Trik - Betrayal in Rule
Chapter 5

The guards led Trik down a dark staircase to a narrow stone hall lit only by candles. At the end of this hall were a few small cells with nothing in them but straw. The guards shoved Trik into one of these cells, and then they shut its heavy iron door.

“Well, well,” said the guard with the fierce eyes, “you’re not so tough now.” He turned a key, locking the iron door.

Trik’s eyes narrowed on the guard. “What of my shackles?” he asked. “You must remove them by Imperial Law.”

The two guards looked at each other for a moment, and then they laughed. The fierce-eyed guard faced Trik, peering at him between the bars. “Someone will be along to take them off, eventually,” he said, and then he laughed a deep mean laugh.

Trik kicked the iron door, and it rattled on its hinges. The guard with fierce eyes laughed again. “You’ll look pretty at the end of a noose,” he said.

Trik cursed and backed up against the mossy stone wall of the cell. He was taken aback by the reek of the dungeon, an acrid mixture of bad water, feces, and mold. The smell was so foul that it left a taste in his mouth. He looked about the cell. There was nothing in it except for a pile of hay and a small hole in the floor that drained into the sewer. “That traitorous spider,” whispered Trik, as the two guards walked away.

“Trik,” said someone from the adjacent cell. “Is that you?” A young man concealed by shadow moved into the light and pressed his face against the bars. “It is you.”

Trik faced the prisoner in the adjacent cell. “Lord Durben,” said Trik, “For once I am sorry to see your face. For what crimes were you imprisoned?”

“I was never charged,” said the young noble. “The guards brought me here after they arrested us.”

“All of this is Mortimer’s doing,” said Trik. “If only the Emperor knew what vermin infests his court.”

“He will never know,” said Durben. “We alone know of Mortimer’s plot against the Emperor.”

“I still have your father’s letter,” said Trik. He took the scroll from a secret pocket in his tunic. “There is still time.”

Durben laughed grimly. “Yes, time,” he said, “a lifetime behind these bars.” He gripped the bars in his hands.

“There will be an opportunity for escape,” said Trik. “We must bide our time until that opportunity arises. Even the Emperor would not risk killing the son of a noble.”

“But Mortimer might,” said Durben.

“I have seen the way the other nobles look at him,” said Trik. “They have little love for him. That gives us hope.”

“Hope,” said Durben, grimly, “I would prefer help.”

“Patience,” said Trik. “We must be patient. Our time will come.”