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The Oubliette
T
HE
term “oubliette” came from the French for “to forget.” It
was an apt description. Beneath the sandy soil of Spain,
Edward Pembroke rotted away in a tiny dungeon, forgotten
by everyone and forgetful of the life he’d known before.
He did not know how long he had been there. There
were no tools with which he might mark the passage of days.
At first Edward tried to count the sunrises as they filtered
through the bars above his head, but he had no hope of
keeping track. He could feel from the growth of beard on his
chin that many days had passed, but he could not have said
how many if his life depended on it.
Not that Edward’s life was particularly worth saving at
this point. He was a wreck. His shirt and breeches,
purchased while in Italy and of which he had briefly been
inordinately proud, hung in tatters around his gaunt body.
One stocking was torn and stained a mottled dark brown
from dirt and dried blood. The other had disappeared
entirely. That leg was bare beneath the knee, marred with
fleabites and scratch marks from the claws of the rats that
shared his dank home. Edward’s hair hung in lank strands.
His face, the pretty face which had once made him the
cosseted darling of nannies and aunts and later the desired
prize of women and men alike, was hidden behind a matted,
filthy beard.
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Edward saw no one, not even his captors. He had not
spoken in so long he doubted his voice still worked. At
irregular intervals, a crust of moldy bread or a piece of
maggoty fruit rained down from the barred hole above. In the
beginning, when hunger still gnawed at his gut, Edward
leaped upon this food as if it were a gift from the heavens.
Now, as often as not, he permitted the rats to have it. It kept
them away from him, at least for a time, and he had no
desire to prolong his miserable existence.
The last time they brought him to the surface, the jailer,
Don Fuego, told Edward he had only himself to blame for his
suffering. “If you were only a little more, how do you say it,
friendly, I would be glad to return you with the other
prisoners,” he said. There were others in the don’s custody, a
few dozen English soldiers and sailors kept in army barracks
behind fortified walls. They were still captives, but they were
not forced to endure the lonely darkness of the oubliette.
Edward dreamed about joining them. He might as well have
dreamed of swimming home to England.
From the moment Edward was brought to the prison,
the don had made it eminently clear what he would have to
do in order to receive humane treatment. While Edward,
fresh from the wreck of His Majesty’s sloop Lady Mary, stood
shivering in the jailer’s presence, Don Fuego walked around
him until he stood at Edward’s back. Edward was not
particularly tall, and the don stooped to place his mouth
beside Edward’s ear. “You are, how do you say, a very
handsome man.” Bile rose in Edward’s throat. He swallowed
hard and hoped the don could not hear it. “And so well
dressed.” The don ran a hand along the sleeve of Edward’s
wet yet exquisitely tailored jacket. Edward had purchased it
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during his time in Rome, shortly before embarking on the ill-
fated journey home. “Some of my men have a taste for
delectable English beef. I am certain you will oblige them,
no?”
Don Fuego said something in Spanish to the two guards
at the door. They laughed, a filthy sound that turned
Edward’s stomach.
“My family is wealthy,” Edward heard himself say, his
voice strangled. “My uncle is Earl Lawton. He would pay a
fine ransom for my release.”
A smile crossed the don’s lips, but he did not reply. He
spoke again in rapid Spanish, and the guards stepped
forward. One grasped Edward by the arm. In a fit of panic,
Edward struck out. It was pure luck his fist collided with the
Spaniard’s face, but the guard clearly did not see it that way.
He dealt Edward a blow to the head that left Edward’s ears
ringing. Edward felt hands grasping at his body, and he did
the only thing he could. He kicked and punched, scratched,
and even bit, his arms and legs flailing wildly. Before he
knew it, he was cast into the fetid blackness of the oubliette.
The grate slammed shut above him. Edward’s head
spun and his entire body ached where the guards had struck
him. He was so stunned, he did not even realize the cause of
the strange tickling sensation on his legs until his eyes
adjusted to the dark and he saw red-eyed rats scurrying over
his body. He screamed then. The sound echoed uselessly off
the damp stone walls around him.
