The Pillar (12 page)

“Where was the chest kept?” Divjak asked.

“In my personal chambers.”

“And how would your former slave have known this? Did he ever enter those chambers?”

Divjak looked slightly uncomfortable. “No, of course not. I kept him outside. He stinks.”

Faris curled his hands into tight fists but said nothing.

“Then how would he have known where the necklace was?” asked Divjak.

“I don’t know. I’m sure the servants talk and he overheard. He’s devious like that, Qadi. Stupid but possessing a sort of animal cunning.”

“And you believe this former slave—”

“His name is Boro.” Faris looked at Divjak unflinchingly. “I’m sorry, sir, but he has a name.”

Divjak paused, then dipped his head slightly before returning his attention to Kurjak. “You believe that Boro learned where you kept the necklace, and he told Faris.”

“Yes. And once I deduced that, well, I came to town to tell you. And to retrieve my property. You saw the results.”

“I did.” Divjak looked at Kurjak for a very long time. “Have you anything else to add?”

“The necklace is very valuable. And everyone knows
this
man—”

“Have you anything to add of which I am not already aware?”

Kurjak deflated slightly. “No. That is all.”

Now Divjak turned his scrutiny on Faris. Faris stood straight with his arms at his sides and his face blank. He wondered what the qadi was looking for and what he saw. Likely a man who was fairly short and wiry, no longer so young, with unruly dark curls tumbling from under his cap and a cloak still dotted with pine needles from the forest. A man who’d long ago been rejected by his own blood kin, who’d worn rags and eaten refuse to survive, who’d stolen a bracelet and still carried lash marks on his skin. Would Divjak see the rest? A youth who’d flown like a bird when he jumped off the bridge, who’d loved the old man who took him in, who’d greedily gathered every bit of information he could find about how to heal? A man who’d recently grown to love another so deeply, so
well
, that just a small smile could send him into transports of joy and make him feel as if his soul had left his body and made a new home in his lover’s chest.

“Faris,” Divjak said at last, “what have you to say?”

“I did not steal that necklace, Qadi.”

“You saw for yourself that the necklace was hidden under your bed.”

“Yes.”

“How did it get there?”

Faris shook his head. “I don’t know, sir.”

“Is it possible Boro took it?”

“No!” For the first time, Faris felt afraid. He struggled to remain calm. “It is not possible. He was naked when I brought him home from the pillar. He had nothing. And since then he has barely been out of my sight. Besides, the last place he’d want to go is back to Kurjak’s lands.”

Seemingly satisfied, Divjak nodded slightly. “Very well. And I understand that until very recently, he would not have been well enough to make that journey.”

“That’s correct, Qadi. He was… he was injured quite badly.” Faris wanted to glare at Kurjak but didn’t.

“So then we are back where we began, Faris. If Boro didn’t put the necklace under your bed and if you didn’t, who did?”

“I don’t know. Boro and I were gone most of the day yesterday. Maybe someone brought it into my house then.”

Although Faris was looking at Divjak as he said those words, Kurjak made an outraged bleat. “Qadi! Do you hear the lies this thief—”

“Silence! You will remain quiet unless I direct a question to you.” Divjak turned back to Faris. “Have you any proof that this was done?”

“No, sir. Only the necklace itself.”

“And have you anything else to add?”

Only a thousand things, really. Like Faris’s plans to find Boro a potter’s wheel and maybe even teach him to read the labels on the jars of herbs. The hope of swimming together in the summer, seeing Boro naked in the moonlight. The pleasure of Boro’s arms around him in bed and their bodies curled together just right, as if they’d been created as a matched set. How Boro’s eyes crinkled when he laughed, and the way he liked to play with Faris’s curls, and the roasted lamb he’d promised to make in the spring. Faris’s dream of staying together with Boro always. Growing old together. Burying unhappy memories in an avalanche of good ones.

“Nothing else, Qadi,” Faris lied.

Osman Divjak looked down at his lap for a very long time. Kurjak fidgeted. Ramiz the secretary rolled up his scroll, placed it on the shelf, and took down another. Faris’s heart beat steadily against his ribs. How many more beats remained?

