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victims.
    To speak ill of the Boyar was a crime, and although there were great rewards to be had in the trust of the Boyar’s employment, the risks concerning accusations of malicious gossip were high. It was, after all, an easy way to remove a rival. With no tongue, it was a crime that Arkady could never commit. The old babushka, who had lived long enough to understand the ways of men, knew that with both his pliable nature and his silence, Arkady could not fail to impress the Boyar, and perhaps one day he would see fit to reward the old woman and her family for this gift. It was not that much to hope for.
    The Boyar’s men came the next day and Arkady left, the puzzle tucked carefully into his jacket pocket. He didn’t look back at the village, the horse beneath him carrying him confidently the few miles uphill to the high castle walls. It was only when the gates closed heavily behind him that he thought of the whispered stories of his mother’s demise within these very grounds and at his new employer’s hands. Arkady found himself still empty of any feelings. His mother was not even the memory of a scent, and as he had several times before, he found himself wondering whether the wolfthat took his tongue had somehow taken his heart, or perhaps some small part of his soul, with it.
    The more he watched those in the world around him play out their small stories, the less he felt a part of it. On those nine occasions when people had shared with him the darkest secrets of their sins, he simply found himself puzzled by the range of emotion presented to him; their passion, their lust, their greed, and the heavy weight of their guilt. He’d felt nothing but mild curiosity. It was only when he placed bone against tiled bone and watched the puzzle coming together that he felt anything at all.
    Arkady settled into life within the castle, and the summer months passed easily. The Boyar had grown fat and gout-ridden as he crept into his middle age, but if anything, as his body degenerated, its desires increased as if, by feeding them, he could somehow delay his inevitable demise. There were plenty among his retinue who were more than happy to encourage his pleasures in order to satisfy their own. Screams echoed up from the dungeons where new tortures were devised to be carried out on local thieves and petty criminals.
    Lithe young women, and sometimes older ones, roamed naked between the castle’s bedrooms, herded in from the surrounding towns and villages and drugged with alcohol and herbal liquors brewed by the Boyar’s apothecaries. If they were lucky, their moans of pleasure did not turn to howls of pain. For the others, once they had fallen still and silent with relief, their deaths ensuring their ordeals were truly over, Arkady was always there with his bucket and hard wooden scrubbing brush to clear the floors of warm blood and then fill the baths with sweet-smelling water for the knights and their leader to bathe in.
    The Boyar learned to appreciate his silent manservant, and Arkady quickly became invaluable to him. Arkady cleaned up after his excesses without a raised eyebrow or even the slightest dilation of pupil at some of the sights that he found in front of him. The Boyar always watched carefully for any such reaction in all his men, and he found that even among those who shared his delights, therewould occasionally be a small tremor or a flinch of shock at some physical experimentation the Boyar had tried. He was so used to this that Arkady’s indifference was like a soothing balm. He did not have to wonder what Arkady might be thinking, because he had a curious feeling that Arkady did not spend any time at all thinking about the Boyar’s unusual habits, and coupled with the boy’s inability to speak, this made him completely reliable.
    Arkady was soon moved to the small bedroom annexed to the Boyar’s by a discreetly hidden door in the rich wood-paneled walls. It was a vast