by Jane Merkley
Movement to her left redirected her attention and sounds of glass and heavy thuds resounded strangely in her head. They hadn’t drugged her again as far as she could tell. Maybe they forgot again. She pretended to be asleep, then, so they wouldn’t see she was regaining her grip on reality. But she really did fall asleep again and woke up some time later. She tried her eye lids and they lifted. The sunlight outside was black. She also saw that she was in a room of sorts and recognized a table, chairs, a window to her left, and the bed she was laying on.
Her heart hammered three painful times. Where am I?
Her right arm was numb because it was still positioned above her head. She moved her left arm to find it much lighter and more mobile. She found her right arm and fingered the binding around her wrist. It was just a rope but she couldn’t figure out how to take it off.
Heaviness once again assaulted her eyelids and despite her best efforts, she gave in and fell asleep.
She woke when there was light coming through the window. She lifted her left arm to find it had regained its entire sense of movement. She looked at her tied right wrist to find it was bound only by a single knot. She pulled it apart and worked the fingers of her right hand to regain feeling; a burning tingle prickled painfully at her fingertips as blood rushed back. She wondered why they had done such a shoddy job at restraining her, but didn’t think too hard on it. She also found she was wearing a sleeveless, thin white cotton dress that reached her ankles. The window to her left was growing brighter with the rising sun.
Feeling she had a good handle on all her faculties, she jumped off the bed to make her escape through the window. A harsh clank of chain followed her and she turned to see that a chain snaked from its restraint on the far wall and ended at her right ankle in a padded cuff.
As if she could break it, she yanked on it, earning her nothing but a loud noise and chafed hands. She went to the window anyway. Maybe she could scream for help.
She threw open the glass panes but her cry for help stuck in her throat.
The yellow brick paved streets snaked far below her like a river, banked on each side by gray stone shops and houses. A tumult of people glided along about their daily tasks; their anxious voices reaching up even to her height.
She stepped back in alarm as a dreadful realization began to fill her bones. Was she… did Byrone…?
The door opened and Altarn spun toward the servant woman who came in. She was in a sleeveless dress, a black tattoo swirling down her right arm.
Altarn was so lost in disbelief that she sat on the window sill, devastation crashing on her in motion and sound with the servant’s rattling breakfast tray as she set it on the table.
“Good morning,” the servant greeted pleasantly.
Regaining her better judgment, Altarn jumped to her feet.
“You’ve got to help me. I’ve been kidnapped!”
“Oh, it’s not all that bad.” The servant shrugged as she poured hot water into a tea cup. “You’ve got a nice room and breakfast is still hot.”
Altarn was stunned for words. “Do you know who I am?”
“Of course.” The servant stood and clasped her hands gently in front of her. “You are the Lady Altarn from Blindvar.” She smiled. “Why… did you forget?”
When Altarn failed to respond, the servant shrugged and smiled. “Enjoy your breakfast.” And she turned to the door.
“NO!” Altarn was shaking. “You tell Byrone I demand to speak with him!”
The servant spun back toward Altarn. “Lord Byrone will see you when he sees fit.” Her pleasantness had fled, replaced by a resentment fueled by Altarn’s blatant motion of disrespect by failing to call Byrone by his title.
The servant left quickly after that, closing the door behind her.
Altarn couldn’t believe it. She slumped onto the bed in utter bewilderment, stunned that the knowledge of her kidnap was accepted so easily by the lower caste of the house. Altarn’s rank in her state equaled Byrone’s in his, and to be treated so lightly daunted her.
The smell of breakfast cake and roasted strawberries found her and she relocated to the chair before the breakfast tray. She couldn’t recall the last time she had eaten. Along with lethargic unconsciousness, the drug muted the body’s sensors needed to sustain living functions such as hunger, thirst, and bowel movement, so the body could be starving and not know it.
The mirror across from her showed that she hadn’t been lacking in those essentials. They must have fed her during those brief periods of coherency that she couldn’t remember.
