Captivity

by Ann Herendeen

  It had needed no prompting from Lady Melanie for Dominic to say, frowning with compunction, “We must talk of the boy’s future. It is a shame he should suffer for his father’s good fortune.”

  Lady Melanie smiled blandly at her former lover, showing no hint of the emotions she must have been feeling. “You should never blame yourself for doing as all men ought, marrying and fathering children.” She answered Dominic in her reserved manner that seemed to please him. “But I don’t deny I would be grateful to hear any suggestions you might have for Struan.”

  During our stay they had talked together often, at meals and at leisure, sitting at the hearth or riding out together on fair days, both of them enjoying and excelling at that activity that had never tempted me. I had not thought much of it at first; the few scraps of conversation I had picked up did seem to concern Struan. If there was some reminiscing involved, I could hardly blame them after eight years. It would all be over in a little while. We would not impose too long on Stefan’s hospitality with a newborn baby in the house, and Lady Melanie, heir herself to the matrilineal Ndoko Realm, and a professional seminary telepath, had her own pressing duties to return to.

  Like her father, Jana had been drawn to the boy, her half-brother. At first the concepts had puzzled her: Dominic’s child but not mine, a brother she had never met, who did not live with us. But there was no jealousy in her thoughts. Struan had not displaced her from her original solitary splendor, nor stolen my affections. Jana had felt only curiosity at first, soon to be replaced by a kind of love. Unlike Val, a despised baby, Struan was older by three years, a hero, in the yawning gulfs of childhood’s rapid development, to be idolized. Jana had followed the boy around like a devoted dog every waking moment of the weeks we spent with Stefan and Drusilla. Struan, kind and forbearing, had not chased her away or tried to escape from her worshipful attentions.

  In truth they were good companions, Jana’s strength and size compensating for the age difference, her taste in activities the same as any boy’s. She and Struan had roamed freely within the safety of the enclosed grounds of the manor, climbing trees, grubbing in the shallow streams and ponds, stalking birds and small animals, trying to hunt with short spears and snares. As children will, they had stayed out late one evening, engrossed in their fascinating pastimes, while Lady Melanie and I had waited and worried, she calmly, with aristocratic control, I cursing and frantic, until they straggled in, flushed and dirty, when supper was almost over. We had welcomed the truants home, Melanie with a mild reproof, I with a tirade of scolding, followed by a crushing hug and devouring kisses, and a warning not to scare the wits out of me again.

  Jana had been sorry to part with her friend at the end of our visit. Here, in our desperate situation, Jana saw a way to help herself and her mother, while also benefiting her friend. She was familiar with the concepts of inheritance, had been told early in her life that she could never be Margrave Aranyi, because she was a girl. It would only have been cruel to let her grow up hoping for the impossible. Ironically, Struan, a boy, could not inherit his mother’s eventual title, for the same arbitrary reason of his sex. It had made another bond between them.

  “I’d like Struan to be Papa’s heir,” Jana said now. She smiled in an unnaturally shy way. “I could marry him when I’m older. I used to want to marry Papa, but now I’d like to marry Struan. He’s not married. He’s not even betrothed.”

  “At eight,” I said, “I should hope not.” I glanced at Val again. He remained blissfully unaware that his sister planned to dispose of him so easily. There was no need for me to disabuse Jana of her clever ideas, when there was no chance of them being implemented. I contented myself with one gentle demur. “Papa won’t let a bandit keep any of his family. It would be dishonorable.” That ought to settle it.

  Jana shrugged. As I had hoped, she had no answer to the demands of the inflexible code of honor. “I guess a bandit doesn’t want a stupid baby, either,” she muttered under her breath. She paced the room, an engine of energy, while Val and I lay back in our weakness. I scratched myself, wondering how long it would take the rash and the bites to heal once we were home.

  My motion awakened Val to the same feelings of discomfort. “I’m itchy, Mama,” he said. “Rub my head.”

  I rubbed the boils on his hot little head. Did he have a fever? He wasn’t sneezing, had no cough. “Is your throat sore?” I asked.

