Captivity

by Ann Herendeen

  Reynaldo smiled in benign acknowledgment of his superior status and put an arm around his half-brother. “Roberto,” he said, “son of my father. I am leader, not just because I am older, but because I have the gift.” He touched the tip of his index finger to the corner of his eye where the third eyelids drooped, semi-opaque between milky-white and silver, from the warm red and orange of the firelight. “You mustn’t try mind-reading without the ability. I have the power of crypta, and here’s what I know. They do not have the ransom. They’re not planning to pay. Margrave Aranyi isn’t here– yet. But he will be. In the morning. The boyfriend was unshielded, easy to read. They’re planning exactly what I wanted: a direct assault on the castle.”

  The bandits looked at each other in consternation. Roberto again took the lead. “Not planning to pay? But that was the whole point.” His face had the stricken look of an only child who has suddenly lost both his parents. “We took the woman and the children because you said Margrave Aranyi would pay a fortune for them.” He stared around at the others who nodded emphatically. “We understood we’d have to kill Margrave Aranyi because he’s not the sort of man to pay up meekly and forget the offense. But what’s the point in killing him for nothing?”

  This time Reynaldo went crazy. A strangled sound, half laugh, half cry, came out of his throat and he frothed at the mouth. His brother and another man nearby doubled over in agony, caught in the spillover effect from Reynaldo’s erratic untrained crypta. The rest of the men shrank back, their eyes on the floor. Reynaldo took in great whooping breaths until he was able to produce words. “Nothing?” he screamed. “Kill him for nothing?” Flecks of foam flew from his mouth like stones lobbed from a catapult. He was red in the face, his chest heaving. “We will have all of Aranyi and you call it nothing?”

  Everyone in the room was too scared to move. I could sense their nervous, confused thoughts. Aranyi? What did their leader mean, Aranyi? Precious metals and goods, that had been the motivation behind the audacious act, kidnapping the wife and children of a powerful ‘Graven lord with a reputation as a warrior, a demigod to such isolated mountain people. Killing him to prevent his anticipated revenge had seemed like the only way to keep their spoils, once the ransom was safely delivered. Aranyi itself was foreign, unthought-of, like myths of paradise. They had all heard of Aranyi, as they had heard of Eden and Cloud Nine and heaven. But no one expected to go there, not during his lifetime.

  Men and even women muttered together, shaking their heads. They had known Reynaldo was volatile, frightening with his power that mimicked the abilities of the ‘Graven. But they had trusted that, as he shared their power, and with the help of illegal weapons, so he could get the better of one of them. The vision of immeasurable wealth had been irresistible, impelling them to accept the risk. Now it all seemed to be leading to something different, something nobody had contemplated in his wildest imaginings.

  Slowly Reynaldo regained control of his emotion, reining in the outward manifestations of his crypta. The two men affected by Reynaldo’s fury were able to straighten up and take a few restorative breaths. Roberto, no doubt inured to such trials from his years growing up in the shadow of a gifted and difficult half-brother, dared to inquire. “Aranyi, brother?” He bowed his head slightly, still accepting Reynaldo’s dominance. “Of course Aranyi isn’t nothing. But it’s the riches of Aranyi we want, not Aranyi itself.” He looked around again at his confederates. “What would the likes of us want with Aranyi?”

  Reynaldo was feeling chastened. He was annoyed at himself for betraying his real plans when the necessary steps to achieve them, steps that depended on his band’s unquestioning obedience, were not yet accomplished. He had counted on the absolute loyalty of his archers, convinced they were fighting for treasure and the freedom it would bring. The fact that he had another goal in mind should have come out only after the deed was done, too late to change course. Now he must convince ordinary men to follow him in his ambitions, a world apart from their limited horizons.

  The bandit leader tried a new approach. He had let slip that Aranyi was the ultimate prize. Now he would show his men the advantages. He stood next to one, spoke quietly into his cringing face. “You thought to take your share of the ransom and buy land, Tonio, didn’t you?” When the man nodded, paralyzed with fear so that he felt compelled to admit the truth, Reynaldo laughed with contempt. “But who would sell you land? Who would want you as a neighbor?” The man shook with the exertion of trying to stand still. Reynaldo laughed louder at the man’s fear. “You’re shit, filth. You can’t become a respectable farmer, or a respectable anything, no matter how much treasure you steal.”

