Captivity

by Ann Herendeen

  A bit of a showoff, my companion, smiling like a god in the warrior’s trance. Cocky. Looks good and knows it. But he earned it this time, the abuse he had to swallow from that shithead. When we find him, Niall must have a share in the vengeance. I must not let Reynaldo go to his death before giving Niall his turn at revenge.

  A bandit, a brave man, staggers toward me out of the melee, arm raised holding a– what? An Ormonde sword. Not the stolen uniform, but the weapon, good ‘Graven steel, grip inlaid with silver. Stefan had one like this. Has it still of course. Parry his thrusts with the dagger. They’re not ‘Graven, they fight with their right hand. Cut the tendon in the arm. He drops the sword. Run him through the chest, no armor, not even leather like mine. Poor sods, their leader led them straight to hell.

  Scoop up the good sword, toss it behind me to collect later, kick at the hand reaching up at me with a knife. This one’s half dead already, scared witless of the miners. Never thought I’d look like the safer alternative in a battle. The dagger will do for him, in the throat, bloody but quick.

  Must find that shithead Reynaldo before some overzealous man goes too far. Can’t feel his presence.

  “Reynaldo!” Dominic shouts in an eerie echo of Jana’s threats of last night. “Where are you? I owe you three deaths.”

  This time I heard a voice, as from a separate body, instead of living it in communion. Someone was speaking to me. Me, Amalie, back in my cell. My guard had asked me a question. He was looking at Val, still nestled in his crypta-death in the crook of my arm. “Your baby, like you wake up he will?” he asked again. When I assured him he would, the man became visibly happier.

  I used the interruption, pointing to the empty water skin, asking the man whether he had any he could share. The man made a clucking sound when he focused on my deprivations. He gave me sips of warm stale water from the flask at his waist, and brought out his own field rations, coarse gritty bread and a kind of spicy preserved meat which had to be cut in thick slabs with his knife, and urged me to eat my fill.

  The typhus was flaring up again as my circulation improved. I had been too long with nothing to begin again with such heavy food. I thanked him and tried to explain, but the man’s face faded in and out as fever overtook me. I felt Val beginning to wake from the crypta-death, his first stirrings of thought popping up almost in the same way as the miners had come from underground, and I wrapped my son tightly in my arms so he would not be afraid when he opened his eyes. With delirium and weakness returning, I retreated again to semi-consciousness and communion with my husband.

  “Alive!” Dominic shouts, his voice ringing harsh yet still melodious and resonant over the din of combat. “I want the bandit leader alive!”

  The shit had dared to touch Amalie, to put his perverted mind into hers. And Jana—he would keep her? He must desire pain more than any man I ever met. But then, I know him, don’t I? Intimately, like a member of my family. Find him first, then we’ll see. They all say they don’t want the pain, but they lie, they beg for it soon enough.

  Shout again, looking for him, easy to identify by face or hair or mind. “Reynaldo! I am here to pay ransom in your own coin.” No answer. Not here. Must continue to fight until it’s safe to search.

  Not much longer now. The enemy is caught between us, between me and Niall. They’re all dead or wounded. The heat of fresh blood, the moans of the dying, the stink of spilled guts. Here’s Niall. Give him a kiss and the touch of a hand. “Beloved, well met in the midst of our enemies.”

  “Margrave,” he greets me, returns the kiss warmly, the hint of a bow in the way he inclines his head. “At your service.”

  Very funny. He’s in no man’s service but his own. But truly he never did better than these two days’ work.

  Shout again. “The one with red hair and the silver eyes. I want him alive!” Must remind them what we’re here for. “And Lady Jana! A bonus to the man who finds my daughter!”

  The miners scatter like demented children. Our own troops are more disciplined, but no sign of him. Typical. Coward, to abandon his men when things go wrong, and run with his prize.

  Find the living, get the truth from them with crypta. Here’s one, lift his head; his arm’s shattered but there’s life in him. He doesn’t know. Fuck. There’s a miner hovering eagerly. Nod my head, let the little man have his kill. That’s what they like, killing bandits. Doesn’t matter the man’s dying, helpless. It’s not a skill they care about, swordsmanship. Only want the thrill of butchering an enemy. Look at him, searching the body. What will he find on a bandit but fleas?

