by Sarah Ash
“Now listen to me, Kiukiu. There’s been a lot of foolish talk in the kitchens since Lord Volkh’s death. If you want to keep your place in this household, you’d do best to stop asking silly questions.”
Oris Avorian, Lord Volkh’s chief lawyer, rose to his feet, raised the rolled document so that all could see, and broke the great seal of black wax.
The Great Hall was filled with people: grim-faced druzhina, servants and serving maids, all waiting silently to hear their dead lord’s will.
Gavril sat in the center of the dais, flanked by Kostya and Lilias, who had put on a somber black gown for the occasion. Lilias’ maid Dysis stood behind her mistress’ chair, eyes demurely lowered.
Now that it had come to the moment, Gavril felt numb. He just wanted the ceremony to be over.
“‘The last will and testament of Volkh Nagarian, Drakhaon and rightful Lord of the Land of Azhkendir. I, Volkh Nagarian, being of sound mind and body . . .’”
Gavril let his gaze wander over the silent assembly, watching the sea of faces of his father’s household.
“‘My lands, my monies, and all my estates pass by right of birth to my only son and heir, Gavril Andar.’”
Not even the faintest murmur of dissent greeted the announcement, and yet Gavril sensed a growing tension within the hall.
“‘To Bogatyr Kostya, my faithful lieutenant, counselor, and friend, I bequeath my battle saber . . .’”
Gavril heard a muffled snort; glancing uneasily to his side he saw that Kostya had drawn out a handkerchief and had noisily blown his nose.
“‘Every man in the druzhina, from the humblest keep boy to the master of horse, is to be paid a deathgift in gold coins, one for every year he has been in my service in recognition of his loyalty and valor. . . .’”
Now the murmuring began; Gavril saw the men turn to each other, nodding and counting on their fingers.
“‘. . . and to my only son and heir Gavril Andar, I also bequeath a casket. This casket must be opened by Gavril and Gavril alone, and the contents of this casket are never to be revealed to another living soul.’”
The small casket stood in the center of the table. It was a singularly plain piece of workmanship, fashioned out of dull-sheened wood, reinforced with tooled iron at the corners. If it held treasure, its outward appearance gave no hint of its contents. And yet Gavril could not keep his eyes off it. As the lawyer droned on, he found he kept staring at it, wondering what lay within that was so secret, so personal that no one else should see it.
“‘. . . and to my charming companion Madame Lilias Arbelian, I leave a pension of five hundred gold coins a year until her death. If she chooses, she may continue to live in the West Wing—or if she prefers, she may ask my son Gavril to establish her in my mansion in the city of Azhgorod.’”
“Well?” a voice demanded tensely in the silence. “Is that all?”
Gavril, jarred from his reverie, glanced up to see Lilias staring at the lawyer, her face white.
“That concludes the reading of the will,” the lawyer said in measured tones, ignoring her.
“Is there no codicil? No later additions?” She leaned forward on the table toward him, her eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”
“Perfectly sure,” the lawyer said coldly, rolling up the parchment.
“Then I challenge the validity of this document.” She turned to the household, one hand raised imperiously. “He told me he had changed the will. When he knew I was carrying his child. He told me!” Her voice began to crack.
“Lord Volkh has bequeathed you a very generous legacy, madame,” Avorian said coldly. “I beg you not to excite yourself in your condition. Think of your child.”
“I won’t let this matter rest,” Lilias said. “I shall inform my lawyers in Mirom. I shall contest the will. Come, Dysis.” And Lilias gathered up her somber skirts and swept from the hall, Dysis pattering along behind.
The instant the doors had banged shut behind them, a frantic gabble of conversation broke out, everyone talking at once.
“That woman’s nothing but trouble,” Kostya said. “Pack her off to Azhgorod, Lord Gavril, before she causes any more mischief.”
“Why was she so convinced my father had changed his will in her favor?” Lilias’ behavior perplexed him: at one moment, she was all charm and Mirom refinement, the next, a grasping, calculating schemer. “Is it possible she’s right and there is another will?”
