Crimson's Captivation (7 page)

“I see. And how did you survive on the
outside?”

“Didn’t survive long. Only two nights and I
was captured by one of your men and brought here again.”

“Who captured you?”

“Not sure. He had short black hair and spoke
with a thick accent. You won’t send me back to Crimea will
you?”

“No, I will not. It would be an embarrassment
to my operation. The one who found you should’ve known who you were
and returned you. I will deal with him later.” Kieran grasped her
by the wrist and led her back to her place behind Crimson, tied the
knot and fitted the blindfold in place. A caretaker tugged on the
rope, and the three captives were led into the hallway.

Crimson was distraught. She knew every
footstep led her closer to Tor, and Kieran, had rebuffed her
attempt at seduction. Desperation filled her. This game had been
exciting, even pleasurable, until now. Now, Tor would win, and she
worried that her world would become one tormented night after the
other.

“Kieran,” she whispered, “are you still
here?”

Sena whispered back, “You should keep quiet.
Their patience runs thin on these nights.”

“Kieran?” Crimson tested the darkness once
again with no response.

Kieran, swiftly and quietly, rushed to her
side, kissed her cheek, “You be good, Crimson. This will all be
over soon. If you’re ever recaptured, I will save you. I will take
you for my own.”

“Do so now.”

Her request was never answered. Kieran had
simply disappeared.

The hallway was filled with the patter of
bare feet and leather soled shoes on stone, denoting the tornado of
activity among the chambermaids, caretakers, guards and prisoners.
Crimson’s steps were timid behind the blindfold, she felt as if she
were a walking a ledge in total darkness. People Crimson couldn’t
see were darting all around her attending to other captives and
they brushed against her. The feeling was surreal, exciting, and
Crimson couldn’t help but wonder if their eyes were examining her
nearly naked body? Did the men’s mouths want her pink nipples,
their hands her flesh? She secretly hoped that at any moment Kieran
would steal her away, escort her to a secret room, but he never
did, and soon they were on the march.

Walking blindfolded proved difficult. Many
times Sergen would suddenly stop and Crimson would run into him,
his firm butt delightfully plowed into her soft stomach. His
presence was like the stone statues she had viewed all her life,
and his muscular frame consumed her imagination.

Soon everyone in the hallway was on the move.
They exited the castle and were led outside. The coolness of the
night air draped their bodies, and the night's wind rumbled through
the bows of the trees. The stone floor of the castle had given way
to a well-worn path of wooden planks. Horses clattered and snorted
among the bluster of captives being loaded onto carriages. Someone
draped leather cloaks over them and sat them on the bed of the
carriage, their legs dangled over the edge.

The carriage ride to the banks of the Dnieper
River was long and bumpy along a heavily furrowed road. A hard dip
in the road and Crimson’s blindfold slipped and fell around her
neck. The first thing she noticed was the sky; it seemed to be in
mourning. The sky was a sinister black with dark, dreary gray
clouds. She could see the distant outline of the castle
disappearing on the horizon. She wasn’t sure of the style. It was
similar to the Romanesque architecture in Sweden, but this castle
looked gothic with its brick walls and tall spires.

To her left Sergen sat quietly. To her right
Sena’s head darted about as her breast bounced against the soft
fabric of her peignoir. Crimson turned to see Kieran and a guard in
the carriage driver’s seat. She wanted to say his name but didn’t.
The river came into view and she saw Lord Tor waving the carriage
toward a moored boat.

Tor instructed, in an excited, high-pitched
voice, “Here, Kieran! Here! This is my Trekschuit. I had it built
on a Netherland model.” The carriage came to a stop. While Kieran
and Tor were in conversation, the guard collected the rope, pulled
the captives from the carriage, and they followed in unison behind
Sergen. The currents of the Dnieper wrenched at Tor’s boat, causing
it to swell and creak against the plank. The creaking boat only
added to the dreary drab of the black sky.

Crimson whispered to Sena, “We’re on the
shore of a river. There’s a covered boat moored in front of us, and
Tor is here.”

“Yes, transport to Kiev,” Sena responded as
her head darted about trying to fix on the distant conversations
around her.

