Captivity (22 page)

Reynaldo spat on the floor and headed for the
stairs, leaving the door agape. Just as well they were dead and
intact. Reynaldo had not killed them; no doubt the bitch had killed
herself, and her own child, out of some ‘Graven notion of honor.
They had saved Reynaldo the trouble. It was a satisfactory
solution—the best. He would leave the bodies as they lay, a trophy
to taunt his enemy with, should the opportunity arise. He sought
out the man who was about to taste the bitter ashes of total defeat
and devastating loss.
Dominic Aranyi
, he thought,
your
little wife and your son are dead. Your daughter belongs to me. Do
what you will
.

Even from Margrave Aranyi there was no
response. Reynaldo shrugged hopefully and mounted the stairs to the
great hall, lay back down to wait for daylight. Michaela, disturbed
by his hasty rising and stealthy return, whispered a question. He
didn’t mind sharing the good news. “The witch and the little
brat—they’re dead. I made sure of it.”

As my body slowed and cooled, took on the bloodless,
rigid features of death, I could still perceive Reynaldo’s
thoughts, although that sense, too, would go eventually. Until it
was time to reanimate myself, I would conceal my minute spark of
consciousness within Jana’s mind, as before. For now, my daughter,
exhausted by misery, was deep in the restorative sleep of
childhood. Like her, I could dream.

Free to wander in the realm of nothingness, I
took refuge in the past. Life had been so easy and secure I could
afford to invent tragedies out of words. Lying in bed with
Dominic—over two years ago it was now. I was growing big with Val,
would soon be wider around the middle than I was tall, or so it
seemed to me. Dominic liked the physical changes of pregnancy, the
swell of breast and belly. His long fingers caressed me in the lazy
warmth after lovemaking as the sly question, asked too casually,
pierced my heart. “Would you mind, Amalie,” he had murmured in his
deepest bass register, the prelude to serious emotion, “if I were
to marry again?”

He had known I would take it wrong, I
realized afterwards, had used the formal, archaic word for the
union of man and woman, hoping I would react as I had, sitting up
flushed and angry, ready to fight my husband or this unknown rival,
whoever she was. Dominic enjoyed my possessiveness, couldn’t resist
treating himself to the sight of me naked and quivering with rage.
He laughed, pleased at my display of jealousy, until he took pity
on me and pulled me back down to rest in the curve of one slender,
muscular arm. “To Stefan,” he said, “to Stefan. Surely you know you
are the only woman for me.”

I was so relieved I melted immediately,
forgiving the pain of that first deliberate misunderstanding.
Paradoxically, our marriage did not always reassure me as to
Dominic’s devotion. Sometimes I worried that his preferences would
continue to evolve into a version of the informal polygyny
practiced by his ancestors: a mix of wives of various degrees of
status, companions, and household women accustomed to providing
service in the bedroom along with their other duties. As Dominic
kissed me and fondled me in mock contrition I tried to let go of my
anger, only telling him breathlessly between his more urgent
attentions that one day he would push me too far.

It was Dominic’s own doubts of Stefan’s
answer that had prompted such treatment. Stefan had been Dominic’s
companion for more than three years, was approaching his twentieth
birthday, before Dominic began turning the idea over in his mind of
making a formal marriage. While it is unusual for two men to marry
in the ‘Graven Rule, branding their arms with the scar of an
unbreakable union, it is not unheard of. Most men simply pledge
their love to each other, sometimes exchanging finger rings or,
most intimately between the gifted, prism-handled daggers. Dominic
was unsure how his companion would interpret so belated a
proposal.

To be fair, Dominic considered himself and
Stefan already married, branded or not. Stefan had saved Dominic
from almost certain death from a telepathic weapon, and had helped
to heal him from a crippling wound shortly before our marriage.
Their love existed on the sublime level of warriors, comrades in
arms, never mind how long since there had been any serious military
expeditions to test it. I knew they had sworn their love in a
private ceremony, a rite so sacred Dominic would not share it with
any woman, even me.

