by C. K. Brooke
He pulled it out angrily. A trickle of blood dripped through the hole in his blazer.
“Are you all right?” she breathed.
Before he could answer, both of her arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets as someone yanked her from above, hoisting her from the ground. Johanna shrieked, and a dozen voices screamed her name from beneath her as a strange man thrust her onto his horse, into a sitting position before him. She tried in vain to turn and push him off the creature, but he bound her wrists in his stone-hard hands. She could only watch in horror as her abductors retreated, leaving her party in the dust behind them.
The ground sped beneath her, and Johanna stared at the passing landscape in disbelief. Had she not been an expectant mother, she would’ve thrown herself down. It was better to suffer a few bruises than whatever these men intended to do with her. Alas, if she dared to take a leap from the horse’s heights her child would surely not survive the impact from the fall. Not to mention, she’d be trampled by the oncoming stampede.
She placed a hand over her belly, wincing at the horse’s aggressive gallops. “Please hang on in there,” she whispered. “Don’t let all this tumult coax you out. You aren’t ready yet.” She raised her head, thinking, I’m not ready yet.
They hadn’t been riding for long when Johanna could make out stacks of smoke rising over the woods. The horses cantered while the riders spoke to one another in a tongue that resembled Ocanese, though Johanna recognized none of the words.
They wove between a thick brush. Johanna kept her head low. Tents smaller than the Oca had, looking rougher and not as maintained, were spread throughout the woods along a sluggish creek that ran through it. When at last they came in view of a fire with a mass of unfamiliar people grouped around it, the horses slowed.
Johanna’s captor dismounted in a single jump, then swept her down with him in powerful arms. She tried to catch the tribeswomen’s gazes, her eyes pleading for a fellow woman’s mercy, but they were busy listening to the men.
Holding tight to her arm, her captor practically dragged her over the leaf and twig-laden ground to a tattered fold of deerskin that had been erected into a tent. The heady aroma of unknown herbs blended into the scent of burning firewood, making Johanna sleepy. She wondered if she was going into shock.
Johanna was surprised to be greeted by an ancient-looking woman in the flap of her tent. The crone’s wrinkled mouth was set upside-down in a permanent frown. Two plaits hung from either side of her head, smoky white, the color of col on snow. Her eyes were milky, but she seemed able to see. She regarded Johanna, and it was hard to tell if she was scowling or if that was how she looked at everyone.
The other tribesmen dismounted and came up behind Johanna, addressing the old woman. The crone didn’t say a word, only scrutinized Johanna up and down, from her curls to her feet.
Johanna swallowed, all of a sudden no longer feeling so sleepy. She didn’t like the way they were sizing her up like an animal for slaughter. She gasped when the crone stuck her knotty fingers into her mouth, pulling up Johanna’s lip to examine her gums. The old woman then patted her breasts, weighing them in her aged hands as though they were melons at market. The men watched skeptically. Johanna averted her eyes, enduring the degradation.
The crone continued to pat her down, but stopped at Johanna’s belly. Her wispy eyebrows narrowed. For the first time, she spoke, her voice leathery and faint, like a crooning dove. She said something to Johanna, but Johanna could only stare.
Carefully, she took hold of Johanna’s hem and lifted the deerskin dress. The young woman sighed in resignation. Her prominent belly—and not to mention, her underthings—was on display for all to see. But the men didn’t react how men normally did at the sight of her unclad. Rather than looking hungry, they appeared as though they had collectively just lost their appetites.
The old woman pulled her dress back down, covering her, and pointed a finger at Johanna’s captors. Johanna didn’t have to understand the language to know she was scolding them. She indicated Johanna’s stomach again, her face darkening like a storm cloud. She then hobbled to a corner. A fan of white feathers lay over a worn blanket, and she lifted the contraption in her hand. She waved it, milky eyes cast upward.