There was room for Edward to stand in the oubliette,
just barely, but it was impossible to lie down or sit with his
legs extended. By the time the don’s men pulled him out,
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Edward could barely walk. The guards dragged him back to
the don, who regarded him with what seemed to be
amusement. “Now then, sir. Can I take it you are of a more
amenable disposition today?”
Edward considered it. At that particular moment,
anything seemed better than returning to the vermin-
infested pit. But then he raised his eyes to the don’s grinning
face, heard the sniggering of the men behind him, and found
courage he did not know he possessed. “Go to the devil, sir.”
“Such a pity.” The don clucked his tongue, and Edward
returned to the oubliette.
Thus began a routine. Every so often, the don’s men
removed Edward from the pit. Every time the don made his
lewd
proposition,
and
every
time
Edward
refused.
Sometimes, as he lay in the blackness afterward, Edward
cursed himself for his stubbornness. He was no maid
preserving her virginity. That was long gone, but he could
still maintain his dignity. Every time the don leered at him,
Edward was compelled to say no. He could not force himself
to consent to the man’s lewd intentions, no matter what
horrors awaited in exchange for his refusal.
Now it appeared the don had grown tired of asking. He
had not disturbed Edward for what seemed like many weeks,
perhaps even months. The oubliette was living up to its
name. Edward was truly forgotten. Soon he would die and be
truly free at last.
He was ready for it. The oubliette was good for very
little, but at least it afforded plenty of time to think. Since
first being thrust below, Edward had made peace with God
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many times over, and he had atoned for the various sins of
his life. Pride, vanity. Lust.
Edward had engaged in many imaginary conversations
with absent friends and members of his family. Playing both
roles, Edward offered apologies to the lovers he mistreated,
to the men and women who adored him and whom he used
shamelessly and tossed aside. He spoke frankly with his
father, who in Edward’s mind forgave Edward for not being
the strapping boar-hunting, heir-siring son he wanted.
Edward professed his love for his late mother, who wept and
warmly embraced him in Edward’s imagination the way she
never had in reality. It was she who told Edward it was time
to leave his suffering behind. Extending a hand, she
beckoned her son to join her in paradise. Edward slumped
against the damp wall of the oubliette and let his eyes slide
shut.
A moment later, a clear masculine voice said, “Wake up,
Edward.”
Edward’s eyes flew open. In the darkness he could just
make out the figure of a man sitting against the opposite
wall. The oubliette was so small that the man’s bare brown
feet touched Edward’s dirt-caked toes. The man’s body felt
solid enough, but Edward knew better. “I have finally gone
mad.”
“Perhaps.” The man smiled. He was young and
handsome, with tawny skin and thick dark hair falling like a
curtain to his shoulders. Canary yellow stockings encased
his shapely calves, and he wore a slashed silk doublet and a
codpiece in the old style. He had a strong accent, and
Edward realized with a start he was a Spaniard.
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Reflexively, Edward drew back, but there was nowhere
to go. “Who are you?” He narrowed his eyes at the specter
and willed it to disappear. It remained where it was, a
tolerant smile on its lips.
“I bring hope, Edward. It is not your fate to die here.”
“Indeed?” It certainly seemed like that was the direction
Edward’s life was taking. “How do you know that?” He
blinked. “Are you God?” It seemed natural that if God were to
appear to Edward, he would take the shape of a beautiful
young man. Rather like a reverse Ganymede, Edward
thought, but that was senseless.
As senseless as the man being here in the first place. “I
am not God,” the man replied. He laughed, obviously not
offended by the error. “My name is Diego de Segovia.”
Diego de Segovia extended a hand. No one had touched
Edward in months except in violence. Edward jerked back,
then felt a flush of embarrassment when the other man
placed a gentle hand on his bruised, flea-bitten arm. “I mean
you no harm, Edward. I wish only to help.” De Segovia
looked at him with patience in his eyes. Edward was
reminded of one of his favorite lovers in England, Roger
Ballantyne, an endlessly good-natured, aristocratic friend of
the family. He and Edward had enjoyed some thoroughly
memorable romps together, the kind that ended with peals of
shared laughter as the two of them collapsed, sated, onto the
bedcushion.