  Reynaldo ambled over to another man. “And you, Federico. What did you think? That I’d give you a share of Aranyi wealth so you could waste it on drink and whores in Andrade?” Reynaldo was growing righteously indignant, in sway once more to the powerful allure of his dream. “You thought we’d kill Margrave Aranyi and just drift away? Perform a great deed like that, something to write ballads about, then skulk in the woods and backstreets, living like outlaws for the rest of our lives?” Federico, a hardened warrior whose face and arms were seamed with the scars of many fights, stared resolutely ahead and said nothing.

  To a third man, small and pockmarked with sad eyes, Reynaldo was most brutal. “And you, Bron. You thought you’d buy a wife.” He poked at the man’s weedy frame. “An ugly little rat like you, with a dick and a face to match, who couldn’t get my grandmother to open her legs—you thought you’d buy a ripe virgin bride?” Reynaldo roared with laughter at the grotesque image. He pointed to the sheep pen. “There’s the only women you can buy, with or without Aranyi steel.”

  All the men shook with fear as Reynaldo spoke aloud their deepest secrets, their pathetic ambitions, and belittled them. Tough men, who could have ganged up on Reynaldo and torn him apart in minutes, twitched like hog-tied animals and submitted to humiliation, demoralized by exposure like the women they had stripped on the trail.

  Once Reynaldo had made several more examples he eased up, stood in the center of the room again, expansive with the thought of impending victory. “You’ll live like men!” he shouted. “If you want land, we’ll have all of Aranyi to parcel out. And women! You’ll have more than you can handle and you won’t even have to pay. They come with the land.” He laughed with salacious delight, cheered by his faulty understanding of ‘Graven landholding practices.

  Everyone remained silent, afraid and doubting. The original plan, or what they had been led to believe was the plan, was to take the ransom, kill Dominic, then flee over the mountains, passable in summer, to the renegade Realm of Aldaran. ‘Graven Assembly’s authority was not recognized there. Any organized manhunt or posse out for justice would stop at the border. The bandits could live well by their standards, on the fringes of civilized life, as they were accustomed. A plan like Reynaldo’s was simply lunacy.

  The silence frustrated Reynaldo. He tried again. “I will be Margrave Aranyi,” he announced. “Do you understand? I will be the Margrave when this one is dead. You will be my retainers. We will have everything: land, goods, a real castle, not this wreck from the Age of Anarchy. We will all live like– like ‘Graven. We don’t need ransom. We need only to bring the Margrave here to his death.”

  Finally Roberto found an objection he could put into words. “And the other ‘Graven will just give it to us?” He shook his head in disbelief. “We kill the rightful lord and move in on his Realm, and they’ll all bow and smile and wish us luck?” He became more animated as he imagined the troubles to follow. “We could have the entire ‘Graven Coalition up here after us. We could have Terrans—”

  “Let them come!” Reynaldo said, flinging his arms wide. His good humor only increased at a problem so easily disposed of. “Terrans aren’t immortal, any more than ‘Graven. An arrow through the head will kill them as surely as it kills Margrave Aranyi and his pretty-boy whore.”

  There were more urgent mutterings, voic
es raised in actual protest. “We can’t fight all of Eclipsis forever,” someone shouted. “If we use arrows, what’s to stop the ‘Graven from using their powers?” Even bandits understood the Armaments Convention, knew that its original purpose had been to prevent annihilation from the world-destroying potential of crypta-based weapons and Terran nukes.

  Reynaldo glowered. The mutterings died down as people saw the return of his explosive anger. “I have the right,” he said. He turned back to Roberto. “You know it, brother.” He pointed to his inner eyelids again. “I have ‘Graven blood, as I have ‘Graven power.”

  Even Roberto had nothing to oppose to such monumental ambition and delusion. He looked at his allies, the other bandits, and shook his head dazedly, as if to say he had known nothing of this. “Yes,” he said, “you have crypta, and ‘Graven blood. So what? You’re not the first bastard with third eyelids and crypta—”

  “I have the right,” Reynaldo said. He had done explaining, and he was not about to let himself be tricked again into revealing more than was necessary for his men to know. But he could not resist one last pleasurable admission. “And I’ll have the girl. She’s Aranyi: just look at her.”

