Captivity (20 page)

The questioner was younger than Reynaldo,
although not by much, with dark hair and a drooping mustache, and a
vague family resemblance. He addressed his words, not just to
Reynaldo, but to all the men in the room. He had become a spokesman
for the majority, the ones who didn’t trust Reynaldo or understand
his plans, but could not express or even dare think their
objections.

“Let’s talk with Margrave Aranyi,” the man
said, “let him believe we’ve come to terms. When he brings the
ransom to us, then–” he made the same gesture as Reynaldo had a few
days ago, one arm stretched outward, hand in a fist, the other
held, fingers curled, near the shoulder. The posture of an archer,
I understood now. Two or three others added their voices in assent.
“It’s a good plan. Why spoil it by acting too soon?”

Reynaldo looked ready to explode. The others,
recognizing the signs, stepped back quickly. “What’s wrong with all
of you?” Reynaldo said. “Afraid of a little girl and a faggot who
sucks ‘Graven dick?” He stalked around the room in inarticulate
fury, returning to confront the dark-haired man.

The man did not back down. “No, my brother,”
he said. “We’re not afraid. But I think you are. I think you’re
afraid the girl prefers the faggot to you.” He laughed and punched
playfully at Reynaldo’s stomach.

The others gasped at the effrontery, but
Reynaldo accepted the kidding in the sullen way of the elder with
an indulged younger sibling. “The girl is mine, Roberto. I’m not
giving her back.”

Roberto shook his head. “That’s another
thing. What do you need this child for? Surely we have brats
enough!” He swept his hand in an arc encompassing the clumps of
women and children, laughing at the evidence of such fertility.
Then he spoke seriously. “You’ve fucked up the negotiations,
telling Margrave Aranyi you’re keeping his daughter.”

Reynaldo’s eyes widened. “I’ve fucked up?
I’ve
fucked up?” He stood face to face with his
half-brother, attempted a kind of jovial humor, but the underlying
rage shone through all too clearly. “Whose plan is this? Yours?
You’re my father’s son, and I love you, but you couldn’t plan a
drink in a tavern.” He smiled in a teeth-baring grimace that froze
the blood. “The negotiations aren’t fucked up. The negotiations are
over. We brought Aranyi here. Now there’s no need to talk, only to
shoot.”

Roberto, the half-brother, was frightened
like the rest, but he felt his argument was too important to give
up. “Listen, brother,” he said, standing at a respectful distance,
“killing a ‘Graven lord, that’s a serious business. We’ve all
agreed it’s necessary; that’s why we’re in this, why we learned to
use the forbidden weapons.” He looked around for allies, caught a
few glances of cautious encouragement, and was emboldened to
continue. “But it’s too soon. What if they don’t have all their
ransom with them yet? The woman said Margrave Aranyi was coming
from Eclipsia City. That’s a long trip to make in two days, with
little time to raise all that coin. And we’ve got to be sure we
kill him. We don’t even know he’s here yet.”

Reynaldo smiled in benign acknowledgment of
his superior status and put an arm around his half-brother.
“Roberto,” he said, “son of my father. I am leader, not just
because I am older, but because I have the gift.” He touched the
tip of his index finger to the corner of his eye where the third
eyelids drooped, semi-opaque between milky-white and silver, from
the warm red and orange of the firelight. “You mustn’t try
mind-reading without the ability. I have the power of
crypta
, and here’s what I know. They do not have the ransom.
They’re not planning to pay. Margrave Aranyi isn’t here– yet. But
he will be. In the morning. The boyfriend was unshielded, easy to
read. They’re planning exactly what I wanted: a direct assault on
the castle.”

The bandits looked at each other in
consternation. Roberto again took the lead. “Not planning to pay?
But that was the whole point.” His face had the stricken look of an
only child who has suddenly lost both his parents. “We took the
woman and the children because you said Margrave Aranyi would pay a
fortune for them.” He stared around at the others who nodded
emphatically. “We understood we’d have to kill Margrave Aranyi
because he’s not the sort of man to pay up meekly and forget the
offense. But what’s the point in killing him for nothing?”

