Captivity (14 page)

Jana didn’t understand my meaning, but she
could see I was not so angry after all, and unbent to show the
extent of her good fortune. “Struan gave me a shirt, too,” she
said, lifting her dress up above the waist.

“And how did you hope to wear them,” I asked,
“without being found out?”

“Like this,” she said, shaking her head at my
obtuseness. “Under my dress.”

She could sneak the wonderful, liberating
boys’ clothes on under her regular attire, and once safely outdoors
and out of sight of the household, remove the dress. Free to enjoy
herself, she could retrieve the dress at the end of a long day of
unencumbered activity. With her tall, lithe body, she would look
from a distance like any mountain boy, except for the long hair
that hung, uncut from birth, to her waist. Now I would remedy that
one problem.

I held out my hand. “Give me my dagger,” I
said to Jana.

Jana shook her head, stepped back in fear.
“No, Mama,” she said. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

Gods above, what did she think?
What
kind of monster had I become to her? “Sweetheart,” I said. “I’m not
angry with you. I know how much you’ve always wanted to wear
breeches. It’s a pity you can’t wear them at home.” I smiled as
convincingly as I could while the terrible scheme prodded me
forward. “But how would you like to wear them here? You could pass
for a boy if your hair were short.”

Jana’s face lit up. “Oh, Mama!” She hardly
dared breathe. “Can I? Really?”

At my solemn nod, Jana took the little dagger
out of her boot and came eagerly to my outstretched arms. I sat up
slowly, hoping to avoid the blackout that my emptiness and weakness
threatened. “Listen to me, my darling. What I am proposing is very
dangerous. If you do not want to risk it, I will not say another
word.” I knew I had her now.

“I can do it,” Jana said. “I know I can.” She
held out the knife to me. “Cut my hair, Mama. Please,” she
remembered to add.

“Hold the top,” I said, “so I don’t pull too
hard and hurt you.” She pressed her palms against her head as I
seized locks of the thick, shiny, almost-black hair below, hacking
them off roughly in jagged cuts. I made no effort to do a neat job;
it would have defeated my purpose. When I had finished, piles of
hair lay in heaps around her feet. I gathered them up in a bunch,
tied them in a switch using a couple of the longest strands. “Let
me look at you. Take your dress off and let’s see what kind of boy
you make.”

She made a very good one. The shirt and
breeches showed their years of wear by Struan, and had acquired
additional dirt more recently. Obviously Jana had already tested
her plan to wear them for a few days at Stefan’s. The clothes had
the lived-in, slept-in look of the bandits’ rags. Except for one
detail. Using the knife, I cut a few holes in the cloth, pulled
down strips in tatters. My daughter must blend in with the
others.

Jana’s newly short hair hung around her face,
partially concealing her distinctive features, if she didn’t push
it away. If no one had seen her before, they would make no
connection between the elegant little girl, fierce and warlike, but
feminine, and this rough, shock-headed boy.

But of course the bandits and their women and
children had all seen her, some only briefly, from a distance, when
we were brought into the hall, others, like Reynaldo, close up.
“Try not to talk to anyone,” I said. “Keep your head down. Look at
the floor.” Before I had time to stop myself from this crazy idea,
I thought of one more warning. “And don’t use formal speech.”

Jana rolled her eyes. “I know that.” She
tried to deepen her voice. “I fucking well know that,” she said in
a growl, using the universal language of soldiers.

She climbed to the window grate to perform,
as she informed me, “reconnaissance,” while I entered her
consciousness to share her view. There were no men in sight. They
were out hunting for game, I guessed, or watching for unwary
travelers. The women and older children, finished with breakfast,
were probably gathering nuts and roots. The few children too young
to help with the work played under the bored supervision of an
older woman, like them left behind because she could not keep up
the pace of the others. One toddler stumbled against the still-hot
side of the large communal cauldron and ran screaming for comfort,
only to be cuffed and cursed for his clumsiness. Two other women,
sick or recently delivered of babies, lay in filth on the
floor.

