Chapter Text
He is reassigned to Coldridge, a month after the Empress’ murder.
They present it as a privilege, an honour, but Geoff knows the transfer exactly for what it is. It’s the death of his career, in essence – officers get promoted for capturing criminals, not for keeping them locked up – and it’s reassurance. He’s been asking too many questions, been too critical of Burrows’ newly implemented security measures, was involved in just one too many skirmishes with Campbell’s Warfare Overseers. Geoff has been a nuisance, and this is how they mean to be rid of him.
He supposes he should be grateful he hasn’t ended up on the bottom of the Wrenhaven.
Though some days, even that prospect seems more cheerful than another twelve hour shift in the dull granite fortress, feeling as trapped as the prisoners themselves.
In theory, his job should be easy. He’s a captain, the highest Watch rank assigned to Coldridge, and all he has to do is oversee one of the four cell blocks, make sure the guards are doing their rounds, take the lead subduing any fights that break out. But these are not his men, the squad with whom he cultivated trust and respect; these are prison guards, those under his command rotating every day, and respect is not a concept they seem to understand.
To a man, they’re brass and loud and vicious, even those who came here with some sort of moral compass quickly whipped into shape by the status quo. It’s bend or break here in Coldridge Prison – but then Geoff has never been particularly flexible.
He clings to his righteousness, as tightly as he can. The others say he’s clutching the reins of his high horse, but he doesn’t care – under his command, the prisoners will not be abused. They will not be beaten, their rations will not be tampered with, they will not be humiliated or goaded or cursed at. While Geoff Curnow is responsible for cell block C, its prisoners will be treated like human beings.
It’s already come back to bite him in the ass more than once during his short tenure. The lower guards have forsaken some of their less desirable duties out of spite, claiming Geoff’s strict policies take up too much of their time. And since the state of the cell block reflects directly back on Geoff himself, he’s taken to things like handing out rations and collecting laundry and cleaning up the blood after a particularly nasty altercation – though those are becoming fewer and farther between the longer he remains at his post. The inmates who have been here for some time know the value of a decent captain.
Geoff finds he doesn’t particularly mind the menial labour; it’s better than sitting at a desk all damn day, in any case. It must be his Serkonan blood, the others hiss behind his back, though loud enough for him to hear. It’s all merchants and whores and servants down there, after all.
He tunes out the disdain. His cell block is in order, and that’s what matters. He might have preferred being out on the streets, but he has his job, and he’ll do it well. Perhaps, when the plague has passed and Emily Kaldwin sits the throne, he can return to his old post.
For now, he will do as he’s told.
And that’s easy, for a while. Until the day he takes over a nightshift from an ill colleague (the plague, everyone whispers, as they always do when someone falls ill these days), and he’s faced with a horrifying truth.
He already knew, of course, that Corvo Attano is in Coldridge. Knows he was dragged away from the Empress’ corpse, her blood coating his hands – saw it with his own eyes, in fact. But Corvo’s cell is not in cell block C, and Geoff allowed himself, selfishly, to forget.
Now, though, taking over control of cell block B for the night, he cannot forget. Not when they drag Corvo past his station at two in the morning, leaving a clear trail of blood behind them on their way from the interrogation room. Not when they all but throw him into his cell, laughing when he helplessly collapses into a heap. Not when Corvo doesn’t even have the strength to make it to his cot, sleeping instead right there on the cold hard concrete.
Not when he talks in his sleep, mumbling pleas and apologies in Serkonan – “I didn’t kill her, I didn’t, I could never, please don’t, it hurts, it hurts, please, I’m sorry, I didn’t kill her –”
Geoff spends most of the night scrubbing the blood – Corvo’s blood – from the hallway floor, trying to tune out the sound of Corvo’s voice. The other guards just snicker at the former Lord Protector when they pass his cell, amused at his fall from grace. They can’t understand his mutterings like Geoff can, never had a grandfather from Serkonos who taught them the language – though even if they could understand, Geoff doubts they would care.
