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Oh we know some things, man, about some things
Like jazz and jails and God.
Saturday is a good day to go to jail.
—Jail Poems, Bob Kaufman
—
“Say it.”
“Certainly not.”
“Say it.” Tav’s whisper had taken on the wheedling quality that it always did when she was laughing at his expense. “Please don’t leave me, darling. I can’t do this without you.”
“I’ll rot first,” Astarion snapped, and he heard Tav stifle a snort of laughter in her own arm. A few rustles followed as she clearly settled down to wait on the other side of the cell wall; Astarion guessed they were roughly back to back, even if six inches of solid stone separated them. He stretched out his legs in the thin, disgusting straw that covered the prison floor, crossed his bare ankles, and closed his eyes. “How utterly useless you are.”
“I’m not the one in Heapside.”
“For once in your life,” Astarion said bitterly, and he heard her laugh again. “Wretched, half-witted clod. Watching me paraded away by three Fists—three of them—for no reason at all. Not even an attempt to save me. An innocent man!”
“You stole a melon in broad daylight.”
“Half a melon. From an abandoned picnic blanket in the middle of the park without a single soul in sight to complain.” He curled his lip in annoyance. “I’d picked it up for you, darling.”
“Liar.”
She was right—he’d taken it as idly as Gale humming while he cooked—but Astarion was in no mood to entertain conciliation. “Well! As charming as it is to sit here and listen to you gloat, my dear, I apparently have a gods-damned sentencing to await.” He thumped his head back against the wall in annoyance. “Nearly two hundred years successfully avoiding this execrable place, and you have me slung in here within a handful of months.”
“I just wanted to share the joy with you.”
“Please don’t.”
“Shut up in there,” one of the guards said sharply. He rattled a cudgel against the bars of Astarion’s cell, then peered into the dim shadows. “Who the hells are you talking to?”
“Myself, darling,” Astarion drawled. “The best company one can dredge up in this awful place.” He rapped a knuckle against the wall behind his head. “Tell me, what’s behind here? Storage? Another cell?” He leered. “Somewhere you and I might be a little more…private?”
“Fink,” he heard Tav breathe through the cracked stone.
The guard flinched, blushed, and smacked the iron bars again. “Nothing for you to care about. Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.”
“I suppose my fortitude is robust enough to endure the mystery,” Astarion said aloud, and the guard continued on his route, still grumbling. After a moment, with the last bare vestiges of his temper, Astarion hissed, “Well?”
A series of images raised themselves before his mind’s eye, like a cardsharp rifling through a trick deck. A loose stone about two feet to his left, displaced just enough for Tav to slide through a wrapped set of her lockpicks. A great storage chest in the middle of the main prison floor, made of oak and reinforced with iron straps, where all his stripped belongings had been stored. A view of the main room through a cracked door—the door to the privy hallway where Tav was hidden—and the pair of guards playing checkers at the back table, swords ready at hand beside them.
Excellent. He didn’t bother to work out a plan—they never seemed to come right anyway—but as he laid one surreptitious hand on the loose stone, he felt Tav hold it in place from the other side, preventing him from taking the tools. “Please, darling. Don’t be a bore.”
“Tell me you can’t do it without me.”
“I’ll shout your name to the bloody rafters if you don’t let go.”
“How stupid that I still love you,” he heard her sigh, and the stone released.
Ignoring the swoop his heart gave at that, Astarion quickly unrolled the leather and perused her tools. This part of his cell was exceedingly dark, and he had to pause with affected unconcern for a moment or two as the patrolling guard made another lap. Even so, he could see enough to be disgusted. “Ugh.”
“What?”
“Your tension wrench has a bend in the neck.” He grimaced. “And your long rake is missing altogether. Darling, you live like this?”
“Why would I need a rake when I have the half-diamond?” Ah, there was real irritation in her voice now. Entertainment at last. “And you bent the tension rod, remember? When you borrowed it in the basement of Sorcerous Sundries, after your own melted in that fire trap.”
“I don’t recall,” he said in that offhanded way that he knew infuriated her, and he tucked the rest of the rolled-up toolkit into his shirtsleeve. “Honestly! I’m amazed you’ve ever unlocked anything lately.”
The gasp of outrage made him choke on his own laughter. “Idiot!” she said, the whisper almost slipping into full voice, and then he heard a shuffle behind the wall. “You’re on your own. Tymora keep you in your escape, because I certainly won’t.”
“Come now, darling, don’t be petty.” Astarion paused, but there was no answering retort, no further whisper or step. He reached out with the tadpole, but it rebounded off her mind like a hammer off an anvil, and he winced at the recoil.
She’d wholly shut him out. She’d actually left him here in this Heapside cell by himself. He was shocked at his own dismay. “Tavish? I demand you come back.”
“I told you to shut up in there!”
Silence.
Gods. She’d left him. Two hundred years knowing himself utterly alone and friendless, and the betrayal still felt as new and agonizing as a white-hot poker between the ribs. Gods below. He wanted to rip out his dead heart and crush it. He knew he could get out easily with what she’d slipped him—knew these cells would be as porous as she’d described—but by the Hells, that wasn’t the point—
“What are you waiting for?” Tav hissed.
