Violya

Chapter 8 Toby

8

TOBY

They’d been rumbling along for weeks, and Prince Toby Cleland knew precisely where those damn Thorne twins and their revolting mother were heading. Cleland City. To take the castle and claim Fertilian as their own.

He’d been captured, beaten and, when they had realised who he was, flung in a covered cart, arms and feet bound, lying on his side.

Canvas was tied tightly across the top of the cart but a sliver of daylight broke through where the two met. He pushed himself up and touched his nose to the canvas in an attempt to widen the gap to see out, but with his hands bound behind his back, his shoulders screamed in pain and he lay on his side once again.

Each morning a male servant brought him a weak broth, stale bread and water. A Peqkian warrior would pull down the back of the cart, heave Toby out and onto the ground, and stand, watchful and hard-faced as the servant pulled Toby into a sitting position and fed him. Then the warrior would heave Toby to his feet so the servant could pull down his breeches and spread out his legs. The warrior grabbed him under the arms and held him just off the ground so he could piss and s**t right there.

The first time this happened, Toby couldn’t go. Couldn’t do his business in front of an audience, but by day five, all dignity and embarrassment had passed. He counted the days by this little ritual.

When he was finished, the breeches were pulled up and he was forced back into the cart. On the first day he had struggled, using his bound feet to push against the cart. The warrior had dropped him on the ground, punched him expertly so as not to do any lasting damage but enough so he passed out. He woke up in the cart and in agony, and decided after that it was best to comply.

The Thornes hadn’t called for him. Although he was, without a doubt, their most prized captive. He’d seen Hugo die in the battle. His brother, his King, dead. Many others had seen it, and if the Cleland soldiers weren’t already close to giving up, when they saw Hugo fall to a Peqkian warrior, they caved. They charged about stupidly, broke formation, ran and fled. The warrior had looked thoroughly bored, not even aware of the significance of who she had felled, just another body to chop down. And once Hugo was down, she moved on to the next man in turn.

The battle had been a disaster for the Cleland army, as Hugo and Toby had known it would be the moment Captain Denya and her company of one thousand warriors had deserted them. The Thorne twins’ army was lumbering, ponderous. But the Peqkians, who hours earlier had been on the side of the Clelands, moved like magic, dispersing and reforming, communicating effortlessly with whistles down the line, instinctively knowing where to put their horses, when to dismount and engage.

The Cleland army had been forced back by the sheer momentum of the Peqkian’s charge and the Cleland cavalry ended up trampling its own infantry. A disaster that saw the Cleland force dissolve into chaos.

Toby sighed. It would be another long day in the back of the cart. The morning ritual had been and gone and he had the entire day and night to lay on his side, attempt to ignore his burning arms and attempt even harder to not dwell on the battle. He had accepted his current circumstance, but he hadn’t accepted the defeat. The betrayal of Denya. He was desperate to know what the Thornes had offered her to make her switch sides, to desert her Melokai’s orders, to go rogue. What had they given her that he couldn’t? It should’ve been a Cleland victory. The bitter statement throbbed behind his eyes ceaselessly.

After the cavalry trampling, the Cleland soldiers had retreated. Toby with them. They ran and ran until the Peqkians had picked off most at the back, but then darkness fell and the Peqkians returned to the Thorne camp. The Cleland soldiers formed up and made a hasty camp, exhausted. Toby had attempted to rally them, ordered them to pick up arms, to be ready for anything. But they all thought the unspoken code would be honoured. Battles happened during the day.

A mistake. The Peqkians didn’t follow that code, probably didn’t even know it. They knew victory and nothing else. In the middle of the night, they had surrounded the camp and attacked with no mercy. Some men got away, some were captured, most were murdered where they slept, not even having the chance to pick up a weapon. The cats were that fast.

Toby had been awake, and he’d fought. He’d been recognised by a Peqkian who disarmed him and bound him faster than he could comprehend and then taken him to Denya. It was that Peqkian’s bindings that were still around his wrists and feet. Damn, he had to admire the skills of the mountain warriors. Everything so precise. Even a knot made in haste, in the middle of a skirmish, had held true for weeks. It hadn’t budged. In fact, Toby was certain it was getting tighter.

But today was different. He was heaved out of the cart, blindfolded and dragged through mud, through men talking, through the camp to a building. The air changed and dark filled in the blindfold’s edges. He was lugged down a set of stairs, the air getting danker, cooler. A hinge creaked and he was flung onto a cold, stone floor.

But then, a kindness, the Peqkian warrior unbound his hands and feet and pulled off his blindfold. She shoved him into the little cell so hard he landed on his knees and then shut the iron gate behind him, locking it with a big, extravagant key.

