Captivity

by Ann Herendeen

  Negotiators are privileged individuals. No one benefits by making an enemy of the man he must do business with, and on Eclipsis, every transaction, great or small, is accomplished only by bargaining. Buying an apple at a farmer’s stall or redeeming a hostage, it is all the same. The more valuable the goods the more prolonged the negotiations. If Niall had been sent by Margrave Aranyi to bargain for his wife and children, he should be treated respectfully.

  I shaded my eyes against the torchlight while I gazed up at the young man beside me. Niall’s was the first friendly face I had seen in four days, but it felt like weeks, or a short lifetime. My old self had died, and what survived was a pitiful sufferer in hell. To this new me, Niall was a heavenly apparition, a visitor from the privileged world of life and light I had once been part of. He was travel-stained and weary from a long journey made too swiftly, but to me he seemed fresh and clean, fit for a ball at ‘Graven Fortress in Eclipsia City.

  I stretched my hand out to this superior being, hoping for the blessing of his touch. Niall, I thought to him. Oh, Niall, I am so glad to see you– Even in thought I felt mute, unable to express any meaningful ideas with Reynaldo hovering so close.

  Niall’s face twisted in unconscious registration of the stench, but his thoughts were all kindness. Tears ran down his smooth cheeks. ‘Gravina, he thought to me, using the honorific to show me my sad condition had degraded only my physical self, not my essence. ‘Gravina, this is inhuman what has been done to you. He asked permission silently before feeling my hot face, and Val’s. He scanned the room, taking in the chamber pot, the empty water skin, the effigy on the straw pallet. Jana? he asked. He could sense she was not here, strove to understand the situation without betraying me.

  Flicking my eyes toward Reynaldo in warning, I tried to answer ambiguously. I don’t know. She seemed better earlier.

  Reynaldo was thinking at the same time. He noticed the effigy. In the harsh contrasts of the torchlight the fakery had a dismal appearance, like a corpse. “What’s the matter with the lass?” There was genuine anxiety in his voice and his thoughts. “Let me see her.” He stepped closer, bent to the bunched blanket.

  Niall stood up and put himself between the bandit and the figure on the straw. “Don’t you listen?” he said, shrugging in disbelief at such obstinacy. “Your own woman told us they had typhus, but you had to see for yourself.” His voice held just the right note of humorous exasperation to prevent Reynaldo from taking the words as provocation. Niall gestured with an eloquent hand at me and Val. “They’re seriously ill. Anyone can see it. And I, for one, have seen enough.” Niall moved toward the door, trying to make Reynaldo step back. He clapped his hands imperiously. “Bring food and water for ‘Gravina Aranyi and her children.” He spoke as if to inattentive servants. “Let me bathe and tend them, since your efforts have been so– inadequate. There can be no negotiation while they are in such a wretched state.”

  Reynaldo stood his ground, looking at me and Val lying helpless in our own filth. The force of his thoughts made them impossible for me to avoid. Our rapid deterioration had surprised him. Any sexual desire he had once entertained for me was gone; Val and I were of little value now except to draw Dominic here in rescue. Reynaldo made the sickening noise, between a giggle and a snort, which was his version of laughter. “Food?” he said. “Bathe? The only reason I have kept them alive is so your master will pay for them.” Again he insulted Niall, using the word “master,” as if Niall were a servant, or a paid entertainer.

  Niall lowered his eyelids, inner and outer, at the demeaning word. “Margrave Aranyi?” he asked, to clarify. “He is not the man to be persuaded by such barbarities. He will more likely extract a heavy price, in vengeance.”

  As I had seen before, Reynaldo relished the idea of Dominic’s attacking his stronghold. This time he made less of an attempt to hide his pleasure, although he needed to keep up the pretense of wanting ransom just a little longer. “Let him try,” he said. “But if you still wish to negotiate the price, you haven’t much time. If they’re as sick as you say, you’d be wise to pay up now, while they’re alive.”

