Captivity (18 page)

Niall, with his quick reflexes, attempted
another intervention, but Reynaldo had anticipated him, barking out
an order as he acted. Two bandits moved apologetically to Niall’s
either side, pinioning his arms. I looked in panic to Niall and
back to Reynaldo. Perhaps Niall could reach Dominic without
revealing his whereabouts. I thought desperately to Niall, who
nodded his willingness to try.

Reynaldo was impatient. “Margrave Aranyi!” he
demanded of me again. “Now!” He held his little hostage in his
strong hands, squeezing Val tightly around the middle. The pressure
woke Val from his feverish torpor and he opened his eyes to find
himself in Reynaldo’s clutches, his face inches away from this
demon from his worst nightmares. He screamed and struggled,
fighting for dear life. In the middle of a cry he ran out of
breath, choked, and puked a long white stream of half-digested milk
over Reynaldo’s face and shirt.

Reynaldo roared in disgust and anger. His men
laughed, briefly helpless with the unexpected release of tension.
For all their fear of their leader, they could not suppress their
natural reaction, their pleasure at a child getting the better of
the deranged and unpredictable bandit captain. Reynaldo shifted his
grip on Val, dangling him dangerously by one arm, torn between his
wish to be rid of such an eruptive, dirty object, and his continued
awareness of its value to him in leverage. His arm began an
involuntary backward swing.

In their amusement the men holding Niall let
go, just as Reynaldo’s arm swung forward in an arc that, if
completed, would have cracked Val’s head against the wall. Niall
moved swiftly once he was freed, reaching the collision point first
by a fraction of a second. Val was flung neatly into Niall’s
midsection, like a football. As Niall cradled the sick, filthy
child, his face was haggard, the mask of hauteur dropped for a
candid moment, although instantly resumed once Val was restored to
my outstretched arms. “He’ll make a good soldier,” Niall said of
Val, finding an epigram in tragedy averted. “He knows the first
rule already: take the enemy by surprise with your strongest
weapon.”

I kissed Val and rocked him, the full horror
of the narrow escape not yet registering. My eyes followed Reynaldo
as I awaited his next move. The episode seemed to have snapped him
back to reality. Forcing himself to stay calm, he remembered his
most valuable prize. “The girl,” he said. “Margrave Aranyi won’t
give up a daughter like that easily.”

Niall and I exchanged hasty, covert mental
glances. “Margrave Aranyi wants his family back,” Niall said in a
more conciliatory tone. “His entire family. And he is prepared to
pay handsomely. But they’ve been abused, neglected. They’re sick.”
He paused to let the bandits draw the logical inference. “If they
should be returned damaged or, the gods forbid, dead, Margrave
Aranyi will be forced to vengeance.” Niall shook his head sadly at
the waste of it all, waved a manicured hand in regret. “He’ll have
no choice. Honor demands no less.”

Reynaldo regained his temper, became almost
genial, as things returned to normal. This was more like it, the
back and forth of negotiation. He recognized the desperation
underneath Niall’s cool exterior, proof that Dominic was fully as
eager as Reynaldo would wish for the return of his family. If
Margrave Aranyi had sent this unnaturally self-possessed young man
ahead in his place it was no doubt to enhance his own prestige, to
show that he need not descend to the bargaining table in person.
The situation was about to change at last in Reynaldo’s favor.
“Margrave Aranyi will have to lose some of his ‘Graven pride,”
Reynaldo said. “He will have to talk to me, mind to mind, before I
agree to anything.”

“Tomorrow,” Niall said. “Lord Aranyi has no
intention of even thinking of you until tomorrow.” At last he was
able to move Reynaldo back toward the door.

From the satisfied aura Reynaldo exuded, I
caught a glimpse then of the plan, ragged and patchy like an
unfinished quilt in his thrilling anticipation.
Men rushing
forward, Dominic at the head, and then– something flying through
the air, something deadly…

Reynaldo felt my presence in his mind and
clamped down hard, keeping me out of his gleeful thoughts that must
remain secret just a little longer. It occurred to me that he had
what he wanted. Reynaldo’s plan required daylight. He didn’t want
Dominic coming in now, but tomorrow, in the morning. And then?
Death. Death for Dominic, and for me and Val. But killing Dominic
had always been the real goal, and Reynaldo knew he could do it.
What no man on Eclipsis could be sure of, Reynaldo was confident he
could accomplish. Now that the moment was at hand, it mattered not
at all to Reynaldo whether Val and I lived through the night. Only
Jana still mattered to him. My heart pounded, my temples ready to
burst with the surge of blood from my fear.

