THE PRISONER

They put her in the storeroom behind the kitchen.
It was Toku's idea. It was a small square room with a single high window, a floor of beaten earth, and shelves of stacked rice sacks along three walls. It had a stout oak door, and a bar, and a smell of dust and dried fish. "It is the only room in the house that locks from the outside," the old man had said, with a shrug, "and it is, I assure you, entirely comfortable. I have slept in it myself, when my wife was angry."
"Your wife?" said Ragna.
"She is dead, God keep her. But the room is still good."
So they put Sae on a folded blanket in the corner, with her back against the sacks and her hands in her lap, and barred the door.
She did not struggle. She did not speak. She sat very straight with her chin lifted and her pale head against the wall, and she looked, in the grey light of the dawn, neither frightened nor defiant, only terribly, terribly tired. The black ribbon at her wrist lay across her sleeve like a thin dark scar.
"It is a thread," she said, when Shion reached for it.
It was the first thing she had said since the courtyard.
"What kind of thread?" said Shion, gently.
"It is woven with a very fine wire. Iron. It hums." She did not look at the ribbon. "They can hear it. Wherever I am. They know if it is cut, and they know if it is still."
"Then they know where you are now."
"Yes."
"They will come."
"No," said Sae.
She said it quite flatly. She sat with her hands in her lap and her grey eyes on the opposite wall, and for the first time there was a faint, bitter, tired twist to her small mouth.
"They will not come," she said. "I am not worth the trouble. A girl with a sword, who failed. There are a great many of us." She shrugged. "They will wait. They are very good at it."
"Wait for what?"
Sae did not answer.
Shion looked at her for a long moment. Then she rose, very slowly, and went out, and Sae heard the bar fall into its slot behind her with a dull, final *thud.*
---
"It will not be gentle," said Haruka.
It was the third hour of the morning, and the whole party sat in the long dim hall, in a ring on the black boards, round the little stone lantern. Nobody had slept. Godori sat at the edge of the circle with his arms wrapped round his knees and a long raw scrape on his chin, and every bone in his body ached. Beside him, Irel sat like a stone figure, her face pale and set.
"I do not want it to be gentle," said Haruka.
"Haru," said Shion.
"She is one of them. She tried to kill Godori. She is the same as the girl in the ravine." Her cool, flat voice did not rise. "Three of our friends are in the ground. I would like to know why."
"So would we all."
"Then we ask."
"We *have* asked," said Daigo, from the shadows. "She will not answer."
"Then we ask *harder.*"
A long silence.
It was Zeika who said it, in the end. She was sitting on her heels with her fists on her knees and her jaw clenched so tight that the muscles stood out in her cheeks. Her eyes were bright and hard. Her whole body hummed with an old, familiar, dangerous fury, and when she spoke, it was in a thin, low, level voice that sent a shiver down Godori's spine.
"I'd do it," she said.
Nobody breathed.
"I'm just saying. I'd do it. If you asked me." She looked round the ring of faces. "She killed Dan. Well. Not *her.* The other one. But it's the same thing. It's the *same.* And if there's a way to make her tell us, I don't see why we shouldn't." Her voice cracked. "I don't *want* to. I really don't. But I would."
"Zeika," whispered Amana.
"I would. That's all."
"I know."
"I don't like it either."
"I know."
"But I don't *care.*"
"I know you don't," said Amana, very softly, and laid a hand on her arm.
It was Kataugi who spoke next. He sat with his back against a pillar and his head tipped against the wood, and he did not open his eyes. "I'd watch," he said.
"Kat!" said Rin, shocked.
"I'm only being honest."
"But..."
"I wouldn't *do* it. But I'd watch." He opened his eyes. They were red-rimmed and bleak. "I keep thinking about that thousand-sword rack. About the forge, and the boy at the bellows. About all those quiet kids walking down a stair. If she knows something that'll stop it, and we do *nothing...*" He shook his head, slowly. "I don't know what I'd do. I really don't."
"No," said Ragna.
He said it so quietly that for a moment nobody realised he had spoken. He sat cross-legged near the lantern with his bandaged hands in his lap, and his lean, tanned, careless face, in the flickering light, looked very old. The mask hung at his throat. He was looking at the floor.
"I want to," he said.
Every head turned.