  Niall shook his head. “If they die, we pay nothing. Margrave Aranyi has never had to purchase corpses.” His sarcastic inflection emphasized the nobleman’s contempt for any commercial transaction, while hinting ominously at the prospect of mass slaughter to come. To me he sent thoughts of reassurance; this tough talk was purely for show, following the formula of bargaining. I forced myself to keep an emotional distance from the callous drama playing out above me. Dominic would have briefed Niall for this conference, and the bandits would expect any negotiator to put up a brave front, to haggle so as to appear unaffected by their relatives’ plight.

  Reynaldo, suspecting he was losing control of this carefully engineered situation, tried to regain the upper hand. “But this is his wife! And his heir!” He lashed out again at Niall, tired of being balked at every turn by this composed and confident young man. “When Margrave Aranyi’s son dies,” he said, sticking his chin out as he tried to stare the taller man down, “you won’t be able to produce another one from your ass no matter how much he fucks you.”

  This time Niall took a deep breath. His hand went to the hilt of his sword, but he was alone here, safe only by virtue of his position as negotiator. To attempt to avenge a stupid insult would be suicide, and bring death on me and the children. “Thank you for the biology lesson,” he said. “But Margrave Aranyi has two other heirs, an adopted son and a natural-born son. His interest in his wife and this child is purely sentimental.”

  Reynaldo’s face turned purple. He raised a gloved fist, ready to smash it into Niall’s handsome, supercilious face, and held back with immense effort. He decided he had had enough of the peculiar family dynamics of the Aranyis. “Why am I wasting my time with you?” he asked, more of himself than Niall. “I will talk only with Margrave Aranyi.” He shouldered Niall aside and leaned over me. “Bring Margrave Aranyi here. No tricks. Bring him now.”

  I shut my eyes to Reynaldo’s offensive presence while I considered his demand. If Dominic really was nearby I might manage it. If not, and without the help of the telepathic ether, I would have to work to find him, unable to achieve the kind of instant, smooth communion that is as natural as breathing for my stronger healthy self. The attempt would only betray Dominic, as Reynaldo would discover that, for all his threats, my husband was not outside the gates, not yet in position to storm the bandits’ castle or even to pay ransom. Better to be honest about my own condition, which would betray nothing. “No,” I said. “I’m too weak.”

  Reynaldo had lost any ability he might once have possessed to make allowance for sickness or failing strength. He reached quickly and snatched Val out of my arms. “Summon your husband,” he said, “or I’ll finish the little brat off now.”

  Niall, with his quick reflexes, attempted another intervention, but Reynaldo had anticipated him, barking out an order as he acted. Two bandits moved apologetically to Niall’s either side, pinioning his arms. I looked in panic to Niall and back to Reynaldo. Perhaps Niall could reach Dominic without revealing his whereabouts. I thought desperately to Niall, who nodded his willingness to try.

  Reynaldo was impatient. “Margrave Aranyi!” he demanded of me again. “Now!” He held his little hostage in his strong hands, squeezing Val tightly around the middle. The pressure woke Val from his feverish torpor and he opened his eyes to find himself in Reynaldo’s clutches, his face inches away from this demon from his worst nightmares. He screamed and struggled, fighting for dear life. In the middle of a cry he ran out of breath, choked, and puked a long white stream of half-digested milk over Reynaldo’s face and shirt.

  Reynaldo roared in disgust and anger. His men laughed, briefly helpless with the unexpected release of tension. For all their fear of their leader, they could not suppress their natural reaction, their pleasure at a child getting the better of the deranged and unpredictable bandit captain. Reynaldo shifted his grip on
Val, dangling him dangerously by one arm, torn between his wish to be rid of such an eruptive, dirty object, and his continued awareness of its value to him in leverage. His arm began an involuntary backward swing.

  In their amusement the men holding Niall let go, just as Reynaldo’s arm swung forward in an arc that, if completed, would have cracked Val’s head against the wall. Niall moved swiftly once he was freed, reaching the collision point first by a fraction of a second. Val was flung neatly into Niall’s midsection, like a football. As Niall cradled the sick, filthy child, his face was haggard, the mask of hauteur dropped for a candid moment, although instantly resumed once Val was restored to my outstretched arms. “He’ll make a good soldier,” Niall said of Val, finding an epigram in tragedy averted. “He knows the first rule already: take the enemy by surprise with your strongest weapon.”

