by Robin Hardy
“We can’t, my son. We haven’t a prayer of finding her in this torrent—and night comes early these days. We’ve no choice but to wait until morning to search. But then I will call together every available man—”
“Morning could be too late! Have you forgotten she’s near her time?” Roman cried.
“No, I haven’t forgotten! I’m not yet feeble-minded, Roman!” Galapos said with a trace of sarcasm. “Look outside! What do you see? Are you such a superb hunter that you can track her in the storm and the darkness?” He cut himself short and there was a heavy silence.
“No.” Roman’s voice cracked.
“We must leave her in God’s hands tonight,” Galapos said gently. “We’ll set out to search at dawn.”
Dinner that night was a useless affair. Roman did not even appear at the table, nor did Galapos send for him. Had it stopped raining at any point, even at night, they could have ridden out and searched with torches. But the storm continued unabated for hours. The crackling tension in the atmosphere outside came through the stone walls and filled every corner as hushed soldiers discreetly avoided their Commander. He strode past them through corridors on minute errands to distant storerooms, where, upon arriving, he could not remember what he had come for.
When he wearied of that, he retired to the chambers he shared with Deirdre. Unable to look for long at her things, he opened the shutters to let the rain sprinkle in. The prayers he sent up did not even seem to penetrate the dark clouds, so he paced and watched the rain.
Strange, how the fury of the storm was so calming—almost hypnotic to someone watching from the safety of a stone palace. There seemed to be a voice whispering that the God who created storms could also control them. See how the fierce wind flung each drop in rhythm with myriads more, creating a wild, cascading dance. But . . . was she watching from as secure a shelter?
He spent the night at the window gazing at the rain.
With sunrise came the birth of a new earth, fresh and wet and cleansed by the torrents. The sky had cleared, but droplets still hung from leaves and grass, shimmering in the early golden light.
Roman and Galapos nodded to each other with heavy eyes as they gathered a score of men in the courtyard. They rode to the far side of the lake, as far as Roman had been able to follow the prints. From there, they separated into groups of five. Cutting through the forest, searching and calling, they spread out again and again until each man searched alone.
As Roman rode deeper into the hill country, a new fear chewed at his frayed nerves. There were wild animals in this area—large cats and wolves. Dogged by thoughts of disaster, he instinctively prayed, and when he could not pray any more, his soul sat silently in the presence of the Almighty. His eyes glazed over with weariness, and he simply rode where the horse took him.
Then he heard a rustle in a nearby grove. Suddenly aware that he had been riding silently for some minutes, he slid from the saddle and ran forward, wishing fervently to find her there. But on the edge of the grove he came face to face with Nanna, carrying something all wrapped up. They stared at each other in dumb astonishment for seconds, then Nanna’s burden squirmed and fussed. The realization of what she carried almost stopped his heart.
He clenched his fists. “Give me that child.”
Nanna’s face drained to a deathly white, but she vowed, “No. Never.”
Finesse never entered his mind. He reached out to seize her, but she screamed and dropped the bundle. Roman fell to his knees and deftly caught it while Nanna fled into the woods. He gave a piercing whistle, and soon his fellow searchers came at a run on horseback.
“Deirdre’s nursemaid!” Roman gasped. “She escaped—there—after her! Go!” They galloped heatedly in the direction he pointed.
Then cautiously, breathlessly, he pulled back the little blanket to look down on his child. It was so tiny and red, with thick dark hair and eyes shut fast. It was a boy. Roman, still on his knees, rocked the baby and wept. Where was Deirdre?
Behind him, Galapos quietly gave orders for the baby to be taken to the palace. Roman held him stubbornly at first, then gave him up into the arms of the gentlest soldier with them, who rode away with him at a walk.
Galapos put his hand on Roman’s shoulder and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the silent return of the soldiers who had ridden in pursuit of Nanna. “Well?” demanded Galapos. “You couldn’t have lost her!”
Reluctantly, a man in front said, “No, Surchatain. We didn’t lose her. We found her—body.”
