Cold water splashed on him, wetting cracked lips and dry tongue. He opened his eyes. Men stood around him, wearing Immer’s colors. He lay on a platform; beyond the men he saw only dimness. They soused him again, rubbed him down with ungentle hands, yanked his head up by the hair. One got a hand behind his shoulders and shoved him upright so that his legs dangled over the edge. One offered a mug. “Drink this.”

Thirst rode him; he drank in gulps as the man held the mug to his mouth. Sour wine, certainly not of Andressat’s vintage; he recognized the grape as a wilding that grew across southern Aarenis. He shouldn’t drink it—he needed water, not wine—but he was too thirsty to resist the second mug offered.

The same hand took the mug away and shoved a piece of coarse bread at his mouth. “Eat.”

Maybe the bread would help. He ate. His stomach, roiling from the wine, settled. A small chunk of cheese followed the bread. He managed not to spew, and shortly after that found himself strapped upright to a wooden chair. Muzzy-headed as the wine made him, he was still trying to understand what might happen when Alured—Immer—came in.

“How much?” Immer asked without looking at Filis.

“Two mugs, m’lord.”

“Excellent.” Immer swung around, and the men brought forward a padded stool; Immer sat, facing Filis. He smiled—a smile that seemed all good humor for a moment before it vanished. “Now, then, Filis Andressat. You have had time to consider your position. I have had time to consider you.” He paused, put out his hand, and one of the men handed him a mug. He sipped, without taking his gaze from Filis, then held his hand out without looking, and the man took the mug, setting it on the table where Filis had been laid. “You stink less,” he said then. “I told them to clean you up. You’ve had drink and food. Let’s see if you’re worth your keep. Tell me, Filis, what value you have for me.”

The pressure he had felt before squeezed Filis’s head; he fought the compulsion to say … to say whatever Immer wanted to hear. How could the man do this? It must be some kind of magery, but no one had said Alured—Immer—was a mage. Filis shut his eyes, trying to think clearly through the wine fumes and the pressure.

“Come now,” Immer said. “Open your eyes.” His voice was gentle, coaxing. Filis’s eyes opened as if on springs. “You see, Filis, you will yield. Thirsty men drink whatever they can find, eh? You wished it were not wine. You feel the wine now, I see in your eyes, but it was not merely wine.”

Filis looked around the room, desperate for something other than Immer’s face, Immer’s peculiar eyes, to focus on.