SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) (17 page)

“
Robyn, please!” Michael pushed on the man’s chest, desperate to push him away. The taste of liquor was now strong in the boy’s mouth, the smell of it thick in his nostrils. His stomach lurched, and he swallowed, trying to keep from being sick.

Robyn ignored his struggling and unbuttoned
Michael’s shirt before pushing it down over his shoulders.

Michael
swallowed carefully and put his words together with painful slowness. “Please. What are you doing?”

Robyn smiled a strange, frightening smile.
“I’m undressing you. I’ve done it before, remember? We’re going to play a game tonight, Michael, and you won’t need any clothes for it.” He bent down, kissing Michael again while his hands worked on undoing the boy’s trousers.

“
Stop it!” Michael squirmed backwards to escape. Robyn climbed up onto the bed, following Michael until he’d pushed himself up against the headboard and could go no farther. Laughing, Robyn rested his hands against the wall behind the bed, penning Michael between his arms.

“
Please, Robyn,” he hiccupped. “I don’t like this game. I don’t want to play!”

Robyn laughed.
“This is just one of those games, darling. You have to play whether you want to or not. Unfair, I know, but you’d better get used to it.”

“
Why are you doing this?” Michael couldn’t understand what had happened. He couldn’t comprehend what Robyn wanted. His only thought was that he must have done something horribly wrong and this was his punishment. “What did I do?”

“
You took everything I gave you, my dear, and gave me nothing in return. Now I’m afraid your debt is rather large. I’ve taken very good care of you and my housekeeper waited on you, hand and foot. Such service does not come cheap.”

Frantic for a way out of whatever was happening,
Michael seized on Robyn’s explanation. “I’ll pay you back if you’ll please just let me go! I’ll work—I’ll scrub floors! I’ll—I’ll do
anything
!” Emotions pounded into him like fists, and Robyn’s desire focused on him so strongly, he felt he was drowning in it. “Please!”

“
Yes, beg me, Michael.” The man leaned in closer to nuzzle his cheek and lick his neck, his unshaven face hurtfully rough against the boy’s soft skin. “It won’t matter in the end, but I like to hear it.”

“
NO! Let me GO!” Michael scrambled frantically, spurred by fear into trying to escape under his captor’s arm.

Robyn caught him too easily, too tightly, his fingers sinking more bruises into the boy
’s upper arms. He shoved Michael back against the headboard, pinning him again, and the two stared for a long moment into each other’s eyes.

Finally,
Michael managed a fragile whisper. “This is wrong. And Vail will punish—”

This slap exploded across his face and threw him down onto the bed
. The pain of it branded itself into his memory forever. It hurt worse than the other blows, bringing on fresh bruises and reminding his body of the wounds he’d already suffered that night. His desperate tears turned to broken sobs, and the only defense he knew was to cover his face again.

“
Shut up, or I’ll hit you again.” Robyn yanked Michael back up to a sitting position and pulled his hands away from his face. “You listen to me and listen well. You’re a little kiska streeter now. No one cares about you.
No one
is going to care what I do to you. If you want to survive, you’ll accept that. Do you understand?”

Michael
nodded, tears spilling silently down his cheeks. He felt sick and dizzy and faint, and he hurt all over. He wanted to fight, but he could barely move in the man’s brutal grip.

Robyn
’s expression softened. He smoothed the damp, ebony hair away from Michael’s face with ironic care, whispering, “SanClare Black, indeed.” He tilted the boy’s chin upwards, surveying him proprietarily.

“
You are
so
beautiful.” And he kissed him again.

#

Michael stayed huddled on the floor next to the bed for a long time after Robyn had finally finished with him, rolled over, and gone to sleep.

He felt worse than he ever had, and his thoughts refused to flow
in any way that made sense. Robyn’s words whirled around in his head mixing with the sound of his own screams.

“
If you want to survive...”
This phrase was the only thing he could make out, echoing in Michael’s mind, relentless and inescapable. He didn’t know yet what his answer to the implicit question would be.

