(Author's note: italicized lines are from Shakespeare's Tempest, Prospero in a speech to Caliban.)
On the eleventh day, Channard stayed home, overseeing some improvements to his house.
Not much, only the lining of his bedroom closet with panels of iron. The workmen were efficient; Channard's specifications had been exact. When they had left, he stood inside and burned a willow-withy and a nosegay of red and black marigolds and painted the seams and rivets with their smoke and ash.
He wasn't sure how, yet, but he trusted his star. Albans would come, and he would keep him here—away from anyone who would try to steal his attention. And when his will had proven sufficiently broken—Channard looked over to the steel shackle on the chain that he himself had bolted to the foot of his iron bedframe.
He imagined all the acrobatic varieties of abasement that he would watch Tyto Albans perform here.
But when his mind was clear of the frenzy of lust, when he allowed himself to see clearly what he'd imagined, he felt… strange. Somehow, in his unguarded fantasies, he had imagined something completely different. A different flavor, a different way. He had subconsciously pictured scenes of domestic tranquility. He imagined Tyto clasping his waist fondly as he stood at the stove, scrambling eggs. Or him sitting comfortably close under his arm as he read to him from books. Or laughter, clean laughter together with no malice or irony. Not steel boxes and chains. None of that. Channard ran his hands through his hair. He slammed the newly heavy closet door shut. Seven bolts waited to be thrown. The door swung back open under its own weight. It struck him in the chest, struck the amulet he wore in his inner breast pocket. The brass barbs pricked him, the first pricklings of conscience he could remember feeling in his adult life.
What would Albans have done, or said to him, if Channard had done the only thing Albans had ever asked of him? If Channard had let his hand rise as it had wanted to do the first time they spoke together, and turn the key into the lock, setting him free?
He would have flown away, glad to be gone, Channard mused. He knew me exact in the moment he saw me, just as I knew him for what he was. He would have run, far and long, and been gone in the space of a breath. He would have found someone else to test himself against.
I'm only his equal while I'm his torturer. Channard clasped his hand tight, tight around the fold of cloth that held the amulet. He only wants pain from me. He thinks I don't have anything else worth giving. What had he said? Heights, transcendent heights of lust and pride. That was all Albans wanted from him, to watch him perform pride and lust for him. Was that what Albans had come to learn from the human world? Channard somehow doubted that among Tyto's obscure people pride and lust were undiscovered qualities. It had been something else that Tyto Albans had come to discover. Perhaps only his own strength in the face of a lust and a pride that daunted his own. But no, he'd said he was the tax, the Tiend. What had his people thought to buy with the currency of themselves?
He wouldn't have stayed if I didn't have what he needed. The pain he felt was intense. Albans needed him to be an idol of Hate. The ritual of Hate-worship was something Channard had helped him pursue, diligent as any faithful priest.
I wish it had been Love. Channard breathed out, not quite stifling a moan of despair, as he allowed himself his secret wish. Never once, not once in his life, had anyone ever loved him the way he wanted, needed to be loved. He desired it, the clasping of hands and hearts and bodies. All of his postgraduate sexual encounters had been bought and paid for, and been tepid and perfunctory as blowing his nose. Sex had been tainted by the paranoia of being caught out, disgraced, ruined. He had never been allowed even the hope of that kind of love. Then Albans had come into his life like a miracle, a creature without shame or propriety, outside the rules and laws that had made even acknowledging Channard's inclinations a frightful danger. He'd never been given another man's kiss, or his flesh, or his regard without it being paid for in money and terrible risk. Except with Albans, and he had stolen all three from his prisoner.
He drew the amulet out and looked at it, touching it the way he wished Albans would touch him, the way he'd touched Maryam Billings. Tyto still wanted this thing, wanted it as badly as if it were his heart, externalized. He'd stolen this too, but hadn't been able to steal Albans' heart. Better to crush than to woo. Better to steal than to beg.
He'd stolen because he had always been afraid to ask.
"You would never have given me anything, you son of a bitch!" Channard shouted. His voice echoed off the metal in the closet. "You never would!"
Channard squeezed, and squeezed, so that the sharp edges of the amulet ground into his palm.
Thou most lying slave, whom stripes may move, not kindness!
He had the means to draw stripes on that pale flesh, yes, with crops and canes and wands of iron and ash. The amulet gave off a whisper under his crushing hand, a whimper of pain in Albans' voice.
He didn't see any way out of this for himself. Lust and pride, that was all he had to offer that was any worth. Albans would laugh at him if he tried to ask for more; he had laughed when Channard begged for love. He would never, ever love him the way Channard truly wanted. He wanted to be tender. He wanted to be vulnerable, and he wanted to be those things without fear. Tyto Albans had promised his submission, but not his love. The only way to capture a shadow of love was by torture, pain, domestication.
He stared inside the iron box.
He saw himself there.
They were bound together on this path. They'd gone into this labyrinth together and there was beginning again. Channard would have to find the strength to see it through, to whatever end. The amulet cried out again under Channard's hand. He slapped it to the bedside table, picked up a hammer, and dealt it a terrible blow that cracked the golden spiral in two bleeding pieces.