PER BEND EMBATTLED
(a Birthright Lord High Executioner Story: 11)
by Dru Pagliassotti

    Gwenneth waved good-bye from the kitchen gate as Corbin pulled up the collar of his ragged coat.  He lifted his own hand in farewell, then turned his back on the girl.  He made a point of dropping in on the child every time he came back to report to the archduke, to make sure she was doing well in Seaharrow's kitchens.  He felt he owed her mother that, although he wasn't sure why.  He'd never seen the ghost again.

Snow and ice covered Castleroad, the steep street down from Seaharrow into the city of Seasedge.  Corbin paused by the castle wall to look down at the city.  The church bells had just rung vespers, and lanterns glowed in the darkness from countless windows and doors, making the town glitter like a diamond necklace beneath him. 

Beautiful.

He swallowed a lump in his throat and began picking his way down the familiar road.  The arrow wound in his leg was still fresh enough to make him limp, although with the help of his Blood magic it had healed to a puckered pink scar.

Archduke Aeric had ordered him into the country for an extensive training session before his next mission, a long-term infiltration into Avanil's court society.  Spies had been preparing the documents and background for five years, the archduke had told him.  Corbin had been chosen to take the role.  With luck, Aeric had said with satisfaction, the position would be good for a lifetime.

A lifetime. Corbin bit his lip.  He didn't want to spend a lifetime in Daulton.  He wanted to come back to Boeruine, to stand on his gallows again as the archduke's Lord High Executioner.  The archduke had promised him that he might be able to return in a few years, when people forgot about Lady Gwenavaere Agravaine's sordid death.  But now it looked like he wouldn't get that chance to return.  Not if he were successful in Avanil.

And if he weren't successful, he'd be dead.

Corbin slipped slightly on the ice and steadied himself, almost unconsciously taking the turn to Executioner's Square.

Boeruine's new executioner was a hack in the most literal sense of the word.  He was incompetent, a criminal who'd taken the job to save his own neck from the noose.  Aeric had told Corbin that the man was a drunkard who usually showed up to the platform reeling and reeking of cheap alcohol. Corbin had winced.  To have such a man on his grandfather's gallows was a disgrace to the family profession.

Now Corbin gazed sadly at his gallows and imagined that he could see the wood cracking and peeling under the new executioner's shoddy care.  The sight must break his mother's heart, he thought with a pang.  He hoped she wasn't required to go to the executions anymore.  Perhaps the archduke had spared her that, at least.

A crowd of people left the Hangman's Rest in a burst of light and noise. Corbin hurried on, turning down toward the main markets and the stairs to the docks.  Despite himself, tears burned his eyes.  If he had obeyed the archduke instead of pursuing his own investigations, none of this would have happened.  He'd still be living in his little house, working at his family's profession, visiting his mother and Captain Bracken, socializing with Jon Coffin and the Swordmistress Laile.  All he would have had to do was burn an innocent woman and her unborn baby at the stake.

Instead, he'd given them a more merciful death and ruined the rest of his life.

Sometimes, like tonight, Corbin wondered if it would have made any difference if he'd just turned a blind eye to the evidence.  The Lady Agravaine and her child were dead; would it have mattered how they'd died?

He angrily wiped his face with his icy coat cuff and pounded down the wide steps to the docks.  What was done was done.  There was nothing he could do to change the past.  His mother had always been the first to tell him that regrets never got anybody anywhere, that --

Corbin's heel hit another patch of ice and he flung out his arms to balance himself, but this time it was too late.  His feet jolted down to the next step, then into the air.  He instinctively covered his head with his arms as his back hit the icy stairs.  For a moment his boot caught the next step down, but then it skidded off.  Corbin twisted and reached out, feeling his gloved palms scrape against ice and stone until his jolting descent slowed.  Moving slowly, he pulled himself up to a sitting position.  The arrow wound in his leg ached.  He gingerly ran his hand over it, looking for any sign of blood staining his trouser leg.  None.

"Oh, bravo!  Do it again, would you?"

Corbin looked up to see three young men standing just above him on the stairs, grinning.  They were dressed almost as badly as he was.  He felt a flash of temper and quickly controlled it.

"Be careful, the stairs are icy," he said, standing.

"That so?"  One of them kicked Corbin's injured leg and it collapsed beneath him.  His knee cracked against the stone as he fell.  The three ruffians laughed, and another one planted a boot on Corbin's shoulder.  Corbin twisted and tried to grab the youth's ankle, but with a sharp shove he was tumbling down the stairs again.

