“Ah, Your Grace, I see you’ve arrived safely! Welcome!” Stephen’s voice carried tones of genuine pleasure, and Llauron turned, smiling, to greet the young duke.
“Good solstice, my son,” he said, clasping Stephen’s hand. He surveyed the festival grounds, with their bright pageantry set against the pristine field of virgin snow under a clear blue sky. “It looks to be a marvelous fete, as always. What is the official snow sculpture this year?”
“They’ve done a scale model of the Judiciary of Yarim, Your Grace.”
Llauron nodded approvingly. “A beautiful building, to be certain. I shall be fascinated to see how they managed to make the snow hold up in minarets.”
“May I offer you a brandy? Count Andrew Canderre has brought a fine supply, and a special cask in particular.” Stephen held out a silver snifter. “I saved you some of the reserve.”
The Invoker’s face lit up, and he took the brandy happily. “Bless him, and you, my son. Nothing like a little warmth in the depth of winter.”
“I see your chiefs are here as well; very good,” said Stephen, waving to Khaddyr as the healer came into sight from behind the white guest tents. “Is it possible that I actually see Gavin among them?”
Llauron laughed. “Yes, indeed, the planets must be aligned this solstice, and Gavin’s schedule allows him to be here; amazing, isn’t it?”
“Indeed! There he is, behind Lark. And Ilyana, there with Brother Aldo. I’m so glad you all could make it.”
Llauron leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially into Stephen’s ear. “Well, the place is crawling with benisons. I had to bring all the Filidic leaders just to prevent a possible mass conversion away from the True Faith.”
Tristan Steward extended his hand to his fiancée and assisted her gently down from their carriage, struggling to keep from losing control and tossing her, face-first, into the deepest snowbank he could find.
I’ve died, and the Underworld looks exactly like this one, only I am doomed to spend Eternity in the constant presence of this soul-sucking witch, he thought wearily. What damnable evils could I have possibly committed to deserve this? He had learned a new skill, the skill of half-listening, on the trip from Bethany to Stephen’s keep, and since Madeleine’s endless nattering had shown no sign of abating, even as she descended the steps of the coach, he employed it now.
He glanced about the ground of Haguefort and the fields beyond, glistening in the fair light of midmorning. Nature and Stephen had done well by each other. Sparkling jewels of ice, left over from the storm of the previous night, adorned the branches of the trees that lined the pathways of the keep, frosted with cottony clouds of fresh snow. Stephen, in turn, had decorated Haguefort’s twin guardian bell towers with shining white and silver banners proclaiming the symbol of his House, and had dressed the tall lampposts that were carefully placed throughout the keep’s courtyard and walkways with long spirals of white ribbons, which spun slowly like sedate maypoles in the stiff breeze. The effect was enchanting.
In the distance the fields had been groomed for the sleigh races and other contests of wintersport, with large tents erected to house the cookfires and the thousands of common folk from outside the province. Bright banners in every color of the rainbow adorned the rolling fields down to the newly built wall that his cousin hoped would offer protection to his lands and subjects. Tristan could see the enormous bonfire pit being stocked with dry brush for the celebratory blaze that would take place on the last evening, a conflagration for which the festival’s host was famous.
The bite of the fresh winter wind stung his nose, and he caught the scent of hickory chips burning. It was a smell that reminded him of childhood, and the festivals of Stephen’s father. As boys he and his cousin and their friends, Andrew Canderre, the Baldasarre brothers, Gwydion of Manosse, dead twenty years now, and a host of others had looked forward to the solstice each year with an excitement unmatched by any other event. His eyes burned with the poignant memory.
More painful than any other in their sweetness were the memories of Prudence. His childhood friend, his first lover, a laughing peasant girl with strawberry curls and a wicked sense of humor, his confessor, his conscience. In the days of his youth she was part of the Wolf Pack, as he and his friends were called, participating with them in the sled races and the tugs-of-war, the pie eatings and the snow battles. Matching them, besting them. Stealing the hearts of his mates. Prudence. How he had loved her then, with a young boy’s innocence blossoming into something deeper.
