"Ah!" said the castellan. "They are good and gentle creatures, don't you see, to so serve the holy abbot. Monreale knows." Lord Pia nodded sagely, and gnawed wool. Thur lay back down on the stone and throbbed awhile, despairing.
He was roused by steps and voices from the corridor. A couple of big Losimons loomed beyond the door, followed by Messer Vitelli in his red robe. Vitelli held a small green glass flask padded with woven straw. The little man stared through the bars at Thur, yawned, and sucked on his lower lip. "Go ahead," he directed, and stepped aside-to let the prison sergeant unlock the door. The sergeant, one eye on the castellan, waited warily for the big bravos to enter the cell. But Lord Pia never even looked up at this invasion.
One of the bravos got behind Thur, and yanked him to a sitting position, his arms locked behind his back. Vitelli leaned against the wall, yawning as if his face would crack, then touched something under his robe. He shook his head like a dog shedding water. "Damn the man," he muttered, and straightened up, inhaling deeply.
The hairs stirred on the back of Thur's neck, as Vitelli's dark aura disturbed something subtler than his senses. There was neither heat nor flash, sound nor scent, yet it was as if an aroma of magic rippled Thur's belly, without first passing his nostrils. Vitelli was maintaining a spell, not invested and constrained and supported in some symbolic object, but held in his own liquid thoughts, a spell powerful and oppressive. And yet he was still able to walk and talk, smooth and ordinary. The impression faded even as Thur grasped at it, giving him hallucinatory vertigo. Maybe it was just another aftereffect from his beating. He squeezed his eyes shut, and blinked rapidly, and the dark aura receded to linger on only in Vitelli's dark eyes.
The man behind Thur grasped his lank blond hair and pulled his head back, and the second stepped forward to force a stick between his teeth and pinch his nostrils shut. Vitelli unstoppered his flask, and sloshed its contents into Thur's aching mouth. It was a sweet dark wine with a bitter undertaste. Thur choked and sputtered and bucked and gagged. And swallowed.
"Good," Vitelli stepped back, and turned his emptied bottle upside down. A last drop shivered on its lip, and fell like a starburst of blood upon the cell floor. "That should do it, even for so large a lout. Return in half an hour and cart him downstairs." He exited the cell, leaving his men to lock it; the dark distracted look spread out from his eyes across his face again as he turned away. Their scuffling footsteps faded again down the corridor, leaving only the sitting guard. Thur's head, sinking inexorably, met the cool stone.
The castellan's face came up, and he giggled, quite distinctly. His giggles became hoots, then high screams. He jumped to his feet. "A bat's the thing!' he cried, snatched up the slops bucket from the corner of the cell, and skipped around the little chamber. With a cunning grin, he stopped by the door, yanked off the bucket's lid, and flung the reeking urine upon the startled guard.
The guard came up off his bench with an outraged yell, unfortunately meeting rather than dodging the vile wash. The castellan leaned through the bars, his hands opening and closing, then danced backward as the soldier drew his blade and lunged at him. Lord Pia pounced upon the sword arm and wrested the blade away, and waved it in the air, striking sparks from the ceiling. Swearing and screaming for the prison sergeant to bring him the key, he was going to kill this madman despite all, the guard retreated up the corridor, brushing at his tunic in disgust and almost crying.
"Quickly." Lord Pia dropped the sword and turned to the swooning Thur, who had watched the whole performance from a numbing huddle on the floor. Strange patterns, like watered silk, swirled and wavered across his vision. Lord Pia slapped the slops bucket upright under Thur's nose, yanked his head back by the hair rather less gentry than had the Losimon bravo, and thrust his thick and filthy fingers deep into Thur's throat. He kneed Thur's belly for good measure.
"That's it, boy, bring it all up," he crooned encouragingly, as Thur retched into the smelly bucket.
Thur didn't even need a second stimulus to empty his stomach altogether. The sickly sweet wine, bile, and poisonous acridity of the drug filled his mouth, and he spat wildly, eyes watering, nose running. Lord Pia turned his head, listening, then grabbed the bucket away to toss its revolting new load quite accurately and neatly through the bars of the outside window.
"Before they get back. Listen to me!" Lord Pia pulled Thur up by the hair again, hissing. Thur's eyes still swam with tears. "Lie still! Pretend it is yet working upon you. Go limp as a slug, don't cry out even if they stick an iron needle into your flesh, and they will carry you out of here themselves. Then keep pretending, till I call you to rise and strike! Do you hear? Do you understand?" His red eyes were fierce. Thur nodded dizzily. It took no effort at all to pretend to swoon; a dark haze fogged his brain. At least the numbness muffled the pain of his bruises and knocks. He wiped his lips on his sleeve, eliciting another. "Lie still!"
Lord Pia snatched up the sword and bounced from wall to wall, waving it and ululating, as the guard and the sergeant returned. The sergeant peered through the bars, looking very annoyed. "Stupid fool, to let him disarm you! Now how d'you think I'm supposed to get it back for you from a howling lunatic? Ha? Wait for him to cut his own throat? I ought to—" Both men jumped back as the castellan on his breathless circuit clattered the sword across the bars. The iron continued to ring faintly as he stopped, tilted his head cunningly, and blatted his lips in the direction of the Losimons. The guard, wild, grabbed for the sergeant's key ring, but the sergeant slapped him down. "Witless nit, I'll have you flogged if you don't obey orders. Here, you!" This last was directed at Lord Pia who, with a weird snicker, danced to the window and stuck the sword out through the bars, and let it go.
The guard yelled in incoherent rage, shaking the door bars, and the sergeant cuffed him. "Ninny! Go and get it. You can wash in the lake while you're down there. In fact, you'll have to, that steel will be sunk ten feet down at least. And don't take all day!"
"Ill get him," snarled the unhappy guard, but was driven off with a stream of vicious invective and personal abuse from the sergeant, who then stared at the castellan, shook his head, and plunked down on the bench in weary obedience to his orders to keep the elusive madman under continuous observation. Lord Pia, wheezing and sweating, gray hair disordered, flung himself back down upon his straw pallet and stared at the ceiling with empty eyes.
Vitelli's two big bravos came back before the disarmed guard returned. The castellan ignored them completely as they stopped by Thur. One kicked Thur in the belly, not viciously, just testing; Thur could not help flinching, but he let his eyes roll back, and he stayed limp. It wasn't that hard. Trying to stand up, that would have been hard.
Night was falling. The light from the window was a strange salmon-pink afterglow. The sergeant held up a lantern like a smoky gold animal eye in the growing shadows. One Losimon took Thur's shoulders, the other his feet. It was good to be carried. He felt waterlogged, every breath an effort. As he was hoisted up Thur let his dazed eyes pass across Lord Pia's, who lay on his side and stared back expressionlessly, his fingers tracing and trapping out an odd little rhythm on the stone floor, as formlessly compulsive as his blanket chewing.
Why am I going along with this madman's plan? If he even has one. But here he was, just as Lord Pia had forecast, being carried out of the cell. His porters bumped him down the narrow stone stairs in the black dark to the familiar under-level with its four doors.