This time he curled, keeping his head protected as he fell.  When he stopped moving, poised on a narrow landing before the last flight of stairs, he slid a hand into his coat and grabbed the stiletto sheathed there.

The three hoodlums pounded down the stairs after him, laughing.

"Hey, that looked like fun."

"One more time!"

Corbin straightened and threw. The slim, deadly weapon buried itself in a young man's stomach.  Corbin dropped a hand to his boot where another one of the slender lengths of steel was hidden and jerked it out.

"Oh, gods, Jakob, he's killed me," the injured youth groaned, dropping to his knees and doubling over the weapon buried in his gut.

"You fucker!" Jakob swore, turning on Corbin and pulling a dagger from his belt.  His companion did the same.  "C'mon, Coop, let's feed this bastard his balls."

They came in too fast for him to try to stand, even if his leg hadn't been injured.  Corbin rolled to one side, a kick narrowly missing his head and jarring his shoulder instead. 

A blade slashed open the sleeve of his coat and sliced into his arm.  Lying on his stomach, Corbin jammed the stiletto into one of the ruffians' boots, feeling the sharp point press through the leather like an awl before hitting flesh.  The youth howled and leaped back.  Corbin clung to the hilt to keep the stiletto from being yanked from his hands, yanking the weapon back and rolling again as another kick landed in his ribs. 

Jakob dropped on him like a wolf, dagger flashing up toward his face.  The blade cut him beneath the jaw before sliding off bone. Corbin jerked his head back and grabbed his attacker's arm, trying to push his own weapon into the man's leg.

Jakob's free hand found Corbin's neck and began to squeeze.  Corbin rammed the stiletto into the youth's leg and the ruffian howled, fingers tightening as the spy twisted the point upward, opening the wound wider.  Blood spilled over his hands.  The toe of a boot cracked into the side of his face -- Coop had apparently recovered his balance.  Corbin yanked the stiletto out and aimed higher, for Jakob's ribs.  He couldn't breathe, but Jakob was clearly an amateur -- if he'd known what he was doing, Corbin thought grimly, he'd be unconscious now.

The spy rammed the stiletto into Jakob's side like an icepick into a block of ice.  This time Jakob's fingers opened as the youth wailed with pain, clamping his hand to his side.  Corbin twisted and threw Jakob off.  His second opponent slashed and Corbin raised a hand to protect his face. The dagger bite deeply into his palm.  He kicked with his good leg and connected.

Corbin scuttled backward until his hands felt air instead of step.  His back was to the next descent.  Jakob was staggering to his feet, hand pressed over a bleeding wound just below his ribs, and Coop was hanging back, waiting for his leader.

Corbin threw his second stiletto toward the unharmed attacker and dropped his hand to grab his third -- and last -- from his other boot.  The weapon caught the youth in the shoulder.  A poor throw.  Jakob grimly advanced, dagger held out before him.

Corbin yanked his last weapon from its sheath and estimated his chances.  Not good.  Jakob might falter from lack of blood, but not soon enough.  Corbin had never been much of a face-to-face fighter -- he knew how to kill, but his training had been in killing those who were unaware of him, or, as an executioner, who were already bound and helpless.

Corbin chose to retreat, turning and pushing himself down the last flight of steps.  This time he controlled his descent. Jakob and Coop followed, shouting curses.  When he reached the bottom, Corbin pushed himself to his feet, feeling his injured leg tremble beneath him.  Trying to ignore it, he turned.

"Get 'im," Jakob growled. 

Coop came in slow, slashing for Corbin's weak leg.  Corbin was forced back, knowing that if his injury betrayed him, that knife would find a home in his ribs. 

"Hey!  Hey, there!"  A familiar voice.

"C'mon, let's finish it!" Jakob slowly moved in the opposite direction, forcing Corbin to divide his attention between the two.  Judging the injured Jakob to be the lesser threat, he turned and thrust at Coop. 

The youth danced backward and Jakob seized the opening. Corbin twisted aside as a blade slashed up his side toward his chest.  His injured leg collapsed beneath him at the sudden shift in weight.  Jakob quickly reversed his slash.  The dagger slashed open Corbin's coat front, narrowly missing his ribs.

Coop darted in, dropping to one knee to plunge his dagger into Corbin's heart.  Corbin shoved himself up, blocking Coop's dagger arm with his free arm and sliding the narrow point of his stiletto under Coop's diaphragm and upward.

