Medieval Rain

by J. D. Sonne

  The virul pulled at the rope. “We are almost there, but we will stop and eat before the last leg of our journey. And,” he added, pulling some coarse weave out of his bag, “you will wear this.” He held it up and Rane could see it was a hood.

  She looked at the hood, then at the virul. “I am not wearing that.”

  “You have no say in the matter,” he said. “No captive going into our territory will be unhooded.”

  She did not feel like arguing, but she vowed she would give him a good fight if he tried to put that thing on her head. Wearily she sat down and waited for him to fish the bread out of his sack. Instead, he hauled out the shackles and stood before her, holding them out to her in a beckoning motion.

  “Put them on,” he said, tossing them at her feet.

  “I am not wearing those, either,” Rane said, drawing up her feet.

  “You will get nothing to eat until you put them on. If I have to put them on you, not only will you not eat the rest of the day, but you will also have a colossal headache from my beating, and the hood will still be on your head.” He shrugged at her implacable expression and said, “Have it your own way. I was hoping to save you hunger and a headache.

  He sat down and ate not only his piece of bread, but eyeing her meaningfully, he pulled out another piece and ate that too. He dusted off his hands and moved toward the shackles, picking them up. “If you will put the hood on yourself, we will call it just and I can put the shackles away.” He threw the hood, so it landed on her hands and she stared at it for a few moments.

  She could just put on the damn hood and be done with it. But, why should she? He was just a virul, and one who couldn’t even swim. Usually, she would be confident that she could take him down and swiftly, but she was hungry and weak, her body depleted from the rough march. She may fight, lose teeth, break an arm or even her neck and still get dragged into his camp. But what was her mission? To simply escape? That seemed rather shallow at this point. Her mission seemed to have evolved to finding out where this renegade camp was. An escape at this point would nullify that possibility. But, her being hooded on the approach to their camp would have the same effect. And, there was one more factor: curiosity. She knew it was a dangerous and maybe even fatal emotional commodity, but she wanted to see what this free camp of viruls looked like.

  Ambivalence stung her, but she picked up the hood and with great difficulty, her roped hands feeling like unwieldy huge paws, tugged it over her head. He yanked on her lead and she stood; he yanked it again and being reduced to guessing direction, she supposed she followed him into the stand of woods that she had seen before they sat down to eat.

  She found it odd that the stinking hood fell rather quickly into the background of her consciousness, her thoughts easily sliding outside its coarse and smelly homespun. Although she did not like Shukad much, she of course, hoped that the virul had not hurt her. Her last clear vision of what happened in the pipehouse was the shackle going across her sister’s face, the rest was as if a cloud had settled over her recollection. She tried and tried to get at the memory, to no avail.

  Her mother would be sending out a posse of the strongest securities, and by now she was sure that they were combing the edge of the waste for her. They might even venture into the waste, but Rane didn’t think so. The securities were just like her sister: a little dim, needing very structured orders to carry out missions. In fact, Rane was often surprised that for all their brutishness, it was quite easy to best them in arguments. They just did not get the concept of logic. Everything was black and white to them. Everything.

  Once her sister and her security friends visited Tollichet’s lodge and were sitting around talking about some of the Titleds’ plans to begin a program to maim any virul who spoke out of turn by cutting off one of his hands. That way, they said, viruls would think twice about smarting off. Rane had only been fourteen and was sitting on the outskirts of the discussion, but piped in without thinking, “But then the viruls would not be able to work.”

  “What does that matter?” Golamed, one of Shukad’s closest friends had derided. “There are plenty of viruls to take the place of a missing hand.” The others laughed while Shukad glared at Rane.

  “But, what if that punishment did not work and more viruls spoke out of turn? What if all of the viruls were one-handed?”

  “Then we would just kill them, Rane!” Shukad said in exasperation. “Now shut up! Nobody asked you!”

  “But if we killed them, we would have to take over their tasks! They may even rebel and run away! Then what would we do?”

