Lee Scoresby had been beaten on two distinct occasions during all the years of his life. Not beaten as in losing a card game, or even coming off worse in a fight, because that happened too numerous to count, and at that point whether or not someone is 'beaten' often comes down to mindset. There are some who find wins even in their losses just as there are some who see a loss even when they win. Lee Scoresby had a winning mindset. Being beaten is something else entirely. It's having all the fight taken away and just taking the pain.
The first time that happened to Lee Scoresby, he was thirteen, Hester had only just settled as an arctic hare (they did not even know she was an arctic hare yet, just that she was big for a jackrabbit), at the age where boys are learning to be men. It's a rough time for most boys and Lee was no different.
He was a lot like Lyra in some ways, good at making friends but not adverse to a good fight. Had Lyra and Lee somehow managed to meet as children, they would have recognized a kindred soul. And though Texas was a far cry from Oxford, it had its own childhood wars. It also had its own alliances, the biggest in Lee's neck of the woods being loneliness because it was a far cry from the city where companions of one's age could be met in every quarter. It was not that the country lacked children so much as that the country was a pretty big place, and there were times when a boy could wander for hours and find no one for so much as a simple two person card game, let alone getting up enough for a ball game or king of the mountain. Even having five or six siblings was no guarantee of finding a ready companion, not if two were working the field and one was sent on an errand and the other had made herself scarce to avoid the errand and the last was out fishing.
Peter Delacroix could not be said to be Lee's friend. Their social circles were too different for such a claim. Peter was a boy of the town, if that word could be applied to a row of buildings that took up less space than a cow took to pasture. There were all the necessary government buildings, several doubling up, then those businesses necessary for the running of farms, and precious little else. If one encircled the space to include the school and the church and the old fort, which were not on that strip but off on their own, the town was a more decent size, but then mostly made up of empty space, and mostly those places were still considered country. Lee was from the country, through and through, and a small acre at that.
Then there was the fact that Lee was of Danish ancestry (with maybe some Navajo in there, sometime back, when it was still thought shameful and hidden so no one could know for sure). Peter had Danish in him too, but his name made it all too obvious his French roots. Whenever the boys got up a game of Alamo, Peter was unanimously voted to be on the French side, no matter which side Peter wanted to play (and being told he had to be French was enough to make anyone want to be the other side). Lee always played the Dane, with no argument from anyone, and was known to shout, "It's Pierre the Frenchman, run!" when he saw Peter coming. On the other hand, Lee also was known to say 'He can be an honorary Dane if he wants to'. This, from a proud town boy's perspective, was not accepted as an overture of friendship so much as a condensation and only made him less friendly towards Lee.
Generally, their boyhood squabbles ended in black eyes and bloody grins and 'you shoulda seen the other guy'. But now Lee was thirteen, and Peter was fourteen, and daemons had settled and lines had shifted.
"What were you doing with our Lacy?" Peter demanded one day, backed by two of his friends and his younger brother. Lacy being his sister, who Lee had spent most of his life scornful of for exactly the same reasons he scorned Peter.
What Lee had done with Lacy was to see her crying behind the schoolhouse one day. The schoolhouse was already neutral territory in their skiffs, and Lee generally never liked seeing a person cry. Lee was inclined to give the girl privacy, but Hester had already crept up to talk to Ulysses, not quite settled yet but mostly these days taking the form of a bird.
It was the first time Lee had ever noticed that Lacy was pretty and that made him want to sit close to her and wipe away her tears and make her smile. It would be some long years before he would come to terms with liking women but not wanting anything more from them than maybe a chaste kiss or to run his fingers against soft skin, soft hair, basking in their loveliness. Anyway, nothing more than handholding and maybe a chaste kiss was expected from those his age.
"What do you want, Lee Scoresby," Lacy had demanded, wiping her own eyes, and sounding utterly miserable.
"Did someone hurt you?" demanded Lee, "Because I'll hurt them back, if they did."
"Damn straight," affirmed Hester, which made Lacy giggle and Ulysses flitted down to take the form of a cat and rub against the daemon.
"No one did nothing," Lacy said, and then, "Don't you ever look ahead and just wish everything different?"
Lee had absolutely no idea what Lacy was talking about. If he 'looked ahead' at all, it was to imagine being a man, and staggering around with a six shooter, ready to fight off bandits, and likely working his own bit of land. That seemed a glorious thing to Lee, and nothing to cry over, unless it was that he was not yet grown.
"I suppose I can't get a boy and his jackrabbit to understand," Lacy said, voice full of the kind of scorn that would normally have Lee and Hester bristling and ready for a comeback. Only Lacy still looked so sweet, and so tragic, that Lee couldn't. Ulysses flitted as a bird again, fluttering up as high as he dared before dropping back to Lacy's shoulder. "We want to go to the city, a real city, with…oh…everything. Lights that stay on all night, and…and theater…and people crowded in thick and everything to do and no one talks about you staying in the same old town and marrying one of the same stupid boys you've known all your life and have children and doing nothing and seeing nothing."