“Her body?” Roman sank back to his knees in dismay.
“Yes, Commander. She was mauled to death—torn to pieces not a hundred yards from here.”
“How could that be?” Roman choked. “I never heard a sound.” The soldiers stood in uneasy silence.
Galapos pulled Roman to his feet, ordering, “We’ll start a new search from this point. Men, gather here and fan outward toward the hills. She must be around close by. Watch particularly for hidden shelters and unnatural brush. And don’t waste your wind calling—she’s probably unable to hear us, or unable to come if she can hear. But we’ll find her. Roman?”
The Commander nodded and straightened his belt. The men moved out precisely as instructed.
Twenty feet from where they had stood was the opening of the cave in which Deirdre soundly slept.
Presently, a man entered the cave stealthily and knelt beside the sleeping girl. He shook her. She awoke—somewhat—with a groan. Disoriented, she glanced from sconces to ceiling to the man’s face, trying to find herself.
“Can you walk?” he whispered, tying her hands. Seeing the pearls in her hair, he studiously unwound them and stuffed them into his shirt.
She startled and twisted around. “My baby—where is the baby?”
“You be quiet or I’ll have to gag you,” he warned. Deirdre gazed at him. Lifting her, he grunted, “Soldiers everywhere . . . almost got caught. . . .” He carried her out of the cave and through the forest cautiously, pausing often to glance around and listen.
He seemed so tentative, she quickly collected her wits to demand, “Where are you taking me? To that witch? Does she have my baby?”
He hissed, “Shh!” She recoiled at his breath but let him carry her quietly, too weak to struggle. She glanced down at his frayed breeches contemptuously. It would be quite satisfactory to see what Roman did to him when he caught him—as surely he would.
Soon, they came upon a muddy road where he placed her in a waiting cart. He tied her hands to an iron ring, then climbed up in front and clucked to the bony horse, slapping the reins. The cart lurched forward and Deirdre screamed, “Where are you taking me?” He turned abruptly and made as if to slap her. Cringing back, she tried a new tack: “My father is the Surchatain. He’ll reward you well for my safe return to the palace!”
He glanced back at her in amusement, slapping the horse to pull out of the mud. Silenced by his manner and the noise of the cart, she rode warily, biding her time, until finally he slowed. Then she insisted, “State your price. He will pay it!”
“Beg pardon, lady,” he said sarcastically, “but I’m about to be paid.” She then saw a dark figure on horseback waiting in the shadows of the trees ahead. A renegade soldier.
Deirdre’s captor halted the cart in the road twenty paces away, but the renegade only lifted his chin. After some uncertainty, the driver prompted his skinny horse to the shelter of the trees.
The renegade then got down from his horse and walked over to scrutinize Deirdre. She shrank back at the smell of him—were Roman and Galapos the only men who ever bothered to bathe?
He grunted, “Twenty royals and five pieces.”
Her driver huffed, “That’s a crock! I could get thirty royals for her from the first man I met in Corona!”
“Twenty and fifteen,” offered the renegade.
“Twenty and forty,” countered the driver.
“Twenty and twenty. That’s all I’ll put out for such
risky business,” the renegade grunted.
“Twenty and twenty, then,” sighed the driver. He waited with the look of a man who had been cheated out of a fortune while the other counted out his money. Then he loosened Deirdre’s hands from the iron ring and turned her over to the soldier, who retied her hands with a length of rope to his saddle. He mounted wordlessly and kicked his horse, leaving Deirdre to stumble along in shock behind him.
“Please, please,” she began, “I’ve just had a baby . . . please at least let me ride.” He did not so much as shift to look back at her.
As Deirdre half walked, half trotted behind her new captor, blackness kept crossing her vision and her knees kept giving way. Feeling that sickly cold twinge that precedes a faint, she fought to retain consciousness lest she be dragged.
Dimly remembering how Roman was delivered from Tremaine through prayer, she prayed urgently for deliverance herself: God, help me! Gradually, her sight cleared and she walked steadily, watching intently for some sign of a rescue in answer to her prayer.
