Chapter Sixteen: Dinner with His Excellency
NILHIN HAD BEEN A TORTURER, working in the once-closed Zishe cell block, for a full season when he and eight of his fellow torturers were invited to the head table that night to dine with the main family of the Zaw Clan. It was a great honour, of course, but it felt rather like a death sentence to Nilhin, who prepared himself, scrubbing himself clean in the bath that was prepared for such an occasion. He got dressed in the finest clothes he had been given as a payethi, and clipped his necklace around his neck, holding his hair up off his neck. It had started to grow quite long, but he still hadn’t ventured far from Neuma, and certainly not into Kotesh, the city bustling in the uppermost layers of the mountainous dwelling of the Tbai capital.
He walked, last in line since he was the youngest payethi currently employed in such a position, and followed the others to the main dining hall. It was a grand reception room with murals depicting all sorts or interesting tails along all the walls. Even the pyramidal ceiling’s point came together with depictions, painted in grand colours, still as vibrant as the day they must have been painted. The tip of the ceiling glowed, seemingly emanating from the golden metal that rested there, overlooking them like the sun itself.
The head table was the only table horizontal compared to the entrance, a set of tall double doors. There were dozens of vertical tables that housed all sorts of people in the standard disciple uniform of the Zaw Clan. There must have been hundreds of them in this single room alone, and Nilhin had heard that disciples ate in shifts because the Zaw Clan had so many of them and thus had to accommodate them differently than other clans. Nilhin sat at the table, at the end where he was instructed to sit. Unlike the other torturers who were looking at the main family, the regal Zaw Rronov, his sons, and his most trusted cousins (although one of his sons was away, and thus had an empty seat to the clan leader’s left), with this sort of barely restrained excitement, Nilhin knew this was some sort of test. Nilhin’s disturbance came from the fact he couldn’t understand the intention or the reason for suddenly calling all the torturer’s to the main table, because the excuse of praising them for their diligent work was as transparent as the muslin the noblewomen who visited Neuma draped over their shoulders.
“I’m glad you could all attend,” Zaw Rronov said. He spoke with certainty, and nothing less than this. His voice was deep, what Nilhin would boldly venture to say all men should sound like if they wanted to be attractive to a weaker partner -- it certainly made Nilhin feel as safe as the situation would permit. “I’ve known all of you in some capacity,” Zaw Rronov continued, looking at Nilhin, the only one this wasn’t true for, “And I’ve watched you all flourish in your positions. Tonight, I feel revelry is in order. I want to hear about your greatest achievements since you were given reign in the dungeons.”
They started the talks with the payethi who had been in his position the longest, the de-facto leader of the other eight torturers, Cithi. Cithi, despite his capacity for great violence, had always been courteous to Nilhin, helping him find his cell block on his first day, and bringing him new tools he had found interesting just in case he wanted to try them. Cithi was only kind to people he liked, however, because he tormented the servants and the people he didn’t care for in equal measures, to the point that the servants often cried and came away from serving him with bruises and a shattered self esteem.
“I’d like to inquire, your excellency, did you wish to hear our greatest achievements to the Zaw Clan, or our personal bests?” Cithi asked. Zaw Rronov gave a fake laugh that the rest of the table bought, laughing themselves, a few clapping awkwardly to try and mask their discomfort and fear. Nilhin participated in neither gesture, allowing his perfectly practiced polite smile to speak for itself.
“Whichever you’d like to share with me,” Zaw Rronov said, picking up his cup of tea. The clan leader did not drink from the same pot as everyone else, and nobody else drank from his either, although Nilhin didn’t know why. Perhaps he was afraid of being poisoned.
Cithi shared a story of being able to deglove an entire human body, essentially skinning him without ever breaking the skin apart, so that he had essentially a whole person only living with exposed muscle, and also an entirely intact human skin. He explained how he had used a special technique he found in the library to preserve the skin, and with permission, had it displayed proudly in his room. Zaw Rronov nodded, and clapped at the end of the tale. Then he moved on.
The most brutal was to the most savage man in the dungeons, Ago. Ago was more of a rabid dog than a person, and he had a horrible record for keeping his victims both alive or in a condition to even ask them questions. Nilhin long since suspected that Ago hadn’t been asked to interrogate his victims like Nilhin had been, but rather just punish them before they died, perhaps if they were criminals unsuited to becoming slaves, or they had otherwise offended the Zaw Clan too terribly to be allowed to live. Ago laughed, cackled, and otherwise made chittering sounds like an animal as he told his tale, ending with his moans over having to scrub his cell for weeks because there were so much blood and bits of human corpse stuck in the cracks of the stone -- the servants had been too terrified to work quick enough for him, and he recalled how he had gotten angry at their reluctance, and thus added to the mess with them.