Tristan’s throat caught as he and Madeleine passed Haguefort’s main portico, the place where in those days Prudence had waited for him at night to slip away from his family’s guest rooms within the keep, where the nobility stayed. He could always spy her from the balcony, a glint of shining red-blond curls in the torchlight, waiting for him, and him alone. Even years later, when the dukedom passed to him, and she was his servant, she still awaited him in the portico, watching furtively, giggling madly when he finally slipped away to her, finding a hiding place to make secret love among the thousands of drunken revelers, celebrating their youth, their bond, their lives.
How he loved her still. Her brutal death at the hands of the Bolg had taken the joy out of him, joy he had never realized really always belonged to Prudence, that he was merely borrowing. Without her his days were filled with melancholy and guilt, because it was his own selfishness that had brought about her death. He had sent her into the jaws of the monsters, and she had never returned.
None of his friends and fellow dukes, not even Stephen, believed that her murder was the work of the Bolg, no matter how hard he had tried to convince them. But that will be over soon, he thought grimly. Soon the arguments would end.
“Tristan?”
He blinked, and forced a smile as he looked down into Madeleine’s unpleasantly angular face.
“Yes, dearest?”
His fiancée exhaled in annoyance. “You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said, have you?”
Rotely Tristan lifted her gloved hand to his lips and kissed it.
“Darling, I’ve been hanging on your every word.”
For all that the elite and influential of Roland utilized Stephen’s festival to make public shows and secret bargains, it was the common folk for whom it was actually held. Winter was a harsh and difficult time in most of Roland, a season in which the average citizen withdrew into his dwelling, having battened it down as much as possible, and struggled to survive the bitter months. The carnival gave them an opportunity to celebrate the season before winter gave them reason to rue it, as it did every year.
Stephen counted on the annual pattern of weather to allow the carnival to take place at the mildest part of early winter, and with one exception in twenty years, he had been successful. His friendship with the Invoker of the Filids, the religious order that worshiped nature, granted him access to their information about upcoming storms and thaws, freezing winds and snowfalls, so their impressive ability to predict the weather ensured a successful event. Indeed, it was commonly believed that the Filidic order not only studied and predicted the weather, but had it in their power to control it as well, especially the Invoker. If that was the case, they exercised a good deal of largesse on Stephen’s behalf, judging by the consistently fine weather his solstice festival enjoyed.
The first two days of the festival were marked by the pageantry of it, with games and races, contests and performances, dancing and merrymaking fueled by excesses of fine food and drink.
The third and final day was the religious observance of the solstice, with ceremonies in both canons. It was here that the religious posturing went on, Filid against Patrician, all very subtle, and worse since the Patriarch had begun to decline. In years when the Invoker predicted a storm or harsh weather before the solstice and better weather following it, the order of events at the carnival was switched, and the religious observances were held first, with the festival in the two days following. When this occurred the carniv
al was invariably spoiled, so Stephen was pleased that the weather had cooperated this year, allowing the festivities to happen first.
Now he sat on the reviewing platform with Tristan, Madeleine, and the religious leaders, who were all talking among themselves, watching the various races and games, occasionally joining in one himself.
His son, Gwydion Navarne, had proven adept at Snow Snakes, a contest where long smooth sticks were launched through icy channels hollowed out in the snow. Stephen had abandoned royal protocol and had danced excitedly at the fringes of the competition, hooting and cheering Gwydion through the semifinals and consoling him at his loss in the end. The boy had not really needed any consolation; he had broken into a sincere smile at the announcement of the winner, a redheaded farm lad named Scoutin, and extended a gracious hand of congratulations.
As the lads shook, it was all Stephen could do to hold back tears of pride and loss. How like Gwydion of Manosse and me they look, he thought, thinking back to his childhood friend, Llauron’s only son. He glanced behind him at the Invoker, who must have been sharing the thought by the smile and nod that he gave Stephen.
