Ch. 4: Harder to breathe
Everything was black, but the jarring felt like a carriage. He was sure that his eyes were open, but he couldn't see a thing, so he couldn't be in a carriage. He tried to move, only to discover that he was bound so completely that he couldn't even twitch. He tried to speak only to realise that there was a thick piece of rope in his mouth and a stretch of tissue over it, successfully preventing him from making a noise.
Why was his brain so sluggish? Ah yes, he remembered the sickly sweet smell.
The sounds were that of a carriage, so maybe he was in one after all. He thought he could hear voices talking, but they weren't loud enough to be sure, much less try and recognise them. What now, he wondered. He couldn't move or speak, he couldn't see or hear. He sniffed, but the only thing he could smell was wood.
He wanted to cough, but the gag wouldn't let him. It was hard to breathe and the air was somewhat stale, but not exactly. There was not a lot of air available, he realised. Hopefully, whoever kidnapped him, knew that and he wouldn't die of suffocation.
Gilbert, he remembered, eyes opening wide. Was he there as well? Or have they been separated? He tried to listen for breathing, but the sounds of carriage and his own frantic heartbeat drowned it. He tried to breathe in deeply, to calm down, but there seemed to be not enough air. I don't want to die like that, he thought over and over again, panicking.
The carriage stopped. Door opened and some people went out, then the door closed and silence fell for a moment. Then the carriage moved again, although not far and silence fell again. What the hell?
He forcefully calmed down, breathing in shallow breaths and trying to listen. He couldn't hear anybody breathe next to him, so maybe Gilbert was not kidnapped with him. He hoped against hope that it was the case, because it would have been his fault. He should have reacted faster. He shouldn't have wasted his time on that whispered warning. He should have just grabbed the boy's hand and dragged him towards the rest of the guests, where they would have been safe.
He stiffened when he heard the door to the carriage open and people talk. Should he pretend to be knocked out? He closed his eyes a second before a weird sound and a gust of air that smelled like horses.
'They're still out,' said a voice he didn't recognise, but he focused on the pronoun: they. His heart cringed. He wasn't alone.
'Let's stack them away,' another voice said and rough hands grabbed Elliot and hauled him out of the carriage. He would have gasped in pain when he was brutally dumped over somebody's shoulder, but the gag rendered it impossible.
He dared to open his eyes, but the only thing he saw was the floor of what must have been stables and the red cloak of the person manhandling him. The red of Baskervilles, he thought, but that was impossible. Even if it would have been some intricate plan of the Duke, they wouldn't be treated like that, especially not Gilbert.
The men said nothing.
The floor of the stables turned into stones and then became stairs leading downwards. The smell changed into one that Elliot has always associated with dungeons and prisons. A distant scream echoed and he shuddered.
'I think he's coming to,' the man carrying him said. Elliot would have swallowed, but his mouth was dry. He closed his eyes as the man stopped. He heard a key screech in the lock and then the door creaked open. Two more steps and he was roughly thrown down, his head colliding with the stone floor.
The next thing Elliot saw was a pair of tear-filled, wide open and terrified, golden eyes of his future lord. He blinked, groaning in pain. Gilbert opened his mouth to say something, but only a sob escaped him.
The gag and the bounds, Elliot realised with some sluggishness, were gone.
'Are you alright?' he asked between gasps of pain as his brain registered the sore muscles and, above all, his hurting head.
'I thought you would never wake up,' Gilbert replied in a shaky voice, sniffing. Elliot closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. It was safe to assume that he had suffered a concussion. Gingerly, he tried to sit up, relieved when the wave of nausea passed without him puking his guts out. Slowly, he moved to lean against the wall, not trusting himself to stay upright and not wanting to hit his head again, should he fall or faint.
First things first, he thought and took a deep breath.
'Are you alright Gilbert? Are you hurt?' he asked again, peering closely at the boy. There were some scratches on his face, probably from the gag. However, there was no blood on his clothes, as far as Elliot could see in the dim light of the cell.
'I'm alright,' Gilbert replied, sniffing again. He seemed to have calmed down a bit and Elliot smiled to give him more courage. 'Are you hurt?' he asked back and Elliot winced.
'I hit my head badly,' he said, deciding to be honest. 'But I seem to be alright otherwise, if a bit sore. Have you been awake for long?' he asked. Gilbert nodded slightly. 'Sorry for keeping you waiting then,' he replied with a forced laugh.
'I thought you would die,' Gilbert whispered, looking at him as though he was still afraid that Elliot might drop dead on the spot. It was hard to keep the encouraging smile plastered on his face, Elliot realised, especially when Gilbert was telling him that somebody checked in on them some time ago and promised to be back soon.
'How did they look like?' Elliot asked, hoping for a clue. Not that knowing who held them would help, except to gauge their aim.
'They wore a red cloak with a hood hiding their face,' Gilbert replied with a small shudder. 'I didn't recognise the voice either,' he added.
'Well, we'll find out sooner or later,' Elliot commented, keeping his tone light. 'Do you have any idea where we are?' he asked, looking around.
The cell was small and dimly lit, through a thin, horizontal window, which meant that they weren't entirely underground. The sounds filtering through the window were that of nature: birds singing and a rustle of grass and leaves. Nothing particular that would tell him where they were. The cell itself was nothing particular either. It had one bed, or rather a thick, straw mat, which maybe would be big enough for the two of them to sleep on. The door was wooden but, even from the distance, Elliot could see that it was solid.
