The Taker-Taker 1 Read online

  He managed to keep up the charade for two more days before the physic realized Adair had regained consciousness. He tested his limbs and joints in the same way Marguerite had done, and prepared an elixir that he poured down the young man’s throat. It was the elixir that gave Adair away, for the potion burned and stung, and he couldn’t help but choke on it.

  “I hope you have learned a lesson, so at least some good may come from your deceit,” the physic growled as he stumped around the desk. “And that lesson is that you can never escape from me. I can find you no matter where you go. No journey would be far enough, no hiding spot deep enough to elude me. The next time you try to cheat me out of the service I have paid for or steal any of my things, this little episode will seem like the lightest of punishments. If I so much as sense you are being disloyal, I will chain you to the walls of this keep and you will never again see the light of day, do you understand?” The old man wasn’t disturbed in the least by the hateful look Adair gave him.

  Within a few weeks, Adair was able to rise from bed and hobble around the room with the use of a walking stick. As his ribs creaked with pain every time he lifted his arms, he was still worthless to Marguerite, but he could again assist the physic in the evening. However, all conversation between them ceased: the old man barked his orders and Adair slinked from his sight as soon as he had fulfilled them.

  After a couple of months, with regular doses of the burning elixir, Adair had healed considerably, to the point where he could fetch water and chop wood. He could run, though not for long, and was sure he would be able to ride, if the chance arose. Sometimes, when he gathered herbs in the woods and strayed to the edge of the hill, he’d look over the valley and think about trying to escape again. He wished, fiercely, to be free of the old man and yet … A sickening feeling came over Adair at the prospect of punishment, and with near-suicidal thoughts, he would turn back to the keep.

  “Tomorrow, you are to go to the village and find a young girl child. She must be a virgin. You are not to ask anyone for information, or draw attention to yourself in any way. Just find this child, return, and tell me where she lives.”

  Panic clawed at Adair’s throat. “How am I to know if a child is unspoiled? Am I to examine—”

  “Obviously you must find one who is very young. As for any examination, you will leave that to me,” he said chillingly.

  The old man gave no explanation, and by then, Adair needed none. He knew any order from the physic was surely a diabolical request and yet Adair was not in a position to refuse. Usually, he viewed trips to the village as rare treats, when he got to be around the familiar bustle of family life, even if not his own family, but this trip portended no good. In the village, Adair lingered near the houses as inconspicuously as he could to spy on the villagers, but the village was small and he was not unknown to them. As soon as he found some children playing or attending to chores, the parents would usher their children away or threaten Adair with menacing stares.

  Afraid of the physic’s reaction to his failure, he took an unfamiliar path on his way back to the keep, hoping it might bring him luck. The trail took him to a clearing where, to his surprise, a number of wagons stood, wagons not dissimilar to the one his own family had lived in. A troupe of Roma had come to the village and Adair’s heart swelled with the hope that his family had come looking for him. As he searched through the itinerant workers, he soon realized that he recognized not one member of this group. There were children of every age, however, red-cheeked boys and sweet-faced girls. And because he was of the same descent, he could move freely among them, though he was obviously unknown.

  Could he do such a terrible thing? he asked himself, heart pounding as he cast about, glancing from face to face. He was about to flee, overcome with self-hatred—how could he choose which one was to be delivered into the hands of that monster?—when he ran abruptly into a child, a little girl who reminded him so much of his own Katarina. The same creamy white skin, the same piercing dark eyes, the same winsome smile. It was as though fate had made the decision for him.

  The physic was delighted with the news and instructed Adair to go to the Roma encampment that evening, when all were asleep, and bring the girl back to him. “It is fitting, is it not?” the old man cackled, perhaps thinking it would make Adair feel better for what he was about to do. “Your people cast you out, gave you away without a second thought. Now is your chance for revenge.”

  Instead of persuading Adair that it was within his rights to steal the child, it only made him bristle. “Why do you require this girl? What will you do with her?”

  “It is not your place to think, only to obey,” the old man growled. “You have just started to heal, haven’t you? It would be a shame to break your bones all over again.”

  Adair thought to beg God to intervene, but at that moment prayers were useless. Adair had every reason to believe that he and the girl were doomed and that nothing would save either of them. So, late that evening he went back to the encampment. He went from wagon to wagon, peering through windows or through the tops of open Dutch doors until he found the girl, curled up like a kitten on a blanket. Holding his breath, he pushed back the door and scooped up the sleeping child, half wishing she would cry out and alert the mother and father, even if it meant he would be caught. But the child slept in his arms as though bewitched.

  Adair heard nothing behind him as he ran off: no footsteps, no telltale noise of any kind coming from the parents’ wagon, no cry of trespass from the encampment. The child grew restless and began to fuss, and Adair didn’t know what to do except hold her closer to his wildly beating heart in hopes that it would calm her. As much as he wished for the courage to disobey the old man’s ominous orders, Adair crashed through the woods, crying the entire way.