"I'll be honest. I'm the one who has no right to say no." His voice was low and dry. "I held a man's ribs in my hands and I crushed them. I watched him die. I did not feel sorry. I felt *glad.* For about a minute and a half, I felt glad." He let out a short breath, almost a laugh. "I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to know what he'd done. I wanted..." He stopped. "I wanted a great many things I am not proud of."
"Ragna-sensei..."
"So I understand it. Every bit of it. I'm sitting here, and some small, ugly, tired part of me is saying, *go in there, and make her.* And I think I would be very, very good at it."
"But you won't," said Shion.
"No."
"Why not?"
Ragna lifted his head. His eyes were bright and strange.
"Because she's fifteen," he said. "And so was Mara."
---
"Wanting is not doing," said Daigo.
He had been standing at the back of the hall with his arms folded and his scarred face quite still. Now he stepped forward, into the ring of lamplight, and every head turned.
"I will say this once," he said. "And I will not say it again. We do not torture."
"Hajime..." began Haruka.
"Hear me."
She stopped.
"I do not say it because it is kind," said Daigo. "I do not say it because it is right, though I believe that it is. I say it because it does not *work.*" His voice was flat and level. "I have seen it done. Twice. In twenty years. Once by men I trusted, once by men I did not. In both cases, the person in the chair said whatever would make it stop. They said it very convincingly. And every word of it was a lie."
Nobody spoke.
"A frightened person will tell you what you wish to hear," said Daigo. "A broken person will tell you what they think will save them. And a *brave* person, who has been taught since they were small to say nothing, will say nothing at all, and die, and you will have lost the one chance you had." He drew a long breath. "I will not make a martyr of a child."
"Then what do we do?" said Haruka.
"I do not know."
"That's not an answer."
"No." The corner of his mouth moved, bleakly. "It is the only honest one I have."
"And in the meantime?" said Zeika, in a hard voice. "She sits there? On a *blanket?* With a *bowl of rice?*"
"Yes."
"That's *ridiculous.*"
"It is mercy," said Toku.
Everyone jumped.
He had come into the hall so quietly that nobody had heard. He stood in the doorway with his broom over his shoulder and his wooden leg planted, a small, bent, cheerful figure, and his face was quite serious. His black eyes moved slowly round the circle.
"I have been listening," he said.
"Master Toku..." Daigo began.
"No, no. Do not be sorry. It is my house." He shuffled into the room. "I would like to say something, if I may."
"Please."
"I have had forty-one years of children in this hall," said Toku. "I have taught the cruel ones and the kind ones, the clever and the slow. I have had the sons of masters and the daughters of beggars. And do you know what I have learned?"
"No," said Rin, in a small voice.
"That every one of them was afraid." He smiled, very gently. "Every single one. The loud ones were afraid of being quiet. The quiet ones were afraid of being heard. The strong were afraid of being weak, and the weak were afraid of being strong. And the only thing, the *only* thing, that ever helped any of them, was to be told, very simply, that they were not alone."
Nobody said a word.
"She is a child in a storeroom," said Toku. "She has been taught to say nothing. She has been taught that if she says anything, she will die. She believes it. And in a great many ways, I think she is *right.*" His voice dropped. "You will not make her speak with a knife. You will make her speak with a *reason.*"
"What reason?" said Haruka, bitterly.
"I do not know. Perhaps you will find it."
"And if we don't?"
"Then you will have fed a hungry girl and given her a bed. That is not nothing." The old man shrugged. "It is the seventh rule."
"*The road feeds the blade,*" murmured Godori.
"*The blade feeds no one,*" said Toku. "But a house may."
---
They tried, all the same.
They tried it that morning, and afternoon, and into the evening. They tried it in pairs and threes and singly. It was a slow, strange, uncomfortable business, and none of it went anywhere.
Daigo went first.
He stood in the storeroom with his arms folded and his scarred face like a wall, and asked his questions in a flat, level, military voice. Where were the students? What was the Ark? Where did the door lead? What was the plan? He asked each question once, and waited, and received no answer, and asked the next. After half an hour he said, "Very well," and bowed, and left.
"It is not a thing I'm good at," he told Shion, in the corridor. "I never was."
"No."
"I am very *loud.*"
"Yes," said Shion, with a faint smile. "It was an excellent effort."
Shion went second. She sat on an upturned crate in front of the girl, with her hands folded and her head inclined, and talked. She talked of nothing. She talked of snow, and tea, and the way the light fell on a winter morning. She said nothing about the Ark. She said nothing about the dead. After an hour, Sae lifted her head, and said, in a small flat voice, "You are very kind."