At some point
Michael had stopped crying, but he couldn’t remember when. Time seemed both stretched and collapsed, stumbling along erratically around him.

“
If you want to survive...”

After an eternity had passed, someone or something answered
the question.

.:
You do. You must. It isn’t your time.
:. The Voice from his dreams. The Voice that had tried to warn him. The Voice that had tried to get him to run away.

Why didn
’t I listen before?

.:
Listen to me now,
:. the Voice urged. .:
He won’t let you go.
:.

Michael
bit down on a sob and pulled himself into a smaller huddle. He’d never before been in such pain nor would he have believed it possible. The attack had been so torturously painful, he’d feared Robyn meant to kill him. And the blood...

Robyn laughed!
Laughed at Michael’s ragged, horrified screams. Laughed at his revulsion and useless struggling. Called him names that only now, afterwards, he understood. Robyn had made certain he understood.

Michael
choked on a sob and took a rattling breath to control it, but he couldn’t control his memories. The images haunted his mind, visible even when he squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at them with his fists. He felt numb and sick by turns, fear and disgust tearing through his mind in a never-ending scream.

He
’d been in a stupor at first, hating everything Robyn forced him to do, everything he did to him. The man’s words and thoughts and touches humiliated Michael, but it had been bearable. Horrible, but—

Why?
Why didn’t I know what he wanted to do to me? Why didn’t I know?

.:
It isn’t your fault
:. the Voice insisted. .:
His mind was shadowed.
:.

I still should have known
.

.:
He drugged you. He must have.
:.

It made sense, or as much sense as anything was making to
Michael at that moment.
He always wanted me to drink wine...and that brandy...I should have suspected something. He was always so strange.
But Michael had never suspected he might be a monster.

He knew he would remember it forever
: Robyn’s voice whispering behind him, his hot breath tickling Michael’s ear as his hands caressed their way down his body and forced his legs apart, bruising him again. Robyn’s hands stroked his bottom, his hairy, muscular body crushing,
burning
against Michael’s.

His voice had sounded so odd, his mind so full of violent, red
-stained emotions, that Michael had known whatever Robyn had been about to do would be worse than anything he could ever have expected.

The man
’s big, sweaty hand had clamped roughly over his mouth, the thumb pressing a bruise into his jaw, a fingernail scratching into his cheek.

“
Now, I’m afraid
this
might hurt a little, my darling.”

Even as it happened,
Michael had tried to get away. The hand smothered his screams, torn free by such unimaginable agony he still couldn’t believe Robyn had done such a thing to him.

But he didn
’t want to keep me from screaming.
The realization made his stomach twist and a gag push at his throat.
He wanted to feel my pain...he wanted to know how badly he was hurting me.

.:
You have to listen! You have to get away now! It may be your only chance.
:.

Michael
sniffed back more tears and rubbed ineffectually at his runny nose. “Leave me alone. Please. I just want to die.”

.:
He isn’t going to kill you. He’ll keep you alive so he can hurt you whenever it pleases him.
:.

Michael
whimpered and nearly blacked out from fear, but he began the slow, painful process of standing up.

His clothes lay strewn across the bed chamber floor, and he picked them up and put them on, biting his tongue to stifle outcries of pain.
He wasted precious moments untangling his bootlaces again but was thankful he’d have them. He wouldn’t have a coat, and it was always chilly at night.

He
’s a monster. I trusted a monster. I’m never going to be able to do this. I’ll never make it away from JhaPel!

.:
You will survive. You have to survive.
:.

The bed chamber door seemed lengths away, and
Michael moved slowly, trying not to wake Robyn and trying not to cause himself too much pain. The door creaked when he opened it, but Robyn didn’t stir.

The corridor beyond was pitch-dark and Michael had no idea how to turn on the expensive electrical lights even if he dared to, but o
nce through the door, the Voice guided him, and he moved through the night-dark house, certain of his way. The stairs loomed, and he hurried down and to the door.

