The fetters jangled as the prisoner raised his hands conciliatorily. “Wait just wait a minute, Moray, you don’t fully comprehend.”
Milo, on the point of arising, settled back against the door. “Okay, so tell me, Reverend Father.”
Gold held out his arms, painfully working back the wide iron cuffs to expose the raw, bleeding flesh beneath. “First of all, Moray, why don’t you take these things off me. Can’t you see what they’re doing to this body? Tetanus can kill just as surely as a sword, and I could tell you damned little if I contract lockjaw. I’ll not try to escape, you have my word on it. Besides, you have my pistol.”
Milo’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “As it happens, I can’t. The castellan has the keys and he’s on the walls. But even if I could, I wouldn’t. You see, I’ve had sufficient experience with your kind to recognize just how slippery you are. As for your word, I’d not trust you any farther than I could throw my warhorse!”
The prisoner grinned ruefully. “Well, I did try. But it doesn’t really matter. I’ll be free soon enough. Do you think your fellow mutants would trade Manny-assuming that he is still alive-for you?”
“Anything is possible, Gold,” Milo chuckled. “But aren’t you counting your chickens before they’re hatched? I’ve seen weaker fortifications than these, manned by less well armed and less experienced fighters, stand off forces far superior to that ragtag horde of cannonfodder you and the Vahrohnos Myros have scraped up for your little Djeehahd. Til be charitable and say only that they are not firstclass troops … or second-, or even third-. Their only assault so far was smashed a full fifty yards from the walls, and nothing the officers and priests could do or say persuaded them to mount another, so they’ve gone into camp.
“Saddled with amateur officers and without you to harangue them into a religious frenzy, your troops are impotent against this stout little garrison. No, your peasant crusaders will be good for no more than one more full-scale assault. Then the bulk of the survivors will desert and the diehards will hole up in Morguhnpolis or, possibly, Deskati. Whichever city they choose, the Confederation siege train will have its gates down and its walls breached in short order.”
Gold threw back his head and chortled merrily. “Not quite, my good Moray, not quite! Now it is you who are counting chickens. The walls of this pitiful dungheap will be flat to the ground and its gates blown to smithereens before noon tomorrow, and there’s not a damned thing you can do to prevent it either! And don’t hold your breath until your precious Confederation Army gets here, for we’ve not been letting a living soul out of this Duchy for weeks, so you couldn’t have gotten any message to them… not without a radio, anyway.”
Milo replaced the pistol under his brigandine, stood erect, and locked his saber into the frog of his baldric. “You obviously know far less than you think you do about me and my people, Gold. When I get you back to Kehnooryos Atheenahs, we’ll resume our little chat, unless a streak of stubbornness arises, in which case I’ll see that you make the acquaintance of the artisans who cured the mulishness of your friend Manny.”
He jerked the torch from the bracket and left the dank cell, slamming the heavy door and securing the thick bar in place, leaving Gold alone in the unrelieved darkness.
Under the travel-stained canvas of an officer-model campaign tent, on a narrow folding cot, lay a woman. She was strikingly lovely, with the red-gold flame of the watchlantern casting highlights throughout the glossy mane of blue black hair which framed her fine-boned face. Her lips were full and dark red, and although her long, sooty lashes lay upon her light olive cheeks and the proud swell of her firm breasts rose and fell rhythmically, she was not sleeping.
On the farspeak level of her infinitely complex and highly trained mind, she asked, “Where have you been? I knew not but that you’d drowned or smothered. If the men and cats and horses hadn’t been so done in, we’d have marched on tonight. I thought you said you’d contact me at least once each day.”