Johanna hadn’t any idea what she was doing, but the men stood down, their faces penitent. The crone batted the feathers around them, stretching on her toes to reach their shoulders. In response, her captors kicked the dirt in a ritualistic manner and made a foreign sign with their hands.
The woman set the feathers down as the men shuffled off. She turned to Johanna, her expression grim. She bowed out her elbows as though holding a baby, and made a rocking motion. Johanna nodded. The crone bobbed her chin knowingly, and shooed her away from the tent.
The men were conversing in serious murmurs, the rest of the tribe straining to hear from the fireside. Johanna’s humiliation mingled with confusion. What were they so upset about? Surely these people had seen an expectant woman before?
“Johanna! Johanna?”
Her chin shot up at the sound of her name. She recognized the voices calling her, could hear the snorts of the Oca’s mare. “Yes, I’m here,” she cried.
She didn’t care that the strange men around her exchanged looks of dismay and retrieved their bows. They barked something to the women and children, who got up and retreated to their various shelters.
“Where?” came a woman’s voice.
“Follow the creek,” instructed Johanna.
Bram and Catja rode in on the mare. Johanna had never guessed the old creature capable of such speed. They brought her to a halt, steering her in a half-circle just as the enemy tribe encircled them with arrows positioned at their bows.
Catja raised both hands, speaking slowly in Ocanese. The man who’d abducted Johanna spoke harshly, and Catja shook her head, repeating herself. She and Bram descended cautiously, hands still raised. The enemy tribe did not lower their bows.
“Where is everyone else?” Johanna asked nervously.
Bram made a subtle movement with his chin over his shoulder. Johanna took that to mean they were coming.
Her captors spoke, pointing to Johanna, and Catja screwed up her brow. Johanna stilled as Catja gazed at her as though seeing her properly for the first time.
The professor opened her mouth to respond, but was drowned out by the sound of boots crunching over leaves. Johanna could have cried with relief to see her brothers, the Oca, and the guards again, each breathless as they raced into the camp. The enemy tribe aimed more arrows at them.
“What’s going on?” demanded Drew, not stopping. “What are they saying, Professor?”
Catja was still staring at Johanna, and Johanna wished she wouldn’t. “Er….” The professor fidgeted with the stems of her spectacles. “Well, the Køvi are attesting that the cost of trespassing on their territory is twenty seasons of slavery.”
Beside Ludwig, Kya’s eyes narrowed at the opposition. “Was not they territory,” she hissed. “Was Bonghee land.”
“They were going to take Johanna, but….” Catja’s words ebbed as Johanna shook her head pleadingly at her. Her brothers and everyone else were watching. Her chest tightened painfully over her ratcheting heart.
“But, ah,” Catja looked down, “they can’t accept her. She’s…well, it’s against their religion.”
“Then give her back,” snapped Drew to the Køvi.
Dag spoke to the tribesmen, but they shouted over him, beginning to argue.
“We trespass,” Zuri grumbled to his brother, looking grim. “Pine trees, Køvi land.”
“They say they want someone else in Johanna’s stead,” said Catja. One of the Køvi grunted at her, and her eyes widened. “Me?”
Johanna’s captor steered her back to Bram, plainly eager to be done with her. He placed her hand in the guard’s and hurried off, as if she were c
ursed. Meanwhile, three Køvi warriors captured a protesting Catja by the arms and patted her down to ensure the suitability of their replacement.
“No!” Drew bounded forth. “You can’t take her!”
All arrows were now collectively aimed at him. He shoved the nearest bow from his way. “Get that bloody thing out of my face,” he growled, leaving the weapon-holders looking stunned behind him.
“Andrew,” Dag warned him.
Drew disregarded him. “Take me instead,” he said to the Køvi.
“What?” demanded Catja. Even in captivity, she managed to look severe.
“Tell them,” Drew ordered her.
Her eyes didn’t leave his. “No.”
Johanna wondered if her brother was bluffing, if it was all some sort of ploy. But when he turned to Dag, she had never seen him look more earnest. “Dag, tell them to take me instead.”
