Chapter Text
Izzy made his body relax as he was thrown to the dirty, rough, floor. Bonnet fell a moment later, sprawling half on top of him.
Thin pale light streamed down on them from the high window. It was a dungeon. It was very much a dungeon, the bare stone walls suffused with damp and coated in places with something unpleasantly green.
Izzy rolled Bonnet off him and sat up, leaning against the wall, his legs out in front of him. Both had cuts and scrapes, and bruises were starting to blossom, but nothing seemed to be broken. Good. He shook out his hands and began to unfasten the straps of his prosthetic leg.
Bonnet made an ‘ungh’ noise, then a low moan. He sat up so he was sitting against the wall next to Izzy. He blinked a few times, looked around the room and finally focussed on Izzy’s thigh. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s a weapon,’ said Izzy, brandishing his leg. Their assailants had taken all their blades and pistols, but they hadn’t thought to take that. ‘Here’s the plan. You stand by the door, wait for someone to open it, and when they do you hit them over the head with it as hard as you can and run.’
Bonnet looked dubiously at the leg. He didn’t take it. ‘What about you?’ he said.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Izzy. ‘I’d just slow you down. Run and find Ed, and he can do his heroic rescue thing.’
‘Oh,’ said Bonnet. ‘Yes. But I meant why can’t you be the one to do the hitting? You’re better at violence.’
‘I’m more likely to fall over,’ said Izzy. He looked Bonnet up and down appraisingly. ‘Marginally more likely to fall over.’
Bonnet looked downcast.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Izzy. ‘That was a joke.’ It was mostly a joke.
Bonnet took the leg dubiously, as though it were something soiled or obscene.
‘Right,’ said Izzy, trying to let the implied insult go. ‘You want a two-handed grip, like this.’ He demonstrated, clutching the air.
Bonnet copied the grip and mimed hitting someone. The first two attempts were tentative. On the third he struck his own knee. ‘Ow!’
‘That’s the way,’ said Izzy, even though it was not the way. ‘Think about how proud Ed’ll be. It’ll be easier once you’re standing up.’
Bonnet was not fine.
Izzy hadn’t really expected the plan to work, but he couldn’t think of a better one, and you had to try to escape at once because the things that happen to you in captivity tend to make escape harder.
To be fair, Bonnet brought the leg down with a good grip and good force, but the man was quick: he dodged out of the way and kicked Bonnet in the knee so he went down screaming.
Izzy got a good look at the captor, who stood in the doorway in front of a small crowd of pirates brandishing knives and clubs. A tall and wiry white man, with a long nose and oddly rectangular face. Izzy knew him by his reputation as an extremely mediocre pirate. ‘Moody,’ said Izzy. ‘You’re Bill Moody.’
‘You bet your life I’m moody.’
Izzy glared at him. He’d put in the ‘Bill’ because ‘you’re Moody’ sounded stupid. The twat had gone for the joke anyway.
Moody coughed. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You’re here to tell me where on this island Blackbeard has buried his treasure. We can do it the easy way or the difficult way.’ He tried to sound dramatic for the last sentence.
‘The easy way,’ said Izzy. ‘Which is to say first that Captain Blackbeard hasn’t buried any fucking treasure here. Burying treasure is stupid. Secondly, you’re supposed to steal your own treasure, on a ship, at sea. That’s how piracy works.’
Moody shrugged. ‘Lost my ship,’ he said. ‘A bit fucking difficult to do any piracy without a ship.’
Bonnet moaned. ‘I think he broke my knee.’
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Izzy without looking over. ‘You can’t break a knee just by kicking. I’ve tried. Take deep breaths. It’ll feel better soon.’ Then, to Moody: ‘I’m sorry you lost your ship, but that’s not exactly Captain Blackbeard’s problem is it?’
Moody grinned, revealing a mouth full of black teeth. ‘I’m making it his problem,’ he said. ‘I’m going to torture you both until you tell me where the treasure is buried, and then I’m going to ransom you.’
