Chapter 23: Discovered!

The cup of water Lee had given Logan before he'd untied the other knight helped allay Logan's thirst for a while, but by the time the sun rose completely the next morning he was almost dying of thirst. It was with some relief when he saw Julian stir, groaning at the feel of sleeping on the hard ground, and begin to break camp. "Water," he asked Julian. "Water fer me an' the boy." Lee's sobs had stopped soon after midnight as the pain of his bruises and the arrow wound tapered off to a dull ache, and he sagged limply in his bonds.

Julian looked at the two of them thoughtfully. "When did the boy discover where we went?" he asked Logan. "The truth might get you some water."

Logan licked his parched lips. "He saw ya leadin' my horse with me on it from the battlefield," he said. "Been followin' us since then."

Julian looked at the boy, who was beginning to stir weakly. "So he had no water since the battle yesterday?" He picked up the cup and filled it at the stream, then held it to Logan's lips. Logan drank thirstily, then withdrew his lips and jerked his head toward the boy. "Take them rags outta his mouth an' give him some too. He's gotta need it."

Julian laughed sourly. "The deal was for you. He's my property now, and I'll say when he gets water." Logan stared in horror at Lee, whose eyes were now open. The boy had heard. There was fear in those eyes, but then the boy shut down the expression on his face and replaced the fear with hatred. Logan had to give the boy credit, he sure had guts.

Julian took care of his business right in front of the boy, unbuttoning his trousers and relieving himself. Logan tried very hard not to look, not to think about how much Julian would hurt Lee when he forced the boy into physical service, but Lee had no such luxury. Julian slapped the boy's face when he was done, and then went to Logan, untying him and leading him to his horse. "Get on," Julian said savagely. "Get on unless you want me to shoot the boy again." Logan mounted.

He assumed that, since Lee was light, he'd be sharing the pack pony with Julian's things. That wasn't the case. Logan's horse's reins were tied to Julian's saddle, and the pack pony was tied to the back of Logan's saddle. Julian untied the rope from the tree and unwound the end from around the boy's legs, then tied the end of the rope to his own saddle horn. He mounted, and started his horse walking.

Logan saw the purpose as soon as the horse took three steps. Lee had been kneeling at the base of the tree all night, and his legs had gone numb from the lack of circulation. The horse walked; Lee couldn't. He was dragged along the ground with his arms pulled high up behind his back, forcing him to bend to ease the pull on his wounded shoulder. Logan noticed Julian staring at the boy's backside, still encased in dusty, dirty red breeches. Once or twice Julian pulled his foot out of the stirrup and kicked Lee hard. Logan ground his teeth.

The morning passed this way, with Julian occasionally spurring the horses into a trot just to watch the boy stumble, and then fall and be dragged along over rocky ground as his legs proved unable to keep up with the horse. When he stumbled Julian kicked him; when he fell and was dragged Julian cursed at him and struck him with a switch cut from a branch. Logan saw the boy's head hang lower and lower as the sun climbed higher in the sky, the heat beginning to tell on the boy's strength. When they came to another stream, Julian stopped and dismounted. He drank his fill from the stream as Lee crumpled to his knees, his legs too tired to hold him up anymore, and stared longingly at the cup of water. Julian yanked the rags and rope out of Lee's mouth, and the boy croaked, "Water."

"Say it."

Hatred and resentment flashed for a moment in the boy's eyes for a moment, then he dropped his eyes, defeated. "Sir Julian."

"Say 'please'," Julian's voice was oily with triumph.

"Please, Sir Julian. Water, please," Lee croaked, his head hanging. Logan stared at Julian, rage coloring his vision red. He was going to kill Julian for the humiliation he was putting the boy through.

Julian smiled. "Sure." He filled the cup with water, and grabbed the boy's hair, jerking it backward as he poured the water into the boy's mouth. It was filling his mouth too fast for him to swallow, and Lee spluttered and choked as water ran out of his mouth and soaked his chin and shirt.

Julian sneered. "Can't even drink properly." He shoved the boy's head back, and Lee yelped weakly as his head slammed against one of the horse's legs. The second part of the morning was no better, as they started to ascend the rocky foothills leading up to a valley nestled deep into the mountains. Lee had to work harder to climb up the steep inclines, and got increasingly more battered and bruised as Julian gave up trying to force the exhausted boy to stay on his feet. He simply dragged the boy over the ground, ignoring the sharp moans of pain when rocks and boulders slammed into the small body.

By the time they rode over the last hill and looked down onto Gallas's fortress nestled peacefully in a river valley, Lee was almost unconscious from exhaustion, pain, and thirst. The guard at the gate to the fortress looked askance at the boy being dragged along behind Julian's horse, at Logan's glowering, enraged face, and passed them through as he shouted orders to alert the King.

Julian dismounted in the courtyard and raised his voice. "Gallas! I have your gift from the Duke, for the master of the green serpent!"

