Steven E Cook
Six Men Outside
Lord Hesran counted the guards twice before he barred the door.
Six. He knew three of them by sight. The youngest kept fumbling with his chin strap. Hesran found that more reassuring than the captain’s promises. Someone else, at least, was frightened.
“No visitors,” he said.
“Until morning.”
“Until I ask.”
The captain inclined his head. Hesran waited for the youngest to look at him. “And if someone says I have asked?” The boy’s hand stopped beneath his chin. He glanced toward the captain, who answered for him. “We shall hear it from you, my lord.” Hesran drew the door shut and lowered the bar himself.
He tested its brackets, the iron hinges, the narrow gap beneath the wood. There was nowhere a blade could enter. He had requested an interior chamber. No windows. No adjoining door. Walls thick enough to keep out the weather and nearly every human sound. Earlier, a mason had tapped the plaster for cavities while Hesran watched. He had made the man begin again at the wall behind the bed.
He had thought that would help.
On the bed lay the coat he meant to wear before the Crown. The seamstress had let it out across the shoulders. He had accused her of shrinking the cloth. She had apologized without meeting his eyes. He lifted it now, testing the altered seam between finger and thumb. Her stitches were small and regular. His accusation had made her prick herself; a brown spot remained beside the lining. He set the coat down with the spot turned away.
Hesran took off his shirt.
The cloth caught against his back. He drew it forward carefully until it released with a wet little pull. He could not see himself in the polished basin. He tried turning, holding the basin higher, bending toward the candle. Each movement drew a fine pain along either side of his spine. The reflection broke around the basin’s curve. He could make out a shoulder, the gray line of his hair, nothing that would tell him whether the wounds were closing.
The physicians had called it adjustment. When he asked how long adjustment took, their answer concerned the honor of his appointment. One had held his wrist while the other examined him. He remembered that now: the fingers tightening when he tried to turn, the quiet request to face forward.
Hesran set the basin down before he dropped it. The floor was cold. He found his slippers beneath the bed and put them on, one ordinary thing done correctly. Then he folded the shirt over his arm so the blood would face inward if he needed to call a guard.
Three men had died before the council gave him this room.
He had read the reports. Doors secured. Watches maintained. Nothing in the accounts explained why more guards would make a difference. At the council table he had insisted upon six anyway. Now he stood behind his own bar, listening for them.
Someone coughed outside. A boot scraped stone. Farther away, metal touched metal. He tried to assign a sound to each man and could account for only three. That proved nothing. Soldiers could stand quietly. He had complained often enough when they did not.
“Captain?”
An immediate answer. Hesran almost lifted the bar. He could sit in the corridor, let the soldiers see the blood, require a physician to speak plainly in front of witnesses. He put his free hand beneath the wood. The pain in his back sharpened, and his grip slipped.
“My lord?”
“Was it the council that chose these men?”
A pause. “The watch roster was approved.”
“By whom?”
“I can bring it.”
Hesran pictured the captain leaving. Five men then, only two of whom he knew. He could ask them all to come inside, but the room was small. Six armed strangers between him and the bar. He pressed the folded shirt against his stomach.
Behind him the candle made a small noise. Wax breaking, perhaps. He turned. The room held exactly what it had held before: bed, coat, basin, stool. His shadow reached across the plaster behind the bed. He lowered his elbow and watched it lower too.
“Stay where you are,” he told the captain.
He returned to the bed but could not sit comfortably. Standing was worse. For a while he held the shirt against his back, feeling the damp widen through the cloth. When he took it away, he folded it again. There was less clean linen to put outside.
He began to walk from the basin to the door, counting his steps. Seven brought him to the bar. Seven returned him to the basin, if he shortened the last one. On the fourth crossing he stopped with a foot raised. A softer step had sounded behind him. He waited until his calf trembled, then set the foot down. One of the slippers had come loose at the heel. He pushed it on properly and began again.
Rain whispered somewhere beyond the stone. He listened, trying to decide how he could hear it from here. A knock sounded.
Hesran stopped halfway through a step. The captain had been told. Six men had heard him. No visitors until he asked. He approached the door and laid his fingers on the bar. “Who is there?”
He kept his ear turned toward the corridor. The answer came from behind him.
End of prologue. © 2026 Steven E Cook. All rights reserved.