I’m in Horfe Castle. They’ve taken the town. It was the only castle on route to Cleland City, and the timing was right. The Cleland army had stopped in on the way to Yettle Valley to demand, politely of course, food and supplies. The Nithercotts, the family who resided at the castle, had invited Hugo and Toby to sleep in their guest rooms, but Hugo had refused, insisting they be close to their men.

Toby had heard no sounds of a battle, but then his cart had no doubt been at the back of the army line with the supply wagons. And perhaps Lord Nithercott had surrendered gracefully, agreed terms, willingly opened their castle dungeons for the Thorne’s captives.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Thorne soldiers trudged in more captives. Toby recognised some of his men, but there were some in Nithercott colours. So, the Lord of Horfe Castle hadn’t given in so easily.

Cells to Toby’s right and left were packed with men, but Toby was kept on his own. Three walls of his cell were stone, the iron gate and a line of bars looking out on a corridor. He crawled to the bars and leaned against them watching as men were marched past his cell. Desperate to catch someone’s eye, to learn what he could without the Thorne men noticing, he gestured subtly with his finger. But the captives stared at their feet.

An argument broke out along the corridor over the groans of the crammed in men.

One Thorne soldier said, “There’s no more room in this last one.”

The second said, “Shove him in that cell.”

“I’ve tried, and that cell and that one. There’s no more room. I say we just kill him. No one’s going to know.”

A third soldier, “Can’t kill any of these ones, the cat wants to question them.”

“Look at the state of him, the f*****g cripple isn’t going anywhere, shove him in with the prince. What’s he going to do, help him break free?”

They laughed at that and Toby heard them approaching his cell. He carefully stood, wobbled on legs that hadn’t been used for days and felt weak. Toby had a few moments to decide if he would charge and attempt escape. But when the soldiers came in front of his cell, there were five of them.

I need to bide my time. There will be better opportunities than this.

He hobbled away from the bars to stand against the back wall of the cell as the gate creaked open and a bedraggled man was pushed in, back first. The man fell on his rump, curled up into a small ball covering his head with his arms, and was silent. The soldiers pulled shut the gate, locked it and then stomped up the stairs.

From the other cells, men groaned, begged for air and space to sit, shouted that another was standing on a foot, or that an elbow in their chest was stopping their breathing.

Toby took a few tentative steps, eyes fixed on the man on the floor.

The man swung up, pushed himself to standing, went to the gates and looked along the corridor, then up the stairs. Satisfied there was no one other than the prisoners in the vicinity, he turned and with one revolting look, the lipless soldier spy Elmgard grinned at Toby.

“Lippy,” whispered Toby, and a huge grin spread across his own face. He resisted the urge to hug the man, having never done it before, but then thought, sod it, and embraced his old spy.

“Prince Toby,” Lippy said in his strange numbed voice over Toby’s shoulder. He’d lost his lips for mocking a Peqkian soldier on their journey from Riaow to Cleland City.

Toby let the man go and they took each other in. Awkward. Shaking off the impromptu embrace, they huddled in one corner of the cell, with eyes on the bottom of the stairs should anyone come.

Lippy, not hesitating for any pleasantries, appreciating their time together might be short, filled Toby in.

“The last time we met, you asked me to find out that Peqkian b***h captain’s payment. Well,” the lipless soldier chuckled, “I did. She didn’t want money, she didn’t want horses, or power, or land, or nothing that anyone else would want. False Queen Charlotte Thorne haggled and haggled but Denya said no to it all. It infuriated the old bird, she’s got seventy-odd years of scheming behind her and couldn’t sway this one cat. It’s said that the old bird bit down her pride, creaked to her knees and begged, pleading with Denya to know what it would take to make her switch sides and…” Lippy chuckled again, “that wily cat captain said, ‘You.’”

“Denya asked for Charlotte? For what?”

“Denya likes women, we all know that, right? Well, according to my sources, she’s known for frequently falling in love with unsuitable, hard to get, powerful, older women. Had a long relationship with an older warrior back in Peqkya, Ashya, the turncoat who helped the Dromedars invade, so I heard. And rumour has it that back in Cleland City she seduced Lady Cynthia Sumner right under her husband Alon’s nose. Cynthia’s notable all right, and she ain’t no spring lamb.”

“Denya betrayed her Melokai’s orders to bed that crusty old hag, Charlotte?” Toby’s eyebrows nearly shot off his face.

Lippy laughed silently. Chest heaving in great mirth, but not wanting to draw any attention. Laughter carried on the air and neither wanted it to float up the stairs and into the ears of a Thorne soldier, or worse, a Peqkian.

“How did Charlotte speak to Denya? They must’ve met face to face.”

Lippy’s laughter subsided. “Ah, so you won’t be pleased about this. Charlotte dressed up as an old hag – totally fitting if you ask me – and snuck into our camp as a follower serving broth and food to the men.”