I thought to Niall while Reynaldo was still
smug and relaxed. Niall gave me a mental nod of comprehension. He
would keep his eyes and his mind open for her. “You must bring
water, at least, for the girl,” Niall said.

Reynaldo agreed easily, shouted a command,
and a skin of water was brought and pushed hurriedly into the room
before the door was locked again. The men walked leisurely upstairs
as the protracted ritual of negotiation assumed its natural pace.
In better humor now, Reynaldo proffered the standard opening
phrase. “I hope you brought enough coin to meet our price.”

“Well,” Niall countered with the proper
response, “we brought plenty of metal.”

Everybody laughed at the references to ransom
and weapons, the “metal” that would be used in the unlikely event
of the negotiations’ failure. This would be a long and unrewarding
night for Niall. It spoke for Dominic’s high estimate of his
abilities that he had trusted him to carry it off.

Kidnappers have an obvious advantage over
horse traders or farmers in the market square. But not even a
devoted husband was expected to accept a bandit’s first,
deliberately inflated, ransom demand. Such easy acquiescence would
only imply trickery—cover for an assault; or bad faith—hostages who
were valueless and would not be redeemed, like an adulterous wife
whose child had not been fathered by her husband. It was understood
that Niall was to begin the negotiations, dismissing the laughable
opening proposals and tendering equally ridiculous low offers in
return. Dominic himself would continue the bargaining once the two
sides had come closer in their terms. Agreement might take a
week.

Safe behind the locked door, I made the inner flame
and resumed the search for Jana, returning to the place that had
seemed promising before Niall had arrived, somewhere near the main
entrance and staircase. My mind flitted erratically, unable to hold
a position or to keep things in focus, but I felt around, blindly
but doggedly, and detected something.

There she was
, hiding in a nook under
the main staircase. She must have gone around to the front
courtyard and been trapped near the entrance when the bandits came
in at the end of the daylight. She was frightened, but seeing Niall
brought in unharmed had heartened her. She was thinking furiously,
nerving herself up to go into the hall where the negotiations were
beginning their deliberate, painfully slow progress.

A gaggle of children collected in front of
her hiding place, peering curiously into the hall, eager to catch a
glimpse of the visitor. “Is it Margrave Aranyi?” a small boy asked,
awed by Niall’s aristocratic demeanor.

“Nah,” another boy said. “It’s his
bodyguard.” A loyal servant, sworn to live and die for his master,
was a logical guess.

“Maybe he’s a natural-born son,” a wan little
girl said. She was already half in love with Niall, as they all
were.

A third boy, older than the rest, shook his
head in a knowing way. “You’re all wrong,” he said, standing in the
center of an admiring circle. “He’s one of Margrave Aranyi’s
bastards. Margrave Aranyi’s got hundreds of ‘em, and a whole harem
of whores.” The boy had obviously heard of Dominic’s father,
renowned for his promiscuity, and had confused the generations.

Jana clenched and opened her fists in
helplessness. She knew better than to enter this stupid
conversation, but it was taxing her restraint not to defend her
papa and Niall from these bizarre identifications.

A second girl ventured an opinion. “Captain
Reynaldo said he’s Margrave Aranyi’s whore,” she said, clearly
fascinated by the possibility. “I heard him.”

The rest of the children sniggered, nudging
each other nearer the door to the hall, more determined than ever
to see this unusual personage. Jana could stand it no longer. She
wasn’t sure what a whore was, exactly, but she knew the word was a
deadly insult, and she rushed out from her nook to push the
offending girl roughly in the chest, knocking her down. “He’s Pa-”
She caught herself in time. “He’s Margrave Aranyi’s
companion.
Don’t you dare call him a whore!” She loomed over
her fallen opponent, bringing her foot back for a kick.

