Early Year 622

Winter

Snow Moon

The jail of Brown-Horn, whose cold dungeons extend in an ancient network under the barracks of Horn-Hill, is not only one of the oldest buildings of the city, but it's also one of the focal points of Brownian history. Barely three hundred years before Unification, Castle-Horn was still only a small, filthy wooden fort located on the wrong side of the river; as for the name Govon, it could only be linked to an ambitious line of dubious adventurers and opportunistic captains. The southern lords became accustomed to entrusting their own troublemakers to the hard and desperate men who had erected the first palisades of Horn-Hill. At first the influx had been modest. Those who could not be disposed of directly, those who had to be removed, the political prisoners who had to be locked away where they could no longer frighten or embarrass anyone, arrived in safe custody.

Brown-Horn was thus built around a small penitentiary mound on the wild frontier and its primary function was that of a prison town.

Some will want to turn a blind eye to this unseemly factual situation. To these people I will recall what Southy was for the ancient Sarp, as well as the existence of the Norc prison and the role that this island still plays today. Anyway, in the case of Brown-Horn, the generous rewards that accompanied the convicts of the South contributed to establish and then to consolidate the authority of the new primates of the region. The convicts themselves laid the first stones of the old families' fortunes: the excavation of black granite and the burning of hard-pines were originally tasks performed by convicts. The jails of Horn-Hill were therefore built to keep pace with the influx of prisoners from the South and if, at the time of my childhood, most of the galleries had long since been abandoned, this vast complex still stretched over prodigious distances beneath the surface of Castle-Horn. From the time I spent there, I still remember the sad song of the underground wind, the gloomy echoes and the devouring darkness that the flickering light of a few wet torches never managed to dissipate completely.

Two weeks had passed since I had been taken prisoner by the night patrol at the Lemis workshop. The guard had promptly thrown me in prison, then I was no longer given much attention: the city was far too busy celebrating Bard's wedding. I spent my days wrapped up in the shabby blanket of stained wool that I had been provided with the hay of the mattress. Twice a day I was served a warm and bland broth, with a small quarter of bread, black and disgusting. The little fat I accumulated when Sesh fed me had melted like snow in the sun. The only light that reached me came from a tiny hole dug through the rock several spans above me. The whole thing was covered with a thick grid that seemed terribly superfluous and through which the flakes could seep during gusts of wind to sprinkle the floor of my cell.

During the first days of my confinement, the joyful rumors of the festivities that followed the union of Bard and Nami Rockin, the glow of torches and candles, and the laughter followed one another above me. There were also the enticing smells of greasy meat cooked on the spit in the courtyard of the castle, which resembled delicious tortures. Then the outside echoes had fallen silent and, as the days passed, time turned into a painful paradox. On one hand I was terribly bored and every moment spent in that damn cell made me feel as if an entire year had passed. On the other hand, those hours that went by so slowly predicted the inexorable approach of my judgment by the primate. I had been caught red-handed in the store of one of the wealthiest families in the city, and for this, I knew, I was going to have my hand taken. The thought tormented me, both terrifying and unfamiliar. I had vainly nurtured the hope that my misfortune was only a horrible dream from which I would soon awaken. To my great despair, this did not happen, and as each new day dawned over the icy walls, the drum of panic beat within me.

Almost worse than the prospect of the fate that awaited me was the absolute loneliness I was facing. I had received no visits from Brindy or Ucar, and I would even have blessed the widow Ronna, if she had come to see me. My resentment towards Brindy swelled to dangerous proportions, a deep and bruised anger, before collapsing flatly when I thought of the smell of her hair and the happiness that I would have to find a life in which she would once again be a part of. The prison guard who passed by twice a day didn't speak, and all I knew of him was his soot-stained hands, when he pushed my bowls of soup under the door and I slipped the bucket in which I relieved myself back to him.

My only companions were my own stench, those few rats that ventured into my cell and the melancholic echoes of underground draughts.

