A select few had responsibility for my care. Not many of them were friendly, at least when in public. The Great Milan used my plight as a prisoner often to instruct his sons about the wiles of a woman, and described me to them as property and an investment. He portrayed me to the rest of the river people as ungrateful for having food and shelter given to me yet, I was resistant to the lessons of a pleasure slave even though each of the group had to make sacrifices for the greater good of everyone. What a difficult and selfish person I was, when so many had invested their fortunes with the hope of grander financial returns.
The river people were a migratory group moved first by the climate, secondly by the seasons and then the weather, but there was also another reason for being on the move. Besides falling to disfavor with local populations and taking leave while the chance was there, they were also scavengers and took advantage of natural and man-made calamities. When they heard of devastation somewhere within a few day’s travel the river people were not unlike vultures gathering for the feast or to pick the bones clean.
One day, I was being walked by Desmondo after some lessons on hand and body presentation from a woman named Lila. A rope was attached to a soft leather collar around my neck. My hands had been bound in front of me but repositioned behind my back, once it was discovered one of the boys was going to walk me. They did not allow me the use of my hands when the boys were in charge of my exercise. I supposed they thought me more formidable if I could swing my arms with hands clasped. They had bodies of boys turning into men but minds still inexperienced. I had started out my captivity a woman-child but now was much more woman and much less child. It alarmed me greatly that I was maturing into just what the river people wanted but there was little I could do about that. My body was growing as it should but I marked each day with mounting horror.
My leashed exercise walk did not allow us to go very far from the Milan family’s wagon.
“How are your lessons on giving pleasure going?” Desmondo liked to embarrass me but I would not make it easy for him.
I refused to answer. He gave my leash a not so gentle tug.
“Father says your worth comes from how you look and if that’s true you are not worth much. Your hair needs a comb, your clothes are dirty.”
“Well good, then it should be no problem for you to leave me alone.”
“When was the last time you had a bath?”
“A bath, I don’t know, before I became your prisoner. “A rinse, I’ve had three rinses during my horrid time with you and I get an already-used wet cloth here and there.”
“My father says you’re gonna start getting baths every week, maybe more because you’re gonna start to contribute. He also said Hector and I will learn about being men by being with you.” I think Desmondo was drooling. Certainly, the expression on his face made me feel like a feast on the table before him. “Maybe we should start with a bath right now.”
He made the rope taut between his grip and my throat, which he loved to do. He was younger than me and that was just another item on the list, already too long, of things he used to fuel his resentment and desire to hurt me. He was also taller and stronger, and Desmondo played that up right now, towering over and looking down on me.
Hector had been running to us from the main camp since our conversation had begun. I had seen him approaching. I don’t believe Desmondo had. Hector came to a stop making a cloud of dust at his feet, his pace had been quick and his stop was sudden. He was out of breath and very excited.
“Bring her back! We’re getting the wagons ready.” Hector said. “We’re leaving.”
Desmondo gave me a look. Part of what was in it, was him absorbing our sudden change of direction, but the finish revealed lust interrupted. He’d had some plan for me on this walk. The experience of seeing leers on faces of those regarding me had been a regular occurrence since I could remember, and was happening with more frequency, especially with the Great Milan and his sons. I felt a noose around my neck tightening.
In an annoyed response Desmondo asked of his brother, “Why? Why are we leaving?”
“Villages have been destroyed by storms and rough seas along the coast. If we leave quickly we can be there in two days. Think of the possibilities.”
Desmondo was irritated by these events unfolding at a time he had planned something else, but reluctantly he returned me to camp, roughly handling me as we went, yanking and snapping my rope in frustration. As we approached the tent, his father called to him sharply.
“Desmondo! What are you doing?” The Great Milan approached angrily. “We are on the eve of placing her on display within the next few days. Do you want to lessen her value by showing her with a ring of bruises marking her neck? We protect our property.”
“And she is our property, right?”
“She belongs to all of the river people. We care for her, shelter her and feed her. She owes us greatly.”
But she acts like she can decide what she does…and how…and when. Make her have to do it, father. Force her to do it.” Desmondo eyed me vengefully when he said this.
“She has very little, Desmondo. And whenever we find she has something we take it away until she contributes. Through this unfortunate way she is giving to us and we can give something back.”
They were tying the end of the rope that Desmondo had held, now to the wagon where I would stand like a horse tied to a tree as they packed for the journey. I knew the Great Milan was talking to me through his son. Desmondo was beginning to understand this too. Still he hunted me and positioned for tighter control.
“Son, for the moment, we handle her gently but there will come a time that she will become common in the eyes not only of the river people but those who pay money to have her. Then my son, you can beat her. In the meantime,” he grabbed the hair at the back of my head and turned my face to his. “There are still many pleasures you are capable of giving yet still keep your innocence. And you will serve my sons and others of the river people. And that is nothing you have a choice about. It will happen soon. Do you understand?”
