Free Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence Page B

and Grebbin here, then I reckon you can stay and watch this fellow squeal.”
    “Berrec, it don’t seem right.” Grebbin furrowed his broad forehead. “He’s a young-un an’ all.”
    Berrec pulled the poker from the coals and held it toward Grebbin. “You don’t want to stand between me and a ducat, my friend.”
    The black man’s naked chest glistened below the glowing point. Ugly burns marked his ribs, red flesh erupting like new-ploughed furrows. I could smell the sweet stench of roasted meat.
    “He’s very black,” I said.
    “He’s a Nuban is what he is,” Berrec said, scowling. He gave the poker a critical look and returned it to the fire.
    “Why are you burning him?” I asked. I didn’t feel easy under the Nuban’s scrutiny.
    The question puzzled them for a moment. Grebbin’s frown deepened.
    “He’s got the devil in him,” Berrec said at last. “All them Nubans have. Heathens, the lot of them. I heard that Father Gomst, him as leads the King himself in prayer, says to burn the heathen.” Berrec laid a hand on the Nuban’s stomach, a disturbingly tender touch. “So we’re just crisping this one up a bit, before the King comes to watch him killed on the morrow.”
    “Executed.” Grebbin pronounced the word with the precision of one who has practised it many times.
    “Executed, killed, what’s the difference? They all end up for the worms.” Berrec spat into the coals.
    The Nuban kept his eyes on me, a quiet study. I felt something I couldn’t name. I felt somehow wrong for being there. I ground my teeth together and met his gaze.
    “What did he do?” I asked.
    “Do?” Grebbin snorted. “He’s a prisoner.”
    “His crime?” I asked.
    Berrec shrugged. “Getting caught.”
    Lundist spoke from the doorway. “I believe . . . Jorg, that all of the prisoners for execution are bandits, captured by the Army of the March. The King ordered the action to prevent raids across the Lichway into Norwood and other protectorates.”
    I broke my gaze from the Nuban’s, and let it slide across the marks of his torture. Where the skin remained unburned, patterns of raised scars picked out symbols, simple in design but arresting to the eye. A soiled loincloth hung across his hips. His wrists and ankles were bound with iron shackles secured with a basic pin-lock. Blood oozed along the short chains anchoring them to the table.
    “Is he dangerous?” I asked. I moved close. I could taste the burned meat.
    “Yes.” The Nuban smiled as he said it, his teeth bloody.
    “You shut your heathen hole, you.” Berrec yanked the iron from the coals. A shower of sparks flew up as he lifted the white-hot poker to eye-level. The glow made something ugly of his face. It reminded me of a wild night when the lightning lit the faces of Count Renar’s men.
    I turned to the Nuban. If he’d been watching the iron, I’d have left him to it.
    “Are you dangerous?” I asked him.
    “Yes.”
    I pulled the pin from the manacle on his right wrist.
    “Show me.”

13

    Four years earlier

    The Nuban moved fast, but it wasn’t his speed that impressed, it was his lack of hesitation. He reached for Berrec’s wrist. A sudden heave brought the warder sprawling across him. The poker in Berrec’s outstretched hand skewered Grebbin through the ribs, deep enough so that Berrec lost his grip on it as Grebbin twisted away.
    Without pause, the Nuban lifted himself halfway to sitting, as close to upright as his manacled wrist would let him. Berrec slid down the Nuban’s chest, sliding on sweat and blood, into his lap. He started to raise himself. The Nuban’s descending elbow put an end to the escape attempt. It caught Berrec on the back of the neck, and bones crunched.
    Grebbin screamed of course, but screams were common enough in the dungeon. He tried to run, but somehow lost his sense of direction and slammed into a cell door, with enough force to drive the point of the poker out below his shoulder blade. The impact