  Val shook his head, rubbing against my slack fingers. “Rub,” he said, imperious. “Rub my back.” I obeyed, using my nails as Val wanted, first him, then me, with barely enough strength to move my arm.

  This inactivity was worse than laziness; it was potentially fatal. Today was the first of the two days before Dominic was to arrive. By the end of tomorrow I would be completely helpless and useless. If I was to learn anything to help my husband, I must do it now. My failed attempt to read Reynaldo’s thoughts last night had undermined my confidence in my abilities. Going in undetected seemed beyond me. If I dared not try Reynaldo again, I thought, why not try the other bandits?

  I had kept a mental distance from them so far. What I had picked up from their minds had revealed only the expected brutish range of concepts: desire for ransom, lewd thoughts of me, a general and undirected violence. Probing with revulsion from man to man now, I learned nothing to reward my initiative. Reynaldo might be planning something innovative or daring, but he had not shared his ideas with his troops.

  There was one thing I didn’t understand. It had to do with their daily activity, some kind of weapons practice, but the vague images I received meant nothing to me. “The swift spear,” was the best I could make out. Their visualizations were so crude I knew only that they held the weapon in their hands and aimed it at their target, a revelation of the obvious that would help Dominic not at all. Each minute in contact with them left me feeling weaker and more dispirited, and I stopped trying. My brain was turning to mush.

  Jana paced the room the way Dominic would whenever he was forced into inactivity. I watched my daughter’s feet and ankles in her little riding boots striding by below her long skirt. What had I seen earlier? I struggled to recall. What had snagged my attention, when I was too tired or distracted to react? “Don’t watch me,” she had demanded whenever she used the pot, and I had always obeyed. Jana was growing up, wanted her privacy. It was a small enough gift to offer in this wretched situation where I could do little else for her. This morning I had watched, not on purpose, but only because I was tired, and Jana had thought I was asleep and had not reminded me.

  Breeches, I thought. I had seen breeches. Not the linen, feminine, riding breeches, but leather ones, boys’ breeches. “Jana,” I said, “come here a second.” She ran over at once, hoping I had reconsidered her proposal for Val and Struan, and I grabbed her ankle, slid my other hand up her leg. There they were, hidden under the skirt, the forbidden garment that no Eclipsian female, not even a child, should ever wear.

  Jana wrenched her leg out of my feeble grasp. “You looked,” she said. “It was supposed to be a secret.” She watched me, defiant but worried. She knew she had done wrong, far worse than the pre-breakfast assault on Val, so much so that even I, her loving and kind mother, might feel obligated to extract a severe punishment.

  I could never be angry over something so fundamentally trivial. And at the moment an evil plan was hatching in my head. “You kept that secret very well,” I said. “All this time, with no chance to be alone.” I guessed where she had gotten the breeches. “Struan won’t blame you. You didn’t tell.”

  Jana’s face hardened. “I swore an oath with Struan, Aranyi to Aranyi, that no one would ever know.” Horrified at her unintended betrayal, she said, “But it was my idea. It was my fault. I made him do it.”

  That I could well believe. Jana had always been hampered by her long skirts, had pleaded with me to let her wear breeches, to no avail. However I might be tempted to humor her at home, I would not shame Dominic in public by exposing his daughter as unfemini
ne. With her new companion and their athletic activities, Jana had felt the handicap more than ever, and had found an obvious solution. She must have persuaded Struan to give her a pair of his old breeches, too small now, that Lady Melanie had brought for Stefan’s new baby, for him to wear when he was older. I very much doubted that Struan, the paragon, had the imagination for such an improper suggestion. “You could corrupt a saint, and he’d thank you for the favor,” I said.

  Jana didn’t understand my meaning, but she could see I was not so angry after all, and unbent to show the extent of her good fortune. “Struan gave me a shirt, too,” she said, lifting her dress up above the waist.

  “And how did you hope to wear them,” I asked, “without being found out?”

  “Like this,” she said, shaking her head at my obtuseness. “Under my dress.”