“All things are possible,” Kostya said morosely.
The reading of the will was followed by another dinner of interminable length. Gavril had little appetite for the rich food Sosia had prepared and sat crumbling a bread roll with his fingers, waving aside dishes of wild cherry soup, venison, and jellied carp as he kept wondering what secrets his father had concealed in the wooden casket.
At last the lawyers retired to their guest rooms. Gavril rose, one hand on the wooden box, hoping at last to escape to his room and discover what his father had concealed inside. But Kostya gripped him by the arm so firmly that he could not pull away.
“The will has been read, Lord Gavril,” he said sternly. “There is one duty still to be performed.”
One more duty. Was there no end to this day?
Torchflames lit the Great Hall and flickered across the tattooed and battle-scarred faces of the massed ranks of the druzhina.
“There is a debt of honor to be paid,” Kostya said. “By the ancient laws of our clan, you must now track down your father’s murderer, and exact vengeance.” He took up Volkh’s gleaming battle saber and presented it, hilt first, to Gavril. “Blood for blood.”
“Blood for blood,” came an answering murmur from the warriors.
Gavril took the saber, bracing himself to sustain the weight of the heavy curved blade. “I’m no fighting man,” he said defiantly, “I’m an artist. I wouldn’t even know where to start.” And he dropped the saber back down with a clang on the table.
The murmuring began to grow louder.
“You dare disgrace your father’s memory here, in the very place where he died?” cried one of the warriors. Gavril recognized the flax-fair hair of the guard Michailo, who had been in the hall when his father’s ghost appeared.
“Silence!” Kostya turned on the young man. “Is it Lord Gavril’s fault he has not been trained as a warrior? His father’s blood runs in his veins—is that not enough?”
“Prove it,” shouted out another warrior.
“Give us proof!” shouted Michailo. “Drakhaon! Drakhaon!”
One by one, the druzhina took up the chant until the whole hall echoed to their stamping and shouting, to the metallic din of sabers banged against shields and boots.
“I will help bring my father’s murderer to justice and a fair trial,” Gavril cried. “But I will not perpetuate this ancient bloodfeud—”
His last words were drowned in a storm of jeering.
“Enough!” Kostya placed a hand on Gavril’s shoulder. At first Gavril sensed reassurance in the grip of iron—and then he realized Kostya was also restraining him. Had he tried to run, he could not have moved.
“Drakhaon!” chanted the druzhina.
“Proof of blood, my lord.” Kostya turned back to the druzhina. “A chair for our Lord Drakhaon!”
As Gavril was forced to sit in his father’s great carved chair, Kostya drew out his knife. Gavril tried to struggle up but Kostya pressed him down again.
“What are you going to do?” Gavril hissed.
“A few drops of blood to gain their lifelong loyalty—is it so much to ask?”
“It’s barbaric!”
“Blood for blood,” Kostya said. “The ancient contract between Drakhaon and druzhina. A time will come, my lord, when you will be glad you went through with this ceremony.”
As if in a confused and dark dream, Gavril saw him bring the glinting blade across his wrist, saw the dark blood began to drip out. And through the strange, thin, pulsing pain in his wrist, he saw a thin, blue vapor ar
ising from the dark blood, as though it burned with a heat of its own.
Michailo dropped to his knees before him and pressed the oozing wound to his lips.
Gavril, stunned into silence, could only stare at the young warrior as he drew back, lips moistly stained with his blood, one hand pressed to his heart in sign of fealty.
One after another, the druzhina knelt before him and kissed the bleeding wound on his wrist. And with each warrior’s bloodkiss, a distant murmur at the back of his mind grew until it surged like the roaring of an autumn stormtide on the Vermeille shore.
Suddenly hot and faint from loss of blood, Gavril felt as if he were falling deep into drowning waters. The red torchlight flickered and grew dim. . . .
Were they going to let him bleed to death?
Kostya pressed a pad onto the edges of the cut, swiftly and skillfully binding it firmly in place.
“I can hear voices . . .” Gavril murmured, “in my mind. . . .”
