Madelaine used up quite a lot of intellectual patience while speaking to Warden Draven. He seemed amused by their presence, as if he didn’t take her seriously.
If asked, she expected he would tell her that her little errand was foolish and she shouldn’t be allowed to visit a gulag as the Paladin Courier to retrieve the important package. She should find a way to let her man do it for her.
It was a man’s world here after all. She was a woman and verboten. How dare the rules be different for her.
Madelaine decided her best bet was to ignore him, retrieve the package and get out of here as fast as possible.
“You two are lucky that this elevator is here, otherwise, you would have had to climb nearly twenty flights of stairs to get to the tower cells.”
“Wow. Twenty flights of stairs, you say?” Madelaine did her best to sound awed by the fact that they might’ve had to traverse so many flights of stairs to retrieve the package. During her Paladin training she had climbed more flights of stairs than that every single day. So, big whoop!Settle down. Get in. Get the package. Get out.
After what seemed like half an hour, the elevator car finally stopped and the doors opened. Warden Draven gestured for Madelaine to exit first, which she did. Jack was right on her heels.
A hallway directly in front of the elevator led to a circular area where Madelaine could see one metal door with a window at about face height.
Dim light poured from the small square window. She walked toward it and saw that there was not one but three doors housed within this tower cellblock.
From outside, the prison had looked much more modern. Inside this tower, it could have been old castle walls. The stones looked like they’d been here for a millennium. Sturdy, certainly, but ragged around the edges, much like the well-worn path leading from the elevator into this antechamber with the three cells.
Madelaine expected the space to be icy cold, but it was very temperate.
On the right-hand side was a door exactly like the one straight ahead, though no light came through the window. On the left-side door, light poured through the window and she saw a face framed within the square.
“No way,” Jack said, apparently recognizing the prisoner.
“What?” Madelaine turned to look more closely at the face. The man seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
“Indigo Jones,” Jack said.
“You need to help me get out of here!” Indigo Jones shouted. “Not only should I be free, but it is cruel and unusual punishment to force me to eat kale with every meal. I hate kale. It keeps me from making faces. I should be able to make faces.”
“Don’t talk to him,” the warden said. “He’s devious and unpredictable on a good day.”
“That is the truth,” Jack agreed.
Draven turned toward Indigo Jones’s cell. “Step away from your door, Mr. Jones, or theonlything you’ll get to eat for the foreseeable future is kale.”
Madelaine suspected there was more to that story, but she didn’t have time or the inclination to hear about it now. She wanted to get in, get this package and get out.
Indigo Jones continued whining about never getting a visitor or anyone to talk to, but he stepped away from the eye-level grate in his cell door, mentioning several more times how much he hated kale and how unfair his life was.
She tuned him out.
The center door’s small window was lit up, but no face was framed there.
“Winslow?” Draven said. “Are you ready to meet the Paladin Courier?”
“Yes. I’m ready,” a frail voice called from within.
The warden pulled a large skeleton key from his inner jacket pocket and opened the metal door in three places, top, middle and bottom. He entered the room, looked around, and gestured for Madelaine and Jack to come inside. He left the cell and locked them in. “I’ll wait by the elevator for you. Just call out when you’re ready to go.” He glanced at the tactical watch strapped to his left wrist. “You have three minutes.”
“That’s not enough time,” Winslow said in his whispery voice.
“Fine. Five minutes, then. But that’s it!” Draven turned away from the window. Madelaine peered out and saw him march toward the elevator, each step punctuated by a heel striking the well-worn stone floor.
She turned and faced Winslow. “I am the Paladin Courier,” Madelaine said formally.
“Well, you’ve had quite a journey so far, haven’t you?” Not really asking, but telling them.
