The Land of the Silver Apples

Chapter Thirty-three THE PRISONERS

They went down long, winding tunnels. The light grew shadowy, and the noises of the outside world died away. Jack expected to be frightened. His other experience of dungeons had been at Din Guardi, where he’d been locked in a chamber haunted by the cries of sea monsters. But Jack wasn’t frightened. On the contrary, he felt better the farther down they went. His mind was clear, and he hadn’t realized it had been clouded. Memories came flooding back.

Brude walked ahead with a flaring torch. There was something familiar about him, and Jack suddenly knew what it was. “You were the man at the slave market!” he cried. Brude hunched his shoulders, rejecting any communication. “You bought slaves from Olaf One-Brow. You offered a fine sword for Lucy and a cheap knife for me. I guess I wasn’t worth much.” Jack smiled ruefully.

“It is him,” exclaimed Thorgil. “I wonder why I didn’t see it before. Between you and me, I should have sold Lucy to him. She’s been nothing but trouble ever since. Hauu nehahwa oueem?”

“Hwatu ushh,” said Brude.

Thorgil laughed out loud.

“You can speak Pict?” said Jack.

“Only a few words. I asked him where the tunnel went, and he told me to eat troll droppings.”

“Nice.”

“It’s my fault we’re here,” mourned Pega. She’d been crying most of the way.

“Nonsense, lassie,” said Brutus. “This is the best thing that could have happened. Those upper reaches are drenched in glamour. It’s impossible to think straight. Down here the air is clear.” He was right, Jack realized. The air was fresh and invigorating, which was odd considering they were so deep in the earth.

“I thought I’d like elves,” Pega wept. “B-but they’re so heartless.”

“Not Ethne,” said Jack.

“No,” she agreed. “Not Ethne.”

Jack thought about the elf lady. The others had been beautiful beyond compare, yet now he couldn’t remember their faces. Ethne was still in his mind. “She’s more there,” he said, trying to put his finger on the difference.

“She wasn’t laughing at Thorgil like the rest of them,” Pega added.

“Who was laughing at me?” demanded the shield maiden.

“No one,” Jack said quickly. But he did wonder. Out of all the elves, only Ethne had shown compassion.

In the distance Jack heard a strange sound. It echoed through the winding hall like an animal cry: Ubba ubba… ubba ubba… ubba ubba. Was it a seal? Or an owl? They rounded a corner and came to an iron door, guarded by a man Jack never expected to see again. He was as big as a bear and twice as threatening. He swayed restlessly from side to side, swinging his long arms and muttering, “Ubba ubba… ubba ubba… ubba ubba.”

It was Guthlac, he of the large demon possession. Jack thought he’d drowned in St. Filian’s Well. From the look of him, the demon was still in possession.

“Back!” snarled the Picts, driving Guthlac against a wall. Brude quickly produced a key and opened the door.

“Inssside,” he hissed. “Sufffferrrr.”

“And a fine hwatu ushh to you too,” said Jack, avoiding a blow. The instant the prisoners were inside, the door slammed and the Picts let Guthlac go.

“Gaaaaaa!” he roared, hurling himself against the metal. Jack heard his body thump and his fists pound. After a moment the noise stopped and there was only the monotonous “Ubba ubba… ubba ubba.”

“Good thing they locked the door,” observed Thorgil. The room wasn’t bad, compared to some of the places Jack had been. The floor was covered with clean straw, and a table held a water pitcher and cups, loaves of bread, and cheese. They wouldn’t starve. A small lamp on the table cast a pool of yellow light. It didn’t reach far, but it made the center of the room cheerful.

“I thought Guthlac was dead,” said Jack.

“It would be a mercy if he were,” came a voice from the darkness of a corner. Everyone jumped, and Brutus drew his sword. This was answered by a bitter laugh. “Have you come to slay us?”

“Noooo,” moaned a voice from an opposite corner.

“Courage,” said the first man. “With luck, you’ll only get a few thousand years in purgatory.”

Brutus put back his sword. Jack squinted into the darkness. “Why don’t you come into the light?” he suggested. There was a pause, and he heard a rustle from the first corner. Slow, painful feet dragged through the straw, and a monk emerged from the gloom.

“I remember you,” the monk said. “And you, spawn of Satan.” He glowered at Thorgil.

“Do you recognize him?” asked Jack.

Thorgil shrugged. “We pillage so many monasteries.”

“It doesn’t matter. I am but a shadow of my former self. Soon there will be nothing at all.” The man tottered to a bench and lowered himself carefully. Then Jack did recognize him. It was the monk who had been bartered to the Picts in the slave market. He’d been fat then.

“I’m truly glad to see you, sir,” Jack said. “I thought you’d been eaten by—um, er…”

“The Picts?” The monk laughed, which ended in a coughing fit. Another moan issued from the dark corner. “They no longer dine on men, though they’re careful to foster the rumor. It makes people fear them, and Picts like nothing better than fear. They have worse habits now.”

“There are worse habits than cannibalism?” Jack was concerned about the wretched state of the man before him. His robes hung loosely on his skeletal frame. Coughs racked his body, and there were feverish patches of red on his cheeks.

“They make sacrifices to the demons they worship. That’s what happened to the others who were taken with me. First they offered us to the elves as slaves. Those who were rejected were taken under the trees in the dark of the moon. I didn’t see what happened, but I heard the screams.”

“Nooooo,” groaned the man in the darkened corner.

“It can’t be nice back there,” said Jack. “Why don’t you join us?”

