Chapter Nineteen
Night two
Somewhere in the middle of the second night of violent torture, vomit started dribbling uncontrollably past Nicolae’s lips onto his chest and belly.
Was it because Son of Nichita started hollering loud enough to shake the night from the sky the moment the first lash fell onto a back already so raw and bloody?
Was it that Răzuan, after finishing his turn, greedily licked blood from the whip?
Was it when an extra-vicious lash from Mircea made blood shoot out of Son of Nichita’s nose?
Yes, this.
Nicolae faded away from the clearing back into the shadows of the trees, hiding from the spectacle of a man being brutalized as much as concealing that he was a sympathizer. He slid down the tree trunk and hunkered immobile on his haunches.
It began to rain. Droplets fell lightly through the trees, clicking on the old, dead leaves scattered across the woodland floor and spattering on the cabin roofs.
The torture was suspended, some men seeking shelter, others moving about, eating and drinking. Nicolae stayed by his tree, the rain wetting his hair down to the roots. The air began to smell of moss, toadstools, and freshened blood from where Son of Nichita drooped unconscious on his chain, his head lolled to one side, a long string of saliva trailing from his mouth. He’d just been left to hang there beside his companions, who weren’t pleasant sights either.
The light-colored one looked like he’d taken ill. His lips were white while the rest of his flesh—except for his arm bruises—was yellowish. He squirmed regularly on his chain, probably trying to keep some trace of life in his arms.
Nicolae’s prisoner showed very few signs of life. He stared at nothing with the gaze of a fish on ice, rain rolling off him. His mouth was now framed in stubble, too, like the one with the tattoo, who Nicolae would not care to approach at this point.
He’d been hung closest to Son of Nichita for this round, so he might enjoy being sprayed with his friend’s blood, and at about the time Nicolae started puking, the tattooed one turned into the embodiment of pure rage. He held his chin very low, and his eyes burned with a constant low, fury-filled light.
Doubtful that tonight Laurenţiu could handle the tattooed one on his own.
Gică drew a twig out of the fire and strode up to Son of Nichita, touching the hot end to the man’s waist.
Nichita came back to the living world with a sharp intake of breath.
Chief stepped forward, the whip coiled around his fist, the gray streak in his hair silvered by moonglow.
Nicolae’s stomach sank as the horrible words that would restart this obscenity were spoken yet again.
“Are you prepared, Son of Grigore Nichita, to pay for your father’s sins?”
Son of Nichita’s throat moved. “Yeah,” he choked out. “Sure. Go for it.”
The light-colored one closed his eyes and held them closed.
The tattooed one’s pupils flared with white lightning.
The quiet one remained still. His over-stretched arms looked two inches longer than they had yesterday.
Nicolae stared at the wet polish on the trunks of the trees and listened to leftover rain dripping through the branches.
“Nicolae Lazăr.”
He startled so hard, he snapped a bootlace. Standing quickly, he rounded the tree trunk.
Chief was holding out the whip to him.
The earth unbalanced beneath his feet. My turn? He shot a look at his brother.
Vasile met his gaze once, then wouldn’t.
A clammy sweat broke out over Nicolae’s body. He swiped the wet hair off his forehead. “<Um…no relation of mine was wronged by Grigore Nichita’s betrayal.>”
“<Your great-uncle, Costi, was on a ship sunk in the Constanţa Harbor.>”
When Nicolae didn’t budge, Chief’s eyes narrowed and his grip on the whip tightened.
Every eye bored into Nicolae, severe and disapproving.
A familiar shame flushed up the back of his neck. Wiping his wrist across his grimy mouth, he started forward. His legs felt like half-snapped stilts. The closer he came, the more his shame deepened.
What am I doing?
He was about to participate in an act that went contrary to everything he believed in—punishing a man for no more than the sin of having tainted blood—and he was going to do it out of fear. Fear of being shunned again. Fear of returning to the days of being “accidentally” elbowed, tripped, and jabbed by the other men because he was unclean. Hateful acts to be avoided, yes, but…at what cost? If he committed an act of unconscionable torture because he was afraid of the snubbing of others, who would he be afterward? What kind of man?
Nobody his father would be proud of, that was certain.
No one he could even be proud of.
He stopped in front of Chief, and his stomach recoiled at the sight of the blood-slicked whip.
Be the greatest protector, the most skilled hunter, the strongest in moral character.
He’d already allowed his father’s teachings to slip once, back when he hadn’t stopped Chief from deciding Cătălina’s fate. Letting down his mother was the worst failure of Nicolae’s life, and he still remembered how horrible it’d been watching her at slave work, how horrible he’d felt. Like he was an insect. A powerless, weak little nothing of a creature. He didn’t think his heart could bear it if he disappointed himself again. The organ would rot and shrivel inside his own chest.
“<No.>”
There was a heavily stunned silence.
Chief glared at him.
A tic bounced at the edge of Nicolae’s eye, but he set his shoulders. Better to deal with the ostracism of hundreds than be stripped of who he was.
A man was no man if he couldn’t decide his own character.
“<I won’t participate in this,>” he said.
“<You will,>” Chief ordered coldly. “<Or you disgrace your people.>”
The men stirred.
Heat needled Nicolae’s cheeks, and his nerve endings felt like they were being burned by one of Gică’s lighted twigs. He swallowed. “<I won’t harm a man I do not know.>”
The men buzzed louder, like wasps poked in their nest.
Nicolae raised his voice. “<How do any of us know if this man lacks honor, just because his father did? Search within yourselves for the answer.>” He stepped back and scanned the crowd. “<Who of you are your fathers? Marcel>”—he picked out the man’s face from the others—“<your father paid someone to kill your mother so he could be free of her. Are you the same?>”
Nicolae heard Vasile hiss.
Recklessly, Nicolae went on. Or tried to. “Horia—”
Chief struck him full across the face with the whip.
The blow made a loud thunk as the handle met Nicolae’s jawbone. His dark hair flung across his eyes. Pain collapsed the entire left side of his cheek, and blood rushed out of his nose.
“<How dare you speak of other men in such a manner,>” Chief fumed, “<when you are naught but a worm?>”
Nicolae straightened. He was no worm. His days of being a powerless, weak little nothing of a creature were over. He was a fool, that’s what he was, to have believed he’d managed to obtain a measure of acceptance among his people.
Because here it was, gone.
In a blink.
A snap.
If what he previously gained was so easily lost, he never actually had it in the first place.
Working his jaw, Nicolae gave Chief a flat stare. Warm liquid crawled onto his upper lip from his nose. He didn’t wipe it away. He sniffed burning blood up into his sinuses. “<I won’t participate in this,>” he repeated.
Chief’s complexion stained red, the scar cutting along his jaw standing out paler and rigid against the darker hue.
Nicolae’s look of defiance was probably worse for the man than the insubordinate words themselves. Because it spoke louder than the words.
No more.
Nicolae turned away and melted into the shadow of his tree.