Captivity (17 page)

I knew it wouldn’t work, but I had nothing to
lose. “If you leave the food, I’ll give it to my daughter when she
wakes up.” I tried for the plain, matter-of-fact voice of
authority.

Michaela woke from her dream of death. “No
you don’t, lying cunt. Think I’m stupid, but we’ll see who’s so
smart.” In a louder voice she said, “The girl will get breakfast in
the morning. If she’s alive.” She banged the door shut and locked
it with shaking hands.

I lay on the straw in an agony of terror,
huddling close to the pathetic effigy I had made as if it really
were my daughter.
Where was Jana?
I had lost contact with
her somewhere outside, could not seem to find her now. The sickness
and another day without food had accelerated my
crypta
’s
decline. I could receive thoughts, if they were strong and
projected at me accurately, but using my gift in an active way was
almost out of the question.

If I have killed my daughter
,
I
should kill myself. But what of Val? And Dominic?
I had to hold
on until Dominic arrived. I must do everything possible to protect
my family until we were rescued, or die trying.

Flat on my back, with Val nestled beside me,
I made the inner flame and prepared to summon the telepathic ether.
Much as I loathed this pea soup of mental tesseract, especially now
when my mind was already resisting every known law of physics, it
was my only chance to find my daughter. The ether was like a mental
highway, expediting the process of forming communion between
distant minds. It was how Dominic and I had “visited” each other
before our marriage, and how Dominic had saved me from death in
childbirth.

The little fire at the end of my thumb had a
sickly greenish tint today, which complicated the operation, but
the ether was always there, at the edges of rational thought. I let
myself fall into its syrupy, gummy maw.
Jana,
I thought.
Jaaa-naaa
. The ether swirled around me, rising like steam
from manholes on a city street in winter. My brain pulsed with the
high fever; the rash marched across my skin in phalanxes of
irritation. The green light from the fading spark of my brain’s
electric energy flickered in rhythm with my breath and my pulse.
Uncoordinated at first, all the various movements synchronized as I
worked, keeping time with the beat of my heart.

Ja-a-na-a
, I pushed the name out,
thinking with the rhythm. She wouldn’t be able to perceive my
mental searching, but I had no better idea. If I sent my thoughts
out I might find her, with the instinct of mother for child, would
recognize her by the sense of completion I would feel when my mind
met hers.
Ja-a-na-a
. I worked through all the nearby
locations I had seen with Jana yesterday, the back courtyard, the
outbuildings and the wall. Nothing.

My mind held still, stymied. Where now?
Perhaps she had come back inside. There was the entrance to the
hall at the front of the castle, a passage leading from the wide
doorway to the stairs and the upper floors. I followed it. Nothing
there. Or, wait? I hovered, exploring with my mind.

Several booted feet clumped down the stairs
to the storeroom, stood outside the door. I could sense Reynaldo
there, in the corridor. He would punish me if he caught me using my
gift, even such a little thing as the inner flame, would take Val.
So close, so maddeningly close.
I stopped my search and
snuffed the flame.

Someone was with Reynaldo, someone I knew and
trusted. The familiar presence entered my mind.
Masculine,
young, scared but hiding it. Dominic?
In my delirium I couldn’t
quite make the connection. I had seen Dominic as a younger man,
every day at Aranyi in the portrait of him as a young officer, and
had encountered him in the ether, where the image we mature adults
project to others is that ideal self of decades past, visualized
from our memories. This young man was tall like Dominic, slim and
dark-haired. He wore the Aranyi uniform, gray with black insignia.
But Dominic couldn’t be here. He had said he wasn’t coming
tonight.

I groped my way mentally toward this man, the
one sympathetic presence in the surrounding hostility, identifying
his defining qualities.
Vir
, sensitive, intelligent,
confident in his proficiency with both sword and speech. It must be
Dominic after all, doing a convincing job of making even me believe
he was here.
Dominic
, I let myself send my thoughts to him.
My love. I thought–
No, I mustn’t think that. Dominic had
said to act as if he were outside the walls, to make Reynaldo
believe it.

