Chapter 7
Eleanor regained consciousness to the sound of hushed voices talking a harsh, guttural language that she recognised as Magrad, though she couldn't understand what they were saying. There was an unbearable pain somewhere behind her left ear – unable to remember what had happened to bring her here, she turned her concentration to working out what was going on around her. She could feel the rough stone floor under her body, her back was pressed uncomfortably against a wall, and her left leg was folded painfully under her.
She opened her eyes and glanced around; in the flickering torchlight she could make out five figures – the two familiar shapes of Anvil and Misty, and three dark-skinned strangers. Though she couldn't make sense of what they were saying, they were clearly engaged in very urgent discussions with little attention to spare for her; she hoped her friends were negotiating her release. One muscle at a time, she tested her movements – though she still felt groggy and sick with concussion, and her whole body ached with fresh bruises, nothing seemed to be seriously damaged. And, she noted with a moment's relief, whoever had brought her here hadn't even bothered to tie her hands.
She didn't have time to investigate further before a cry came from one of the foreign men; suddenly he was on his feet, pointing at her and shouting in alarm. Before she could react Misty and Anvil were beside her, hauling her to her feet and pinning her to the wall in one movement. They lifted her clean off her feet, banging her head on the base of one of the torches as they held her up against the wall.
"What's going on?" she asked, realising then that something was very wrong.
"You're worth ten thousan' Magrad dollars," Anvil said, his voice coloured with half-hearted apology. "Nothin' personal."
"What?!" Eleanor struggled against the two men, trying to break free, but the arms gripping her shoulders were strong and unforgiving.
"Nothin' pers'nal," Misty repeated, leering stupidly at her. "You're gonna make us rich, assassin-girl."
"How?" Eleanor demanded, her mind unwittingly going back to the pathetic, shackled creatures at the market. As she spoke, she found a foothold in the wall; a crack between two stones where she could safely lodge her heel. They held too tightly for her to make much movement, but she launched herself upwards – the direction, she suspected, that they were least expecting – and there was a sickening thud as her head connected with the base of the torch.
The pain was nothing compared to the blow which had knocked her out, but she knew she'd succeeded; the force was enough to dislodge the torch from its bracket. A moment's pause to see which way the flames fell, then she took full advantage of Anvil's horror and surprise as the burning torch dropped towards his face – he loosed his grip on her arm, and without hesitation she seized her knife from her belt and plunged it deep into his chest.
Misty fled the room at once, not waiting to see what would happen, not even for the chance of ten thousand dollars. Warm blood flowed over Eleanor's hand as she shook the dead weight from her blade, and her concussion sickness was overwhelmed by a different kind of nausea as she realised what she'd done. She hesitated a moment too long; before she had chance to run the three foreign men were upon her, knocking her to the ground and taking the knife from her hand. Taking no chances this time, they bound her thoroughly with strong hessian rope to hold her hands behind her back, her arms to her sides and her legs together. One of the men tore the name bangle from her wrist and pocketed it.
Eleanor lay still, trying not to react as one of the men patted her down, his hands roaming roughly across her body as he searched for weapons – he pulled the two school daggers from her belt and tucked them under his own clothes, and scattered the other contents of her pockets on the floor. She silently willed him to ignore the pins in her hair but she was not so lucky and even those were confiscated. Once he'd finished searching her the man kicked Eleanor halfheartedly in the back before going to join his two companions, who were talking in angry whispers.
Eleanor's fingers were resting against something hard; after a moment's fumbling she identified the jar of jelly which she'd bought at the market. Deciding that it might come in useful, she struggled to work it under her clothes and out of sight at her waist.
Eventually the men seemed to reach an agreement and one of them came over to Eleanor, picked her up by the ropes that now bound her, and hauled her from the room. He carried her up a long flight of stairs – she counted a hundred and sixteen steps – and then dropped her to the floor again outside a heavily-bolted door.
The man pulled back the bolts then took a key from a chain around his neck and unlocked the door. He took out a knife, slashed carelessly at Eleanor's bonds, and pushed her hard into the cell. She stumbled and fell, managing to look round just in time to see the door shut heavily behind her. She heard the key turn in the lock, and the sound of thick bolts sliding home.
She stretched her arms and legs, glad that she could move again, and looked around the room. It was a cold, stone-walled cell, with only one tiny window set high in one corner. Enough to let in a faint glimmer of moonlight, but too small to offer any chance of escape. There was no furniture.
The sound of ragged, uneven breathing drew her attention to a small shape huddled in one corner. She didn't think she would have noticed him if she hadn't heard him. "Ghiida," she said in what she hoped was passable Magrad. That seemed to be the language everyone understood.