  For a long few moments, the security Leads just sat and looked stupid, their loss of face being saved only by their mocking laughter at Shukad slapping and hitting Rane until she was forced from the room.

  “We are here!” The virul said, pulling off Rane’s hood.

  Rane sneezed and tried to rub her eyes with her trussed hands. She looked about her and almost gasped before collecting herself.

  Surrounding her was an impossibly beautiful glade. Her sector, Greenwood, was said to be the most beautiful on Maraquan, but she now saw evidence of that lie with her own eyes. An immense white cliff rose above her, its jagged rock tinged with a crystalline glaze of azure. She had never seen that color in the dyes the weavers used for the finery the Leads and Titleds wore, let alone in nature. Erupting throughout the face of the rock were brilliant purples, whites, yellows, oranges, and reds of blossoms interspersed with ferns that seemed to drape together creating a festoon effect as if a green waterfall had frozen in its rush to the forest floor.

  Beneath her feet was a cushiony moss that stretched throughout the bottom of the glade as if to provide a plush carpet for whoever decided to settle here. For the first time, she tore her attention away from her verdant surroundings and got a look at the inhabitants.

  Pretty much as she had expected, it was a shabby group. Eyes of ragamuffins in various wraps of animal skins followed her as she sat down, submitting to the shackles in order to get her hands freed. She stared back, and hoped her eyes carried the depth of disgust she felt. She said nothing, however, waiting to assess more of the seemingly obvious situation. She hoped that her captivity carried more nuance than just being a breeder. Perhaps she could be more of a manipulator; after all, she was a Lead, and she believed that title spoke of her inherent gifts.

  “So, what have you brought us, Landman?”

  The large and hairy virul who asked the question kept his eyes on Rane as he approached her in a wary, crouching step. He reached a hand out toward her scalp, and she could tell that he wanted to touch or even grab her hair, but the ingrained servility of his upbringing restrained him.

  “Her hair is crazy!” The virul said. “I think I shall call her ‘bear.’”

  High pitched gulping laughs rang through the glade as the virul who called himself Landman fairly succumbed to his amusement. He pitched forward and had to support himself with his hands against the moss to keep from falling face down. “That is what I thought she looked like! A bear! Ha, ha HA!”

  He was laughing still as he retrieved a long pike and pounded it into the ground, pinning her and her shackles into the earth. The pike was about six feet in length. There was no way she could pull it out unaided, especially trussed up as her ankles were.

  Rane slid back to a large rock, tipping it around until she found a flat surface she could rest her back against and still said nothing. She did not care that they were making fun of her hair—they were only viruls. It was natural that she would be the focus of their attention for a while, but she thought her silence might relegate her to the fringe of their notice, and she was desperate to learn more about this community.

  Others came into her periphery. Most were scraggly viruls, unused to taking care of themselves, but some were, well, if not exactly Leads or Titleds, females. This surprised her. Surrounding her were always females that had risen to vaunted stations. She had never thought about the others on her world that did not
attain high positions. They were beneath her notice, really, and she had never even talked to one.

  Very openly and, impolitely, she thought, the group stood around and stared at her. Her virul had moved away and was speaking with one of the females and glancing in Rane’s direction from time to time, obviously telling the story of her abduction. She hoped she would get the chance to tell the entire story, including her finding him almost drowned in the lake and his attack on her sister, as she doubted he would not share those unsavory details. But, it seemed it didn’t matter much, as the female simply shrugged at him and walked away to tend to a small fire in front of one of the huts.

  Rane, for all of the sucking hunger of her stomach and discomfort at having shackles entwined about her ankles, found a little enjoyment at just sitting back and observing her rustic and alien surroundings. The huts, squat domes covered with animal skins were not as aesthetically pleasing as the lodges of her village, but she supposed they could offer a cozy respite from the elements. But they were a little too cozy for her taste, she being used to tall ceilings providing an airy yet protective space with log trusses as support. Each hut had a fire, around which huddled individuals, who, although having moved away from her, still sneaked glances from time to time at the intruder.

