Alone and half lost in the enemy stronghold, I wandered the halls for what seemed like an eternity, during which time the three prisoners I'd seen being tortured or interrogated were led or dragged or carried back to holding cells, and the interrogation rooms were closed and locked behind them.
I didn't get a chance to enter any of the cell blocks in search of Humfry, and to be honest, completing the mission was not at the top of my mind. I was more interested in finding out where they'd taken Bryson. I couldn't imagine a worse shame than leaving my comrade in enemy hands, helpless to defend himself because I'd bound his wrists with my own hands. I'd rather have been captured and tortured myself than return home with that on my conscience.
I knew he was probably in one of those locked cell blocks, but if I followed someone past one of those locked doors when I had no business in there, the protection of my false uniform wouldn't last long. Every time I passed a guard carrying a naked hooded body on his shoulders I was afraid it was Bryson's, but they were all average-sized men. Anyway, they were unlikely to kill him so quickly; they'd interrogate him for days. That thought was not as comforting as it should have been. At least the potion had made him impervious to pain.
I'd given up hope of locating him, but for lack of anything else to do was searching halls I was sure I'd been down before, when I found him. I had been glancing into every open door I passed, trying not to be obvious about it. Many of them were interrogation rooms, most of them empty. I was passing an open door I was pretty sure had been closed on my previous round when I caught sight of his familiar face inside. I forced myself not to stop short and stare, not even to break stride. The occupants were probably too preoccupied to pay attention to the behavior of passersby in the hallway, but the guard posted outside would have noticed. I continued walking until I'd rounded the the next corner; then, when no one was looking, I doubled back and returned for a closer look, this time walking as slowly as I dared. Hopefully the stupid helmet we'd stripped off the guard along with the uniform I wore would make me anonymous enough that no one would notice the same guard passing by twice.
I'd found Bryson, alive and in one piece for the moment. And of course not in pain, despite the best efforts of his captors. He was bound with his hands stretched over his head by chains apparently attached to the ceiling. He was facing the door almost directly.
He'd been stripped to the waist. Always a demeaning thing to do to a captive, as well as rendering him vulnerable to a wide variety of torture techniques that even ordinary clothing would impede. But seeing Bryson like this felt like a personal affront: I'd slept a few bunks away from him for years, and it seemed somehow unfair that our enemy had gotten to see my comrade bare-chested before I had. A stupid thing for me to worry about under the circumstances, I know, but it was all I could do to hold back from charging in there in my outrage.
His chest muscles were every bit as magnificent as I'd long imagined, and the muscles of his upper arms, flexing as he struggled, were bigger than I would have guessed even having seen his thick powerful forearms. The abundant, fine chest hair I'd glimpsed after I ripped his shirt partly open turned out to cover his entire chest down to the bottom of his ribcage, not quite thickly enough to hide his small pale nipples, and it grew in swirls that accentuated rather than hid the chiseled lines of his muscles. His belly was nearly hairless, making his rippling abs obvious.
I was able to take all that in at a glance as I passed the door. All that practice stealing glances at other guys in the shower was finally paying off, I guess.
A man standing with his back to me, dressed in a plain black tunic rather than a green guardsman's uniform like the stolen one I wore, was brandishing a wand near Bryson's chest. Just before I passed out of line of sight, he touched it to a nipple. All of Bryson's fine chest hair stood on end, as if by magic -- well, exactly as if by magic -- but he didn't react. I was sure his tormenter was expecting a scream, a violent twitch, a pathetic whimper at the very least. He wasn't going to get that satisfaction; the potion's effects would protect Bryson until well into tomorrow at the very least. Actually, I couldn't imagine Bryson ever whimpering even without the benefit of a potion. I was sure he had enough natural fortitude not to scream from a mere shock. But surely a shock to the nipple would extract at least a low moan, even from him, if he were unprotected. Which he would be if I didn't get him out of there by tomorrow.