Edward eventually grew tired of Roger and threw him
over for an actress named Delilah Steed. He felt a twinge of
guilt remembering the disappointment on Roger’s kind face
when he heard of it, but that scarcely mattered now. Roger
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was miles away, as was everyone else who ever cared about
Edward. They believed him dead, and soon they would be
right.
“Leave me alone.” Edward screwed his eyes shut and
moved back as if to disappear into the wall behind him.
Diego de Segovia shook his head. Edward kept his eyes
closed for as long as possible. When he couldn’t take it
anymore, he cracked open one eye, just to take a peek. The
other man was still there, looking at Edward with big
chocolate brown eyes.
“I know what you feel,” De Segovia told him in that soft
accented voice. “I was a prisoner here for a time.” He sighed.
“A very long time.”
“You mean you are still a prisoner.” If that were true,
then at least the man was not a manifestation of Edward’s
madness. He wondered what game Don Fuego thought to
play by throwing a man such as this into the hole with him.
De Segovia shook his head. His long, thick hair brushed
over his shoulders. For the first time in many months,
Edward felt a stirring of something that might be called
desire. Not that he could act on it. His body was in no
condition for such sport. “I am free now, Edward.”
“Then what the devil are you doing here?” Edward no
longer dreamed of freedom, but if by some miracle it were
ever offered to him, he would be gone in an instant, before
Don Fuego could change his mind.
“I told you I wish to help.” De Segovia sighed. “I died
here, but that is not what life has in store for you.”
Edward blinked. So it was madness. “You….”
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De Segovia laughed, a soft chuckle. Edward couldn’t
remember the last time he’d heard anyone laugh without
malice. “You could not think you were the first to suffer the
oubliette.” Edward did not think about it at all. “I was a
victim of the Inquisition. I came from an affluent family. The
Inquisitors coveted our wealth, so they unjustly accused us
of heresy.”
Edward did not know what to say. In the end, he said
nothing, and de Segovia continued. “They took all of us. My
elderly parents, my sisters. My wife Maria and my lover
Francisco Sanchez. Even my young son Ferdinand.” Edward
cared nothing for children, but he felt a twinge of sympathy
at the catch in de Segovia’s voice. “They wrenched my
shoulders on the rack and starved me for days, and then
they threw me down here.” De Segovia ran a hand through
his wonderful hair. Edward was suddenly all too aware of his
own disheveled state.
“You look well for having come through all that.”
The other man smiled. “This is the appearance I always
wished to possess. In life, I was not so fortunate. Particularly
not after the Inquisition finished with me.”
“It is a very fine appearance,” Edward agreed. Again he
felt a stirring that his body was far too weak to carry out.
“Although something of a liability in a place like this.”
Edward knew he was well favored. He had never regretted it.
Indeed his looks had served him well until he arrived here. If
Edward had been fat and fifty with a red face and a nose like
a strawberry, he suspected Don Fuego and his men would
not have treated him so dishonorably.
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“My family perished, Edward,” de Segovia said. “There
was no one to save me. You are not in such a state. You are
remembered.”
“That does me no good. Anyone who wonders at my
whereabouts will surely find my ship was wrecked many
months ago.” There was no reason to suspect anyone had
survived the wreck of the Lady Mary, least of all Edward, the
paid passenger making his way back from Italy. He’d braved
the treacherous continent to visit his Papist sister Ann,
firmly ensconced in a nunnery in Rome. Edward had wished
to bring word of their father’s death in person. He regretted
that courtesy now.
The shipwreck itself was foggy in Edward’s memory.
Edward recalled plunging into the frigid sea as the ship
began to sink, clinging for dear life to a floating plank of
wood until his hands grew numb and he feared his arms
would fall off. He had never known such pain, but it was a
mere taste of things to come.