  The novelty of her presence shrank minute by minute and immense activity soon filled the camp as night was falling rapidly. Viruls and females carried wood, stoked fires, roasted meat, baked coarse bread and cakes and donned animal skin cloaks for evening fall.

  The strangest sight, though, were the small, dirty children rushing about, dodging the adults who were trying to settle them down for their feeding and night rest. Children in her community were orderly, regimented for various tasks under the Titleds or even Leads’ authority. These, however, seemed very random, chaos ruling their pursuits to the extent that Rane could barely comprehend the babel. Two by the third hut were engaged in a bloody and determined fist fight, three near the closest fire were playing with very primitive straw dolls, a group formed a ring around one of the large trees and chanted a sing-song about a water monster, others jumped, climbed and chased, all of them making such a yelling din that profound irritation soon replaced Rane’s enjoyment at the novelty of the scene. But the weirdest and most troubling aspect of all this hubbub was the unrestrained mingle of female and virul.

  The distaste must have shown pretty openly on Rane’s face, for a reproving voice said, “Yes, that is how it is here. Both genders equal, both genders free. This is how it is meant to be.”

  The virul had sunk to his haunches about five feet from Rane, tainting her observation with his silly take on the scene. “We all get along here—and no group subjugates the other.”

  “Maybe you don’t yet,” Rane said, “but soon, you viruls will think your natural upper body strength should determine who rules. “ She shifted her butt so that the shackles clanked. “Not only that, but the lack of order and discipline toward your ‘offspring’ is truly appalling. Does no one tell them what to do? Are there no rules for your young? And, speaking of your young, who are the parents? Do you have social units with a parent? Or are they just community property belonging to no one? And, are any of these children yours?”

  The virul said nothing for quite a few moments, then he began, “We do not have a social unit with a parent. We have social units with children and two parents. A Male and a female work together to raise their children.”

  Rane gestured toward the ruckus. “Oh, how revolutionary! Yes. I see what an effective system that is. Such order! I cannot wait to see when these children are in charge of your commune here. The males will lay a mandate of servitude on the females and war will resume.” Rane watched as one of the small viruls hit a straw doll out of a female’s arms. “Amid much disorder,” she added, shaking her head. “That one is probably yours,” she said pointing at the virul who was dangling the doll just above the screeching female’s reach.

  “I have no children, yet,” he said. “But, your presence here might change that truth.”

  Although she tried hard to cover her reaction, the comment rattled Rane so much that she had difficulty thinking of a clever retort until he stood and moved away, a slight grin on his face. “I would rather jam sharpened twigs in my eyes than couple with you!” She yelled. But the verbal arrow proved lightweight and blunt, glancing as it did carelessly off his back.

  She sat for a very long time, alone, as the camp became dark, its occupants retiring either to the hearths in front of the huts or into the huts themselves. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about her, so trying to ignore her immense discomfort, not to mention her immense bladder, she settled on her back, using a smaller rock as a headrest. She hoped she didn’t wet herself, but at least that would provide her a little warmth for a few minutes—it was getting quite cold.

  She must have dozed, then a kick to her foot startled her and she yelled. Primed by her surprise into an upright position, her stomach fell when she remembered where she was. The virul was standing over her, a rope in one hand, a blanket in the other, and a loaf of bread nesting between them.

  “I am going to tie this rope around your neck, so you can wander behind that tree and make water or whatever else you need to before you sleep, and this,” he said, lifting the blanket and the bread, “is so you can sleep.”

  As she squatted and tried to avoid urinating on the shackles, she muttered to herself, “As much as I am enjoying all this , I have got to get out of here!” She had gathered enough information on these savages and their little social experiment to add to the intelligence of the Titleds’ council. She was quite confidence of her chances to get away. There was not a Lead on the planet who could not outwit a simple virul, so it would not take long for an opportunity for escape to arise. And as to her heightened mission, in spite of the hood, she didn’t doubt that she could find this place again.

