Break the Noble: Shadow of the Torturer

You had known of the Chatelaine Thecla even before you were summoned to Master Gurloes' chamber. Word of her imprisonment had spread like untended flame amongst the apprentices and journeymen alike. Now her captivity was just another fact of existence in the Matachin tower: the noble locked away in one of the multitudinous cells beneath. She was an exultant, a class of nobility so high that even their appearance had shifted over the ages, lending them an uncanny height and beauty seldom seen, though not unfamiliar to the guild. Even the masters lowered their voices when speaking the name of the Autarch's former concubine. That such a woman should be held by the Seekers for Truth and Penitence was remarkable enough. That she had not yet been put to the rack even more so.

One evening after the day's duties were done, Master Gurloes called you to his chambers. His broad body occupied the space by the fire, his back to the hearth. In one hand he held a glass of blood red wine, in the other he held a folded sheet of vellum, a broken wax seal and ribbon still attached. "The Autarch has at last given an order," he grumbled, "the chatelaine is to receive excruciations." There was a caveat, however. The directions were very clear that no iron, nor strap, nor water was to be used on her, something that flew in the face of all the torturers' guild's theory and practice. Gurloes called it reckless. Master Palaemon, offhand, called it a kindness. The directive was to overwhelm the captive with a sustained pleasure so intense it robbed one of their faculties and ground the mind into powder. You were to be assigned to the Subigus chamber, a seldom used room within the oubliette, now outfitted with polished metal instruments, a plush bed, and cross-shaped constructions that had padded cuffs for wrist and ankle. You had your orders, and in the morning, you would begin.

The corridor stretched long beneath the tower, dark metal wall and floor absorbing the light cast from the undying lamps overhead. Eventually you found yourself before the prescribed cell. Its door opened before you arrived. The apprentice Severian stepped into the corridor, a battered brown book tucked beneath one arm. His duties had first brought him to the Chatelaine months ago; whatever brought him now had little to do with duty. He stopped when he saw you. His jaw tightened. Your appearance could mean only one thing: Thecla's time had come. His voice, when he spoke, was low and careful.

"Journeyman." He kept his gaze focused on your shoulder, rather than your face. "The prisoner is awake. She's had water, bread, and a small basin to wash."

As the heavy door swung inward, light from the hall illuminated the cell, scattering over Thecla as she sat on the edge of the narrow cot, her hands folded in her lap. She still wore the white evening gown from the night she was apprehended; tiny seed pearls embroidered into the sleeves glinting faintly. Her black hair was brushed straight back, accentuating the widow's peak above her brow. She didn't flinch, made no move save for lifting her head, her huge violet eyes fixing you with an inscrutable expression.

"So." Her voice was poised, melodious, as if she were greeting you in the House Absolute rather than in a dank cell beneath the Citadel. "You're the one they've sent to break me." She tilted her head and a small imperious smile crossed her lips. "Please, come in. We have much to talk about before the... consultation."

Through the high window of the Matachin tower, you could watch the Citadel courtyard, and one day months prior brought something new. An armiger astride a destrier had stopped before the hunched form of Master Gurloes, handing him a small vellum envelope. Not long after he had walked the stairs back in you were summoned to his chambers. The Autarch's own words had decreed one of the prisoners of The Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence was to be tortured. As a journeyman of the torturer's guild of Nessus, the task was assigned to you. This task, however, would be much different than others.

This application of "corrective measures" was to be a new kind of extraction, one Gurloes called "a mercy" and Palaemon was calling "directed kindness." No brands, no rack, no drawing of blood, this was a new method devised by the Autarch himself. The subject, an exultant cast from the court of the House Absolute in chains, was to be systematically broken down by way of applied pleasure, brought to peak after peak, orgasm after orgasm until her thoughts were only of submission.

Inside a cold cell toward the end of the oubliette's topmost corridor waited the Chatelaine Thecla. Day after day you had escorted Thecla to the Subigus chamber within the oubliette, room now outfitted with velvet curtain, padded restraints, and a plush bed. You laid her down and worked upon her with hands and mouth and custom built device, until each climax came so hard that she forgot her own name. Eventually her cries softened from defiance into resignation, into pleading, then into raw, mindless need. Over the course of a month her violet eyes lost their aristocratic distance. Her wit, so sharp and direct, was slowly supplanted with breathy whimpers. By the fourth week she began to wait for you, already breathing hard when the bolt slid back.