  I kissed Val and rocked him, the full horror of the narrow escape not yet registering. My eyes followed Reynaldo as I awaited his next move. The episode seemed to have snapped him back to reality. Forcing himself to stay calm, he remembered his most valuable prize. “The girl,” he said. “Margrave Aranyi won’t give up a daughter like that easily.”

  Niall and I exchanged hasty, covert mental glances. “Margrave Aranyi wants his family back,” Niall said in a more conciliatory tone. “His entire family. And he is prepared to pay handsomely. But they’ve been abused, neglected. They’re sick.” He paused to let the bandits draw the logical inference. “If they should be returned damaged or, the gods forbid, dead, Margrave Aranyi will be forced to vengeance.” Niall shook his head sadly at the waste of it all, waved a manicured hand in regret. “He’ll have no choice. Honor demands no less.”

  Reynaldo regained his temper, became almost genial, as things returned to normal. This was more like it, the back and forth of negotiation. He recognized the desperation underneath Niall’s cool exterior, proof that Dominic was fully as eager as Reynaldo would wish for the return of his family. If Margrave Aranyi had sent this unnaturally self-possessed young man ahead in his place it was no doubt to enhance his own prestige, to show that he need not descend to the bargaining table in person. The situation was about to change at last in Reynaldo’s favor. “Margrave Aranyi will have to lose some of his ‘Graven pride,” Reynaldo said. “He will have to talk to me, mind to mind, before I agree to anything.”

  “Tomorrow,” Niall said. “Lord Aranyi has no intention of even thinking of you until tomorrow.” At last he was able to move Reynaldo back toward the door.

  From the satisfied aura Reynaldo exuded, I caught a glimpse then of the plan, ragged and patchy like an unfinished quilt in his thrilling anticipation. Men rushing forward, Dominic at the head, and then– something flying through the air, something deadly…

  Reynaldo felt my presence in his mind and clamped down hard, keeping me out of his gleeful thoughts that must remain secret just a little longer. It occurred to me that he had what he wanted. Reynaldo’s plan required daylight. He didn’t want Dominic coming in now, but tomorrow, in the morning. And then? Death. Death for Dominic, and for me and Val. But killing Dominic had always been the real goal, and Reynaldo knew he could do it. What no man on Eclipsis could be sure of, Reynaldo was confident he could accomplish. Now that the moment was at hand, it mattered not at all to Reynaldo whether Val and I lived through the night. Only Jana still mattered to him. My heart pounded, my temples ready to burst with the surge of blood from my fear.

  I thought to Niall while Reynaldo was still smug and relaxed. Niall gave me a mental nod of comprehension. He would keep his eyes and his mind open for her. “You must bring water, at least, for the girl,” Niall said.

  Reynaldo agreed easily, shouted a command, and a skin of water was brought and pushed hurriedly into the room before the door was locked again. The men walked leisurely upstairs as the protracted ritual of negotiation assumed its natural pace. In better humor now, Reynaldo proffered the standard opening phrase. “I hope you brought enough coin to meet our price.”

  “Well,” Niall countered with the proper response, “we brought plenty of metal.”

  Everybody laughed at the references to ransom and weapons, the “metal” that would be used in the unlikely event of the negotiations’ failure. This would be a long and unrewarding night for Niall. It spoke for Dominic’s high estimate of his abilities that he had trusted him to carry it off.

  Kidnappers have an obvious advantage over horse traders or farmers in the market square. But not even a devoted husband was expected to accept a bandit’s first, deliberately inflated, ransom demand. Such easy acquiescence would only imply trickery—cover for an assault; or bad faith—hostages who were valueless and would not be redeemed, like an adulterous wife whose child had not been fathered by her husband. It was understood that Niall was to begin the negotiations, dismissing the laughable opening proposals and tendering equally ridiculous low offers in return. Dominic himself would continue the bargaining once the two sides had come closer in their terms. Agreement might take a week.

  CHAPTER 11

  Safe behind the locked door, I made the inner flame and resumed the search for Jana, returning to the place that had seemed promising before Niall had arrived, somewhere near the main entrance and staircase. My mind flitted erratically, unable to hold a position or to keep things in focus, but I felt around, blindly but doggedly, and detected something.

