The Mountain Queen

Part III, Chapter One: Old Scores

(Part Three: The Castle)

Chapter One: Old Scores

Quarros was holding court in the castle's magnificent throne room—a soaring chamber with ribs of stone and drapes of velvet, where long-dying echoes lent pomp and grandeur to the simplest word.  On the High Throne of Dryman the bearded man sat, his small figure dwarfed by its intricate mass of gold.  Near him stood Brax the Black, tall and proud as the chamber itself, his keen eyes roving the room unceasingly in search of danger.  The rest of the Queen's Guard stood arrayed before them, forming an arc around a ragged group of prisoners.  One by one, the prisoners stepped forward and bowed before the throne, and one by one Quarros heard them plead their case.

It was a tedious business.

If Quarros hoped to uncover some mighty down-stricken enemy of the Drymanders, left to rot in a cell lest he should raise an army against them and bring the rage of battle to their very doorstep, the morning was turning out to be a disappointment.  The men in the castle's dungeons were petty murderers, inveterate thieves, wife-beaters, and other human flotsam.  Some, it was true, had been dealt with harshly; some might even have qualified as political prisoners, if drunkenly shouting baseless slurs on the queen's virtue can be called a political act.  But there were no schemers here—no shadowy masterminds.  The prisoners were lean and scared, and stammered as they pleaded for release.  Quarros's hope of finding useful allies was fading by the minute.  And judging by the look on Brax's face, he was not at all convinced that this little exercise was being performed on his queen's behalf.

From a shadowy passageway not far from the throne itself, Shamus watched the proceedings with sharp, vigilant eyes.  He had hardly let Quarros out of his sight since Brody had gone after the messenger.  He wondered what was taking Brody so long.

Another shabby, sinewy prisoner shuffled forward, and Quarros swept his eyes over him.  The man was of middle height, with a matted brown beard streaked with gray.  His face was bony and angular, his eyes quick and evasive.  He was shackled—heavily shackled—his wrists chained together and connected to a short chain on his ankles.  The chains were of iron, and uncommonly thick.  They must have weighed nearly as much as he did.

The man craned his neck, and his gaze swept over the high arcs of the vaulted ceiling.  This, at least, was something different.  Up to now, the prisoners had all kept their eyes on the ground, or dared a swift glance at the black-bearded man on the throne.  None had had the temerity to let their eyes wander.  Perhaps this man was mad.

"What is your name?" asked Quarros.

"Collux," said the lean man softly.  His eyes still swept the upper reaches of the chamber.

"And what is your crime?"

"Innocence."

Quarros leaned forward on the throne.  "I fail to understand you."

Now the lean man's eyes fastened on Quarros, with a fiery fixity that made one's flesh go cold.  "My crime was innocence," said the man, still quietly.  "Innocently I trusted.  Innocently I sought what was mine.  Innocently I was betrayed.  A hundred years I have withered in my stinking cell, and every moment was just; every moment was deserved.  I committed the one crime that cannot go unpunished.  I committed innocence, and richly have I suffered for it."

Quarros was no longer bored.  In fact, he was fascinated.  His able mind loved a puzzle, and this flame-eyed stranger presented a worthy one.

Quarros turned to Brax.  "Why is this man so heavily chained?" he asked.  "Is he so fierce a warrior, that he must be shackled thus?"