Benjamin Tate - Well of Sorrows

The guards spoke for a moment, glancing in Colin’s direction, their new prisoners shuffling beside them. Then one of them opened up the cell, motioned Colin out, and thrust Shay and the rest inside.

“We don’t want you in there with the others,” the guard said, leading Colin toward an empty cot at the back of the building.

“What happened?”

“There was a riot at the docks.”

Colin’s chest tightened, his eyes going wide. “My father was at the docks!”

The guard paused, a strange mixture of emotion crossing his face. Anger and pity and concern. He hadn’t shaven recently, the stubble gritty and coarse, brown except for a patch of white at the base of his chin where a scar cut across the flesh. He stared at Colin a moment with hard brown eyes. “What’s your father’s name?”

“Tom,” Colin said, shifting on the cot, trying to see beyond the guard, to where the others were now settling back into place or seeing to their own wounds. They left the wounded prisoner alone, not even bothering to toss him bandages. “Tom Harten. He’s a carpenter.”

The guard relaxed, smiled tightly. He ruffled Colin’s hair, and because Colin was so concerned about his father, he didn’t even try to duck away. “Your father’s fine. Stay here for tonight. The Proprietor will deal with you-and the others-tomorrow.” Before Colin could ask anything more, he turned and rejoined the other guardsmen.

Colin settled onto the cot, lying down, but he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep. Not when he didn’t know what would happen to him tomorrow morning.

But he woke hours later to the sound of voices, close enough that he didn’t open his eyes. He recognized the voice of the guard with the unshaven beard but not the other man’s. They stood right over him, barely two feet away. The rest of the barracks was silent except for an occasional snore.

“What do you think, Arten?”

The voice he didn’t recognize answered. “I spoke to his father. He thinks his son was defending himself. And we all know what Walter is capable of.”

The other guard grunted. “I believe him. He hasn’t caused a lick of trouble since we took him in Lean-to. And did you see the bruises on him? I think Walter deserved whatever he got.”

Colin heard Arten shift. “You aren’t the one passing judgment on him.”

The guardsman didn’t answer. And after a long moment, the two moved away, their boots heavy on the plank flooring.

Colin’s apprehension faded after that.

Until they woke him the next morning. Until they tied his hands and feet and led him out into the sunlight and he saw the newly erected gallows and the fear on his mother’s face.

The terror settled into his stomach like a living thing, small at first, as he squinted into the light and was shoved up onto the platform behind Shay and the others. The Proprietor was speaking, but Colin didn’t listen. He struggled with the growing nausea, with the increasing sensation of something writhing in his gut.

And then they hung Shay.

He almost puked, cold sweat breaking out all over his skin as Shay flailed, as he struggled, as his face turned purple and black and finally grew still. Colin’s knees grew weak.

And then the acrid scent of piss and shit hit him, and he stilled. The nausea didn’t fade, the writhing snake in his stomach didn’t halt, but he suddenly found the strength not to buckle and collapse to the platform. Because he remembered what Walter had done to him, remembered pissing his pants, remembered what that shame had felt like.

Colin glanced to where Walter stood behind his father, beside his brother and Patris Brindisi, who was muttering one of the litanies under his breath. The guards had removed Shay’s body, had strung up the second rioter, and as he watched, the trapdoor released.

Walter turned as the body jerked and spun, a thin smile turning the corners of his mouth. When he saw Colin, the smile deepened.

Colin frowned, straightened, fought the terror back as he stared out over the crowd. And for a brief moment he succeeded, the writhing in his gut abating.

But then the third man wept, and the man who’d stood beside him the entire time collapsed and screamed, had to be dragged to the noose.

The screams unnerved him. The sound of the man’s neck breaking sent a wave of tremors through his body, and he couldn’t make the trembling stop. Fresh sweat broke out, prickling across his back, in his armpits, rank with fear.

A guard prodded him forward, forced him to halt over the trapdoor itself. He saw his father step forward from the crowd, heard the Proprietor speaking, but he couldn’t make sense of the words. His breath came in ragged gasps, the sounds filling his ears, thudding with the panicked beat of his heart, with the pulse of his disbelief.

They couldn’t hang him. Not for something so stupid. They couldn’t.

But that wasn’t what he saw in his mother’s eyes.

He stopped breathing.

And in the sudden silence, in the stillness of his heart, the stillness of the crowd, he heard his father’s voice clearly.

“Yes. I’ll lead the expedition to the east.”

The stillness held for a moment longer, as if the crowd had expected a different answer, and then the Proprietor said, “I thought you might.”

Colin’s heart shuddered and started beating again. He choked on air.

The Proprietor turned toward him. “Colin Harten, for attacking Walter Carrente, a member of the Carrente Family and my son, I sentence you to a day in the penance locks.”

He waved a hand dismissively, and the guard at Colin’s back stepped forward, taking him by the shoulder and shoving him toward the edge of the platform, toward the locks that stood in the dirt to one side. He stumbled, numb with a dull sense of relief, then caught Walter’s expression.

The Proprietor’s son was pissed.

Colin grinned. He couldn’t help it.

The grin held until the guardsman sat him down hard on the stump behind the lock and untied his hands as another guard-the unshaven guard, Colin realized-unlocked the top bar and raised it. Taking hold of his hair, the first guardsman shoved Colin forward, bending him at the waist, and seated his neck in the half circle that had been cut into the lower part of the lock. Two other guardsmen grabbed his arms and placed his wrists in the smaller half circles on either side.

And then the top half of the penance lock settled down over the back of Colin’s neck and wrists, the lock snapping into place. It was mildly uncomfortable. The edges of the wood beneath his neck and wrists cut into his flesh slightly, and his back was bent at an awkward angle, but it didn’t seem that bad.

The guards stepped back, but they didn’t move far. The Proprietor had already left for the docks, and those from Portstown had begun to disperse. Some lingered, a few staring at the gallows, others staring at him with pity or contempt, but they didn’t stay long. The priest Brindisi stood to one side with a look of regret.

Nearly all of those from Lean-to remained behind. Straining his neck, Colin could just make out Karen and her father near the front of the crowd. She tried to come forward, but her father held her back, and she bit her lower lip in frustrated concern.

His mother knelt in the dirt before him, brushed the hair back from his face. “Colin.” He struggled to twist his head far enough to see her, felt tears burning in his eyes, brought on by the mixed relief and distress in her voice. And because somehow he knew he’d hurt her. Hurt her in a way he’d never hurt her before.

He’d disappointed her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and was surprised when his voice cracked, surprised at how thick and dense it sounded.

“Hush. There’s nothing to be sorry about.” She kissed his forehead. “I’ll bring you something to eat.”