“B-but,” sputtered Ludwig, “it’s f-f-five years!”
“I know how long twenty seasons is, Vigo.” Drew frowned, and nodded at Dag.
The chief’s son hesitated, then spoke to the Køvi. The opposition exchanged glances, shrugging and nodding, and then released Catja. Johanna couldn’t believe what she was witnessing as Drew held out his arms willingly, allowing them to lead him by the wrists into their camp. It was all Bram could do to restrain her by the shoulders, preventing her from launching after her brother.
“Andrew,” she cried.
“Please don’t do this,” Catja begged him, even as Dag held her back. “If you think you can escape, you can’t! The Køvi’s darts are poisoned. If you try to run, a single shot could leave you paralyzed forever!”
Drew looked resigned, but somehow not upset. “Don’t you worry about me.” He tried to grin.
Catja was beginning to sound hysterical. “How can I not worry about you? I—!” She stopped mid-sentence, gaping after him as the Køvi pulled him away.
“You what?” Drew called over his shoulder, struggling to keep his eyes on her. The Køvi pushed him gruffly along. “You what, Cat?”
The Jordinian guards were readying their swords, their jaws set. But the Oca stayed their arms, shaking their heads.
“Not time yet,” said Zuri in his emotionless voice. “We outnumbered.”
“We’ll get you out of here, brother,” Ludwig bellowed after him. “We will!”
They kept out of the Køvi’s territory, but not far. Around their small fire, they spoke for hours, strategizing how best to rescue his brother. Ludwig mostly listened, relying on Dag and Zuri for translation. When they offered him dinner, he waved it away. There was no way he could eat. Not when his brother had been willingly captured.
He noticed Catja refused her dinner as well. She hadn’t spoken to anyone all evening, which was, to say the least, unusual for her. For the last hour, she’d been sitting cross-legged in the grass, chin in hand, staring blankly into the fire. Ludwig had thought she despised his brother, yet she seemed to be taking Drew’s enslavement harder than anyone else. He wondered whether it was guilt, or something more.
Eating beside him, Kya offered Ludwig one of the Bonghee’s baskets. He shook his head. She licked berry juice from her fingers, her face sympathetic. “Get him back,” she nodded encouragingly, “will we.”
Ludwig exhaled, bringing his arm around her. He kissed the top of her head. “Ca vis ma-jungo, Kya.”
“I lahf you, too.”
“Ludwig,” Dag addressed him. “Junha and Zuri ride back to Oca. Tell my father. Us,” he circled the fire with his arm, indicating the rest of the group, “return to Bonghee. Ask help.”
Ludwig massaged his brow. “Oh, no. We are going to start a war.”
“Innocent man,” Dag told him, “worth fighting for.”
Early summer had arrived, and that evening was the warmest yet. When their companions retired to the tent, Ludwig and Kya retreated toward the woods, hand in hand. The only shelter they wanted over their heads were the treetops and stars.
They found a private bower on a patch of grass and settled in, using his tunic for a blanket. His wife rested her head on his chest and flicked a tiny hinga away. Strange sounds filled the air. Ludwig didn’t know if they were coming from insects or nocturnal birds, or perhaps one of the many amphibious species that populated the island in late spring.
“Kya?”
She nestled against him by way of response.
“Why was it against the Køvi’s religion to take Johanna?”
Her eyes were shut, her face the perfect picture of serenity as she replied in Ocanese, “Because she is pregnant.”
Ludwig sat up, and his wife’s eyes blinked open. “Where are you going?” she asked him.
He was scrambling to his feet. “I must speak with her,” he responded in her language.
“Lie back down.” Gently, yet forcibly, Kya placed her hands on his shoulders and pressed his back to the grass. “It’s late, and your sister needs her rest.”
“How do you know she’s pregnant?”
“I suspected it, back at the village. That’s why we gave her the maternity dress. And I felt her stomach when she rode behind me.”
“Kya.” He met her eyes sternly. “This is a big matter. Why did you not tell me?”
