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CHAPTER NINETEEN
Down in the cells, Arslan had laid a pallet of clean wool against the inner wall and set a small table beside it with a jug of water, a basin for washing in, and a stone cup.
A clean linen tunic hung from a peg, so when Con woke, he would be in a place that had been prepared with respect rather than thrown together with cruelty in mind.
Alexis doubted that Con would appreciate the effort.
They carried him through the iron door and laid him on the pallet. Phaidros crouched down and helped take off Con's breastplate, gauntlets, and the mailed underjerkin.
They left him in the linen quilted gambeson he wore beneath, and Alexis arranged the armor beside the pallet in the order Con liked. He brushed Con's dark curls back from his face before finally stepping out of the cell.
Arslan spoke the sigil-names in a low voice, and the walls answered him. The sigils on the dark stone took on the faintest gold along their etched lines before they settled once more.
Arslan handed the key to Phaidros, and he clipped it to a chain inside his coat.
"He should wake up soon," Alexis said, looking through the bars of the door at the figure on the cot.
"I have left a draught for the headache on the table if he will take it," Arslan replied.
"Grazie, amico."
"You should try to get some rest. I'll be in the courtyard if you need me," Arslan told them before disappearing back up the stairs.
Phaidros and Alexis sat down on the stone bench across the corridor from the cell door. Phaidros offered him a flask, and Alexis took it. He took a large mouthful, then another. Phaidros didn't mention the tears still tracking through the grime on Alexis's face or ask if he was okay.
After a long time, the shape on the pallet stirred and sat up.
Con looked around him, his confusion slipping away as he saw Alexis's face on the other side of the door.
"Alecto, what the fuck have you done?" he said, his whole body starting to tremble. "You have put me in a cage."
"Yes."
"While my city is burning!"
"Yes."
Con stood up and stumbled to the iron bars of the door. He gripped them so hard his knuckles turned white.
"You'll let me out, Alecto, or I will start saying things that can't be unsaid."
"Say them," Alexis replied, standing out of arm's reach. "I'm not letting you out of there so you can go kill yourself."
Con looked at him for a long second before he stepped back from the door, and outrage poured out of him.
He began in Latin because that was where he kept the words that hurt the most.
Proditor. Perfidus. Indignus. Traitor. Faithless. Unworthy.
Alexis said nothing.
Con changed to Greek. He used Greek slowly, and he used it well as he spat out that Alexis had always thought himself wiser than the men whose lives he made decisions about. He said that Alexis had used the word protect his whole life to mean control. That the word protect was the favorite word of every man who had ever taken something from someone else under the guise of it being for their own good.
He said Aelia had told him the magicians of Atlantis loved their magic more than the people they were meant to serve, which was why they all died. He had defended Alexis at the time, and he shouldn't have.
Alexis didn't look away.
Con changed languages again. The Veneto was for the small cruelties, the ones a man uses against a friend, because only a friend will know what to do with them.