When Divjak looked up again, his face was very neutral. “We are faced with the word of one man against the word of another. We have no disinterested witnesses to support either claim. There is no scale on this earth that can measure the weight of a man’s soul to tell whether it is sound. And so I must choose which man to believe.” He sighed. “One man has been graced by God with wealth. I have no knowledge that he is anything but honest. And the other… the other is poor and has already been found guilty of theft. I must accept Ratko Kurjak’s version of the truth.”

While Kurjak gave voice to his victory—“Hah!”—Faris said nothing. He’d known from the beginning this would be the outcome and had not even dreamed of any other.

“Faris, you are sentenced to be lashed two hundred times and left at the pillar. Do you wish to be visited by a priest or imam while you await your sentence?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well. Then—”

“Qadi!” Kurjak stepped forward as he interrupted. “I suggest this thief’s punishment be carried out in secret so as to avoid a disturbance by the slave.”

Divjak gave him a cold look. “I will take your advice under consideration. Now, leave me.” He clapped his hands.

The soldiers moved forward to flank Faris and accompany him out the door and down the hall. At least he wasn’t in chains; he could hold on to one small piece of his dignity.

Hurried footsteps sounded on the floor behind them as Kurjak scurried to catch up. He tried to push his way beside Faris, but when the soldiers wouldn’t move, he had to content himself with walking close behind instead. “Two hundred lashes will kill you. There will be nobody there to save you with leaves and mud.”

Faris wondered what could twist a man to be so cruel. How could anyone take pleasure in causing another to suffer?

As Faris waited for a soldier to unlock the door to the stairway, Kurjak bent over to puff rancid breath into his ear. “If you survive the flogging, boy, I’ll take you off the pillar myself. I’ll put a collar on you.”

Faris almost thanked the soldiers for leading him away.

F
ARIS
SPENT
two more nights in the cell, which was odd. Last time, he’d been taken to the pillar almost at once. There didn’t seem to be much point in feeding and housing a condemned man.

He spent the days and nights walking back and forth in his cell, gazing out the slit of a window, sleeping fitfully in the dirty straw. The soldiers occasionally came with food and water or to empty the waste bucket. Although he wasn’t hungry, Faris ate a little because the soup warmed him and because he wanted to conserve some strength. He didn’t want to collapse and be dragged to the pillar like a beast to slaughter.

Sometimes he imagined himself changing into a beetle and climbing out the little window. He would fly over the river and find his house among the gray rooftops. He would wiggle in through a crack and get one final look at his beloved. But whenever he slipped into these fantasies, he began to worry. What if Boro didn’t have the good sense to stay out of Kurjak’s way? If only Faris had been able to tell Boro that no good ever came of vengeance, that Boro could best honor his memory by being safe and happy.

God, if only there had been time for one last embrace!

As his fourth night in the cell began, he leaned close to the window, listening to church bells and the mournful calls of muezzins. The sounds wound around each other in a complex harmony that seemed to resonate within Faris’s body, the sound of home. Darkness settled over the town and hillside. He could make out a few lights twinkling in windows. He imagined families settling down to dinner, and later people would gather in homes and kafanas to drink coffee and have the same conversations they’d been holding for generations. Mirsada would bustle around with her tray, now and then calling to Ibro or Ajla to stop daydreaming and move faster. Mehmed the woodcarver would make his bad jokes. Igor the shoemaker might show up with his elderly father. Perhaps someone would sit at Faris’s old table near the back door.

The bolt on the cell door
thunked
open, and then the hinges creaked and squealed. This time four soldiers stood outside the cell, and with them was a very tall, thin man in a uniform. Faris couldn’t help but fall back a step when he recognized him—it was the bey, the man who commanded the soldiers of this district. The man who had flogged him long ago and now would again.

“Give me your hands,” barked one of the soldiers.

Faris took a deep breath before lifting his wrists. The soldier snapped on a pair of iron manacles attached by a short chain. As Faris followed the men down the corridor, he wondered if it was the same set of irons he’d worn before. They weren’t uncomfortably tight, but the coldness of the metal seeped through his sleeves, chilling him.