However, I did not regret the actions that had led me to that point.

At most, I cursed myself for not having been able to flee. I replayed over and over again the events that had led to my capture, which I scrutinized and rehashed, looking for any mistakes I might have made.

My hatred of the upper class was only reinforced, even if this feeling often seemed very ridiculous considering the price I was going to pay. I often thought of Robin in the dark, and it was with sadness that I discovered that I could hardly remember his face. There were things I held on to, his smile, his flute, his hair, but no coherent picture could take shape in my mind.

I wondered if he was locked up like I was, and if he was also lonely. Then the image of the executioner suddenly came to mind, accompanied by a paralyzing nausea, and tears ran down my icy cheeks, warm and wet, as I held my hand. I slept badly, my nights haunted by nightmares of anguish from which I sometimes woke up screaming.

I gradually lost count of the days. I had thought, from the first frightening night, of carving a few notches in the wall among the centuries-old graffiti. I had finally given up the task as fatalistic despair set in. Lying on the damp straw of my cell, I did my best to stabilize my shaky hand and, with the help of a rusty nail pulled from the worm-eaten boards of my bed, I notched the rock. My drawings on the granite were small, often obscene doodles, whose only purpose was to keep me from thinking about the hunger I felt most of the time. One morning, darker than the others, the prison guard came and slipped the soup under the door. I heard with fright his hoarse voice announcing, "The primate will do justice at dawn, you filthy little scoundrel." I quickly retreated, and collapsed on the bed, without touching the soup. Some time later, a heavy clicking sound was heard. Terrified, I fluttered my eyelids, because I still had time, a little more time, but it was Sesh's silhouette that stood out at the entrance of the cell. I straightened up. The door closed behind him. The soldier came and sat down beside me. He had a blanket under his arm.

I observed him intermittently, and he gave me back my glances. We sat together in silence and darkness for a long time while the wind whistled in the corridor. He finally handed me the blanket. I felt like crying. "It's due for tomorrow," he ended up saying very simply. "I wanted to come earlier, but I had a lot to do." I grabbed the blanket, which Sesh had given me as a gift when I moved in with him. It was clean and smelled vaguely of lavender. The soldier didn't look at me anymore:

"I told you not to steal anymore. What you did was stupid. But I think I understand."

I snorted:

"It's their fault, everything that happened."

"I know."

Sesh sighed, gazing into space. His lips twisted curiously, as if he wanted to add something, but nothing seemed to come, and his blurred gaze detailed other ghosts, ghosts that did not belong in the prison. For a moment I thought I was still angry with him, but the resentment collided with the monument of my own loneliness. In the darkness, the pale light of the gate played on his face, and I suddenly realized that Sesh was not as old as I had imagined. I still hesitated, not quite sure how I felt about anything, so much so that the fear of the next day anaesthetized all my certainties, but since I feared that Sesh would eventually leave and that at that moment abandonment frightened me almost as much as the blade of the executioner, I formulated a question, the first one that came to me:

"Why didn't you tell me about Robin?"

Sesh nodded and coughed, as if he was waiting for me to question him.

"You are young, Fyss," he said. "You wouldn't have wanted to accept that it was too late for your friend. I needed you to keep a cool head in the Stream, to get your hands on who was responsible. I was afraid you were going to do something rash, and that's exactly what happened. I was worried about you. That's why I didn't tell you."

Although I had taken momentary pride in the central role I had played in the outcome of the dead man and missing children case, this satisfaction diminished over the next few moons. The recurring memory of the fright and the binds, the disappearance of Robin and the repudiation by Brindy had kept any glorious excesses at bay. Even though it had been difficult, I had come to embrace a reasonable interpretation of the events and the idea that, after all, we had been incredibly fortunate. I sniffed again, trying to come to terms with the fact that Sesh was probably right and that, above all, against all my expectations, he had done this for my own good. Nevertheless, I remained doubtful. There would probably have been another way, if Sesh had agreed to let me spend more time in the Stream, or if he had accompanied us that night with Brindy. A thousand other possibilities came to my twisted mind. I opened my mouth, but Sesh read me like an open book and cut off all argument:

"I told you, kid, you're young, and even if you're smart there are a lot of things you don't understand. That you won't be able to understand for a long time. I have to take that into account."