His grip tightened in my hair… I could only nod.
16
The pace was not thunderous hooves, wild turns or clouds of dust. I think the only thing I noticed on our journey to the devastated coastal villages was shorter stops during the day and travel later into the night. During the second day, more scouts were sent out than usual, but our travel speed was slow but steady. Late into this day we caught sight of the sea and could hear the breakers on the shore. There is always a trail by the coast, and invariably, the experience is tight turns, hills, dips, washouts, holes and ruts. Of course the off-set is the sea breezes, the long, wide views and the glorious sun sparkling in the water. I noticed all of these things but every hoof beat, every turn of the wagon wheel brought me closer to the life of a harlot, an object of beauty and an increase of value as a thing…a pleasure toy. No matter how far I could see out the back of the wagon, I’d left my innocence and my childhood far beyond that horizon.
As we rolled along, there were times when the soil was so sandy it would bury the wheels. Each wagon had to be assisted. Though this slowed us down, it gave those who weren’t helping to clear or push, some time to investigate toppled trees or the evidence of people’s lives increasingly found and strewn about. As we moved closer to villages, it wasn’t just the things of people’s lives, it was the people themselves we would find. Men, women, children and pets found dead in all manner of places and poses. Bodies were lodged in trees and under piles, some were the feast of vermin besides the river people, some half buried or lying as if asleep on the ground. I was reminded of my capture atop the rubble of a decimated village in my younger life, before all of this madness. The reaction to finding the ravages of the storm or the giant wave…whatever it was that tore life from those who held it, was curiosity from children and matter-of-fact opportunity, a windfall from those old enough to search through the ruins. If storm victims were found alive and were of a s
mall number they were chased away but woe unto anyone with injury or dying, for they were helped right along to a more peaceful place, as it was judged they stood in the way of group gain. Children were taken and kept prisoner as I had been except their surroundings weren’t nearly as soft. Women who might have attractive features suffered the fate of being the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the flip of a coin whether they escaped afterward with their lives.
Like the vultures they resembled, they picked wreckage and victims clean of valuable things, and then the river people moved on before news could spread or the community could respond. By the end of the third day of scavenging, our little group was nestled at the shore of the town’s docks. All buildings had been leveled. Ships had been capsized and torn apart, with fragments floating in the water, and other portions resting on the bottom, which wasn’t so deep it couldn’t be reached from a dive.
In spite of these sober surroundings, the mood of the river people was light as it was on Christmases and birthdays. There was a festive feel. It might have been a terrible storm or a crushing wave that had changed the fortunes of so many, but there were no signs of anything like that now. The sea was calm and only the gentlest of cool breezes blew across the water into shore, barely causing a ripple. There was water activity going on with children frolicking along the shore, and their shrieks of delight blended with the cries of gulls and other birds at home around the water. And yet occasionally, I would hear something else and I wasn’t the only one to notice it. Sometimes children would catch the sound when it was momentarily quiet during their shoreline play. Adults too, who were keeping an eye on the kids in the water, would pick up their heads and squint, searching the water with their eyes.
I had been stripped down to very little with the purposes of getting some color and soaking in the water. I had been attached to one of the dock posts, and since mid-afternoon, had been held there by the collar. After a while I was changed to the rope tied to a wrist restraint, and released from that to be held to the post by the rope to an ankle restraint. They wanted no chaffing and hopefully no tan marks which might show I was being held prisoner. They wanted me tanned to a degree though. The darker coloring would hide my bruises better.
During my shore time detention which lasted until dusk, I had noticed two situations that affected my captivity greatly. One was that I was loosely bound to the post. The cheerful feeling springing from recent days had resulted in a relaxed oversight of my ties. The other came upon me slowly but my mind reeled with the possibilities. No one of the river people seemed to know how to swim which to me was strange because they called themselves the ‘river people,’ and I had assumed that meant they were one with the water and swimming would seem to be part of that life. But many times people speak of rivers and not always does that refer to the ones with water.
The sea before me was peppered with flotsam. I could swim and if I could do that unnoticed to the first floating piece of wreckage I might be able to elude pursuers until darkness. The ability to swim under water from one floating piece to another would make me difficult to find. I didn’t know what I would do after that, but I would do it when and how I wanted. I tried to examine my bindings as casually as I could lest someone read my intentions.
