I think they judged me overcome by terror when I could not walk out of the courtroom on my own. The soldiers who dragged me from the prisoner’s box from the courtroom, through the streets, and back to my cell were not gentle. Spink walked silently beside me, his face grim. The rejoicing mob closed around us, shouting curses and making the short walk from the courtroom to the prison seem endless. My chained ankles flopped and clanked behind me, and every impact was a clout of pain as they dragged me down the steps and back to my basement cell. My captors dropped me inside my cell. The sergeant knelt to retrieve his leg irons as I sprawled on the floor. I had thought nothing could increase the pain of that stricture, but when he undid the locks and jerked the embedded metal cuffs from my swollen flesh, I roared with new agony.

“Serves you right,” I heard him say, and then consciousness fled from me in a red wave.

When I came to myself, I was still lying on the floor of my cell. I groaned and managed to sit up. I wondered how much time had passed. It was hard to reach the cuffs of my trousers to try to pull them up and see the damage to my legs. The leg irons had crushed and gashed the tendons above my ankle. The flesh above and below the imprints left by the leg irons was dark and swollen. Both my feet were puffy and tender. I tried to flex my feet and could not. I dragged my bulky body over to where my single blanket was mingled with the collapsed wreckage of my pallet, pulled my blanket free, put it around my shoulders, and leaned back against the wall. I was cold and hungry and I could barely move my feet. I would die tomorrow.

That knowledge came to me just like that. All my petty concerns for cold or thirst or pain gave way to numbing awareness of my impending death.

Yet I couldn’t even focus on dying. All I could think of was the agony that would precede it as the lash ate the skin and flesh from my back. They’d strip me for the flogging. That was customary, as was tying the man by his wrists to the post to keep him upright. Details of what I would endure ate into my mind like acid. The mockery of the crowd. How they would dash me with vinegar water to revive me if I lapsed into unconsciousness. I would die a varlet’s death, and I already knew that I would not go to it with dignity and courage. I’d scream. I’d faint. I’d piss myself.

“Why?” I asked the dimly lit cell, but received no answer. I tried to pray, but could not find enough faith to do even that. Pray for what? A miracle that would save me and return me to a life worth living? I couldn’t imagine what could possibly happen to do that. I didn’t know what to ask of god, nor which god would hear my appeal. I sat and stared at the stout wooden door of my cell. I would have wept, but even that ambition was beyond me now. I sank into a sort of stupor.