She walked for hours staring at the flanks of that horse. Her lightly shod feet and the bottom third of her dress became blackened from her stumbling through muddy ruts in the road. “I’m thirsty,” she said at length. The renegade did not slow. “I’m thirsty!” she shouted desperately. “How much will you get for me if you walk me to death?”
He cast a backward glance at her and grudgingly stopped. Then he extended a small flask toward her. She grabbed it and uncorked it, swilling the cheap wine. He jerked it away before she could drink it all.
While he allowed her to rest, she calmly considered what to do. Sitting straight in the saddle, he had the look of a fallen officer—one who had honor, at one time, before something or someone had taken it away. Perhaps she could appeal to that lost honor. “Do you know who I am?” she ventured. “I am the daughter of Surchatain Galapos.”
“So?” he growled.
He seemed not to doubt her; it simply meant nothing to him. She floundered, “Well—if you return me at once—”
“Return you?” he laughed, rasping. “So he can flay me alive? Nit!” He kicked in his heels, jerking her forward for another march.
She began walking with thoughts of escape—getting the rope off, running into the surrounding forest to hide—but for all she twisted her hands, the rope would not come loose. She worked her wrists until the rope rubbed her skin raw, but it still held fast. The other end was unreachable, tied to his saddle. Perhaps she could get help from some brave soul they met—she kept her face up for the longest time, watching, but this poor, narrow road was seldom traveled. They met up with no one, and she could think of no other way to escape.
As she walked, thinking became so hard that she gradually gave it up. Roman and Galapos became shades of an age long passed. The tiny baby boy she had glimpsed was a dream. There was no reality now but the sweaty horse before her, the rutted road beneath her, and the sun climbing to its height in the sky. She lost her slippers but stumbled on blankly, kicking her skirts out from between her legs. She did not know how she continued to move one foot in front of the other, ignoring her hunger and pain.
Hours had lapsed when Deirdre raised her head briefly to see a signpost which announced they were nearing Bresen. Bresen . . . a trade city in Goerge. When had they crossed the border? Many of the fine woolens she had bought at the Fair had come from Bresen.
Her attention revived as they began to pass huts and cultivated fields. Surely someone would see her and help her! Her heart jumped when she spotted a peasant farmer driving an empty cart toward them. As he drew closer, she stared at him with intense, pleading eyes, but he ran his cart off the road rather than crowd the soldier, and never looked directly at him or her.
As they passed more people, Deirdre began to notice a pattern in their discreet avoidance of the soldier. They made way for him on the road, running their own animals off the shoulder if necessary, but they never risked looking at him face on. And they gave her no more notice than if she were a natural appendage of the horse.
Soon, soldier and captive entered the entrails of the city. To Deirdre, it looked no different than Corona—dirty and crowded. Abruptly, the renegade turned off the road to a large tent. He untied the rope from his saddle and led her inside.
The stale, rank air within the tent made her stomach churn. Or was it the sight that sickened her?—rows of people chained to posts while buyers strolled up and down the aisles, surveying the merchandise.
A trader was saying to the soldier, “She looks pale. You sure she’s healthy?”
“Sure, sure. She just birthed,” he grunted.
“You say? You have the baby?” the merchant asked eagerly.
“No, but she’s good for more.”
The merchant looked her over closer while she glared at him. “Good hair,” he muttered, then forced open her mouth to look at her teeth. “Yeah, good teeth. So what do you want for her?” he asked. Deirdre drew back, stinging with humiliation.
“Forty royals,” stated the renegade, adding, “I paid thirty-five for her.”
“I wouldn’t give forty royals for my own mother!” spat the merchant. “Give you thirty-seven and twenty pieces.”
“Thirty-eight and twenty.”
“Thirty-eight. That’s all I’ll offer,” declared the merchant.
“Taken.” So the trader counted out the money to the soldier and untied the rope from Deirdre’s hands. She sighed, touching her chafed wrists. But immediately he put chains on her wrists and fastened them to a post near the front.