"Don't... speak..." the boy said, his voice strained as if he was struggling for every word.
"Me neither," Eleanor said, moving closer. Now she could see that his face was gashed, and swollen with bruising. "Are you from the Empire too, then?"
He gave a small nod.
"I'm Eleanor."
"Raf."
They sat for a moment in silence; Eleanor's mind wandered back to Misty, who would surely be back at the boat by now. She could imagine how much his story would have changed by the time he told them what had happened – and she found herself hoping against the odds that John wouldn't believe the lies. She hated the idea that, after he and Mary had been so kind to her, he could possibly think she might have killed one of his crew out of malice.
"What school are you from?" she asked Raf, more to distract herself than out of any real desire to know the answer.
"Venncastle," he said. "You?"
"Mersioc Regional School for Girls – it's near Port Just. But you shouldn't try to talk," Eleanor said hurriedly, feeling guilty that she'd even tried to make conversation when every word caused his face to contract with pain. Suddenly, she remembered the jelly which she'd managed to lodge under her belt. "Don't move," she said, struggling to pull out the jar. "I'll try not to hurt you."
He looked curiously at her but didn't speak. She scooped out a little cold jelly and reached out to him, gently smoothing the gel into one of the cuts on his cheek. He flinched beneath her fingers, but still said nothing so she continued to tend his wounds, working her way around his face and neck, pushing his scruffy black hair out of the way to reach the gashes on his forehead.
"Thank you," he said as she finished and pushed the lid back onto the jar. She shrugged, embarrassed by his gratitude, and tucked the jar out of sight beneath her clothes again.
They sat in silence for some time, until their captors brought some water and a little dry bread to the cell. Eleanor insisted that Raf should eat it all – he was worryingly thin, and it had clearly been much longer since he'd had a proper meal. Though he tried to refuse, she was stronger. Eleanor allowed herself only a couple of sips of water to ease her thirst.
Once the food was gone Raf fell asleep quickly, curled on the floor, and Eleanor pulled the ragged blanket over him. She didn't think she'd be able to sleep while her head was still throbbing from the earlier blow but she stretched out on the cold stones anyway, and eventually pain faded into sleep.
She was woken the next morning by bright sunlight streaming through the high window. She stood up, intending to climb the wall and look out –
but the moment she got to her feet she was overcome with nausea and sank back to her knees almost immediately.
"Are you okay?" Raf asked her, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He winced as his fingernail caught one of the cuts on his cheek.
"A bit faint," she admitted. "But much better than you. Don't try to talk."
"Me? I'm fine." He gave her a brave smile. "I'm getting used to all this."
Another wave of nausea washed over her and she retched.
"If you're going to be sick, try over there," Raf suggested, pointing towards the corner of the cell.
She crawled in the direction he'd indicated and found a small hole between two stone slabs where a narrow shaft ran straight down through the floor. The stench of urine overwhelmed her as she leaned over the opening and vomited into the darkness.
"So how long have you been here?" she asked once she was sure she'd finished throwing up.
"Oh, aeons. I'm not sure exactly – it was twelve days past the solstice when they caught me. How long are we from the equinox?"
Eleanor counted on her fingers, working through the time she'd spent aboard John's boat. "About a month away," she concluded, though it was hard to be certain when she'd spent so much time at sea. The boat had seemed a harsh enough prison, but her rough calculations suggested that Raf had spent as much time locked up here as she'd spent sailing.
They were interrupted by the door being unbolted and unlocked. Two guards waited stiffly by the door as a third came in to the cell, lifted Raf by his collar and hauled him to his feet. Eleanor stood up as well, but Raf shot her a warning glance that she could only understand to mean that he didn't want her to get involved. Seeing how heavily armed the three men were, she thought he was probably right – even if both of them were up to fighting, they couldn't overpower three armed guards with their bare hands.
The guards took Raf from the room and locked Eleanor alone inside, leaving her only a small cup of water for breakfast. Still feeling somewhat nauseous, she decided to take advantage of her solitude to examine the cell. She pressed her eye to the keyhole and peered out into the corridor beyond, watching as Raf was led round a corner and out of sight. They were going in a different direction to the way that she'd been carried up the stairs the previous night, but apart from gathering that small snippet of information, she saw nothing of interest.
Turning her attention to the lock itself, Eleanor wished again that the guards hadn't thought to take her hair pins from her. Without anything more delicate than her smallest finger to poke inside the lock she could tell only that the iron mechanism was very solidly built, and that it would probably take more force than a hair pin to spring open the lock in any case. Besides, she reminded herself, the bolts on the other side of the door were more than enough to keep her imprisoned.
If she was going to get out of here, it was going to take a lot of planning.