He suffered a brief, panicked moment over the lock until he spotted the key sitting on a small table
nearby. He slipped through the front door at last and out into the chilly night.

A feverish wave washed over him, leaving a film of clammy sweat coating his skin and leaving
Michael feeling violently ill. He leaned over the railing and vomited onto Robyn’s rosebushes before he slid down into a pain-wracked huddle on the top step. The cold of the stones seeped easily through his thin clothes.

I can
’t do this. I can’t.

.:
Get up!
:. The Voice sounded loud as a shout. .:
Run! He won’t be any more kind if he knows you’ve tried to escape.
:.

Michael
wanted to scream, but he wrapped his hands around the cold iron rails and pulled himself to his feet once more.

Rosy streaks were beginning to lighten the sky, and silhouetted against them, far away,
Michael could see the Fensgate Temple’s bell tower. He limped down Robyn’s front steps, ignoring the beautiful buildings and well-kept street surrounding him, and broke into a run.

# # #

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Michael burrowed deeper into the vines covering JhaPel’s garden wall and tried again to sleep. He’d run for blocks on a strong wave of panic and hadn’t slowed down until he’d reached the bridge to Fensgate Parish and crossed it to find himself at last back in the familiar square outside JhaPel.

By that time, his side ached from running, and he
’d started to bleed again. He guessed he looked horrible and was glad he hadn’t passed close enough to anyone to be seen for what he was.

A whore.

That
’s what Telyr had meant when he’d mocked Michael on the steps of JhaPel. It had just been a taunt, but now Michael couldn’t help but wonder if Telyr had expected it to come true.

I still need to find Pol.
But he couldn’t bring himself to leave the relative safety of the garden wall. He couldn’t bring himself to do much of anything but sleep.

Hours drifted by, flowing
around him with the lethargic indolence of a slow river on a hot summer day, and he drifted with them, in and out of sleep and in and out of awareness. He heard the sounds of his former companions rising over the garden wall, and he wished he could go back in time to many moons ago before Ethene became ill and everything had changed.

He had no idea how long he’d been there when
Whiltierna found him. In the grip of a bad fever, Michael almost didn’t recognize her when she knelt beside him. He struggled feebly against her as she picked him up, trying to be gentle and soothing, but his glazed eyes blinked slowly, staring into her face, and a small spark of recognition kindled.

“
Your little cat’s here, too, dear.” Whiltierna held him close as if trying to share some of her own warmth with him.

“
She’s been here,” Michael rasped, closing his eyes again as he swallowed, trying to moisten his painfully dry throat. “Long time. Woke up an’ she’s sitting on me.”

Three days passed before
Michael’s fever broke and he woke to find himself once more in the care of Landsend Charity where he learned that the healers already knew what had happened to him and had confided the facts written plainly on his body to Whiltierna.

She made promises, and he chose to believe her.
She promised she would speak to Sirra Avram, the Royal Magistrate of Fensgate, and plead Michael’s case. Then, maybe, Michael would be allowed another chance in JhaPel or at least be sent to Ptolorye, a work farm on the southern border of Camarat meant to reform delinquent boys. That would be unpleasant but better and safer than the streets.

“
Don’t blame yourself for what he did to you,” Whiltierna said. Michael knew she blamed herself for it. She’d trusted Magister Vaznel; she’d asked him to find Michael. But Michael couldn’t bring himself to blame her. She’d meant to help. It wasn’t her fault that Robyn was a monster. He hadn’t realized it until it was too late. Why should she have been any wiser?

Another quarter
-moon passed before Whiltierna managed to arrange an audience with the magistrate. The healers insisted on keeping Michael at Landsend until then, calming Michael’s fears for a few days. The healers’ kindness and Whiltierna’s loving concern gave him hope, and he dared to enter the magistrate’s chambers with some expectation of justice.

The
magistrate’s secretary had shown Michael and Whiltierna into his master’s chambers and left them alone to wait. A fire, well-fed and tended, burned vigorously—another sign of the sort of wealth Robyn had used so carelessly and then made Michael pay for.