One of the larger rats, a stout fellow Edward had named
John Robertson after a rotund cousin of his in England,
emerged from a corner and raced across the cell. It ran over
Edward’s bare feet, tearing his already bloody skin as it
went. Edward could not take anymore. He had not cried in
weeks, not since he was yet again remanded to the oubliette.
He did so now. Caring not at all for decorum or restraint,
Edward bawled like an infant, screaming out the fear and
frustration of many long months.
He expected Diego de Segovia to vanish like the figure of
fancy he was. Instead, de Segovia moved over, crowding
Edward’s body in the tiny cell. With a look of infinite
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tenderness in his eyes, de Segovia leaned forward and kissed
him.
It felt real. De Segovia’s mouth was hot and wet against
Edward’s, his tongue a slippery fish sliding between
Edward’s lips. Edward reached up, clinging shamelessly to
de Segovia’s fine doublet. The silk felt deliciously cool
beneath his fingers. Edward kept his eyes closed, not
wanting the moment to slip away. When he felt de Segovia
move back, Edward looked up to find they were no longer in
the oubliette.
Instead, Edward found himself in a cavernous room, the
opposite of the oubliette in every way. High ceilings seemed
to reach to the sky, and the stone walls stretched for miles.
Bright sunlight of the kind never seen in England streamed
through dozens of empty windows. It illuminated the room
brilliantly, casting a warm yellow glow around the space.
Edward glanced down to admire the beams of light on the
flagstone floor and saw that his clothes had changed as well.
He was no longer attired in his tattered rags. Instead
Edward was dressed sumptuously, in snow white stockings
and spotless breeches. His shoes were polished to a mirror
shine, his cheeks were clean shaven, and when Edward
raised a hand to his hair he could feel that it was clean and
pulled back with a velvet ribbon.
“Edward.” Edward looked up. Diego de Segovia smiled at
him from across the room. He was not alone. A comely young
woman in an exquisite golden gown stood beside him,
holding a giggling young boy with a head of dark curls. On
de Segovia’s other side there was a tall, well-built man with a
pointed beard. De Segovia placed one arm around the man
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and another around the woman. “There is someone here to
see you, Edward.” Edward glanced back to see Roger
Ballantyne in the doorway.
Roger had not changed. He was as well dressed as the
rest of them, his sandy hair pulled back beneath a large
plumed hat. Roger’s cheeks were flushed, and when he saw
Edward, a grin crossed his face.
It was a fantasy, but Edward did not care. He rushed
into Roger’s arms, and Roger caught him. Edward kissed
Roger like he was drowning. He could not help himself. He
ravaged Roger’s mouth over and over again, and the ever-
patient Roger allowed it. More than allowing it, Roger
reciprocated, kissing Edward back with equal ardor. As
much ardor, in fact, as he’d shown when, after a long time of
circling one another, he and Edward finally came together.
Edward had been a fool to ever leave him. The novelty of
Delilah Steed did not take long to wear off, and when it did,
Edward missed Roger more keenly than any other former
lover. Pride did not allow him to go crawling back. Instead he
did something stupidly outrageous as usual, gone to see Ann
in Rome; and when he’d grown tired of Italy, he’d been
fortunate enough to find passage home on the Lady Mary.
“Fortunate” indeed.
Roger eventually pulled back, but Edward was not ready
to let him go. He clutched Roger’s hands, covering them in
kisses. Roger laughed and disengaged one hand to run it
through Edward’s hair. “I cannot stand this anymore.”
Edward’s voice cracked with emotion. The tears that had
been dammed for months threatened to start up again.
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Edward gulped like a child, but Roger just shook his head
and petted him gently.
“Edward.” Roger’s expression was kind as always. “I am
proud of you. When you are home at last, we will be sure to
have a memorable reunion.”
“I do not have the strength to go on.”
“You do. And though you may not believe it, in time you
will begin to forget these horrors.” Roger squeezed his hand.
It felt real and solid, but the very next instant he began to
disappear, a cloud of morning mist growing fainter as the
sun came out.