  She could sneak the wonderful, liberating boys’ clothes on under her regular attire, and once safely outdoors and out of sight of the household, remove the dress. Free to enjoy herself, she could retrieve the dress at the end of a long day of unencumbered activity. With her tall, lithe body, she would look from a distance like any mountain boy, except for the long hair that hung, uncut from birth, to her waist. Now I would remedy that one problem.

  I held out my hand. “Give me my dagger,” I said to Jana.

  Jana shook her head, stepped back in fear. “No, Mama,” she said. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  Gods above, what did she think? What kind of monster had I become to her? “Sweetheart,” I said. “I’m not angry with you. I know how much you’ve always wanted to wear breeches. It’s a pity you can’t wear them at home.” I smiled as convincingly as I could while the terrible scheme prodded me forward. “But how would you like to wear them here? You could pass for a boy if your hair were short.”

  Jana’s face lit up. “Oh, Mama!” She hardly dared breathe. “Can I? Really?”

  At my solemn nod, Jana took the little dagger out of her boot and came eagerly to my outstretched arms. I sat up slowly, hoping to avoid the blackout that my emptiness and weakness threatened. “Listen to me, my darling. What I am proposing is very dangerous. If you do not want to risk it, I will not say another word.” I knew I had her now.

  “I can do it,” Jana said. “I know I can.” She held out the knife to me. “Cut my hair, Mama. Please,” she remembered to add.

  “Hold the top,” I said, “so I don’t pull too hard and hurt you.” She pressed her palms against her head as I seized locks of the thick, shiny, almost-black hair below, hacking them off roughly in jagged cuts. I made no effort to do a neat job; it would have defeated my purpose. When I had finished, piles of hair lay in heaps around her feet. I gathered them up in a bunch, tied them in a switch using a couple of the longest strands. “Let me look at you. Take your dress off and let’s see what kind of boy you make.”

  She made a very good one. The shirt and breeches showed their years of wear by Struan, and had acquired additional dirt more recently. Obviously Jana had already tested her plan to wear them for a few days at Stefan’s. The clothes had the lived-in, slept-in look of the bandits’ rags. Except for one detail. Using the knife, I cut a few holes in the cloth, pulled down strips in tatters. My daughter must blend in with the others.

  Jana’s newly short hair hung around her face, partially concealing her distinctive features, if she didn’t push it away. If no one had seen her before, they would make no connection between the elegant little girl, fierce and warlike, but feminine, and this rough, shock-headed boy.

  But of course the bandits and their women and children had all seen her, some only briefly, from a distance, when we were brought into the hall, others, like Reynaldo, close up. “Try not to talk to anyone,” I said. “Keep your head down. Look at the floor.” Before I had time to stop myself from this crazy idea, I thought of one more warning. “And don’t use formal speech.”

  Jana rolled her eyes. “I know that.” She tried to deepen her voice. “I fucking well know that,” she said in a growl, using the universal language of soldiers.

  She climbed to the window grate to perform, as she informed me, “reconnaissance,” while I entered her consciousness to share her view. There were no men in sight. They were out hunting for game, I guessed, or watching for unwary travelers. The women and older children, finished with breakfast, were probably gathering nuts and roots. The few children too young to help with the work played under the bored supervision of an older woman, like them left behind because she could not keep up the pace of the others. One toddler stumbled against the still-hot side of the large communal cauldron and ran screaming for comfort, only to be cuffed and cursed for his clumsiness. Two other women, sick or recently delivered of babies, lay in filth on the floor.

  When Jana jumped down, we listened at the door. As the slapped child’s cries subsided to sniffles, all was quiet. There would probably never be a better moment.

  Val watched, silenced by events for once, as I hugged Jana, telling myself I was giving my daughter a great adventure she would remember with pride all her life. “Go slowly,” I said. “Look around, but don’t touch anything. Remember, you’re still doing reconnaissance. Come back as soon as you’ve scouted the rear position, then I’ll give you your mission plan.” I fell into the pseudo-military jargon easily, knowing it reinforced Jana’s already strong sense of duty. She was more likely to obey me if I presented this insanity as a serious assignment.

