I shoot her a thumbs up and give her an encouraging nod. One problem down at least.
Except now the rest of us are cleaver brides. I can already hear someone quietly sobbing down the line. I’m not crying. I’m not giving up. I study the room, trying to figure out where we’ll be executed. If enough of us rush the executioner all at once, some are bound to get away…
The prelate moves to the center of the room, and as he does, a chair is placed next to the empty throne on the dais. It’s not nearly as big as the empty stone seat, but it’s wrought with gold and looks expensive and throne-like just the same. The prelate sits down with a flourish, smoothing his robes. Avalla immediately sits at his feet on the stairs, looking starry-eyed.
He gestures at the throngs stuffed into the temple. “Eat! Eat in honor of Aron of the Cleaver.” He waves at a servant and someone brings him a plate.
There’s a rush toward the table of food, and then the room gets noisy and boisterous. Wine is passed around and the soldiers start to get hammered. I glance down the row of women and no one’s offering us anything. They all continue to stand like statues, the guards in front of us as impassive as the others.
All right, I guess it’s feast time for everyone except the “lucky” cleaver brides. That’s fine. Every hour that they spend getting drunk and stupid on wine is another hour I get to form a plan to get out of here.
As time passes and people grow drunk with wine, the room gets rowdier. Another round of food is brought out, and I watch Avalla offering morsels to the prelate. She’s doing her best not to look giddily happy and glances over at me from time to time, nervous.
More wine is brought out, and I fidget. The broken tile’s cutting into my hand. “How long does this party go on?”
“Until dawn,” the woman next to me says. “We wait for the hour of blood.”
Dawn? So we’re just going to sit here and watch everyone feast all night and wait to die? Man, these guys are dicks.
The drums stop their ominous beats and have been replaced by reedy flutes, and now drunken idiots dance and carouse in the center of the floor. Man, this really is like an office Christmas party. My nerves get more and more shot as the minutes tick past, and I start to worry that I’m not going to be able to get away. That I won’t find a way out of this place.
That I really was brought to this strange world just to die.
I shoot to my feet. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Bathroom?” One of the guards frowns at me.
“Is that not what it’s called? Lavatory? Potty?” When he continues to stare at me blankly, I sigh. “I have to pee.”
“The garderobe?”
“Sure?” I can’t believe this hasn’t come up in conversation yet and here I’ve been in medieval hell for a whole week almost. It doesn’t matter, though. I keep my hand clenched around my bit of sharp tile. Maybe I won’t need to use it after all. “I can escort myself. Just let me know the way.”
The guards exchange looks.
“Sit back down,” a different one says, scowling at me. “You don’t need to go anywhere.”
“My bladder is saying otherwise. You want me to pee all over the place? I’ll do it,” I threaten. “Won’t that be a bit of a party ruiner?” I give them a defiant look.
The second guard sighs. “Fine. I’ll take her.”
The girl next to me stands up. “Wait. I have to go, as well.”
“And me,” says another.
“And me,” adds a third. Two others raise their hands.
I bite back my frustration. My escape plan isn’t exactly going to work if everyone has the same damn idea. They’re ruining it for me.
“Sit down, all of you,” the guard snarls. “You’ll sit quietly and wait until the Hour of Blood, and if you do not, we’ll cut your throat and toss your body into the river without so much as a blessing. Understand?”
Everyone sits. Even me. Jeez.
I watch the revelers with an increasing sense of disgust. As time passes, they go beyond drunk. Someone starts fondling a nearby woman and then suddenly there’s a girl thrown down on a table with her skirts hiked up. I try not to stare, but from the noises she’s making, she’s having a really good