"Well," said Lee, who had never thought such thoughts in his entire life but who immediately saw the appeal of travel, "Well why not go then? You could…you could hide out with the migrants when they move on 'til you reach a town with a train station and then ride it 'til you reach the city and there you will be!"
The very idea of such an adventure stirred his blood, and he did not know in the least why Lacy gave him such a pitying look.
"Is that your big plan, Lee Scoresby? And how am I meant to eat? And what work am I good for when I get there? And anyway, how do I fight off bandits or who knows what on the way?"
"Can't you shoot a pistol?" Lee asked in turn, swaggering a bit as only a thirteen-year-old boy can who just learned to shoot himself and pitied those who had yet to obtain that skill.
"My pa says that en't for little girls," Lacy answered.
The end result was a series of very secret lessons that meant Lee and Lacy were noticed to sneak off together.
Lee would rather die than give Lacy away to her brothers and his friends. On the other hand, there was four of them, and three were older and bigger. Lee expected to come off the worst, but he meant to fight.
The other boys didn't let him fight, though. Their grievance, they felt, called for vengeance, not settlement. Almost before Lee understood the danger, the bigger of them had Lee's arms behind his back, and his bull terrier had a hold on Hester, and Lee was held in place, defenseless, for the other three to exact their vengeance.
There's no knowing how far it would have gone. Lee had never faced such pure vitriol before, and he felt something he never knew he could feel facing other boys: fear for his very life. Fists lit into Lee from three directions at once and he wasn't allowed to fend them off or fight back or even run away, and he couldn't even use his voice because one of them had socked him in the stomach and it's simply not possible to talk when that is happening.
It got broken up before the boys took it further than could ever be taken back, because Lacy Delacroix launched a stone at Jamie Lloyd, and having gained attention shouted vitriol and scorn enough to stop all four boys in their shouts. Ulysses stood at her side, a growling, snarling wolf.
"And if you don't leave off I'ma gonna get pa's pistol and I'll shoot you down, kin or no kin. You just leave Lee Scoresby alone!"
"You never even held a pistol before," Peter answered, full of vitriol and scorn himself.
"That's what you think," she said. "Lee learned me all there is to know and I'm a better shot than you any day. Just you tell them, Lee."
Had Lee Scoresby been older and more mature, he'd have admired her like nothing else in that moment. Being thirteen, feeling half killed, and humiliated like never in his life before, Lee Scoresby felt less than grateful to be saved by a girl whose daemon hadn't even settled yet.
"I don't need no help fighting no French boys," Lee had answered, instead of 'Sure she can shoot,' like, for years later, he wished he had. And, having escaped their hold in the distraction, he grabbed up Hester and ran away, half limping and half blind with blood running down his face.
For a month after, he heard talk of the time Lee Scoresby was beat up (not, he got in a fight, it was always, 'got beat up') and was saved by a girl. It did not help matters that, thanks to her intervention, it got back to Lee's dad that Lee had been 'borrowing' his pistol to 'show off for a girl'. It would take years for Lee Scoresby to understand the situation in terms other than 'complete humiliation'.
Being beaten is never just painful because of something so trivial and fleeting as pain.
That is not to say the pain, in and of itself, is not phenomenal.
Lee Scoresby was not a thirteen-year-old boy anymore.
They cut away his shirt and took him from the storage shack and dragged him to the metal pole and attached new shackles to his wrists that held his arms up above his head, and he was not nearly naïve enough to not guess the direction this was going.
They had taken the gag but not the blindfold. He couldn't see what implement they intended to use, but he knew there was one; a whip maybe, or a cane. Hester could have told him, but Hester was not saying anything and Lee did not ask.
"How many," said a voice, one of the men who hadn't been acting as Lee's guard.
"Until his friends come for him," answered the Captain, and then, "Or until he's dead."
That was all the warning that Lee got before the first strike against his back.
He knew it was coming, because what else could they be talking about in the current situation, but it still came as a shock and he cried out in spite of himself. He still didn't know what was hitting him, just that it hit hot and hard and most certainly left its mark. It hurt.
The first had been across his shoulders, the second lower down. This time he did manage to contain his reaction. He might not have Iorek's keen insight into whatever trap was cooked up, but he understood well enough his own role in it, and he did not wish to give them anything that would aid their cause.
Lee's lip was bleeding on the third hit, because he bit it to contain his scream.
The strikes were spaced out; likely they wanted him to feel the full brunt of each one instead of letting them all blend together. Or they wanted to prolong it as much as possible; had they come on hard and fast it wouldn't take much for 'until he's dead' to be the outcome. This way they could work him over for an age before he inevitably succumbed to the beating.
The next three came across the previous strikes, and blood ran down his chin (down his back), but he still did not cry out. He did not want to burden Iorek and Lyra with his pain. He did not want to imagine them out there, knowing Lee Scoresby to be beaten.
