Captivity (26 page)

Very funny. He’s in no man’s service but his
own. But truly he never did better than these two days’ work.

Shout again. “The one with red hair and the
silver eyes. I want him alive!” Must remind them what we’re here
for. “And Lady Jana! A bonus to the man who finds my daughter!”

The miners scatter like demented children.
Our own troops are more disciplined, but no sign of him. Typical.
Coward, to abandon his men when things go wrong, and run with his
prize.

Find the living, get the truth from them with
crypta. Here’s one, lift his head; his arm’s shattered but there’s
life in him. He doesn’t know. Fuck. There’s a miner hovering
eagerly. Nod my head, let the little man have his kill. That’s what
they like, killing bandits. Doesn’t matter the man’s dying,
helpless. It’s not a skill they care about, swordsmanship. Only
want the thrill of butchering an enemy. Look at him, searching the
body. What will he find on a bandit but fleas?

Here’s another, his guts showing slimy and
glistening in his clutching hands, but conscious, writhing. “Where
is he? Your fearless leader, where has he run to?” He lifts an arm,
points– where? The kitchen. That’s about right, with the women.

Of course, out through the back courtyard.
Take Jana and make a run for it. Hurry! If any can keep up with me,
let him follow. Niall’s close behind, a few others.

Into the kitchen, eyes and minds all around,
women and children hiding in the shadows, in cupboards and
pantries. Helios, Lord of Light! What do they think? Aranyi to
fight women? “Where is Reynaldo?” None dare speak, only slide their
eyes to a narrow passage.

In there, just missed him, can sense his fear
now, running toward the light of outdoors. And—yes, there, all the
gods be thanked—there she is, I can almost taste it—flesh of my
flesh, Jana, my daughter, myself, what I would be were I born
woman, Isis and Astarte forbid.

Sweetheart, I’m close, be brave.
She’s
too young yet, won’t be able to get my thoughts. Can’t shout. Men
waiting for me. Man with a bow. Ha. Thinks to shoot me in
ambush.

Out in the light now, the sun of summer noon.
Dazzling light, inner eyelids lowered, see all things clearly. And
the arrow. It’s there, in that darkness between outbuildings, where
no light reaches. The snap of the bowstring and it sings overhead
as I feint to the right and duck, and they’re out—three, no, four
of them, no more arrows, all gone, swords held out to surround me,
and I whirl in the dance. Touch me who can.

But I can’t break through four and Jana is
being dragged away. To the stables! To the strong Aranyi horses,
won’t be able to catch them–

“I’ll get her,” Niall shouts, and he’s off.
Has sense, my companion, for all his affectations, knows better
than to waste time here.

The bandits lunge at me, their arms too short
to reach beyond my blade, always just behind the timing of my
crypta that anticipates their every move. Even using my gift
they’ll get me eventually, four against one.

Shouts, panting, running. Some Aranyi men
have caught up to us at last, Ranulf, my lieutenant, at the head.
“Margrave,” Ranulf calls, nothing more, just to hearten me. He’s
served Aranyi all his life, knows he need only think to me, even
though I must speak to him out loud. Almost my age, he is, what few
know, and loyal unto death. Ah, if he had the gift, and was vir,
now there’s a man I could…

The bandits run as the Aranyi men approach.
Can’t pursue them, not when Jana–

From the stables comes a long angry roar,
wordless and obscene, like the cry of an animal trying to speak, to
curse and rant, but unable to create human sounds. And through
it—the gods be thanked—Jana’s voice. I would know it were I as deep
in death as Amalie when I found her.

“Papa! Papa!” My daughter is calling me.
Brief stop of the heart. If he’s hurt her! Wait. Wait before
despairing. Maybe it’s not so bad. Go to her, run and see.

Here they come, Jana running—running! She
must be unhurt. Niall leading a horse, something on the back.
Blood, cries, a wounded man. It’s him! We have him now.

Jana reaches me, jumps up. Just time enough
to thrust sword through belt and hold out my arms to her. “Papa,
Papa!” Her voice, so lovely—but what’s this? A rope around her, one
eye blackened, swollen shut. By all the gods, he’ll pay for this.
Lift her up and hold her tight. “Papa, I knew you wouldn’t let them
kill you.”