"I try."
"It will not work."
"No," said Shion. "I did not think it would."
"Then why?"
"Because it is pleasant," said Shion. "And you look as if you have not had much of that."
Sae stared at her. Her mouth worked. She turned her head away.
Zeika went third, in a fury. She stood in the doorway for five minutes, glaring, with blue light crackling at her knuckles, and said nothing at all. Sae looked back at her, calmly, with her pale, tilted, tired eyes.
"You want to hurt me," she said.
"Yes."
"Why don't you?"
"Because I *can't,*" said Zeika, savagely.
"Why not?"
"Because of *him.*"
Sae followed her glare to the courtyard, where a thin, dusty, bandaged boy in a grey scarf sat on the edge of the well, with his chin on his fist and his eyes on the door.
"Ah," she said.
"He's an idiot."
"Yes."
"He's the *worst.*"
"Yes."
"I *hate* him."
"No, you don't," said Sae.
Zeika opened her mouth. She closed it. She turned on her heel and stalked out, and the door slammed so hard that the rice sacks shook.
---
Amana tried the kindest thing of all.
She brought a bowl. It was a plain bowl of hot barley porridge, with a lump of dark sugar melting on top, and a pair of wooden chopsticks laid across the rim. She set it on the floor in front of Sae and sat down opposite, cross-legged, without a word.
Sae looked at the bowl.
"It is not poisoned," said Amana.
"I know."
"You haven't eaten since last night."
"I am not hungry."
"Your stomach is growling."
"It is a very disobedient stomach."
"I have one like it," said Amana, solemnly. "It's the worst."
A tiny, wavering, involuntary smile touched Sae's mouth. It vanished at once. She folded her hands. "I will not eat," she said. "If I eat, I will have accepted something. And then I will owe you."
"You will owe me a bowl of porridge."
"It is not so simple."
"It is, though."
"It *isn't.*" Sae's voice cracked. "You do not understand. You do not know what it is, to be given a thing. To be *kind* to. To..." She stopped, abruptly. Her face was very white. "If I accept it, then I will want it. And if I want it, then I will have a reason to stay. And I cannot *stay.*"
"Why not?"
"Because they will find me."
"They know where you are."
"They will find me and they will *ask.* And if I have eaten your porridge, and sat in your house, and felt..." She swallowed. "I will not be able to say no."
Amana looked at her.
She looked at the small, thin, trembling girl in the corner, with her pale hair and her enormous grey eyes and her thin, dirty, ribbon-wrapped wrist, and something in her round, kind, freckled face went very soft.
"All right," she said.
"What?"
"I won't make you." She stood, brushing off her knees. "But I'll leave the bowl."
"I will not eat it."
"Then it will get cold, and somebody will have to throw it out." She smiled. "And that would be a shame."
She went out. She did not look back.
The bowl sat on the floor, steaming gently, in the grey light of the window. Sae looked at it for a very long time.
She did not touch it.
---
It was Toku who finally found the crack.
He went in at dusk, with his broom over his shoulder and a small clay lamp in his hand, and sat down on the floor in front of the girl without saying a word. He set the lamp between them. The flame bent and straightened and made a little warm circle on the earth.
"It is a poor light," he said. "I am sorry. It is the best I have."
Sae said nothing.
"I will not ask you anything," said the old man. "I want you to know that. I am too old, and too stupid, and I have not the least idea what to ask. I will only sit." He looked at his hands. "It is a long day for an old man. I like to rest my leg."
He sat.
Neither of them spoke. The lamp burned. Somewhere in the kitchen, a pot clattered. After a long time, in the very dim light, Sae lifted her head and looked at him.
"You are the one," she said.
"Hm?"
"With the broom."
He smiled. "I have been called worse."
"She told me about you."
It was so soft that he barely heard it.
"Who?" he said, gently.
"The one with the scar." Sae's grey eyes were fixed on the lamp. "She talked about you. In the quiet place. When she was ill. She had a fever, and she did not know where she was, and she kept saying..." Her voice shook. "She kept saying, *the old man with the broom.* She said it over and over. She said, *he let me go.*"
Toku's face did not change.
"She said she held his sleeve," whispered Sae. "And he let her go. And she was not angry. She wanted me to know that. She said she was never, ever angry." She looked up. Her eyes were swimming. "She said, *tell him I'm not angry.*"
For a long moment, the old man did not move.