  Here’s another, his guts showing slimy and glistening in his clutching hands, but conscious, writhing. “Where is he? Your fearless leader, where has he run to?” He lifts an arm, points– where? The kitchen. That’s about right, with the women.

  Of course, out through the back courtyard. Take Jana and make a run for it. Hurry! If any can keep up with me, let him follow. Niall’s close behind, a few others.

  Into the kitchen, eyes and minds all around, women and children hiding in the shadows, in cupboards and pantries. Helios, Lord of Light! What do they think? Aranyi to fight women? “Where is Reynaldo?” None dare speak, only slide their eyes to a narrow passage.

  In there, just missed him, can sense his fear now, running toward the light of outdoors. And—yes, there, all the gods be thanked—there she is, I can almost taste it—flesh of my flesh, Jana, my daughter, myself, what I would be were I born woman, Isis and Astarte forbid.

  Sweetheart, I’m close, be brave. She’s too young yet, won’t be able to get my thoughts. Can’t shout. Men waiting for me. Man with a bow. Ha. Thinks to shoot me in ambush.

  Out in the light now, the sun of summer noon. Dazzling light, inner eyelids lowered, see all things clearly. And the arrow. It’s there, in that darkness between outbuildings, where no light reaches. The snap of the bowstring and it sings overhead as I feint to the right and duck, and they’re out—three, no, four of them, no more arrows, all gone, swords held out to surround me, and I whirl in the dance. Touch me who can.

  But I can’t break through four and Jana is being dragged away. To the stables! To the strong Aranyi horses, won’t be able to catch them–

  “I’ll get her,” Niall shouts, and he’s off. Has sense, my companion, for all his affectations, knows better than to waste time here.

  The bandits lunge at me, their arms too short to reach beyond my blade, always just behind the timing of my crypta that anticipates their every move. Even using my gift they’ll get me eventually, four against one.

  Shouts, panting, running. Some Aranyi men have caught up to us at last, Ranulf, my lieutenant, at the head. “Margrave,” Ranulf calls, nothing more, just to hearten me. He’s served Aranyi all his life, knows he need only think to me, even though I must speak to him out loud. Almost my age, he is, what few know, and loyal unto death. Ah, if he had the gift, and was vir, now there’s a man I could…

  The bandits run as the Aranyi men approach. Can’t pursue them, not when Jana–

  From the stables comes a long angry roar, wordless and obscene, like the cry of an animal trying to speak, to curse and rant, but unable to create human sounds. And through it—the gods be thanked—Jana’s voice. I would know it were I as deep in death as Amalie when I found her.

  “Papa! Papa!” My daughter is calling me. Brief stop of the heart. If he’s hurt her! Wait. Wait before despairing. Maybe it’s not so bad. Go to her, run and see.

  Here they come, Jana running—running! She must be unhurt. Niall leading a horse, something on the back. Blood, cries, a wounded man. It’s him! We have him now.

  Jana reaches me, jumps up. Just time enough to thrust sword through belt and hold out my arms to her. “Papa, Papa!” Her voice, so lovely—but what’s this? A rope around her, one eye blackened, swollen shut. By all the gods, he’ll pay for this. Lift her up and hold her tight. “Papa, I knew you wouldn’t let them kill you.”

  “Not when I had to find my fa
vorite daughter,” I say, an old joke between us, kissing her face as she kisses me, the sweetest sensation. Never did I imagine that having a child would be such joy, such bliss. And the thought of loss. Worse than when my first lover…

  Niall standing quietly. All he did. Couldn’t have done any of this without him. “You see, my lord,” he says in courtly speech, liking the epic grandness of the phrases. “As I promised, so I have done. There’s Jana safe in your arms, and the shi–” For Jana’s sake he uses the man’s name instead of our epithet. “–Reynaldo, still alive, as his velvet tongue proclaims.”

  The man is bawling like a bull on the way to the slaughterhouse, a bull that’s seen many another go that way ahead of him, and knows the end. And his legs—no wonder he’d not escaped.