“The ritual bloodbond between Drakhaon and druzhina. Sealed in your blood.” Kostya took up a ring of ancient keys, rusty and intricately forged, from his belt. “These are the keys to Kastel Drakhaon. Take them; they are yours. Now you are free to go wherever you will.”
CHAPTER 6
“There’s nothing to discuss, Madame Andar,” said the Grand Duchess Sofia. “Your son Gavril was employed to paint a portrait of my daughter, not to attempt to seduce her.” She fanned herself lethargically with a lace and ivory fan. Even though all the balcony doors were open, a hot, dry breeze stirred the muslin blinds, and the once- famed beauty was wilting in the last warmth of the Vermeille summer. “I’m surprised you have the audacity to come here to plead his case!”
“Your grace.” Elysia Andar stared glazedly at the Grand Duchess. She had hardly slept since Gavril’s disappearance, and she found it difficult to think with any clarity. “My son has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” the Grand Duchess said with a frown. “What precisely do you mean?”
“My son has never gone away from home before without telling me where he is going.” Elysia struggled to keep her voice steady. “I—I fear he has been kidnapped.”
“Your son kidnapped?” The Grand Duchess fanned herself with a little more vigor. “Has there been a ransom note?”
“No.”
“Then how can you be sure?”
Elysia sighed. It was such a long and complicated story she was certain the Grand Duchess would never have the patience to hear her out.
“Your grace,” she said, “let me complete the portrait of your daughter. I have never yet let a patron down. It is a matter of professional pride.”
“I don’t want this portrait to be a slipshod piece of work,” the Grand Duchess said petulantly. “It is to impress her future husband.”
“Have I ever disappointed your grace in the past?”
“I suppose you’ll be wanting your money now so you can pay off these kidnappers?”
Elysia felt herself flush; the Grand Duchess seemed to take pleasure in reminding her of her lowly status. Years of accommodating to the demands of difficult patrons had still not taught her to shrug aside the humiliation.
“I wish to request a different form of payment.”
“Oh?” said the Grand Duchess suspiciously.
“I wish to petition the Grand Duke about my son.”
“The Grand Duke does not concern himself with such matters. Surely it is a matter for the local militia.”
The heat was beginning to affect Elysia too. She steeled herself. She was going to have to reveal the truth.
“But when the Grand Duke learns who my son is—”
“A young painter, madame! Who has probably gone off to indulge a young man’s appetites with women of questionable virtue.”
“Women of questionable virtue?” A dark-haired young man burst in from the balcony. “Quite my favorite kind!”
“Andrei.” The Grand Duchess snapped her fan shut and shook it at him, tutting. “Must you be so coarse?”
The rising sense of despair was almost more than Elysia could bear. For the past week she and Palmyre had fruitlessly searched the taverns and ateliers of Vermeille. No one knew where Gavril was. The only possible explanation was the sudden disappearance of Kostya, the druzhina, and the Azhkendi barque.
“Besides,” the Grand Duchess said, “we sail for Mirom at the end of the week. As I told you, there is the matter of Astasia’s betrothal to be arranged. And this heat has become too oppressive to bear. . . .”
“Poor Mama.” Andrei seized the fan and began fanning his mother.
“Then let me come with you,” Elysia said impulsively.
“Why? I tell you, madame, that my husband will not be interested.”
“My son,” Elysia said, “is heir to Azhkendir.”
“Azhkendir?” Andrei repeated. Elysia saw mother and son exchange glances. “But what has become of Lord Volkh?”
“Has the news not reached Muscobar? Lord Volkh is dead.”
“And how, madame,” said the Grand Duchess, “are you so well informed of affairs in that backward and barbaric country? When we received Lord Volkh at court last year, he made no mention of a wife or a son.”
“I was his wife,” Elysia said, refusing to be put off by the Grand Duchess’ imperious manner. “We separated when Gavril was a little boy. I have been living quietly here in Vermeille ever since.”
“Gavril the painter?” Andrei began to laugh. “Wait till I tell Tasia. Her artist with the soulful sea-blue eyes—the one who was thrown out by the White Guard the night of the ball—is a lord!”