  However, as he approached the keep, a desperate courage came to him. He simply could not fulfill the physic’s wishes, no matter what it meant for his own safety. His feet slowed of their own accord and within steps, he had turned around. By the time he reached the edge of the clearing, the girl was awake though trustingly quiet. He set her on her feet and knelt next to her.

  “Go back to your parents. Tell them they must leave this village immediately. There is great evil here and it will bring tragedy if they do not heed this warning,” he said to the girl.

  The girl reached up to his face and touched his tears. “Who should I tell them has given them this message?”

  “My name is not important,” he said, knowing that even if the Roma had his name and came for him, looking to exact punishment for stealing into their encampment and kidnapping a child, it wouldn’t matter. He would be dead by then.

  Adair remained kneeling in the grass as he watched the girl run toward the wagons. He wished he could run, too, run toward the open forest and keep running, but he knew that it would do no good. He might as well return to the keep and accept his punishment.

  When Adair pushed back the door to the keep, the old man was sitting at his desk. The slight eagerness on the physic’s face gave way quickly to the familiar expression of scorn and displeasure when he saw that Adair was alone.

  The physic drew himself up, suddenly very tall, like a towering tree. “You’ve failed me, I see. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “I may be a slave to you, but you can’t make me a murderer. I will not do it!”

  “You’re still weak, fatally weak. Cowardly. I need you to be stronger. If I thought you were incapable of this, I would kill you tonight. But I am not convinced, not yet … so I will not kill you this evening, merely punish you.” The physic struck his servant so hard that he fell to the floor and blacked out. When Adair came to, he realized the old man had lifted his head and was shoving a goblet to Adair’s mouth. “Drink this.”

  “What is it—poison? Is this how you will kill me?”

  “I said I would not kill you tonight. That doesn’t mean I do not have other plans. Drink this”—he said, eyes glinting ruthlessly—“drink this and y
ou will feel no pain.”

  Adair would have welcomed poison at that point, so he gulped the contents the physic fed into his mouth. A strange feeling overtook Adair quickly, not unlike the dizzy stupor brought on by the old man’s healing elixirs. It started with a tingling in his limbs, then quickly overtook him. Unable to control his muscles, Adair fell slack, eyelids drooping like a victim of palsy, his breathing labored. By the time the tingling had reached the base of his skull, a numbing buzz foretold that something supernatural was about to take over.

  The old man stood in front of his servant, appraising him in a cold, unsettling way. Adair felt himself be lifted and carried, felt his weight drop with every step. Down, down the stairs, to the cellar where he had never been, the old man’s chamber, and the realization filled Adair with cold panic. It was dank and airless, a true dungeon, and filthy. Vermin crawled busily in the corners. The old man dropped the young man on a bed, a stinking old mattress of mildewed down. Adair wanted to crawl away but was trapped in a body that would not respond.

  Unmoved, the old man climbed on the bed and began undressing his captive, pulling the tunic over his head, loosening the belt at his waist. “Tonight, you will cross the last threshold of your reserve. From tonight, there will be nothing I cannot make you do.” He pushed the young man’s breeches down, and reached for the thin linen covering his groin. Again, Adair closed his eyes as the physic searched with his fingers, digging through the pubic hair. Adair fought not to be aroused as the old man manipulated his penis. After what seemed a very long time, the old man released his plaything, but let his hands travel up to Adair’s face. His fingers pressed against Adair’s cheekbones, then in the valley under his eyes. The young man fought as best he could, in this narcotic state, against this horrific trespass.

  “Now, foolish boy. I’ll smother you if you do not obey me. You have to breathe, do you not?” He closed a hand over Adair’s nose, cutting off all air. Adair held out as long as he could, wondering in a disoriented state if he would die or black out … But in the end, reflex took over and he gasped for air. Once his mouth was open, the old man forced himself past his captive’s slackened jaw. Mercifully, the drug began to pull the shade of incoherency over Adair’s horror and humiliation, and the last thing he would recall was the old man saying that he knew about the trysts with Marguerite and that they would stop. He would not have Adair expending his energy and wasting his seed on another.

  TWENTY-TWO

  In the morning, Adair awoke on the upper floor on his skimpy pallet of straw, his clothes in disarray. Racked with nausea and traces of the narcotic, he recalled the old man’s warning but had no idea if other liberties had been taken. He was seized with the urge to rush downstairs and stab the old man to death in his bed, the idea flaming up in his mind for a dazzling second. He knew something mysterious and supernatural was afoot, however; the old man’s strength and powers were beyond reasonable expectation and he would be powerful enough not to let himself be killed in his own lair.

  He spent the day trying to summon the courage to flee. But a familiar fear chained Adair to the spot, the cold ache in his knitted bones a reminder of the price of disobedience. So, when the sun had traveled across the sky and darkness began to settle in, Adair sat in a corner, gaze fixed on the top of the staircase.

  The old man wasn’t surprised to find his servant still there. A sly smile crossed his face but he didn’t try to approach Adair. He went about his business as before, retrieving his cloak from the peg. “I am going to the castle tonight, for a special function. If you know what is good for you, you will be here when I return.” When he left, Adair collapsed by the fire, wishing he had the courage to throw himself into it.