Again the sound came. Not loud like the crack and rumble of thunder and not a whisper. I looked to the sky briefly to see if it had been the call of a bird and others did too for a moment. When it returned the way it had been I stood there holding the rope and it was completely parted from the dock post. No one took notice of my freedom and I was emboldened, moving to deeper water, further away from shore. I took several deep breaths and sank below the surface, gliding underwater without making a ripple. When I surfaced, I heard excited screaming, and chanced a glance back to shore though my eyes were water filled. Men, women and children were running around the beach jumping and pointing out in the water but this was only a momentary glimpse. Going over the scene in my mind I remembered seeing people running toward the shore carrying pieces of wreckage that they could use for float in the water. I believed my chances were good for eluding capture and took another underwater trek to resurface behind some floating debris blocking my location from sight.
Now, I had a large part of a ship between where I was and a gathering of everyone else. No one could see me. And then something moved before my eyes. Pressed into a small hollow in the wreckage were little hands and little arms and the little person who had been calling for help ever since we had arrived. The hair was long, and it was hard to tell if this little child was a boy or a girl, but the trembling was such that it’s a wonder the floating piece that held this small child didn’t make enough motion to send out ripples in every direction.
“Mmma…ma.”
Something soft and cold touched the back of my neck and I shuddered and whipped around to see what this was. Before me was a dead woman, pale and bloated. Her face was frozen as if imploring me. I screamed and then put my hand over my mouth, realizing the danger of such an outburst but I needn’t have worried. There was too much commotion still going on at shore.
The woman’s hand had been touching my neck and the other was bound to a rope that had been lashed to the floating wooden structure I now realized was a broken off part of a ship. “Mmmmm…mmmmm…. “Ma…ma”. The child said through a shivering mouth. Out reached two small arms, fingers flapping and aching to hold on to something besides cold, wet wood. If I took those arms my escape would be effectively stopped. I weighed the possibility of just swimming on.
What is your name I asked? In spite of the situation I tried to be calm and reassuring.
“Mmm…mmm…Mia.”
“Mia, is this your mama?”
Mia reached for the rope and held it as she might her mother’s hand but did not look upon her floating corpse. Then sadly, the little girl nodded her head. Mia moved to free herself from the cramped quarters of her confinement which rolled and bucked even from her slight weight. Her motion continued, stepping off to me, fearlessly trusting me to catch her. I embraced her, though it made my situation in the water more difficult. The decision whether to help her or just swim away to freedom had been taken away from me in that leap.
I began to pull away and kick toward another piece of wreckage but she struggled as I moved away and I understood that she did not want to leave her mother behind. I was already weighed down and compromised, and again attempted to move on, but she fought more to get me to reverse my direction and tow her mother along by her binding. As perverse as it may sound, this is what I did in order to slip further down the shore and increase the distance between me and my captors.
The village that stood no more had been centered in a cove, but whatever protection this location was to have offered it hadn’t been enough. But to make my escape was to leave by water and stay away from the shore and the lands beyond where they might be searching for me and have the advantage. I still had trouble believing it, but the river people just weren’t very adept around the water. Maybe they had started out as river people generations ago but had spent too long in the wagon life, or maybe the term simply meant following the rivers in wagons. It would be foolish though, to throw out caution in this regard when being captured would offer bleak futures. The sun was touching the horizon now and that invited more glances out to sea from the shore. Movement of one of the pieces floating in the water when all others remained motionless would draw attention.
She must have been crazy-hungry and worn out and most certainly needing her mother, but this was a need that she would have the rest of her life yet ever remain unfulfilled. If she were to cry out, the balance of everything might be tipped and I could soon be back in the hands of a most cruel grip. Mia was quiet though, and in those important minutes she clung to me silently and complained not. I could not see what kind of search was being mounted but when it became dark enough, I picked a smaller piece of debris to hide behind and clung to it as I kicked my tired legs. My progress was slow because I c
ould not use my arms and brought with me quite a load. At long last I brought us out of the cove and into larger waves and stronger currents. Being confined weakens the body and I was not in a strong state, so I possessed little stamina. The waves did not take me further out to sea nor did they bring me along the coast in either direction, but there was always a push towards the beach. I felt certain the shore would be searched for footprints and the sea would be read for its course and strength, because knowing that, would be a good sign as to which direction to search.
Mia was exhausted and clung to me in a stupor. This sleep was unchanged even as we were gently tossed and sloshed over by waves. Most of my energy was being spent keeping us from shore but eventually I had to abandon the fight. I kept us afloat until the sweet moment of my feet touching the sand below. I was fearful of pursuers coming from trees along the shore and I came out of the water warily. I was only clothed in what I was allowed when I was left connected to the dock post which was next to nothing. I couldn’t travel like this, or meet people along the road without being noticed especially by rogues. And even good people would speak of others they’d passed during their day. I was shaky from the water or the demand the last hours had put on it.
The Blood In Between (The Safe Haven Trilogy Book 3) Page 8