When the floor is spotless, he can’t take it anymore. “Blevins,” he calls, approaching one of the guards on gate duty, “when is someone coming to take care of his wounds?”
“Sometime after breakfast, probably,” Blevins shrugs. “It’s fine, he won’t bleed out or anything. The Royal Interrogator is careful about that.”
Geoff doesn’t doubt that; Morris Sullivan might be as intelligent as a hagfish, but he has always had an uncanny knack for pain and suffering – also quite like a hagfish. “He’s bleeding on my floor,” is what he says, as disdainfully as he can manage. “Get me a kit and a bucket, I’ll do it myself.”
“By your orders,” Blevins says, respectfully enough – but before Geoff is out of earshot, he hears the lower guard mutter “Serkonans, honestly” under his breath.
Nevertheless, he brings Geoff the medical kit and bucket of water he asked for, and Geoff lets himself into Corvo’s cell.
Up close, Corvo looks even worse. Blood has soaked into his prison uniform, which is torn and even burnt in places. His hair is long, matted, and it looks like he hasn’t been allowed to shave since he was put in here. And really, it is only the state of his beard that betrays he’s been in prison for but two months; his thin, shivering form might as well have belonged to someone who’s been locked up for a decade. There is nothing left of the mighty Royal Protector he used to be.
It’s a heartbreaking sight.
“Corvo,” he murmurs softly, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder – and immediately, fingers wrap around his wrist, quick as a whip, though their grip is weak.
Corvo stares at him as though he is an apparition. “Geoff?”
The ‘yes’ dies on his tongue. Right here, right now, he is not Geoff, not to Corvo. He is Captain Curnow of the City Watch, and Corvo Attano is a convicted criminal. “I need to bandage your wounds.”
Corvo’s eyes cloud over, and only when it’s gone does Geoff realise the glimmer in them was hope. “Of course,” he says, monotonously. “Can’t have me die of blood loss before I sign the confession.”
He strips himself of his threadbare shirt without preamble, exposing his chest – and Outsider’s balls, Geoff cannot suppress a flinch at the sight of it, covered in scars and bruises and half-healed wounds and open wounds, barely a patch of unmarred skin visible at all.
It’s ironic, he supposes. Back when they were travelling the Isles together, he would have thrown a man overboard to see the Royal Protector without his shirt. Now, all he wants to do is look away.
But he can’t, so he attempts instead to make the sight just a bit more bearable.
He cleans the wounds first, wipes the blood, some of it still tacky, some of it long dried, from his skin with lukewarm water, then disinfects the deeper cuts as best he can. None of them are deep enough to need stitches – the Royal Interrogator is careful about that, after all – but they look nasty, jagged, painful. Geoff doesn’t even want to imagine what instruments Sullivan used to inflict those wounds, and he is swift to cover them up underneath a bandage, wrapping the cloth neatly around most of Corvo’s torso.
Corvo sits motionless the entire time, doesn’t even flinch at the antiseptic, only moves when Geoff tells him to lift his arms so he can apply the bandage. As soon as Geoff is finished, Corvo shrugs his shirt back on – Geoff should really see about securing him a new one, one that’s clean and whole – and staggers over to his cot, upon which he sinks with a heavy thud.
Geoff stays only long enough to mop up some of the blood still coating the floor, though he does it sloppily; he needs to get out of this cell, away from Corvo and his battered body and those empty, dead eyes of his.
But before he can escape back to his station, Corvo calls his name. “Thank you,” he says, in Serkonan.
Geoff stiffens, his hands shaking so badly his key misses the lock three times before he manages to insert it. Corvo has nothing to thank him for – he is a coward and a fool for letting a good man rot in this place while he goes about his day. Because he is almost certain Corvo is innocent, despite the compromising position he was found in. He simply cannot reconcile the kind Royal Protector he got to know, the broken man whispering apologies to his Empress in his dreams, with the murderer they’re trying to paint him as. But he has been convicted, will be executed before the next Fugue, and there is nothing Geoff can do about that.
He flees cell B5 without another word.