The night was cold and clear, with a multitude of stars. The streets were largely deserted, and their boot steps echoed loudly on the cobbles. All of this was good. Last time, Faris made the walk at midday, as the townspeople stared at him with disgust. Back then, he’d been used to such looks and they didn’t hurt very much. He wasn’t sure he could bear them now.

Since Kurjak had suggested the punishment take place in secret, Faris found himself speculating about where they were going. He wondered whether anyone had told Kurjak where the whipping would take place, and he hoped not. He’d far rather die alone and abandoned than wear that man’s collar, even for a single moment. Then he reminded himself that he shouldn’t be thinking and definitely shouldn’t be hoping. He needed to turn off his mind, a bit like Boro said he had while in captivity.

But despite these self-admonitions, Faris was alarmed when he realized they were heading to the square near Mirsada’s kafana. Apparently Divjak had decided the punishment would take place at its traditional site after all. Kurjak could find Faris there too easily, and there might be other observers who Faris knew, watching him with narrowed eyes and lifted lips. There must be some other place he could be whipped instead.

Faris walked a little faster so he was right behind the bey. “Please, sir, can we—”

The bey spun around and hit Faris’s cheek hard enough to make him stumble. “No talking!”

Faris tasted blood. At least, he told himself, there would be little chance for his face to swell and bruise. The thought wasn’t as comforting as he’d intended.

The square was empty of people, of living people anyway. The gravestones near the mosque glowed in the moonlight. Would anyone bother to bury Faris? Some of those who were condemned were simply dumped in the river afterward, as if the town couldn’t stand to house even their corpses. Didn’t matter, he reminded himself. Nothing mattered.

One of the soldiers unlocked the manacles and tucked them away. “Remove his cloak,” said the bey. Faris took it off himself and set it aside. Perhaps someone who needed it would find it. When he was a boy, he’d have been very thankful for such a warm garment, even if it was dirty from the cell. He tossed his cap aside as well.

Now the soldiers pushed him to the pillar, which was unnecessary. He would have walked on his own. He watched as one of them strung a thick rope through the iron rings. A moment later, that rope was tied very firmly to Faris’s wrists and then hoisted and tightened. The soldier made the rope taut, and because Faris was short, his arms were pulled up quite painfully. Already the rope was digging into his skin.

The bey barked a command, but Faris couldn’t quite hear it—the blood was rushing too loudly in his ears. Then someone was running a knife down the back of his tunic, not taking much care over the job, because the blade sliced shallowly into Faris’s back as well. It stung, and the blood itched as it trickled down his spine.

With a few tugs, the soldiers ripped away the remains of his shirt and belt. He hung his head as the knife tore at the waistband of his breeches, which fell around his feet. Nobody seemed to care that he still wore his hose and boots.

Could these men see his old scars in the moonlight? Perhaps the bey would follow the same flogging patterns he had before. Perhaps the scars would protect his back a bit from the new lashes.

Faris’s head was down and his eyes shut, but he could hear the soldiers step away. The bey recited a prayer. He had a thick accent. He must be from far away. Did he miss his home? Did he have family there?

Faris bit his lip to keep himself from asking these questions that made little sense under his present circumstances and would never be answered anyway.

He would instead think about Boro. The smell of him, which varied depending on what he’d been eating but always had the same earthy, salty undertone Faris loved so much. And when he was truly happy—an event that had been happening more often lately—Boro would throw his head back and laugh deep in his throat, rather like a lion’s roar, Faris imagined. That laugh never failed to leave Faris hard and ready. And God, the feel of the man—his ass, his mouth, his cock. The way he’d drop a kiss on Faris’s head when Faris was bent over his notes and Boro was walking by. The way he’d gaze at Faris like he was a wonderful discovery. The names he called Faris. Not just endearments like dusho and beloved but silly things: rabbit, sweetling, angel, curlylocks. He could still make Faris blush, and then he’d kiss the blush away. He liked to—

Crack!

The first lash snapped across his back like liquid fire. Faris jerked but didn’t cry out. He would before long, he knew that, because the pain only grew worse with each blow.