Captivity

by Ann Herendeen

  Now I was forced to travel a long distance over rough ground, with men who cared nothing for me, who were only prevented from hurting me or killing me because of my potential value. I had to work to stay in the saddle, my thighs quivering with the exertion, my arms trembling to hold the reins.

  My mind went into a kind of trance, dissociating itself from my suffering body, and I rode like a zombie, taking myself back in time to some very different rides, in the early days of my marriage, when Dominic had decreed I was ready to learn this skill so essential to travel on Eclipsis.

  It had been late spring, early summer. Jana was a few months old. She slept through the night now, most of the time, nestled face to face with me in my bed. If she woke to nurse, I could remain half-asleep, had only to help her find the nipple. Some nights Dominic would join us in the bed, making gentle love to me, careful not to wake his precious child or roll over on her. Afterward he would kiss us both and, in the morning, would rise early with Jana, taking her to Isobel to be changed, bringing her back later, clean and fresh, to nurse again before breakfast.

  One morning he made a decision. He watched me as I fed Jana, sitting up naked in the rumpled bed, and nodded in approval. “You must learn to ride, Amalie,” he said, as if we had been discussing it. “You must be able to do more than cling to the saddle, or flop around like a sack of potatoes.” He grinned at my indignant look. “A silken sack,” taking a gentle love-bite out of my arm, “of the most delectable,” nipping at the breast Jana wasn’t using, “red-skinned potatoes.” He kissed my lips when I giggled at the comparison. “But not a rider.”

  There had been no arguing with him. It was sensible, really. I had recovered from the difficult birth and was ready for a more active life. We would travel from Aranyi to the city for Dominic’s duties in ‘Graven Assembly and the Military Academy and back again at least twice a year, every year, and there was no other way to make the journey than on horseback. And if I could learn to alleviate the miseries of cantering and trotting, any small effort now would be worth it.

  And so my lessons began. On fair days Dominic took me out on this same little mare, first to the practice ring in the back courtyard, where I rode around and around under Dominic’s scrutiny. He would stand hunched in the center of the ring, or at the outer edge, watching me carefully, eyes at the level of the saddle, seeing into my mind, following my conscious and unconscious acts of muscular control, my legs that were learning to grip the sides of the horse and my hands that held the reins.

  Most ‘Graven can also use crypta on the animal’s mind, but they are brought up with horses and learn to ride long before their gift matures and becomes useful for practical applications. There would be no point in my trying any such tricks on a horse, Dominic said, if I was unfamiliar with the basics of riding and did not know the appropriate “thoughts” to send to my mare.

  Dominic is a good teacher, passionate about any skill he enjoys, and patient with me because of our love. In a short time he decided I had progressed far enough to ride outside the yard. Before we went, Dominic sat me down and gave me a stern lecture. “Every rider falls off at least once,” he said, holding my hands in the way that initiates full mental communion between telepaths. “Good riders fall off more than once, because they are attempting to do more than just stay in the saddle. They are learning to move with the horse, in its rhythm, and it takes a few spills until you get the hang of it.”

  I stared into my husband’s opaque metallic third eyelids, unable to prevent myself from smiling at his seriousness. Dominic squeezed my hands in reassurance. “When you fall off, Amalie,” he said, “you must try to get back on the horse immediately. If you let the horse throw you, it will think it has won the battle for control. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Dominic,” I said. I did not intend to fall off. My goal was definitely just to stay on the horse. I would please Dominic by going through with the lessons, but I doubted I would ever become the kind of rider he wanted me to be. “I’ll lay me down and bleed a little while, then I’ll rise and fight again.” I quoted the old ballad to make Dominic laugh.

  As soon as we left the confines of the yard my mare, excited by the first prospect of real freedom in over a year, galloped off in celebration toward the woods, jumping a low fence along the way. Of course I tumbled off, fortunately landing on soft grassy ground, although with a thump that knocked the wind out of me.

