finger in the older man’s direction. “And you? All of you would do well to have a care not looking out for the last man you should.” With that, Smithfield scurried off, his large ring of metal keys clanging.
Ridley stole one last, regretful look at Tynan before continuing on his way.
Once both guards had gone, Tynan switched over to humming the remainder of the lyrics to “The Barkshire Tragedy.”
The new guard, Smithfield, had leveled the charge of madness at Tynan. The young man, however, was correct on only one thing: The majority of the people locked away here eventually lost their minds.
Tynan had lived in squalor. He’d been beaten as a child, had nearly broken his back grinding stone in a workhouse, only to rise up and rub shoulders with some of the most ruthless men and women in the whole of England. It would take a good deal more than locking him up in a cell to leave him dicked in the nob. Nay, that was for the innocent. The pitiable who still had goodness in their souls. Or links to the outside world. And for him, no one knew of his lone link to the living. It was a secret he’d carry, lest it be used against him. And it was also because of that link that he needed to find a way out, too.
There was always a way out.
He’d witnessed it firsthand. And he’d be damned if he proved the sorry sot who couldn’t maneuver himself out of this mess he’d landed in. Not when he’d invented the ways out of this place.
From the corner of his eye, Tynan caught the flicker of a shadow upon the opposite wall before he heard the arrival of his latest guest. Ah, his replacement. “Hinton!” he called before the other man had even stepped into focus. “A pleasure, as always,” he greeted with false cheer.
The warden stopped outside Tynan’s cage. Several years younger than Tynan’s thirty-three years, with pale blond hair and a wiry frame, the other man couldn’t be different in appearance… or how he ran this place.
Tall, young, and possessed of a cocksure arrogance that would be his downfall in this place, Hinton looked at Tynan and sneered. “You’re sounding in good spirits… and in your prison cell, no less.”
Aye, they could call it a cell. But the fact remained that he and the others here were no different than animals trapped and caged away.
“Ah, but then, why shouldn’t I be?” Tynan briefly splayed his arms, and then, folding his hands, he dropped his interlocked fists upon his flat stomach. “Not many men are fortunate to call their forever home the place that they built.”
The right corner of Hinton’s eye ticked. “You didn’t build this place. You ran it… and you corrupted it,” he said sharply, before collecting himself and smoothing the emotion from his harsh features.
“Ah, I didn’t corrupt anything.” Arching his back, Tynan sprang to his feet, delighting in the way the other man leaped back at the unexpectedness of his movement. “You are speaking under the assumption that people are inherently good. They aren’t. Men and women of all stations are born corrupt. Born bad. Evil.” There was just one whom he’d known who’d ever had a purity of spirit. That, however, was a rarity, a gift more elusive than the English sun. And gifts were meant to be preserved, a feat that eluded him as long as he was trapped here. Refusing to give in to the desperation that threatened to unleash within him, he flashed another frosty grin. “Is this why you’ve come, though? To engage me in a philosophical discussion? Tsk, tsk. In my time as warden, I hardly had the luxury of such freedom with my time. Or…” Tynan strolled over to the bars. “Is it that you’ve come to me in search of guidance on running this place?”
“Never.” The denial burst from the other man in another show of weakness and a lack of control. “I don’t require any help from the likes of you.”
Tynan begged to differ. His presence here with Tynan alone was a mark of just how miserable the blighter was in his new role that he’d waste his time speaking to him. It was a battle for supremacy the other man had waged, all the while failing to realize or know that he’d engaged in a war with just one.
“The likes of me? Do you mean someone who lived in the streets and because of it