Escape from Cabriz

by Linda Lael Miller

  The reply was another shake of the head. “I offered him everything from money to a boxcar load of Hershey bars. Not unlike the rest of us, he prefers to keep his hide.”

  There wasn’t much to say after that. Kristin didn’t have the courage to ask Zachary if he still loved her; she was too afraid he’d say no.

  After an hour, Kristin was given another cupful of the mysterious herbal tea that had taken away the pain and swelling in her knee. She slept soundly, dreamlessly, until she was roughly awakened.

  Someone shook her, spoke to her sharply and wrenched her to her feet before she’d even managed to open her eyes.

  She recognized Jascha’s favorite lieutenant, a solidly built man called Quang. His face was twisted with cruel satisfaction as he spat an insulting Cabrizian word.

  “You’ll forgive me, princess,” Zachary stated as two of Jascha’s soldiers hoisted him to his feet, “if I don’t defend your honor.”

  “Kindly keep your smart remarks to yourself,” Kristin told him, rubbing the wrist of the hand that had been cuffed to the ring throughout the night.

  Quang interrupted the process to manacle her to his own wrist and stride out the door. Zachary, still hobbled and bound, was dragged behind.

  The sun was rising, and birds chirped in the trees.

  During the ride into Kiri—more Jeeps—Kristin was at least allowed to sit in the front seat with the driver, instead of lying in back on the floor. Her fear increased with every passing mile, and when the palace came into sight she thought her heart would stop beating.

  Cruelly, on the way the little procession passed the compound that had once housed the American embassy. The unexpected reminder of long-ago, carefree times nearly brought tears to Kristin’s eyes.

  Just as they approached the palace, and the towering iron gates swept inward to admit them, a roar filled the sky and the treetops swayed as if caught in a gale. Kristin looked up to see a helicopter hovering over the courtyard.

  Jascha.

  Kristin suppressed a shudder and lifted her chin a little higher. No matter what happened, she would maintain her dignity.

  The Jeep screeched to a stop on the cobblestones in front of a side door. Quang got out of the Jeep, forcing Kristin to climb between the steering wheel and the seat to follow, since she was handcuffed to him.

  Inside the palace, in a cool, shadowy entryway, Quang unlocked the cuffs and released Kristin into the custody of Mai and a half-dozen women in robes and veils.

  Color climbed her cheeks as they took her arms; these were Jascha’s wives—the women who had drugged her the night of the escape with Zachary.

  Kristin was filled with fear. She turned wildly in an effort to find Zachary.

  His hazel eyes were calm, if weary, as he looked back at her. And his solemn expression reminded her to keep her composure at all costs.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Kristin absorbed the courage he lent her and allowed herself to be taken away.

  The wives led her upstairs, into Jascha’s private living quarters, where they clucked and fussed over her as though she were a naughty child caught playing in a mud puddle in her Sunday dress.

  Kristin tried to shift her mind to another place, a secret hideaway in the center of her soul, and made no protest as the women removed her clothes.

  A bath filled with hot, scented water was waiting. Under any other circumstances, it would have been pure luxury. Knowing what could lie ahead, it was an ordeal instead.

  Kristin was bathed—the women allowed her to shave her own legs and underarms, at least—and her hair was shampooed. The tub was drained and then filled again, and she lay in the fresh water still concentrating on nothing. She couldn’t afford to think or feel.

  There was a clapping sound, a muttered order, and the wives disappeared like a flock of colorful birds.

  Kristin held her breath as Jascha walked into the bathroom.

  He wore a tailored navy blue suit with a striped shirt and a smart tie, and his dark hair was expertly cut. He might have been a successful businessman, rather than the future head of the faltering Cabrizian government. Certainly no one expected Jascha’s father to return from exile and rule again.

  “Hello, Kristin,” the prince said, coming to sit on the wide edge of the enormous marble tub.

  His brown eyes moved over her naked body, which was only veiled by the water of her bath, not hidden.