The youth jerked and coughed, then coughed again.  The second time, a rush of hot blood flooded from his lips.

"Stop!  Stop, damn you!  Archduke's guard -- you're all under arrest!"

Corbin shoved Coop off of him and heard Jakob's heels pounding the cobbles as he fled.  Gritting his teeth, the spy pulled himself up to follow, looking over his shoulder to see how far away the guard was.

His eyes met and locked with Captain Bracken's.

The elderly captain's jaw dropped as he recognized his stepson, and Corbin felt his heart skip a beat, then jolt against his chest.  Desperate, he looked around and saw nothing but the stretch of dock road dead-ending at the old fishing pier.  Bracken stood between him and the road out of town. 

Corbin looked up at the long flight of stairs back up to Market Street that Jakob was taking.  He looked back down at Bracken.  His stepfather moved slowly, relied on a cane to walk.  But tonight Corbin was hardly any faster.

"Rook, don't be an idiot," Bracken snapped, reading his stepson's indecision with ease.  "I could have guards scouring the countryside for you in half an hour."

"You wouldn't want to," Corbin said, forcing the words past the tightness in his chest.  The expression on the captain's face -- the anger, the disappointment, and the regret -- was almost too much to bear.  "Please.  Don't."

"They said you raped her.  You never told us anything about that."

Three years, and it was as if they'd never moved past the events that had split them in the first place.  Corbin shook his head.

"You know I would never do that.  I told you exactly what happened.  All I did -- all I did was give her a stiletto."

"I see you still use them."

Corbin looked down at the bloody knife in his hand, embarrassed, then wiped it on his coat and stuck it back into his belt sheath.  Even if he could bring himself to attack the man who'd been his friend and mentor, the man who was now his stepfather, he'd never be able to beat Bracken in a fair fight.  Bracken had taught him how to fight in the first place.

"They attacked me first."

"Of course they attacked you first.  You may not be very bright, Rook, but you're certainly not stupid enough to attack three people by yourself.  I taught you better than that."  Bracken leaned heavily on his cane, grey eyes searching his criminal stepson's face.  Corbin gazed back, gauging how badly the last two years had treated his old mentor.

He didn't look much different, Corbin thought with a pang.

"You've lost weight," Bracken said.

"I -- I've been on the road a lot."

"You look harder.  Colder."  Bracken's tone was disapproving.  Corbin shifted slightly, uncomfortable under the captain's piercing gaze.

"How's Mother?"

"She still misses you.  We don't talk about you anymore.  You broke her heart, you know.  I'll never forgive you for that."

Corbin swallowed, surprised at how much those words hurt.  His eyes burned again.

"You're bleeding.  Why did they attack you?"

"I don't know.  One of them's up there."  Corbin pointed to the slumped figure on the stairs.  "I don't think he's dead yet."

"If I go up there and get him, you're going to run away.  You're wanted here in Seasedge, Rook; you know that, don't you?"

"I know."  The archduke had been unwilling to dismiss the charges this early, to find somebody else to be Corbin's scapegoat.  There had been a witness who'd seen Corbin go into her cell that night, a guard who'd been under Corbin's command.  He'd told others about it when Corbin had sent him away, and ... and the story had spread too far to be easily hushed, the archduke had told him.  Later, when the fuss had died down a little, it could be fixed, Archduke Aeric assured him -- but not yet.

"Why did you come back?"

"I can't tell you."

"You're under arrest, Rook," Bracken said grimly.  "I'm not going to let you get away this time.  I still can't figure out how you escaped the first time.  You must have had an accomplice -- one of the prison guards, was it?"

"I can't tell you," Corbin repeated, helplessly.  He reached up to wipe his neck and pulled his hand away crimson.  He cleaned it on his coat.  "But before you arrest me -- before you make it public, anyway -- tell the archduke that you have me."

"Why?"  Bracken asked, bluntly. "Why should I do you any favors?"

"I can't tell you.  But -- please -- if you have to arrest me, tell the archduke before you do anything else."

Bracken narrowed his eyes, regarding his stepson with suspicion.

"Are you going to give yourself up?"

"If I don't, what will you do?  Call the guards to hunt me down?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll give myself up," Corbin said quietly, feeling a bittersweet combination of despair and relief.  Despair, because the archduke might not vouch for him, he might very well let Corbin finally meet his end in Executioner's Square.  Relief, because he was tired of living in exile, of living as a killer.  If he died here, at least he'd be dying at home.