There were footsteps, and Logan's eyes narrowed as he saw Gallas, a fat, puffing fool of a man, come out to the courtyard from the living quarters in the back. Gallas looked at Logan, his eyes quickly taking in the sight of the red uniform, dusty after two days and one night of traveling, and his eyes widened. "A gift from the Duke indeed," he said, and Logan's eyes widened. There was another traitor at the castle. There had to be. A Duke. And the Queen…the Queen was alone at court with the nobles. So that was why Julian was so sure a siege would work; he had someone inside the city gates, indeed, inside the castle walls itself, who would throw open the gates and invite the usurper in. Richard would never see his Queen, or his throne, again.

They had to escape. He and the boy had to escape, and warn Richard. But how? One look at the boy lying in the dust at Julian's horse's feet and Logan knew that until the boy recovered they weren't going anywhere. He couldn't leave without the boy. If he left Lee here Gallas would surely kill him, whether he was promised to Julian or not.

"This is Sir Logan," Julian was explaining to the King. "The Queen's spy among the nobles and the knights."

The Queen's spy? Logan bit back the smile. Lee was the Queen's spy. But they didn't know that. And Logan had to keep them from finding that out, because if they found out Lee was the spy, he would be killed. Slowly, and probably painfully. Logan couldn't allow that. He kept his mouth shut.

"Who's this?" Gallas nudged Lee with a foot. The boy moaned at the touch on his shoulder, but made no other sound.

"Sir Logan's squire," Julian smiled at Gallas. "The Duke must have informed you that the price of my cooperation with you was this boy."

"Ah," Gallas said. "Yes, I had heard that. Guards!" He snapped his fingers, and four guards came forward, saluting. "Take the man and the boy to the dungeons. I'll be taking refreshment with Sir Julian, and then we'll be down to interrogate the prisoners. And inform the dungeon master to prepare the torture chamber for these two."

Julian protested. "My King, the boy is supposed to be mine…"

"Oh, he will be, he will be," Gallas said affably. "But I think maybe the knight would be more…forthcoming with the information…if the boy were placed in harm's way, hmm? And I know your tastes, Sir Julian. I haven't forgotten that little incident with the court jester's boy. Do you remember? He might have been a peasant, true, but those kinds of marks on a corpse do raise some interesting questions…" his voice trailed off as the guards hustled Logan and Lee down a set of dank spiraling stairs, going downward until they reached a long corridor with cells on either side.

Lee stumbled along, dazed and only half-aware of his surroundings. Logan, on the other hand, was nauseatingly aware of everything around him. He saw the men and women in the cells, chained like animals, unclothed and covered with festering insect and rat bites. He saw the marks of lashes on the women's bodies, the look of dull terror they cast in the direction of the guards, and he did his level best not to look into one cell where a guard was openly and unashamedly raping a woman on her hands and knees in front of two other guards. He felt a surge of pity for the woman, who was shrieking in agony and promising anything if they would stop using her body in such a manner.

They shoved him into a cell finally, pushing him to a sitting position and shackling his wrists above his head to the cold stone with metal cuffs. They did the same to Lee, eliciting an agonized groan from the boy as the act of raising his arms put strain on the wounded shoulder, then turned and left the cell. The barred door closed with a clang, and they left.

There was a single barred window, high in the wall, and a weak, watery sun filtered down into the cell. In its light he could see the filth crusted on the floor, the original stone covered by dirt and other unnamable substances trodden into the floor by a number of feet. He saw the mold on the walls, and shuddered, hoping the boy didn't contract an infection in that shoulder.

The sun was almost gone when the sound of a creaking door and then shuffling footsteps announced the arrival of Gallas and Julian. Lee, who had fallen into a light doze, stirred weakly and looked up as the door to their cell opened and Gallas, Julian, and three soldiers came in. Gallas looked them over. "Strip them both," he said.

Logan kicked as the first guard approached him. He might not have had the use of his arms, but he did have his feet, and those did plenty of damage. Finally one soldier caught one of his ankles, and the second soldier caught his other ankle. The third man used his knife to slash at Logan's breeches until the seams parted company, and Logan experienced a pang of regret as they were tossed aside Lee had spent so much time repairing them…

The two soldiers continued to hold his feet as the third slit Logan's tunic from neck to navel with his knife, then slashed at the sleeves until Logan was clad in nothing but the linen undergarment around his loins. "Shall we leave him that, Your Majesty?" the guard asked.

Gallas shook his head. "The other prisoners go naked, so will they. Take it all off." Logan's undergarment came off and was tossed into the pile with the rest of his clothing, and he was left sitting against the wall nude. He faced them proudly, trying not to let his nakedness bother him.

Lee kicked out and shrieked as the soldiers turned to him. "Yer Majesty," Logan called, alarmed, "The boy's religious beliefs don't allow fer public nudity!"

Gallas smiled unpleasantly. "All the more reason he should be nude. Continue," he said to the guards. The soldier stepped forward, but Lee's feet were flying too fast for him to get a grip on. The boy struggled, yelling incoherently, fighting their grip, until the soldier finally brought a handful of cloth up to gag the boy's mouth.

Lee bit him.