  I lowered my third eyelids. “Remember, I’ll be monitoring you the whole time.” Lowered eyelids wouldn’t affect the mental connection with my child one way or the other, but I thought Jana would feel safer if she believed I was employing my powers at their full strength. “If you’re challenged by anyone, I’ll know, and if you can’t get away, I’ll help you.” I was strangely confident, betting my last flicker of energy on Jana’s untested abilities.

  I made the inner flame, bending its tiny flickering light into my eyes and enabling me to open the lock on the door through telepathic manipulation. Being so weak was almost an advantage; I was forced to ease the lock’s mechanism along slowly, avoiding the squeal of its rusted parts. The bar on the outside rose as the catch on the lock pushed it. I pried the door open a crack, then a little more, just enough for Jana to slip around to the other side. Then I nudged it shut and listened as she walked quickly along the corridor and up the stairs. My heart skipped a beat. Boots, I thought. Astarte preserve her. The women and children were all barefoot. Only the men wore boots in summer. It was too late. Jana had gone too far for me to call her back. Pray all the gods that no one notices.

  CHAPTER 9

  I waited by the door, watching my dying inner flame through inner eyelids clouded by my waning strength. If Jana returned empty-handed, I was finished. If she was caught– I wouldn’t think about that. I watched through her eyes as she climbed the stairs to the great hall, saw how she scanned the surroundings with the expertise of a poacher. Where had she picked up these skills? I was impressed, despite my trembling fear.

  All was clear. Our storeroom prison was near the front of the hall which, in the typical layout of any castle, was situated away from the drafty entrance, near the kitchen in the rear of the house. No one saw the ragged boy emerge from the stairwell, or thought nothing of the sight if they did. This was not one band of outlaws, but two or three that Reynaldo had convinced to unite to pull off his ambitious plan. I had learned that much from my attempts at reading their thoughts. Some of the women had only joined their men once they moved into this castle. If they saw an unfamiliar child they would assume he was from another band. Nobody kept track of children. Nobody cared.

  Jana slipped smoothly and silently the short distance from the stairs around the corner to the pantry, where she was safely out of sight. Her boots that had me so worried made no noise with their soft leather soles on the stone floor. Once through the kitchen and outside, Jana lurked expertly in the shadows between the ramshackle outbuildings, instinctively shielding herself from view.


  We were in luck. The animals were not far away. The back courtyard, usually a barren sea of mud in an inhabited household, was overgrown with every kind of grass and weed in this ruin. The bandits, in any case, could not risk detection by taking their animals far from their hideout. The sheep, which herd naturally, were working their way methodically across the rear swath of grass near the remains of the outer wall. But the goats, thank all the gods, were tethered to pegs to prevent them from roaming, allowing each a circle the length of the anchoring rope to graze, and no more. The one small boy left to guard them, knowing they could not go far, was engaged in throwing pebbles at birds and any small animals that foraged in the underbrush. As his aim improved, he moved, unaware, farther and farther from the courtyard, in the direction of the woods.

  A mangy dog bounded over to Jana, his head held low and forward, growling at the stranger. I had seen dogs when we were first brought in, I reminded myself, heartsick at my forgetfulness. How could I have thought we could ever get away with this crazy scheme?

  Jana stood her ground unafraid, familiar with every kind of animal we had seen here. To her a dog was more a reassuring friend than a threat. Jana knew she had only to hold out her fist and project her usual confidence, and the dog would soon accept her, just like Dominic’s hunting hounds and the edgy, ill-tempered guard dogs that inhabit the kennels in Aranyi’s front courtyard.

  This time it didn’t work. The dog maintained his attack stance, the bristles along his spine standing up stiff, slobber leaking from his partly opened jaws. He planted his front paws, bracing himself before Jana as if she were a fox trapped in her den, while my daughter glanced around, wondering, despite her instinctive knowledge to the contrary, if there was someone else nearby who was causing the dog to behave so strangely.

  Only now did I understand that it was my fear the dog sensed, in my protective communion with Jana. I pulled my mind back from hers, keeping just enough residual contact to sense Jana’s relief when the dog backed down, wagging its tail with gratitude when she scratched his head behind his torn, flea-bitten ears. The dog’s a bandit, too, she thought, explaining the episode to herself, just like the people.