The room they locked me up in a little over an hour ago was a small dingy room with it had flaking plastered walls and a small smashed window in the past. They had crudely patched the window up, and what little glass remained was grimy, barely letting any light in. So, despite the bright summer ’s day outside, the room sat in an oppressive gloom.
To add to the oppressive ambiance of the room, the rough wooden floor was stained with blood. Worse was the room stank of blood, shit, and piss. Despite being up on the second floor, I could hear the hustle and bustle of the street clearly through the thin glass. I wasn ’t sure if being in silence or having the sounds of freedom outside would be worse.
In the middle of the room, fixed to the floor, was a single solidly built, functionally plain metal chair with arm and leg restraints.
They had strapped me to that chair.
The metal seat, back, and restraints were chilly and slightly uncomfortable. Nothing too bad, not like being on the isle in the depths of winter snowstorms. The major problem for me was the chair was way too small for me. Strapped in, as I was, the position of my arms and legs made my shoulders and back twist and bend in an unnatural and uncomfortable manner.
I know my promotion to being a full hero, joining Castor ’s Defiance, and becoming the guild master of a new guild only happened yesterday, but I thought that the news would’ve spread far by now.
It seemed not.
Snatching a hero off the streets was bad enough.
Holding a hero in such a nasty room was almost unforgivable.
Treating a guild master in such a manner was beyond anything else.
Maybe it was my fault for not putting on airs when they had surrounded me earlier. Tan-bei and I were heading to Gomes so that I could catch up on his news of what happened whilst I was one with the forest. Soon after we entered Lundein, a party of four guards and three heroes—Jester, Solider, and their bushy bearded leader: Raider—told me I was being held for the murder of four Lundein citizens.
Knowing who they were, I sent Tan-bei to fetch Castor, knowing that she would sort out any issues that there might be. Once she had gone, I went with them calmly.
I heard mocking jeers as the group escorted me into the ground floor of a converted three-story apartment building which wouldn ’t’ve had looked out of place in Brook Bridge with its poor maintenance and patched walls and windows. They focused the jeers on how I finally was going to learn my place. About how they were going to beat me down for being an upstart. Those same jeers, or copies of, repeated themselves up on the first floor.
It was just little boys talking big.
The second floor was empty. I could hear only my heavy footsteps and the much lighter footsteps of my escorts.
After locking me up, they left me all alone. I could hear some murmurs of talking from the first floor below, and the hubbub of the streets outside. They left me alone in this horrid, dingy room. I still wasn ’t sure if deathly silence was better than the sounds of freedom from just outside that door. Both could be said to be bad.
I was leaning towards deathly silence, being worse.
Those heroes would probably hope that when they came back, I would be worried and scared and would happily admit to the crimes.
Shame they didn ’t really know me. Sadly, for them, I knew how to spend time alone with no human interaction. In fact, if it wasn’t for the uncomfortable position, which I knew they hadn’t forced me into it on purpose, being in this room would be reasonably pleasant—even with the smells of blood and piss and shit.
Smells I knew well.
The painful twinge in the shoulder, which had been wounded long ago, was acting up after being forced in such an odd manner for so long. Getting fed up of being ignored and being uncomfortable, I easily snapped the arms off the chair. I then carefully unfastened the restraints and put the arms of the chair on the floor next to the chair itself.
Once I did that, I focused upon shoulder and upper torso stretches to ease the painful twinge in my shoulder.
I was debating whether to undo my leg restraints when the door opened behind me. Three sets of footsteps came in before they shut and locked the door again.
Come on, seriously, did they really not know anything about me?
‘You ready to confess your crimes now?’ One hero said from behind, right into my ear. It was the bearded leader: Raider. I could tell not only from his voice, but also from the way his beard tickled my ear as he got so close to me.
They really didn ’t know anything, and were ignorantly blind. If I was the right kind of person, I could’ve head-butted them right then. Yeah, maybe for most people the damage done would’ve been little. But the physiological victory would be important.
Most important of all, did they really not see that my arms were unrestrained?
Idiots.
‘What citizens were I meant to have killed?’ I asked.
