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The pit

In confusion the coachman had asked me several times if I actually wanted to be brought to the Newgate prison. Understandably he just couldn´t imagine why a lady wanted to go to this place and as I had left the carriage, paid the friendly man and looked after his wagon long ago, I shortly asked myself if I had made the right decision. In front of me towered the impervious walls of the prison on which scattered redcoats patrolled. This wasn´t a pleasant place and never in my life I could have imagined to come nearer as necessary to it one day. But now I was here and I wouldn´t shy away.

With a few hand movements, I twitched at my neckline, rolled the thin fabric up, Lander had made it smaller with and in doing so, I restored its old, more slinky form.
What a woman has to do in these days...
I sighed deeply before I opened my parasol, put it over my shoulder and approached the main gate of the prison with slow, deliberate steps. It was several metres wide and high but a little door was integrated in it, on which I knocked now. I had no idea how you normally entered a prison if you were no prisoner. At least visitors weren´t welcome. But it seemed like I had to test it.

Tensed I waited before I heard something clatter behind the door and a small hold in the wood was opened. Through it a guard looked at me, first angry but then curious. It was obvious that women were rarely standing in front of these gates, especially without company.
"Miss? Can I help you?"
I smiled my brightest smile and nodded. "I hope it. You know, it´s a bit difficult..." I bit onto my lower lip and began, apparently unpleasantly moved, to play with the handle of my parasol. "I would like to see the prisoner who´s charged with the murder of Judge Pellmore."
The eyes of the man widened and even though I could only see them, he seemed to be frowning. "I´m sorry, Miss. But we can´t let everyone in and to the prisoners. Especially not to such a murderer."
I made a step to the door, put a hand onto the wood and looked into his eyes with a plangent gaze.
"Do you know Richard Jarvis?"
"Yes...of course..." His eyes widened. "You´re his niece? I think that I have seen you before in his house. You need to know..." He glanced over his shoulder, as if he wanted to make sure that no one except of me was listening. "I belong to the order, too. Not a high rank but...well...the high gentlemen are relying on me."

He actually seemed to be feeling quite important with that information and I liked to play his game, too. My eyes widened, happily surprised and I took another step towards the door.
"Oh, so I came to the right man then. I know that you´re fulfilling an important task in keeping criminals away from our beautiful city. That´s incredibly brave of you."
Oh yes, my words seemed to please him. A sparkle appeared in his eyes but I became a bit more serious now. "But I hope that someone like you could help me because of that. You should know that this...monster had killed my so beloved uncle. The last piece of family I had."
I lowered my eyes as if I had to fight against the tears. Suddenly the man seemed to be unpleasantly moved. "That´s...I´m sorry for you, Miss. It must have been terrible for you."
I nodded, quietly sobbing and kept my gaze lowered. "I´m still not completely over this loss and I hoped that...that it could help if I would look into this man´s face. If I can see that he got what he deserves."
"Well, I do understand, Miss. But unfortunately I can´t..."
"Please!" I raised my head and looked at him imploringly now. There were even tears shimmering in my eyes and I nearly admired myself for that. When had I started to be such an actress?
"Please, I´m begging you. I need it for my peace of mind. Nobody must learn about it. Lead me to him and I will leave immediately again."

I blinked the tears away and gave him a smile again now while I started to play with my necklace. "You would be certain of my gratitude."
I saw how his eyes widened for a moment and then, through the small hold, led by my hand on my neck, they peered down to my neckline. I heard him swallowing and he actually seemed to be rattled. Then he glanced, like he did before, over his shoulder and winked at me. He closed the hold and while I heard him working at the locks, I squinched up my face. A few days ago I had been complaining about being dressed like a prostitute and now I was offering myself like one.
Lord, please don´t let it be for nothing.

When the door opened, I had put on my bright smile again and the guard waved me in. He also wore a red uniform like his comrades, was around my age. Small, gaunt, with a from pimple-scars branded face. He was not quite handsome and I felt almost sorry for him but I wished that I could slap him as he looked me over with an obvious lustful gaze. I hoped imploringly that there was no woman who had to endure this creep by her side.
"We really have to hurry", he said now and pushed me, a hand on my hip, over the courtyard towards the main entrance. "At the moment it´s change of guards. That´s why the posts are not manned. So we can easily go past them. I wouldn´t like to explain why I let a lady inside."
Because you´re debauchee. That´s why.
"I thank you. I really don´t want to trouble someone." My smile was still bright and he seemed to be satisfied with himself when he saw it.
"Don´t worry about it, Miss. It´s my pleasure to help."