She ate the breakfast and drank the pumpkin cider, glancing at the door every so often as if Byrone was going to march in at any minute.
A sick fury roiled in her gut at Byrone’s audacity to kidnap her and convince his house that she wasn’t important enough for anyone to take a second look at.
Now that she was awake, she began to remember what led up to her kidnap.
She was on her way to Athenya to sway the king there to take an interest in her side on the war, and then Byrone revealed himself to who he was and then they were both taken into custody… why were they taken into custody…
She leapt out of her chair and went to the door; stopped short just before it as the chain snapped taut.
“Byrone!” she shouted, throwing every desperation she had into his name. “Byrone, you can’t keep me prisoner when my state is under attack! Byrone let me go! My people need me!” Tears of panic and anger threatened but she forced them away. Tears would not free her.
Tucking her bare arms tightly under her breasts, she began to pace restlessly. Who was this mysterious army that invaded Blindvar? Did Jasper know what happened to her, where she was? She remembered watching his cloak flip around the corner of a building in front of her before she went black.
She grabbed her skull and dug her fingers into her hair, aching with worry. Her state would be without direction, they would think she had abandoned them in their time of greatest need – How dare Byrone do this to her!
“Byrone – BYRONE!” Her shout turned into a hopeless shriek. “BYRONE!” she shouted again and again. When she was hoarse and had lost her voice, she picked up one of the two chairs and hurled it at the door. The impact resounded with a loud crack, scarring the beautiful wood. The chair landed out of her reach but she didn’t want to use the last chair for such a useless, anger driven purpose.
She sat on her bed, trying to calm herself and think reasonably of escape. She studied the cuff and its key hole, but it was not the same make as the one she escaped out of with a nail and hammer. It would take a special key.
She curled her knees into her chest and waited. But Byrone never showed that day.
Or the next.
Enduring Hospitality
Her chain was long enough to reach the adjoining bathing chamber but her heart was so sick with worry about what was happening to her home that she couldn’t muster the energy to spare any luxury for herself. It had been four days and she had done nothing but pace with worry and anger, neither of which could be washed from her.
Every meal was brought to her on a tray and left at the table, but Altarn’s gut was already so full of stress that there was no more room for food.
The door opened and closed. Lunch had already been brought so Altarn turned from her seat at the window to see who had entered, perturbed that anyone could come freely into her room as they had been doing. Then she stood.
She had waited four days to speak to him, but stress had eaten away every emotion she had and left her only with simple annoyances, which is why her first question was, “You’re really going to barge into a woman’s room without knocking?”
“It’s my house.” Byrone folded his bare arms and leaned against the wall beside the door. “I don’t need to knock on my own doors to enter my own rooms.”
He was wearing a sleeveless vest of typical Ruid fashion, the collar wrapping snuggly around his neck about three inches wide. A red the color of dried bl
ood. Blue curling patterns were stitched on the left half of the vest to mirror the pattern of his tattoo down his right arm. The back of the vest was longer and fanned out slightly over gray pants tucked into brown boots affixed with silver buckles.
He relocated to the chair closest to the door. The servant who brought the next meal four days ago had set it back in its place, throwing a disapproving glance Altarn’s direction which made her feel foolish.
“I could have been naked. Did you ever think of that?”
Byrone steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them, staring at her. “Please tell me why you’d be prancing about naked in my house when you have a bathing chamber for privacy?”
Altarn waved her hand in front of her as if destroying a bug, realizing there were better things to argue over. “You will not pretend I have no worth or purpose,” she snarled. “A war has assaulted my state and you have the audacity to hold me prisoner in your house. You will release me so I can fight this enemy.”
“You forget that I want your land.” He rested his hands behind his head.
“So you really were trying to take it with subtle means?”
