the other cell lunged with his hand through the bars and licked his lips.
One of the guards clubbed the hand away with a short folded leather club. ‘It’s not food time,’ he roared as the club crunched bone.
The prisoner yelped and clutched his hand close to his chest and withered away to the back wall of his cell.
The two guards obstructed the faint flickering flame as they approached Nemo’s cell. Both were large than him more with girth than muscle but even that counted for something.
‘Hoho it’s that time again,’ the stone-obsessed man cheered. ‘The prize for your failure.’
The gate to Nemo’s cell flung open. He flinched kicking against the ground to move back. He failed. The chains around his ankles pulled to their maximum.
The guard laughed and gripped the chains attached to the shackles around Nemo’s ankles and pulled. Nemo slid across the cobbles and straw into the clutches of the guards who grabbed a leg each. As they attempted to find the keyhole to his shackles he kicked out catching the guard holding his left leg in the ear.
The guard dropped his leg with a thud and stepped into the cell. Without warning he swung his leather club at Nemo.
The room span and a piercing ring pierced his ear. His jaw slackened and he could already feel the bruise ripening down to the bone. He remained still for as the guards unshackled and proceeded to drag him from the gaol.
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