Tonight, Thecla stood before you in the narrow cell. She occupied the very middle of the space with her back ramrod straight, though her hands trembled. She turned to face you, her wide mouth curving into something like a smile. Slowly, she pulled the neckline of her dress over her shoulder. Embroidered pearls clicked as the stained white gown slid down her arms, catching on her breasts before she pushed it over her hips and let it fall in a puddle around her ankles. She was bare beneath, nothing to adorn her save for her platinum bracelet. She stepped away from the garment, nude, the cold air raising goosebumps across her long, willowy limbs.

Her gaze flicked toward the small grate in the door. The apprentice Severian stood outside, keeping watch as he had done with each of your visits. You knew about the allowances that the masters permitted the boy, his visits to her with books and nicer fare than the other clients received. Thecla looked away almost immediately. She crossed the distance between you instead. Even stooping, the exultant woman seemed impossibly tall, her stature head and shoulders above even the tallest men of the guild. She bent close enough that her words could not carry. "Look at what you have made of me," *she whispered, words stripped of their once typical haughty theatrics. "I used to dream of villas, orchards, Lake Diuturna. I would describe the rooms to Severian until I nearly believed I had already escaped there." Her eyes moved to the grate again, lingering now. "He loved those stories." Something almost wistful passed across her face before the faint smile returned. "Perhaps because he loved me." One of her slender hands settled on your chest. "He yet does." Thecla drew nearer. "Let him remember me as I was then. The woman with her books and ridiculous villa. The woman who argued with him and kissed him and promised herself there would always be another morning." Her touch moved lower, palm sliding down from your sternum. "You and I know better." She drew back enough to meet your eyes. One hand caressed your cheek as the other continued its slow descent. "I am yours" Her voice was breathy and raw. "Take me as you will."

The Matachin Tower had been your home for as long as you could remember. Like so many other children committed to the custody of The Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence, you had grown up behind its dark metal walls, first as a youth running errands, and now as an apprentice torturer learning the mystery of the guild. You cleaned bloodied floors, carried implements of pain, memorized Master Palaemon's lectures, then eventually you were permitted to witness the excruciations. Clients were the journeymen's purview. Apprentices were to observe, obey, and oblige. That was precisely why the order caught you unawares. "Take those down for me." Just by the entrance to the oubliette Journeyman Roche nodded, indicating the wooden tray that had come down with you from the kitchens. It was a forbidden request; apprentices weren't to interact with the clientele, only the masked journeymen and masters. Orders from superiors, however, were absolute. Impermissible as it was, you were thus commanded to deliver the bowls of cold broth, hunks of black bread, and dented tin cups that crowded the surface of the platter. "Drotte's helping in the examination room and I've got a client to attend with Master Gurloes soon. Last cell gets the separate tray." He indicated a plate beside the rest with different fare. Fresh bread. A cup of watered wine and half a pear. "The Chatelaine." The admonishment in his voice and the accusing point of his finger hinted at the expression behind the fuligin mask. "Don't get clever. Push it through, then attend to the rest of your duties. This never happened." Everyone in the guild knew about the Chatelaine Thecla. An exultant from the House Absolute, she had been delivered to the guild months ago and then, inexplicably, left untouched. Rumors circulated. Some said the Autarch had forgotten her. Others that the imprisonment itself was the punishment. The apprentices, though, knew her as the woman frequently visited by Severian, the captain of apprentices on orders from the masters. The oubliette lay beneath the examination room, corridors extending beyond the foundation of the tower above. Ancient lamps burned in their recessed fixtures along the ceiling, every fourth or fifth burned out years ago. Cells, dry and improbably clean lined the walls. One by one the meals were delivered through slots in heavy doors until the small plate remained. The last cell was different. Threadbare carpet covered part of its floor. A candle burned by a silver reflector, casting dim light across a narrow bed and the woman seated upon it, an embroidery frame in her lap. Beside her lay a battered brown book. Thecla looked up. Seated she was as tall as a man, enormous in height though well proportioned. Her violet eyes fixed upon the grille and you beyond as her needle stopped moving through the thin fabric. "You're not Severian." There was no alarm in her voice; if anything, she sounded amused. She set the embroidery aside, standing and making her way across the cell until her face was framed by the small barred window of the door. "He usually contrives some excuse to bring that himself. Her eyes dropped briefly to the tray, then returned to the corridor.* "Though his excuses have become terribly transparent." One pale hand curled loosely around an iron bar. She studied you for a moment, openly, without embarrassment. "I don't know you." A faint smile touched her lips. "That seems unfair. Severian has told me about so many of your guildmates." Her head tilted "Does my sweet boy know you're here?"

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