He was now anxiously awaiting the outcome of Melisande’s race, a comical contest where small sleds, on which a fat sheep was placed, were tied to the participants’ waists with a rope. The object of the race required both child and sheep to make it across the finish line together, but this afternoon the sheep had other plans. Melly’s merry giggle was unmistakable; it wafted over his head on the steamy air as she toppled into the snow yet again, then set off back toward the starting gate, chasing a bleating ewe.
She came reluctantly into her father’s arms and was swathed in a rough wool blanket handed to him by Rosella, her governess.
“Father, please! I’m not cold, and we’re going to miss the making of the snow candy!”
“Snow candy?” Tristan asked, smiling. “That brings back memories, Navarne.” Madeleine raised an eyebrow, and the Lord Roland turned her way. “You must try some, darling, it’s marvelous. The cooks heat enormous vats of caramel sugar to boiling, then drizzle it in squiggles onto the snow where it hardens in the cold; then they dip it in chocolate and almond cream. It becomes quite the melee to see who can get some of the first batch.”
“On the snow?” Madeleine asked in horror.
“Not on the ground, m’lady,” said Stephen quickly, tousling Melisande’s hair in the attempt to shake the look of surprise at Madeleine’s reaction from her face. “Clean snow is gathered and laid out on large cooking boards.”
“Nonetheless, it sounds repulsive,” Madeleine said.
Stephen rose as Tristan looked away and sighed.
“Come along, Melly. If we hurry we might get some of the first batch.” He tried to avoid Tristan’s face; he couldn’t help but notice that his cousin wore the look of a man who had lost the whole world.
On this, the feast of the longest night of the year, darkness came early, and none too soon. As the light left the sky the merrymakers and revelers moved on to the celebratory dining, an event in and of itself.
Rosella stood in the shadow of the cook tent, watching the festivities with delight. Melisande and Gwydion were chasing around beside their father near the open-air pit where four oxen were roasting over the gleaming coals, filling the frosty air with merry laughter and joyful shrieking. While the children were in his company the duke had dismissed her from her duties, suggesting she take in some of the glorious sights of the festival. She had obeyed. Standing hidden, she was observing the glorious sight that most delighted her heart.
From the day four years ago when she had been brought to Haguefort in her late teens to tend to the children of the recently widowed duke, Rosella had been enamored of Lord Stephen. Unlike Lord MacAlwaen, the baron to whom her father had originally indentured her, Lord Stephen was kind and considerate, and treated her like a member of his family rather than as the servant that she was. He was distantly pleasant at first; his young wife, the Lady Lydia Navarne, had been brutally murdered a few weeks before, and Lord Stephen wandered around for a long time in a daze, tending to the responsibilities of his duchy and family with the efficiency of one whose mind is engaged but whose soul is elsewhere.
As time passed, the duke became more alive, as if waking from a long sleep, spurred mostly by the need to be an effective father to his motherless children. Rosella’s fondness for him continued to grow as she witnessed his affectionate ministrations to Melisande and Gwydion, whom she loved as if they were her own. Her daydreams were filled with the silly romantic impossibilities of class warfare, of the unspannable chasm between lord and servant crumbling away, leaving a shining bridge between their two lives. The fact that Lord Stephen was oblivious of her feelings allowed her the freedom to imagine as she would, free of the guilt that a different reality might bring.
“Good solstice, my child.”
Rosella started and backed into the fluttering fabric of the cook tent at the sound of the sonorous voice. The rich scent of roasting meat filled her nose, along with a sour hint of burning flesh in fire.
“Good solstice, Your Grace.” Her heart pounded desperately against her ribs. She had not seen the religious leader step out of the firepit’s shadows. It was almost as if he had been part of the dancing flames the moment before he had made himself known to her.