I didn't dare keep walking back and forth in front of the door, but I managed to stay nearby, pretending to read notices posted on the wall. Some of them bore today's date, so it was plausible a real enemy guard would not have read them yet. As I pretended to read an assignment roster for tomorrow, the ink on the parchment magically rearranged itself to make room for a new notice at the bottom, inviting all guardsmen to attend the public flogging of a comrade who'd slept through the morning inspection. They were strict here. Back home, he'd have been let off with a few hours in the stocks with his bare feet sticking out for any of his brothers-in-arms to tickle as they made their rounds.
From this vantage point just down the hall from the room where my comrade was held captive, I now thought I heard the sound of a whip slapping bare flesh. No cries of pain, so I knew it could be coming from no other room than the one Bryson was strung up in.
About fifty strokes later, a guardsman walking briskly down the hall was called into the room just as he passed. He entered the room briefly, and hurried away, passing me without a glance. I followed in the direction he'd gone until I lost sight, then waited. He was gone for ten minutes or so, and then I spotted him -- at least, I think it was the same guy -- coming back awkwardly carrying a very broad and deep bowl of something he looked like he was trying hard not to spill. He was cursing under his breath. I strolled toward him as if I just happened to be walking the hall in the opposite direction. As I was about to pass him I met his eyes briefly and flashed a wry grin.
It worked; he took that as an invitation to speak to me. "Ever notice how the officers have his uncanny ability to know when you just got off shift and need to take a leak in the worse way, and choose that moment to send you on an errand?"
"Where's it going?" I asked.
"The south interrogation room. You know, the one near the end of this seemingly endless hallway, the maximum possible distance from the urn room?"
I wondered what the urns here were like. Ours were enchanted fountains that began flowing when a man stepped up to them, washing his piss away in their sparkling waters as fast as any mountain stream, and ceased flowing a few moments after he stepped away.
"I'll take it for you," I said.
"Really? Would you? Thanks, buddy! I owe you one."
"What is it?" It looked like water. The bowl itself looked like earthenware, no doubt magically lightened and strengthened so that it could be carried with two fingers when empty, but no amount of magic could prevent it from being heavy when filled with liquid.
"Brine, from the kitchen," he shouted over his shoulder as he hurried back the way he'd come.
Bryson was still as I'd last seen him, naked from the waist up, strung up with his armpit hair exposed and the muscles bunching in his arms. Well, not technically strung up: his booted feet were flat on the ground, shackled to the floor.
The man in the black tunic had moved to stand behind him since my first two glimpses of the room. As I'd guessed from the meaty slapping sounds, he was flogging Bryson's back.
Bryson didn't so much as twitch, but he looked dispirited. He might be impervious to pain, but he was completely helpless and vulnerable, and it was taking a psychological toll. He caught sight of me and looked at me as if I were the most welcome sight in the world. Fortunately, all that the man behind him would have seen was that he raised his head slightly. The one other occupant of the room was a guard standing off to one side, and he was looking at me, not the prisoner. I kept my own face impassive, or so I hoped.
This was my first lingering look at Bryson's magnificent chest -- ever. The fine black hairs lay flat against his skin once again, slightly damp with sweat, the effects of the magic wand that had made them stand on end having long since dissipated. His belly was not as completely hairless as it had seemed at first glance; I was now just close enough to make out the thin trail of wispy hairs that spilled down the center of his impressive abs and disappeared into his trousers.
"Finally, the brine from the kitchen," my friend's unsuccessful torturer called. Either he didn't notice that I wasn't the same guard he'd sent to fetch it, or he thought nothing of a second guard being assigned to complete the errand. "Bring it in."
I realized I'd been standing at the threshold for several long moments, torn between outrage, sympathy, and an admiring guilty appraisal of my comrade's exposed upper body. Fortunately the torturer had assumed I was just awaiting permission to enter. And, of course, whatever Bryson thought about me staring at his torso, he was in no position to do anything about it.