The soldier cursed, grabbing his bleeding hand, and the second soldier stepped up. He slapped Lee hard across the mouth, sending the boy's head cracking backward against the stone wall. Dazed, the boy just moaned as the soldier pressed a knife to the hollow of the boy's throat and slowly sliced down the tunic.

And to the complete shock of everyone in the cell, including Logan, when the hem of the shirt fell open, sliced apart by the knife, the curves of breasts showed through.

Julian was the first one to break out of his stunned daze. He reached forward, cursing, and ripped the shirt away, exposing full, pale breasts with nipples that pebbled immediately in the cool air of the dungeon. "HE'S A GIRL!"

Enraged, he grabbed the knife from the soldier, using it to rip through Lee's breeches. Logan closed his eyes and leaned his head back as the cloth fell away from narrow hips, exposing definitely feminine curves on top and a deep, shadowed v between the pale thighs. Lee was a girl, not a boy. He had lied to Logan.

Lee's head was up now, and his…her…eyes were staring at Logan with a mute apology in them. Logan looked into those big blue eyes, wondering how he could have ever mistaken them for boy's eyes, and gave them a cold, furious glare before turning his head away. "Your Majesty," he said, in shock, 'I didn't know my squire was a girl."

Julian snatched the rags out of the girl's mouth. "So who are you?" he spat. "What's your real name?"

"Jubilation Lee," she told him, defeat in her voice. "My parents called me Jubilee."

Gallas stared. "I have never had this happen before," he said. "Goodness. Julian, do you still want this…squire?"

"Sure," Julian had recovered from his shock, and now his eyes were gleaming as he reached out and touched the breasts. "A girl is just a boy with an extra hole and two more sensitive places to torture." Logan watched as Lee—Jubilee--flinched at his crude words.

"Let's wait and see,' Gallas said soothingly. "Let's see if she can persuade Logan to be more informative. Let's try him first." He signaled to the guards, and said, "Take him to the torture chamber. If he doesn't tell us what we want to know we'll take the girl tomorrow. Not that the girl knows anything, but possibly when he sees her coming back bleeding and broken he'll reconsider keeping any information."

"NO!" Jubilee's head came up, away from the wall. "Please, don't hurt him, please, I'll do anything, but please don't hurt him…" Gallas slapped her, hard, and turned and left the cell. The three guards followed, leading Logan, who refused to look at Jubilee as he left the room.

The door to the torture chamber sat at the end of the rows of cells, and as Gallas pushed the door open, a wave of heat and an almost palpable stench of blood and terror wafted out.

Jubilee's head whipped around as she heard the sound of men's footsteps dragging something heavy along the floor approaching. She gasped and cried out in horror as they dragged in a limp body so covered with blood and bruises that she barely recognized it as Logan. They didn't even bother shackling him to the wall; there was no way this bloodied wreck of a man could try to escape.

"Please!" Jubilee gathered her courage and let go of her pride enough to beg. "Please, I won't try to escape, please free my hands so I can take care of him. Please!"

Gallas, standing outside the cell, laughed. "Go ahead," he said. "She's only a pitiful little wench. Not a real challenge for anyone. And if she can get him cleaned up and recovered a little, we can have more fun with him tomorrow." He gestured. "Jailer! Fetch a bucket of water!"

The guards shoved a bucket of water into the cell with her, and Jubilee went to the corner, picking up some of the torn cloth from their uniforms and dipping it in the water. Working carefully, trying to avoid causing him any more pain, she pillowed his head on her lap and sobbed as she gently wiped the blood and sweat from his torn, mutilated body.

They had tortured him, mercilessly and at length, she saw as she turned him over to clean his back and shoulders. The welts from the whips would leave marks for weeks, and he was going to be in a lot of pain. Stifling her sobs, she continued to clean him. She had to bite her lip as she turned him back over to clean between his thighs and on down his legs and feet, and what she saw made her suck in her breath sharply. She'd long wondered, dreamed, about what he'd feel like sheathed between her legs; well, after what they had done to him, she doubted she'd ever have that particular pleasure.

Not that I'd have a chance of having him in my bed anyway, she thought as she pulled a large piece of his tunic over that part of his anatomy. I saw his face when he found out…when my breasts popped out of my breast band. He's enraged. I lied to him, and he'll probably never get over that. He didn't even look at me when he left. She sat there with his head pillowed in her lap as the cool air of night crept into the cell. Ah, God or Goddess, whoever it is out there, please answer me. In my pursuit of revenge, did I just destroy any chance I had of making the man I love happy?

But no answers were forthcoming. She sat there as darkness closed in and she could no longer see the man who lay on the floor before her, stroking his sweat-soaked black hair and praying for strength to survive her own upcoming ordeal.

Author's note: If you want to discuss my story with me or have concerns about anythingI write, please feel free to visit my new authordiscussion forums at:
http/jaenellesfirstc.11. I will post advance notice of new stories before they are posted here, post excerpts to forthcoming stories, brainstorm ideas, and keep my fans updated as to the status of works-in-progress!I hope to see you there! Thank you! ----Jaenelle