still as a statue, lanthorn held high.
Hanse cut Tempus loose and helped him sit up. The big man did not bleed. He bore
various cuts, all of which looked old. They were not. He made stomach and heart
wrenching sounds, ghastly noises that Hanse interpreted as ‘I’ll heal’, which
was just as ghastly. What was this man?
‘Can you walk?’
More noises. Repeated. Again. Hanse thought he understood, and bent to look.
Yes. Minus some toes, Tempus had said. He was. Three. No, four. The middle one
was gone from the left foot
‘Thales, there’s only me and I can’t carry you. I freed another and he can’t
help. What shall I do?’
It took Tempus a long while to make him understand, trying to form words without
a tongue, and once Kurd moved. Hanse turned to see the other freed wretch
fleeing past the vivisectionist. Hanse threatened and Kurd froze. He held the
lantern in a quivering hand at the end of a wavering arm.
Strap Kurd to a table, Tempus had said. Where’s servant?
Kurd answered that one, once he had a knife at his flat gut. His gardener and
sole retainer was unconscious.
‘Oh,’ Hanse said, ‘he’ll want to be bound, then,’ and worked the blade out of
sleeve and door. With a knife in either hand, he gestured. ‘Hang the lanthorn.’
‘You can’t -‘
Hanse poked him with sharp steel. ‘I can. Run complain to the Prince-Governor as
soon as you can. You can also die now, which would be a shame. But I’ll try to
stick you in the belly, low, just deep enough so you’ll be a day or three about
dying. Of gangrene, maybe. Hang that lanthorn, monster!’