I entered, passed Bryson without meeting his eyes, and silently set the container down at his captor's feet. Then, before I could be dismissed, I took up a post on the side wall, with a nice view of the backlit hairs sticking out from Bryson's right armpit, and stood quietly at attention. I'd learned to make myself almost invisible to my superiors when I wanted to; I didn't need magic for that. It seemed to work on the enemy, too; the torturer seemed to quickly forget about my presence. There was already a guard posted on the opposite wall, so I merely completed the symmetry. I studied the other guard while pretending to stare straight ahead. There was no way I could take him. The guy was as big as Bryson -- easily the burliest enemy guardsman I'd seen here. I wondered if they'd needed to summon the biggest guy they had to help subdue their big strapping prisoner. Anyway, I was outnumbered three to one, counting the guard posted outside.
The torturer soaked a cloth in the brine and wrung it out over Bryson's naked back. I had gotten a good look at his back while setting the brine down behind him, and it was crisscrossed by lashes that would have hurt like hell if it hadn't been for the pain-suppressing potion we'd been given. Blood was welling up in some of the lash marks. But the potion continued to work its magic; Bryson didn't even flinch when the salt water touched him, and surely even he couldn't be that stoic.
The torturer tried rubbing the salt in with his fingers, clearly expecting to coax a scream out of my friend. But Bryson didn't so much as clench his teeth or squeeze his eyes shut, even though he could have done either without giving the man behind him the satisfaction of watching. If anything, Bryson looked like a man being given a massage. An unwelcome massage, from a masseur he despised and felt acutely uncomfortable being touched by so intimately, but couldn't say no to.
"Tell me your mission," the torturer demanded. "Why were you sneaking into my brother's castle?"
Oh ho! So this was their reigning prince's younger brother. He could no doubt have earned his keep doing any job he chose, or not earned his keep at all, and yet he'd chosen this job. I thought I knew why. He clearly enjoyed his work.
He slowly walked around to face his prisoner, then drew a finger down the center of his chest, leaving a streak of red. Bryson looked down at the trail of his own blood -- evidence of how badly his back had been shredded -- and I saw his Adam's apple bob in his unshaven throat as he gulped. It was one thing to know that a healing potion awaited him at home -- if he ever made it home -- that would leave his skin whole and unscarred in a matter of hours. It was another matter to overcome his instinctive fears. This was the first sign of fear I'd ever seen in him. But with a visible effort, he raised his head and stared stoically into space over his captor's shoulder, setting his mouth in a hard line.
The young prince continued his finger-painting project, drawing the the line of blood down his prisoner's lower chest, then alongside the trail of silken black hairs. Suddenly, Bryson twitched.
"Ticklish?" the torturer said, sounding as surprised as I'd been when I'd discovered his weakness back at the broom closet. He began attacking Bryson's belly and ribs with the finger of both hands, forcing an incongruous giggle from the big man. He twisted out of the way as much as the slack in his bonds would let him.
"Guards! Hold him still."
I stepped forward, only half a beat behind the real guard, who mumbled, "Yes, my lord." Apparently that was the appropriate form of address around here for a prince other than "His Majesty" the reigning prince; I'd have to remember not to call him "Your Highness" as was the custom at home. They hadn't briefed us on royal etiquette for this mission; no one had known the reigning prince had appointed his own brother to question prisoners, and somehow no one had foreseen me posing as one of his guards, helping him torture my own comrade.
I got a firm grip on my helpless friend's bare arm, just above his open armpit, with my left hand, and grabbed the waistband of his trousers with my right. Then I realized uncomfortably that in my attempt to be convincingly rough, my right thumb had slipped into his underwear and was now buried in his pubic hair. If we both got out of this alive, he was really going to make me pay for this. Remembering his very detailed threat in the stairwell if I so much as untucked his shirt, what was he going to do to me now? In my head, I revised the picture he'd painted for me, imagining myself stretched out stark naked in my bunk as all my close friends watched helplessly, tied up in their own shirts. Rolling up his sleeves, he'd tickle me not with a feather, but much more intimately with the feathery hairs of his forearm. He'd work his way slowly down the length of my torso, down to my navel and to the sensitive skin below it, not stopping until...
I forced myself to concentrate on the here and now. I had to get him out of this first. Then I'd have the luxury of wondering what he was going to do to me.
(To be continued)