  Scores of eyes turned to the unusual little girl in ragged shirt and breeches, with her boots and shorn hair. Jana’s exceptional courage had been stretched to the breaking point. She had listened to the increasingly horrifying conversation, following it with difficulty, clear on only one point: that her beloved papa’s death was being casually discussed as the basis for all further action. What had been unthinkable only a few hours ago was becoming reality. Now, tired and beaten, hungry and frightened, she knew that she needed a mother’s comfort. She had edged toward the grate that looked down into the room where I lay with Val. “Mama,” she whispered. “Can you hear me? Please, Mama, help me get away from here.”

  Reynaldo, hearing Jana’s thoughts in his head as well as her whispered words, bounded away from his annoying conversation to stand over Jana where she knelt on the floor, her face pressed close to the bars of the grate. He put a possessive hand on her and Jana leapt up, her fists clenched, determined, now that she was on the spot again, not to give up on her demand.

  “I want to go back to my mama,” Jana said. She whined like any lost five-year-old, no longer the precocious solider. “Please, I want my mama.”

  Reynaldo had not expected such an ordinary, childish wish. “Your mama?” His mind was blank; I was already as good as dead to him. “No,” he said, chuckling. “You have no mother anymore. Your father will look after you now.” He pointed to himself as he said the word “father,” puffing up his chest and preening his red hair.

  Jana gaped at the absurd statements. “I do so have a mama,” she said. Tears of rage and fear filled her eyes. She stamped a booted foot and the swollen eye from her fight overflowed, leaking a pink stream down her cheek. “I want to go back to my mama.”

  Reynaldo squatted down so that his face was on a level with hers. “Listen to me, little lass,” he said, stern but with rough affection. “Your mama is dead. I don’t want to hear you speak of her again. Best to forget all that.” He spoke as if recalling something painful, giving advice he thought helpful.

  Jana’s face crumpled with shock at the man’s words. She rushed at Reynaldo, punching and kicking at him as she had thrown herself at the older boy in her fight, but Reynaldo was an adult and he simply caught her hands and squeezed, subduing her with the pressure. Jana was soon immobilized. She continued to cry with a child’s loud unashamed howls, but she stood docile as her sobs tapered off into whimpers.

  “That’s better,” Reynaldo said. “Now listen carefully. You’re a fighter. That’s good. I’m a fighter, too. Tomorrow I am going to fight and win. I will become Margrave Aranyi, and you will be my daughter. When you’re of age, I will make you my wife. We will rule in Aranyi, and our children will follow after us.” He watched, his face a little to one side like a bird’s, to see her response.

  Jana was still weeping, but silently. “That’s nothing to cry about,” Reynaldo said. “Better than being married off to some castrated whore like that faggot who—”

  Jana’s reaction surprised everybody. She was held fast, couldn’t move her arms, but she spat in Reynaldo’s face and kicked at him. “You are not my papa!” she said, her voice rising to shriek. “You are not Margrave Aranyi. My papa is Margrave Aranyi! And he is going to kill you. My papa is going to kill you for what you did!” When Reynaldo drew back from Jana’s outburst she freed her hands and stared at the silent crowd. “My papa’s going to kill all of you. All of you.” Her shouts went on, interspersed with sobs.

  Finally Reynaldo could take no more of it. He ordered two men to hold her, one on each side, as Niall had been restrained earlier, and he squatted in front of her. “Shut up,” he said in his quiet, menacing voice. “I’m your papa now and you must obey me.” He used his crypta crudely but effectively. My daughter and I both felt it—the sensation of a slap on the face. Jana gasped in surprise and stopped her threats.

  My heart bled so much for her it felt as if I did physical damage to a crucial part of my anatomy. Forty years later and more, as I write these words, the pain is as strong as ever, a wound that went too deep to heal. I could not answer Jana’s cries, nor succumb to my fury and strike back at Reynaldo. I was unable to comfort my daughter in any way, as I dared not betray the fact of my survival. To do so would have brought death on us all. I lay passive in Jana’s mind, an abject self-hating spectator, and felt within her the stirrings of her Aranyi self, the essence of her that owes so much to Dominic and his alien genetic heritage, so little to me.