He led me into the main building and through several corridors. Everything was cold, completely bald and I shivered inwardly with the noises. The hollow sounding of metal bars someone beat against. Shouts of different men´s voices, the whistles of prisoners when we went past their cells and detached cries of pain. I imagined the sound of hell being like that. But I tried to suppress my discomfort, memorised every hallway, every peculiarity we passed. Surprisingly we actually me nobody and if there were steps on the hallway anyway, my companion indicated to me in time to hide in a niche until the danger to be detected was over.

The guard really made no pretence of how he was imagining my gratitude for his help. Again and again I felt his hand on my hip and as I once almost took the wrong branch-off, he grabbed my arm and his hand grazed my breast in this action, like it had been accidentally. I just wanted to beat him or kick him where it hurt the most but I pulled myself together. I kept smiling, laughed about his more than bad jokes and thought of that I did all of that to help Connor and goddamn, he had to wrap up well if it wasn´t worth it.
But when the man finally led me down a broad stairway, I began to have an uneasy feeling and I stopped at the landing. "It´s going down there?", I asked sceptically and got a comforting smile.
"We´re calling it "the pit". It´s where the criminals, who have to expect the worst punishment, are. Solitary confinement, Darkness, no short releases and what else the custodial judges come up with."
Shortly a filthy grin crinkled his lips which made me shiver. I didn´t want to know what was hiding behind this last part of the sentence. But whether I liked it or not, I had to follow him.

We went downstairs into the darkness and now I really began to feel chilly. The corridor was long, only enlightened by some torches and the lattice doors of the cells shimmered bluntly in the faint light. The guard went to a wall, took a big bunch of keys from there and unlocked the lattice door, which was leading to the corridor.
"You´re just keeping the keys here?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Actually we aren´t allowed to, because of the safety. But what the director doesn´t know..." Grinning he winked at me. "To ask for the right keys everywhere is exhausting in the long run."
He indicated to me to go on and with my heart beating wildly I walked into the corridor. The silence here was interrupted by plaint and quiet whimper from time to time and I felt how it made my hair stand on end as I thought of what the prisoners had to suffer here. This wasn´t a place where you should stay for long.

The guard led me through the corridor and the whole time I had to make me not to have a look into the cells and to the figures inside of them. They were hardly visible in the twilight but I could see that they were either cowering in a corner or curled up on the shabby mattresses. I almost believed that this terrible corridor would never come to an end but then my companion stopped in front of one of the cells and pointed into it.
"There he is and as you can see: He can´t get anywhere."
I felt how my pulse quickened again. I was afraid of what was expecting me with a look into the cell. What they probably had done to Connor. Slowly I stepped next to guard, looked into the cell and it tore my heart into pieces.

There stood...or better to say, hanged Connor, the arms tied up over his head and pulled up with a chain. His knees had already buckled and so he hanged with his whole weight on his arms, the head sunken onto his bare chest, because he wore nothing more than his linen-trousers. His body trembled from time to time and I myself had to pull myself together convulsively to keep a straight face. But I winced as a loud clash sounded directly beside my ear.
"Hey, sweetheart. Wake up, you have a visitor."
The guard had dashed the bunch of keys against the metal bars and looked to Connor with a nasty grin. Connor just lifted his head slowly. In the twilight and from my position I could barely see his face, but I felt that he was looking at me, before his head sank back to his chest.

"I hope that I could reassure you. This savage won´t harm anyone again."
The guard smiled at me and had laid a hand on my back again. He couldn´t guess how much I wanted to scratch his eyes out. How much he grossed me. But I had to swallow all of that and nod.
"Thank you", I said and my hand moved to my ear, which was directed to him, as if I wanted to play with my jewellery there. But I faltered and opened my eyes wide.
"Oh no!" I took my hand down and in hectic I looked to the ground.
"What´s wrong?"
"I think I´ve lost my earring somewhere. It must be here, I had it just now."
The gentleman started to have a look around the ground, too. Completely eager to help me. But as soon as he had turned away from me, I grabbed the handle of my parasol tightly and struck it against his temple. I put all my strength into this strike so that the wood of the parasol uttered a snap, but the poor man really slumped down dizzily.

Surprised myself, that I had been able to knock him out, I tipped him shortly and as he moved a bit, I hit him again. This time he remained motionless and I squinched up my face.
"Excuse me, but next time you shouldn´t simply have a look on a lady´s neckline. So you could have noticed that I´m not wearing any earrings."
I was a bit sorry for him, how he was laying there unconscious, but I couldn´t deny that I felt satisfaction. Nevertheless I checked with shaking hands, if he was still alive. I hadn´t wanted to kill him but only knock him out. But he was alive and I sighed in relief before I took the bunch of keys out of his droopy hand and hectically I started to test one key after another on the lock of the door.