The disregard for life, specifically the lives of the servants and those who kept the entirety of Neuma running -- something that none of the nobles could manage on their own, Nilhin was sure -- made him angry, but he refrained, because his opinion was a very unpopular one. Finally, after eight other men had given their statements, it was Nilhin’s turn to speak. Nilhin had an excellent -- dare he say ‘perfect’ -- memory, and thus he could recall any of the interrogations he had performed. He had none in particular that he liked any more than the other, but based on the taste of flesh that circled the table, he had one in mind that they may be impressed to hear.
“Only two weeks ago, I was asked to interrogate a servant suspected of stealing a salt gem from the royal treasury,” Nilhin began. “While it seems boring, this former royal servant, Meo, was very stubborn. I’ve long since decided that torturing a man is rarely effective--” there were a few snickers from the others-- “when it comes to getting answers, but there are ways to hurt them without ever touching them with a knife…
***
Nilhin’s assigned helpers in the dungeons, a guard named Suak Sappei and a servant named Ven Sim. They were both quite amicable, and he was glad that they were both happy working with him, because they never questioned him, or gave him any troubles. Sappei had strung up a man in the main cell in the Zisha cell block for Nilhin, and when he arrived he saw him hanging by his wrists over a drain for any bodily fluids he may expel during their session together.
He took the letter left by Ven Sim dictating the information Nilhin was to retrieve. The former servant, Meo, stole a precious salt stone from the royal treasury. His house in Kotesh -- a wealthier servant it would seem to live outside of his workplace -- had been searched but the stone hadn’t been retrieved. Nilhin was to find out what had happened to it so that they could reclaim it.
“Hello,” Nilhin said to the whimpering man. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d appreciate if you’d answer honestly. The quicker you tell me what I need to know, the quicker you can return to your family.”
Nilhin had no idea whether the man had a family or not, but why else would he waste money on rent when he could be provided for by living with the other servants if he didn’t have a family he wished to keep out of the service of the Zaw Clan?
“Leave my family out of this!” the man said, throwing his whole body towards him in a pathetic way. Nilhin didn’t even have to step away to avoid him, since he barely had the power to move away. “They had nothing to do with it.”
“Do with what?” Nilhin asked. “Have you done something wrong?”
“Everyone thinks so, but I didn’t steal anything,” Meo said.
“I want to believe you, but the Zaw Clan doesn’t often make mistakes like these. I assume if you didn’t steal the stone, then you wouldn’t know where it is then, is that correct?” The man nodded. “Excellent. I’ll have you released.”
“Really?” Meo asked.
“Of course,” Nilhin said. “I cannot, however, follow your orders. Your family will be involved, and I will have your wife or child brought here immediately, just to confirm your story, you see.”
“No!” Meo screamed, trying to jerk around by his bound wrists. Nilhin watched him wear himself out before he slumped, physically unable to put up more of a protest. Meo caught his breath before he said, “Fine, I stole it, but I don’t know what happened after that-- but you wouldn’t know what it’s like. To steal just so your family can be comfortable. So that they could afford to live. I had no choice.”
“I assure you that I know exactly how that feels,” Nilhin said. “You say you don’t know where it is, and you say that you don’t want your family involved, but for one of those to remain true, the other must be false. I’ll let you pick which one you decide is the honest statement.”
“My family is to remain safe,” Meo said.
“I’ll see to it that it stays that way, but you need to tell me where the stone is,” Nilhin said. He hadn’t even unrolled his bag of tools to hurt Meo yet. Sometimes, it wasn’t even necessary to hurt someone physically to get what he wanted from them. All he needed was leverage, and this man cared deeply about his family. At most, he would be forced to hurt his family.
“I really don’t know what happened to it after… nobody would buy it,” Meo explained. “So, I hid it away.”
“Where did you put it?”
“I kept it at the house, beneath the loose floorboard, so that Noyu didn’t get it,” Meo said. “Uh, Noyu’s my daughter. She’ll turn seven next spring.”
“So it went missing from your house?”
“Maybe we were robbed,” Meo suggested. Nilhin sighed and grabbed the leather roll which was the place for each of the tools he used during these interventions. There were some larger weapons along the walls, but he rarely used them, he wasn’t physically strong enough to leverage them enough to make them useful or threatening, so they remained along the walls as an empty threat instead. He set the unfurled case on a small wooden table, the legs long since covered with all sorts of unpleasant substances that made them gummy to the touch.
“You and I both know that you weren’t,” Nilhin said. “Tell me about your wife.”
“My wife? She’s great. What do you want to know?” Meo asked.
“Is she also a servant in Neuma?”
“She’s a scribe at the post office to help people dictate letters to their family. She can both read and write,” Meo said. Despite being strung up by his wrists, he spoke of his wife with genuine awe for her talents.
“Please don’t take offense to this, but why did someone with such an education marry a servant?” Nilhin asked.
