In Which Severin and Remiel Agree on Something

June 12, 1179

"So you finally came down for another visit." Remiel tipped his head back against the cell wall, a slight chuckle in the way he inhaled. "Here I was, thinking you were finally going to just leave me here to die. Thank you for the hay, by the way; a little messy, but much more comfortable than sleeping on a stone floor."

As if the hay had a gift. It was only in the cell because it was from a batch so old that the horses no longer deemed it edible; Severin had told the men to dispose of it as they saw fit, and apparently they were more generous than he. Or perhaps they'd just never met Remiel. "Remember how I confiscated your notes?"

"No, but with my not having seen them since you locked me up, that seems to be their logical fate. Why?"

Severin's grip on the key ring tightened, the teeth of one caught in his hand digging into the flesh. That was the key to Remiel's cell. Never again would it meet its lock until the prisoner was fit to be transferred to another cramped, lonely space--namely, a wooden box beneath six feet of dirt. That would not be today. There were questions to ask, and there would be more. "I've spent the past couple months looking them over. I've bounced my thoughts off everyone I can think of who might know and who wouldn't tell the duke's family. I keep looking for any other explanation, but I keep coming back to the same conclusion. So I want you to admit it."

The monk's brow arched as if out of confusion, but the sureness in his eyes betrayed it as mocking. "And just what is it that you want me to admit?"

"The suit of armor." He thought he felt a trickle of blood seep through the skin of his palm. "It's not an enchantment or some sort of manufactured sentience. There's a soul in there--the duke's brother's soul."

A rat scurried across the floor and Remiel's gaze followed. The creature found a crack between the stones and squeezed itself through; nothing larger would have fit, but Severin would see to it that it was sealed anyway. There was no such thing as too much caution with a criminal no more remorseful than a greedy child who'd made off with a cake. "I told you that I had conquered death. It shouldn't surprise you that holding it at bay is only half of it."

"And for the other half, you stole a kid's soul."

"A boy who had been dead for years." Remiel shrugged as another rat scampered by. This one met the swift and cruel fate of his boot. "I've done him no harm. You might even say I've done him a favor."

Of course he had. What else could it be, calling a stilled conscious forward in time to when the children he'd played with had children of their own? To brothers and sisters who'd mourned him long ago, nieces and nephews he'd never known he had? To a mother who indulged him, might have even loved him at this point, but didn't recognize him? "That's no life for a child."

"His soul might age. I'll admit that my previous experiment didn't go quite smoothly enough for me to say so with certainty, but if my calculations are correct, his mental progression should be unaffected."

"But he'll live forever." Remiel nodded, raw fingers twisting around the dead rat's tail and pulling it nearer. He only flung it aside when the thing burst into flames. "So he'll grow old and senile and he'll still be walking around long after his mind is gone. Is that really preferable to death?"

The monk fell back into a recline, the straw crunching against the rough linen of his robe. "Can we really say, those of us who have never been there? He might be able to tell us horror stories. A pity that I couldn't fix him to anything that would have given him speech."

It was almost sickening, hearing something with which he could agree. "I'll say. You'd have saved us all a lot of trouble if you'd let him have your body."

NEXT CHAPTER: