The gaoler turned the key and the door swung open with a screech. These ones didn't get much use.
And I will be on the other side of them. Niccolo stood up and straightened his collar. As I should be.
"Captain wants to see you." The gaoler's voice was monotone, bored. He didn't move.
Niccolo brushed off some stray dust and strode past the man. Walking with purpose was one of the simplest ways for a guard to demonstrate exception. All guard captains started their careers with intention. The gaoler slouched and shuffled his feet when he walked.
Of course, the gaoler had obeyed a much simpler rule: Future guard captains didn't get arrested and thrown into the brig.
Rules always seemed simple until Niccolo broke them.
The captain's office was nearly on the opposite side of the block, which made sense. Why would she want to be near the criminals, the rejects, and the failures? The scum of block A. The guards that didn't make it. Because sometimes, people like me are there with them. Niccolo had enjoyed his visitors during the previous months, but none had been of higher rank.
The captain's doorman indicated the door to the left for a change, so Niccolo stepped inside and stood at the edge of the mat in the center of the room. He held his hands behind him, at parade rest. A strange name. It must have some connection with the parades he'd read about. "Where do you need me?"
Captain Lia was doing some jumping jacks. "Do you need to stretch?"
"No, captain. Where am I assigned?"
"On the mat then. What makes you think I need you?"
Niccolo stepped towards her. He much preferred the stoic bookworm he found behind the door to the right, in a stuffy office that remained a few shades too dark all day. This energetic bruiser was the one that got him into this mess in the first place.
He placed his left foot forward and held two fists up, around neck level. The captain slid her left foot away and sunk into a wide stance, leading on her right palm, her other hand chambered underneath her armpit.
"My term was for six months, captain." Best not to instigate. He might be able to finish the meeting before she struck.
"Yes, I do recall locking you up that long ago." She bobbed back and forth on the balls of her feet, threatening to move in.
"Captain, I—" And then she did.
She bounced into range and threw a fist, but it was a feint. Pivoting around her front leg, she brought her other in for a sweep. Niccolo had to roll to the side to avoid falling off the mat, and he righted himself far too slowly.
The captain stayed stationary, one eyebrow raised. "Are you sure you don't need to stretch?"
No. "Captain, I was sentenced in the afternoon."
She looked up at the noon sun carving a shaft of light down from the lightwell.
Then she jumped forward and punched. Niccolo took the hit on a forearm and grabbed her wrist with his other. He turned his body to throw her over his knee to the ground, taking a second punch on his back. I'll feel that in an hour.
The captain wrapped her legs around his, pulling him down on top of her, then rolled from under him and bent his arm back into a bar.
"The clocktower started ticking this morning." She stood and yanked his hand up, pressing his face into the mat. "You're of no use to me in that cell."
I'm of no use to you with my arm broken, either. Niccolo lifted his body from the mat and pivoted past his arm, pulling it in. It probably wouldn't have worked in a real fight, but the captain wanted to spar, not injure: She hadn't used much weight. She lost her grip and he pulled both hands in to protect his face from incoming kicks. "How long do we have?"
"Nineteen days." The captain looked down at his face, on the floor between her feet. "And I'm so desperate that I'm willing to write off your indiscretions."
"I did the right thing," Niccolo insisted, cowering beneath his fists.
The captain sighed and blew an unruly lock of brown hair from her eyes. "I'm going to kick your head now."
"We're not -" Niccolo brought his forearms together, catching the captain's foot as it fell and guiding it to the mat next to his head. She stumbled away to recover, letting Niccolo roll to his feet. "We're not better than them, Captain."
"Some things are always true." She prowled around the mat, looking for weakness. Niccolo turned to face her as she moved. "Guards maintain order. Prisoners stay in line. Nobody leaves Proteus."
"A lot of rare things seem impossible." Niccolo advanced when the captain's circling brought her close to a corner. "The warden's visits are pretty rare too, wouldn't you say?"
"Guardsman, if you think an inspection in two weeks is going to make me more lenient, prepare to be sad."
Niccolo led with a left hook, right hand up to block the inevitable counterpunch. Instead, the captain ducked under his fist and kicked his stomach. They were too close for her to build up power to the blow, and she just offered Niccolo a limb.
The captain pulled her leg out from his attempted grab, pulling it close to build up speed as she spun around. The resulting slap in his face knocked Niccolo to the ground.
"I overlooked your indiscretions as long as you didn't press the issue." Lia's face appeared above his head. "Don't press it again until this is over with and we'll talk after. Agreed?"
Niccolo rubbed his cheek with his hand. Stars, it smarted! Then he accepted her hand and let Lia lift him to his feet.
"So." Niccolo paused and worked his jaw a few times to feel what worked. The damage didn't seem too bad. "We can make prisoners guards."
"I said, we'll talk." Lia walked off the mat to her supplies and tossed him one of her towels. It hadn't taken long for him to start sweating. "All of society isn't going to collapse on my watch, but if you can help me pull this off without a hitch, maybe we can make one or... one secret exception."
"Look on the bright side." Niccolo smiled, then quickly corrected his mistake. Stars! "If all of Proteus falls apart the day after the Warden leaves, he won't come back and find out until we've both been dead two or three hundred years.
"And you'll have made two people very happy."
Rules. Rules were always simple on the page.
Lia glared, then buried her face in her other towel.