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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild still belongs to Nintendo. (So does the Bottom of the Well, but that is beside the point.)
The cell was little more than five feet square. It had no outer window and no obvious source of light, but there were trace amounts of luminescence coming from somewhere. After a while Link's eyes adjusted to the dimness and when he lifted his head he was able to pick out the shapes of the only two things in the place. The pail in the further corner, near the door, was dented and stank horribly, its handle gone. The bed, which was to his left, was nothing more than moldy straw stuffed under cloth too moth-eaten to be considered blankets.
After a time, he climbed rather shakily to his feet and examined the wall behind him, hoping to see even the tiniest of cracks which would let him glimpse the sunlight. He was disappointed, however, for nothing met his eyes than the same gloom which surrounded him. So this was not the same cell which they had used to hold Vrena. He sighed and leaned against the wall again. Even that familiarity was denied him.
Hearing a slight noise from the corridor, he straightened himself and quickly scrubbed at the tears still moist upon his cheeks. The sound of clanking armor echoed through the corridor and met Link's ears. Through the tiny opening in the door a hint of swinging lantern light became visible and drew ever closer. Then the light ceased its movement as it before the door, followed by an uncertain silence. The boy remained in his spot at the furthest end of the cell and hardly dared breathe or hope.
"Link," sighed a voice he knew as well as his own. "Link!"
The boy froze. He knew if he spoke he would probably betray himself. He hated how the tears were again springing to his eyes and he brushed his face first on one shoulder and then the other.
"Answer me, Link! I know you're in there, son. Come nearer the door."
With a whisper of his shoes on the stone, he stepped closer as bidden. In his current state of mind, all he heard in his father's voice was the reproach and anger. He was oblivious to that fact that the reproach was directed more at Rankin's own self, and the anger was intertwined with confusion and remorse.
In the silence which followed, Link struggled to suppress the hitching breaths which would surely betray him if he spoke more than one syllable. The tiny window in the door allowed him to see only a small portion of the dark shape which was his father. Link wondered why he didn't say anything. Perhaps he was trying to calm his fury, to keep himself from yelling at his son with unbridled anger. The boy had rarely seen his father so enraged as to be scared of him; the only time it had been directed at him was the time he'd taken his father's best sword without permission and used it to chop bushes as he played with his friends. He had brought it back home chipped and dulled beyond use and Rankin had been positively livid. Link hadn't sat down for days afterward.
"I'm here, sir," he said at last, parting the thick curtain of silence between them.
"…I know, son," Rankin replied, but his voice was too quiet.
It reminded a nervous Link of his six-year-old excursion with his father to the outskirts of Eldin. He'd encountered a yugan viper which quickly coiled itself in preparation to strike. It first attacked Link's mount and had Rankin not hacked off the head of the snake, the boy's life would have been shortened to mere minutes. He was now afraid his father would lash out as suddenly and unexpectedly as the snake had.
The explosion came but it lacked any of the violence of volume which the boy had expected. "What are you trying to do, Link? Do you realize what kind of trouble you've gotten yourself into?! Where do you think this is going to put your hopes of becoming one of the royal guard? You've brought the king's wrath upon yourself…I cannot get you out of this mess." He paused as if to catch his breath. "…What would your mother say if she could see you now?"
Link's throat constricted. In a half-strangled shout, he returned, "If Mother were here she would believe me!"
The space between them was growing ever wider, like the earth was splitting to form a great chasm. This time it was Rankin who tried to broach it.
"So you're going to remain stubborn," he said, but no question punctuated his words.
The only sound from Link was a little choking gasp which he didn't quite succeed at repressing. Covering his mouth with his hand, he blinked tears onto his fingers and wished he hadn't done quite a few things. He should never have yelled at his father, never defied the king, never moved away from the moor garrison, never wished to be like his father, never… He shouldn't have lost the money his mother gave him for buying fish that day she died.
Rankin parted his cracked lips to say something else, but for all the rupees in Hyrule he couldn't form the right words into any sort of coherent sentence or fragment thereof. He departed with hardly a sound, making all his steps slow and deliberate; the only way by which his son knew he was gone was the absence of the somber flicker of the lantern.
Time meant everything and nothing to Link alone in his cell. He placed himself in a corner and made himself very still, but as hard as he tried he could not stop thinking. He had no other human visitors save for a close-mouthed man who delivered his meal.