  I lay there for a minute or two getting my breath back, making sure I had sustained no real damage. It was pleasant lying here, I discovered, with the fence and its companion hedge providing both a windbreak and a screen from prying eyes at Aranyi Fortress—much nicer than being perched far above the ground on an unpredictable animal.

  Dominic caught up with me then, leaping off his prancing stallion to kneel beside me, carefully sliding an arm under my neck to cradle my head. “Amalie,” he said, his voice low and tense, “are you hurt? Can you speak, Amalie?” I felt his crypta in my mind as he probed for my consciousness.

  I deliberately kept my eyes shut, sneaking just a glimpse at his fierce unblinking gaze as he laid his head on my chest to listen to my breathing. Then I sighed and fluttered my outer eyelids. “Oh, Dominic,” I said. “I hurt only a little, here,” taking his hand from beneath my head and holding it to my breast. “And here, I think,” guiding his free hand under my raised skirts that had exposed my legs as I fell.

  “That is a cruel trick to play,” Dominic said, his voice muffled as he kissed my neck.

  Cruel, perhaps. Also unoriginal. But effective. We did no more riding that day, other than the short jog home for the midday meal.

  After that, Dominic knew it would be better for someone else to teach me, someone whose emotions would not be aroused by my mishaps. Stefan was pressed into service. But Stefan found it difficult giving orders to his lover’s wife, old enough to be his mother, and when I fell off under his supervision he was as distressed as Dominic had been, although not as amorous.

  Eventually we had given up the lessons. Once Jana was ready to learn we would hire a riding master. Until then my skills were adequate for most of our journeys, where the horses must walk on the steep mountain trails. I would never be someone who chose riding for recreation. When Dominic wished to hunt or to ride for pleasure he had Stefan for companionship. And should Stefan decide to fall off occasionally on soft ground, he had my blessing.

  My horse came to a sudden stop and I woke up to the dreadful present. It was full dark. We had ridden through the day and the evening, into the night. I could not hazard a guess as to how far we had come, and could only assume the direction we had taken was northwest, into the mountains, above the imaginary line that marks the edge of Aranyi territory, into the no-man’s land of the northern mountains, beyond the reach of ‘Graven Assembly and its laws. Go far enough, and if you survive the cold and the wind and the predatory animals, you will reach the renegade realm of Andrade on the other side.

  Val whimpered and struggled in the pack on my back. “Are we home, Mama?” he asked. “I’m hungry. I want to go to bed.”

  Jana sat, still upright, on her pony, a few feet ahead. She turned in the saddle to look around. “Of course we’re not home, stupid,” she said to Val. “We’re at the bandits’ lair.” She growled the last word the way I did when telling the children fairy tales.

  “I want to go home,” Val said. “I don’t like bandits.” He started to cry.

  Reynaldo dismounted and stood beside us in his menacing way. Val howled louder at the sight of him. “Shut up, you spoiled ‘Graven brat,” Reynaldo said. There was no inflection in the voice, just a chilling flat finality. He raised his hand, whether to strike or to lift Val from the carrying pack I didn’t wait to find out.

  I dismounted quickly on the other side, putting the mare between me and Reynaldo. My feet tangled in the stirrups and my skirts and I nearly fell, but I clutched the saddle for all I was worth and found my footing. My boots hit the rounded, uneven lumps of cobblest
ones, as in the courtyard at Aranyi. There was a tumbledown wall and gate through which we must have ridden. Ahead I could make out the outline of a large stone facade and a door-like entrance, with faint light showing. Whatever it was, the “lair” was at least better than the cave or camp I had assumed was our destination.

  I worked my arms and shoulders out of the straps of the carrying pack and shifted Val to my arms. He always calmed down if I held him. He could walk, of course, but I wanted to protect him as much as possible from the psychotic Reynaldo and the rest of his band of thugs.

  “We can’t go home tonight, sweetheart,” I said to Val with what little composure I could manage. “It’s too late. We’ll have some supper here and go to bed.” I tried to make it sound like a stopover at a neighbor’s house on a journey. Surely the bandits would have to feed us something, and they would prefer to let us sleep than keeping us awake all night to be watched and guarded.