"Toss down your weapon.  Come on," Bracken said with a trace of irritation, "you were a guard once -- you know the procedures."

Corbin slowly slid his last stiletto back out of his belt.  His last chance -- Bracken probably couldn't dodge away fast enough to avoid the thrown weapon.  He didn't even have to kill the captain, necessarily -- he could injure him, then gag him.  He owed it to the archduke, didn't he, to resist arrest?  He gazed down at the weapon.  For two years he'd killed with it.  Why should today be any different?

Then the tears that had been burning his eyes slowly tricked down his cheeks, and he opened his hand and let the stiletto clatter to the cobblestones.  He kicked it over to Bracken and looked up.

"I --"  Bracken started to say something, then stopped.  He pulled his set of iron manacles from his belt and tossed them down at Corbin's feet.  "Go on," he said gruffly.  "Before that man up there freezes to death."

Corbin leaned over, picking up the cold, heavy manacles.  His heart pounded as he closed one around one wrist.  Then he placed his other wrist into the iron ring and paused.  This was madness.  This was not what he'd been trained to do.

He slowly closed it around his other wrist, then looked up.  The metal was ice-cold against the bare flesh of his wrists.

Bracken nodded wordlessly and began limping up the stairs toward the injured man.

***

Corbin looked up as the warehouse door opened.  He'd been left manacled to a chair in the corner, a lantern hung on a beam overhead.  It was cold, but he was used to that.  At least there wasn't any wind, and Bracken had roughly bound his wounds before leaving him there. 

He'd done what he could to heal himself, calling on the tainted Blood magic that was his birthright, the healing power that his family had inherited from the death of Azrai. And then he had just waited. 

For the first time in two years, it seemed to him, he had a chance to sit quietly and reflect on what had happened to him since Lady Agravaine's death.  He'd heard the bells ring lauds a long time ago.

He'd couldn't regret the work he'd done for his archduke, but ... he wasn't unhappy to have it come to an end, either. He had never wanted to become a spy and an assassin. It seemed to have just ... happened.

"So.  Rook."  Bracken pulled up another chair and sat down on it, rubbing his leg and scowling at his prisoner.  "What have you been doing, these last two years?"

"Traveling, mostly," Corbin said truthfully.

"Doing what?"

"This and that.  I've ... I've made some money as a musician, here and there."

Bracken snorted.

"Playing violin?  You don't expect me to believe that, do you?"

"I have!" Corbin protested.  "People even say I play well.  They paid me, anyway."

Bracken gazed curiously at his stepson, trying to read him.  One side of the boy's face was bruised from a kick, and the cut on his jaw had scabbed and left blood down his neck and shirt collar.  The front of his coat was covered with blood -- that of the boy he'd stabbed, no doubt.  His hair was shorter than it had been when he'd been Boeruine's Lord High Executioner, and he'd lost the mustache.  He'd also lost weight -- he had the kind of starved, desperate look Bracken was used to seeing on highwaymen and beggars.  There was a new hardness to the set of his jaw, to the way he looked back at Bracken -- his pale blue eyes looked colder than they had, before.  Bracken remembered the way Rook had looked after he'd beheaded and quartered a traitor for the archduke, three years ago, and he wondered if Rook would look the same now if he had to do it over again.

Bracken didn't think so.  And that disturbed the hell out of him.

The boy had been carrying virtually nothing but weapons.  No food, no traveling supplies, no change of clothes.  But he'd had several crowns worth of coins in his pocket, a dagger sheathed horizontally on his belt in the small of his back, and a garrote coiled in the cuff of one boot.  And the three stilettos, of course, one of which Bracken had pulled out of his prisoner's stomach when they'd reached the guardhouse.

What kind of man traveled like that?  Not a musician, he was certain of that.

"Rook, the man you stabbed called you a murderer.  He said he'd been hired to help kill you by the man who got away. What did you call him? Jackob? "

"Did you find him?" Corbin asked anxiously.

"No, but I've got my people looking.  You hurt him -- even if he's got a horse, he won't be able to ride fast or far."

Corbin nodded once, thoughtfully, gazing back down at the floor.  That was good news, at least.  It would be better when he heard they'd captured him. Why did Jakob want to kill him? How did Jakob know who he was?

"Look at me, Rook."

Corbin looked up, met his stepfather's grey eyes.

"Are you a spy?  Are you a murderer?"

"No," Corbin said firmly.  "I'm a musician."

"Musicians don't carry garrotes."

