“
It had been a relief to get back downstairs. They took their time, looking for anything which might indicate where Ballard was now. It was Scott who found the dungeon. Chains and a system of pulleys opened the floor, and with more than a little trepidation, they descended the ancient stone steps into the darkness. Suzy whined, and for once refused to follow her master. Brooke patted her head and said, “You keep guard up here, girl, okay?” Suzy was more than eager to remain right where she was.
Because it was morning, neither had brought a starlight collector, but they’d found some candles and a holder. The stench was putrid, the foul-smelling air making them gag as they plunged bravely downward into the darkness. When they reached the bottom, the malodorous stench was overwhelming. Brooke held the candle holder up, moving it back and forth. The mix of candlelight and gloomy shadows revealed a room of torture apparatuses; a spiked Judas chair; a spiked cabinet which could be shut on its victims, known as an Iron Maiden; a Guillotine; a Brazen Bull where a victim could be roasted to death; a Strappado for painfully dislocating arms; a sawhorse-looking device called a Spanish Donkey, used during the Inquisition to slice a wedge through the body, beginning at the genitals; a Catherine Wheel, used as late as the nineteenth century for criminal punishment in Germany; a Judas Cradle, which worked on the same principle as the Spanish Donkey. On a long table, were various tools of torture, including a Head Crusher; a Knee Splitter; a Spanish Tickler, or Cat’s Paw; a Heretic’s Fork; the Pear of Anguish; the Boot; the Tongue Tearer and the Breast Ripper.
Brooke had taken a class on Medieval times once, not realizing how much cruelty the age had fostered. Scott was not as familiar with the period and its various devices, but there was no doubt as he gazed upon their shadowed contours in the candlelight, something unimaginably heartless, and sickeningly inhuman existed in the depths of this outwardly beautiful castle. It was like discovering the inside of the gorgeous, smiling woman you’d just met was filled with worms.
”
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