“Even if your extravagant claim is true, I still don’t understand how the Grand Duke can assist you,” complained the Grand Duchess.
“Don’t be so unimaginative, Mama,” said Andrei. “If I were to go missing, what would you do?”
“My dear, I’d leave it to your father to sort out.”
“Just when we had established the Treaty of Accord with Azhkendir?” The laughter had gone from Andrei Orlov’s voice; suddenly he was serious, incisive. “Azhkendir is all that stands between us and Tielen. If Madame Andar’s son has been kidnapped by political extremists—or Prince Eugene’s agents—Muscobar could find itself in a tricky situation.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Andrei,” said the Grand Duchess in tones of bewilderment.
Andrei strode across the salon and seized Elysia’s hands.
“Come with us to Mirom, Madame Andar. I will send word ahead to Papa, advising him of the situation.”
Elysia stood staring at Gavril’s portrait of Astasia. Even though half-finished, she could see it was the best piece of work he had ever achieved. Technically it was superb—but it was the way he had gone beyond technique to capture an elusive, wistful quality in the young girl’s face that impressed her so forcibly. Her eyes blurred with tears until she could no longer see the portrait clearly.
All the last week she had not allowed herself the luxury of tears; she had kept herself busy with ceaseless searching, ceaseless questioning. She had not slept much, either, sitting on the balcony, staring out hour after hour at the starlit waters of the bay, worrying and conjecturing.
It was totally out of character for Gavril to go away without leaving her a message. He had left Vermeille countless times, on solitary fishing trips or coastal treks with his student friends. She had never feared for his safety till now.
Staring blindly through her tears at Astasia’s portrait, she realized she was not certain what frightened her most: the thought that Volkh’s enemies might have kidnapped him, or the prospect that the druzhina wanted to make him Drakhaon—to change her charming, loving boy into a ruthless tyrant like his dead father.
“Madame?”
Elysia hastily wiped the tears from her eyes and looked around. A dark-haired girl stood in the doorway.
“You must be Altessa Astasia,” Elysia said.
“I—I am so sorry to hear about y
our son,” the girl said haltingly. “Andrei has just told me.”
Elysia nodded. She might have been deceived, but she was certain from the pallor of Astasia’s face that she also had been crying. Was this the reason for Gavril’s inspired portrayal? Was the Grand Duchess right? Had the relationship between painter and sitter deepened into something far more intimate?
“I will complete the portrait,” she said. “Her grace tells me it is to be a betrothal gift to your fiancé.”
Astasia said nothing, but a bitter little sigh escaped her lips.
“Well,” Elysia said, opening her box of paints. “Shall we start?”
“Madame is leaving so soon?” Palmyre cried. “And traveling alone?”
“Dear Palmyre.” Elysia looked up from her packing. “I don’t think you could describe accompanying the ruling family of Muscobar as traveling alone.”
“But you’ll be all on your own in that great cold, drafty city.” Palmyre had found the last days as taxing as her mistress; her ready, kindly smile had faded, and she looked tired and careworn.
“I need you to stay and take care of the villa.” Elysia clasped Palmyre’s hands. “Just in case he returns. It could happen. I want someone to be here for him while I’m away.”
“Oh, madame. You’ve been so brave.” Palmyre squeezed her hands warmly in return. “You can count on me. I’ll keep the place in good order. You mustn’t worry about things here. Now, have you packed that shawl, the lacy wool one? The nights are cold in Mirom.”
“Yes, yes.” Elysia turned back to her trunk. “Where did I put that hairbrush . . . ?”
There was still an hour or so before the barouche Elysia had ordered was due to take her to the Villa Orlova. She entered Gavril’s room. Everything was just as he had left it, clothes flung down carelessly on the floor, the covers on his bed rumpled. Unfinished sketches littered his desk along with stubs of pencils, charcoal, and pastels.
He would never have gone away without his sketchbook and pencils. Since boyhood he had always taken a sketchbook with him; he had been a compulsive sketcher, always with a stub of pencil in his hand, always doodling on any available scrap of paper.