When Jana jumped down, we listened at the
door. As the slapped child’s cries subsided to sniffles, all was
quiet. There would probably never be a better moment.

Val watched, silenced by events for once, as
I hugged Jana, telling myself I was giving my daughter a great
adventure she would remember with pride all her life. “Go slowly,”
I said. “Look around, but don’t touch anything. Remember, you’re
still doing reconnaissance. Come back as soon as you’ve scouted the
rear position, then I’ll give you your mission plan.” I fell into
the pseudo-military jargon easily, knowing it reinforced Jana’s
already strong sense of duty. She was more likely to obey me if I
presented this insanity as a serious assignment.

I lowered my third eyelids. “Remember, I’ll
be monitoring you the whole time.” Lowered eyelids wouldn’t affect
the mental connection with my child one way or the other, but I
thought Jana would feel safer if she believed I was employing my
powers at their full strength. “If you’re challenged by anyone,
I’ll know, and if you can’t get away, I’ll help you.” I was
strangely confident, betting my last flicker of energy on Jana’s
untested abilities.

I made the inner flame, bending its tiny
flickering light into my eyes and enabling me to open the lock on
the door through telepathic manipulation. Being so weak was almost
an advantage; I was forced to ease the lock’s mechanism along
slowly, avoiding the squeal of its rusted parts. The bar on the
outside rose as the catch on the lock pushed it. I pried the door
open a crack, then a little more, just enough for Jana to slip
around to the other side. Then I nudged it shut and listened as she
walked quickly along the corridor and up the stairs. My heart
skipped a beat.
Boots
, I thought.
Astarte preserve
her
. The women and children were all barefoot. Only the men
wore boots in summer. It was too late. Jana had gone too far for me
to call her back.
Pray all the gods that no one notices
.

I waited by the door, watching my dying inner flame
through inner eyelids clouded by my waning strength. If Jana
returned empty-handed, I was finished. If she was caught– I
wouldn’t think about that. I watched through her eyes as she
climbed the stairs to the great hall, saw how she scanned the
surroundings with the expertise of a poacher.
Where had she
picked up these skills?
I was impressed, despite my trembling
fear.

All was clear. Our storeroom prison was near
the front of the hall which, in the typical layout of any castle,
was situated away from the drafty entrance, near the kitchen in the
rear of the house. No one saw the ragged boy emerge from the
stairwell, or thought nothing of the sight if they did. This was
not one band of outlaws, but two or three that Reynaldo had
convinced to unite to pull off his ambitious plan. I had learned
that much from my attempts at reading their thoughts. Some of the
women had only joined their men once they moved into this castle.
If they saw an unfamiliar child they would assume he was from
another band. Nobody kept track of children. Nobody cared.

Jana slipped smoothly and silently the short
distance from the stairs around the corner to the pantry, where she
was safely out of sight. Her boots that had me so worried made no
noise with their soft leather soles on the stone floor. Once
through the kitchen and outside, Jana lurked expertly in the
shadows between the ramshackle outbuildings, instinctively
shielding herself from view.

We were in luck. The animals were not far
away. The back courtyard, usually a barren sea of mud in an
inhabited household, was overgrown with every kind of grass and
weed in this ruin. The bandits, in any case, could not risk
detection by taking their animals far from their hideout. The
sheep, which herd naturally, were working their way methodically
across the rear swath of grass near the remains of the outer wall.
But the goats, thank all the gods, were tethered to pegs to prevent
them from roaming, allowing each a circle the length of the
anchoring rope to graze, and no more. The one small boy left to
guard them, knowing they could not go far, was engaged in throwing
pebbles at birds and any small animals that foraged in the
underbrush. As his aim improved, he moved, unaware, farther and
farther from the courtyard, in the direction of the woods.

A mangy dog bounded over to Jana, his head
held low and forward, growling at the stranger. I had seen dogs
when we were first brought in, I reminded myself, heartsick at my
forgetfulness. How could I have thought we could ever get away with
this crazy scheme?