  “Beloved,” I say to Niall, also in courtly language, “what you have done for me I can never hope to repay.” Must speak the truth, aloud for all to hear. It’s the least I can do for such a companion. But my love you have in full measure. Think that to him in private. That’s also true, and I’ll tell it to him as often as he wishes to hear it, although it may not be long before he’d rather hear it from someone else, as Stefan did.

  Niall is honest. To my private thought he smiles and thinks of love in return. To my words he acts with becoming modesty. “I can’t take full credit, Dominic. Oh, yes, a few superficial wounds, those I admit to.” He grins, for once like the youth he is and will be for a few months more.

  Still I do not understand. The man is crippled, ham—

  “Hamstrung.” Niall finishes the thought. He seems shaken, as well he might. That’s a wound inflicted from behind. Unlike Niall to strike before the enemy has seen his face. Unless– unless there was no time—

  Jana sees my look of horror, misreads it as disapproval and defends her friend. She jumps to the ground, shows the dagger still in her hand, the blade sticky with clotting blood. Amalie’s dagger! “I did it, Papa!” she says. “Reynaldo tried to make me ride with him, but when Niall came in he let me go.” She considers Niall’s feelings, always has a kindness for him, like her papa. “I knew Niall could fight him, but I owed him a death. So I cut his legs the way Ranulf showed me.”

  Niall nods confirmation. “I saw it, Dominic, or I wouldn’t believe it either.”

  “It’s true, my lord.” Ranulf backs him up. “Lady Jana heard the men talking one day, and asked, and—” He falters, then owns up like a man. “You always say, my lord, it’s better to demonstrate than explain.” Contrition ages his craggy face, his gruff demeanor humbled, as he comprehends the enormity of his sin, teaching a girl the secrets of men. “Forgive me if I overstepped—”

  “Forgive?” I say, smiling to show my gratitude. The best mistake Ranulf ever made. Put hand on sagging shoulder, he knows I wouldn’t touch a man in disgrace. “I see I am in your debt as well.” Good to feel his spirits rise. “Lady Jana is true Aranyi,” I say, so all will know not to think shame of the deed. “She fights her own enemies herself.”

  My daughter, ‘Gravina. She owed him a death, indeed. “You have made your father proud this day,” I tell her, speaking formally, as to an adult. None like her.

  Now my girl is crying. She’s too young to cry, like an adult, from happiness. “What is it, my love? You’re safe now.” Cut the fucking leash off her and pick her up again.

  “Mama’s dead,” she says and sobs on my shoulder like the child she is.

  That bastard told her that. “No, sweetheart. Mama’s not dead. She’s a very clever woman, and she used crypta to look dead. You’ll see.”

  Does she believe me? We’ll go to Amalie, bring her out of that hole they put her in. She’ll be awake by now; Jana can talk to her, see for herself. I give my sweet girl more kisses, her arms locked around my neck, and press her head against my cheek. Strange to hold my daughter and to feel– shirt and breeches on her like a boy, and her beautiful dark hair cut short. The shithead had it all thought out, didn’t he?

  He reads my thought, has the gall to let me sense him in my mind. “Please, my lord,” he says, whining like a Terran, “I meant to harm to the lass.”

  Kill her parents, kidnap her, and what’s this? Marry her? And he “meant no harm?” His voice, his face, it’s like a stick in the eye. It’s like being spat on and called vile names. It’s like rape and humiliation, over and over. But there are ways to counteract it, ways to make it almost a pleasure, if one knows how. And I know how. Haven’t let myself enjoy it for years, not since I married Amalie…

  Gently I detach my girl’s hands from around my neck, set her down, nod to Niall to take her.

  The shit screams as I cut his nose off and throw it on the midden. The sound he makes is unusual, with his nasal passages exposed. You will not speak to me, I think to him. Hoping he will, of course. Each time you speak to me I will cut something off, until you are nothing but a brain in a skull. But you will live. You will live to endure my revenge. I will make certain.

  It comes over me then, the madness, the lust. Ready to embrace it. Here’s a victim who actually deserves what I will do. Will it increase my pleasure or detract from it? A most interesting experiment.