The superior older boy stepped in front of
the fallen girl as she struggled to her feet. “Oh yeah? What do you
care?” He spat at Jana, then pushed her as she had pushed the other
girl.

Jana staggered but recovered quickly. Her
disguise, coupled with her rash act of aggression, had worked,
deflecting attention away from her unfamiliar face. Nobody wondered
who she was. Everybody thought she was a foolhardy little boy, too
big for his britches, who needed to be put in his place.

The older boy was spoiling for a fight. “Are
you a whore too?” He jabbed Jana’s shoulder a few times, then swung
a fist. Jana ducked automatically and raised her own fist, landing
a solid punch on the boy’s ribs.

A full-scale brawl erupted, children shouting
and shoving. The few girls hung back, the boys jumped in on one
side or another. There was no reason; it was just boys’ idea of an
animated discussion. Someone tried to hold Jana’s arms but she
wrenched herself free and resumed the attack on the older boy.
Jana– Why was I surprised? –actually knew how to fight. The boy was
bigger than Jana, and tough. He was going to win eventually, but
Jana would make him work for his victory.

The blows thudded into me in my maternal
one-way communion with my daughter. Unlike Jana I had never been a
fighter, and my fragile condition only exacerbated the feeling of
punishment. The beatings both given and received quickly became
nauseating for me, although Jana seemed oblivious. I longed for an
end to this exhausting business and, as usual, got more than I
asked for.

The noise eventually brought a few adults out
of the hall to see what was distracting the negotiators. Women
cursed and slapped at the children who formed the ring of audience.
A few recognized their own offspring and dragged them away. The
fight in the center was exposed to view, Jana and her opponent now
locked in a hopeless clinch of pummeling fists and scuffing
kicks.

Michaela stood in the doorway, deputized by
Reynaldo to enforce calm. She waded into the center of the
fast-diminishing circle, separated the fighters and put a brawny
hand on Jana. Her eyes narrowed. “What’s this? Where’d you get
those boots, boy?” She had a nose for valuables, was indignant that
someone else’s child had gotten good leather boots she’d had her
eye on. Jana’s opponent, barefoot like the rest and wiping a
gushing bloody nose, made good his escape.

Jana tried to twist out of the woman’s grip,
failed, and hung her head, her hair covering her face. Michaela
studied the shiny, almost clean black hair. She sucked in a sudden
breath, reached a hand and forced Jana’s face up as Reynaldo had
when he captured us. Jana glared at the woman, one eye partially
shut. She would have a real shiner tomorrow.
If only that were
all
, I thought.
If only that were the extent of our
troubles.

Michaela laughed. “Not so sick after all.”
She shook Jana hard by the shoulders. “What’ve you been up to,
spying little rat?”

Jana said nothing. I was painfully aware of
her childish confidence, knowing her mama and her papa could
protect her, our
crypta
and our ‘Graven status surety
against all catastrophes. She was afraid but not terrified, a
natural state for her, I realized, as I began to understand the
foundation of my daughter’s and my husband’s courage. Jana, like
her father, had been driven by natural ability and this capacity
for daring to early independence. An optimal level of controlled
anxiety fueled their extraordinary achievements, well beyond the
reach of average men and women. Risks that for me were overwhelming
were acceptable to my husband and our daughter. Failure in small
things was a distant possibility, total disaster unthinkable.

But defeat was all too familiar to me. I
tried, and failed, to come up with a way to extricate Jana.
Michaela also pondered what to do with this unconventional
prisoner. With her hold on Jana, I could pick up her thoughts as
she went quickly through her options. Her priority had always been
to gain advantage with Reynaldo. After her daughter’s rape she was
not so devoted to his interests, but she couldn’t think of any
other use for this child. We were both too slow. Reynaldo sensed
there was something good outside, something worth interrupting the
negotiations for. He stood in the doorway, blazing with false
indignation and open delight.

“Well, little lass,” he said, “I see you’re
the only Aranyi who deserves to wear breeches.” He glowered at
Michaela, knowing her disloyalty.

Jana scratched and fought like a cornered
cat, broke free from the woman and ran past Reynaldo into the great
hall, to Niall, hugging him around the waist. “Niall!” she
screamed. “Niall, make him let us go!”