  Life continued like this for countless months. The beatings became routine, though the old man didn’t use the poker again. Adair quickly saw that there were no reasons behind the beatings; he was so docile that there could be no excuse for them. The beatings merely served to keep him obedient and so there would never be an end to them. The molestations continued, unevenly. The physic had Marguerite drug Adair’s food or drink to facilitate these sessions, until the young man became wise to this tactic and refused to eat. Then the old man would beat him and force him to swallow debilitating narcotics until he was in a helpless state.

  The physic’s decadence accelerated. Perhaps he’d opened some sort of floodgate: now that he’d indulged in these immoral acts, there was no stopping him. Or maybe this was how the old man had always been. Adair wondered if the old man had killed his last servant, and had sought out Adair to start over again. The count began to send a maid occasionally for the old man’s enjoyment, some unfortunate young woman captured by the count’s men during their raids into the Hungarian countryside. The young woman would be taken to the physic’s chambers and chained to his bed. The maid’s cries would waft upstairs during the day, haunting Adair, punishing him for not going down to the physic’s lair to help her escape.

  Occasionally, after the old man had left on his nightly wanderings, Marguerite would send Adair below with food for the poor prisoner. He remembered the first time, creeping reluctantly into the chamber to see the poor woman, naked under the bedding, shivering in shock and fear, and unable to acknowledge his presence. This first one didn’t beg the young man to release her. Paralytic with fear, she didn’t move toward the food. Adair was ashamed to find he was aroused, staring at her feminine form under the blanket, her flat stomach rising and falling with each terrified breath. His sympathy for her plight and his own horrible memories of what had happened to him in this bed were not enough to keep him from filling with lust. He didn’t dare force himself on her, as she was the old man’s property, and so, shaking with desire, left her untouched and retreated upstairs.

  The maidens usually died within three days and the old man made Adair dispose of them, retrieving their cold bodies from the bed and carrying them into the woods. They would lie on the ground like toppled statues as he dug their graves, sprinkled them with lime, covered them over with dark earth. The first maiden’s death filled him with shame, self-hatred, and despair, so much so that he couldn’t look at her as she waited for her anonymous grave.

  But after the first one, and the third, and the fourth, Adair found that something had changed within him, and his yearning—which he knew to be abominable—outstripped his fear of trespass into the profane. His hands trembled as he surrendered to the desire to touch their breasts, now hard and inhuman, or run his hands over their curving bodies. Each time he lowered one of them into the ground, he brushed against the torso and thrilled at the stiffening in his body. But he never went further, never committed an act he found more repulsive than fascinating, and so the bodies were spared further molestation.

  Several years passed like this. The beatings and rapes dwindled, perhaps because Adair had grown bigger and stronger and gave the old man pause. Or perhaps, because he was no longer a boy, he didn’t appeal to the physic.

  After one particularly brutal winter, the old man announced they were traveling to Romania to visit his estate. Word was sent ahead to the vassal who ran the property so the accounts could be put in order and everything made ready for the physic’s review. Leave was secured from the count, and a second horse was purchased for Adair to ride on the journey. When it was time to go, only a few provisions were packed, some clothing and two small, locked trunks. They departed after the sun had set, riding eastward into the night.

  At the end of seven nights of travel, they were deep in Romanian territory, having traveled through a pass in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains to get to the old man’s estate. “Our journey is over,” the physic told Adair, nodding toward a light glowing faintly from a castle in the distance. The castle had high turrets at each corner, the forbidding shape sharply visible in the moonlight. The last stretch took them through fertile fields, vineyards clinging to the mountainside, cattle sleeping in the fields. The huge gates were thrown open as the pair approached and a coterie
of servants waited in the courtyard, torches held overhead. An older man stood at the head of the group, holding a fur robe that he wrapped around the physic’s shoulders as soon as he dismounted.

  “I trust your lordship had a safe journey,” he said with the solicitousness of a priest, following the physic up the broad stone steps.

  “I am here, am I not?” the old man snapped.

  Adair drank in details of the estate as they made their way inside. The castle was massive, old but well tended. Adair saw that the servants wore the same look of terror he fancied he did. One servant took his arm and led him to the kitchen, where Adair was given a meal of fancy roast meats and fowl, and afterward was taken to a small chamber. He sank into a real feather bed that night, nestled under a fur-edged blanket.

  Adair came to love this time away, living more grandly than he ever imagined possible for anyone, let alone a peasant boy. Freed from the regime of life in the keep, he spent most days roaming the castle, as the physic was immersed in the running of the property and lost interest in Adair’s whereabouts.

  The overseer, Lactu, took a liking to Adair. He was a kind man, and seemed to recognize the unspoken burden the physic’s servant carried. Because Lactu also spoke Hungarian, Adair was able to have a real conversation for the first time in all the years he’d worked for the physic. Lactu had come from a line of servants who had been in the physic’s employ for generations. He explained that he didn’t find it strange that the physic was away most of the time: the lords of this property had been absentee landowners for generations, traditionally taking up service to the Romanian king instead. In Lactu’s experience, the physic returned only every seven years or so, to tend to important matters.