  They’re looking at me, Niall and Jana and Ranulf. Ranulf knows. He knew my father, served him faithfully, that lecherous, whoring – forget it. But it’s what caused all this, and Ranulf knows. The only man who was loyal both to my father and to me, because he knows what’s right and does his duty.

  My love, Niall thinks to me. It’s over now. He knows too, saw it when we were on the trail from Eclipsia City and that shit touched Amalie.

  Amalie. Must clear my head. Amalie’s been starved, I could feel it, the lightness when I held her. She’s sick, the fever’s in her, some disease I don’t get with my alien blood, or Jana, thank the gods. But Amalie has it, and the boy. She needs my help. Must stay in control until we’re home safe.

  Then, shithead, you’re mine. Enjoy the next few days, I tell him, because when I have you to myself in Aranyi, the way you feel now will be a memory of paradise.

  CHAPTER 16

  My lord husband, I broke in on Dominic’s threats to Reynaldo, addressing him in courtly speech, the most formal, yet most intimate, language we have. I have need of you. The peculiar intensity of Dominic’s thoughts had jolted me out of our deep communion. I began to enter my own mind again, with my own thoughts and emotions. I felt Dominic’s mind as a separate consciousness, swirling with anger and something approaching insanity, and feared losing him to this overpowering rage.

  Dominic-Leandro, my love, stay with me. I used my husband’s full name as I do only when he is beside me, in bed, so close I need only half-form the thought. Now that he had arrived at my place of captivity he seemed farther from me than ever, poised to dive into his own black pool of vengeance and madness.

  Amalie-Katrin, my lady wife, I am here. Slowly, from a great depth, he returned to me. Amalie, reflection of my soul. He switched from formal speech and spoke to me, unaware, in the language of the lament he had sung.

  I opened my eyes, shivering and burning by turns. Val woke also, or perhaps he had been awake for some time, eyes shut. Our blacksmith guard was still talking. “Greetings, little man, to you I give,” he said as Val blinked and stirred. The man waggled stubby fingers in Val’s face and Val, glad of some friendly attention, laughed weakly.

  From the safety of my arms, Val ventured back into the world of the living. “Greetings, little man,” he said, catching something of the tuneful intonation. He looked around the room, but his child’s mind could not encompass death, and the stiffening body of Michaela on the floor did not register. “Greetings,” Val repeated. His head nodded and his eyelids, all three of them, drooped. It would be hours before he was fully awake, longer still before he remembered that he was hungry and thirsty.

  Dominic, carrying Jana, headed back inside the castle’s kitchen. Our communion still held. I could follow my husband’s actions and thoughts, no longer as a participant, but as an observer, m
y own responses to sights and stimuli filtering his.

  On this, the second trip for Dominic through the kitchen, there were no fearful faces peeping out from the shadows. There was nothing for these people to fear anymore. The dead lay sprawled in the indignity of violence, women cut down trying to flee, or curled around their children in useless protection. Babies had been spitted on swords or smashed against the walls. Blood was everywhere, pooling on the floor.

  Jana, her good eye growing rounder with each step Dominic took, her blackened eye opening in a slit, was awed. “You killed them all, Papa!” she said, a note of hysteria entering her voice. “I told them you would, but they didn’t listen.” My daughter, brave beyond her years, would not admit to fear, not while her father’s arms hold her safe, but I felt, through Dominic’s grip, her heart beating like a captive bird’s in the hand.

  Dominic knew what I would wish, just as his own paternal instincts were aroused. He pulled Jana’s head down into the curve of his neck and shoulder, covered her face with a long-fingered hand. “No, little one,” he said, “I killed only armed men.”

  He turned back to the door to the courtyard, picking his way over and around the congealing dead things on the floor. His horrified recoil sent my own mind reeling as he spotted Michaela’s daughter, spread-eagled, her throat cut like her mother’s. Blood had soaked through the fine wool of my dress and obscured the intricate woven pattern, but the distinctive ‘Graven sleeve was still discernible. The girl lay in a gruesome parody of receptive sexuality, her legs exposed as the dress had risen in the acts of falling and dying, her arms outstretched to embrace her lover, her head thrown back as if in ecstasy, the dark red gape of her cut throat mirroring the red between her slender thighs.