"What time is it?" he ventured to ask as he accepted the wooden bowl and small pitcher of water. "Is it nighttime yet?"
The man cleared his throat, turned his head away and spat into the corridor. Then he was gone.
The bowl contained something that Link guessed was supposed to be soup. It contained none of the vegetables and meat chunks to which he was accustomed, and it was so repulsively greasy that he pushed it away when he was only halfway through. He curled up on the straw pallet and pulled the ragged covers over him to try to keep warm. Listening to the immense silence surrounding him, he finally fell asleep and dreamed of a woman in white who spoke to him in the manner of his mother.
The morrow, or whatever it was when he woke, brought him a sliver of hope. He remembered the story of his father and a comrade who had been set upon and captured by a band of rogues. While the friend had been injured, Rankin was relatively unharmed. During their four-day long captivity, between tending to his friend and sleeping, Rankin exercised himself. His simple reasoning whenever Link asked him about it was that he was staying strong in case they had a chance to escape. The boy decided to follow his example, if only for want of something to do. He realized, after just a few push-ups, that the exercise not only kept his muscles engaged, but his mind as well.
He tired after a while and then ate the next meal left for him by the same surly man. It was little better than the soup, but he ate all the dry bread and the pasty stuff he hoped had meat in it. He sat in the corner for a while but grew so bored that he jumped to his feet and started pacing the tiny space. He was desperate to think of something else than his situation and so he tried to imagine what his friends were doing. They were probably taking spear lessons, or maybe they were on break and going for a swim. Perhaps they were even enjoying a meal of glazed fish and herbs. His mouth began to water and he cut off that line of thought with some difficulty.
He wondered what his friends would think if they knew where he was and what was happening to him. He would be shamed if they saw him now, especially Mipha. She was so sweet and gentle that she usually got more embarrassed for someone else than that person would himself. Link even found himself missing his best friend's little pest of a baby brother, who was always showing off in the water, who always gobbled the tail of a grilled fish before Link could, and who was also known to bite on occasion.
Without any clue to the patterns of the sun, the boy quickly lost any sense of time outside his cell. There only seemed to be two meals in a day, but they were spaced so far apart that one was not discernable from the other, and the food itself varied unpredictably. Sometimes he paced or did his exercises, but those came to be tiring too quickly. Sometimes he pounded the walls and screamed his frustration, knowing full well that no one would hear him. Other times he sat or lay upon his bed and tried to either think himself out of the prison for a bit, or to try and will himself to sleep.
His father stood outside the door one more time, though Link did not know how long it was after his previous visit. As soon as he heard his father's voice he padded noiselessly to the door so he could just be closer to someone familiar, especially one who would talk to him.
"Link, this is no place for a boy who wants to become a knight! Would you give up your stubborn resolve if the king were to ask you again?"
Down in the depths of the dank prison, he was deprived of nearly everything he had been accustomed to beforehand. What food he did get was barely palatable and he only managed to consume it because he hadn't stopped feeling hungry since the night he'd spent on the walls of the castle. He missed the sky, the trees, the freedom to move about as he wished, the feeling when he took a deep breath of air, and the contact with people, even the other kids at the nearby garrison. The idea of gaining all of it back again at the cost of betraying his friend was too tempting to think on. He shoved it away quickly and forcibly.
"No," he said.
Pushing his father's words away was as difficult, if not more, as giving up a bowl of the carrot and heart-meat stew that was his mother's special recipe. He wanted to shout to the sky that he had not given in, but at the same time he also wanted to bury his face in the earth and wail.
Rankin was silent so long that Link thought he was no longer there. "Son…" he began, but whatever else he was planning to say fell uselessly into the darkness like the cries of his boy.
Too depressed to go through any of his exercises, Link threw himself on his pallet, his face to the wall. Only then did he realize he'd forgotten to ask his father what day it was. He balled his fists against the stone and wished with all of his slight being that he could burst through that wall.
He made up his mind he wasn't going to get up from his bed, especially for that disgusting glop that was supposed to be food. However, when the jailor wordlessly delivered his next meal, it actually smelled good. Link shuffled over, dipped a finger in, tasted it and peered closer. It was stew, still warm and with chunks of meat! He sat with the bowl between his crossed legs and savored every drop for as long as he could. When it was as empty as a wine cask after an all-night party, Link burped, grinned, and then fell asleep.
