The Leopard Prince (Princes #2)(64)

“Goddamn you,” Bennet whispered.

“He might indeed.”

Bennet swung to the study door and pulled it open. A small, scrawny boy tumbled in.

“What’s this?” Silas frowned.

“He’s with me. Come on, Will.”

“You ought to teach your servants not to listen at doors,” Silas drawled after his son.

For some reason his words caused Bennet to stop and swing around. His son looked between Silas and the boy. “You really don’t know who he is, do you?”

“Should I?” Silas studied the lad. Something about his brown eyes did look familiar. He waved away the question. It didn’t matter. “The boy is nobody.”

“Jesus, I don’t believe you.” Bennet stared at him. “We’re all just pawns to you, aren’t we?”

Silas shook his head. “You know I’m not fond of puzzles.”

But Bennet had taken the boy’s shoulder and was guiding him from the room. The door shut behind them.

“He’s ungrateful,” Thomas whispered from the corner. “After all you did for him, after all I suffered, he’s ungrateful.”

“What’s your point, boy?” Silas growled.

Thomas blinked, then he stood, looking oddly dignified. “I’ve always loved you, Father, always. I would do anything for you.” Then he, too, left the room.

Silas stared after his son for a moment, then shook his head again. He swiveled to a small door set in the wood paneling behind his desk and rapped on it. For unknown reasons, an earlier Granville had made a passage from the library to the cellars. After a small wait, the door opened. A burly man emerged, ducking his head. He was bare-chested. Heavy, muscled arms hung by his sides. The brown body hair covering his upper torso was gruesomely flecked with blood.

“Well?” Silas demanded.

“He still won’t talk.” The big man held out swollen hands. “My knuckles are fair bloodied, and Bud has had a go as well today.”

Silas scowled. “Do I have to bring in someone else? He’s only one man and not nearly your size. He should’ve been whistling any tune you asked by now.”

“Aye, well, he’s a tough bugger, that one. I’ve seen blokes crying like a baby after what we’ve been giving him.”

“So you say,” Silas taunted. “Wrap your hands and keep at it. He’s bound to break soon, and when he does, there’ll be a bonus in it for you. And if you can’t do it in the next day, I’ll find someone who can and replace you and your mate.”

“Aye, my lord.” The big man stared at Silas, suppressed anger firing behind his eyes before he turned away. Good, he’d take it out on Pye.

The door closed behind him and Silas smiled. Soon, very soon now.

SOMEWHERE WATER was dripping.

Slowly.

Steadily.

Endlessly.

It had dripped when he had first woken in this room, it had dripped every day since then, and it dripped now. The dripping might very well break him before the beatings did.

Harry hunched a shoulder and dragged himself painfully upright against the wall. They held him in a tiny room. He thought it must have been at least a week since they’d taken him, but time was hard to judge here. And there were hours, maybe days, that he’d lost to insensibility. There was a window the size of a child’s head high on one wall, covered by a rusted iron grill. Outside, a few weeds poked through, so he knew the window was at ground level. It gave enough light to illuminate his cell when the sun was at a certain height. The walls were of damp stone, the floor of dirt. There was nothing else in the room save himself.

Well, usually, that is.

At night he could hear the scratching of tiny feet, scurrying here and there. Squeaks and rustlings would suddenly still and then begin again. Mice. Or perhaps rats.

Harry hated rats.

When he’d gone to the poorhouse in the city, he’d quickly figured out that he and Da would starve if he couldn’t fight off the others to keep their ration of food. So he’d learned to fight back, fast and ruthless. The other boys and men stayed away after that.

But the rats didn’t.

When dusk fell, they would come out. The wild creatures of the countryside feared people. Rats did not. They would creep right into a man’s pocket to steal his last bite of bread. They would nose through a boy’s hair, looking for crumbs. And if they couldn’t find any leavings, they’d make their own. If a man slept too deeply, whether from drink or sickness, the rats would take a nibble. From toes or fingers or ears. There were men in the poorhouse whose ears were ragged flowers. You knew those wouldn’t last much longer. And if a man died in his sleep, well, by morning sometimes you didn’t know his face.

You could kill the rats, of course, if you were quick enough. Some boys even roasted them over a fire and ate them. But however hungry Harry got—and there’d been days when his insides twisted with need—he could never imagine putting that meat in his mouth. There was an evil in rats that would surely transfer to your belly and infect the soul if you ate them. And no matter how many rats you killed, there were always more.

So now at night, Harry didn’t really sleep. Because there were rats out there and he knew what they could do to an injured man.

Granville’s thugs had been beating him daily, sometimes twice a day, for a week now. His right eye was swollen shut, the left not much better, his lip split and resplit. At least two ribs were cracked. Several of his teeth were loose. There wasn’t more than a handspan on his entire body that wasn’t covered with bruises. It was only a matter of time until they hit him too hard or in the wrong place or until his body just gave out.