Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 376
father lived.
It was shameful--but if he wallowed in his misery, he
would just be playing the lost boy again. When Galas’ mother
died, the future queen had foresworn playing roles dictated by
others. There was a lesson in that.
He had been in this cell for a day now. Someone had slid
some food under the door that morning; otherwise, he might
have been completely alone in the building.
This Boros domicile was not so grand as the manor house
the Hooks had destroyed. It stood in the Rhiene high street,
squeezed between two even grander mansions. There were no
grounds, only a cobbled courtyard in front with a high wall and
a gate. The building was tall, he knew, but he wasn’t sure how
many storeys it was since his only view of it had been
upsidedown as he was yanked off the horse yesterday evening.
Four, five storeys? It didn’t matter, there was only one cellar
and he was in it.
In the stories he used to read, bad people always had
dungeons in their castles. Emmy had scared him for years by
spinning tales of a secret level underneath Castor’s manor.
There was no such thing there, of course, any more than there
was here. He was in some kind of disused storage room.
They’d tossed a cot, a blanket and a bucket in after him, and let
him set them up himself, in his own dungeon style.
Jordan wasn’t quite sure what Brendan Sheia meant to do
to him. Certainly the man had power, maybe enough to make
an innocent traveller disappear without investigation.
He shivered again. First on the agenda was to find a way
to block that draft.
They’d left him his cloak, so he bundled that up and
stepped on a jutting stone in the wall to stuff it in the window.
As he did so he heard footsteps passing in the hall outside.