Erzites noticed the motion. One large, hairy hand gripped the end of the cudgel, though the villager neither spoke nor moved further at the moment. Behind Perennius, Sestius was beginning to groan into wakefulness. The agent called in a mild voice, “How long’s it going to be before they decide to kill us, Erzites?”
The cudgel head tapped the floor lightly while the villager made a decision as to how to react. At last he got up and walked toward the grating. Light reflected by the bars would make Perennius behind them little more than a voice and a blur. At last Erzites said, “When the Lord sends them a sacrifice – so they say – they spend as long in church, praying and singing, as it takes him to die. Him or her,” the villager corrected himself.
Erzites fingered the coin he wore as a medallion. It hung by a thong reeved through a hole punched in its rim. It was a Termessian double obol, old enough to be ‘ real silver and so worn that the snakes intertwined on its obverse were only a pattern of shadows. “Fucking sick, I call it,” the guard continued, “but it’s their business. . . . Mostly it’s one at a time or two. You lot were rare, getting that many who really wouldn’t be missed. But who’s to say you ever got clear of the pirates, Ramphion puts it to me when I wonder? And it’s their business, my brother and me we just watch the larder.”
Perennius nodded encouragingly. He was wondering whether he would have an opportunity to torture the guard before killing him.
“They won’t come for any of you while the last one’s still alive,” Erzites went on. “That’ll take, who knows? Maybe three days? Had one flat croak when they clamped him to the wall a couple years ago….” The guard frowned and began counting with his left index finger against the fingers wrapped around the grip of his club. “Maybe it was four years ago?” he said in puzzlement. “But I figure you got a while yet. Way this last one bellered when they dragged him out, he ain’t going to croak for a while.”
Perennius noticed that while the villager was no longer showing any particular hostility toward his charges, neither was he coming incautiously close. Any attempt to grab Erzites through the bars would fail a foot short, even given the length of Calvus’ slender arms.
“Why, they’d be lost without you and your brother, wouldn’t they?” prompted the agent. He was careful to avoid any suggestion of treachery. It wasn’t time for that yet, especially since Perennius had not yet figured out what sort of offer might be attractive to someone in Erzites’ position.
“Too damn right!” the villager agreed with a series of vigorous nods. “Why, they’d go nuts trying to pick who’d watch the meat and who’d watch the road. Figure they’d be damned to bloody Hell if they missed the vigil, so they call it. Course it’s damned hard lines for Azon and me when they get big eyes the way they did with you lot.” He spat against the bars, but the anger behind the gesture was clearly directed at Ramphion and his sectaries rather than at their imprisoned victims. “Talk about freezing your butt off up there on the rock . . .” Erzites continued. “And it’s no damn pleasure being stuck here with the meat, either, every damn hour I’m not up there.” He jerked his cudgel, presumably toward the head of the valley. It was an angry, sexual gesture.
“Just like you weren’t even human,” Perennius sympathized. “Say, any chance of getting some wine? I know, I don’t suppose we’re meant to have it, but just a taste’d sure make – ”
“Shit!” the guard said. “You get wine? / don’t get wine, not a sip. It’s a fucking sacrament, it’s only for them when they’re nailing somebody up, don’t you know. Wine.” He turned away from the door. As he walked back to his couch, he muttered, “I hear other places people just drink wine any time they feel like it.” His couch squealed under his weight. “They don’t have to steal a cupful and hide when they drink it….”