She moved on next to examine the walls of the cell. Unlike the crumbly, sandy stone she'd seen outside, the walls around her were built of large blocks of a glossy grey rock which was cold and hard to the touch. The blocks fitted together almost seamlessly, reminding her of the wall she'd had to climb in Dashfort – only this time she didn't have any knives to force between the blocks. She made a futile attempt at getting up to the window, but the lack of footholds combined with Eleanor's residual nausea to make any progress impossible. She resolved to try again once she was fully recovered, and sat down to have a sip of water.
As soon as the first drop of liquid passed her lips she realised just how thirsty she was, and gulped down two large mouthfuls before it occurred to her that she should probably save some for Raf, who hadn't had chance to drink anything before he'd been taken from the cell. She set the cup down on the floor – which was made from identical stones to those in the wall – feeling rather forlorn. She had no idea why she was here, except that two people she'd thought were her friends had spotted some opportunity to make a quick profit. Why anyone had wanted to buy her, she had no idea.
She couldn't stop wondering about the children she'd seen in the market – was she fated to end up in shackles on a market stall? They'd been younger than she was, but maybe there was also a market for older girls. John had said that anything could be bought and sold in Taraska, but she wondered just how she'd managed to become a commodity.
Her train of thought was interrupted by the door opening again. One guard deposited Raf on the floor, and another placed down a cup of water and a lump of bread. As he stood up again he caught sight of the water which Eleanor had saved, and aimed a kick at the cup. The pottery broke when his foot connected and the water spread across the stones, disappearing into the cracks.
Eleanor glared at him, but said nothing. There seemed little point causing trouble.
"Ellie," Raf began once the guards had left.
She bridled to hear the diminutive form of her name: it made her feel like a baby again. She looked across at Raf, intending to point out how much she hated it, but she froze when she saw his face. A fresh, bloody cut stretched across his cheek from nose to ear, but the pain in his expression was even worse.
"What happened?"
"Have you got any more of that gel?" he asked weakly.
Eleanor fished the jar from her pocket. "Stay still, then," she said, and moved across to apply the jelly to his face. She pulled back once she'd finished. "There, that should do."
"I'm afraid that's not all." He shuffled slowly round till he had his back to her, and then carefully lifted his top to show her his back. The skin of his lower back was marked at irregular intervals with blistering red blotches.
Eleanor gasped involuntarily. "What did they do to you?"
"I can do it myself if you like," he offered, dropping his shirt and turning to take the jar from her hand.
"It's okay. But it'd be easier if you took your shirt off," she said awkwardly, feeling a hot flush rising to her cheeks. "If you don't mind."
He pulled the shirt off, grimacing as the fabric caught his blistered skin, and Eleanor leant over to dab jelly onto the wounds. She wished she could afford to be more liberal in her application but they wouldn't be able to get more once this jar ran out so she rationed herself carefully, allowing only a small coating for each blister.
Once she'd finished and returned the jar to her pocket, she repeated her earlier question: "Raf, what happened?"
"I couldn't see," he said. "They had me face down."
"But why? Why do they want to hurt you?"
He didn't answer, but reached across to the bread and water which had been left for them. He broke the bread in two and handed Eleanor the larger piece.
"It was kind of you to try and save me a drink," he said, motioning towards the patch of floor which was still slightly damp from the spillage. "But the guards here don't like kindness. They'll be worse if they think we're friends, they always are."
"There've been others here?"
He nodded, and made a muffled affirmative noise through his mouthful of bread.
"What happened to them?"
"All dead, I think."
Eleanor chewed thoughtfully on a corner of crust. He wasn't sure. Suddenly, she launched into a hurried account of what she'd seen in the market, the stall with young children for sale, and her theory that she seemed to have become a tradable commodity. It didn't fit, though, with the fact that Raf seemed to have spent the last couple of months being tortured.
By the time she finished, Raf was nodding slowly. "You're right," he said. "It doesn't add up."
"But unless they're going to sell us on, what could they want us for? We're only just past school age – we're not worth anything!" She wondered whether she should mention the price that Anvil had put on her, but she didn't really want to have to explain.
Again Raf just shrugged, giving no response except to take another mouthful of bread; Eleanor wondered what he was hiding from her, and why. He must know why they were torturing him – after all, what was the use of torture exc
ept to make someone talk?
She was frustrated with his reticence but it seemed unfair to pressure him while he was so badly hurt. She just wished he'd trust her. She turned back to her meagre lunch in silence – if he wasn't willing to talk about the important things, then she wasn't prepared to make small-talk.