“Not when I had to find my favorite
daughter,” I say, an old joke between us, kissing her face as she
kisses me, the sweetest sensation. Never did I imagine that having
a child would be such joy, such bliss. And the thought of loss.
Worse than when my first lover…

Niall standing quietly. All he did. Couldn’t
have done any of this without him. “You see, my lord,” he says in
courtly speech, liking the epic grandness of the phrases. “As I
promised, so I have done. There’s Jana safe in your arms, and the
shi–” For Jana’s sake he uses the man’s name instead of our
epithet. “–Reynaldo, still alive, as his velvet tongue
proclaims.”

The man is bawling like a bull on the way to
the slaughterhouse, a bull that’s seen many another go that way
ahead of him, and knows the end. And his legs—no wonder he’d not
escaped.

“Beloved,” I say to Niall, also in courtly
language, “what you have done for me I can never hope to repay.”
Must speak the truth, aloud for all to hear. It’s the least I can
do for such a companion.
But my love you have in full
measure
. Think that to him in private. That’s also true, and
I’ll tell it to him as often as he wishes to hear it, although it
may not be long before he’d rather hear it from someone else, as
Stefan did.

Niall is honest. To my private thought he
smiles and thinks of love in return. To my words he acts with
becoming modesty. “I can’t take full credit, Dominic. Oh, yes, a
few superficial wounds, those I admit to.” He grins, for once like
the youth he is and will be for a few months more.

Still I do not understand. The man is
crippled, ham—

“Hamstrung.” Niall finishes the thought. He
seems shaken, as well he might. That’s a wound inflicted from
behind. Unlike Niall to strike before the enemy has seen his face.
Unless– unless there was no time—

Jana sees my look of horror, misreads it as
disapproval and defends her friend. She jumps to the ground, shows
the dagger still in her hand, the blade sticky with clotting blood.
Amalie’s dagger! “I did it, Papa!” she says. “Reynaldo tried to
make me ride with him, but when Niall came in he let me go.” She
considers Niall’s feelings, always has a kindness for him, like her
papa. “I knew Niall could fight him, but I owed him a death. So I
cut his legs the way Ranulf showed me.”

Niall nods confirmation. “I saw it, Dominic,
or I wouldn’t believe it either.”

“It’s true, my lord.” Ranulf backs him up.
“Lady Jana heard the men talking one day, and asked, and—” He
falters, then owns up like a man. “You always say, my lord, it’s
better to demonstrate than explain.” Contrition ages his craggy
face, his gruff demeanor humbled, as he comprehends the enormity of
his sin, teaching a girl the secrets of men. “Forgive me if I
overstepped—”

“Forgive?” I say, smiling to show my
gratitude. The best mistake Ranulf ever made. Put hand on sagging
shoulder, he knows I wouldn’t touch a man in disgrace. “I see I am
in your debt as well.” Good to feel his spirits rise. “Lady Jana is
true Aranyi,” I say, so all will know not to think shame of the
deed. “She fights her own enemies herself.”

My daughter, ‘Gravina. She owed him a death,
indeed. “You have made your father proud this day,” I tell her,
speaking formally, as to an adult. None like her.

Now my girl is crying. She’s too young to
cry, like an adult, from happiness. “What is it, my love? You’re
safe now.” Cut the fucking leash off her and pick her up again.

“Mama’s dead,” she says and sobs on my
shoulder like the child she is.

That bastard told her that. “No, sweetheart.
Mama’s not dead. She’s a very clever woman, and she used crypta to
look dead. You’ll see.”

Does she believe me? We’ll go to Amalie,
bring her out of that hole they put her in. She’ll be awake by now;
Jana can talk to her, see for herself. I give my sweet girl more
kisses, her arms locked around my neck, and press her head against
my cheek. Strange to hold my daughter and to feel– shirt and
breeches on her like a boy, and her beautiful dark hair cut short.
The shithead had it all thought out, didn’t he?

He reads my thought, has the gall to let me
sense him in my mind. “Please, my lord,” he says, whining like a
Terran, “I meant to harm to the lass.”

Kill her parents, kidnap her, and what’s
this? Marry her? And he “meant no harm?” His voice, his face, it’s
like a stick in the eye. It’s like being spat on and called vile
names. It’s like rape and humiliation, over and over. But there are
ways to counteract it, ways to make it almost a pleasure, if one
knows how. And I know how. Haven’t let myself enjoy it for years,
not since I married Amalie…

Gently I detach my girl’s hands from around
my neck, set her down, nod to Niall to take her.