I barely could grab the keys, so strong was the tremble of my hands. I was totally tensed and also in panic. Not only because I could be detected but also because of Connor´s condition.
When the lock gave a clicking noise at last, I sent up a quick prayer before I pushed the door open and approached Connor with hurried steps. Carefully I laid my hands around his face and lifted his head. "Connor? Can you hear me?"
My voice was shaking and I wasn´t even sure if the half native was conscious. Only his breath, which was heavy and intermittent, proofed that there was still rudimentary life inside of him.
"Connor?"
No reaction and I felt how the tears were rising into my eyes. Now that I stood in front of him, the whole extent of his condition became aware to me.

His face was beaten black and blue. He was bleeding from a wound on his temple and lip and his left eye was totally swollen. His torso was also covered with bruises but worst of all were the bleeding wounds on his back. It looked like they had struck at him with a whip.
"What have they done to you?", I whispered and a tear ran down my cheek while I tried to wake Connor with gentle pats against his harmed cheeks. I barely dared to touch him. I didn´t want to cause him even more pain and furthermore I was afraid of the unnatural heat which came from his body. It was cold down here but when I touched Connor´s forehead, I felt that it was almost burning.
He has fever.
I bit my lower lip and started another try to get Connor back into consciousness. I needed to bring him out of here even though I had no idea how I should do that. Surely he wasn´t able to walk.

"Connor, please! Do you hear me?"
No reaction.
"Connor?"
Still nothing.
"Ratonhnhaké:ton!"
My tongue stumbled over the name but my voice was even more energetic as I even began to shake his shoulders so that the chains over his head started to rattle. But I hesitated when I heard a murmur. His voice was weak and quiet, his head was lowered again. But he had said something!
"What?" Again I took his face between my hands and as I lifted it, I saw that he had opened his unscathed eye.
"You are...emphasizing it...wrong."
I frowned and opened my mouth in confusion to say something, as he kept talking.
"My...name. Ratonhnhaké:ton. You are emphasizing it...entirely wrong."
First my answer was a blunt blink before I shook my head with a light smirk. "If that´s your only concern..."

I picked up the bunch of keys, I had dropped before and started the game with the search for the right key again but now I tried to open the chains around Connor´s wrists. He uttered a groan as I moved his arms a bit too much with my efforts and I bit my lower lip. He must be under torturous pain and this unnatural position...I began to develop an enormous anger about Gardner and his men. Obviously they had enjoyed it to torture Connor and to humiliate him. It hadn´t been enough that they had caught him.
A snap sounded when I found the right key for the chains and an ice cold scare ran through me, as Connor sank with his knees to the ground as soon as his arms were free. Just in time I could kneel and catch him, before he could hit the ground with his face first.
"Connor?"

Seeing him so weak filled me with panic and I kept holding him as he propped himself up on his trembling arms and with that he tried to take his weight from my arms. But a single tremble seized his body before he collapsed again. I put his arm over my shoulder and heaved him into a kneeling position at least. He hadn´t the strength to sit up alone. Connors breath was still shallow and irregular but he turned his head and looked at me.
"You should not...be here", he uttered between clenched teeth and even though his voice was weak, I could hear clearly this tone he always used if something wasn´t convenient for him. Reproachful, firm.
"But I am. Be annoyed later. We need to bring you out of here and to a doctor." I laid an arm around him, whereupon I was careful not to touch the wounds on his back and tried to lift myself on my feet with him. I did it, but now Connor´s whole weight laid upon my shoulders and I gasped as my knees started shaking.
"Let...me...", growled Connor and his weight was suddenly taken from my shoulders as he freed himself from my grasp.

He stood staggeringly, his face squinched up in pain but he tried to make a step forward. His legs buckled and with a groan he fell to the ground again. This time I couldn´t have hold him and appalled I sank down to my knees next to him. He was laying on his belly, breathing heavily and obviously struggling for his consciousness. His unscathed eye opened and closed again and again.
"Connor." I grabbed his shoulders and managed it to pull him up but he hit at my hands and appalled I let him go again.
"Leave!", he snapped at me and sank with his shoulder against the stone wall next to him. "Leave, before somebody sees you here."
I recoiled as if he had beaten me and stared at him. His whole body was trembling, his face was mask of pain and anger. He appeared like a wounded animal which didn´t let anybody come nearer. But if he thought that he could impress me with that, he was wrong.

I wouldn´t ignore his condition and turn my back on him. Not after I had come so far. Not after I had found him.
"I won´t leave you alone here", I said slowly and ignored the shake of the head of the wounded assassin. "Do you know actually, what I have taken on myself just to come here." I pointed to the on the ground laying guard and a bitter smile crimped my lips. "I have done myself up like a prostitute, was grabbed by him and on top of everything, I broke my beautiful parasol. Don´t think that I would leave you here after all these sacrifices."
Connor turned his head towards me so that he could look at me with his unscathed eye. I couldn´t read what was in his gaze but I moved a bit closer to him.
"I admit, I don´t know how we can get you out of here but...I won´t leave you alone." My voice was quiet and there was a tremble in it again but I hoped that Connor would see how serious I was about it. He was still looking at me and seemed to be struggling with himself. But even if he should contradict me, he wouldn´t make me leave this cell without him. Shortly he opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something but then his look turned to a spot behind me and with a jerky movement he unsuccessfully tried to straighten up.