"That's an extra string."

"Where's your violin?"

"In my camp -- outside town."

"You never used to be a good liar."

"I'm not a liar."

"You're getting better at it, at least."

Corbin shrugged as best as he could, still holding Bracken's gaze.  The old man broke the deadlock first, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

"I liked you better when you were just an executioner.  Are you working for the archduke, or am I going to have to watch that drunkard pull out your guts and chop you into quarters? Tell me you're working for the archduke."

"No."

"You must be, or you wouldn't have asked me to report your presence to him."  Bracken dropped his hand and looked grimly at his stepson.  "Tell me the truth and I'll unlock you and let you go."

"I'd like to see Mu -- my mother again."  Corbin faltered on the affectionate term, a lump in his throat.  "Please."

"Are you the archduke's spy?" Bracken's voice was cold.

"Have you talked to him?"

The captain looked away.

"No," he said after a moment.  Corbin looked curiously at his stepfather.

"Why not?"

"I wanted to talk to you first."  The captain looked back at his stepson again.  "Before I turned you in."

"Before I'm sentenced to die a third time?" Corbin smiled wryly, feeling his broken lip crack.  Bracken's face closed like a book.

"Don't play games with me, boy."

"I'm sorry."  Corbin sighed, bone tired.  "You're breaking the rules, captain.  It's not like you.  Go talk to the archduke. Let him tell you what to do. "

"Why would he make you his spy, Rook, if you were guilty of treason?  Did he help you escape?  Why?  The lady was dead -- I saw her myself, and I saw the stiletto I'd given you in her hand. What happened, that night?"

"I gave it to her."

"You're still wanted for the rape and murder of a noblewoman, and for breaking out of prison."  Bracken reached forward and lifted Corbin's chin, forcing his eyes back up.  Corbin stared at him impassively.  "If all you did was let her kill herself, why would the archduke let the accusations stand? If you raped and murdered her, why would he let you go? What's going on, Rook?"

"Go talk to the archduke," Corbin said, pulling his face from Bracken's rough hand. He didn't dare explain, didn't dare try to defend himself.  Not without the archduke's permission.  He wouldn't fail the archduke a third time.

But the intensity of Bracken's gaze as the captain turned his sharp mind to the puzzle before him was painfully familiar, and Corbin couldn't help but hope that his stepfather would reach the correct conclusion without his help.

Finally Bracken stood and pulled a key from his belt.  He unlocked the manacles from the chair and handed Corbin his weapons back.

"Get out of here."

"You don't know if I'm innocent or not."

"Get out of here.  If you try to visit Mhairi, I'll kill you."

Corbin hung his head and left.

***

The graveyard was cold, the grass brown and stiff.  Corbin stared down at the plain wooden marker over the pauper's grave. Gwenavaere Agravaine, it said.  Corbin was surprised the grave was marked at all.  The lady had died a suicide, accused of treason.  Hers was the rape and murder Corbin was accused of; hers the suicide he'd assisted.  Only one other person knew the truth -- Archduke Aeric Boeruine, his regent.  And the archduke had declared the spying, the murdering, to be his punishment for letting a prisoner escape the stake.  For being soft-hearted.

The spy crouched next to the grave, injured leg twinging, and gazed over the rest of the graveyard.  Wooden markers, stone markers; plain markers, ornate markers.  Beyond them, a stone wall that separated the commoners' graves from the nobility's tombs.  Gwenavaere should have been buried there, but she'd died in disgrace.

A twig snapped. Corbin spun, one arm rising to protect his face, the other reaching for the stiletto in his boot-sheath.  The shovel slammed into his arm as his injured leg buckled beneath him.

His attacker swore, whipping the shovel around in gloved hands.  Corbin kicked and caught the man in the shin.  The ruffian danced away, swinging the shovel down once more.  This time Corbin wasn't fast enough. The metal blade slammed him in the ribs.  He sprawled on top of the grave, trying to catch his breath, the wounds he'd taken in his first fight burning.  His attacker grinned fiercely and lifted his shovel again, blade-down.

"Who are you?" Corbin gasped, locking eyes with the youth.

"Jakob Flicke.  You killed my brother Conrad, you bastard.  Four years ago.  And I've been looking for you ever since."

Corbin shook his head, vaguely remembering the name of the arsonist who'd burned down his house, years ago. It wouldn't matter to Jakob that he hadn't been the one who'd killed Conrad; either Aeric or the dead mage Gereint could claim that kill.  But he didn't try to protest as Jakob raised the shovel again, aiming its blade at his neck.