He found himself looking forward to his next meal, hoping it would be like the stew which had so satisfied him for a few hours at least. He was not disappointed; the following meal was nothing less than his expectations, being soup of a completely different variety and with different ingredients. After savoring it, he leaned his head back and tried to decide which one tasted better. After a while of not being able to decide, he stood and began some sit-ups.
Someone was at the door again. Link's first thought was another meal and then quickly realized that the time was wrong. He watched the little grate on the bottom of the door, but it did not open. Instead, there was a scratching, grating sound of a key in the lock and the door opened, revealing two guards in the damp dimness of the corridor. The boy shrank back against the wall, suddenly terrified as his thoughts caught up to him. If he had taken Vrena's place, did that mean they were going to carry out her sentence on him?
The faces of both guards were perhaps a bit grim, and they didn't say anything. One of the men stepped forward, grabbed Link and pulled him across the floor. He couldn't believe he was thinking it, but all he wanted in that moment was to stay in the cell.
"No! I don't want to go!" he protested as he dragged his feet and tried to wrench himself from that unyielding grip.
"You're coming whether you like it or not. King's orders. And quit your fighting or I'll smack you one."
Link's heart kept up its erratic beat, but his resistance lessened slowly as it dawned on him that all his struggles were only wearing him out. He didn't know where executions were supposed to take place; perhaps somewhere in town where everyone could see and mock him. The butterflies, grasshoppers and dragonflies which had previously been flapping around with his last meal now lay in his stomach as heavy and sickening as three-day-old gruel.
His only consolation was that he had the opportunity to see the sky again, even though most of it was covered with clouds which were as gray as he felt. After what seemed such a long time in prison, the light of day was at first overwhelming, causing him to squint and blink. However, once his eyes had adjusted he stared up at the sky as though it was the last thing he'd ever see. He wished he could see the blue of the sky again, for it was so much like his mother's merry eyes. For a second he could almost forget what was going to happen to him, but he could not hold onto that peace for long.
The guards took him across the bridge and to the castle again, never loosening their viselike grip on his upper arms. The wild thought which had first occurred to him, that he might find an opportunity to slip out of their hold, was looking sadder by the second. He knew escape was futile as they went further into the castle, finally stopping at the same room in which the king had spoken to him a long time earlier. An aide bade them enter and Link knelt into a bow before his sovereign.
King Rhoam, his eyebrows crinkled with some concern, glanced up from the ledger and papers before him. "You have spent three days in prison. Are you prepared to speak now?"
Had it only been three days?! Link's mouth was open in his confusion and disbelief as he stared at the floor at the king's feet. He was sure he'd been confined for at least a month. Disappointment filled him as he realized that Vrena was likely still in the vicinity and in danger of being captured again.
He knew the king's eyes were fixed upon him, but what could he say? The dead insects in his stomach started to smolder and ignite a spark of anger in his chest. Why did they all keep commanding him to tell what he could not, would not? He would not betray the woman who had been his only friend since he and his father moved to central Hyrule! She was as blameless in the minister's death as he was, but how could he possibly convince anyone else? He ached to tell King Rhoam what he knew, but the words faded away long ere they reached his tongue.
The king shook his head and placed his fingers against his brow. "I have no time for your stubbornness, boy." He gestured a hand to the guards behind Link. "Captain Quave will deal with you."
It was an irate, acerbic captain who beheld the boy a couple of minutes later in the former's office. The troubles kept piling up for Quave, first he had to deal with the man shortage due to all the excavations going on in different parts of Hyrule and he was spread thin trying to ensure that every garrison still had enough guards. There was no end to the problems and crimes both petty and not which crossed his path on a daily basis, and then with minister's death and escape of the murderess no one could seem to find he wanted to pull his hair out. The last thing he need was a young boy who made his job all the harder.
"So you still won't talk, eh?" he snarled, peering over his desk and fixing Link in a scathing glare. "I know of more than one way to break down a stubborn man and you're not half the size, boy! Let's see if some time in the pillory loosens that tongue of yours."
As the guards marched him away again, Link was too distracted by his relief to struggle against them. They were taking him to the pillory, not the scaffold! The fact that the former punishment was largely humiliating mattered little when weighed against the finality of a hanging.
Situated just outside the gates of the castle was the pillory to which the men brought him. The height of the framework had been built to fit an average sized man and therefore was too high for Link. One of the guards brought over a crate and set it before the post.
"Get up there, you!" he barked.
