Wandering Spark - Part 27
The Cave of Justice, otherwise the Prison Gut, had only one way out. Judges and defendants, doomed to death robbers and the lord himself, in a case he would descend to the gut for some reason, necessarily had to go through the structure of the armed guards, pass the spiked gates and the stone door, so low that it was almost necessary to enter it on knees.
The flow of people swallowed and spewed by the Gut was almost endless. Who carried a complaint, who a denunciation, and some people were taking here by force. The season was in full swing.
Varan walked, accompanied by a guard, across the city. Almost at the very gates of the Gut he was caught by the father, who was suffocating from the run, but was strangely pale:
"Wait a minute! Guard! Wait, let's go together! He's a punk..."
The guard looked at him with an indifferent glance:
"Father?"
"What?"
"Go to the chancery, write a petition."
"I need to go to the judge..."
The guard, as if playfully, took off the spear-harpoon with a jagged tip from his shoulder. He pointed the chest to Varan’s father:
"Go to the chancery."
The father looked in Varan’s eyes.
Probably, there was still a chance to escape. On the evening streets - crowds, where you can get lost. You can dive into a shop and wait out the pursuit. You can get to the port at night, employ as a rower on the ship leaving the port. And he will never come back. He will never ee again the shores of the Round Fang and Nila...
Varan was standing behind the guard and was really unguarded. He shifted from foot to foot, as if an evening warm stone burned his bare feet.
"Go," the guard again put a spear on his shoulder.
And Varan walked.
The Prison was illuminated with oil lamps. From somewhere was blowing a draft; they say that through the ventilation slots you can escape. Varan heard this conversation a long time ago, even when he helped his parents in the tavern; Two tanned, paunchy sailors whispered in a corner under the awning, and Varan was cleaning the tables and heard everything...
A draft ran through his face with an icy stream.
The guard handed Varan from hand to hand to a judicial officer in a shabby black robe. He took him to a low semicircular cave, where, sitting on rotten mats, where waited for their fate a whole brood of all sorts of rabble. Earrings in large dark brown ears were swaying, snorting unkind, unhealthy eyes; someone scolded, someone snored, someone silently stared at the ceiling covered with pots. One skinny and bald-headed man, apparently unearthly by nature, was sobbing and ached in a corner, rubbing dirty tears over his wrinkled face: he is not guilty of anything, he is a victim, just a victim, is it clear to you?..
He was taken first.
Then they began to take one after another, sometimes quickly, sometimes with an interval of half an hour. No one came back from the courtroom.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23
Part 24
Part 25
Part 26
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