Relief crashed over him like an upturned bucket of water. “I thought you’d left,” he gasped, unable to pretend away the fear.
“I would never really leave you,” she said shortly, as if it were obvious. Her voice was a little further away, he realized, and a little lower, as if she’d crouched deeper in some shadow, but she was still here, still with him, and the tremendous comfort that provided was at once appalling and invigorating. “I wouldn’t leave my worst enemy here. Well—maybe Gortash, I guess. But you? No. Never.”
“Good,” Astarion said, thoroughly shaken. “I’d hate to have to snap this tension wrench the rest of the way.”
“I’ll snap your fingers if you do. Are you ready?”
“Naturally, darling. Do try to keep up.” He clambered to his feet, stretched, then went to the door of his cell, where he casually folded his arms against the bars. “Guard! Oh, guard! Come here—something’s the matter with my lodgings.”
“Tyr’s right hand,” the man sighed, circling the room’s central pillar to come to him. “You’re noisier than a fleet of jackdaws. What’s wrong with you now?”
“Any number of things,” Astarion said, letting the annoyance bleed through every word. As the guard reached his door, a shadow flickered behind him. It was gone in an instant, and a moment later one of the braziers on the pillar went out with a little puff of smoke. “I’ll settle at the moment for the straw, however.”
“The straw?”
He swept his arm grandly behind him. “Look at it! Thin, damp, and utterly reeking of piss. My dear boy, these aren’t fit conditions for a dog, much less a man.” He could barely make out the shape of the chest that held his belongings in the deepened shadows, but he thought he saw the lid lift an inch or two, pause, then lift a few inches more. “Oh! How curious…hm.”
The guard took a few hesitant steps nearer, hand on his cudgel. “What? What is it? What are you looking at?”
“Your eyes. They nearly glow in the lamplight.” He let his voice drop into his chest, low and rumbling, and turned his head so that the curl of his close-mouthed smile caught the torches. “They’re…beautiful. That’s all. Captivating, really.”
“What does he want?” called one of the guards playing checkers.
“Nothing, nothing!” Even in the dimness Astarion could see the man was blushing furiously. Gods, how easy it was to slip back into all of this, like reaching for some ancient tattered overcoat at the start of winter. Not warm, not beloved, not even attractive—just the only functional defense one had against freezing to death. “Captivating,” the man repeated, a little amazed, and then he gave a self-conscious laugh. “Oh. Because you’re—because you’re captive.”
Disgusting. A wit. Astarion snaked a hand between the bars and ran a finger up the man’s armored stomach. “And charming, too. What a pity.”
In his periphery, the lid of the wooden chest dropped silently shut. The shadow darted back behind the pillar while the man was staring cross-eyed at Astarion’s finger; a moment later Tav straightened up directly behind the guard, peering at Astarion over the man’s shoulder. Her eyebrows were raised in question.
The fight to keep his face still was monumental. Little idiot!
The man gave a startled, awkward laugh into the quiet and began to back away. Astarion hooked a finger in his collar like lightning and dragged him an inch or two nearer the bars. “You know, darling, this cell’s rather big for one person. A man might find himself lonely if he’s left here long enough. You know…” He licked his lips. “Frustrated.”
Tav rolled her eyes over the guard’s shoulder, but she noiselessly dipped away into the dark again as the guard stammered and babbled. After a few seconds Astarion saw the door on the far side of the room crack open, revealing a glimpse of stairs beyond, then close. He waited a few minutes more, idly toying with the guard’s belt as he murmured something nonsensical about candlelight, and then the door opened and closed again without a sound. Perfect.
“But you’re—you’re so beautiful,” the man was saying, and the very small portion of Astarion that was still listening gave a polished, tittering laugh. “I reckon I probably shouldn’t have—you know. Told you to shut up.”
“You’ll think of a way to make it up to me,” Astarion purred, and the entire prison rattled with a brief but deafening explosion.
Dust and grit cascaded down around them. Astarion’s guard didn’t yelp, but the other two did, and all of them waited in breathless silence for the braziers to stop trembling. The explosion had come from directly above the prison’s main room, and Astarion could hear shouts and calls of worry over many pounding feet.
“We’d better—” one of the guards at the checkerboard said, and she and her partner rose and hurried through the far door to the stairs—after unlocking it first, which Astarion found immensely satisfying. The guard at Astarion’s cell hesitated, glancing back and forth between Astarion and the door where they’d disappeared; eventually the fear won, and he trotted with one hand on his cudgel to the base of the stairs and peered up after his comrades.
As effortless and choreographed as a dance. The moment the guard’s back was turned Astarion had the lock undone, even with Tav’s wretched half-diamond and bent tension wrench. In a trice he was out of the cell altogether, the dagger Tav had slipped him via the guard’s belt firm in his grip.
She’d understood his need for a blade, even with picks in hand. She knew better than most the difference between being loose and being free.