  Someone shoved me from behind and I stumbled forward. My legs could hardly work after so long in the saddle and I was forced to call on my remaining crypta strength to hold myself together. Jana pressed close beside me, her brave front crumbling rapidly in the face of so much peril and so little comfort. I shifted Val to my left arm and hip, took Jana’s hand with my right, smiling down at her. “Think of how proud of you Papa will be,” I whispered, “when you tell him about this adventure.”

  Jana looked up, her face brightening. “Papa will save us,” she said. She searched for Reynaldo among the shadowy forms surrounding us. “My papa is going to slit your gullet from ear to ear.” She showed off the knowledge she had acquired in untold hours spent hanging about whenever Dominic’s guards were talking shop, recounting the last battle as they cleaned their weapons. “My papa will hang you from a hook and string your guts up like sausages.”

  Reynaldo stared in astonishment at the words that didn’t quite match the girl’s face and child’s voice, the sober little travel dress. Then he laughed, and his men laughed with him. “Watch your backs,” he shouted. “We have an enemy in our midst.” He chucked Jana roughly under the chin. “I may not let you go, little Amazon. I could use a daughter like you.” Or a wife, I read the evil thought in his mind.

  We were led through the entrance, into a great hall. A hopeful sense of familiarity washed over me, quickly followed by disappointment. The layout was like Aranyi Fortress, like any nobleman’s house. This was a ruined stronghold, a castle from the days, long ago, when there had been independent petty kingdoms throughout the mountains—all of them swept away or consolidated into the ‘Graven Coalition, the system of twelve Realms entitled to representation in ‘Graven Assembly. Some gentry families survived, like the Ormondes, the Ladakhs and the Galloways, allied by treaty or marriage to one realm or another. But if Dominic was going to rescue us by assault, he would have to take a castle.

  I coughed and blinked away tears. The hall was smoky from a fire that sat on an improvised hearth in the center of the room. The smoke meandered up to a hole in the roof. The real fireplace, which would have a good chimney and flue to draw the smoke away cleanly, was full of rubble—pieces of building stones—and rubbish—broken pots, animal bones, clothes worn to threads, beyond repair. The chimney must have collapsed, the stones fallen in. Some goats and sheep were penned in two corners; chickens and a ragged rooster pecked forlornly in a third. Dogs roamed freely. The bandits had found themselves a castle, but they used it as they would a cave, with no sense of how to live indoors.

  A crowd of onlookers surged around us, mostly women and a few listless children, all bedraggled and filthy, worse than the men. They pressed up eagerly to see what their men had brought, their stench enough to make me gag in the enclosed air, mixed with the smoke from the fire and the animals’ smell. Hands pulled at my clothes and my hair as I tried to shield Jana beside me and guard Val in front. Unwanted or unexpected physical touch is disagreeable at best to telepaths, sometimes painful or sickening, as it temporarily blocks the crypta’s electric circuit, but I could not protect myself. My strength was gone and I had sworn not to use my gift. There would be nothing I could do with it that would be worth the cost of Reynaldo’s retribution for breaking that promise.

  A woman seized my left wrist, forcing me to put Val down, making my gorge rise again with the disturbance to my energy field. The strong hand pushed up my sleeve, exposing the bright steel bracelet that Dominic had given me after Jana was born. It was made in the understated ‘Graven fashion: a smooth circle, with no clasp or catch, nor was it big enough to slide over the hand. The idea behind it was simple and elegant: when first given it was too big, but over time the electricity of the wearer’s crypta energy fused the molecules tighter, until there was no way to remove it except with a blowtorch. Some law of physics supposedly prevented the shrinkage from continuing indefinitely. These days the bracelet was heavy but comfortable; most of the time I forgot I was wearing it.

