Guy walked away from my bent naked body towards the brazier, and my eyes followed him. By now, the tips of the irons were glowing a deep orange-red. He shoved one deeper into the fire and pulled out another, tracing small circles in the air with its gaudy point.
Murdac slowly repeated: ‘Did you join Robert Odo’s band of murderers?’
Again I held my tongue and Guy moved forward with the glowing iron in his right hand. ‘This will make you sing, little trouvere,’ he sneered, and he laid the burning metal against the naked skin of my ribs on my left side. A white whip of pain shot through my whole being. I jerked my body away from Guy and screamed — a long howl of agony and fear that echoed round the stone room long after I had controlled myself and snapped my mouth shut.
‘Did you join Robert Odo’s band?’ asked Murdac again. ‘It’s a very simple question.’ And I shook my head, teeth clamped hard on my lips to stop myself from speaking. Guy touched me again on the ribs with the iron with a fresh burst of indescribable pain and once again I screamed until the sinews in my jaws were cracking.
Guy returned the first iron poker to the flames and pulled a second from the crackling blaze. The tip glowed the colour of ripe cherries. He came and stood close to me; I could feel the heat from the metal on my chest. He whispered into my ear: ‘Keep silent, Alan. We can do this all night, if you do. I do hope you will keep silent, for my sake.’ And he giggled. Then Murdac spoke again, his siblant voice cutting through the pain in my ribs. ‘Did you join Robert Odo’s band?’ I said nothing but tensed my body and cringed away from Guy, who was still beside me with a yard of red-hot iron in his gloved fist. He paused for a few heartbeats and I held my breath and then, deliberately, he rubbed the iron lightly up and down against my right side, smearing the skin like a man spreading butter on a piece of bread. I howled like a madman while the skin blistered and burnt, and a gout of steam and a foul smell of cooking meat attacked my nostrils. He pressed the burning metal harder against my raw body and I bellowed: ‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you both. .’
Guy stepped back, and replaced the iron in the fire. He looked enquiringly at Murdac, who nodded. Guy grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my face up and brought his close in so that our noses were inches apart. ‘No, no, no, Alan,’ he said, leering at me. ‘It is not us, it is you who is going to be fucked.’ And he made a gesture of command to the men-at-arms.
Two soldiers grabbed me and wrenched apart my legs, holding them steady in a steel grip. Guy took another bright-hot poker from the brazier and moved behind me. Murdac said: ‘For the last time, Alan, did you join Robert Odo’s band? Answer my questions and this pain will stop, I swear it. It is entirely up to you. Just answer my question; who will it hurt if you talk a little? I already know the answers. Just answer my questions and the pain will stop.’ I bit my lip and shook my head. Then my buttocks were roughly pulled apart by the soldiers, and I could feel the immense heat of the iron against my shrinking ball bag, and the strip of sensitive skin between it and my arse, the glowing iron not touching, thank God, but radiating with a huge malevolent intensity at my most intimate areas. Then the molten tip of the poker just grazed the soft skin on inside of my right buttock cheek and, though the pain was less than the burns to my ribs, I screamed long and loud enough to wake the dead: ‘Yes, yes, by God, I joined his band. Yes, I joined it.’ I was babbling, shrieking with terror and pain, all self-control suddenly lost. ‘Stop, please, stop. Don’t do it. Don’t burn me there, I beg you.’
Murdac smiled, Guy actually laughed, and I felt a great, joyous relief as the heat of the poker faded away from my private regions. My buttocks were released from that terrible grip and I clenched them tight shut, bunching the muscles as tight as a fist, as if that could protect me. Suddenly, I was engulfed in a black wave of shame, a cold, sinking sadness at my own want of courage. I wanted to die, for the earth to swallow me up. I had been stripped so easily of my last shreds of dignity by that obscene threat. I was a coward; I was the traitor in Robin’s camp, if anyone was. Then, as quickly as it was born, I pushed that thought away. That was one secret I would never give up, even if I suffered this night all the torments of damnation.
Murdac was asking another question: ‘Where is Robert Odo now?’ I said nothing. I gritted my teeth. The little man sighed; he looked genuinely disappointed. Then he nodded at Guy who plucked a fresh poker from the brazier and came towards me. As the soldiers once again laid hold of my backside and pulled the cheeks apart, I found myself babbling: ‘He’s at the Caves, at the Caves, dear God please. .’ and then I stopped in sheer surprise as the cell door opened with a thunderous crash, and through my tears of pain and humiliation, I made out a commanding figure in the doorway. Stepping forward into the light came Robert of Thurnham, clad in grey mail, his long sword at his hip.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said loudly. ‘Please excuse my intrusion. But the screams of this fellow are disturbing the Queen’s rest. She commands that the interrogation cease forthwith, to be recommenced tomorrow at a more suitable hour.’ He walked forward, drawing his sword, and cut through the rope that held my arms up behind me. I collapsed in a shaking heap in the dirty straw on the floor of the cell, my poor burnt ribs and the burn on my arse cheek chanting a melody of anguish. But, for the moment, it was over. I stole a glance at Sir Ralph and saw in his pale eyes a monstrous anger that he was trying to conceal. Guy seemed merely irritated by the turn of events. Murdac looked at me, curled baby-like on the floor, and said: ‘Till tomorrow, then,’ and suddenly Sir Robert was ushering him and Guy and the men-at-arms out of the cell. ‘Don’t get too comfortable, Alan, we’ll be back soon,’ sang out Guy as he was leaving the cell. The knight paused at the doorway to give me a final glance and, in the flickering light of the brazier, as I shivered on the filthy floor, drowning in self-hatred, he silently mouthed a single word at me: ‘Courage!’
I must have passed out, or maybe my mind just retreated into blackness from the horror of that night, for, when I next came to my senses, Marie-Anne was at my side. At first I thought I was dreaming. There were tears on her cheek and, as she cut through the ropes at my wrists with a small knife, she was murmuring: ‘Oh Alan, Alan, what have they done to you?’ She had brought an old monk’s robe to cover my nakedness and had dressed me and begun to chafe my swollen wrists before I really came to my senses. I had lost all feeling in my hands, and the shooting pains as she massaged them back to life was almost as bad as the irons. Almost.
When she saw that I had recovered a measure of feeling in my limbs she said: ‘Come, Alan, we must go quickly. Before the guards return. I have bribed them to let me have a few minutes with the prisoner. I think they believe I have a tendresse for you.’ And Marie-Anne actually blushed. ‘Come, this way,’ she said and taking my arm we stumbled together out of that stinking cell and into the dim light of the passage outside.