“Well, because we loved each other. She didn’t care that I was poor and dumb, she loved me anyway, and I loved her not because she was smart, but because she was so kind. We’re raising our daughter so that she never has to be a servant like me. Nobody wants an uneducated man like me to work for them as anything other than a servant, and I was paid the most I could get here…”
“Then why did you jeopardise it all by stealing from your employer?”
“Because I needed the money more than ever before,” Meo said. “My wife, she’s pregnant again. I can hardly help feed us now, but I thought… I thought I could sell the stone and then we could leave Kotesh entirely for somewhere closer to the border. I could take up farming.”
“Congratulations on your wife,” Nilhin said. “Please, excuse me for a moment. I’ll be back shortly.”
Nilhin left to find Sappei, and he asked her to gather Meo’s wife for him, and hang her in the cell. When he returned, he pushed Meo along the chains connected to the ceiling so his back hit the wall, and a few hours later, Sappei brought a pretty woman into the room, and hung her by her shackle-bound wrists as well.
“Ebi? What the hell are you doing here?” Meo asked, before he turned to Nilhin. Nilhin nodded appreciatively to Sappei before she left. “I thought you said they’d be safe!”
“I said that there were conditions that needed to be met to make that statement true, and you didn’t meet them, so they were untrue. Your daughter should be in the dungeons as well. The quicker we clear up this confusion, the quicker she and your wife will return home,” Nilhin explained. He stood up and grabbed the wife by her waist to stop her from trying to twist and look at her husband. “What’s your name, miss?”
“Ebi,” she whispered. “Please let us go. We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“How easily you’ve just lied to me,” Nilhin said with a titter. “Lying is so much easier when you’re scared. What did you do with the stone your husband hid in your house?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“I’ve heard you’re with child,” Nilhin said. “I’ve also heard that stress is bad for babies. Perhaps you can tell me what you’ve done with the salt stone your husband stole, and I can let you free so that nothing bad happens to you.”
Ebi kicked him, and it landed. Nilhin grabbed her by the ankle before she could pull her leg back. He dragged her by the ankle to his tools and grabbed a needle from the side and jammed it into her calve. Her leg went limp in his grip.
“What did you do to me?” she demanded.
“You don’t need this leg right now,” Nilhin said. “I’ve taken away your ability to use it. It’s temporary, but if you continue to give me trouble, I might make it permanent. Now, please tell me what you’ve done with the salt stone.”
Ebi continued to deny him, and Meo remained quiet, only making sounds or protest as Nilhin paralysed Ebi for her feisty actions, trying to lash out and attack in a way that Meo had given up on earlier. With Ebi firmly paralysed, and unable to fight back against him, he stood back. They were too stubborn to work with, he needed to give them a reason to tell them, and apparently Meo’s pregnant wife wasn’t good enough.
Nilhin left without speaking, and when he returned, he had their daughter, Noyu, a very small girl, with him. She was light enough he could carry her, but he had led her through the cells towards her parents by her shackled wrists instead, just so that she could see the gore of what happened in the dungeons. As soon as she saw her parents, she burst out in tears and ran to her mother and father. She held their legs, not able to reach any more of them, and Nilhin let her go to her family. He slammed the grate to the cell shut, keeping Noyu trapped in the room with him, just in case she was urged to escape without her parents.
“I need to know where that salt stone went,” Nilhin said, interrupting the tears and the anguish. Nilhin picked up another needle and approached where Noyu was holding onto Meo’s legs. He stuck it into her neck, and her body went limp. He caught her and dragged her across the floor. Both Meo and Ebi protested, shouting at him to let her go.
“Tell me what you’ve done with the salt stone,” Nilhin said. He had no idea why the salt stone was so important, but he had been given a task, and he didn’t plan to fail.
“I sold it,” Ebi said.
“No!” Meo cried out at the same time.
“Who did you sell it to?” Nilhin asked.
“Nobody would buy it, nobody in Tbai, because they’re all afraid of the Zaw Clan, but the Hvit Clan? They aren’t afraid of the clan leader. They bought it, probably just so that the clan leader couldn’t have it,” Ebi said. “So, you can’t have it, unless you want to try and track it down in Krokstad.”
“That wasn’t so hard,” Nilhin said, thinking about just how angry his supervisor was, and just how angry the clan leader would be at losing his property to these people. Perhaps he should just put them back in the dungeons to await their punishment at their hands. “However, you’ve done something quite horrible. The other clans of Tbai were, of course, correct to fear the Zaw Clan--” Nilhin chuckled-- “And Meo insisted upon your intelligence. I must disagree with his assessment, Ebi. I’m going to give you a choice now, and I need you both to think it over.