"Hey, who's that?"

Jakob swore, starting.  Corbin jerked himself aside, curling and rolling. The shovel blade slammed into his upper arm, and he howled with pain.

"Who's there?"  A bullseye lantern's beam played over the gravesite.  Jakob threw the shovel at Corbin and then turned and ran.

Corbin started to stand, then sank back down on the ground as a man strode forward, lantern in one hand and cudgel in another.  The spy put a hand over his arm and felt hot blood.  He looked at the wound, then looked away with a grimace.

"I was attacked," Corbin said weakly. 

"So I see."  The lantern moved closer.  "Who are you?"

"Midian -- Conrad Midian," Corbin said, squinting in the light. It was the name he'd used on his last mission.

"I haven't seen you around before.  What're you doing in the graveyard at night?"

The spy mustered a nervous, ingratiating smile, wishing with all his heart the man would leave him alone so he could tend to the wound that was gushing blood all over his shoulder.

"Just passing through.  I was attacked--"

"Yes, you told me.  Just passing through the graveyard before dawn, huh?"  The man walked closer, and Corbin raised a hand to shade his eyes, his other hand falling down close to his boot again.  His heart was pounding.

"Your face is bruised and you're covered with blood.  Looks like you've had an interesting evening, Master Midian.  Fortunately for you, I'm a physician.  You'd better get up and come with me."

"A physician?"  Corbin slowly stood up, feeling his ribs protest, his arm throb, and his old arrow-wound ache.  The last month, from Ghoere to Boeruine, hadn't been a good one for his health.

"Yes.  I was dropping off a body when I heard the noise.  Come on.  I have a waggon, and it's a short ride."

The man lifted the lantern slightly, and Corbin saw a bearded man in his sixties, a physician's coif under his hat, a physician's gown under his coat.  He nodded.  He didn't have a choice; there was little chance he could outrun the man right now.  He'd have to slip away later.  At least the man didn't seem to recognize him, unlike Jakob Flicke.

"What's your name, doctor?"

"Tomas Abrams."

Corbin limped behind the doctor, teeth grinding together as every step jarred his wound.  He had never met Abrams before, although of course he recognized the name. Abrams was widely consulted in cases of brain fever and ran a sanitarium outside the city.  In general, the physician had been reclusive, and his sanitarium remained discreetly out of sight and out of mind, exactly as most people preferred.

They reached the waggon.  A coffin was laying on the ground next to it, right outside the graveyard gates.  Abrams gestured, and Corbin awkwardly got into the waggon seat.  The doctor followed him up, gathered up the reins, and clicked to his large draft horse.  They set off down the road, lantern swinging from the sideboard.  Corbin winced and tried to take his mind off the pain.

"Why are you out so late?" Corbin asked.

"You mean, so early."  Abrams smiled.  "I resolve to get the bodies off the grounds as early in the morning as I can, and preferably before my patients awaken.  The sight of a corpse sets them off badly."

"Don't you have assistants?"

"I would, normally, but my assistant is the one in the coffin.  I'll need to find a new one."  Abrams glanced at him.  "How long are you in town?"

"I'm traveling through," Corbin said hastily.

"Stay a few days.  I'll fix up that gash in exchange for your help around the place.  Having you around will give me a chance to go into town to hire a new assistant."

"Can't you send a message?"

Abrams laughed dryly.

"With whom? We hardly ever get visitors, and never during the winter.  I sent my assistant into town for supplies, and we chop our own wood and have a well on the grounds. No deliveries, except the rare new patient."

Corbin winced as the waggon hit a rut, and felt more blood well through his fingers.  The cut was deep, and he was feeling nauseous.  He thought about running away, and then decided, again, that he was tired of running.

"All right," he said, feeling faint.  "Deal."

Abrams nodded, looking satisfied, and Corbin closed his eyes and concentrated for the rest of the ride on not getting sick.

***

The sanitarium was an old manor house with its windows shuttered and barred from the outside.  Abrams parked the waggon and led the horse into the stable, then returned to lead Corbin into the house.  The straw on the floor was beginning to rot and the air was cold and stale.  Heavy locks hung from every iron-reinforced door, and iron grates were locked over the fireplaces.  Abrams led Corbin into a large room that he obviously used as his office, setting the lantern on the mantel and poking up the fire.  The walls were covered with shelves of books and bones and strange metal instruments that looked far more unpleasant than anything Corbin had ever seen in the dungeons he'd tended.

