Chapter Five
Underground
Lira coughed as she was thrown onto the dirty ground, the dust from the ground making its way into her mouth. As she struggled to catch her breath, the iron gates slammed shut behind her, the walls shuddering. The lock groaned as it was slid into place, and the sound echoed off the stone walls surrounding her. It had all happened so fast that she had barely been able to gather her bearings. She had been led down a series of stone stairs, through underground tunnels which were lined with jail cells, often filled with half-dressed men, whose bones were unnaturally visible through their skin. Her eyes had caught on a particular set of angry eyes that were watching her from behind iron bars when the guard forced her head to the ground, after which she was forced to watch her feet as they stormed through the tunnels.
Wincing at the pain of the ropes slicing into her wrists, which were wrapped tightly behind her back, she squirmed around until she was laying on her stomach and then she pushed herself onto her knees.
The magnitude of the situation was slowly creeping into her, despite the defenses her denial was attempting to keep up. This was bad. Very bad. There were voices around her, but the shock of her situation had stripped her of the ability to make them out. All she could focus on was the fact that she’d just been slammed into a chamber under the palace grounds. Her abaya had slipped from her head to drape around her shoulders, tendrils of her dark hair escaping from her braid to frame her face. She sat there for a moment, trying to calm the drumming of her heart. She wasn’t nervous, although a detached part of her brain told her that she had more than enough reason to be. What she was, was in survival mode, and she needed to find a way to fix the situation fast.
It had all happened so quickly.
The moment she had stepped onto the palace, two spears had been levelled against her throat, stopping her dead in her tracks. Wordlessly, two guards immediately twisted her armed behind her back to tie her wrists and had led her quietly down a winding path in the gardens to a set of latched doors embedded in the ground. She hadn’t bothered to protest. It was a criminal offense to break into the palace, disobeying orders from a royal guard would probably lead to her beheading. Instead, she obediently kept in line with the two stoic men at each side, until they led her down a series of tunnels lit only by the flame of their torches.
She assumed she wasn’t the first to attempt to break into the palace gardens through the mosque, and it all felt like a regimented routine. It was only when she came face to face with a wrought iron door that she attempted to protest. Only the briefest of sounds escaped her mouth before they roughly pushed her in through the door and into the empty cellar in which she sat now. She spat out the dirt that had made its way onto her tongue. Finally, her voice found its way back to her. “How long will you leave me here?”
“Until the Palace decides you’ve served your punishment for disobeying royal orders and breaking into the palace,” was the emotionless, curt reply. The guard sounded bored, and disinterested. Two bolts slid into place and the click of a key turning in its lock. He didn’t even look at her before he turned around to leave. Lira scrambled to the door.
“What will happen to me?” She yelled out at the retreating guards, the presence of which she could only tell by the sound of their retreating footsteps. “What is my punishment?”
“A woman!” A voice leered from somewhere around her, likely from a nearby cell. It was so dark that she couldn’t see who it was, the light from the torches the guards held growing dim as they disappeared down the corridor. “We haven’t had us a woman down here in a while!”
The comment was enough to start a cacophony of voices in the hallway, “A whore?”
“Maybe they’ll pass her around.”
“I like a woman!”
“How old is she?”
“Does it matter?”
“How old are you?”
“What’d you do to get yourself here, ladki? Do you have any special talents you could share with us?”
Disgusted, Lira crawled over to the back wall, to get as far away from the men jeering at her from within their own prison cells. The chamber they had thrown her in was small. She couldn’t see the entire room, but she could feel the presence of the walls around her. It was at most four feet by four, and the stale air around her was damp and cold in her lungs.
“You’ve done it now…” She muttered to herself as she leaned her head back against the wall, ignoring the laughter ensuing from the jokes being made at her expense. How could she have been so stupid? She should have known that the palace would have prepared for trespassers. Her ego and desperation to find help for Ayesha had clouded her judgement, and now she was paying for it.
“E ladki, why are you so so quiet?”
“Maybe she’s using her tongue for other purposes!”
Lira groaned and shut her eyes, trying to block out the lewdness. Even in the bathhouse, men weren’t this bad. Or rather, they were just as bad but were better at keeping up pretenses which made them more bearable. She bit her lip, trying to run through everything and anything she could think of to find a way out of this mess. Ayesha had mere hours, till dawn at most. She needed to get back to her, with remedies, before then.
She swelled down her disgust and looked into the darkness, “Hello?” she said into the shadows, “Can I speak to somebody here? They’ve made a mistake.”
The question elicited laughter, and jeers from some. “She’s fresh.”
