As jails went, King Tristan’s wasn’t terrible. It was clean, and dry. A librarian brought books around to the prisoners at regular intervals. Gavin was allowed a bit of paper and charcoal. He was permitted daily exercise, in that wide-open air of the castle grounds. Everyone was fed square meals. It was, all things considered, a much more pleasant experience than Mordred’s dungeons would have been.
Tristan was softer than Mordred.
And yet, somehow, the boy had won. Somehow he’d prevailed against a man his better in every way – more powerful, more experienced, smarter. A demi-god…the demi-god. The reason Gavin had become so convinced that theirs was a superior race. Tristan had taken his dog and his rebel children and, inexplicably, the loyalty of this land, and conjured victory from sure defeat. It made no sense. Gavin could not reconcile it.
Reconciled or not, here he sat. Subdued, shackled, a threat to nobody, while he awaited his trial and judgment. And Tristan may have been softer than Mordred, but Gavin doubted the boy King would show him any mercy. Not after what he’d done. Not when it was his friend on the line.
It would have made sense to make himself comfortable, then. This would likely be home for the rest of his days – this dull, colorless place, this one fraying suit, the bed that barely fit his long limbs, whatever insipid reading material was offered him. But every time he tried to convince himself, Gavin chafed. Every time he noticed a tiny new hole in his trousers, or had to reread a passage in some tedious history, he felt himself coming out of his skin – the pegasus going wild. His cell seemed to shrink. His eyes went unfocused.
There was a bang on the bars, and Gavin’s head jolted up.
“Visitor for you,” the guard pronounced, tapping a baton against his boot. He looked equal parts delighted to startle his prisoner, and annoyed to be delivering this news. Gavin blinked at him.
“…Who?”
“Didn’t ask.”
He frowned, letting the book snap shut on his thigh. “Why tell me at all, then?”
“So I can also tell you this: trash like you don’t deserve visitors, and I’d half a mind not to allow it. But she thinks you might be able to help her. So you’d better damn well help her, traitor.”
“Or what?” His smile was placid. He placed the book on top of a stack of three beside the bed, then rose fluidly to his feet, straightening his shirt cuffs. It had once been a bright white but was now a sad, dingy gray, as if suffused with the dust of this place.
“Or we’ll report your bad behavior to the King.”
Fair enough. Gavin inclined his head, and the guard disappeared down the hall, presumably to fetch whoever had called on him.
He wondered how he could possibly help anyone, confined in a cage.
Gavin paced while he waited, hands tucked into his pockets, posture dancer-straight, eyes far away. If she wanted information about his half brother, or any of his brothers, she was going to be sorely disappointed…reports of bad behavior or not. “Traitor” or not. When steps echoed down the stone stair, he turned, that inscrutable smile back on his face, as if amused by some private joke.
“Hello,” he greeted mildly, then inclined his head to the guard. “Surely you have better things to do? I can hardly hurt her, stuck in here.” The guard made a noncommittal sound in his throat, apparently weighing his prisoner's request. In the end, he seemed to decide there were indeed other matters that required his attention, and strolled away up the stairs, keys clinking like coins.
Gavin glanced over his visitor, wondering if they'd ever met before. He crossed his arms over his chest and stepped forward, standing a conversational distance away. Nonthreatening.
Or at least, as nonthreatening as he could be, standing in a cell. The silence down here was thick and dead, tomb-like, with a foreboding air he was sure she felt. He'd felt it, too, when he first arrived.
“So, miss....” he paused, allowing space for her to supply her name if she so chose. His smile slipped. “What can I do for you?”
|
 |