A scream echoed somewhere outside the cell, but too close for comfort. Torture chambers, Elliot thought with sickening clarity. Gilbert made a small, scared sound and he focused his attention on the terrified boy. He could see Gilbert's somewhat calm façade crumbling rapidly as another scream echoed outside the cell.
'Hey, come here,' he said and wrapped his arms around Gilbert, when the boy sat on his lap, hiding his face in Elliot's clothes. He was trembling in fear. 'It will be alright,' Elliot whispered into the black hair. 'Those idiots are mocking the Baskervilles by wearing the red cloaks and it will make the Duke angry.'
'I've never seen the Duke angry,' Gilbert mumbled. It always puzzled Elliot why he wasn't referring to the man as "father", but it was not the place and time to ask. Instead, he forced a short laugh, hoping that it didn't sound too faked.
'Duke Baskerville is awesomely scary when he gets angry,' he assured the younger boy in a light tone. 'He'll stop at nothing to punish those who make him angry either, so he'll get us out in no time,' he promised. His stomach twisted as he spoke those words, because he knew that there was a huge chance it was a lie.
'How do you know?' Gilbert asked, sounding slightly calmer than before. His trembling subsided also. Did he believe Elliot's lie? The older boy closed his eyes and delicately leaned his head against the stone wall.
'Once, just before you came to live in the manor, me and Leo sneaked into the Duke's office and he found us there,' Elliot admitted, laughing shortly at the memory. He told Gilbert that it was the most scared he has ever been, when the Duke entered the office and glared at them furiously. He and Leo have been punished for disrespecting the Duke's outright order and never even thought of visiting the office again.
'I was in a place like this before I came to live in the manor, as punishment,' Gilbert mumbled after a short moment of silence that followed Elliot's story. The latter stiffened as the meaning of those words sank in. 'Together with Vince, but we weren't there for long,' he added. Elliot hugged the younger boy tighter, feeling sick at the images his words evoked.
'I'll do everything I can so that you don't get hurt, I promise,' he whispered. 'The Duke will find us, but until then, I will protect you.' He meant to keep that promise, even if he realised that it might not be up to him, eventually.
'I don't want to see you get hurt either,' Gilbert whispered back. 'It is the worst when you see other people get hurt,' he added, sounding more serious than a ten-year-old ever should.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Elliot did the only thing he could think of: he changed the topic.
'That time when we sneaked into the Duke's office,' he said as calmly as he could. 'The Duke made me and Leo help Lacie with her rose garden. You might think that it's not a bad punishment, but have you see Lacie's rose garden?'
'It's huge,' Gilbert admitted.
'Exactly,' Elliot agreed. 'And back in those times Lacie insisted that she needed to be the one taking care of the roses because the gardeners didn't know how to do it properly. So me and Leo had to spend a week with her, learning how to trim the roses and how to weed the ground so that nothing ugly grew in the garden. It was after that week that Leo looked up gardeners and introduced them to his mother.'
'Really?' Gilbert asked, looking up slightly to judge if Elliot was lying. He wasn't.
'Really,' he assured the younger boy, smiling at the memories. 'The three first failed their trial periods and were chased away by a furious Lacie, who probably never forgave them for ruining some of the roses. However, the fourth gardener managed to make the white roses bloom more beautifully than ever and he was kept on the post.'
'Alice and Vince like the white roses best,' Gilbert said thoughtfully. 'It's good that Lacie found a gardener to make them bloom so beautifully.'
'Lacie's white roses are the most beautiful I've ever seen,' Elliot agreed easily, looking for another topic, when this one runs out. It wouldn't hurt if they had something else to think about than their current situation, at least until it was still possible.
Unfortunately, the key screeched in the lock of the door, ending their relatively peaceful moment. Elliot tightened his arms again around Gilbert, as the latter curled up closer to him, trembling again. He drew a shaky breath, forcing himself to stay calm, as the door creaked open and revealed a tall figure, wrapped in a red cloak, its face hidden in the shade of the deep hood.
'Welcome,' the figure said in a distinctly male voice that Elliot didn't recognise. 'I see that you have gotten all comfortable in our best guest cell of the torture corner,' the person laughed coldly. Elliot couldn't stop the shudder that ran down his spine.
'Silent, aren't we?' the man asked, taking a step closer. Elliot wished that he could move, but even if it wasn't for Gilbert's weight pinning him to the floor, he wasn't sure whether his head would allow any sudden movement. The man kneeled next to them, so close that he could touch them if he extended his head. 'We will hopefully change that soon, because I'm looking forward to a little chat with you,' he added, chuckling when Gilbert whimpered pathetically.
'Whatever you want,' Elliot said, forcing his tone to be firm. 'You are better off not hurting us, because there are people you don't want to make angry,' he added, wondering what has gotten into him to threaten the man.
'Is that so, little boy?' the man laughed. 'We know your worth and we know that you don't have to be intact to be worth just about everything. Alive will suffice.'
The threat in those words was obvious. Almost subconsciously, Elliot wrapped his arms tighter around Gilbert and tried to move him away, glaring hatefully, as the man extended his hand towards the boy. The man hesitated and then his hand moved to grab Elliot's hair, twisting his head painfully.
'You will regret that bravery, boy,' the man promised and pushed Elliot's head back, to collide lightly against the wall. Elliot's vision swam, stars dancing in front of his eyes.