The Baby and the Battlefield

Chapter Forty-Four: In the Dark

When Vitus woke up, he was somewhere dark, quiet, and, thankfully, warm. His head ached, and he was lying on a pile of scratchy straw that smelled strongly of horse, but he was warm. For this, he was grateful. For a long while he lay still, his head swimming and pounding. He felt dizzy, even laying down. He noted that his cloak seemed to have been placed, folded, beneath his head to act as a sort of pillow. He wondered what had happened, and if Aemilia was here, somewhere in the dark. When he felt ready, he slowly began to raise himself into a sitting position. He was no more than a quarter of the way up before he realised he could go no further - there was a rope across his chest, restraining him, and as he gingerly moved his muscles, he realised that his hands were tied. He began to thrash, struggling to slide the ropes up or down so he could try to slip out of them, but his aching head and the general weariness of his body soon forced him to stop. He lay in the darkness looking up in the darkness to an uncertain, misty ceiling, and began to wonder what he was doing here. First of all, who had entrapped him, and why? If they were just planning to rob him, they could have picked his pockets, stolen his purse, and left him amongst the stones. Were they planning to enslave him? Or ransom him? That would explain the gentle treatment, what with giving him his cloak as a pillow and all. Suddenly, a deep, existential terror gripped Vitus, sending waves of revulsion through his gut. Where was Aemilia? If they were slavers, Aemilia was young and beautiful and naive. If they had hurt her, he would, he would - well, what could he do, bound like this?

"Aemilia?" He called out into the darkness, his voice little more than a hoarse croaking noise, "Are you here, Aemilia?"

A laugh that was more like a grunt came out of the darkness, "Only one we got was you, little aristo. Your Flora doxy was never here."

Vitus blinked. Flora doxy? Did he mean Aemilia? "Who are you?"

The man grunted again. It annoyed Vitus that he couldn't see his face.

"That's of no matter, aristo," he spat. Most of it landed on the straw near Vitus' head, but a fleck of warm saliva spattered onto his cheek. The man continued, "We were hired to keep you out of the way. We'd've probably been hired to kill you, if we didn't charge more for that."

The man snorted derisively, and Vitus ground his teeth in silent frustration.

"And I was the only one here?" He asked, still worried, sick, in fact, about Aemilia.

His tone still both amused and vicious, the man said, "Of course. Who do you think sent you that message? Your soft little Flora?"

"My fiancee's name is Aemilia," Vitus said, not sure if the swimming in his head was due to his confusion with this conversation, or due to the pain that still pulsed in waves from the back of his skull.

"Aemilia. Yes. Well, I guess I lose the bet, then," Vitus's captor sighed.

"Bet?"

"I bet that you knew. That you had to know what the girl you're bedding does for a living."

"I'm not bedding her!" He said defensively, insulted that the man would think Aemilia would do such a thing.

"Loser. Well, I didn't bet about that. I bet that you knew. And clearly you don't know."

"Don't know what?" Vitus hissed, through clenched teeth. He unclenched them as soon as he had his effect, of course - clenching them made the pounding a million times worse.

"Well, you don't know your Aemilia, for one. You don't know her at all, aristo."

"What does that mean?"

"Like I'm going to tell you?"

For a moment a face loomed above Vitus, the face of a broad-shouldered, rough man with a scar across his cheek. Then he kicked Vitus in the side, hard. Vitus writhed in pain, unable to double over because of his bonds. The man snorted out yet another laugh, then disappeared from sight. Vitus assumed he must have gone back to sit wherever he had been.

"Nope, you don't know your girl at all," the man continued from somewhere in the darkness, "But maybe that's good for you. Who can say? All I know is, we send you a message what says it's from her, and you waltz right into our little trap. Nice how that works out. Like you was a sheep. So we called, and you came, and now you're trussed up here, just like we was ordered to have you."

"Ordered? By whom?"

"I'm not telling you that, either. But I will tell you you'll be surprised when we reach the capital. Very surprised."

"The capital?"

"Maybe you'll meet the Emperor himself," the scarred man laughed, "that would suit a little aristo like you. I bet you're all excited just by the idea."

Vitus rolled his eyes silently.

"I bet if the crown prince had been a girl instead of a guy, you'd be beside herself wanting to marry her, suck up to the great and powerful. You wouldn't even look at your strange little Flora, then."

"I told you already, her name is Aemilia! Aemilia, not Flora!"

"You sure about that, aristo? I hear tell a lot of girls are named Flora. Even some called Aemilia."

Vitus blinked up into the darkness. The man seemed to be waiting for a reaction, but he'd be damned if he'd give him one. After a long moment, the scarred man said, "So, you'll stay alive a little longer. At least until we get you to the capital. After that, well, what happens is up to our employers. Bet you'd like to know who hired us, eh?"

Vitus did want to know who had hired them. He wanted to know quite badly. But he kept quiet, listening to his blood pounding in his ears, and focusing on the waves of pain that radiated out from the occipital bone with every heartbeat.

After a long moment the man with the scar sighed. He then said, "Maybe our bosses will kill you after all. It's free if they do it themselves; we charge. Seems like an annoyance to drag you all the way there for that, though. Or maybe they'll sell you to the mines. I bet it'd be a funny site, a soft little aristo like you in the mines. We shall see, little aristo. We shall see."