That was probably true, unlikely as it would have seemed to someone with less experience of interrogation under pressure than Perennius had. Even after your subject broke, you had no guarantee of the truth or completeness of what came babbling out. Erzites might well have been shocked into such a state that he forgot to volunteer a crucial detail. Certainly that was more probable than the notion that he had been deliberately concealing his brother’s imminent reappearance.
“Well, I don’t see it makes any difference,” said Sestius reasonably. “Except we’ve got to work faster at cutting through the bars.”
“No, no,” Erzites pleaded. “Listen, I’ll talk to Azon – he’ll cut you free with his sword, sure he will, Azon’ll do that for me, Christ save me! I’m his brother!”
“Shit,” said the centurion, “he’d watch us pick you apart with tweezers, wouldn’t he? Before he’d risk pissing off Ramphion and his lot.”
“You know, I think Erzites here will be able to convince his brother,” said the agent thoughtfully. “Of course, we can’t leave him naked and tied to the bars like this. Sure.”
Behind Perennius, Sestius and Sabellia exchanged glances of disbelief. Even Gaius was surprised. Calvus and the villager could see the agent’s face. The woman’s thin lips formed themselves in an answering smile. Erzites, watching them both through the bars, began to tremble.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Erzites!” demanded the voice from outside. “Lend a hand.”
Erzites stood in the middle of the outer room. He ground the butt of his club into his left palm silently.
“Erzites!” called the voice again. “Where the hell are you?”
“Answer him!” hissed Perennius, giving a twitch to the rope of sashes knotted around the villager’s throat. The agent did not hold the free end. Calvus had that duty. Any time the slim woman chose, she could break Erzites’ neck with a single jerk on the tether.
“F-fuck off!” Erzites shouted back. “You’re late!”
“Fuck yourself!” replied his brother angrily. “I had to gather the fucking eggs so we’d have something to eat, didn’t I?” The hut darkened as Azon’s big form, a near twin of his brother’s, filled the doorway. He bent and entered. Father Ramphion or an earlier leader had decided that a gap of an hour or so in the manning of the look-out point was less dangerous than the chance of unattended prisoners somehow escaping in a similar period. Having tested the physical wards, Perennius was inclined to disagree; but the dearth of traffic past the valley really mooted the point anyway.
“Say,” Azon went on, “I could hear ’em really going to it at the church. They’ll be up for more meat any time, I’ll bet you.”
His brother hit him alongside the head with the cudgel.
It was a nervously clumsy blow. The shaft instead of the knobbed end of the weapon struck Azon. He was too thick-boned a man to be laid out completely that way. Even so, Azon fell to his knees. He flung out his arms toward his brother in a gesture compounded of defense and supplication. Erzites grabbed him by the hair, screaming, and began to batter at him repeatedly with the club. The two men were locked so closely now that the weapon could not be used effectively. Erzites was mad with fear. He would not back off a step to finish the job properly.
The tip of Azon’s sword, thrust sheathless under his belt, clanged on the floor when he fell. Azon made no attempt to draw the weapon against his brother’s unexpected attack. His hands clutched wildly. Erzites’ tunic, knotted over the shoulder where it had been torn for removal, now tore again. Suddenly tangled in his own garment, Erzites paused and cursed. His brother broke free.
The left side of Azon’s head was a mass of blood. A chance poke from the butt of the cudgel had closed his left eye forever. Panic blinded the right eye also and the mind behind it. The big villager bolted forward and slammed into the door of the cell. He bit at the bars with the fury of a wolf in a trap. Sestius lunged forward in an attempt to grapple with him. The centurion jostled Perennius but did not prevent the agent from getting his own iron grip on Azon’s throat.