The lamp flickered. A moth blundered into the glass, and fell, and lay still. Somewhere very far away, a bell tolled the hour, deep and slow and mournful.
"Ah," said Toku.
It was a very small sound. It was like a candle going out. He sat there, bent over his crossed legs, with his hands slack in his lap and his bright black eyes suddenly very dim, and his whole cheerful, creased, brown face seemed to fold in on itself.
"Thank you," he said, at last. His voice was hoarse. "That is... that is a great kindness."
"I did not mean to..."
"No, no. It is all right." He drew a long breath. "I have waited ten years to hear that."
"I am sorry."
"Don't be." He wiped his face, quickly, with the back of a wrinkled hand. "It is the best thing that has happened to me in a very long time."
They sat there together, in the little circle of light, the old man and the girl, and neither of them said anything more. But when Toku rose, at last, with a wheeze and a grunt and a creak of his wooden leg, Sae said, in a very small voice:
"Master Toku?"
"Yes?"
"Might I have the porridge now?"
He looked down at her.
Then he smiled, wide and gap-toothed and wet-eyed, and said, "I should think it is cold. Shall I have it warmed?"
"Please."
"It will be a moment."
"I can wait," said Sae.
---
She ate it all.
She sat on the folded blanket with the bowl in both hands, and she ate every grain, slowly and carefully, with her eyes lowered. When she had finished, she set the bowl down with a small, precise click. She folded her hands.
"I thank you," she said, formally. "For the meal."
"You are welcome," said Amana, from the doorway.
"I... will still not talk."
"I know."
"I have not changed my mind."
"I know that too."
"Then why did you ask?"
"I didn't," said Amana, and smiled, and shut the door.
---
Godori found Irel in the kitchen, very late.
She was sitting alone at the long scrubbed table with a cup of cold tea between her hands, and the single lamp threw her long shadow against the wall. She did not look up. She had changed out of her bloodied cloak into a plain grey tunic, and her hair hung loose, still damp from the pump, and she looked very small and very tired.
"You should be asleep," he said.
"So should you."
"I tried."
"Did it work?"
"No."
He sat down opposite her. For a long time neither of them said anything. The fire in the stove had burned to a dull red. Somewhere in the walls a mouse scrabbled and was still.
"She didn't say anything," said Godori.
"No."
"We tried everything."
"Not everything."
He looked up.
"You haven't," said Irel.
"I'm sorry?"
"You haven't tried. All day, you have sat by the well, and watched the door." She turned the cup slowly in her hands. "You have not gone in."
"I didn't think they'd want..."
"You are the only one she looked at."
"What?"
"When she laughed. In the courtyard. She laughed at *you.* She said you were soft." Irel's voice was low and steady. "Anna said it. She said it. And she said it as if it were the most important thing she knew."
Godori said nothing.
"She doesn't trust us," said Irel. "She doesn't trust Daigo, or Shion, or Zeika. She doesn't trust anyone. But she trusts *that.* She trusts that you will not hurt her."
"I don't want to *use* it."
"I know."
"It feels wrong."
"It isn't. It's what you are." She looked up. Her dark eyes were steady and clear. "You do not make her talk by pretending. You make her talk by being exactly who you are. That is the only way it will work."
"What if it doesn't?"
"Then it doesn't."
"And if it does?"
"Then she will tell us what we need to know, and we will stop a very bad thing from happening." She almost smiled. "And you will have saved forty children, without drawing your sword."
He stared at her.
"That is the best weapon in the world, Goro," said Irel, very quietly. "I wish I had it."
"You do."
"No."
"You do. You just don't know." He reached across the table. He did not think about it. He only laid his hand, very lightly, over hers where it rested on the cup. "You held on to me. In the courtyard. When I came back. You didn't have to."
She went very still.
"I was frightened," she said.
"I know."
"I have never been so frightened in my life."
"Me neither."
"It isn't the same."
"It might be."
She did not answer. She only turned her hand over under his, slowly, and her fingers closed round his, small and cool and strong. They sat like that, in the dim red light, with the cold tea between them, and the whole sleeping house breathing quietly round them in the dark.
"Tomorrow," said Irel.
"Yes."
"You try."
"Yes."
"Do it your way."
"I don't have a way."
"You do," said Irel, softly. "It is the only one that works."