“He’ll kill me.”

“Who? The monk?”

“No! That witch’s child, that limb of Beelzebub, that agent of the Evil One.”

“I remember those curses,” Brutus cried. He strode into the dark and, after a scuffle, reappeared dragging Father Swein by one leg.

“Mercy! Mercy!” shrieked the abbot of St. Filian’s, trying to dig his fingernails into the floor.

“This really takes me back,” Brutus chortled. “The thrashings, the nights I was forced to sleep in snow, the weeks on bread and water.” He propped Father Swein against a wall.

“You’re not going to take revenge, are you?” whimpered the abbot. “It was for the good of your soul.”

“Just as you tried to improve Guthlac,” said the monk. “He doesn’t seem forgiving.”

Jack heard a muffled “Ubba ubba… ubba ubba” outside.

“That’s why the Picts put him there,” moaned Father Swein. “To torment me. He has only one thought now, to tear me limb from limb.”

“I didn’t know he was even alive,” said Jack.

“Oh, he isn’t. Not really,” the monk explained. “He was halfway to the next world, thanks to my colleague here, when the elves pulled him back. Guthlac is stuck between life and death. It would be a mercy to free him.”

“Excuse me, sir. I was with you all those days on Olaf One-Brow’s ship and never asked your name,” said Jack.

“Why ask names of the doomed?” said the monk in a hollow voice. “But in better times I was called Father Severus.”

“Severus!” exclaimed Jack and Pega.

“I seem to have achieved some fame,” said the monk with a ghastly smile.

“You’re the one who rescued Brother Aiden,” cried Pega. “He speaks warmly of you. I’m sure he’ll be delighted you’re alive.”

“So he survived the raid on the Holy Isle,” murmured Father Severus. The monk’s harsh expression softened. “He was always a good lad, always gentle and forgiving. We must celebrate his deliverance with a meal, even though our own chance of rescue is nonexistent.”

Jack almost smiled at the monk’s utter bleakness. He remembered it from Olaf’s ship.

Thorgil cut up bread and cheese, and Pega poured the water. Most of the food was consumed by Father Swein. Father Severus had little appetite, and the others had just come from a rich banquet. Jack found the water surprisingly good, far nicer than what he’d drunk earlier. It quenched his thirst, while the other had left him unsatisfied.

He absentmindedly touched his staff, and to his amazement, a thrum of power rose to his hand. The warmth of it spread over his body, filling him with joy. “Thorgil, I can feel the life force,” he said. The shield maiden’s hand flew to the rune of protection at her neck, and she nodded.

“What you feel is the lack of glamour,” said Father Severus with a sharp look at the two. “The simple fact of God’s world is more powerful than any elvish dream. They think it a vile punishment to live without illusion, but I’d rather eat honest bread and lie on honest earth than wallow in what passes for life in their halls.”

“Do you go there often?” said Jack.

“Often enough. They find me… amusing. That’s why they keep humans, either for slaves or for entertainment. They experience no true emotion and can only watch like beggars at a window.”

After the meal Father Swein retreated to his corner. Although Jack thought it must be dreary to hide in darkness, the abbot seemed to prefer not being observed.

Father Severus lit another lamp and gave it to Brutus so they could explore the dungeon. But first he demonstrated a timekeeper made from an old cup with a crack in it. He filled the cup with water and measured how long it took for the water to drip out. “We had hourglasses on the Holy Isle,” the monk said, “but this works just as well.” Jack had never seen such a device. He privately thought it was foolish. Tasks took however long they needed—hunting, shearing, planting, weaving—and it was pointless to measure them. But the monk said timekeeping was extremely important in monasteries.

“It keeps order,” explained Father Severus. “It tells you when to go about your chores, when to meditate, and when to pray. Otherwise, men fall into sloth. From there, they degenerate into other sins.” He stared pointedly at Father Swein’s corner.

“They had hourglasses at St. Filian’s,” remarked Brutus. “As far as I know, measuring time didn’t keep anyone from sloth—except slaves, of course.”

Jack, Pega, and Thorgil explored the prison, with Brutus leading the way. It was very large. Near the ceiling, openings let in a faint breeze. As Jack watched, a mouse fell from one of them and scurried off into the straw.

“The holes must lead outside,” observed Thorgil.

“They won’t do us any good,” said Pega. “I couldn’t even fit my arm into one.”

“And we are deep under the earth,” added Jack.

They found a natural spring that flowed a short distance before disappearing into a hole. A side chamber contained a privy. Straw was heaped near the door for bedding. They avoided Father Swein’s corner and found themselves back at the table, where the monk sat with his eyes closed, meditating.

So they walked around the perimeter again, to be sure they hadn’t missed anything. But they hadn’t. The prison was just as dull as it first appeared. To cheer them up, Brutus told stories about Lancelot and how the Lady of the Lake had given his ancestor the sword Anredden.

“Do you even know how to use a sword?” asked Thorgil.

“As well as Lancelot,” said Brutus with a canine grin.

Father Severus stirred from his meditation, refilled the water clock, and began praying.

It wasn’t a bad dungeon, Jack thought later as he snuggled into a pile of clean straw. They had bedding and water. Father Severus said the Picts brought food regularly. It wasn’t horrible, but it might easily become horrible if they had to stay in the dark for days and weeks and months. It was odd how much you missed sunlight when you haven’t got it.

Also, Jack thought, Guthlac took a lot of getting used to. His “Ubba ubba… ubba ubba… ubba ubba” went on all night.