Page 8 of The Crimson Throne
Samson
Southwark, London
The Clink Prison smells like piss and hopelessness.
Which makes it rather indistinguishable from the whole of London, actually, but there’s an added thickness to it all here, the stone walls trapping centuries of stench so the very air gets in on the torture, choking prisoners right from the gate. Who needs a noose when a few inhales will clonk you out?
An exaggeration, that. Unfortunately. Especially when the Thames floods its banks like after the recent rain we had, and that living vein of excrement that keeps London functioning fills the lower floors of the Clink, forcing all the prisoners to steep in a pond of feral drowning rats and stagnant God-knows-what. Only according to the bishop who runs this place, Goddoesknow what, and God rejoices in prisoners being met with just ends like this.
Unease prickles up my spine.
Just ends.
I hold hard to thoughts of the bishop of Winchester perched at his high and mighty pulpit while a tidal wave of putrid Thames water gushes over him as I wait in the Clink’s narrow entryway. If I let my mind stray to where I am, to why I’m here—
I set my jaw, face forward, and tug my brown wool doublet straight.
Bet the bishop of Winchester can’t swim.
A door creaks open and a man shuffles out, hacking wetly into a soiled rag. He’s got a worn leather book open in one hand, and he sniffs, hacks, and spits on the grimy stones before glaring up at me. He may be a guard on the right side of this prison, but he still looks like he’s been in the Clink too long, his gray hair stringy, his face pockmarked and carved with deep wrinkles.
“What prisoner ya here for again?”
I repeat it on a slow exhale. “Prisoners. Two. Hal and Oskar Swann.”
The guard grunts, making a great show of looking through the log.
He spits a second time and pops his eyes up to me. “Not seein’ anyone by those names here, m’afraid.”
“They were just brought in.” I let my desperation leak through. Let that quake of fear enter my voice, and I bow my shoulders forward. “Please, sir. Please. Our mother, she’s right losing her mind with worry. She’d just sent Hal and Oskar out for peas is all. Peas for supper. She’s near on with her time on the next baby, and the worry’s not doing nuffin’ for her, sir. The surgeon come ’round and said we could lose ’em both if we don’t calm her down, and Hal, Hal’s the only one who can soothe her. He’s her angel, he is.”
I’m shaking now. Full-body vibrations, eyes wide and bloodshot, close to tears. I throw in a hard sniffle and a choked sob for good measure.
Some of the shaking is real.
I can hear a scream below me, muffled by the stones. Groaning, constant, from floors higher up. But the noises under our feet are what grab my focus the most. Have the lower floors flooded? Are Hal and Oskar down there?
Because of me?
I force the thought away. Hard.Not now.
The guard looks more disgusted at the thought of a man sobbing in his prison than he does moved to empathy. “As I said. I’m not seein’ no Hal or Oskar here, aye?”
Shit.
I’d really hoped to avoid having to do this. But part of me knew it’d come regardless.
This is how things work at institutions like the Clink, run by the illustrious, fair, honorable church. Is it Catholic now or Protestant? Can hardly keep track.
I reach into my doublet and pull out a small bag of coins.
One more pathetic sniffle. I’ve found most folks get mighty uncomfortable when a grown man of eighteen blubbers. Add on my height and bulk, and few people know how to take it when someone who should be all scowling and brooding isweeping.
The guard’s nostrils curl, but he snatches the bag from me, counts the coins, and nods before shuffling back through the door again.
I’m left in the narrow entryway, staring at the mildew-covered stones, listening to water burble far beneath my boots and the occasional persistent scream.
My shoulders pull back, and I keep my mind blank,blank.