When Link hesitated, the other man hauled him up physically and forced his neck and wrists into the opened holes. They locked the boards in place and then marched away; the boy could not see them as he was facing Castle Town. The central hole of the pillory left him a little room to move his neck without touching the rough wood, which was certainly more than a full-grown adult would have been able to do. He quickly found that he was barely able to slip his hands out of the wrist holes, but he could not extricate his head.
He watched as people passed by, to and from the castle. He'd seen people in pillories before and knew that they were usually subjected to ridicule and even abuse, but the citizens and castle staff seemed to be largely ignoring him. The expressions of the women who looked his way melted into pity before they hurried on. A couple of guardsmen passed and taunted him before they went on into the castle. A small group of children wandered near and had a few minutes of sport by lobbing rotten vegetables and fruit at him, but Link, having his hands free, merely picked off the mess as best he could. The children ran out of ammunition and quickly became bored with a lack of response to their jeers.
Three youths whom Link recognized as local miscreants came swaggering up the road, grinning when they spotted him. They went over and looked up at him with smirking expressions that Link didn't trust any more than he could throw a horse. Standing before him, they turned to each other and began to speak to one another as though the pilloried boy wasn't there.
"Hey, what do you suppose this is, fellows?"
"Looks like a cucco waiting to have its head chopped off!"
"A dirty cucco! Look at him! Bwaaaark, bwooock, bucooock!"
"Heh! Maybe the little cucco stole some of the cows' feed and they decided to hang him up to teach him a lesson."
The youths snorted with laughter and continued making exaggerated clucking noises and flapping their elbows. Link refused to give them any sort of acknowledgement, though he did ball his fists behind the board in which he was trapped. Then, while two of the youths looked around for something they could throw, the third one climbed up onto the platform behind Link.
"Hey, what are you doing?" one of the other two asked when he looked up at his friend.
"This sure is a scrawny cucco," he replied, standing where Link could not see him. "He's so short he can't even reach the ground! Hey, c'mere fellows."
With all three of them behind him, Link knew they were up to something worse than throwing mud at him. He kicked backward, first with one foot and then the other, but they easily avoided him.
Laughing, one of them said, "What would happen if we…"
They looked at each other, grinning maliciously. Then, with a feeling like he was plunging over a cliff, Link felt the box beneath his feet tremble and start to slide away as the youths kicked it. He did not lash back at them anymore, for to make his footing any more unsteady was foolish. He threw his arms up to the top of the pillory just as they managed to wiggle the crate out from under him. There he hung, clinging to the pillory by his hands, his legs swinging uselessly, and his neck scratching against the wood. The three rascals chortled with glee and slapped their legs, but they were abruptly cut short in their devilish mirth.
"Get away from there!" came the sound of a man's voice.
Link hardly heard the words through the rush of blood roaring ever louder in his ears. The youths rushed from the area as though the calamity itself was upon them, and another pair of feet marched toward Link. Someone quickly righted the crate and placed it under his feet again.
"Now see if you can stay out of trouble, why don't you!" the voice told him, and then the owner thereof stamped away.
The boy was still so shaken that he couldn't say anything, not even a word of thanks. When he was quite sure his feet would not slip off the box, he slowly lowered his hands, incognizant of the fact that he had acquired a number splinters on his fingers and palms. His neck throbbed with a pulse of its own, a bit like the rope burns he'd given himself when he and a couple friends pulled a deer from hole in which it had been trapped. He tried to feel the area, but had difficulty in reaching around the board.
Droplets of rain began to fall from clouds which had thickened since Link had been escorted out of the prison. The drizzle turned into a deluge and within a minute he was soaked, from drenched hair to shoes running over. The moisture was soothing for his neck, but he soon started to shiver. The muscles of his shoulders and neck ached from the constant strain and his legs felt wobbly. Without the sun, he couldn't tell what time it was and had no way of gauging how long he'd been there. His mood matched what the weather had become.
As the rain began to slacken, a woman, who looked to be old by the hunch of her shoulders and the shawl covering her pale hair, shuffled toward the pillory and stood there, not quite looking up at Link. He hoped a nice-looking old granny like her wouldn't taunt him or pelt him with anything. The only thing she seemed to be carrying was a small flask made from animal skin.
"I brought you some water," she said, tilting her head up so she could see him with one eye.
He knew that voice! And it did not belong to an old woman. It belonged to… "Miss Vrena!" he exclaimed.
