Helpless: Day 12

Word Count: 72,057

Summary of Events:

A new man was thrown into the cell with Mikolaj and got into a bit of an exchange with the man in the green clothes. During a particularly cold and windy night the man in the green clothes was thrown a cured fish through the window by one of his friends. The man used the bones of the fish and the cloth it was wrapped in presumably to create a message he returned to his friend; as he was doing so, one of the men in the cell took the fish and started dividing it among the others. Mikolaj felt badly about it because the man in the green clothes refused to eat the food they were fed, and so decided to give the man back at least the part of the fish he'd been given . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Mikolaj worked his way free of the straw, doing his best to keep as much of it on the bed as possible, before walking across the cell to the man in green. He held out the fish half, prompting the man in green to go silent.

Warily he stared at the fish in Mikolaj’s hand for some time before he slowly raised his gaze to regard Mikolaj with no small measure of suspicion.

“What are you doing?” the man asked, his voice taut with distrust.

“It was not our place to take your food, since you had not refused it,” Mikolaj replied.

“Are you trying to convince me that you’re not the worst wretch of them all?” the man demanded. “A traitor of the worst degree?”

“I have been convicted out of my appetite,” Mikolaj replied.

“Hm,” the man in green huffed contemptuously. “As if a traitor like you could even have a conscience.”

“Why don’t you take it?” Mikolaj asked.

“I want nothing to do with anything you’ve touched with your filthy, corrupted hands,” the man in green spat.

“You refuse it?” Mikolaj asked. “Even though it is rightfully yours?”

“What else to you think I mean when I say I want nothing to do with anything you’ve touched with your filthy, corrupted hands?” the man demanded.

Mikolaj withdrew his hand with the fish and returned to his place in the corner, where he folded the fish up against himself to save for adding to his soup, as he was sure it would taste quite good, and that would ensure that it lasted longer.

“Why do you harbour such hatred toward him?” the new man asked.

“Have I not already clearly stated why?” the man in green contended.

“Why is he a traitor?” the new man asked. “What makes his hands so filthy and corrupt?”

The man in green gave no answer.

“On one of the last fair days before it became cold, the knights of the Wódz Książę were carrying out a practise of their skills in the courtyard out the window, and somehow one of them inadvertently threw his spear through the window,” one of the other men explained. “He” — he pointed to the man in green — “wanted to use the spear to kill the guards and make an escape, but he” — he pointed at Mikolaj — “seized hold of the spear and we all, not wanting to be executed as accomplices to any slaughter carried out, set ourselves upon him” — he pointed at the man in green again — “so that he would be relieved of the spear, which he” — he pointed at Mikolaj again — “then threw out the window, returning it to the knights.”

“How is it he that is filthy and corrupt?” the new man asked, gesturing toward Mikolaj, but looking at the man in green. “When you are the one who has spewed so many filthy and corrupting oaths, and has striven to find ways to slay innocent men?”

The man in green gave no verbal answer, but his face was clouded over with a savagely incensed expression that showed he was displeased with the fact that he was viewed poorly while Mikolaj was viewed highly.