He also wondered if it would matter one way or the other. His head pounded so much, he wished he were dead. A moment later, he shook his head. He regretted it immediately afterward, for the motion brought fresh shooting pains and made him want to be sick. But he did not wish he were dead. However miserable he was, he wanted to live.
Another bucket of musty water soaked him. "On your feet, you cursed heretic! By the lord with the great and good mind, you're going to get every bit of what's coming to you."
On my feet? Rhavas thought. He had to remember how to make them work. He couldn't just rise, the way he would have if he hadn't just been clouted over the head. Each individual motion took intense concentration. Putting the motions together took even more. After some little while, he stood, swaying like a tall tree in a bad storm.
He realized he was in a cell. Stout iron bars separated him from his tormentor. The man who'd drenched him stood there laughing in the corridor—he had no trouble staying upright. He would have been safe from any ordinary victim. Whatever else Rhavas was, ordinary he was not. "Curse you," he growled, and waited for a measure of revenge.
But the man did not fall. Rhavas swore under his breath. Were his wits still too scrambled to let him curse? He wouldn't have been surprised.
Then the man sketched the sun-circle over his heart. "Phos!" he exclaimed. "You're as strong as they said you were, and more besides. They put every kind of ward under the sun on me, and you still almost knocked me over."
That made Rhavas feel better—the first thing that had. He started to curse the—guard? sorcerer?—again, but checked himself before he did. There would be others. If they came in and found this one dead, it would go worse for him . . . assuming it could go any worse. And killing this wretch wouldn't get him out of the cell. He wondered if anything would, save the last walk to face a headsman's sword, or perhaps the stake.
"Every time you try to curse somebody from now on, we'll clobber you again," the man said cheerfully. "Before long, you won't have enough brains left to keep from pissing your drawers—and you wouldn't be able to do any more than you did just now anyway, so you'd better save your strength for praying."
Rhavas wasn't so sure of that. With all his wits about him, he could curse more powerfully than he had. Could the Videssian wizards' wards also grow stronger? He didn't know, but he was inclined to doubt it.
Even so, he nodded as if he understood and accepted the other man's words. That made daggers of pain stab him again, but he set his teeth and endured them. Whether his foes knew it or not, he had something in reserve.
"We'll be well rid of you," the fellow said. "Even the patriarch thinks so, and he's soft as a pile of goose down."
Sozomenos had needed no wards to withstand Rhavas' curses. They hadn't almost knocked him over, either; as best Rhavas could tell, they hadn't affected him at all. Rhavas still didn't understand—didn't want to understand—that, but he did understand one thing: the ecumenical patriarch, whatever else he was, was far from soft.
If Rhavas' foes did not understand one another, that was something else he held in reserve. He kept quiet, one of the hardest things any Videssian could do.
The guard, by contrast, went right on gloating. When he had something to say, he talked. When he didn't have anything to say—he talked anyway. "They'll anathematize you," he said, anticipation bubbling in his voice. "They'll excommunicate you. And then they'll execute you. With your cousin on the throne, you might have got away with the sword. Now that Stylianos is Avtokrator, though, I figure they'll burn you. How do you like that?"
"Not very well," Rhavas answered. The guard only laughed at him. Why not? He'd said something funny. As if how he liked things would matter a bit! "Where am I?" he asked, a reasonable question for somebody who'd been knocked over the head.
That only drew more laughter from the man in the corridor. "Don't even know, eh? And you were the fellow with all the answers in the synod. Except they didn't much like your answers, did they?"
"Fools don't know wisdom when they hear it," Rhavas said.
"No, you don't, do you?" the man retorted—a better comeback than Rhavas had looked for from him. The fellow went on, "As for where you're at, you're in the prison under the patriarchal residence. Where else would they stow an arch-heretic till they're ready to get rid of him for good?"
Rhavas hadn't known there was a prison under the patriarchal residence. He would have bet Sozomenos hadn't known about it, either. But someone had: probably Sozomenos' sakellarios. The patriarchal secretary always knew where the bodies were buried. He was also the man who kept an eye on the patriarch for the Avtokrator. Did Sozomenos have a new sakellarios these days? Or was the old one just . . . flexible?
That was, quite literally, the least of Rhavas' worries right now. He asked, "May I have some water to drink along with what you gave me to swim in?"
"Oh, you are a funny fellow," the guard said with another laugh. "We'll see how funny you are when they light the woodpile under you. You'll laugh out of the other side of your mouth then, by Phos." But, to Rhavas' vast relief, he went away after that, perhaps even to get the water.
Rhavas took the chance to look at his cell. Three walls were of stout masonry, the fourth of iron bars. The lock was beyond his reach. The cell held only a canvas mattress cover stuffed with straw and a brass-bound wooden bucket whose purpose was depressingly obvious.
What light there was came from a couple of torches in sconces on the far wall. Rhavas was glad there wasn't more; even looking at the flames made his headache worse. That monk had almost caved in his skull for good.
Here came the guard. Two archers accompanied him. "Get back against the far wall," he snapped. Rhavas obeyed, dimly flattered the man thought him so dangerous. While the archers aimed at Rhavas, the guard reached into the cell and set a cup on the stone floor. "Here you are." He drew back and waved Rhavas forward.
The water wasn't cold and wasn't especially fresh. It might have been the same stuff that had drenched Rhavas. He didn't care. He drank eagerly. "Thank you," he said when the cup was empty.
"It's all right," the guard said. "Drink as much as you please. It won't be enough to put out the fire when the time comes. So long." Away he went, the archers at his heel. Rhavas wanted to throw the mug at his head. He didn't, and afterward wondered why. What could he do now that would get him in worse trouble than he was already?
Like so much else in Videssian life, anathematizing and excommunication had a ceremony all their own. Guards heavily reinforced by mages came to get Rhavas out of his cell. He thought about striking at them, but again held back. He didn't think he could slay them all, and anything less than that would do him no good. If they wanted to hold a ceremony with him in the starring role, they could do that. He still thought he might be able to take his revenge on them later on.
For now, they were too alert—as alert as if he were a lion coming out of a cage. "No false moves, priest, or you won't live long enough to be sorry!" barked one of the guards who warily unlocked the iron door confining him.
"Here I am," was all Rhavas said. "The priests and prelates and patriarch make a mistake condemning me."
"One of you says yes. All of them say no," the guard answered. "I expect that pretty much settles it."
Rhavas shook his head. "How many are mistaken makes no difference. How many have the truth is another story. I have the truth. You would do well to remember that, and learn from me."