“You already said as much when you guessed my purpose for being in Luthsinia. Your people are, as of right now, fleeing Blindvar and have been flooding my borders seeking my protection. I’ve set up a refugee camp just outside of town. With their Lady gone, your land is open to whoever earns it. I think helping them and fighting this enemy from their land will more than deserve me Blindvar… and I’ll have your people’s appreciation to back me.”
Altarn clenched her fists, digging welts into her palms from her long fingernails she had not trimmed in a while.
“The only thing I can’t decide, is whether to tell your people that you died or that you cannot be found, in case I have actual need of your existence later.”
Altarn couldn’t believe it. Flabbergasted, she rested her head in her palm and began to pace with agitation about the room, causing the chain to ring with every step.
“And if you try to shout out the window or try to communicate in any way to those outside for someone to save you, I’ll just drug you again. So it is in your best interest that you remain quiet.”
She lost it. To be taken advantage of in spite of her title as Lady of Blindvar and this man to sit so coolly by like he could have whatever he wanted, she grabbed a pot filled with dirt and growing sprigs by her bed and hurled it at him.
To her immense satisfaction, her aim was direct and he dove for the floor as it burst against the wall behind him, showering him in dirt and chunks of ceramic. Altarn lunged at him, intent on wrapping the chain around his haughty neck.
But he stood up swiftly – still a soldier – and met her attack with two hands that gripped her like a forger’s vise. He used her momentum to spin her around and slam her into the wall with enough force to rip the air from her lungs.
He came in close enough that she could feel heat radiating off his body. She turned her head and his breath caught her ear, smelling gently of pepper.
“You will not,” he began, his tone as dark as death, “do any of that again. I do have open cells in the basement if you prefer cold stone and darkness to this room. My hospitality only endures so much.”
He stepped away so suddenly she almost fell forward. Striding to the door, he slammed it shut behind him.
In despair, Altarn slid to the floor, tucking her head into her knees. It was a defeated position, but she needed its comfort for just a moment.
Her temper was rash and she knew it. She hadn’t even stopped to consider that Byrone had chosen to place her in a nice room instead of a stone cell. If she was to escape, she would need to be quiet and smooth about it.
She began looking about the room for something to pick the lock.
Byrone flexed his fingers in and out of fists as he walked. Dirt was still working its way under his shirt.
The corridors in the Old Age castle Greatmar had claimed as their house of power were very wide and long. The inside had been refurbished several times, at least once by each of the Lord’s who had come before Byrone, so the only original features to declare that it was still a castle were the outside stone walls and towers. It was the biggest castle in Ruidenthall, built by and ruled by the most aggressive king in Ruidenthall history, back when Ruidenthall was still ruled by kings.
The Ruid people, finally tired of oppression, revolted, effectively storming the castle and physically dragging the crying king from his throne.
To Byrone’s belief, Blindvar had torn all of their castles down in a similar revolt to symbolize the dawning of a new age. The Ruids kept all their castles and those who got to them first got the honor to live in them. What better way to vulgarize an aggressive king’s memory that to live in his own house? They even left the peeling painted portrait of the king on the wall so he could look on the success of his overthrow for eternity.
Cedar tables and cotton stuffed benches followed him down the main corridor he followed on a river of blue carpet. He turned right and passed many dark wooden doors into the rooms that used to be bedrooms but had since been converted into food storage. At a time of crisis, the Greatmar Castle was prepared to feed its people for at least a winter, if needed. Since the arrival of the Blindvarns, they had dipped into it a little.
He entered his office and tromped to his large black pine desk and leather chair. A blacked haired man with a careless growth of black facial hair about his jaw and under his chin stood up from his sitting position at the window and approached. His right arm was bound to his chest by a sling.
“Your chosen five are ready,” the man said. “Six if you’ll let me go.”
“A spooked horse cannot be controlled with one hand, Torren. Stay and heal so you can be ready to fight for what is more important to come. I don’t want you further injured on a simple patrol.”