  She swallowed. Here was her chance. She could tell Jascha that Zachary had taken her away by force and, perhaps, save herself from the prince’s vengeance….

  “What happened?” Jascha asked reasonably, reaching for one of the enormous white towels Kristin had found so to her liking when she’d first arrived at the palace.

  She took the towel and got shakily to her feet, hiding behind the terry cloth as best she could. “I told you before,” she said evenly. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to be your wife.”

  Jascha’s eyes were hot as he watched her cover herself, even though his manner was still strangely placid. “You love this Zachary Harmon, then—the American who took you away?”

  Kristin hesitated. To say she loved Zachary, even though it was the truest thing about her, would only intensify Jascha’s yen for revenge. “No,” she said. “I only used him. There is a man at home.”

  “You lie,” Jascha accused, and Kristin could see that he was seething. Any moment now he would erupt.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked with a tranquillity that surprised even her.

  A bitter smile curved Jascha’s sculptured lips, and it occurred to Kristin that the situation in his country might have driven the prince a little mad. She had never seen that particular expression on his face before, in all the years she’d known him.

  “Jascha?” she prompted, standing on the other side of the vast marble tub, one hand holding the towel tight.

  “You will be punished,” he said with a sort of pleasant resignation. “And then you will be my wife, as we planned.”

  Kristin trembled with the effort to raise her next question nonchalantly. “And Zachary?”

  Jascha smiled again, as though he anticipated some festival or longed-for gift. “He will die. That, my pretty bride, will be the fate of all your lovers, so I would advise you not to take more.”

  For a moment, the air around Kristin seemed as heavy and dense as water. There was a queer buzzing in her ears, and she thought she would faint. She swayed, caught herself. “You mustn’t do this, Jascha. It’s murder. Give me whatever punishment you wish, but don’t kill Zachary. Please don’t kill him.”

  “So,” Jascha said, and his smile turned sad, philosophical. “You would beg for him. And yet you say you do not love this man.”

  Kristin drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I would beg for anyone, Jascha. It isn’t right, taking an innocent life—”

  “Innocent?” Jascha gave a bitter chuckle after uttering the word. “Do not think me a fool, Kristin. I felt the fire burning between you and Harmon. I heard your cries in the night as he made love to you.”

  The color drained from Kristin’s face, and Jascha laughed at her shock.

  “So it’s true,” Jascha said with a sort of wounded mockery. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “You grieve me, Kristin. I trusted you. I believed you when you said you loved me.”

  Kristin edged closer to the wall, more afraid and more vulnerable than she’d ever been in her life. “I believed it, too, Jascha—when I said it.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I want to go home.”

  “This,” Jascha said, with aggrieved patience, “is your home.” He cocked his thumb toward the sumptuous quarters beyond the bathroom archway. “And that is your bed. You will lie in it whenever I summon you, and you will be a loving wife.”

  Kristin’s hand tightened on the towel, and she tried to sink into the wall behind her.

  “Remove that,” Jascha ordered, gesturing toward the towel.

  K
ristin swallowed hard. “Jascha, please…”

  “Remove the towel!” he shouted.

  Closing her eyes tightly, Kristin forced her fingers to release the fold of terry cloth she held, and she felt cold air touch her flesh as she let it fall.

  She sensed Jascha’s approach, used all the strength at her command to keep from screaming. His gaze seemed to burn into her skin.

  And then his finger curved under her chin. “Open your eyes, Kristin,” he said with a deceptive softness.

  She obeyed, having no other choice, and her soul went cold at the fury she saw in his face.

  “You are very beautiful,” he told her, “for a whore.”

  Kristin stood still, waiting, knowing she had no option but to endure.

  Jascha reached down, picked up the towel and draped it almost gently around her. “You will be taken to the room you occupied before,” he said. “Dress as you please, but wait there until I send someone for you.”

  Too grateful for a reprieve, however temporary, to argue, Kristin nodded and proceeded into the bedroom beyond. A blue silk robe had been laid out for her, and she put it on, letting the towel fall away beneath as she closed it, never once meeting Jascha’s gaze.