Lord Stephen’s close ties to the religious leaders of both faiths, the Patriarchal canon and that of the Filids, had made the presence of holy men common around the keep. Rosella, raised from childhood as a Partriarchal adherent, was equally uncomfortable around both types of clergymen.
The holy man smiled, and put out his hand. Almost as if her hand had its own will, she felt her palm rotate upward and her fingers open slowly. She could not tear her gaze away from the glistening eyes that reflected the flames of the cookfire.
A tiny bag of soft cloth was dropped into her open palm.
“I assume you know what to do with this, my child.”
Rosella didn’t, but her mouth answered for her.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The holy man’s eyes gleamed red in the firelight. “Good, good. May your winter be blessed and healthy; may spring find you the same.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Rosella?”
Rosella looked down to see Melisande tugging impatiently at her skirt. She glanced toward the roasting oxen where the duke of Navarne and his son were watching her quizzically.
“Come, Rosella, come! The ox is ready to be carved, and Father said to invite you to sup with us!”
Rosella nodded dumbly, then turned back to where the holy man had stood, but he was gone.
The campfires crackled in the darkness, sending tendrils of smoke skyward, mixed with the raucous sounds of drunken singing and merry laughter echoing across the frosty fields of Haguefort. The noise of celebration, wild and chaotic; it scratched against Tristan Steward’s eardrums like a nail. He shook his head, leaned back against the cold wall of the dark portico in which he was sitting, and took another swig from the bottle of reserve port Cedric Canderre had slipped to him after the singing competition that evening.
Once the orgiastic sounds of the winter festival had been sweet music to his ears. There was a sense of sheer abandon that filled the air during the solstice, a heady, reckless excitement that stirred his blood. Now, without Prudence there to share the thrill, the passion of it, it was nothing but cacophony. He was drinking the port in great gulping swigs, hoping to drown out the din, or at least reduce it to a dull roar.
More than the noise of celebration, he was trying to silence the voice in his head. Tristan had long been unable to escape the whisper, or identify the one who had first spoken the words to him.
He vaguely recalled the day he first heard it. He thought it might have been after the awful meeting in summer when he had summoned all the Orlandan clergy and nobility together in the vain attempt to convince them to consolidate their armies and wreak vengeance on th
e Bolg, ostensibly for their attack on his guards, but in truth retaliation for Prudence’s brutal death. His fellow regents had thought him out of his mind, had refused unanimously to support him, even his cousin, Stephen Navarne, who was as close to a brother as Tristan had ever had.
It seemed to him that after that meeting someone had sought to console him—Stephen perhaps? No, he thought as he shook his head foggily. Not Stephen. Someone older, with kindly eyes that seemed to burn a bit at the edges. A holy man, he thought, but whether he was of Sepulvarta or Gwynwood Tristan had no idea. He struggled to make his mind bend around the image, to fill in the spaces around those disembodied eyes, but his brain refused to listen. He was left with nothing more than the same words, repeated over and over again whenever he was lost in silence.
You may be the one after all.
Tristan felt suddenly cold. It was a sensation he had remembered when he first heard the words, a chill that belied the warmth in the holy man’s eyes. He drew his greatcloak closer to him and shifted on the cold stone bench, trying to warm his chilling legs.
The one for what? he had asked.
The one to return peace and security to Roland. The one to have the courage to put an end to the chaos that is the royal structure of this land and assume the throne. If you had dominion over all of Roland, not just Bethany, you would control all of the armies you sought in vain to bring together today. Your fellows, the dukes, can say no to the Lord Regent. They could not refuse the king. Your lineage is as worthy as any of the others, Tristan, more so than most.
Acid burned now in the back of his throat, as it had then, the bitter taste of humiliation, of rejection. Tristan took another swig from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
I am not the one in need of convincing, Your Grace, he had replied sourly. In case this morning’s fiasco didn’t prove it, let me assure you that my fellow regents do not see the clarity of the succession scenario that you do.
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