Jana stood her ground unafraid, familiar with
every kind of animal we had seen here. To her a dog was more a
reassuring friend than a threat. Jana knew she had only to hold out
her fist and project her usual confidence, and the dog would soon
accept her, just like Dominic’s hunting hounds and the edgy,
ill-tempered guard dogs that inhabit the kennels in Aranyi’s front
courtyard.

This time it didn’t work. The dog maintained
his attack stance, the bristles along his spine standing up stiff,
slobber leaking from his partly opened jaws. He planted his front
paws, bracing himself before Jana as if she were a fox trapped in
her den, while my daughter glanced around, wondering, despite her
instinctive knowledge to the contrary, if there was someone else
nearby who was causing the dog to behave so strangely.

Only now did I understand that it was my fear
the dog sensed, in my protective communion with Jana. I pulled my
mind back from hers, keeping just enough residual contact to sense
Jana’s relief when the dog backed down, wagging its tail with
gratitude when she scratched his head behind his torn, flea-bitten
ears.
The dog’s a bandit, too
, she thought, explaining the
episode to herself,
just like the people
.

When Jana came back to report, I had already
thought what to do. I spoke quickly and softly, afraid at any
moment the men would return to the castle for food, that Michaela
or another woman would come down to check on us, that Reynaldo
would trespass in my mind and learn my plans, as I could not learn
his. We were lucky. Everything remained quiet in midday stupor, as
Jana repeated my instructions and shifted her feet, eager to be out
and doing.

I let her go, all the while berating myself
for risking my child’s safety. Resuming the one-way communion, I
experienced the feeling of Jana wading nonchalantly into the herd
of grazing goats. The scrawny animals, intent on cropping the
coarse grass and chomping at the tall weeds, ignored the
interloper, only sidling away when she came too close. Jana, as I
had instructed her, had picked up a milking bucket from the corner
of the hall where the goats were penned at night. She crouched down
to examine the individual animals, looking for nanny goats.

When she found a nanny with a promising heavy
bag, Jana stood still for a minute, remembering the next step I had
rehearsed with her. She nodded to herself as she recalled it, and
untied the animal’s rope from the peg, winding it around her hand
and shortening it. The goat resisted as she was dragged backwards
by Jana’s action, but Jana was too strong for her. Jana had tried
her hand at every kind of work there was at Aranyi, only shooed
away from the more dangerous tasks, and she had handled farm
animals three times the size of these scrawny creatures.

Jana wrapped the rope around the peg and tied
it in a secure knot. The goat, held by a short length of rope
attached to her hind leg, was trapped with Jana wedged between her
and the peg. Jana squatted low, squirting milk in the direction of
the pail. Most of it hit the target. Pleased with her success, my
daughter could not resist practicing a skill she had recently
acquired, aiming a teat at her mouth, squealing with laughter when
the thin stream wouldn’t reach so far but splattered her breeches
and boots.

I could feel her strong childish desire
rising up again, to run, to explore, to enjoy her freedom. I had
prepared for this beforehand, impressing upon her the need to
conquer it, while I told her what to do. “You must help me, first,”
I had said. “If I allow you to wear beeches, it’s to do a soldier’s
job, not to run and play like a silly girl.” Oh, I knew how to
manipulate my brave, serious, daughter.

Before I had to exert more telepathic
influence, Jana’s sense of duty reasserted itself, returning her
attention to her mission. Going from nanny to nanny, Jana collected
half a pail of milk. It was the best I could hope for, since they
would all have been milked early this morning, before being let
outside. When she had finished, carrying the pail low by its
handle, Jana sighed like an office worker on the first day of
spring weather, and returned with resolution to her job in the
great hall.

Back inside, Jana followed the itinerary we
had mapped out. Everything was still quiet, the few women and
toddlers dozing in the stuffy air, as she walked toward the
chickens’ enclosure and opened the little gate. Here there was more
danger. The hens squawked at her intrusion, the rooster fluffed up
his ragged feathers and raked at her booted feet with his claws.
Jana stood still until the birds lost interest. Then she moved
quickly, knowing they would be up in arms again soon. She felt
under every nest, every likely pile of straw. With the coop in an
uproar, she scurried out, shutting the gate behind her.