JOHNCAMEto me the next day. He was not so stupid that he came inside my cell but stood outside the door, peering in through the little window. “Hello, Niko. May I call you Niko? I’m not sure we ever decided that—the night you were so appallingly rude to me.”
“The night I wouldn’t fuck you?” I came up close to the window, intimidating him even in my unfortunate position. He actually had the nerve to dab effeminately at his nose with a clean handkerchief. “What is this about? I want to see the king.”
He smiled, and I could tell immediately that I’d handed him a perfect cue, and like an actor upon a stage, he took it, saying with a flourish, “Ah, but the king doesn’t want to seeyou.”
This was ridiculous, and I wasn’t in the mood to play his games. “Where is he? What is this all about?”
“About? About…. Good question, sir. That is exactly what poor little Aleksey said when we told him what you have been up to.”
I darted my hand through the window to grab his throat, but he was just that little too quick and the angle wrong. I only ended up with a bruised shoulder. He watched me rubbing it, his head cocked to one side like an inquisitive bird. “Don’t worry, Niko, it will be a lot sorer soon. Is sorer a word? Why am I asking you? You are a savage, and your German is hideous. Anyway, as I was saying…. My apologies, what was I saying?”
He was enjoying this. I was still mulling over his comment about my shoulder, which I didn’t like at all. I said nothing, so he continued, “Hehadto be told. But when one is a young man and in love, these things—”
“Tell me what this is about and stop pissing around.”
He winced and dabbed his mouth, but I could tell he was amused. “You have been a naughty boy, Niko, playing with another naughty boy, and wehadto tell Aleksey. He is very upset, poor boy. I think he loves you!”
I snarled and tried to reach him again. “What have you done? Who? This is all shit. Let me speak to him!”
“Why would I do that when I have gone to all this trouble to isolate you and keep you apart from him? And he would not see you now, even if he could save you from your fate. Which, of course, he can’t—as he signed the law himself.” He giggled. God help me, a grown man giggled. “He is so angry with you. Iwishyou could see it.”
“You are pathetic. Is this the best you can come up with? He would not believe you, even if you showed him proof. Who have you paid off to tell these lies?”
“Why no one, you fool. That is the beauty of it all. I just had to confess, you see. It was preying on my mind, given how we have been betraying my dearest nephew, he being myking…. So I went to my brother, the cardinal, confessed all our dalliances, and have been given absolution. I was very believable; trust me. But then… I’veimaginedus fucking so many times that I actually believed it myself.”
I felt a chill wash over me but then a sense of utter elation. “You! You? You’re thefool! Aleksey wouldneverbelieve I would betray him withyou! Idetestyou. You make me feel sick when I—”
“Then perhaps you should not have left your shirt in my bed, Niko.” I’d angered him by my rant, and now he’d taken very effective revenge.
I licked my lips. “Let me speak to Aleksey.”
He dabbed his nose once more, and I made a vow to myself there and then that if I ever got out of this cell, I would cut that nose off and wear it slung from Xavier’s bridle. His hair was thinning and would not make much of an adornment, but I would take that off too. Of course it was all very well making such vows when imprisoned and helpless. They would come to nothing and only roused the blood to self-harm, as I did that night, punching the walls until my knuckles bled. I did not know if Aleksey would believe this lie or not.
I wavered unpleasantly between two alternatives: he did believe it and had forsaken me; he did not believe it but was as helpless to save me as he had been to change the law. After all, Iwasguilty of sodomy—only not with John. And that was the perfection of their scheme. To prove beyond doubt I had not been in John’s bed, Aleksey would have to admit whose bed I had been in. To be a credible witness, Aleksey would have to implicate himself. He too would have to be imprisoned for his perversion, and he too would face death. After all, he had signed the law. So perhaps he did know it was a lie but was too afraid to help me. Nothelplessto save me but too afraid to try. That was my third alternative and the one I tried not to listen to. But that was not Aleksey. He was fearless in all things and followed his own inner voice to the detriment of his own safety, as I had witnessed many times already. He wouldnotforsake me. So that left the only alternative: he believed them.
I tried to put myself in his position. He knew I was a man of huge appetites—when it came to this, at least. I could easily take him three or four times a night and still want more upon waking. I wore him out, and he was almost twelve years younger than I. Would he believe that I had needed more than he could give me, that I had strayed? There were nights, of course, where he had been absent, days when he had been too busy to meet with me. There had even been times when he had been too tired to want me, and I had not been all that accommodating to his wishes. I now cursed every time I had teased him about finding a younger lover, made a joke about other men that he did not get, implied things I’d done that were not true. I wished I’d been the perfect lover, the perfect man, and swore I would benowif only given the chance.
I had nothing in my cell except a straw pallet and a bucket. I asked for writing materials. I demanded to see a priest. I had no intention of making confession—I wanted the priest to convey my distress to Aleksey. All requests and demands were ignored.
The hours passed in slow misery.
My thoughts were the worst companions I could have.
At one point I discovered myself twiddling pieces of straw from the bedding. I had made a tiny man—head, legs, arms. It resembled a straw soldier my mother had made for me in another time and upon a distant shore. I could not see this little man well then and pressed my face to the pallet so my distress was not audible to the guards.
But I made another man and lay them together entwined under the pallet where they would be safe.
Those days in the cell were very miserable, thinking Aleksey thought so of me. I looked back upon them rather fondly once my torture began.
ISUPPOSE,like a lot of men, I was tortured for no good reason. They didn’t seem to want me to confess anything, as they had already determined my guilt. They didn’t want me to name names. Prince John, they told me, had made a full and honest confession, was in seclusion and likely to be exiled. Which was odd, considering he came to visit me and watch.
I had once lived with a people who saw torture as a way to project power over their adversaries. If a man is unhinged by fear before you attack him, your victory is assured. The settlers were so afraid of the Powponi and their methods that fear was palpable in the air when we attacked. Also, if you torture your enemy, you test his mettle and raise the value of your own victory over him. Why these semicivilized Europeans were torturing me, therefore, I have no idea. I did not need to be more afraid before my execution, and I did not raise them up in their own estimation by my resistance. I angered them more than anything else because I would not speak or give them satisfaction. I think they were just men who enjoyed the infliction of pain. Suffice to say that for many days I did yearn for my quiet, pain-free time in the cell when all I had to worry about was if Aleksey still loved me.
It does not help a man stay sane to hear his own scaffold being erected outside his cell, but in my case it was a relief. At least I knew the pain was going to end soon.
The day I was dragged out into the sunshine was one of the most perfect summer days I could remember. I smelled new-cut grass, and the ocean was so blue I could hardly bear to look at it. Not a breath of wind stirred the pennants that hung limp and lifeless along the walls.
The scaffold had been erected up on the ramparts, right against the battlements, so I would be in full sight of everyone who had come to witness my death. And they had all come. Once my eyesight adjusted to the light, I could see a temporary grandstand full of people. I kept my eyes averted for a moment, then looked more closely. He was sitting up front and center.
