"No. You no longer have the right to call me that."
Alvantes's father advanced into the room, the guard following close at his heels. I couldn't tell whether he was there to supervise Alvantes Senior, to protect him from us, or was warding against some improbable escape attempt. His expression suggested no one had bothered to fill him in on such trivial details either; he made do by trying to watch all three of us at once.
Meanwhile, Alvantes's father never took his eyes from his son. I did think I saw them shift to note his missing hand, just for a fraction of a moment; but if the grim sight registered, it brought no hint of sympathy to his voice as he went on, "That's what I'm here to tell you. You have failed the King, the Court, the people of Altapasaeda. You've failed me — more than I ever could have conceived. For these reasons, I've begged the King to let me see you one final time… just to convey my shame. These will be my last words to you, Lunto, do you understand? My last words."
Alvantes's father stepped closer, as though concerned that one syllable of his vitriol might be missed. Yet when he spoke, it was with inhuman calm. "I won't be there to witness your execution. I shall treat tomorrow as I have today and as I will the day after tomorrow. I'll set out to the Court at seven. Unlike you, my duties are something I would never try to escape. As always, I'll return home at five. I will spend the evening as I do every other, and have not a single doubt against which to guard. By nine, as every night, I'll be soundly asleep."
Could Alvantes's father really have such an outrageous sense of his importance that he felt the need to share his itinerary in the last hours of his son's life? It wasn't even as if his heart was in it. His expression showed more concentration than anger. It was obvious his first concern was in keeping to the bizarre script he'd prepared.
"Let me tell you one more thing before I walk out that door. In my service to His Highness, I've always strived to be honest and open. Would that you'd done the same when it came to be your turn. Now, in your last hours, I urge you to do what's right. Think of those who are left. Think of those you've let down. What happens now is on your own head. It isn't something you have a right to blame His Highness for. He knows as well as anyone that justice must be vigorous if it's to keep a kingdom stable."
Alvantes Senior intoned this maxim with clear finality. As though nothing of any significance had been said, he turned away.
Alvantes opened his mouth to speak. No sound came.
Then, apparently as an afterthought, Alvantes's father turned back and struck his son with all his strength across the face. It was a ringing open-handed blow, and it left a glowing welt in its wake. Yet Alvantes's head moved not one iota. He hardly seemed to feel it.
Alvantes Senior turned away once more. This time he marched from the room without another word — just as he'd promised. The confused guard hurried after, still trying to divide his attention equally between all three of us. Once they were both across the threshold, the door slammed shut.
For once, I couldn't but feel genuine pity for Alvantes. His thanks for loyalty was to be called a traitor and condemned to die; now his father visited solely to rub his nose in those facts. As if that weren't all bad enough, it was clear the old man was playing with a severely depleted deck of cards. Bad enough to endure so cruel an invective from a parent. For it to be hardly more than gibberish seemed to me that much worse.
I thought about making some attempt to express my sympathy. But nothing came to mind that did the situation justice — and based on what I saw in Alvantes's face, I doubted he'd even hear it. Moreover, I was quick to remind myself that my own circumstances were hardly any better, and identical in the long run. Anyway, wasn't it Alvantes's blind faith in his vindictive King that had landed us in this mess?
At least I understood now how he could have been so calm before. Alvantes had expected his father, evidently high up in the Court, to pull whatever strings it would take to secure his son's freedom. I was actually disappointed. Waiting for someone else to pick up the pieces didn't fit well with the Alvantes I knew — especially when the father he'd been so naively relying on was an unfeeling lunatic.
Alvantes's scheme, such as it had been, was a dead loss. No last-minute reprieves or eleventh-hour rescues would be forthcoming. There were only two ways I was leaving that cell, and one of them would end on the headsman's block.
It might be hopeless, it was almost certainly suicidal, but my options had narrowed to just one.
It was time I put my plan into action.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Getting the shackle off my ankle was easy enough.
The lock was ancient and showy, constructed to look sturdy rather than be difficult to overcome. In fact, the harder part had been unpicking my shirt collar for the lock picks concealed there. I was almost disappointed no one had bothered to search me more thoroughly. They'd confiscated my cloak and found the loose picks in its pocket, they'd patted me down from head to toe, but that was all.
If I'd been relieved at the time, I now found it worrying. Either the Royal Guard were incompetent or they were profoundly confident in their wider security. In that case, the shackle was little more than ornamentation. It was the layers of locked doors and armed men they relied on to keep me in place.
Then again, there was another explanation, perhaps even more likely. With our execution so imminent, they'd assumed we'd have no possible time for escape.
I felt duty-bound at least to try to prove them wrong.
I spent a minute massaging circulation back into my ankle. Across from me, Alvantes sat with his eyes closed, as he had since his father left. I doubted he could be sleeping, but he was so perfectly still that it was hard to judge. I'd have expected my sympathy for him to have dried up by now; it surprised me to realise it hadn't. There'd been something peculiarly affecting in hearing him be torn apart so thoroughly and yet so nonsensically. If Alvantes's father had been determined to convey how little his son's death meant to him, there were pithier and less senile ways he could have gone about it.
Which led me to the question I'd be agonising over. Did I try to take Alvantes with me? Of course we despised each other, but there was a definite divide between that and leaving him to die. Anyway, there was no denying he'd make a useful ally. However little he knew of the palace, it would beat my plan of blundering at random until I stumbled upon a way out.
All well and good. But something told me Alvantes was unlikely to approve of my interventionist approach to incarceration. He might be just obstinate enough to have his head chopped off out of some misplaced sense of duty — and if he wasn't usually, his father's speech could have tipped the balance. Shut up and die with dignity was exactly the kind of message a man like Alvantes didn't need to hear.
The truth, though, was that I couldn't very well leave him. If I should ever meet Estrada again, even I'd have trouble explaining that one. Alvantes? The last time I saw him, he was in a cell waiting to be beheaded. I'd have asked if he wanted to escape with me, but it seemed rude to wake him.
I crept over, all ready to wake him with a tap to the shoulder. At the last moment, his eyes snapped open. They glided quickly over me, absorbing my unfettered ankle, the empty shackle loose upon the flags behind.
"Damasco," Alvantes said softly. "Whatever you're doing, stop it now."
"Don't make this more difficult than it has to be," I hissed back. "I'm escaping. If you don't like it, fine, stay here and give my regards to the executioner. But nothing you say is keeping me in this cell."
"Gods damn it! If you try and leave now, you'll ruin everything."
"Much as I hate to put out the noble folk of Pasaeda, I'm sure I'll learn to live with myself somehow."