The shit screams as I cut his nose off and
throw it on the midden. The sound he makes is unusual, with his
nasal passages exposed.
You will not speak to me
, I think to
him. Hoping he will, of course.
Each time you speak to me I will
cut something off, until you are nothing but a brain in a skull.
But you will live. You will live to endure my revenge. I will make
certain
.

It comes over me then, the madness, the lust.
Ready to embrace it. Here’s a victim who actually deserves what I
will do. Will it increase my pleasure or detract from it? A most
interesting experiment.

They’re looking at me, Niall and Jana and
Ranulf. Ranulf knows. He knew my father, served him faithfully,
that lecherous, whoring – forget it. But it’s what caused all this,
and Ranulf knows. The only man who was loyal both to my father and
to me, because he knows what’s right and does his duty.

My love
, Niall thinks to me.
It’s
over now
. He knows too, saw it when we were on the trail from
Eclipsia City and that shit touched Amalie.

Amalie. Must clear my head. Amalie’s been
starved, I could feel it, the lightness when I held her. She’s
sick, the fever’s in her, some disease I don’t get with my alien
blood, or Jana, thank the gods. But Amalie has it, and the boy. She
needs my help. Must stay in control until we’re home safe.

Then, shithead, you’re mine. Enjoy the
next few days
, I tell him,
because when I have you to myself
in Aranyi, the way you feel now will be a memory of
paradise
.

My lord husband, I broke in on Dominic’s threats to
Reynaldo, addressing him in courtly speech, the most formal, yet
most intimate, language we have. I have need of you. The peculiar
intensity of Dominic’s thoughts had jolted me out of our deep
communion. I began to enter my own mind again, with my own thoughts
and emotions. I felt Dominic’s mind as a separate consciousness,
swirling with anger and something approaching insanity, and feared
losing him to this overpowering rage.

Dominic-Leandro, my love, stay with
me.
I used my husband’s full name as I do only when he is
beside me, in bed, so close I need only half-form the thought. Now
that he had arrived at my place of captivity he seemed farther from
me than ever, poised to dive into his own black pool of vengeance
and madness.

Amalie-Katrin, my lady wife, I am
here
. Slowly, from a great depth, he returned to me.
Amalie,
reflection of my soul
. He switched from formal speech and spoke
to me, unaware, in the language of the lament he had sung.

I opened my eyes, shivering and burning by
turns. Val woke also, or perhaps he had been awake for some time,
eyes shut. Our blacksmith guard was still talking. “Greetings,
little man, to you I give,” he said as Val blinked and stirred. The
man waggled stubby fingers in Val’s face and Val, glad of some
friendly attention, laughed weakly.

From the safety of my arms, Val ventured back
into the world of the living. “Greetings, little man,” he said,
catching something of the tuneful intonation. He looked around the
room, but his child’s mind could not encompass death, and the
stiffening body of Michaela on the floor did not register.
“Greetings,” Val repeated. His head nodded and his eyelids, all
three of them, drooped. It would be hours before he was fully
awake, longer still before he remembered that he was hungry and
thirsty.

Dominic, carrying Jana, headed back inside
the castle’s kitchen. Our communion still held. I could follow my
husband’s actions and thoughts, no longer as a participant, but as
an observer, my own responses to sights and stimuli filtering
his.

On this, the second trip for Dominic through
the kitchen, there were no fearful faces peeping out from the
shadows. There was nothing for these people to fear anymore. The
dead lay sprawled in the indignity of violence, women cut down
trying to flee, or curled around their children in useless
protection. Babies had been spitted on swords or smashed against
the walls. Blood was everywhere, pooling on the floor.

Jana, her good eye growing rounder with each
step Dominic took, her blackened eye opening in a slit, was awed.
“You killed them all, Papa!” she said, a note of hysteria entering
her voice. “I told them you would, but they didn’t listen.” My
daughter, brave beyond her years, would not admit to fear, not
while her father’s arms hold her safe, but I felt, through
Dominic’s grip, her heart beating like a captive bird’s in the
hand.

Dominic knew what I would wish, just as his
own paternal instincts were aroused. He pulled Jana’s head down
into the curve of his neck and shoulder, covered her face with a
long-fingered hand. “No, little one,” he said, “I killed only armed
men.”