“Understood, but not accepted.” Torren slid himself into a partial sitting position on the edge of the desk, one leg still on the floor supporting him. “Just don’t go wooing another woman. I won’t be there to tell you she’s the Lady of Blindvar before you kiss her.”
With one smooth flick of his wrist, Byrone threw a small glass paper weight at Torren who ducked, flailed, and landed on the floor with a yelp.
“Fresh injuries will be invited here, I think!” With much grumbling, Torren picked himself off the floor.
Byrone pinned him with a solid gaze. “No one knew who she was. Not even you!” Byrone threw his pen down and stood with a sharp push backward on his chair. He moved about the room in fresh pursuit of his frustrations on the same matter he had already complained over many times already.
“Why her? How here? Out of all the people that crossed the border, I had to pick her!”
“Then it begs to question, Lord, why did you pick her?”
Byrone stopped and looked about the room with his arms crossed. “A little boy was standing next to me. He must have been fifteen or sixteen years. I don’t know why he was waiting with me, watching people cross the border, but when Altarn crossed, I heard the boy pipe, ‘Oh! That must be servant –’ Mind you, I didn’t hear the name he gave – ‘From the house of Altarn Shadheing.’ I looked at the boy but he did not have the tattoo so I figured he must be Blindvarn and would have a good idea who lived in the house. So I followed her, and the tags she wore said Kyree from the house of Altarn.” Byrone’s rant was interrupted by a courier boy who knocked on the door and came in, setting a missive on his desk and then departed.
Byrone opened the paper. It was from Jasper – Altarn’s personal guard who had taken over as leader for the Blindvarn’s stationed in the refugee camp outside of Greatmar. He was requesting to speak with him.
Byrone was on his way out anyway to scout across the border to discover more about this foreign army which had infested Blindvar.
He gathered last minute items into a half-packed saddle bag in silence. Torren grumbled gently when Byrone did not recede his ban
on him riding with him, and let Byrone know it as he left the room.
A creeping autumn air hit Byrone and his party as they rode out of the stables and onto the road which would lead them out of the city and onto the fields and wilderness beyond. It was a subtle chill that soaked through the open sections of armor and teased on their skin. The snows were not expected for another month and the season was not about to let anyone hope for different.
Tents and curls of campfire smoke spread across a three mile stretch of land outside the city. Hunting was normally regulated, but due to the demands to feed the refugees, hunting was open to them and other cities had brought vendors to Greatmar to assist so food was never an issue and natural springs could be found all over the area, deeply forested as it was beyond the field.
Blindvarn children raced around joyously, as if this were nothing more than an extended camping trip, as if they were oblivious to the invasion of their homeland.
Jasper had been watching for them and stood at the entrance to the camp. Several sheets of parchment had been tacked to a large flat section of wood next to him with everyone’s names who were in the camp and their tent number so the usual straggler from across the border could see if their family had made it out.
Byrone reined on the horse and stood in the stirrups as Jasper approached on foot.
“Good morning, Lord. Thank you for seeing me. I understand you are heading out to patrol this army in Blindvar?”
“I am. You are welcome to join me, commander.” Byrone watched Jasper wince at the title forced upon him due to the absence of the Lady Altarn who, by rights of state, held that position. Byrone also intentionally began calling Jasper thus to get him used to the idea that Altarn was gone for good. Jasper, apparently, didn’t feel he deserved or had any right to the title, despite that he was in command of the refugees.
“Thank you, but I will abstain.” Jasper tightened his wool cloak about him, unaccustomed to Ruidenthall’s slightly more humid weather, which impacted a deeper severity of cold. “In fact, my current worries are directed elsewhere.” His face fell and he spent a moment worrying the hem of his cloak with cold fingers. “I last saw Lady Altarn when we were fleeing the Athenya soldiers. I’ve damned our state by letting her fall behind and get recaptured. It’s my fault she is not here. In a moment of selfishness, I was more concerned about my safety than hers. Myself and a handful of others are riding to Athenya to demand her back, or break her out if they will not.”