“s**t,” Toby muttered, angry that his camp guards hadn’t spotted the intruder.

“The first time she came to negotiate, Denya nearly killed her. It was on the eve before the first battle. But then the cat became infatuated, let the old hag live and listened to her piece. Denya refused everything that Charlotte offered. Then said she wanted Charlotte in her bed, as her woman. Charlotte stomped off in a huff, so I heard. Blathering how much she was insulted, had never heard of such a thing blah blah. But then she must’ve thought on it whilst the Thorne army were battered and we won that first battle. She returned the next night and agreed. Denya left that same night. The following morning’s when I last saw you.

“Rumour has it, Charlotte’s been moaning in pleasure every night since. And Denya looks like the cat that’s got the cream.”

Toby grimaced.

“But, if you ask me, that Denya’s a sneaky cat. She wants power all right. She wants to rule Peqkya. Charlotte thinks she’s holding the reins of that relationship, thinks the cat’s besotted with her, the arrogant fool, but Denya’s scheming and playing the long game. Wouldn’t surprise me if Denya aids Charlotte to take Fertilian, then uses the Thorne army to destroy Peqkya. Just an inkling.”

“You are an excellent spy,” Toby said, “with excellent inklings.”

“I haven’t learnt much else. Other than we’re on our way to Cleland City, and we’re at Horfe Castle, but I think you know that.”

A slight movement caught Toby’s eye and he looked up to see a Peqkian warrior at the gate. She had come down the stairs silently and so fast that Toby and Lippy hadn’t noticed. They both jumped. They’d been caught in the act.

She left in the same manner as she’d arrived and Lippy looked at Toby, then clambered over to the other side of the cell and curled up in a ball. Toby drew his knees up to his chest and put his head on them. This was the position they had wanted to be found in, as if they hadn’t spoken, didn’t know each other.

The same five Thorne soldiers who had deposited Lippy in Toby’s cell came down the stairs, followed by three Peqkian warriors. Using hand gestures and movement, the warriors herded the men and lined them up in front of the gates.

The Peqkian warrior who had caught Toby and Lippy in conversation pointed at Toby, indicated the cell and held up one finger as if to say, ‘Only that one man in this cell.’ She then pointed to Lippy and slowly shook her head.

The soldiers were terrified. They shot desperate looks at one another and then the blame tumbled from lips, each accusing the other of disobeying orders.

In a heartbeat, two Thorne soldiers were dead, throats slashed by the two warriors behind them. They slumped to the stone flagstones, leaking blood into the cracks. The warriors’ bloody daggers were then held to the next throats.

The warrior who had gestured pulled a dagger strapped to her arm and held it to the nearest soldier’s throat. He tried to move, to go for his sword but he was slow, as if he moved through mud rather than air. With her other hand, the Peqkian tapped a finger to her ear. The meaning clear, ‘Next time, listen and obey.’

She nodded at the other warriors and the daggers were withdrawn. The remaining three soldiers gulped and clutched their still-whole necks. She dismissed them with a glance and they scarpered up the stairs, not looking once at their fallen comrades.

Somehow, although she speaks their language, her silence is even more menacing. I will have to remember that.

She turned to look at Toby and shook her head. She handed the key to one of the warriors and jogged up the stairs, leaving the other two watching Toby and Lippy. The women held the same pose, feet slightly apart, one hand on sword, one resting on thigh. Poised and ready. Elegant but lethal.

A whistle rung down the stairs. The warrior with the key opened the gate, the second entered and grabbed Lippy. She hauled him up, as if he weighed no more than a child, and pulled him out. He turned to give a last glance at Toby. Toby dipped his chin in recognition of the man’s outstanding service.

Both knew this was unlikely to end well. He’d be tortured for information. Denya can’t know he is a spy, can she? She’ll think he’s just another camp follower. I kept him secret from her. Or will she remember when he caused trouble and one of her warriors sliced off his lips?

Hours later, Toby got his answer.

A Peqkian warrior shoved Lippy – barely alive, bloody, with no fingers, eyelids or teeth – against the bars for Toby to see.

Toby scrambled to his feet and reached for his spy, his friend. “No!”

She drew her dagger and sliced it across the front of Lippy’s neck. Hot blood spurted on Toby’s outstretched hand and he watched the life drain from Lippy’s eyes.

“Elmgard,” Toby whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

The warrior dropped the lifeless body on top of the two dead Thorne soldiers and walked away.

Lippy’s blood gushed to mix with the soldiers’ blood. The tide pooled in cracks and spread further into Toby’s cell. Toby huddled in the furthest corner and watched as the blood river crept ever nearer.

He glanced up. Lippy’s lidless, dead eyes bored into him.