This time Reynaldo went crazy. A strangled
sound, half laugh, half cry, came out of his throat and he frothed
at the mouth. His brother and another man nearby doubled over in
agony, caught in the spillover effect from Reynaldo’s erratic
untrained
crypta
. The rest of the men shrank back, their
eyes on the floor. Reynaldo took in great whooping breaths until he
was able to produce words. “
Nothing?
” he screamed. “Kill him
for
nothing
?” Flecks of foam flew from his mouth like stones
lobbed from a catapult. He was red in the face, his chest heaving.
“We will have all of Aranyi and you call it
nothing?
”

Everyone in the room was too scared to move.
I could sense their nervous, confused thoughts.
Aranyi? What did
their leader mean, Aranyi?
Precious metals and goods, that had
been the motivation behind the audacious act, kidnapping the wife
and children of a powerful ‘Graven lord with a reputation as a
warrior, a demigod to such isolated mountain people. Killing him to
prevent his anticipated revenge had seemed like the only way to
keep their spoils, once the ransom was safely delivered. Aranyi
itself was foreign, unthought-of, like myths of paradise. They had
all heard of Aranyi, as they had heard of Eden and Cloud Nine and
heaven. But no one expected to go there, not during his
lifetime.

Men and even women muttered together, shaking
their heads. They had known Reynaldo was volatile, frightening with
his power that mimicked the abilities of the ‘Graven. But they had
trusted that, as he shared their power, and with the help of
illegal weapons, so he could get the better of one of them. The
vision of immeasurable wealth had been irresistible, impelling them
to accept the risk. Now it all seemed to be leading to something
different, something nobody had contemplated in his wildest
imaginings.

Slowly Reynaldo regained control of his
emotion, reining in the outward manifestations of his
crypta
. The two men affected by Reynaldo’s fury were able to
straighten up and take a few restorative breaths. Roberto, no doubt
inured to such trials from his years growing up in the shadow of a
gifted and difficult half-brother, dared to inquire. “Aranyi,
brother?” He bowed his head slightly, still accepting Reynaldo’s
dominance. “Of course Aranyi isn’t nothing. But it’s the riches of
Aranyi we want, not Aranyi itself.” He looked around again at his
confederates. “What would the likes of us want with Aranyi?”

Reynaldo was feeling chastened. He was
annoyed at himself for betraying his real plans when the necessary
steps to achieve them, steps that depended on his band’s
unquestioning obedience, were not yet accomplished. He had counted
on the absolute loyalty of his archers, convinced they were
fighting for treasure and the freedom it would bring. The fact that
he had another goal in mind should have come out only after the
deed was done, too late to change course. Now he must convince
ordinary men to follow him in his ambitions, a world apart from
their limited horizons.

The bandit leader tried a new approach. He
had let slip that Aranyi was the ultimate prize. Now he would show
his men the advantages. He stood next to one, spoke quietly into
his cringing face. “You thought to take your share of the ransom
and buy land, Tonio, didn’t you?” When the man nodded, paralyzed
with fear so that he felt compelled to admit the truth, Reynaldo
laughed with contempt. “But who would sell you land? Who would want
you as a neighbor?” The man shook with the exertion of trying to
stand still. Reynaldo laughed louder at the man’s fear. “You’re
shit, filth. You can’t become a respectable farmer, or a
respectable anything, no matter how much treasure you steal.”

Reynaldo ambled over to another man. “And
you, Federico. What did you think? That I’d give you a share of
Aranyi wealth so you could waste it on drink and whores in
Andrade?” Reynaldo was growing righteously indignant, in sway once
more to the powerful allure of his dream. “You thought we’d kill
Margrave Aranyi and just drift away? Perform a great deed like
that, something to write ballads about, then skulk in the woods and
backstreets, living like outlaws for the rest of our lives?”
Federico, a hardened warrior whose face and arms were seamed with
the scars of many fights, stared resolutely ahead and said
nothing.

To a third man, small and pockmarked with sad
eyes, Reynaldo was most brutal. “And you, Bron. You thought you’d
buy a wife.” He poked at the man’s weedy frame. “An ugly little rat
like you, with a dick and a face to match, who couldn’t get my
grandmother to open her legs—you thought you’d buy a ripe virgin
bride?” Reynaldo roared with laughter at the grotesque image. He
pointed to the sheep pen. “There’s the only women you can buy, with
or without Aranyi steel.”