Dominic and I were both aware of the debt we
owed Stefan for making our own marriage possible. Finding Stefan,
and establishing a permanent masculine partnership, had given
Dominic the serenity he needed to contemplate marriage to a woman.
After three years of wedded life, a second child on the way,
Dominic felt remiss in only now formally acknowledging the
essential part his companion played in maintaining the balance of
our domestic arrangement. While Stefan went home that summer on a
belated family visit, Dominic looked forward to remedying what
might look like neglect.

Stefan’s first words on his return proved
Dominic had missed his chance. We must be the first to know of his
good fortune. “I am betrothed,” he said, in tones that left no
doubt of his pleasure.

Stefan was not the sort to play with
meanings. “Betrothed” could only mean to a woman, one chosen by his
family. The sons and daughters of gentry and ‘Graven rarely marry
for love, or choose their spouses. Dominic refused to accept the
inconvenient truth, that most Eclipsian boys outgrow the purely
same-sex phase of their teenage years. While many will continue to
have male lovers after heterosexual marriage, few will defer the
pleasures of fatherhood and being head of their own household
indefinitely.

To me it was the name that came as a
surprise. Drusilla Ladakh had made my early days at La Sapienza
seminary most unpleasant. For Stefan’s sake, I hoped the past four
years had softened and matured the girl’s disposition.

Stefan could not suppress his exuberance for
long, despite Dominic’s and my subdued reaction. “She says she
knows you, Amalie,” he said of his intended, “so I don’t have to
tell you how beautiful she is, and how gifted.” He turned to
Dominic. “My dear companion,” he said, knowing that he had caused
hurt, “when you meet her, you will understand.” He paused, thinking
how best to explain. “After all, you are the one who convinced me,
by example, of the value of a wife and family.”

Dominic attempted to make a gallant joke of
it. “Of my many faults,” he said, “you know how to put your finger
on the one that hurts.”

We had all cried and laughed eventually,
congratulating the bridegroom in the way of parents whose son has
become a man before they are ready to give up their image of him as
a child. Dominic had offered a parcel of Aranyi land as a wedding
gift, so that the new couple could live nearby. Stefan, a middle
son in a large family, had no prospects besides his stipend as a
lieutenant in the Royal Guards.

Stefan had been touched by the generosity,
saddened when he understood the reason behind it. “No,” he said,
forced in honor to decline so valuable a present, “that’s all
arranged also.” They would live on Drusilla’s land. The Ladakhs are
a venerable northern family, in the top ranks of the gentry.
Drusilla had brothers but no sisters, and would have a decent dowry
portion. Her parents had wanted the match, uneven as it seemed,
because she would be a working seminary telepath most of her life.
Once she had borne Stefan some children she would no longer be the
full-time stay-at-home wife that a landed and titled man would
expect. Stefan must enjoy her while he had her, and make the best
of things later.

For now he was all young love. The future was
very far away. And the past, his and Dominic’s love that Dominic
had hoped to formalize with a burning ordeal of molten glass and
fired metal, as his and mine had been, was floating away like wisps
of seed fluff in a spring breeze. It was no use, Dominic saw,
expecting a boy to marry his first lover. Stefan was all grace and
charm, wanting everyone to be as happy as he was, and feeling only
slightly, and momentarily, disappointed if he could not always
succeed. “Dominic couldn’t expect me to be his sworn companion all
my life,” he said to me once when Dominic was out of earshot.
“Surely he knew I’d want a family of my own sometime before I’m
forty.” He laughed at the absurdity of such a decrepit bridegroom,
the age Dominic had been when we met.

The last weeks with Stefan were a chaotic mix
of emotions as Dominic prepared himself for the loss of a lover and
the ordeal of Val’s birth. In ‘Graven practice, a man forms deep
communion with his wife throughout her labor, enduring every pain,
and supplementing her flagging strength with his. The life of many
a ‘Gravina, mine among them, has been saved by her husband’s
strength and devotion. Val’s birth was easy compared to his
sister’s, but it was nevertheless a rather subdued Dominic who
shared a long last night with his companion and wished him joy of
his wedding. I would not be up to traveling to attend the ceremony;
Dominic could have a valid excuse for staying home as well.