"Let's see it.  Can you bear to take your coat off, or should we cut it off?"

"It's the only one I have," Corbin said, grimacing as Abrams helped him out of it and set it, bloodstained and tattered, to one side.

"Hmmm.  Yes, an interesting evening, Master Midian.  Bandages on your hand, a cut across your shirt and arm -- also bandaged -- blood all over your coat and shirt front and sleeves, but no sign of an injury there.  Somebody else's blood, I presume.  A fight earlier in the night, I'd guess, since the blood is dry but hasn't flaked off much."  As he spoke, Abrams slit the rest of the shirtsleeve and began prodding at the wound.  Corbin hissed with pain and shifted slightly, keeping his hands free.  He'd add the doctor's blood to his shirt if he had to -- if the man said much more. 

"Did you kill someone tonight?" Abrams asked.

"No," Corbin lied curtly.

"That's very unlikely; you shouldn't lie to your physician.  Don't take it personally when I ask such things -- I don't really care if you did kill someone.  I understand death.  Don't move."  Abrams rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a heavy iron needle and began to thread it with sinew.  "We're going to need to sew the edges together."

"How did your assistant die?" Corbin asked uneasily.

"The stytche.  He complained of an ache in his side this morning and was dead by nightfall.  I've seen it several times before, usually in children -- nothing can be done for it."

"You only had the one?"

"I don't earn enough money to hire more than one, and it's an unpleasant job at times.  This will hurt; do you want a drink first?"

"No."

"Then hold your hand there.  Good.  Don't move it."  Abrams leaned over and began stitching.  Corbin looked away.  It wasn't the first time he'd been sewn back together.  Abrams didn't have his mother's gentle way with a needle.  Blood trickled through his fingers.

"Who bandaged you?"

"I did."

"Neat job, especially the one on your hand.  There aren't many people who can bandage themselves that neatly one-handed."

"Thank you."

Abrams smiled again, biting off the knot between his teeth.  He set the needle aside and stood up to prepare a poultice.

"What do you do as a living, Master Midian?"

"I play the violin."

Abrams chuckled, smearing the muddy-looking poultice over bandages.

"And where's your instrument?"

"Stolen."  Corbin sighed.  He missed his violin.  It had been lost when he'd been forced to leave Ghoere peremptorily.  He hoped he'd be able to purchase another, someday.  It wouldn't be easy.  Violins were expensive and hard to come by.

"You don't have the look of a minstrel."  Abrams sat down again and began winding the bandage around Corbin's arm. "But you do have the calluses for it."

"You're observant," Corbin said, glancing down at his left hand.  He did have calluses from playing.

"I'm a physician.  Drawing conclusions from the evidence is part of my job."

"Like a constable," Corbin said, intrigued by the thought.

"I suppose.  I don't have a great deal of respect for our city's constabulary.  It fails as often as it succeeds.  Fortunately for you, perhaps.  It's unlikely anyone will be able to trace you here."

"Are you offering me sanctuary, doctor?"

"Do you need it?"

Corbin was silent a moment, then shook his head.

"No."

"Then it doesn't matter, does it?  We'll keep your arm in a sling for a few days to remind you not to use it.  You must be careful not to tear the stitches."

"I don't understand."  Corbin turned to look at the physician, who tied the bandage firmly around his arm.  The man seemed honest, spoke plainly; but there was an undercurrent to his words that made Corbin distinctly uncomfortable.

"Quite all right.  Follow me; I'll show you to a room.  You may be a bit dizzy -- here, here's my hand.  Slowly.  You lost a lot of blood tonight -- taken altogether."

***

Corbin pounded on the door again with his good hand, then gave up in disgust and sat down on the bedside.  He slid a stiletto from his boot and tucked it under his arm in the sling.  It wasn't very comfortable there, but at least it was easier to reach.

"Sorry, sorry, I was feeding the patients." Keys rattled and the door opened.  Abrams hooked the keyring back on his belt.  "How are you feeling?"

"You locked me in."

"Force of habit.  Here, drink this; it'll help the pain."  The physician pulled a flask from the pouch on his belt, uncorked it, and handed it over.  Corbin took it and sniffed.  Wine and herbs.

"No thanks."  He handed it back.

"A cautious man.  Fair enough.  If you change your mind, tell me."  Abrams corked it again and replaced it.  "So, do you want the tour?"

"You're letting me out?"