  As she tried to catch some sleep under the rough blanket—it smelled like it had been skinned from a rotted animal—she comforted herself with scenarios of escape: shackles as a weapon again, compliant behavior becoming violent when vigilance dwindled, rescue from her sister Leads and Titleds. . .

  Clanks and clinks, jangles and poundings lifted her out of a wakeful, irritating sleep, and she realized that the unpleasant night had passed. She peered out from under the blanket, throwing it off her when she got a whiff of its decomposition, the warmth of the sun unleashing the smell. The frozen night air must have neutralized the stench during the night, but she did not remember being plagued with the cold, at least.

  A female was approaching her with a wooden bowl of some offal or another. Rane became immediately alert. She had always assumed that she would have to overpower a virul to make her escape. A female would make it much easier. Her mind touched only lightly upon the irony of her thought before returning to the outstretched bowl. She lifted her hands to receive the food, thinking to subdue the female, perhaps threatening her life to bargain for her release, when the virul appeared at the female’s side, taking the bowl out of her hands. Smiling, he set it upon the ground just far enough beyond the shackle stake to make it extremely uncomfortable for Rane to get at it.

  As Rane clanked over to the bowl, cursing, she saw the virul’s smile widen at her ungainly slither. He said, “Maybe ‘bear’ is not the right name. Perhaps it should be ‘snake’ or ‘lizard.’”

  Rane’s resolve to stay silent was helped by her ravenous hunger; the only thing her mouth could do at the moment was slop the stuff in the bowl into her mouth. She didn’t even care that the virul and the female chittered together in laughter as they retreated back to their hearths.

  Slop notwithstanding, she felt a little better after eating, and sat back against her rock again to assess the reality about her. Enough hours passed that she became intimately acquainted with every assessment and every possible escape scenario. The disappointment at flubbing her chance to hostage the female was acute, but the more she thought about it, what goo
d would that have done? If she had successfully negotiated her release by threatening the girl and they let her go, she was not absolutely sure where she was or how to get out. And, if she had killed the girl, they would have killed Rane, too, perhaps after a lot of torture. No, force was not going to work. Every idea that involved her using violence to get free was nullified by the fact that now the virul was the only person who came near her. He must have read the tension of her body and sensed the danger this morning and warned everyone off. He brought her the mid-day meal and evening supper, all the same disgusting slop, made even more revolting when she smelled the delicious aroma of roasting meat and the rising and baking bread all that day.

  A welcome diversion came at mid-day, at its warmest, as a small group of viruls gathered at the great face of the crystalline cliff that had arrested Rane’s attention the day before. Her captivity had at least given her the luxury of studying the geological wonder for many hours that day. The textures that streamed down from the apex of the cliff swirled and draped like great and delicate buttresses to the floor of the glade, but looked impossibly slick and even liquid to her eyes. Escarpments and cliffs such as this one provided great challenges in climbing to many in her sector, but this sheer and liquid drop would be impervious to climbing, so she couldn’t guess the reason for the viruls’ craned necks at its base. She ignored the viruls and allowed her eyes to hungrily flit over its surface, and she was surprised at the escape the activity provided her. It was almost as if the crystalline surface were daring her to probe its depths or even sweep across its surface as a flight creature might do in its survey of its mysteries. The beauty of the fantasy lasted for many pours and she almost gasped when the revery ended at her glimpse of climbers on this impossible wall!

  Her training had taken her into the realms of extreme climbing, but never anything like this. The viruls who had gathered at the cliff’s foot were now climbing, and it seemed to Rane even at this distance, with great dexterity, back and forth, obviously employing hand and footholds in a steady upward crawl over the blue crystalline surface. Rane’s mouth dropped open at their daring and she wished, hope against hope, that one day she would have the opportunity to climb that liquid glass monolith.