Confused I looked at him as I was suddenly grabbed at my arm and torn up. Appalled I cried out and as I was ruggedly pressed against the iron bars, I looked directly into a pair of ice blue eyes.
"I must have been mistaken when I said that you´re a sensible girl." Gardner´s voice was nothing more than a growl and my chest was narrowed by panic. I hadn´t heard him coming. Neither him, nor the two men who entered the cell behind him and tore Connor up. Each one of them held one of his arms and the assassin tried with might and main to defend himself. Unsuccessfully.
"Let her go. She has nothing to do with it."
Gardner gave the assassin a sneering look over his shoulder before he turned to me again, my arm in a painful, firm grip.

"I see it different. I thought my message to you had reached its aim. I thought you were smart but now I have to see that you´re sneaking in here and try to free this savage. Mind you, a ridiculous try and on top of that...treason." With his last word he let my arm go, just to put his hand around my neck and press my head against the iron bars. I gasped in scare and a choking noise escaped my throat as I couldn´t take a proper breath. Breathing shallowly and in panic I looked into Gardner´s face, which was lined with grim satisfaction in face of my fear.
"I would have never thought that I could ever be that disappointed about you. I thought that I would be your friend. I thought that you were at least as affectionate to me as I am to you. But instead..." His grab became firmer. "You´re colluding with this bastard. What have I done to deserve this, Lillian?"
He cocked his head, a bitter smile on his face. He actually seemed to be waiting for an answer but I grasped his hand and tried to loosen the grab of his fingers before I said: "The only bastard I´m seeing here, is you."

Gardner´s eyes narrowed but he laughed quietly before he let my neck loose. In an instant I gasped for breath, coughed and put my hand to my neck while Gardner turned, with a grim look, halfway to Connor, who tried to stay afoot, his lips pinched.
"Did you hear that?", Gardner asked quietly, almost growling. "How she defended you? Did you..." His voice rose to a roar and he gestured wildly towards his men. "...hear how this false woman has offended me in front of this bastard?"
He turned to me again and before I could notice it, he had slapped me into the face.

I fell back against the iron bars and sank to my knees, my eyes widened with scare and my hand pressed against my cheek. Something wet and warm ran slowly against my fingers and down my cheek. I winced as I felt a small, bleeding wound underneath my eye. Gardner had hit me so hard that his ring had torn my skin open. The templar stood in front of me, totally calm again, and looked down at me disapprovingly. As if I was nothing more than an insect at his feet.
"I did hope that it won´t come to that. But obviously you don´t want it different. If you really wish to be here, then..." He made a wide gesture towards the cell. "...I welcome you in your temporary home. It will be my pleasure and pain at the same time, to see you hang next to this bastard."

He turned to Connor and cocked his head while he stepped to the half native, who stared at him with a hateful expression.
"Maybe it´s even good, that she´s here. Maybe you´re now willing to tell me what I want to know."
"Keep her out of it."
Gardner laughed quietly. "Oh, it´s too late for that. But just think about it. If you stick to your statement that you don´t know where it is, she will be the one who has to suffer instead of you. So...think about it."
Without deigning to look at Connor or me again, Gardner left the cell and signed to his men. One of them grinned, beat Connor with his fist into the stomach so that he writhed in pain and the other one pushed him carelessly against the wall. Then they sneering left the cell, locked the door behind them and dragged their unconscious comrade with them before they disappeared.

Hastily I crawled to Connor, who leaned gasping and with a distorted expression against the wall.
"Connor", I said quietly and laid my hands on his forearms. Just slowly he raised his head and looked at me with glassy eyes.
"You are...bleeding", he murmured before his head sank against the wall. With shaking hands I embraced his face, tried to wake him but he had already lost his consciousness. I didn´t care about what Gardner had threatened. I didn´t care that I was now locked-in here, too. My only concern was about Connor, whose body was consistently trembling. Even his lips struck together, but his skin was still heating.
"That´s not good", I murmured, kneeled behind Connor and pulled him gently into a laying position, bed his head on my lap and took care that his wounded back touched the ground as little as possible. But I was helpless anyway. I couldn´t do something to help him, to ease the pain or to reduce the fever.
"I´m sorry", I whispered and the tears started to run down my cheeks. I had wanted to help him but instead, I had made everything even worse.