Birth: A Novella (13 page)

***

For now, it’s enough to know that our idyllic life at
Aranyi can continue. As my body is healing, so is my marriage. My
moment with Stefan has forged a link, connecting our two sides in
the triangle of a family. The last step in the process of restoring
the bond between my husband and me leads to the beginning of the
same process for my husband and his companion.

With the reestablishment of true communion
will come the return of physical desire; mental lovemaking will
cease to be the chore that Dominic and I have shunned since my
release from La Sapienza. We will give pleasure to each other in
our thoughts while our bodies gain strength to share the work once
more.

I settle myself in the bed, holding Jana,
enjoying her presence, that third person in the room I didn’t
recognize when I was spiraling down into death. She’s clean and
full of milk, ready for her own siesta. I smell her sweet breath,
hear the faint gurgling sounds of her digestion. I will not abandon
her again.

As I drift off into slumber, I sneak one
last peek of empathetic connection before leaving my husband alone
with his companion. Dominic is lying in bed, Stefan sitting on the
edge. They’re engrossed in conversation, holding hands, allowing
the deep communion to emerge and envelop them. In a day or two,
when Dominic is ready, they’ll make love: first with minds only,
then in the gentlest acts of the body, until they are partners in
every sense.

My family is complete, and I can sleep
content.

The first four books of the ECLIPSIS series of Lady
Amalie’s memoirs tell the story of how Terran Amelia Herzog became
Eclipsian “Lady Amalie,” and of how she met and married Dominic,
Margrave Aranyi.

Forthcoming books will relate some of the
adventures Amalie had in her married life. The next two books,
Captivity
parts one and two, take place after Amalie and
Dominic have been married six years. Part one of Captivity will be
published in November.

CAPTIVITY

“H
alt!” The shout shattered
the stillness of the summer morning, ringing out from the edges of
the forest. “If you value your lives, halt and give up your
weapons!”

They were on us before anyone had a chance
to react. Bandits, a whole army of them, swarming silently down the
steep embankments on both sides of the trail. With swords drawn,
knives and daggers at the ready, in belts and boot tops and in
teeth, the outlaws forced our little group to a standstill,
unhorsing and disarming our four guards without having to strike a
blow. We were neatly ambushed, at this natural choke point along
the trail to Aranyi.

I had been riding bareheaded and with my
third eyelids lowered, a way to enjoy the warmth of the summer
morning without being damaged by the direct sunlight. And I had
blocked off my
crypta
with a strong mental shield. Telepathy
can be a burden on the spirit; I had not wanted to spend a long
day’s ride listening to any resentful thoughts I might pick up from
my small band of traveling companions, annoyed at my sudden
decision to travel home without my husband or a suitable
escort.

The shield lowered, my gift merely confirmed
what my eyes and ears had already shown me. Forty-some men—I
counted quickly, trying to calm myself by a simple task. And there
were more I couldn’t see, lurking behind the trees. In my innocent
imagining, bandits had sounded glamorous, like pirates. The
illusion died a quick death. The men were filthy, their stink, even
outdoors, enveloping our little group in a miasma of foulness in
the warm summer air. Their hair was long and matted, greasy beards
and mustaches partially concealing scarred and spotted faces. They
wore rags, the remains of what had once been ordinary shirts and
breeches, now held together with pieces of rope or cord, encrusted
skin showing through the gaps. Only their weapons and the leather
scabbards and sheaths were in good condition, the essential tools
of their “trade” kept in top working order.

My first conscious thought was panic.
My
children! I had put my children at risk
. I looked first for
Val. My son, a couple of months short of his second birthday, did
not yet know something was wrong. He was half-asleep, dozing in the
carrying pack on the back of his nursemaid.

Jana, my daughter, was all too well aware of
the situation. I could sense her mixture of fear and excitement at
this unexpected development. Five and a half years old, she rode
her own pony and managed it with the skill of someone who had been
riding almost as long as she had been walking. Now she sat
impassively, looking down without expression at the two advance
guards lying prone in the dirt, their swords and daggers
appropriated, each with a bandit’s muddy boot pressing on his neck.
Jana, as her father had already taught her, made no sound and sat
very still, doing nothing to attract attention in a battle she
could not win.

Forty men, maybe closer to fifty, were too
many for me to overpower all by myself. I could probably kill one,
maybe two, by using a carefully-controlled beam of
crypta
-amplified mental energy to stop the heart. Then my
gift’s strength would be drained after such an effort, leaving our
four disarmed guards to rescue three women and two children from
the rest, almost the entire group, who would be out for blood. Our
only hope was negotiation.

We had little enough worth taking. Our
horses and the guards’ forged steel weapons were our most valuable
possessions. But no one, not even desperate men, could wish to
start a war with Aranyi. All it would earn them was certain defeat,
at great cost. While I supposed the bandits would rob us, after
catching us so easily in their trap, they would know not to kill or
hurt anyone, guard or maid, who could claim, however indirectly, my
husband’s protection.

Yet to a man the bandits projected thoughts
of triumph: relief that the number of guards was as small as they
could have wished, an edgy confidence now that the first big step
of some bold plan had been taken.

Another bandit sauntered down the
embankment. He had the unmistakable swagger that marks a leader,
one pleased with his men and himself. And there was something else,
something I couldn’t quite see at a distance. He turned his head in
my direction and the flash of silver eyelids almost gave me the
heart attack I had contemplated for his men.

Yes, ‘Gravina
, the mocking words
entered my mind silently and directly, one telepath to another.
The Gift.