  Jana lifted her tear-stained face. She took a deep, rattling breath, gulped and swallowed, then fixed her cold gray eyes on her enemy. “I owe you a death,” she said, speaking formally, using a ritual phrase of vengeance. “As you have done to me, so I will do to you. I swear it for all to hear.” She had heard these words in after-supper poems and bedtime stories, even perhaps from Dominic himself, telling of something that had happened at court, years ago. The words rolled out smoothly, with no stumbling or mispronunciations, her voice low and determined.

  The effect was chilling. I think everybody in the room believed her. Down in my cell, weak and despairing, I received the words directly from her mind to mine, and was in some mysterious way strengthened. Reynaldo flinched visibly as if struck, almost losing his balance as he stood up hurriedly. He said nothing.

  The two men holding Jana dropped her arms as if an electric current had gone through them and sidled away from her. Whispers and murmurs disturbed the tense silence as people recited half-forgotten rhymes, folk charms against ‘Graven magic. Fingers and hands moved in the firelight, making the sign against evil. Jana stood alone at the side of the room, her warlike stare at Reynaldo slowly fading, returning to the vulnerable, defeated posture of a motherless child.

  Reynaldo tried to break the spell. He scanned the large room, observing the interrupted evening activity. Women had been preparing supper, children crouching at their mothers’ sides for a bit of food. “Eat up!” Reynaldo said with the required false heartiness of the leader. “It’s war at dawn. Death to Aranyi!” He waited for cheers or some sign of enthusiasm, but the silence remained absolute.

  The women resumed their cooking with tired, hopeless resignation. Michaela, as ordered, gave Jana a bowl of nut porridge. Jana, squatting on the floor, clutched the bowl in shaking hands, unable to eat. Michaela’s daughter crept up silently and snatched the bowl of food. “If you’re not hungry,” she said, “there’s plenty who are.”

  Without warning Reynaldo bore down on her. The girl leapt back with a cry; the bowl fell and overturned. Reynaldo reached to grab the girl but she ducked and scurried, slipping in and out between groups of people who laughed from fear and pushed her away, wanting only to steer clear of Reynaldo’s wrath. The girl ran clumsily, with the awkward motion of someone in pain, her fright making her move her legs when she had
rather sit still.

  Reynaldo soon tired of the undignified chase. He shrugged his shoulders, ordered another bowl for Jana. Michaela protested—there was little left for her and the others—but ladled the gluey mess out, pushing the bowl in Jana’s direction. Some of the hot liquid spilled out onto my daughter’s hands but she hardly felt it. This time she began to eat, automatically, unthinking, putting food in her mouth and swallowing while her tears flowed steadily.

  “This is my daughter,” Reynaldo said. “You will all treat her as such. She eats first, with me. Whoever denies her or steals from her insults me and answers to me. From tomorrow I am Margrave Aranyi. Remember who you fight for, and who you serve.”

  The meal continued in glum silence and was quickly over. They were in over their heads, they knew it now, tricked by a mad, ambitious telepath into a war they didn’t want.

  As the bandits prepared for sleep and an early rising, I took my mind out of Jana’s, brought it back to myself and my hateful thoughts. Val stirred in my arms. He was not quite as hot as before; perhaps his fever had broken. “I want to go home,” he said. “I’m the air.”

  I dragged myself to the water skin that Niall’s kindness had supplied, let Val drink his fill, wiped his face, and drained what was left. There would be no need ever again to ingest anything provided by my captors. “Tomorrow, sweetheart,” I said. “But now it’s time to sleep.”

  Reynaldo’s cruel words to Jana had given me a solution. If I kept my head there might be a chance I could warn Dominic in time and yet save my life and my children’s. Yes, I thought, with a faint gleam of hope, I will be dead soon, and so will Val. I had been lying still for so long, eating and drinking very little, breathing shallowly, I was halfway there. All it needed was a few careful crypta-induced changes to complete the journey.