"But..."

"No buts. The spade does not need to understand why it's digging. The knife does not need to know why it cuts. We are all someone's tool, and you can be sure of one thing: it's often worse to know without understanding than not to know at all."

The silence returned as I tried to dissect the meaning of the soldier's words, even clinging to them, but my attention faded. In spite of my efforts, my fluttering gaze kept returning to my right hand, which I was involuntarily clutching against me. Sesh's presence, his vague lessons, and his familiar firmness didn't help me in the least, quite the opposite. There was probably a very small chance that I would no longer be alone in the world, and that hope was a treacherous thing. Little by little, in whole compartments, my mind collapsed under the assaults of unspeakable terror. I finally snapped after a short struggle, my guts turned inside out, my words chopped up by a flood of hiccupping sobs. "Don't let them cut off my hand, first-blade!" I begged again and again.

As the tears shook me like a mutt torments a rat, Sesh left the bed and dusted off his blazon, while carefully avoiding my imploring gaze. Through the damp fog, I thought I saw his moustache shaking. Then he readjusted his iron helmet, shook his head, and took a step toward the door. His gauntlet landed heavily on the latch. I heard him take a deep breath, then mumbled several sentences, before turning around and saying more clearly:

"By this time tomorrow, tell yourself that all this will be behind you. But first you will have to face the consequences of your actions."

The door creaked open, and Sesh sealed my fate with a terribly cold voice, carefully purged of all emotion:

"Since no one showed up, tomorrow I will be your witness. There is nothing else I can do for you."

With these words, he left the cell. I crouched sobbing, my mind empty, my body entangled in a bramble of anguish that embraced me from the inside, a thousand frozen and trembling stings. Eventually I became exhausted and fell into an uncertain sleep. I sank into a macabre universe, populated by gigantic guards, choppers and blood. Too quickly, the prison guard pulled me out of my dark dreams by drumming on the door hatch. He slipped underneath the door a bowl of soup, a little more consistent than usual, and a piece of fresh bread.

I ate a little, wrapped up under the two blankets. A few impromptu images of crippled beggars, overlaid with the memory of the widow Ronna beheading her chickens, ended my nascent appetite. I rushed to the prisoner's bucket to relieve myself noisily. Then I went to lie down, weak and nauseous. I didn't sleep that night, between resignation and denial, trying to anticipate the pain, the deprivation, all the things I couldn't do anymore. In spite of all my efforts, I could not accept that this part of me, warm and alive, which was animated according to my desires, could be separated from the rest of my being. Dawn found me in the same tense, pale and shivering position. I listened to the beat of my heart. Daylight was beginning to shine through the grid above me. It was going to be sunny but cold. I marked in my mind the slightest roughness of the stones, the slightest mold, as if I was clinging to something unchanging. Then I would close my eyes to see that I couldn't remember anything.

Suddenly, someone hammered the door of my cell. I was startled. The door opened with a bang and I began to shake, tossed by feverish waves, my mind wandering. I did not stir. I had frozen, unable to react to the invective, unable to believe it was really happening. And yet, deep down, I knew it all too well. It wasn't a nightmare. Two scowling, potbellied guards finally pulled aside the blankets. They grabbed me under the armpits and, like dead weight, I was dragged down the corridor. I clenched my teeth, certain that they would break, but unable to protest the crushing weight, the inevitability of what laid ahead. I swallowed, my throat was dry. The muffled shock of the heavy door resounded behind me like the snap of a steel jaw.