Consciousness brought pain on a level new to him. A small voice in the back of his mind noted that he must still be alive unless everything the priests taught him was a lie. He wondered if they were going to kill him.
Opening his eyes brought fresh anguish and it took three attempts before he could focus his squint at the gray expanse above him. Rock, or concrete, he decided. Slowly he turned his aching head and saw a wall of bars. So it hadn't been a nightmare, it was real.
Grisha felt so bereft and unanchored that he knew he had to be hollow. There was no more of himself to spend. His father, the Russian Army, his wife, his lover . . . all had used what they wanted and then discarded him.
The pain of the bruises, cuts, and scrapes covering his body abruptly lessened and he didn't need to wonder why. Could this profound detachment he felt actually be death? It didn't matter, he didn't care.
"Ah, our guest is back from the land of Winken and Nod!" an earsplittingly loud voice bellowed. "We must take him to breakfast."
Large, rough hands grabbed him by the arms and pulled him up onto his feet. If they hadn't continued to hold him, Grisha would have fallen on his face. Strength had fled his body and it took all his will to lift his head.
His squint functioned more smoothly this time and he beheld a small man dressed completely in black whose shaved head seemed to gleam. The bright grin under even brighter eyes gave the man an elfin cast.
"No, wait. Let's try him first and then decide whether to waste the cost of a meal on a condemned man. Bring him along."
The man turned and walked away. The strong hands dragged Grisha along in the man's wake and he idly wondered where they were taking him. He knew there would be more pain.
Through a doorway and suddenly the concrete floor yielded to wood and then carpet. Other people formed on the periphery but none moved to his aid. Abruptly he realized he was whimpering and he forced himself to stop.
To be frightened was to care. No reason to care, not anymore. He didn't even pity himself, he just moved further away.
Movement had stopped for some time and it took him long moments to focus on the words enough to comprehend.
". . . do you understand me?" a large man in black said in a calm voice.
Grisha tried to form the words but his scabbed lips, dry throat and aching jaw could only elicit, "Hnnn?"
"You are in the high court of His Majesty, Czar Nicholas IV, and accused of murdering one of his servants. How do you plead?"
Grisha again tried to speak; this time he did care. He hadn't killed anyone, he was guilty only of silence.
"Wad'r," he croaked.
"Give the prisoner some water," the big man said in his soothing voice.
The hands didn't slacken on his arms and a cup pressed against his lips and he gulped avidly as water poured down the front of him.
"How do you plead?" the calm man asked again.
"Not guilty," Grisha rasped. He couldn't tell if the man felt a flicker of disdain or mirth, but the corners of his mouth slightly twitched.
"Call the witness," the calm man said.
Grisha fell into the silence of waiting and his mind wandered far and fast. Noise turned into words.
". . . the man who cudgeled your superior officer, Kommander Nicholas Karpov of the Imperial Cavalry, to death on the Charter Vessel Pravda four days ago?"
"Yes, your honor, that is the man."
The sound of Valari's voice suddenly made him care, and hate suffused him, canceling all pain.
"She lies!" he rasped, willing his voice stronger. "She hit him in the back of the head with a halibut club while he was choking me on the deck."
The calm voice rolled over them again. "Lieutenant Kominskiya has a sterling record in the Imperial Cavalry. She was also prescient enough to predict your charge against her, even though she was also your victim."
"What?" Grisha croaked. "Victim? Of what?"
"Rape. Even the most casual examination of your berthing space condemns you."
"She—"
"The prisoner will maintain his silence while judgment is passed." His voice remained as calm as when he began the farce.
"Grigoriy Grigorievich, the High Court of His Majesty, Czar Nicholas IV, hereby condemns you to death for the murder of Kommander Nicholas Karpov, and the rape of Lieutenant Valari Kominskiya."
Grisha wilted and the hands struggled to keep him upright.
"However," the soothing voice revived the flickering flame of hope in Grisha's core, "His Imperial Majesty has decreed that in honor of the new Openness Treaty, for the period of one month, all capital sentences are commuted to thirty years at hard labor on the Russia-Canada Highway."
Grisha wilted again; it was still a death sentence. He glared at the impassive face of Valari Kominskiya as the guards pulled him from the courtroom and back into hell.