  When she bent to pick up the discarded towel, he stopped her. “Leave it,” he said, and she did.

  He escorted her down the hall to the guest room where she had stayed until the day of her escape with Zachary, and even opened the door for her.

  Mai was waiting inside. She’d brought a tray containing hot tea in a delicate porcelain pot, the sugary little cakes Kristin loved and a bowl of fresh fruit.

  Jascha went out without a word to either Kristin or Mai.

  Kristin ate hungrily, then fondly touched her camera, her journal, the clothes that filled the drawers and the closet. As terrible as her situation was, there was some comfort in having her own things around her again.

  When Mai had taken the tray away—and locked the door behind her—Kristin took off the robe and put on clean underwear, a pair of trim gray slacks and a silk shirt in dark blue. Then she sprayed herself with her favorite cologne, brushed her hair and wound it into a French braid, and put on makeup.

  After that she paced, waiting, feeling as Anne Boleyn must have felt locked away in the Tower. One hour passed, and then another, and no one came for her.

  She got out her journal and wrote, her pen flying rapidly over the pages as she put down memory after memory of her flight with Zachary. And only after the condensed account was completed did she realize that committing what had happened to black and white was probably not the smartest thing she’d ever done.

  Anxiously, Kristin searched the room for a place to hide the leather-bound book, but there was none where it would really be safe. She glanced at the hearth and considered burning the volume, but everything within her resisted that. She was a writer, and those pages contained firsthand accounts of her experiences.

  Finally, she tucked the journal into a flap in her camera case. That would have to do until she could think of something better.

  Kristin began to pace again, but odd noises in the courtyard drew her to the window. She looked out to see a handful of Jascha’s soldiers erecting a large wooden pole, and a chill went through her as she watched them hoist it into place.

  The sound of a key turning in the lock drew her attention, however, and she turned her back on the strange pillar. The possibility that Jascha had sent for her, or come in person, took precedence over all other concerns.

  But it was Mai who entered, moving silently in her gossamer blue gown, her face hidden behind the veil.

  “Yes?” Kristin couldn’t bear the quiet; if she was being summoned to Jascha, she wanted to know it. “Has the prince asked for me?”

  Mai looked at Kristin with exotic, unreadable eyes. “No,” she said. “He will not send for you tonight.”

  Kristin felt hope leap within her. “He won’t? Why not?”

  The woman glanced away. “He is going.”

  “Going? Where?”

  Mai shook her head, and even as she made the motion, the great blades of the helicopter filled the air with noise. Kristin rushed to the window and saw Jascha getting into the cockpit, along with a woman dressed in a flowing green gown.

  “That woman,” Kristin said, staring out the window. “She’s one of Jascha’s wives?”

  “Yes,” Mai answered softly.

  “And you?”

  “I am also his wife.”

  Because Mai had attended her since her arrival in Cabriz, Kristin had assumed the woman was a servant. She watched thoughtfully as the helicopter rose into the air and then swung off sideways toward the horizon. Then she turned to look at Mai. “Surely you don’t want your husband to have me for a bride, in addition to the others.”

  Mai simply looked at the floor. It would not be proper for her to express such an opinion.

  Impulsively, Kristin grasped Mai’s hands in hers and squeezed them. “Please—you must help me. I’ve got to find my friend, Mr. Harmon, and leave here before Jascha comes back.”

  Mai lifted her eyes to meet Kristin’s, and they were filled with dread. “No! There is no escaping—not for you or for your Mr. Harmon. There is no way I can help you!”

  “You must know where they’re holding Zachary.”

  The woman shook her head. “You cannot help him. He will die when Jascha returns, and you will be punished for your treachery.”

  Kristin raised a hand to her temple, then lowered it again. There was no sense in arguing with Mai; she would never be able to change her mind. She went back to the window. “That big pole out there—what is it for?”

  Mai was silent so long that Kristin finally turned to stare at her.

  “Mai?”

