The Stonegate Sword

Chapter 11: The Prison

The camp stood on a broad bench-land several hundred feet above a narrow valley where the ice-rimmed river ran. A rude stockade surrounded the squalid jumble of log buildings. The barricades were rectangular in plan, but the log hovels, roofed with earth, were as rude as they were foul-smelling. Smokes from scores of fires darkened the sky.

The highest part of the camp was the southwest corner, separated from the rest by a somewhat lower internal palisade and guards. Built with square timbers and shingles, the buildings in this section were neat and orderly, as though built for some person of importance.

Philip was held in a stout wooden barn of a building in the lower part of the camp, along with about 30 other "workers" who slaved for the warriors. They hauled and cut wood, built fortifications, tended cattle and sheep and performed other hard or menial labors. Over a hundred camp followers lived just outside the stockade. The motley collection of peddlers, liquor dealers and bordellos was even more unsavory that the camp itself, if that were possible.

It was near midday. The cold had crept through the thick mat of rags bound around Philip's feet and left his toes wood-numb. He was loading logs and branches into wagons, to be hauled back to camp. Later, the logs would be sawn and split to burn in the fireplaces.

He pried at a felled juniper log, frozen into a shallow snowdrift. His breath curled in the air before him like steam from a pot. His body was heavy with fatigue, but he was used to that. The skinny boy with him tried to help, but slipped and fell into the snow, flat on his face. Several of the older workers chuckled in dry, mirthless grunts, yellow teeth grinning in sunken faces.

The well-fed young guard let them enjoy the joke without rebuke and even snickered himself. He blustered up and thumped the boy across the ribs with the spear shaft. Shaken, the youngster could only make a choking noise in his throat as he scrambled to his feet.

"No time for jokes, whelp!" snapped the guard, pushing the boy with the spear butt. The youngster slipped and fell sprawling again. "Do you want to be dog meat?" He put the honed tip of his war spear against the boy's thin neck. The boy's lips trembled, but he said nothing.

"Answer me, scum," the guard snarled. The grin left his face. No answer came save a rattle of teeth. The ligaments of the youngster's thin neck were taut as a bowstring. A thin trickle of blood trickled down from the spear head.

"N - n- n. . . ." gasped the youngster. He grabbed the spear shaft with both hands and pushed it away.

The guard laughed, then effortlessly wrenched the weapon free and thumped the boy with the shaft across the ribs. "Get to work, half-wit," he said. "I wouldn't dull my spear on you." He turned to the others. "The rest of you! Get busy, too! I want them wagons loaded!"

Philip jumped and turned back to the stubborn tree, and broke it free. He avoided eye contact with the guard. The other lad, Kyle by name, struggled to his feet, hands still shaking. As the guard walked on to supervise another group the other men made rude jokes under their breath, all at Kyle's expense. That night in the barn, Kyle was again the butt of all the jokes. Sullen acceptance of slavery, but abject terror was not. Many laughs resulted from their mocking demonstration of Kyle and his terror. Kyle said nothing, but kept his eyes focused on the ground. That night, Philip heard him sob in the darkness.

In the morning, he was gone. Philip heard that the guards had killed him when they found him near the stockade wall, and had thrown his body on the putrid refuse heap with the other garbage. But there was now another empty spot in Philip's life. He regretted that he had not said a word to him or defended him. But he had kept silent. He was the one who was the weak sister, more than Kyle. In the dark that night, his body shook with spasms, but no tears would come.