False Colors by Alex Beecroft Page B

It could hardly have been called a smile, though he made the effort. “They tamed me soon enough.”
In the silence that followed, John felt the weight of each word, the weight of Donwell’s casual brokenness, turn the sparkling air into a mockery. He recalled the horror of the pens and tried not to think about what it would be like to be so reduced to worthlessness. Instinctively, he reached out and took hold of the lieutenant’s least maimed hand, the touch startling Donwell to look back up.
Their eyes met and John saw terror—fear of all mankind, fear of living in such a world—before Donwell again closed his eyes and turned away, hiding.
“I…” John attacked the terrible void with words, lest it should overwhelm him too. “I…How about some music, Mr. Donwell? We have that cantata to finish, do we not?”
At the change of tactics, Donwell’s face smoothed. He raised his hands to his head, the pads of his fingers raw where the fingernails had been torn out, and unwound the bandage which sat like a fashionable lady’s turban on his scalp. John thought to protest, but stifled it, not wanting to provoke bad memories with unnecessary orders. Donwell looked more human with his cornsilk hair curling about his face. When he opened his eyes, John was pleased to see a hint of humor had dared to venture back; frail but promising, like the seedling of an oak.
“Still hunting those illicit thrills, sir? I’ll see what I can manage.”
    Every step rolled his foot over broken glass, sliced into his heel, speared through his instep, sawed through the abused, tender little bones of his toes, trapping them against the unyielding leather of his shoes and ending with a pain as eye-watering as a mouthful of lemon. Every step, the same progression of injuries repeated. With every step came the same reminder of being held down, the canes, the struggling, the cursing, and the wild belief that this could not happen. Not to him. Every step was a reminder of humiliation. By the time he walked from his cabin to the wardroom, his spirit, as raw as his feet, flayed and tender, could barely support another breath.
    Alfie fell into his seat, gasping as if he’d run from Marathon to Athens. His hands trembled on the table so hard they made a staccato drumbeat, and he felt the eyes of all the company on him. Sympathy and resentment were equally unbearable. Tucking his hands into his armpits to still them, he raised his head, surprised and pleased to know there was still some defiance left in him.
    “Christ! They made a mess of you,” said Hall with satisfaction, reaching up to fiddle with the paper securing the lefthand curl of his carefully dressed hair. When Alfie didn’t answer, Hall took up his fork again and speared a lump of boiled salt horse, nibbling on it with fastidious distaste. “Wouldn’t lie down and take it, eh? Can’t say I blame you. We’ve all heard what those heathens like to do with a fresh piece of Christian arse.…” He smiled. “But then you’d know more about that than we would, eh? Surprised you can sit down.”
    The Master laughed. Down at the end of the table, Armitage gave a shocked, delighted titter. Rage rose up from the brutalized soles of Alfie’s feet through every aching, shamed particle of his body in a tide of burning pitch.
    Anger was better than laudanum for making him forget the pain, for re-knitting bone and sinew. He had risen and crossed the room before he even felt the fireworks of agony through his blood. The sudden panic in Hall’s eyes as he grabbed the fornicating cunt by his foppish hair and slammed his face into the table was more of a balm for all those days of fear than any of Harper’s pills. Shouting, Hall tried to stab him with the silverware. Armitage yelled something behind him while the Master laughed until he sent himself into a coughing fit.
    Alfie grabbed Hall’s knife hand and ground it beneath his full weight, forcing the fingers to open or to break. Knocking the