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his mouth against something unpleasant.
    “All right. Joslire, if you would go ask for the key-man, please.”
    The key-man had been waiting, and propped the door wide open so that the officer would have as much natural light as possible. It was dark in the cells. Nobody in the cells had any grounds to insist on light — except that it wore upon the spirit to be kept in the dark like a chained animal.
    These were Nurail, not animals.
    But leave them alone in the dark for long enough and there would be no difference.
    The first few cells were opened for the officer’s inspection and closed again without incident, their occupants distressed and dispirited — hungry, cold, and thirsty, rations being adequate but on the frugal side — but hale and whole beyond that. It was only at the fourth cell at the back of the cell-building that the prisoner refused to move when spoken to, and Koscuisko tested the air as though he smelled something that he did not like. What was there to like in the smell of a temporary prison? None of these people had been permitted to wash for days. They weren’t going to be here long enough to justify construction of facilities.
    “Open here,”Koscuisko suggested to the key-man. “Erish, if you would bring up the spare light. What can you tell me about your prisoner, key-man?”
    The key-man looked anxious and weary himself. It couldn’t be easy, Joslire decided, to have eight souls in care, with so little to do about basic problems of light and warmth. “I’ve had custody these four days past, your Excellency.” The key-man was local, Joslire realized, with a bit of a start. Maybe he’d been a collaborator. Maybe he was thinking he’d backed the wrong side. “I can’t get much out of him, he just lays there. He wasn’t brought as sick, though, sir. I’ve let him be.”
    The key-man knew something was wrong, and was afraid he’d be blamed for it. So it seemed to Joslire. Koscuisko stood in front of the now-open cell as the portable beacon Erish had brought in lightened gradually to full illumination; it had to be brought up slowly, or else the sudden brilliance could be very painful to people who’d spent a week in a dim room.
    “Has he eaten? Taken fluid? Voided body waste?” Thoughtful and considering as the officer’s voice was, Joslire could hear contempt and reproach there. The key-man as well, to judge from his response.
    “I don’t want anyone neglected under my care, your Excellency.” Stiff, and offended, but more than that convinced that despite his best efforts he was going to be held responsible for something he hadn’t done. “I’ve had the man in the next cell see to feeding him. And the rest. You could ask him.”
    If the prisoner was ill, the key-man would have known to report it right away, or risk an epidemic in camp. So what was going on?
    “Thank you. Perhaps in a moment. Joslire.”
    The prisoner lay on one side with his back to the room, with a standard-issue blanket wrapped around his huddled body and his knees drawn up a little as if to try to conserve warmth. Still wearing Nurail foot-wraps, Joslire saw, but at least one of them was torn, or had been rewrapped by third parties who weren’t familiar with native footgear. It was beginning to look ugly.
    The cell was almost too small for both of them at once, but the closer he got to the prisoner the more convinced Joslire was that he knew what the officer smelled. The prisoner’s tag said he was a young man, somewhere between twenty and twenty-five years of age Standard. Nurail could run short and slight for their age. Taken as a whole they tended to be underfed and undergrown, which only made a man wonder what they could have done against the Bench if they’d had adequate nutrition.
    The Nurail in his blanket looked unnervingly like a child to Joslire, pale skin and clean-shaven cheeks and all. Nurail shaved till they were married. This one’s beard clearly didn’t grow quickly, if it grew at all,