  There she was, hiding in a nook under the main staircase. She must have gone around to the front courtyard and been trapped near the entrance when the bandits came in at the end of the daylight. She was frightened, but seeing Niall brought in unharmed had heartened her. She was thinking furiously, nerving herself up to go into the hall where the negotiations were beginning their deliberate, painfully slow progress.

  A gaggle of children collected in front of her hiding place, peering curiously into the hall, eager to catch a glimpse of the visitor. “Is it Margrave Aranyi?” a small boy asked, awed by Niall’s aristocratic demeanor.

  “Nah,” another boy said. “It’s his bodyguard.” A loyal servant, sworn to live and die for his master, was a logical guess.

  “Maybe he’s a natural-born son,” a wan little girl said. She was already half in love with Niall, as they all were.

  A third boy, older than the rest, shook his head in a knowing way. “You’re all wrong,” he said, standing in the center of an admiring circle. “He’s one of Margrave Aranyi’s bastards. Margrave Aranyi’s got hundreds of ‘em, and a whole harem of whores.” The boy had obviously heard of Dominic’s father, renowned for his promiscuity, and had confused the generations.

  Jana clenched and opened her fists in helplessness. She knew better than to enter this stupid conversation, but it was taxing her restraint not to defend her papa and Niall from these bizarre identifications.

  A second girl ventured an opinion. “Captain Reynaldo said he’s Margrave Aranyi’s whore,” she said, clearly fascinated by the possibility. “I heard him.”

  The rest of the children sniggered, nudging each other nearer the door to the hall, more determined than ever to see this unusual personage. Jana could stand it no longer. She wasn’t sure what a whore was, exactly, but she knew the word was a deadly insult, and she rushed out from her nook to push the offending girl roughly in the chest, knocking her down. “He’s Pa-” She caught herself in time. “He’s Margrave Aranyi’s companion. Don’t you dare call him a whore!” She loomed over her fallen opponent, bringing her foot back for a kick.

  The superior older boy stepped in front of the fallen girl as she struggled to her feet. “Oh yeah? What do you care?” He spat at Jana, then pushed her as she had pushed the other girl.

  Jana staggered but recovered quickly. Her disguise, coupled with her rash act of aggression, had worked, deflecting attention away from her unfamiliar face. Nobody wondered who she was. Everybody thought she was a foolhardy little boy, too big for his britches, who needed to be put in his place.

  The older boy was spoiling for a fight
. “Are you a whore too?” He jabbed Jana’s shoulder a few times, then swung a fist. Jana ducked automatically and raised her own fist, landing a solid punch on the boy’s ribs.

  A full-scale brawl erupted, children shouting and shoving. The few girls hung back, the boys jumped in on one side or another. There was no reason; it was just boys’ idea of an animated discussion. Someone tried to hold Jana’s arms but she wrenched herself free and resumed the attack on the older boy. Jana– Why was I surprised? –actually knew how to fight. The boy was bigger than Jana, and tough. He was going to win eventually, but Jana would make him work for his victory.

  The blows thudded into me in my maternal one-way communion with my daughter. Unlike Jana I had never been a fighter, and my fragile condition only exacerbated the feeling of punishment. The beatings both given and received quickly became nauseating for me, although Jana seemed oblivious. I longed for an end to this exhausting business and, as usual, got more than I asked for.

  The noise eventually brought a few adults out of the hall to see what was distracting the negotiators. Women cursed and slapped at the children who formed the ring of audience. A few recognized their own offspring and dragged them away. The fight in the center was exposed to view, Jana and her opponent now locked in a hopeless clinch of pummeling fists and scuffing kicks.

  Michaela stood in the doorway, deputized by Reynaldo to enforce calm. She waded into the center of the fast-diminishing circle, separated the fighters and put a brawny hand on Jana. Her eyes narrowed. “What’s this? Where’d you get those boots, boy?” She had a nose for valuables, was indignant that someone else’s child had gotten good leather boots she’d had her eye on. Jana’s opponent, barefoot like the rest and wiping a gushing bloody nose, made good his escape.