By the tenth, Hester was clawing at the bottom of her cage. Normally she would be screaming at this point; curses, maybe even some begging because daemons did not have a human's sense of pride, not when it came to hurting their human. She didn't shout now though, just clawed uselessly against metal.
In the part of Lee's mind not preoccupied by pain, and humiliation, and fear (for himself, for his friends), and anger, the man wondered if Hester meant to ever speak again, after that last hour when every miniscule sound ended in Lee being hurt.
Mostly, Lee wondered how long he could withstand without making a noise himself, how long he could simply keep standing.
A particularly brutal lash across already split skin raised a low moan, but he stubbornly did not allow it to grow, hoped it wouldn't be heard.
And then there was a pause in the beating. A hammering at the gate and a voice shouting.
When Lyra Silvertongue marched determinedly into the stronghold, shouting, "Just you stop! You got me, and the bear's run off, and…Mr. Scoresby!" The last was said half in a horrified gasp, half in a sob. No doubt that was the moment she truly saw the state he was in. Never in all his long years had Lee more admired a person than he admired his young would-be savior. And never in all his long years had Lee felt such horror.
"I'm fine," Lee called blindly in her direction. "Looks worse'n it is."
As if to contradict that or make a point, whoever was hitting him struck again. It was unexpected and Lee was not the least bit braced for it, and it wrung out the second pained shout from his throat, though that was nothing to the horrified shout Lyra gave.
"You…you stop, I said!"
"Hold off a moment," the Captain's voice ordered, and then, almost gently, in the sort of condescending tone many men got with little girls, "Alright, sweetheart, tell us then. What has become of the armored bear?"
"He saw you meant to trap him," Lyra answered, and Lee could hear the tears in her voice, and he clenched his hands, holding the chains to his own shackles. His back throbbed, his body ached and burned and shivered, but he would take that a hundred times and more than to know Lyra in the hands of the ones doing the hurting. What was Iorek thinking? Of course, Lyra was not done with her story.
"Iorek said…he said it was no good and…and no bear was going to go down for a human, and he said he'd take me away…to…to my father only I wouldn't go. He said you wanted me and I said, better throw in with bandits than a stupid, honorless beast like him. So he said I could do what I like and…and he left me, and there's nowhere to go, and I could hear you hurting Mr. Scoresby, and…and you can just stop!"
There was a long moment of silence. Lee was sure, in that silence, that it was all going to fall apart. Anyone who knew their camp so well as to know the best time to grab Lee, anyone who was so prepared to fight a bear, must know something of their enemy. If they knew anything about bears, let alone this bear, there is no way they'd accept that the bear just turned tail and ran, and left the humans to their fate.
"I always said those bears were just faithless beasts, playing dress up," said the Captain. Then he wandered right up next to Lee so he could say, "I guess your lover en't so in love with you after all, if he cares so little. I thought he might at least care for the girl."
Lee said nothing, because he did not trust his ability to lie in the moment, and the moment called for lies. The Captain moved away.
"Come along, sweetheart; we'll get you safe and sound to your father."
"What about Mr. Scoresby?" asked Lyra. "Just…just let him down and I'll look after him."
"Sorry, sweetheart," said the Captain. "Bears may be faithless but they also are cunning. We won't do anything long lasting, like, it's mostly for show, see, it looks rough, like he said, it looks worse than it is. And when we can be sure the bear is good and gone, then we can let him down and have a rest."
"Yeah," said the wolf softly at the Captain's side. "Six feet down."
If Lyra got the allusion she did not react. She did not go quietly either.
"Please, just, just don't hurt him no more," she pleaded, and Lee himself could not say if that was part of the act she was playing or a true plea. Probably a bit of both. Lee wished she would let herself be led away, would cover her ears, would not see or know what was happening. She wouldn't be Lyra if she did that, though.
"Sorry, sweetheart," said the captain, then, "Go on." The last was not said to Lyra, as was rather obvious when the next strike hit against Lee's back.
"No!" shouted Lyra, but further away. Lee could not see what they were doing to the child; all he knew was that he could not protect her, he could not save her, he could not even protect himself. He could hear her shouting, even as she was taken away into one of the buildings, and Lee did the one thing he could do to protect her, and that was to stay silent for as long as he could manage it.
He couldn't manage it. Not in the end. Ten hits turned to twenty, turned to thirty. One hit struck against his side, where his bruised ribs were already cracked, and it felt sharp as a knife in that moment and he cried out before he could clamp the noise down, and after that he never entirely got the silence back. He lost count after that as well. At some point, he had lost his footing and just hung, too exhausted to get it back no matter how the shackles bit into his wrists; what was one more pain? And it still didn't stop
At some point he passed out. He did not know if the beating ended then, because he was not aware to know.
Unconsciousness was not a release; one had only to look at his pained expression to know the torture had followed him into the darkness, and he could still hear Lyra screaming his name, long after she had gone silent.
If there was one good glimmer of hope in all of this it was that the beating was allowed to continue uninterrupted. Iorek had not fallen into their trap after all. Iorek was still free.