Later in the day, Eleanor was summoned from the cell by one of the men who'd been talking with Misty and Anvil. He was a short, balding man with a wiry beard – all the Tarasanka men seemed to have beards – and apparently he was the one who spoke a little Charanthe. A couple of lackeys accompanied him, whose only job seemed to be to hold Eleanor tightly by the arms, and they half-carried her into an unoccupied cell nearby. The short man barked something incomprehensible, and they thrust her forward so he could speak to her.
"You will to talking?" he asked.
"What about?" Eleanor asked, thinking she would really be happy to say anything that would get her out of this ghastly place sooner.
"You know," the man said. "You will to telling?"
"I don't know what you want."
The man shook his head, looking disappointed. "We being nice at you now, no? You want we being nasty?"
"Like what you did to Raf?" The words slipped out of Eleanor's mouth before she had time to think about whether she was making a mistake.
"Your friend not talking enough," the man said. "But he will – as you will."
The threat behind his words was obvious. Eleanor felt a sudden pang of guilt for assuming Raf had not trusted her enough to talk about why they were hurting him – there was another possibility. It was looking more and more likely that their captors were just stupid.
"What do you want me to say?" she demanded in exasperation. The concept of being tortured was bad enough in any circumstances, but this was a threat of torture without any end in sight unless she could work out what they wanted.
The man sighed and took a step away from her. "We have time," he said. "You will to talking eventually."
He sat down on a low bench by the wall, and looked expectantly at Eleanor. She met his gaze as steadily as she could, though the two men holding her twisted her arms and made her wince with pain. They held her there for quite some time, apparently waiting for her to do or say something.
Eventually, the short man stood up again and pulled out Eleanor's throwing knife. "This is yours?" he asked, holding it up for her to see. Dried blood was still encrusted on the blade.
She nodded, her throat suddenly dry.
"What it does?"
"It's a knife." She couldn't help herself, though she knew it might be unwise to take a sarcastic tone with her captors. "It cuts."
"What also?" He was holding the point to her neck now, right against the artery, and she knew he could kill her with a flick of his wrist. She could only hope that he believed, whatever he wanted from her, that she was more valuable alive.
"I don't know what you mean," she said, trying to keep her voice level. "It's just my knife."
"You will to talking," he repeated, turning away from her and replacing the knife in his pocket. "Now or later."
It was dark by the time the guards deposited Eleanor back in the cell; there was no more food or water that night. Raf was already sleeping and she didn't want to wake him so she curled up in a corner and tried to get some rest. She slept only fitfully; it was very cold, and she couldn't relax while visions of the short man – and Laban's knife – swam in her head. She wondered what on earth they could want from her.
They came again the next day, early, rousing Eleanor from her broken sleep – this time the short man didn't come as far as the cell but three guards collected her, leaving a morsel of bread behind for Raf. The guards carried Eleanor roughly through the corridors, taking her to a different room this time.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw where they'd brought her. The previous day's questioning had been in a simple cell, bare apart from the wooden bench where the short man had sat – but this was quite different. This room had one clear purpose.
Eleanor had never thought about possible designs for a torture chamber but she was sure that if she had, she wouldn't have been able to come up with anything more fitting than this. She swallowed hard as the guards fastened manacles around her wrists, suspending her in mid-air from a heavy iron cage in the centre of the room, and then secured her ankles with chains to the bottom edges of the cage. The walls were hung with various contraptions, mostly forged from iron and mostly beyond Eleanor's powers to identify. There were knives, hammers, saws, and other small tools that could be put to painful uses – but the things she couldn't even name were all the more terrifying.
The short man who had questioned her the day before stood in one corner, poking casually at a small furnace. He turned to face Eleanor. "So, you will to talking today?"
"What do you want me to talk about?"
"Shatrokda!" the man barked, and Eleanor heard a guard step up behind her.
She craned her neck, trying to look round, when something hit her lower back and caused her to cry out in pain. Again and again the object slammed into her back, until she was long past caring what it actually was that was hitting her. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the assault stopped.
"Now you talking?" the short man asked.
Eleanor drew herself up as straight as she could in the shackles, and glared straight at him. "If you don't tell me what you want," she spat furiously, "then I can't help you. Whatever you do to me!"
"Ngavra kalgsa!" he cursed, and swung his fist straight towards her face.
Unable to duck out of the way, Eleanor just closed her eyes and braced herself for the impact. There was a sickening crack as his knuckles smashed into her nose, and she screamed.
The guards removed her from her iron bonds and threw her back into her cell without a word, slamming the door behind her. She fell to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, blood flooding from her nose.
Raf edged across the floor towards her and tried to put his arm around her waist, but her bruises were too fresh and she gasped with pain when he touched her. She stretched her arm out to him instead – her other hand clamped to her face – and he held her hand as she cried until she ran out of tears. Eventually she fell asleep, her hand in his, curled on the cold stone floor.