Page 15 of The Gambler's Prize
“Look at me,” he says.
He has to controleverything, my every movement. Fucking freak. I shove down the angry heat prickling under my skin, praying my temper will hold. I look up. He stares at me, his eyes steady, almost questioning.
“You have more self-discipline than I gave you credit for,” he says.
Silence stretches. It’s so quiet here in Galbrava, so deathly hot even most of the animals sleep through the heat of the day, burrowed deep underground. A heavy blue sky beats down on us, not one cloud to break the monotony. It’s not so bad when you can come and go as you please, sleep off the heat of the day indoors and come out at night to party like a nocturnal animal. But it’s insufferable now, working outside like this, being at Grimes’ beck and call, not even able to wander into the shade or take a drink without his permission. Oppressiveness weighsdown on me. A trap closing. Weirdly, even though he’s the one in control, Grimes seems to feel it too. His face is strained as he looks at me. He runs a hand under his hood, touching the side of his neck. My curiosity is piqued, diluting my anger. He does that a lot. It seems to happen at times of great emotion. But what’s so emotional about this moment? He’s just treating me like dirt, as usual. Same old, same old.
“Come on, back on work,” he barks.
Just when I thought he might reveal something about himself or tell me why he’s staring at me so intently. I should’ve known it would beback to work. I pick up my spade and drive it into the earth. Because what else can I do? I try to forget my rage, just focus on the repetitive movements. Two more years… I can’t think like that. I have to take it a day at a time.
One day at a time. One spadeful of dry red earth at a time.
Chapter 7
Grimes
Nighttime hit different in prison. It wasn’t that dark in truth, but the lack of hope made it feel darker than any bedroom I’d had before. The cells were arranged around an internal courtyard with tiny, high windows in the outer wall that let in moonlight and a chilling draught. The cracks under the door let in noise from the other cells, as did the ventilation vents between them. Which meant I shared in my neighbors’ fightswith their cellmates, their screaming nightmares, and their arguments with the guards, which usually ended in beatings for the prisoners regardless of who was at fault. I even shared in the smell of their shits, which were taken in chamber pots in the cells.
Every night that I lie down in the narrow bed in my new Galbravan home, as soon as I close my eyes I’m transported back to the prison of Rhennes. The only bright spot was my cellmate Jos, a young man from a wealthy family who quickly became my best friend. At first I befriended him mostly because I felt sorry for him and wanted to protect him from the harshness of prison life, but I was soon genuinely charmed by his easy-going personality and habit of laughing at life instead of scowling, as is my way.
I was never quite sure why his family didn’t try harder to help him avoid incarceration, like most aristocratic families. But there he was, gamely accepting his punishment for stealing. His story was a pathetic one. He had given a girl he liked a ring belonging to his grandmother, and when the girl summarily dumped him one day he panicked. He broke into the girl’s house to retrieve the jewelry and was arrested for theft and trespassing. In my mind the ring belonged to him from a moral standpoint, but the law disagreed. And Jos sided with the law like the strait-laced little fool he was. Any time I complained that he shouldn’t be in prison at all, that he was too soft and good for the place, he’d shake his head. He told me he’d committed his crime and he should pay the price fair and square.
He was a lot more accepting than I was. Though I knew the bar I managed had skirted the line of the law, or gone over it entirely if I’m honest, it was the hypocrisy of the justice system that got to me. Plenty of wealthy merchants and even aristocrats frequented my bar, drawn by unlicensed, untaxed gambling, prize fights more juicy than those sanctioned by the authorities,and goods that may or may not have fallen off the back of a cart. None of those fancy people ever ended up in prison. And I wouldn’t have either, if it hadn’t been for that spoiled brat Lord Florian Southland.
Prison was bad. I always considered myself a brave man. Never ran from a fight. Defeated giant after giant in the boxing ring. But I never felt as trapped as when I was in prison and I discovered I wasn’t brave when it came to being locked in. No matter what, they wouldn’t let you out. Not when you were shitting green because the food was so moldy, not when your fingernails were close to falling out from the work, which picking apart tarred ropes for hours every day. Not even when Jos was beaten to within an inch of his life by a prison gang and I had to nurse him through the night, alone. The guards didn’t even take him to the medical wing, a fancy name for the small cell with the permanently drunk doctor who was as likely to kill you with his incompetence as cure you. Every time I close my eyes I see the prison. Even here deep in the Galbravan desert where it should be possible to forget, so far from Rhennes, the climate and landscape so different it’s like another world. More often than not I slip into nightmares when I sleep.
Tonight is no different. I wake up in a cold sweat, staring out the window, centering myself by fixing my eyes on a calm-looking yellow moon hanging over the empty landscape. I grope around on my bedside table for a box of matches and strike one, jumping and raising a fist when it flares up suddenly. My fight response is always trigger-sharp after a nightmare. I was never off guard in prison. In the hallways, in the work yard, on the way to the showers. Attacks were common. Prisoners trying to poach anything you might have in your pockets, a smuggled cigarette, maybe an extra roll you grabbed from the canteen. Or maybe they were just lashing out for no reason, in blind rage, driven almost mad by the suffering like a wounded animal. I could onlyrelax when my cell door was sealed at night and I was locked in with Jos.
I light the candle by my bed and look at the clock: one o’clock. Several more hours to get through before I can get up, eat something and head outside in the morning air to dig. Lose myself in the repetitive, mechanical motions of hard physical exercise. It gets me through. The more time I put between myself and prison, the easier it will be. That’s what I tell myself. But I have no idea if that’s even true. What if I’m tormented by these dreams forever? Perhaps I should visit a nerve doctor. I used to think such things were for the weak and foolish. But I feel weak and foolish right now, sweating hard even though there’s no threat here at all. Even though I’m lying alone, safe in my bed.
Then there’s a knock at my door. My heartbeat spikes and I imagine a guard at the other side, come to berate or beat me, or even worse to hurt Jos, for some imagined misdeed. Then I remember it must be Florian.
What does the little brat want now?
“Boss?” he calls through the closed door.
“What?” I growl.
“May I come in?”
“If you must.”
I don’t know why I say that. I want to be left alone. I don’t want him to see me like this. But at this moment, even though he’s my enemy, I can’t resist company. Someone to take my mind off the dream, which is still catching at the edges of my thoughts like sharp wire, trying to drag me back in.
Florian comes into the room, creeping softly on his bare feet, wearing just his underwear. The soft yet angular grace of his body seems almost ethereal. Moonlight plays over his pale skin, which is smooth and unblemished expect for patches of his torso and taut stomach. I blink, surprised. Are those scars? Or perhaps just a trick of the light? Before I can decide he’s looming rightover me, drawing my eyes up to his face. His hair hangs loose around his shoulders and there’s a worried frown on that pretty face. He looks so far from a threat that my heartbeat is soothed, slowing down at the sight of him. And then I’m angry at my own psyche for welcoming my enemy into my bedroom.
“What is it, Florian?” I snap.
“Sorry,” he says. “I just… you were yelling in your sleep. I was worried.”
My face heats up. He heard me? I didn’t know that I make noise during my nightmares. I haven’t had anyone else in my house since I left prison. There’s been no one to tell me.
“I’m fine,” I say, meaning it as a dismissal. But Florian stays where he is.
“Nightmare?” he says sympathetically.
“Yes.”