Another carriage pulled up and stopped.
Crimson saw the young man who was escorted from the bathing room.
He was being manhandled by a guard and was pushed toward them. The
choker around his neck was pulled tight and had been looped around
his waist, forcing him to bend over. The leash dropped to the
ground and was stepped on by a nearby guard.

Crimson could make out the dry salt trails on
his cheeks. His buttocks were a stark red from the lashings he had
received. She felt for him, wished she could sooth him. She now
understood the warning given by Sena earlier and wanted no part of
this type of punishment.

A guard approached, placed a choker around
the captive’s neck and led them onto the boat one at a time. Sergen
was taken first, then the guard returned for Crimson. She shadowed
the guard onto the wooden plank and tried to make eye contact with
Kieran, but he never looked in her direction. She stepped onto the
bow, ducked under the threshold of the small door, and was forced
to sit on a bench in the cabin. The rope looped through her choker,
and snaked through a metal loop fastened to the floor. The rope had
little slack and restrained her movement. She could stand but not
fully. She watched as Sena was seated. Then the young man was last.
He winced when his bare bottom touched the wooden bench. No one
said anything.

She heard cracks of leather whips and the
horses bray and trot off with the empty carriages. A moment of
sadness washed over Crimson as she realized Kieran didn’t even say
goodbye.

A guard closed the door and said something in
a foreign language, and the small room was in complete
darkness.

“What did he say, Sena?” Crimson asked.

“Tough to translate but basically he said
this is a hearse full of flowers.”

“Hearse? Are we in danger, are we going to be
killed?”

“No. We will be fine. I’m not certain I’m
translating hearse correctly.”

Chapter VII

~ What Lies Ahead ~

Viktor found Caspian’s claim that Princess
Sophia and her court knew of Kieran or the trade rather
distressing. His mind raced faster than his steed as he hurried
toward the castle. Resentment seemed to leech into his soul and
corrupt his thoughts. He had always loved Sophia, now he despised
her—all at the lone suggestion of a horror, a creature that reeked
of rotten flesh, and by all accounts, shouldn’t even be alive. As
soon as he arrived to the stone path leading to the castle doors,
he was shouting Sophia’s name.

He dismounted his horse before the animal
even stopped—didn’t bother tethering it and pushed open the heavy
door of the palace. “Sophia! Sophia!” Her name echoed loudly down
the marble corridors and doors began to open, as onlookers were
curious of all the screaming.

Sophia emerged from the parlor room off the
main hallway. “What is it, Viktor?”

Viktor’s face was flushed with anger and his
tone, normally respectful, was noticeably demanding. He walked
heavily toward her, his steps almost pounding the floor. “Where
would she be?”

“Who?” Sophia questioned, confused by his
accusatory tone.

“Crimson. I know of Kieran. I know of the
trade. I know you know where she is.”

Two guards were already behind him and one
had grasped Viktor’s throat. Viktor felt the tip of a sword dig
into his side.

Sophia chided, “Your tone, Viktor, is near
that of insolence, I suggest you rethink your tactic.” She nodded
to the guard with the sword and he dug the tip in a bit deeper to
get Viktor’s attention.

Viktor at once understood. “My apologies,
Princess. But I know of this Kieran and have been told he has taken
Crimson. I implore, please allow me to visit, to explain.”

Sophia waved the guards off and studied
Viktor quietly. “How do you know this?”

“A creature named Caspian told me,” Viktor
replied as he examined the small wound in his side.

She placed her arm around Viktor’s shoulder.
“A creature? Caspian you say? What is it you think you know?” she
asked as she guided him to the parlor room. “Ladies, please excuse
us.”

When the room cleared, she closed the door,
and took a seat near the large fireplace. “Well my young lad, I
have decided to accept your apology and your visit. Now that you’re
a bit more level headed, what is that you want to know?”

“Who is Kieran?” Viktor asked. He refused her
offer to sit; instead, he paced the room, working off the
adrenaline in his system.

Sophia exhaled a long sigh stood and ran her
hand across the mantle of the fireplace as she spoke. “This is a
sallow world we live in, Viktor. Murmurs, rumors, even fairy tales
color what little white we have in our daily lives. Do you know
what color we live in?”