Another brazier winked out with a puff of smoke. Astarion spared a precious few seconds to relock the cell door behind him—if she could do it, so could he, and it would be hilarious besides—and as he finished he felt Tav’s hand alight on the small of his back. He raised his arms for her to rebuckle his belt around his waist; in the same motion he returned her picks to their leather case and hooked the case itself to her hip. The belt’s leather tongue hissed as she drew it taut, and the returned weight of his sheathed knife was a comfort in itself.
The dagger he kept bare in his hand. For an instant his eyes fell on the guard still standing at the bottom of the stairs. The throw would be effortless, even in the dark. Simple. Clean. The smart thing to do, really.
But Tav wouldn’t like it. He knew she wouldn’t, as sure as he knew their next steps in this silent waltz, and with a grimace he turned away from the guard. She lifted her eyebrows again; he gestured impatiently, and she gave a slow, sweet smile before hooking a hand around his neck and pulling him down into a kiss.
Ah. An improvisation, and one Astarion enjoyed very much, even here. He sighed through his nose, the weight of the last few hours rolling away like the coins from a spilled purse, and he slid an arm around her waist. His own pack obstructed his way briefly, the straps far too long for her shorter frame, but she arched into his chest anyway with her habitual eagerness, and that was more than enough.
Gods. How easy it became to endure every trial the city might conjure up when he knew Tav would be waiting for him at the end of it.
“I have a confession, darling,” he breathed against her mouth. A second, much smaller explosion went off upstairs to a chorus of startled cries.
Tav’s eyes were bright with humor. “Hm?”
“As it happens, I’d rather not do this without you.”
“Mm,” she said, satisfaction thrumming through the sound, and she kissed him again.
Ah, but they were pushing their luck already. Despite every part of him yearning to cling to Tav until the prison came down around them, he released her when she pulled away, and when she led him by the hand back through the privy door he followed without complaint. She locked the door behind them; he broke the bolt in place. He’d very much miss seeing the guard’s look of stupid shock, but—
“Here,” Tav whispered in his ear. She slid aside a stone about the length of a finger, just wide enough for Astarion to peer through if he crouched a bit. “Found this about eight months ago.”
“The gifts you give me, my dear,” he breathed, and he felt her vibrate with laughter against him. It took a little jostling, but they managed to find a position where they both could see, and they watched together as the guard at last came back around the pillar, glanced over, and paused with comic confusion at the sight of the empty cell.
“Uh,” the man said aloud. He crossed to the cell door, jostled it, and then unlocked it with a key from his pocket. He stepped into the cell itself with a series of useless looks to the walls, the scattered straw, and inexplicably the ceiling, as if he expected to find Astarion clinging upside-down to the stone, then came out and stared helplessly at the empty room. “Uh,” he said again, much higher, and then with obvious panic he quick-marched himself up the far stairs and out of sight.
Still laughing, Tav led Astarion back along the privy hall, past the privy itself, and then through a small broken grating about halfway up the wall. It was a tight squeeze for Astarion, though he made do by pinching Tav’s ankles every time she paused, and soon enough they stood on a small stone ledge overlooking a reasonably finished portion of the sewers. Another much larger grate to their right let in a considerable amount of afternoon sunlight, and Astarion stretched catlike in its warmth.
“An acceptable rescue, I take it,” Tav said, watching him. That damnable smile still played over her mouth; Astarion wanted very badly to kiss it.
“A little lengthy, I thought,” he said instead, and settled for resting his fingers alongside her throat. “And it all involved me spending rather too much time with a very dull idiot. Though I suppose I can’t really complain, seeing as I am, in fact, free once more. Here, darling, for you. Never let it be said you found me ungrateful.”
“What’s this?”
“Only a small trifle,” he said, and watched with tremendous satisfaction as she opened the clinking bag.
“Astarion!” Her eyes lit with genuine delight, and she ran her fingers through the gold like water. “You lifted this for me? Really?”
“Every coin he had,” he said, and when she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek the satisfaction in his chest brimmed over into an ocean. “Besides, my dear, I suspect you’ll need it. How much alchemist’s fire did you use, anyway? I thought the walls might come down around my ears.”
“Every vial we had,” she admitted, and she gave him a proper, if woefully brief, kiss on the mouth. “I thought the first match hadn’t taken, so I threw three more. Thank Gond the mortar held. Here, take back your pack. It’s heavy.”
“And you’ve all the strength of a damp tissue,” Astarion said, but he lifted the pack from her shoulders. A glimpse of something beneath the half-latched flap made him pause. “What have you done?”
“I thought you might want it back,” Tav said, the picture of perfect innocence. “Seeing as it started this whole mess in the first place.”
“You ghastly thing,” Astarion said, fangs bared, and with a great deal of prejudice he slung the blasted sunmelon as deep into the sewers as he could. It bounced twice, then disappeared into a small algae-choked pond with a sploosh. “How fortunate you have other charms.”
“Yes,” Tav agreed, linking her fingers through his, and they climbed together from the sewers into the clean, sweet air of the sunlit afternoon.
—
end.