“No!” Edward grasped at the disappearing man, only to
have the room evaporate as well. This was too cruel. Edward
sobbed and clasped at anything he could get his hands on. It
didn’t help. Within seconds he was back in the pit, his hands
scrabbling uselessly at the slimy walls. “No.” Edward said it
again. Screamed it in fact, over and over again until his
throat burned.
He howled like a crazed animal. He cursed Diego de
Segovia and Roger Ballantyne and Don Fuego with every
vulgar expression he’d ever known and a few he’d picked up
from the sailors aboard the Lady Mary. When at last he
could manage no more, Edward collapsed, landing squarely
in one of the rank puddles which lay perpetually in the
corner of the oubliette. It was then, as he lay panting, that
he heard the voices from above.
“You say it’s around here somewhere?”
“I’m sure of it, sir. The dons said as much.”
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It took Edward a long moment to realize why the voices
sounded so strange. They spoke in English.
Edward stood up. His arms burned as he lifted them
over his head and grasped the grate that covered the hole.
He shook it, jangling the rusty metal and shouting, “I’m
down here!” He repeated it over and over again. His heart felt
like it would burst, but still he shouted, and at last his calls
were answered. Two faces, too pink and sunburned to be
anything but English, appeared at the grate. “I say.” The
men blinked in surprise. “Hablar… ah, Hablo inglés, señor?”
“I am English.” Edward was no particular patriot, but he
had never felt happier to say the words.
The men blinked, and one said, “Hold on a tick. We’ll
have you out.” They disappeared. Edward’s chest seized in
panic, but they were back in a moment. There was a harsh
clanging sound of metal against metal, and the rusted grate
creaked as the men pried it open. “Come along, then.” One of
the men ordered. There was a briskness to his voice, and
from the marine blue of their jackets, Edward assumed they
were Navy men. He would not have cared if they were Drury
Lane pickpockets, but he had to know. “Don Fuego….”
“Has been ordered to hand over all Englishmen in his
care as part of a prisoner exchange.” The younger man
sounded pleased to announce it. He reached down and took
hold of Edward’s wizened body in his thick arms. “Here we
go, then. Alley-oop!” Pain shot through Edward’s bones as he
was hefted from the oubliette, but he couldn’t have cared
less. The man staggered a little as he set Edward down on
the Spanish soil warmed by the endless Spanish sun.
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“Diego de Segovia.” Edward did not know who he was,
but he knew that he was real and that he owed the man his
life. Edward imagined de Segovia in his beautiful house,
wherever that might be, with his beloved family around him
as much space and sunlight as ever a man could wish. It
was no more than he deserved. “Thank you.”
“What’s that?” The older man squinted down at him. He
was as bald as a herring under his foppish wig, and his neck
was as wrinkled as a tortoise. Edward would still have kissed
him if he’d had the strength.
As it was, a whispered “Please take me home” was all
Edward could manage. A tantalizing image of Roger, thrilled
by Edward’s return not only to England but to Roger’s arms
where he belonged, shimmered into Edward’s imagination.
He coughed and repeated, “Please.”
“Of course, old man. Our pleasure.” The younger sailor
put an arm around Edward’s thin frame and hoisted him to
his feet. Edward leaned heavily on him as they moved away.
A square-rigged ship swayed on the horizon, and as they
walked the oubliette faded into a terrible memory behind
them.
et more stories from
The Dreamspinner Press 2010 Daily Dose
package of thirty stories is available at
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About the Author
G.S.
W
ILEY
is a writer, reader, sometime painter, and semi-
avid scrapbooker who lives in Canada.
Visit G.S.’s web site at http://www.gswiley.com/.
Find more stories by
G.S.
W
ILEY
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REAMSPINNER
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RESS
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Copyright
The Oubliette ©Copyright G.S. Wiley, 2010
Published by
Dreamspinner Press
4760 Preston Road
Suite 244-149
Frisco, TX 75034
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the
authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art by Paul Richmond http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com
Cover Design by Mara McKennen
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Released in the United States of America
June 2010
eBook Edition
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61581-497-8