When I had recovered enough to think of the
outside world, I remembered with a certain discomfort the wedding
gift I had been preparing for Dominic and Stefan. In one of my few
forays into the marketplace in Eclipsia City, I had examined a
bookseller’s wares and had found a copy of an ancient Terran epic,
the
Iliad,
which I had read years ago. Seeing it again made
me think that its story of warriors, heroic in their battles and
their love, would be sure to please Dominic and his beloved. The
work’s original form was perfect for Eclipsis: a long poem to be
recited or sung to a simple line of musical accompaniment. Eclipsis
had produced many ballads and tales designed to be presented in the
same way. All it required was translation into the Eclipsian
language, perhaps the archaic, court speech, as the theme was a
noble one.

There was a ‘Graven law against importing
foreign literature, a law that Dominic had been principally
responsible for drafting and introducing and getting passed in the
Assembly. The purpose was to preserve Eclipsis’s cultural heritage
from Terran contamination, but Dominic, knowing my need for reading
matter, routinely waived the law for works I wanted, provided I
read them only in our house and did not lend them to others, a
meaningless restriction. Nobody I knew read Terran books for
pleasure. This one story, I was convinced, deserved to be treated
as an exception. Even Dominic admitted that laws could sometimes be
broken in the letter, if the spirit was observed.

After many inquiries I had been directed to a
scholarly poet willing to take on such a daunting task of
translation. Few men wished to turn down a commission, no matter
how dubious, from ‘Gravina Aranyi. “Don’t worry about all the
strange names,” I told him. “Just concentrate on the story.”
Foolish though it seemed, I had not been able to bring myself to
cancel the project, and I had let the man toil on, unaware that his
masterpiece would never have a public performance.

When the translator had copied out the last
phrase to his satisfaction, and after payment was rendered in steel
ingots purchased with Terran credits from my personal account that
would not leave a loss to explain in the household finances, the
package was delivered to our quarters in ‘Graven Fortress in
Eclipsia City. I looked despairingly at the pile of manuscript. The
project had taken a full year to complete. We were back in town,
where we spend half the year for Dominic’s duties in ‘Graven
Assembly and the Military Academy—back where this crazy idea had
originated. Stefan was long since married, and Dominic had found
Niall—the answer, as it turned out, to my wifely prayers.

Niall was more sophisticated, more complex,
than his predecessor. Where Stefan Ormonde had come to Dominic a
virginal boy, adoring and grateful for the favor of so superior a
lover, Niall met Dominic on equal terms. If Galloway, like Ormonde,
was not of Aranyi’s standing among the noble families of Eclipsis,
Niall saw no need to apologize for his respectable gentry
background. If Dominic was twenty-five years older, that was not
Niall’s deficiency. Niall was no longer a cadet when he and Dominic
became lovers, but a junior officer. If Dominic outranked him now,
Niall would catch up, swiftly perhaps, given his skills as
swordsman, commander and potential leader in Assembly.

Niall was what we call a
fox
, which on
Eclipsis, like Terra, has a double meaning of cleverness and
sexuality. He had the teasing intelligence, the ambiguity, of the
cunning animal, even the tawny eyes—light brown, almost amber, with
deceptively white inner eyelids. His gift was strong, despite the
milky color and lack of silver.
Vir
into manhood, Niall was,
after Dominic, the most attractive man I had ever met. Were I ten
years younger, or my communion with Dominic less solid, I would
want him myself.

Unlike Stefan, who had an innate modesty,
even shyness, Niall delighted in displaying his talents, yet with
such natural informality that no one could accuse him of
exhibitionism. His voice was lovely, a strong baritone, rich and
vibrant. At Dominic’s request—never on his own initiative—he had
entertained the household many nights in the old-fashioned style of
the great hall at Aranyi, singing traditional ballads or reading
aloud from narratives of Eclipsian history. The
Iliad
would
make a fitting gift for my husband and his new companion, I
decided, whether they were married or not.

One morning, when Dominic was involved in a
weeklong session of the Upper Assembly, I called Niall into my
room. “Lady Amalie,” he said from the corridor,“if Dominic were to
come home early, you could start a double blood feud.”