Masks and Shadows by Stephanie Burgis Page A

women had begun to weep quietly. Madame Zelinowsky stared down at her clenched fingers. “Perhaps, perhaps not. But they’ll catch Herr Antonicek and Madame Delacroix by tonight, signor. That, at least, is certain.”

Chapter Five
    â€œ...Seven . . . Eight . . .”
    Franz wept, spread-eagled on the public whipping block, and saw only fire in his vision.
    â€œ. . . Nine . . .”
    The bastinado crashed down again, hard wood-and-steel rod against bruised and bleeding skin. The bones of his back would surely never stand such assault. They would shatter and leave him broken, useless.
    â€œ. . . Ten . . .”
    Bloody useless waste . Him. Antonicek and Madame Delacroix. Everything.
    He’d thought he’d pay Delacroix back, strike for justice. Have a laugh at the old sot’s expense. Useless .
    â€œ. . . Eleven . . .”
    Flame arced down his back as new skin broke open. Franz screamed, uncaring of Delacroix salivating over his pain, that filthy bastard, or Herr Rahier, the Prince’s administrator, watching coldly to see that every stroke of the bastinado landed on target.
    No good, no good, no good . . . Franz had tried everything, but no pleas, no amount of desperation, could ever have been enough to change the Prince’s mind. Cold as aristocratic ice, ordering this torture.
    Franz broken, Antonicek and Madame Delacroix dragged back to suffer more, and bloody Delacroix soaking the whole mess up . . .
    â€œ. . . Twelve!”
    The heavy bastinado smashed down one last time, and something cracked in Franz’s back.
    He convulsed, spitting and crying. In the red haze, he barely noticed strong hands removing the straps from around his wrists, throwing a shirt across his mangled back, and finally carrying him across the courtyard.
    He’d meant to spit at Delacroix’s feet as he passed. But he couldn’t even open his eyes against the pain.

    They deposited him in a cold, dark room. He crumpled onto the floor when they let go of his arms. Voices spoke, but Franz couldn’t make out the words. Only the closing of the barred door sounded clearly through his haze. He was alone.
    Shivers racked his body until at last, mercifully, he lost consciousness.
    When he awoke, a candle stub flickered at the far end of the room, next to a bowl of water and another filled with bread.
    â€œNaught but bread and water for one week’s imprisonment,” the Prince had pronounced, with that Godalmighty aristocratic chill.
    Franz began to laugh, although it hurt his throat.
    That bread might as well be on the far side of the world, for all the use it was to him. What good would any finer food do him? For he could surely neither drag his burning body across the floor to take it, nor swallow any food without vomiting it back up again.
    Laughing, he laid his face down on the cold stone floor and fell willingly back into sleep.
    When he woke again, he blinked against the total darkness. The candlelight was gone, yet he could feel the presence of another person in the room.
    He hurt too much to feel any fear. What more could be done to him?
    â€œFranz Pichler,” a man’s voice said coolly, beside his ear. “You’ll need water. Your jailers say you haven’t drunk yet.”
    Franz couldn’t answer. His throat was too dry. But when he felt the rim of the water bowl at his lips, he managed to tilt his head back and suck down the cool, stale water. If his eyes hadn’t burned dry, he would have wept again, in gratitude.
    â€œNow,” the voice said, once Franz had finished. “You’re to be kept here for a seven-night, I hear—which time you’ll need to heal yourself. But in the meantime, I want to give you something to think about. You are no friend, I think, to your director, Monsieur Delacroix?”
    Franz snorted, painfully.
    â€œI thought not. Nor, dare I say, to our esteemed local despot, the Prince?”
    Franz swallowed. If this was a