  The woman’s eyes widened for a telltale moment in her hard face as she felt the solid weight of the steel and recognized a rare artisanal product. “Hey, Captain,” she shouted, “why don’t we just take this? It’s worth as much as anything her lord will pay.” I tried to wrench my arm free, but she held tight. “Be still, my fine lady,” she said with a gap-toothed leer, “or we’ll cut your hand off with it.”

  Reynaldo hurried over at the loud words. “Let go of her, Michaela.” When the woman continued to hold my wrist, unwilling to lose contact with so much precious metal, he used his crypta on her. I could feel some of the overflow from his inexpert technique, the pain that caused her to drop my arm and clutch her stomach, doubling over as if she had been punched or kicked. She knew better than to cry or complain, but lurched unsteadily to a bench and sat down, heaving.

  “Listen to me,” Reynaldo shouted to the group. “No one will touch my prize, not the woman or the girl or the little brat.” He stared around the room, commanding attention. “We will make their lord buy them back, and Margrave Aranyi will not pay for damaged goods.”

  Reynaldo strolled over to where Michaela sat and she stood up hurriedly at his approach, expecting another attack. He grabbed the woman by the hair, twisting it tightly, forcing her to look up at him. “Don’t worry, my own greedy whore,” he said with a kind of affectionate contempt, “before we let them go, we will have the bracelet, and the fine clothes.” Michaela smiled and nodded, frightened but appeased.

  The bandit captain released the woman and spoke louder for the benefit of the rest of the group. “We will all share in the spoils. Everybody who obeys me, who helps, will get a share.” He whirled around, trying to catch people behind him who might not have heard his words or agreed to them. Everyone was watching him closely, listening intently. “And anyone who interferes will be punished. Do you understand?”

  There was a cacophony of sound as men and women and older children shouted their assent. Captain Reynaldo, with his crypta and his paranoia, his intelligent planning and his psychotic changes of mood, maintained control of this band. If most of the men might have been content to rob and to rape, if the women would have thought themselves fortunate to have a new shift or a pair of boots, they were impressed that Reynaldo had instead settled for nothing less than the unimagined wealth that Aranyi ransom would bring. None of them was capable of thinking up a coherent plan of this kind, much less carrying it out. I doubted Reynaldo had thought his plan all the way through. But he had got this far, and I must trust in Dominic to find a way to rescue us, while husbanding my own dwindling energy to keep us safe until then.

  CHAPTER 3

  We were at last herded into a doorway, down some narrow steps, and pushed into a dark stuffy room. A bar clanged into place on the outside of the door, a key turned in a lock. There were no windows. A small grate near the low ceiling looked out onto what was floor level in the great hall. We were in a storeroom, the kind of place that, in Aranyi, is used for dry goods, wood or weapons, things that need no air or light.

  Wearily
, hopelessly, I made the inner flame, snapping the fingers of my left hand and willing into life the little jet of fire that crypta can create from a spark of the body’s own static electricity. I was proud of this ability to make the light without using a prism, a skill I had learned before my marriage, during six months of training in the uses and control of my gift. I had practiced it ever since, when I realized I would be spending the rest of my life in a world that depends on candles and torches, the occasional lamp filled with rendered animal fat, for all artificial illumination.

  The blue flame burned low and fitful with my waning strength, barely showing through the cupped fingers of my right hand that I used as a screen. Before I let the flame die I saw a candle stub in a niche and lit it. Our shadows grew, tall and tapering, the slightest breeze from our movements making the unprotected flame flicker wildly, but I was grateful for the comfort.

  There was a pile of sodden straw in one corner. I unpinned my cloak, spread it out, and Val and I sank down in exhaustion. We were up again at once as a horde of bugs crawled out, delighted at the feast that had landed from above. Ravenous—they must not have eaten for weeks—in seconds they had burrowed under our clothes and into our flesh. Val cried and shook himself, stamping his feet in frustration, as I helped him as best I could, squashing the little bodies between clothes and skin, brushing off the visible ones and combing his hair with my fingers.