He raised the mug warily to his lips, careful to keep one eye on the girl. But she kept her distance, even taking a step back as soon as he had accepted the mug, and he relaxed and allowed a tiny portion of the fluid to slip into his mouth.
He almost dropped the mug in surprise. The fluid was sweet! And had a peculiar tang…and a milkiness.
Milk. Milk?
The girl smiled at him, her hands laced across her white gown. “Drink,” she said.
He took another sip, and then one more, larger, allowing himself the luxury of a swallow. He frowned, wondering if he should know this taste, wondering if he should be able to assign a name to it. He drank again, then again, until he had finished the mug.
Hesitating, he held it out to the girl.
What was that fluid called? His brow furrowed a little more, and he did not notice when her fingers brushed his as she lifted the mug from his grasp. Maximilian would have known the name of that drink, he was sure of it. He looked up to ask the girl, but she had returned to the table.
She felt his eyes, however, and she turned a little as she sat down. “When you are ready,” she said quietly, “there is food waiting for you.” And she indicated a bench that sat between hers and the man next to her.
But he was not yet ready for that, and so he lay down again and turned back to the wall, wondering where his companions were, wondering how he was to put his shoulders into the rock-face when they had taken the pick away from him. He traced his fingers lightly over the rock wall before him. This rock was pale and smooth, and he did not think it needed to be fractured and cursed and stacked into piles that made the small of his back flare in white-hot agony.
His hand dropped from the rock as he realised that he was comfortable lying here. Comfortable. That was a concept that he had not thought about for a long time. A very long time.
Not since he had been Maximilian.
He drew in a long, silent breath. Yes, he had been this Maximilian. Again he rolled the name around his mind and then, ever so softly, about his mouth.
Maximilian. A good name. A name that was meant to be laughed and shouted and a name that had sometimes—often?—been spoken with the nuances of love.
Maximilian. It belonged to a time long ago. A time before the darkness. A time he could not remember. Softly, silently, he began to cry.
They sat at the table for many hours, listening to the silence across the room. They ate, then talked in soft tones, then sat listening. Finally, as the day outside darkened into night, they laid the table for food again—more for something to do than out of hunger.
“What can we do?” Ravenna asked softly as Vorstus sat down beside her. Of the other monks, Gustus had crept outside to spy out the activities about the Veins and keep watch for Joseph and Garth, while both Morton and Isus, the monk who had let them into the hollow hill, had laid down to rest themselves. Rial still laboured at his deception in the physicians’ quarters.
“Nothing.” Vorstus cut himself some bread, then fastidiously cut a thin slice of cheese to top it. “He must accept himself.”
Ravenna’s eyes flared with bright anger. “Who could have done this, Vorstus? Who could have been so…so…pitiless as to imprison a young boy to such horror?”
Vorstus raised his eyes to hers. “If he remembers, then he can tell us. Until then…well, until then we must be careful.”
Ravenna’s eyes blurred as they filled with tears. “Vorstus, I want to help him.”
“I know, girl, I know. But for now all we can do is—”
A shadow fell across the table, and both their hearts clenched as Maximilian calmly sat down on Ravenna’s bench. The bench was reasonably large, but he sat close so that she could feel his warmth reach the distance between them…and he sat so that she was on his left.
If Maximilian was aware of the reaction his appearance had caused, then he ignored it. He sat silently for a moment, his eyes on the table, his hands resting flat on its surface.
Then he raised his gaze and looked at Ravenna. “Tea,” he said. “You gave me tea soothed with milk and sweetened with honey to drink.” He said each word carefully, as if he enunciated words foreign to him, but he said them with the pride of a man who had conquered some fearful enemy on the battlefield.
Ravenna battled with her own emotions, finally managing to smile for him. “Yes, Maximilian. I gave you tea to drink.”
He stared at her then, stunningly, he smiled back, and both Ravenna and Vorstus took sharp breaths of utter astonishment.
Maximilian’s face, plain although well-featured and pleasant when in repose, was transformed when he smiled. His dark blue eyes danced with merriment, and the wideness of his smile invited all onlookers to laugh with him at whatever joke he had discovered on the world.
It was not the smile one would expect from a man trapped for seventeen years in a living dungeon.
But it faded almost as quickly as it appeared. “There was a youth.” Maximilian paused, his voice faltering, and his hands trembling where they rested on the table. “He appeared several times asking questions…demanding.”
“Yes,” Vorstus’ voice was soft. “His name is Garth Baxtor.”
“Where is he?”
“He will be here as soon as it is fully night.”
Maximilian nodded, accepting the answer. His cheeks, pale when he had first appeared at the table, were now slightly flushed. “Where is ‘here’?”
Ravenna took a deep breath and looked away, unable to bear the pain in his eyes.
“We are in northern Escator, Maximilian, close to the sea.” Vorstus paused, wondering how much information Maximilian could absorb at one time.
Maximilian frowned. “The sea?”
“Yes. Maximilian, we are within three hundred paces of the area they call the Veins.”
“The Veins?” Maximilian’s eyes had a wild sheen to them now. “The Veins?”
Ravenna took his hand, hoping her touch would give some reassurance. Apparently it did, for Maximilian went on in a more normal tone of voice, and the light faded from his eyes.
“Is that where…” He hesitated, unwilling to speak it. Vorstus and Ravenna were silent, holding his eyes with their own. “Is that the space below the hanging wall?”
“Yes, Maximilian.”
Maximilian thought for a very long time, his eyes grave as they stared at the table. “I liked it there,” he said eventually. “It was warm, and I was not alone. And the darkness was my friend. It kept me alive.”
Ravenna swallowed, and fought to keep her eyes steady. Now his hand squeezed hers slightly.
“My name,” he said slowly, “is Maximilian Persimius.”
Vorstus blinked at the surname. No-one had mentioned that in front of the prince.
“And,” Maximilian raised his eyes, “Maximilian Persimius does not belong below the hanging wall, does he?”
“No, Maximilian Persimius. No, he does not.”
Maximilian nodded, and withdrew his hand from Ravenna’s. He stood, and glanced about the interior of the hill. His discomfort was clear. “I shall lie down again, I think. When Garth Baxtor arrives, will you wake me?”
“Assuredly, Maximilian Persimius.”
The Veins was in uproar. Rarely did a prisoner manage to escape, but when they did, they were always found relatively quickly, cowering in some hole or beneath an overhang. No-one had ever managed to reach the surface before.
Now, not only had a prisoner escaped, but he could not be found, and Furst had slowly come to the unpalatable conclusion that Lot No. 859 (859, damn it!) had escaped far beyond the confines of the hanging wall.
The two guards who had been assigned duty to his gang had no idea how the man had escaped.
“He was there one minute,” one mumbled as a furious Furst had stalked back and forth in front of him, “and gone the next.”
His companion came to his rescue. “And Lot No. 859 was always pliable. Willing, always willing,” he said. “I can’t think why he of all prisoners should choose to make a dash for it.”
Furst, who could well understand why 859 might want to see the sky again, nevertheless refrained from comment. Gods! But he could lose his job over this!
He stilled. And more besides. Damn it, where could the man be! “No-one leaves the area unless he be searched,” he seethed. “And I want every man identified before he is allowed beyond the perimeter. If this man is not recaptured then it will be your miserable hides that will be flogged. Do you understand?”
The guards both nodded with enthusiasm.
“Then get to it!” Furst shouted, and they scrambled for the door.