“Please,” she grabbed at him as he turned away. “I’m so hungry—I haven’t eaten all day. And thirsty—!”
He grunted and left, but returned shortly with a plate of corn meal and a cup of warm water. “Where is the spoon?” she asked.
He contorted his face in derisive mirth, then spotted a potential buyer too freely handling nearby merchandise. “Hey, you! Hands off!”
Deirdre was left to eat the corn meal with her dirty fingers. She choked it down as best she could, pausing to dig out a dead beetle. But when some meal remained that she could not pick up with her fingers, she was reduced to licking the metal pan. Tears ran down her face into the meal.
When the trader returned for the pan, she pleaded, “I need to bathe.”
“Look, girl, who do you think you are? The Surchataine?” he asked impatiently. Then he assumed a tone of mock obeisance. “Forgive me, Lady, but we have no bath house. We can strip you and splash you down with buckets, if it please you.”
“No!” she cringed, holding on to the post.
“Then bottle up your whining!” he roared in her face.
Deirdre gritted her teeth to stanch the tears. As the chains allowed her just to sit, she did, looking timidly around. All she could see were slaves, chained to posts as she was. They were mostly young peasants, men and women, but there were some children, too—at the sight of them, Deirdre felt a sharp pang. “Lord, how can you allow this?” she moaned. “If You won’t save me, save the children, at least!”
Beaten down with exhaustion and despair, she held her head and wept. One or two blank faces turned her way, but they turned away again. They had too much pain of their own to concern themselves with her sorrow.
Soon she became aware that someone was staring at her. She raised her face to look into the greedy eyes of an oily-faced man. “Give you sixty for that one!” he offered the trader. Deirdre eyed him in disgust. It was apparent from the ragged state of his clothes that he did not have six royals to his name, much less sixty.
“Go away,” motioned the trader impatiently.
“Say, who is she?” pressed the oily man. “Look at her clothes!” He gestured at her embroidered velvets. “Is she royalty?”
“Of course,” the trader replied with a haughty sneer. “We have nothing but the best here.”
“Give you sixty-five!” The would-be buyer reached out for her and Deirdre fell away from him, straining the cha
in.
“Get out!” The trader drew out a short leather crop and whipped his hands fiercely. With a yelp, he backed stumbling from the tent.
Deirdre sat on the dirt floor with her eyes squeezed shut, shaking. That buyer could not afford her, but the next one might, and who could say what kind of person it would be?
In a moment she stilled, as someone else had stepped in front of her. She kept her eyes shut tight for fear of what she might see. Her curiosity proved dauntless, however, and warily she opened her eyes.
Before her stood a neat, clean-shaven palace official who wore the crest of the late Surchatain of Goerge, Savin. This buyer was a rather handsome man with a princely bearing. “How much?” he asked the merchant.
“As you can see, this is no mere peasant we have here,” the trader began. “It is rumored that she is a niece of the deceased Tremaine—”
“How much?” interrupted the official.
“One hundred royals.”
“I will give you eighty.”
“I can’t possibly sell her for less than ninety,” swore the merchant. “The babe she just birthed sold for fifty-five!”
“Eighty-five.”
“Eighty-seven, and she goes with you.” The merchant was paid out of a palace purse, and Deirdre changed hands again. The official led her out at arm’s length to the back door of an inn, where he called the matron and gave her a few coins.
“Have her washed up and fed,” he instructed, “and lodge her overnight—where, I don’t care. But we leave tomorrow morning, and if she’s not here, you will go in her place.”
“No need for concern, Lord Troyce,” the matron assured him hastily. “She’ll be ready for you. Come here, dearie—” She closed a fat hand around Deirdre’s upper arm. “Let me get you cared for.”
The official departed as the matron steered Deirdre toward a back room. There, a wash basin sat filled and waiting. Deirdre gratefully undressed and bathed herself while the matron stood by, scraping dried mud and dirt from Deirdre’s clothes. She held up the velvets in reserved admiration, glancing curiously at the girl washing blood from her legs.