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A wooden truncheon hit my shoulder, hard, but not hard enough to truly hurt. ‘We’re the ones asking questions here.’
Thankfully, the hero aimed it at my non-twinging shoulder. And they had some kind of sense in not answering the questions I was asking, unlike that Carrack fool.
‘How am I meant to know what to talk about if you don’t—’
Another whack from the truncheon on the same shoulder, nearly hitting the exact same point. Not bad, could learn to do a bit better with the aiming. Practice a touch more.
‘Tell us about the murders.’
I folded my arms and tilted my head as if I was thinking.
The truncheon smacked my shoulder again. This time it was a reasonably far distance from the previous hit. So the second hit was just a fluke.
‘Tell us about the murders.’
Seriously, did they not see that I had folded my arms?
The man asking me questions was the one who had locked me in this chair. He was moaning to himself because it was hard for him to force my arms into a position where he could get the arm straps to wrap around my thick arms.
He truly was blind to the fact that my arms were loose.
‘Don’t know of any murders.’ I shrugged. ‘Killed a man, though, when he interrupted me and my wife having an argument. Something about collecting illegal money, and forcing my wife to fuck him if she couldn’t pay. Wasn’t paying much attention because my wife had been making out with another fellow, all because she didn’t trust me.’
I felt like I had run one of Osbert ’s advanced running courses after saying all of that.
Hadn ’t really thought about it since that night. But, yeah, I was most likely mostly angry over the fact she didn’t trust me.
‘So you admit to murdering him?’
Did he not hear what I said? I told him I didn ’t murder anyone. ‘No.’
‘What happened to your talkative self, frightened?’ He chuckled to himself. ‘You should be. You just admitted to a murder of a Lundein citizen, so you are going to hang. ’
Yes, murder was one of the many capital offenses, and being a just a citizen, I wasn ’t eligible to being beheaded.
But they might need to behead me. Because I doubted, unless they brought in a special rope, they could hang me. I learnt that from the evasion lesson when Osbert made us all learn what garotting felt like and how we could escape from it. No one could successfully garotte me, not even Osbert. At the end of the class, I made Tan-bei and Gomes use all their strength to try to strangle me. Still, even then though I could feel the rope around my neck, it was uncomfortable and slightly restricted my breathing, yet they couldn ’t strangle me. It wasn’t anything I felt like I needed to worry about.
Maybe I ’ll try the experiment again. This time I’ll get Morag to try to garotte me instead.
A truncheon hit me on the head.
‘Maybe we could make your hanging easier for you, all you have to do—’
‘Wonder if they could hang me? ’
My nonsensical answer really must ’ve shocked him. ‘What?’
‘Doubt they could. Might need to behead me.’ Still, thinking about that heavily empowered axe blow to my arm, I wasn’t sure that would work either.
‘You’re not special enough for beheading, Mister Too Big For My Tunic. Tell me. Who murdered the other three people?’
He really wasn ’t getting it, was he? ‘No one murdered anyone.’
I was getting bored now. I looked at the grimy window. How long would it be until Castor would get here? Soon, I guess. A whack of the truncheon on my shoulder again. The whacks really didn ’t hurt me much. I wonder what the guy would say if I told him that.
‘You admitted to murder—’ He started.
I really didn ’t want to keep playing this tedious game, so I cut him off. ‘No, I said I killed someone.’
This time the truncheon whack was harder than before, but sloppy. It hurt less than the other blows had. ‘They were citizens of Lundein who were murdered outside the walls. Their family deserves closure and punishment of the evildoers who dared lay their hands upon them. And the company they were working for deserves the coin which was stollen from their bodies.’
Did I just see something outside the window? Lucia, maybe? Didn ’t matter. What mattered was that he just admitted that they were potentially in Three Bridge for work at the time of their deaths.
‘Thank you.’ I said earnestly.
The hero whacked me with the truncheon again. Once again, it was a sloppy hit.
There was a shadow at the window. Ah, so Lucia had found out where I was being held. It wouldn ’t be long until—
The window smashed in.
A blade came flying directly at me.