Michael
perched on the very edge of his chair, too nervous and overawed to make himself comfortable in such a place. Whiltierna seemed not to notice it at all, but then, he’d heard her family was quite highborn. Perhaps she, too, had once been this wealthy.

Another door, this one just off to the left of the
magistrate’s beautiful desk, opened and admitted a surprising string of people. The magistrate entered first, obvious in his official robes and with his enormous signet ring glittering on his finger. Another man dressed similarly to the secretary followed him. After them, Nanna Mabbina came in, casting a disdainful glare over both Michael and Whiltierna.

Michael
heard Whiltierna draw a sharp breath, and his fear welled up again. But it was the man who followed Mabbina whose appearance drained the blood from Michael’s face and made him start up from his chair.

“
Robyn,” he gasped.

“
I told you he—” Robyn began, but the magistrate silenced him with a gesture.

The man glanced around the room, taking inventory and control.
“Sit down, please. Everyone.

“
It seems we have a slight controversy on our hands concerning the behavior and treatment of one Michael, kiska.”

He used the term in its legal sense, but
Michael found it no less diminishing and blushed at the word’s being applied to him. Officially, all of JhaPel’s inmates were kiska, but most people did not consider them so in fact since they had a place to sleep and people to look after them. But Sirra Avram, Michael understood, would only care about legalities.

The newcomers all found places to sit, pulling chairs
Michael hadn’t noticed away from their niches along the wall. Michael sat back down on the edge of his chair, trying to keep an eye on Robyn while also fixing his full attention on the magistrate.

“
We will first hear the charges against the child,” Sirra Avram began. “And then he and his defenders may speak on his behalf.”

“
Against
him?” Whiltierna bolted up from her chair with a look of shock on her face.

“
As I said,” Sirra Avram agreed. “A slight controversy.”

Whiltierna shook her head as if dazed and sat back down as Avram inclined his head in a silent command for her to do so.
He then nodded to Mabbina who stood up and began to tell her version of Abbess Ethene’s death. It ran very similarly to the version Michael would have told, but to every action and every look of Michael’s she ascribed an evil intent.

“
He knew I guessed his true nature, so he wished to have Ethene—who trusted him blindly—back and whole so that he could continue his evil ways unpunished.”

Whiltierna sat rigidly in her chair, glaring at Mabbina with an utter loathing
Michael had not believed her—nor any JhaPelan nanna except Mabbina—capable of feeling.

“
And so he healed her,” Sirra Avram prompted.

“
Yes he did, sirra. Using magic. I have several witnesses, all nannas. When he entered the room, Abbess Ethene was nearing her last breath. When I returned after leaving them alone together briefly just as Ethene had requested, she was plainly altered. She stood up! She hadn’t been able to feed herself in well over a moon, and she
stood
, sirra!

“
After I made her realize the peril in which he’d placed her soul by using his accursed magic, she did the only thing she could. The manner of her death is proof of his heresy.”

“
But you—!” Michael half-rose from his chair, distressed that Mabbina would dare suggest Abbess Ethene had killed herself.

Sirra
Avram would have none of this, though, and he held up a silencing hand. “You will have your turn to speak, boy,” he said, evenly. “Please do not interrupt.”

Michael
’s mouth closed slowly, and he subsided back onto his chair. He caught Robyn looking at him—an unguarded, passionate look in the man’s eyes—and he blushed crimson.

The
magistrate turned back to Mabbina. “Thank you, Abbess. You may sit.”

Michael
was shocked.
She’s abbess now? How can she take Ethene’s place? She’s a murderer!

The magistrate next
turned expectant eyes toward Robyn who almost flinched at the sudden attention. “Magister Vaznel?”

The man cleared his throat and stood, casting a
practiced, flinching glance at Michael. He cleared his throat again, fixed his eyes on a spot just slightly above Sirra Avram’s head, and began to tell the most blatant string of lies Michael had ever heard.

“
I was trying to be of help to Nanna Whiltierna, an old family friend. I was acquainted with the boy from when I did some charity work with him—he shows a little promise as an artist—but it was Whiltierna’s request that led me to him.