“I live in black, my lady,” Viktor said
loudly, still pacing.

“Poor Viktor. You are far too young to know
black. No, Viktor, shades of gray. It is all shades of gray. You
want to know of Kieran?”

“Yes.”

Sophia made her way to the nearest window.
Outside the wind rose and fell in scrapes against the castle walls,
it seemed to crawl across the grounds and rap the windowpanes
looking for a way in. Sophia had a surreal feeling the breeze had
given way to a living organism and it, whatever it was, appeared to
eavesdrop on the conversation.

“Very well, the rumor first. Kieran is a dark
prince, distant son of Prince of Wales. Sometime during the
fourteenth century, he married his cousin, Joan. The marriage was
short lived because a tracker named Gaten kidnapped Joan and
introduced her to the trade. Did you know that much?”

“No, my lady.”

“Then your irritation towards me was
unfounded but I think I understand the raw emotion. You think I’m
somehow complicit in Crimson’s disappearance?” She looked at his
reflection in the windowpane.

“I’m not sure what I thought, it’s just … The
creature said you knew and I felt betrayed.”

“Betrayed? Peculiar choice of words but at
any rate, yes, I know some things. Again, that vast gray expanse
between rumor and truth. Have a seat before you thunder across
Europe and run into the same trap Kieran did.”

Viktor stopped pacing and glared harshly at
her. “You are not implying there is similarity between that monster
and I? If so, then I am ashamed my tongue ever spoke your name with
honor.”

Sophia could only smile while shaking her
head, and then she let out a subdued laugh as she gazed out of the
window. She looked deep across the grounds while she imagined what
Crimson was going through. Darkness fell through the saplings and
made ghostly shapes on the manicured lawn, then the scratching
sound of the wind. The shadows moved, crawled, and groaned. She
tried to explain her compassion while being truthful.

“Lost love is such an erratic emotion,
Viktor. It leaves some limp on the floor balled up in despair. Yet
others thrash about resolute in a mission to save it. Some try
both, most times they’re all in vain. I have a feeling I know which
you are and that is where you and Kieran are the same.”

She paused, watched the sky deepen to a murky
black before closing the curtain. “Twilight always seems to come
swiftly on days like this, when shadows ballet around the May-pole
and truth is told. You see, you and Kieran dance with the same
ribbon.”

“I don’t see how you find any
similarity.”

“It’s not important that you see it’s
important that you listen. Kieran, much like you will, set out to
find Joan but what he found was a dark world of captivity. Rumors
suggest he was so heartbroken to find his Joan had been turned,
that he made a deal with Gaten so she could be set free. For
hundreds of years now he’s been settling his contract, one royal
captive at a time. The same is most likely to happen to you if you
aren’t prepared, if you rush headlong in a failed mission to save
your Crimson.”

Viktor stopped pacing. “If this is true, if
his Joan is free why doesn’t this Kieran just leave? Why continue
this assault on liberty?”

“Gaten has a lifetime of lifetimes to hunt
him down. If he didn’t find him, he would certainly find her. I
guess it’s romantic but it’s also a breathing death, wouldn’t you
agree? He’s lifeless if he stays. His love is dead if he
leaves.”

“Are you suggesting I shouldn’t try? Wouldn’t
you want … would not you hope someone would look for you, my
lady?”

“I’m suggesting that even if you survived the
quest, and I must tell you, they know you are coming. These traders
aren’t interested in love, only the cost and physics of it. It’s a
commodity of the trade. Your Crimson is undoubtedly a conscript of
a distant court by now. But maybe most important of all, and this
is something you should consider. It’s possible you wouldn’t find
the Crimson you fell in love with.”

“You mean the trade is about sex?” Viktor’s
eyes blanked over.

Sophia could see his heart drop into this
stomach so she decided to ignore his question.

Viktor felt anger tremble through him. “How
could you let this be?”

“It has always been. Many women find
excitement in the tales, the possibility of being taken.”

“Then my lady, I feel sorry for you and your
court. Shame your reputation is that of an idealist, a pursuer of
love. I think in some way you are more of a coward than the
deserters we have in the stockade.”