“Your daughter is just the right size to feed all six of the second young prince’s hunting dogs. I could give her to the pedophile in the cell opposite of this one for a few weeks as well, for the trouble you’ve caused. Or I can take the meat to feed the dogs and the savage man in the other cell’s desires from you and your husband.” Nilhin held his hands behind his back and shrugged. “It’s your choice.”
“Take it from me,” they both said, without a second thought or any need to discuss this. Nilhin laughed again, holding his hand over his mouth to hide his smile.
“Why, I could take half the weight from each of you, and you may just survive the ordeal,” Nilhin said.
Then, they started to argue about how much they would get from each of them. Nilhin watched them barter away their bodies with one another to save their daughter.
***
Nilhin paused in his retelling of the story, and took a sip of his tea.
“Well, how much did you get?” Ago asked. “Who did you slice it off of first?”
“Ebi got the first slice. She was to give the least amount, but she was in fragile health. She died shortly after I opened her up,” Nilhin said. He took another sip of his tea, keeping his eyes down, despite feeling everyone looking at him. He certainly spoke the most with his victims, knowing them and assessing them and their desires, before he started to hurt them. “Ebi gave a good portion of meat for the dogs. Meo was so heartbroken, his body weak and nearly degraded, having watched such a thing happen to the woman he loved. I told him that I could take the rest from his daughter if he wanted, instead, but he demanded I take it from him. He demanded that I kill him.”
“Your victim asked you to kill him?” Cithi asked. “Do they do that often?”
“Actually, it happens more often than not. I find that if you torment them mentally before you decide to physically harm them, they suffer far more than they would otherwise,” Nilhin said with a nod. He bit his lip as he slowly raised his head. “In the end, poor Noyu listened to her father beg for his suffering to end. Apparently she wasn’t worth as much as her mother, his love for her not as prominent. She watched me feed the pieces of her parents I collected for the second prince’s hounds.”
The table erupted in laughter and cheers alike. It seemed that his cruelty was greatly appreciated at the table of sadists and psychopaths. He was just waiting for everyone to serve themselves food, so that he could take some for himself. The other torturers offered their comments and their critiques, and finally, Nilhin served himself a spoonful of the untouched berries stewed until tender with tall garlic stems and smothered in a peppered honey sauce. It was the most decadent food that Nilhin had ever eaten, and he he chased such a sweet dish with cup after cup of tea.
The rest of the table spoke, while Nilhin listened, saving bits of information for later for a variety of purposes. One thing he noticed was that Zaw Rronov rarely gave his input or opinion, seemingly content to sit back and listen as others spoke. Somehow, despite his silence, never once was his presence forgotten, and everyone’s words were said, clearly desperate only for the attention and praise of Zaw Rronov.
“So,” Zaw Rronov said, as Nilhin realised that the pot of tea he had been drinking from was void of any liquid (despite it having been refilled recently by the servants). Zaw Rronov picked up his unique teapot and reached over the teapot, courtesy be damned, and poured the dark brown, nearly black, brew into Nilhin’s cup. “You’ve shown the greatest efficiency at getting answers, and the highest survival rate of your victims. Where did you learn your techniques, because they certainly weren’t taught here.”
The others looked at him with curious eyes, like they had never considered he was different in his techniques, nor had they ever asked where he came from. It was clear he came from outside of Tbai, where people were lighter-skinned and had straighter hair, but nobody had deemed his immigration important enough to comment on. He wasn’t bullied by the other payethi like he had been by his comrades in the Hvit clan, and the servants had accepted him like he had always been a part of their family. Now that Zaw Rronov had asked such a question, they would likely never forget it and his now-glaring differences.
“This one was never trained in these skills, your excellency,” Nilhin said. “It was strange circumstances that led me to where I am now, and I aim only to assist clan leader Zaw with my talent as best as this one possibly can.” Nilhin bowed his head before he took a drink of the tea he had been poured. It was very bitter, but not terrible. There were floral hints that he didn’t often get with the tea leaves he was given, typically without anything other than tea leaves in the blend. “This tea is quite good, thank you, your excellency.”
“If you like it, you’ll have to try some more once you’ve finished,” the clan leader said, and Nilhin finished his cup only to see if the man would pour more inside. Zaw Rronov’s downturned lips twitched as he finally smiled -- it was the kind of smile that guaranteed misfortune rather than conveyed happiness -- and poured him more tea. Nobody said anything for a moment, as Nilhin drank another two cups. Everyone stared at him, which was very uncomfortable.
“I’d like for you to eat with me in the morning,” Zaw Rronov said. “Be here at mao-chas.”
“If it pleases his excellency,” Nilhin agreed. He was given more tea in response.
That night, as Nilhin walked back with the other torturers, nobody spoke to him, but he saw them glance at him as they walked in front of him. He was the last to enter his room, and he scrawled sigils over his door just to make sure nobody decided to sneak in and either rifle through his things or attack him for stealing the favour of the clan leader from whoever thought they were more worthy.
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