  “I do not know,” said Jascha’s wife, so quickly and so fiercely that Kristin knew she was lying.

  “Tell me!”

  But Mai was in retreat. She opened the door, hurried out and turned the key in the lock.

  Kristin looked at the pillar again, shivered, and pulled the thin curtains closed over the window.

  The room was full of books—Jascha had been so eager to please her when she first returned to Cabriz—and Kristin needed refuge desperately. She went to the shelves, found a volume of Walt Whitman’s poetry and stretched out on her bed to read.

  At first her worries made it difficult to concentrate, but she persisted, and finally the beautiful words reached out to enfold and shelter her. They carried her far away from Cabriz, and Jascha, and all the problems she couldn’t solve.

  Mai did not deliver Kristin’s dinner that night. It was brought instead by one of the other wives, a younger woman wearing a pink robe.

  “What’s your name?” Kristin asked quickly when the girl would have hurried out.

  “Tala,” a soft voice answered from behind the ever-present veil.

  Kristin had no doubt that she too would be forced to cover her face and most of her body once she was officially Jascha’s wife.

  “What do you think of my marrying the prince?” Kristin asked casually, watching the lovely eyes closely as she spoke. She was, at the same time, pouring tea into a cup.

  Tala’s eyes flashed fire for a moment. “You will wear white,” she said, and the statement sounded like an accusation. Kristin couldn’t remember whether white symbolized virginity in Cabriz, the way it did in the Western world. In the East it was the color of mourning.

  “I would leave—and not marry Jascha—if you would help me.”

  “Leave?” Tala failed to keep a note of hope from sounding in that one word.

  “If you would just do two things—forget the key to this room when you go out, and tell me where to find Mr. Harmon—”

  Tala’s eyes grew wide and she retreated a step, shaking her head. “Jascha would be angry.”

  Kristin took her hand and dragged her forcibly to the window, where she pushed aside the curtain. “That pole out there—what is it for?”

&nb
sp; Tala looked at her fearfully. “It is a whipping post,” she answered. And then she pulled free of Kristin’s grasp and rushed out of the room.

  9

  A whipping post.

  Kristin’s fingers turned white, so tight was her grasp on the window ledge. Horrible images, splashed with crimson, flipped through her mind.

  After several minutes, using every ounce of resolution she possessed, Kristin came away from the window and went to the mirror over the vanity table. She was trembling visibly, her eyes were enormous and there was no color at all in her face.

  She began to pace, unable to bear standing still, but the harrowing pictures would not leave her mind. Jascha had deliberately ordered the pillar set up in that part of the courtyard so that she would be aware of its presence at every moment. Which meant Zachary was probably being held somewhere on that same side of the palace, too.

  Knowing the fate that awaited them was a form of torture in its own right, and Kristin felt sure Jascha would withhold their punishment until their nerves were shattered by waiting.

  Helpless rage surged up into her throat like hot acid. “You bastard,” she gasped. Turning back to the vanity table, she picked up the photograph Jascha had given her along with a bevy of other engagement presents, and flung it across the room.

  It struck the mantel, and the glass in the frame shattered violently, giving Kristin keen, if temporary, satisfaction.

  Zachary hadn’t been surprised to find out the palace had a dungeon; he would have bet on it. The bars on his small, dank cell were ancient, like the ones on the single window that looked out onto the courtyard, but they were sturdy.

  God knew, he’d tried them often enough.

  He looked around at his quarters with a sigh. The furniture consisted of a toilet stained with rust and a metal cot with a thin, filthy mattress.

  Because he needed the fresh air, he went to the narrow window and looked out. He could plainly see the pillar—knowing it was there, awaiting him, was part of Jascha’s vengeance, of course. What really angered Zachary was the awareness that Kristin could see it, too. And she was probably climbing the walls.

  Zachary wasn’t a religious man, yet in that moment he prayed devoutly that Hakan, the rebel leader, would go along with the plan he’d suggested. After all, Hakan had people on the inside of the palace, and the chance to double-cross Jascha had to appeal to him in a big way.