"I have no intention of keeping you in; you're not distracted, and nobody would pay me to take care of you even if you were.  Come on."

"I thought I heard someone screaming last night."

"Master Midian, this is a sanitarium."  Abrams sounded amused. "My patients aren't the quiet kind."

The manor was livelier during the day; Corbin shuddered as he looked around.  Madmen and madwomen shouted and laughed and cried and conversed freely, roaming in and out of the hallways and rooms.  Now he realized why so much of the manor was bare of ornament -- to prevent the inmates from harming themselves or each other.

"Many of them pose no harm to anyone, poor souls," Abrams said, leading him through the halls and greeting patients who spoke to him.  "The violent ones are chained up, of course.  I'd like to let them loose for the occasional walk, but I'm understaffed.  Most of them are upstairs on the second floor."

"Does anyone here ever get better?" Corbin asked, looking around nervously.  The presence of so many lunatics made him uneasy; he wondered how much of their ailment might be contagious.

"Not many, I'm afraid."  Abrams lost a little of his cheerful manner as he spoke.  "This is usually the last place most of them end up, after seeing their priests and family physicians.  I keep chronicles of their behaviors, try to list symptoms and record my attempts to cure them ... but there are few changes.  Few changes."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, so am I.  If I had more help, perhaps....  But there's no money."

"You get paid to keep them, though."

"Yes.  Until the families forget, or cut off funds.  Most of these come from extremely well-to-do families, some from other realms.  Embarrassments, most of them; their families pay to have them hidden away, and when everyone has forgotten them, the payments stop.  But even when I am paid, it isn't much.  Enough to feed them, provide a new shirt sometimes, purchase oil and candles and other essentials.  But not much more."

"So why do you do it?" Corbin asked curiously, as Abrams unlocked a heavy door and gestured upstairs.

"The spiritual reward, I suppose," Abrams said.  They reached the door at the top of the stairs.  Corbin pushed back the bolt and they entered the upper hall.  All of the doors were heavily locked, with spyholes cut into the wood.  Abrams unlocked the first door.

"Kirche!"  Corbin reeled back, putting his hand over his nose and mouth.  The woman chained to the wall was covered with abscesses and filth.  She screamed and lunged for him.  The chain caught her ankle and she fell, clawing at the floor.

Abrams closed the door again.

"If I had enough assistants, I might be able to keep them cleaner.  I drug them every fortnight and wash them off, wipe down their cells."

Corbin couldn't restrain himself.

"That's disgusting!  To keep them locked up like that, like animals...."

"I thought you were made of sterner stuff, Master Midian."  Abrams sounded amused. "A killer with scruples?"

Corbin turned on him, blue eyes cold and angry.

"I'm not a killer."

"Then what do you call yourself?  I examined your coat last night.  You were in a knife fight, from the pattern of the tears.  But most of the blood on that coat wasn't yours; I've seen the extent of your wounds.  You've been injured, but not that badly.  However, somebody was injured.  Extremely badly.  Fatally, I should guess."

Corbin started to reply, then closed his mouth, furious but silent.  The doctor was right.  He was a killer.  The fact that he usually killed for his archduke didn't excuse the times when he didn't.

And killing came to him so easily, now.  If his archduke's intent had been to harden his heart, then he'd succeeded.  Corbin did things now that he'd never have dreamed of doing when he'd been an executioner.  Still....

"There's a difference between killing and torture," he said at last.  "This -- this is torture."

"Torture?  Would it be more merciful to kill them, then?  I can't let them go free -- they're violent.  They would hurt people -- maybe kill them.  That's why they're in my care."

"Yes.  Yes -- if you can't cure them, it'd be more merciful to kill them," Corbin said tightly.  "Not even prisoners in the dungeons are forced to live in their own filth.  Not even animals."

"You're familiar with dungeons?"  Abrams smiled and lifted his hands as Corbin narrowed his eyes.  "No offense, Master Midian, no offense.  I'm not familiar with dungeons, I confess it.  But I do know that this is wrong.  I wish I had the money to take better care of my patients, but I don't.  And that leaves me with few options.  Killing them...." Abrams shrugged.  "Some of them have families who'd object.  Others don't."

Corbin suddenly realized what they were saying and felt a wave of dizziness pass over him.

"Do you want to see the others?" Abrams asked.

"No!  No -- I don't."

"Then you can come back downstairs to help me.  Later I'll ask you for your help up here.  Perhaps we can do something to put our poor prisoners out of their misery.  Clean their rooms, perhaps...."

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