Lady Amalie?
The young man connected
with my mind and immediately recoiled, shocked by what he found,
the sickness, debility and disorientation.
My lady!
He
recovered his control.
Dominic will avenge this mistreatment,
never fear
. Niall Galloway, Dominic’s companion. Yes, now I
remembered, Dominic had said he was sending Niall on ahead.

Voices murmured outside the door, low and
urgent, arguing. One rose above the others, shouting them down.
“Typhus?” Reynaldo was scornful. “What a crock! Why not the plague?
‘Graven lies! Let’s see for ourselves.” I held Val tightly in my
arms, waited trembling while the lock turned. Reynaldo entered
first, followed closely by Niall and four or five bandit guards. A
couple of them carried torches and the unaccustomed brightness
dazzled my eyes, forcing me to turn away. “Your husband sent his
male whore to comfort you,” Reynaldo said as he stepped inside the
little room.

Niall kept his poise despite the insult. He
had an intrinsic dignity; from Dominic he had learned how to crush
boorishness and pretention with aristocratic disdain. Consciously
imitating his lover’s graceful strength, he carried himself in the
same way, moving more like a dancer than a soldier, concealing the
warrior’s talents behind a facade of elegance. He looked Reynaldo
up and down with a perfect imitation of Dominic’s sneer, and said,
“You may flatter me all you like, but you won’t get yourself a
better deal.” He turned his back in dismissal and knelt to me. The
other bandits snickered at their leader’s loss of face.

Reynaldo had hoped to embarrass Niall, to
start negotiations off with his opponent at a disadvantage. His men
muttered after the brief show of mirth, shaking their heads in
disbelief at such reckless behavior. For some, it was the beginning
of a new phase, the first time they would seriously question their
leader’s judgment.

Negotiators are privileged individuals. No
one benefits by making an enemy of the man he must do business
with, and on Eclipsis, every transaction, great or small, is
accomplished only by bargaining. Buying an apple at a farmer’s
stall or redeeming a hostage, it is all the same. The more valuable
the goods the more prolonged the negotiations. If Niall had been
sent by Margrave Aranyi to bargain for his wife and children, he
should be treated respectfully.

I shaded my eyes against the torchlight while
I gazed up at the young man beside me. Niall’s was the first
friendly face I had seen in four days, but it felt like weeks, or a
short lifetime. My old self had died, and what survived was a
pitiful sufferer in hell. To this new me, Niall was a heavenly
apparition, a visitor from the privileged world of life and light I
had once been part of. He was travel-stained and weary from a long
journey made too swiftly, but to me he seemed fresh and clean, fit
for a ball at ‘Graven Fortress in Eclipsia City.

I stretched my hand out to this superior
being, hoping for the blessing of his touch.
Niall
, I
thought to him.
Oh, Niall, I am so glad to see you
– Even in
thought I felt mute, unable to express any meaningful ideas with
Reynaldo hovering so close.

Niall’s face twisted in unconscious
registration of the stench, but his thoughts were all kindness.
Tears ran down his smooth cheeks.
‘Gravina
, he thought to
me, using the honorific to show me my sad condition had degraded
only my physical self, not my essence.
‘Gravina, this is inhuman
what has been done to you
. He asked permission silently before
feeling my hot face, and Val’s. He scanned the room, taking in the
chamber pot, the empty water skin, the effigy on the straw pallet.
Jana?
he asked. He could sense she was not here, strove to
understand the situation without betraying me.

Flicking my eyes toward Reynaldo in warning,
I tried to answer ambiguously.
I don’t know.
She seemed
better earlier
.

Reynaldo was thinking at the same time. He
noticed the effigy. In the harsh contrasts of the torchlight the
fakery had a dismal appearance, like a corpse. “What’s the matter
with the lass?” There was genuine anxiety in his voice and his
thoughts. “Let me see her.” He stepped closer, bent to the bunched
blanket.