He would have slapped a hand to his mouth if he could have easily reached it. He hoped no one had heard him, and fortunately the patter of the lessening rain muffled all sound. Instead of her usual Sheikah garb she was clothed in a baggy dress and two shawls, which made her less discernable as one of her clan.
Whispering, he questioned anxiously of her, "Why are you here? They'll catch you!"
After glancing around carefully and making sure she was not being watched, the former cook climbed nimbly to the platform, much unlike the old woman of her disguise, and pushed the flask under his nose. "Be quiet now and take this."
But with his head in that position it was about impossible for him to drink from the vessel she held. Vrena cupped her hand, poured some water into it and then Link lapped it up like a cat. They repeated the process several times without a word, though the woman often cast her eyes about cautiously. Link gulped and swallowed, relishing the sweet taste of the water, for the rain had not been able to quench his thirst.
After replacing the cork, she crouched in front of him so they could better see each other. Only then did she have the chance to look him over, and as she did her eyes clouded with anguish. "Oh, Link…" she breathed. "What have I done to you?"
He stared back at her, uncomprehending.
"And you're skinnier than ever," said she, mournfully. She reached up and cupped his face in both hands. "You wouldn't tell them anything about my escape. Isn't that why you're here?"
Her fingers felt so warm and alive against his cheeks. He averted his gaze so she could not see the emotion that welled up in his eyes. He was so glad she was safe!
"Link, I can't bear for you to suffer like this on account of me! I must…I have to give myself up to the guards."
"No!" he cried. Reaching forth, he grabbed her arms. He winced at the splinters in his hands, but he did not let go. He barely remembered to keep himself from shouting as he pleaded, "You can't! Please don't give up! You can't!"
She clasped his hands in her own. "It's so cruel to see you like this. You're the sweetest boy I know and often I've wished you were my son… You don't deserve this!"
"They'll…they'll hang you," he whispered. "Please, please…"
There was more moisture on her face than from the drizzle, especially around the eyes. "Link…"
The boy strained against the boards which held him captive, clutching at her hands as if they were both falling into an abyss. "Don't give up! I'll…I'll tell them you didn't do anything wrong! I'll make them understand! I will!"
"Link, I don't think it will be so easy…"
"Please," he begged, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to keep the tears from escaping. "I…don't want to lose you…like…like my mother…"
She couldn't say anything, the sorrow too thick in her throat. Holding his fingers so tightly, her grip was strong, almost as firm as his father's. She too had averted her eyes and for a long moment they did not look at each other as they both grappled with inner demons.
Link remembered a day several months before, when his mother had asked him to buy a few fish from the little market near the moor garrison where they lived. She was very heavy with child and though tired, she smiled at him as she usually did. He'd dutifully marched off to do just that, but along the way he met a couple of his friends. They spoke to him of a perfect, secret fishing spot and assured him they were off catch more fish than they could carry home in one trip. He wanted to surprise his mother by bringing back both the fish and the rupees she gave him, so he headed off with his Zoran friends. Unfortunately, their little excursion took longer than expected and it was much later when he ran home, dripping wet, carrying only half the desired fish and having lost the rupees in the pond. Upon his return, he was stunned to learn that his mother had died in giving birth to a boy who never drew his first breath. And Link had failed her last request.
Vrena remembered an incident from her youth in which she had allowed the cows get out of their pen and one of them had been killed by a wild animal. She had been afraid and not admitted her fault. As no one saw her do it, she thought she was safe, but the blame fell to another child who was then punished. The shame of that deed had stayed with her for all the next twenty years of her life and here was a nine-year-old boy so willing to make the sacrifice for her. She had not deserved mercy then, and she wondered if she did now.
"You're such a brave boy," she whispered. Then, without wiping the tears from her face, she squeezed his hands one last time. "I must go."
Forgetting the pain of the splinters, he clutched her hands in a shaking, white-knuckled grip, refusing to let her go. "You won't let them take you, will you?"
She paused, her gaze on a knot in the wood of the platform below her. "Not…yet," she consented at last. "But I won't let them punish you. I'll be watching over you, Link."
She extracted her fingers from his and removed the shawl from about her shoulders. After placing it over his shivering shoulders, she came around again and placed a kiss on his bent head. Then she fled.
These last few days have been busy. And by busy I mean insane! But the day isn't quite over yet (that is, I'm not yet in bed) and I am glad to present this chapter to you. I once again dearly hope you enjoy! I'll be back again next Monday with another part of the story.
12-06-2017 ~ Published