“She doesn’t want you to know, obviously.” She climbed over him, fondling his chest as she straddled him. “Don’t worry. She’ll tell you when she’s ready.” She smoothed back his hair, and in spite of himself, his muscles loosened. “Maybe you should try to make me pregnant,” she grinned.
The guards’ soft, uneven snores rose and fell. Catja lay awake, staring at the canvas ceiling. The girl beside her was silently still, causing Catja to suspect she wasn’t able to sleep either.
“Johanna?” she whispered.
The blankets rustled. “Yes?”
Catja listened to ensure the rest of the tent was really asleep. “This whole time, you’ve been…?” She didn’t want to say it aloud.
“Yes.”
“How much longer do you have?”
She took a deep breath through her nose. “Less than three moons.”
Catja couldn’t believe she’d missed it. It explained a lot—the way the young woman often removed herself from the others, covered herself even on warmer days, insisted upon bathing alone…. Catja had simply assumed she was attempting to maintain the modesty to which she was accustomed in her homeland.
“Is this why you left home?” Catja asked quietly. She’d wondered why such a refined lady had volunteered for an expedition in the first place. “Because you didn’t want anyone to find out?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Well, we’ll get you back to the Oca,” Catja assured her. “The women will take good care of you. I’ve helped them deliver many babies.”
“That’s a comfort,” replied Johanna, though the vulnerability in her voice was unsettling. “But honestly, I don’t know what to do with the child once it’s here. Nobody knows except you and Bram, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“What about the father?” Catja was concerned. “Is he here with us?”
“No. He’s…not exactly father material.”
Catja didn’t know how to respond to that. For a time, they didn’t speak. She was beginning to wonder whether the girl hadn’t drifted to sleep when her blankets rustled the canvas again. “Professor?”
Catja’s eyes found her face in the darkness.
“My brother likes you.”
A long pause stretched between them before Catja finally answered, “I know.”
The first rule of Køvi slavery, apparently, was silence. Drew learned that the hard way on his first day of enslavement. When he tried his best to communicate, mimicking some Ocanese words he thought he knew, he was met with a ruthless blow to the mouth. Later, he tried once more to speak, bu
t was struck again.
Cosh. Silence. He’d learned that command pretty quickly.
They took his leather boots, and laughed at him because he possessed no furs but the slip of animal pelt with which the Oca boy had first welcomed him to the island. They took even that, but let him keep his own clothing. He supposed they didn’t plan on sharing their furs, come the colder northern seasons.
He had volunteered for this fate, knowing it wouldn’t be pretty, but some of it surpassed even his imagination. The Køvi had barely acquired him that day when they put him to hard labor. His first task? It was best left undescribed, but, in short, involved a crude shovel and a pit in the ground that was quite popular among the villagers several times a day. His job was to cover it with dirt and dig a new one near it.
There was really no telling which was worse: the stench, the maggots, or his intermittent vomiting. But at least by evening, when he’d finished, he wasn’t hungry. Which was a boon, considering they wouldn’t feed him a meal of his own, anyway. He was relegated to the leftover dregs in everyone else’s used bowls. He spent his first night on hard ground in a tent of strangers, whom he would have had to step over if he wanted to try to escape. Apprehension to repose among these men, who could conceivably harm him however they wished, kept him awake until, inevitably, the following dawn found him hardly rested.
Perfect. Only one thousand, eight hundred twenty-four nights to go.
He intended to keep track of the days; truly, he did. But it was proving too difficult during the laborious days that followed to find the capacity for much else between endless hours of skinning rabbits till his fingers bled, fetching water, gutting elk with his bare hands, and shucking maize. Not particularly in that order.
Perhaps these were valuable survival skills, but it felt like the most prominent skill he was acquiring was how to breathe through his mouth instead of his nose to avoid the stench and stave his retching. With dark satisfaction, the Køvi seemed to relish in piling up more work for him, right when he’d begun to think his load had been lessening.