All the men shook with fear as Reynaldo spoke
aloud their deepest secrets, their pathetic ambitions, and
belittled them. Tough men, who could have ganged up on Reynaldo and
torn him apart in minutes, twitched like hog-tied animals and
submitted to humiliation, demoralized by exposure like the women
they had stripped on the trail.

Once Reynaldo had made several more examples
he eased up, stood in the center of the room again, expansive with
the thought of impending victory. “You’ll live like men!” he
shouted. “If you want land, we’ll have all of Aranyi to parcel out.
And women! You’ll have more than you can handle and you won’t even
have to pay. They come with the land.” He laughed with salacious
delight, cheered by his faulty understanding of ‘Graven landholding
practices.

Everyone remained silent, afraid and
doubting. The original plan, or what they had been led to believe
was the plan, was to take the ransom, kill Dominic, then flee over
the mountains, passable in summer, to the renegade Realm of
Aldaran. ‘Graven Assembly’s authority was not recognized there. Any
organized manhunt or posse out for justice would stop at the
border. The bandits could live well by their standards, on the
fringes of civilized life, as they were accustomed. A plan like
Reynaldo’s was simply lunacy.

The silence frustrated Reynaldo. He tried
again. “I will be Margrave Aranyi,” he announced. “Do you
understand? I will be the Margrave when this one is dead. You will
be my retainers. We will have everything: land, goods, a real
castle, not this wreck from the Age of Anarchy. We will all live
like– like ‘Graven. We don’t need ransom. We need only to bring the
Margrave here to his death.”

Finally Roberto found an objection he could
put into words. “And the other ‘Graven will just give it to us?” He
shook his head in disbelief. “We kill the rightful lord and move in
on his Realm, and they’ll all bow and smile and wish us luck?” He
became more animated as he imagined the troubles to follow. “We
could have the entire ‘Graven Coalition up here after us. We could
have Terrans—”

“Let them come!” Reynaldo said, flinging his
arms wide. His good humor only increased at a problem so easily
disposed of. “Terrans aren’t immortal, any more than ‘Graven. An
arrow through the head will kill them as surely as it kills
Margrave Aranyi and his pretty-boy whore.”

There were more urgent mutterings, voices
raised in actual protest. “We can’t fight all of Eclipsis forever,”
someone shouted. “If we use arrows, what’s to stop the ‘Graven from
using their powers?” Even bandits understood the Armaments
Convention, knew that its original purpose had been to prevent
annihilation from the world-destroying potential of
crypta
-based weapons and Terran nukes.

Reynaldo glowered. The mutterings died down
as people saw the return of his explosive anger. “I have the
right,” he said. He turned back to Roberto. “You know it, brother.”
He pointed to his inner eyelids again. “I have ‘Graven blood, as I
have ‘Graven power.”

Even Roberto had nothing to oppose to such
monumental ambition and delusion. He looked at his allies, the
other bandits, and shook his head dazedly, as if to say he had
known nothing of this. “Yes,” he said, “you have
crypta
, and
‘Graven blood. So what? You’re not the first bastard with third
eyelids and
crypta
—”

“I have the right,” Reynaldo said. He had
done explaining, and he was not about to let himself be tricked
again into revealing more than was necessary for his men to know.
But he could not resist one last pleasurable admission. “And I’ll
have the girl. She’s Aranyi: just look at her.”

Scores of eyes turned to the unusual little
girl in ragged shirt and breeches, with her boots and shorn hair.
Jana’s exceptional courage had been stretched to the breaking
point. She had listened to the increasingly horrifying
conversation, following it with difficulty, clear on only one
point: that her beloved papa’s death was being casually discussed
as the basis for all further action. What had been unthinkable only
a few hours ago was becoming reality. Now, tired and beaten, hungry
and frightened, she knew that she needed a mother’s comfort. She
had edged toward the grate that looked down into the room where I
lay with Val. “Mama,” she whispered. “Can you hear me? Please,
Mama, help me get away from here.”

Reynaldo, hearing Jana’s thoughts in his head
as well as her whispered words, bounded away from his annoying
conversation to stand over Jana where she knelt on the floor, her
face pressed close to the bars of the grate. He put a possessive
hand on her and Jana leapt up, her fists clenched, determined, now
that she was on the spot again, not to give up on her demand.