Niall stood up and put himself between the
bandit and the figure on the straw. “Don’t you listen?” he said,
shrugging in disbelief at such obstinacy. “Your own woman told us
they had typhus, but you had to see for yourself.” His voice held
just the right note of humorous exasperation to prevent Reynaldo
from taking the words as provocation. Niall gestured with an
eloquent hand at me and Val. “They’re seriously ill. Anyone can see
it. And I, for one, have seen enough.” Niall moved toward the door,
trying to make Reynaldo step back. He clapped his hands
imperiously. “Bring food and water for ‘Gravina Aranyi and her
children.” He spoke as if to inattentive servants. “Let me bathe
and tend them, since your efforts have been so– inadequate. There
can be no negotiation while they are in such a wretched state.”

Reynaldo stood his ground, looking at me and
Val lying helpless in our own filth. The force of his thoughts made
them impossible for me to avoid. Our rapid deterioration had
surprised him. Any sexual desire he had once entertained for me was
gone; Val and I were of little value now except to draw Dominic
here in rescue. Reynaldo made the sickening noise, between a giggle
and a snort, which was his version of laughter. “Food?” he said.
“Bathe? The only reason I have kept them alive is so your master
will pay for them.” Again he insulted Niall, using the word
“master,” as if Niall were a servant, or a paid entertainer.

Niall lowered his eyelids, inner and outer,
at the demeaning word. “Margrave Aranyi?” he asked, to clarify. “He
is not the man to be persuaded by such barbarities. He will more
likely extract a heavy price, in vengeance.”

As I had seen before, Reynaldo relished the
idea of Dominic’s attacking his stronghold. This time he made less
of an attempt to hide his pleasure, although he needed to keep up
the pretense of wanting ransom just a little longer. “Let him try,”
he said. “But if you still wish to negotiate the price, you haven’t
much time. If they’re as sick as you say, you’d be wise to pay up
now, while they’re alive.”

Niall shook his head. “If they die, we pay
nothing. Margrave Aranyi has never had to
purchase
corpses.”
His sarcastic inflection emphasized the nobleman’s contempt for any
commercial transaction, while hinting ominously at the prospect of
mass slaughter to come. To me he sent thoughts of reassurance; this
tough talk was purely for show, following the formula of
bargaining. I forced myself to keep an emotional distance from the
callous drama playing out above me. Dominic would have briefed
Niall for this conference, and the bandits would expect any
negotiator to put up a brave front, to haggle so as to appear
unaffected by their relatives’ plight.

Reynaldo, suspecting he was losing control of
this carefully engineered situation, tried to regain the upper
hand. “But this is his wife! And his heir!” He lashed out again at
Niall, tired of being balked at every turn by this composed and
confident young man. “When Margrave Aranyi’s son dies,” he said,
sticking his chin out as he tried to stare the taller man down,
“you won’t be able to produce another one from your ass no matter
how much he fucks you.”

This time Niall took a deep breath. His hand
went to the hilt of his sword, but he was alone here, safe only by
virtue of his position as negotiator. To attempt to avenge a stupid
insult would be suicide, and bring death on me and the children.
“Thank you for the biology lesson,” he said. “But Margrave Aranyi
has two other heirs, an adopted son and a natural-born son. His
interest in his wife and this child is purely sentimental.”

Reynaldo’s face turned purple. He raised a
gloved fist, ready to smash it into Niall’s handsome, supercilious
face, and held back with immense effort. He decided he had had
enough of the peculiar family dynamics of the Aranyis. “Why am I
wasting my time with you?” he asked, more of himself than Niall. “I
will talk only with Margrave Aranyi.” He shouldered Niall aside and
leaned over me. “Bring Margrave Aranyi here. No tricks. Bring him
now.”

I shut my eyes to Reynaldo’s offensive
presence while I considered his demand. If Dominic really was
nearby I might manage it. If not, and without the help of the
telepathic ether, I would have to work to find him, unable to
achieve the kind of instant, smooth communion that is as natural as
breathing for my stronger healthy self. The attempt would only
betray Dominic, as Reynaldo would discover that, for all his
threats, my husband was not outside the gates, not yet in position
to storm the bandits’ castle or even to pay ransom. Better to be
honest about my own condition, which would betray nothing. “No,” I
said. “I’m too weak.”

Reynaldo had lost any ability he might once
have possessed to make allowance for sickness or failing strength.
He reached quickly and snatched Val out of my arms. “Summon your
husband,” he said, “or I’ll finish the little brat off now.”