‘Or you could just ask Captain Blackbeard for a loan?’ said Izzy. ‘He’s been known to help a fellow-pirate in need.’
‘Pah,’ said Moody. ‘Gone soft, has he? We’re pirates, not bankers. Well, I’ll leave you for a while to contemplate. The easy way or the difficult way.’ This time it sounded more uncertain than dramatic.
They sat side by side, their three and a half legs stretched out in front of them. The light coming through the high window was orange. Izzy had taken off Bonnet’s stocking and they were both looking at his left knee. It was swelling up so quickly that Izzy thought he could see it grow. ‘Impressive bruising,’ he said.
‘I can’t bend my leg,’ said Bonnet. ‘Are you sure it’s not broken?’
‘It’s not broken,’ said Izzy. ‘And when we get back to the ship, you can have a lovely knee brace like Ed’s.’
That actually seemed to mollify him a bit, so Izzy broached the difficult subject. ‘So, I don’t expect you’ve had much experience of being tortured?’
‘Ned Low burned my shoulder with a poker.’
‘Right,’ said Izzy. ‘And what was that like?’
‘It hurt,’ said Bonnet. ‘It hurt so much I couldn’t think about anything else. Like my knee now.’
‘The trick,’ said Izzy, ‘is that you have to think about something else. Try counting backwards, or in another language. And don’t waste any energy thinking about what might happen next. All you have to do is get through the moments, one after the other. Ed will be looking for us, so it won’t last long.’ He looked Bonnet to see if he understood.
‘What?’ said Bonnet.
‘What?’ said Izzy.
‘I was counting backwards in Latin. You’re right, it did help a bit.’
‘All right. What else was it like when Low pokered your shoulder?’
Bonnet shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Scary.’ He paused. ‘Embarrassing.’
‘Exactly,’ said Izzy. ‘One of the ways torture works is that it’s humiliating. But that doesn’t matter. Dignity doesn’t mean anything really. Just let go of it. You will want to scream, and your body might react in other weird ways. It’s all OK.’
Bonnet gave a tiny laugh. ‘I was never a particularly dignified person in the first place. Most things I do are embarrassing, or at least other people would find them embarrassing.’
Izzy laughed too. ‘You see? You’re a natural.’
‘But,’ said Bonnet, ‘there isn’t any buried treasure. We’re not trying to hide anything from Moody so we can just lie. He’ll go and dig, and maybe by the time he gets back Ed will be here?’
‘We can lie,’ said Izzy. ‘We will lie. The thing about torture is you always end up saying whatever just to make them stop. But the other thing about torture is that lying always makes the twats who do it really, really, angry. And that’s not good. So best to hold off on the lying for as long as you can.’
Bonnet shuffled closer to Izzy. ‘I hope Ed comes soon.’
The light from the small window was dimming. It was too small to fit through, too high to get to, and barred beside. There would be no escape that way. But at least it would help them keep track of time.
‘Another thing,’ said Izzy. ‘We need to do what we can to stay physically strong. For now, that means sleeping. In the morning, we’ll be training.’
Bonnet stared at him. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.’
‘Try,’ said Izzy. ‘At least rest if you can’t sleep.’
Bonnet sighed and lay down, using his hands as a pillow. Izzy did the same, a couple of feet away. He closed his eyes.
‘Izzy?’ said Bonnet. ‘Why are you being nice to me?’
‘Ed’ll kill me if you die. Besides, we don’t have many resources right now, so we need to make the best of what we’ve got, and that includes each other.’
Izzy tried to relax as he watched the dusk fade to pitch black. He listened to Bonnet’s breathing, counting the breaths.
‘Izzy?’ said a quiet voice at last. ‘I’m scared.’
Izzy pretended to be asleep, and after a few moments, Bonnet rolled closer to him and put a tentative arm over his body. Izzy pretended to snore, then turned onto his side and put his arm over Bonnet.