“
When I found him, he was obviously cold and hungry, and I hurried to his side to see what help I could be. I felt I must. More than just duty, you understand, sirra, I felt
impelled
to help him, as if something outside of me were coercing me into it.”

Michael
bit into his lip to keep from screaming. His mind flashed back to that night and all the fear and pain and misery he’d been put through afterwards.

“
He fell asleep in my carriage on the way to my house, so I had little choice but to give him a bed for the night. But he slept through until the next night, and it was far too late to find another place for him. He’d seemed so exhausted, and I feared he might be ill, but he came down to the evening meal with no apparent difficulty, and he ate a great deal. He seemed very eager to hear all about me, though I couldn’t imagine my dull life being interesting to such a child.

“
After we finished eating, he made a great show of being tired again, and due to the lateness of the hour, I suggested he stay another night. He agreed at once and asked me where his room was. Naturally I escorted him back, but then he asked me to help him undress. I was uncomfortable with this request, as you can understand, but I felt compelled, again, to do as he said.”

“
I see.” Avram arched an eyebrow as his eyes swept over Michael. He looked back at Robyn. “Continue.”

“
Yes, sirra.” Robyn cleared his throat yet again. “By this time I had become very concerned both by his behavior and my own. When I was not with him, I found myself wondering why I had behaved in the ways I had when I was with him. I was frightened—”

“
Of such a child as this?” Sirra Avram inquired, both eyebrows raised in astonishment.

“
The evil power of magic is strong regardless of its shape,” Mabbina intoned.

“
He isn’t evil!” Whiltierna turned on her titular superior, her expression savage.

“
Abbess Mabbina, Nanna Whiltierna. Please.” Avram never raised his voice. “It is Magister Vaznel’s testimony.”

Both fell silent at once but glared at each other.
Michael shrank back into his chair, terrified by Robyn’s smooth, twisted retelling.

“
I stayed away the next day, trying to figure out what to do about him and fearing returning home and losing my own wits again in his presence. When I returned home, he was waiting for me, though it was very late, and I decided to resolve the situation. I suggested we go to find the friend he had mentioned once, but he pretended to be afraid of going out so late into Fensgate even though, as I told him, I had been out that late there before without mishap. He became hysterical and begged me not to make him go. I tried to give him some brandy to soothe him, but he refused it and clung to me instead.”

Michael
went chalk white and had to struggle for each breath. He felt Whiltierna’s eyes on him and felt her fear for him.

“
He kissed me, sirra, and—Vail have mercy on me!—I felt an answering desire I couldn’t resist. I kissed him back! He pulled at my clothes and kept kissing me. I was terrified but could barely think! I tried to fight the coercion—I even struck him, tried to push him away—but it was no good. He had enchanted me!

“
We ended up in my bed, sirra, and did evil things! Accursed things. I am ashamed of my weakness.” He stopped and took several breaths. Michael realized he was trying—or pretending to try—not to cry. “When I awoke the next morning, he was gone. I thanked Vail for delivering me from his evil influence, but then your secretary came to my house yesterday, and I understood what that child had done to me. Entrapped me. Ruined me.”

Silence followed for several beats, as if everyone was waiting for
Robyn to add something. When it became apparent he had finished, Avram thanked him and instructed him to sit, just as he had done with Mabbina. Finally, he turned his attention fully on Michael.

“
It is your turn to speak, child.”

Shaking
, Michael rose to his feet. He clenched his hands together and stared wide-eyed into Sirra Avram’s cool, expressionless face.

“
It—it wasn’t like that, sirra,” Michael began. “He twisted it all. Changed it. Some of those things happened but not like he said.”

“
Then tell me what happened as you remember it.”

Michael
told his story haltingly, blushing at several points, and speaking so softly that Avram often interrupted him to ask him to repeat something. By the time he came to the end of his miserable narrative, his eyes were fixed on the floor, and he wanted desperately to cry.