“We can fix that.”
“Adoni, talk to the guard that you have in his favor. Maybe he can let us at her for a few hours.”
Lira felt like she was going to throw up. Despite having worked in the bathhouse for her entire life, she was not used to hearing blatant vulgarities such as the ones being thrown her way. Apa would throw out men like these and ban them from returning.
Another voice called out, “Tell me what you’re wearing -.”
“Watch your tongue,” she finally seethed, and bristled at the chuckles in response. Time to change her tactic, communicating with the other men in cells around her was not going to work.
She sat there like that for minutes, with her eyes shut as she tried to drown out the sounds of leers of the prisoners outside. She refused to let the panic gnawing away inside of her override her calmness. She had to find a way out of this and had to do it fast.
But what could she do? She had her hands literally tied behind her back and was locked in a dark prison cell that was locked shut with two bolts and a lock.
She gritted her teeth as the well of panic swelled larger inside of her. She had to think. There was Omar, a guard she knew from the bathhouse. If there was a way that she could send a message to him that she was down here, he could be persuaded to help…
“Looks like you’ve made a series of bad decisions tonight.”
Lira stilled at the sound of the man’s voice. It was different from the others. For one, it was closer – so close that she felt goosebumps rise on the base of her neck at the proximity of the stranger’s drawl. But what chilled her more was the tone. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but she immediately felt her muscles tense in vigilance.
“Reveal yourself.” She immediately shifted backwards, speaking to the direction of the voice. He was in the cell with her, that was for sure.
His voice was uncannily calm, “I would speak quieter, if I were you. It doesn’t sound like you have many friends down here.”
She strained to see in the darkness, unable to make out where he was. “I have no interest in continuing this conversation.”
“Yes, seems like you have a lot to keep you busy,” There was a trace of mirth in his voice, which irked Lira.
She frowned. “Who are you?”
“Let’s practice some anonymity, for both our sakes.”
“Something an innocent man would say.”
“I haven’t claimed any such thing.” There was a smile in his voice, which she could hear.
It only made her wish she had some of that armor the guards were wielding. “You’re admitting that you deserve to be down here?”
“Just as much as you, I’m sure.”
Straining to see in the darkness, her eyes began to adjust to the dim light and began to make out a faint shape in the near distance. He was sitting by the opposite wall, and from the sound of the heavy chains that clinked against one another as he moved, he was heavily chained up and secured to the wall.
Lira tried to quell the distrust from her voice, “It looks as if they have put some effort in ensuring that you don’t leave.”
“Alas,” he sighed, although the sarcasm was clear, “why I’m forced to entertain this conversation with you.”
“On the contrary, nobody is forcing you.” She huffed, trying to huddle as far away from the voice as she could. She felt like she was treading dangerous waters; Apa had always taught her that the less you spoke in a stranger’s company, the better. “Leave me be.”
A few moments passed in silence. It felt as if she had fallen down a rabbit hole, with the circumstances getting worse with every minute. Now there was a man in the cell with her, and she had no means of self-defense with her hands tied behind her back. She found solace in the fact there were chains holding him back. She swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in her throat.
The man in the shadows broke the silence. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “Have you ever fought someone?”
Lira didn’t turn to look at him. “It seems as if you don’t understand when a woman has no interest in speaking to you.”
“I’m not asking for a conversation, merely your services.”
“The lesser of two evils is my friend. Figure out where you belong.”
She could hear him chuckle, “you have trust issues.”
“I was taught not to trust men shackled to prison walls.”
He laughed, “I can’t imagine you’ll have much luck getting out of here on your own.”
His words lingered in the air as she sat there, sinking into her slowly. Finally, she turned to the dark shadow. “I have a friend amongst the royal guards. Once he knows I’m here, he will sort out this mess and help me escape.”
“Really?” he sounded bemused, “How long will it take for him to know that you’re in the catacombs?”
Lira held back the panic that clawed at her throat. He knew she didn’t have time. Nobody ever did. She needed to be back for Ayesha by dawn. With the medicine.
Lord have mercy.
With a resigned sigh, she closed her eyes. “What is it that you suggest?”
Lira tried to drown out the rambunctious sounds from the hallway. The other prisoners were trying to get her attention by whistling at her, which as only working to frustrate her further.
“I am to be hanged at dawn. I am always escorted by a pair of two soldiers. When they come, I want you to take them down.”
Her mouth almost dropped open, but she kept her composure. “You expect me to take down two armed men, with my hands tied behind my back?”
“I’ll walk you through it.”