“What do you mean by that?” Morna demanded fearfully.
Antonov didn’t answer the question. He smiled coldly. “How monstrous of me to do anything that might destroy the illusions your sons have about their mother. Actually, you’ve managed to impress me, Morna. How, in the name of the Goddess, did you manage to raise Dirk without him learning the truth about you?”
“You stay away from Dirk!” The fear in his mother’s voice surprised Dirk.
“The boy has potential, Morna. I fear for him left under your influence.”
“My influence? As opposed to what, Anton? Your lover, the High Priestess, whom you let dictate your every move? Or Paige Halyn, perhaps? Our esteemed spiritual leader who did nothing to prevent the rise of the Shadowdancers when he could have nipped their wicked cult in the bud during the Age of Shadows? His inaction is as much to blame as anything you or Belagren have done. The three of you are a trinity of evil, Anton.”
“And your gift for melodrama seems to have been honed by all these years in obscurity.” The prince smiled. He sounded quite reasonable. He was not angry. Not like his mother. “Belagren wishes your children no harm, Morna. Your sons hold an honored position in the eyes of the Goddess. They are the cousins of the child sacrificed to save Ranadon.”
“They are the nephews of the woman who killed herself rather than share the bed of the man who murdered her baby,” Morna hissed. “Don’t kid yourself that you are anything else, Anton.”
Before the prince could answer that charge, Kirsh and Lanon arrived with Alenor between them. Lanon and Alenor were rolling their eyes over something Kirsh had said. Apparently, he was still going on about the acrobat.
They stopped and stared at the prince and the duchess curiously, picking up some of the tension between the adults. Dirk thought it about time he made his presence known, before someone discovered him hiding in the bushes. He scuttled back a little way, then stood up and ran down the slope as if he had just come from the castle.
“Faralan is safely delivered, my lady,” he announced with forced cheerfulness.
“Thank you, Dirk.” She turned to the prince and bowed. “And now, your highness, if you will excuse us, I will return to the castle with the children before the... ritual begins.”
Antonov bowed in return, but there was a wry smile on his face that made Dirk wonder about him. His mother had accused him of some terrible things, but he seemed totally unconcerned.
“Can’t I stay, father?” Kirsh begged. “Please?”
“When you’ve come of age, son,” Antonov promised. “In the meantime, the Lady Morna has some ... less stimulating... activities organized for your entertainment in the Keep. Go now. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Kirsh had not seriously expected his father to let him stay, so he wasn’t exactly overcome by disappointment when he was refused. But he had not forgotten his earlier promise to Marqel the Magnificent.
“Father, will you invite the acrobats to Avacas? They’re very good. Really. I’ve never seen a better acrobat.”
“High praise indeed, from a connoisseur such as yourself.” Antonov smiled at the hope in Kirsh’s eyes. “I suppose that means you’ve already told them I will invite them? Well, I shall view their act for myself and if they’re as good as you claim, I’ll see to it they get their invitation. Now be off with you. Lady Morna should not be kept waiting.”
“Thank you, sir!” Kirsh called as he bolted up the hill.
Morna bowed wordlessly to the prince, her eyes burning with helpless anger. And then, with Dirk at her side, she turned and followed the young prince and his companions at a more dignified pace.
Chapter 25
The music from the Festival carried on long into the night, making it impossible to sleep. At least for Dirk. Lanon and Kirsh were unconscious almost as soon as their heads hit the pillows. But Dirk had heard too much, learned too much, and too many things had happened in the past day to let him rest.
A timid knock at his door stopped him from tossing and turning. He slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Eryk, Lanon or Kirsh, and padded barefoot to the door, opening it a fraction. Alenor was waiting outside, dressed in her nightgown. She placed a finger on her lips, warning him to silence, and beckoned him out. With a quick glance over his shoulder at Lanon and the sleeping prince, he slipped through the door. Alenor led him along the hall to the stairs and began to climb upward. Dirk followed her curiously, not saying a word until they closed the door of the old observatory on the top floor behind them.
“Why are we up here?” he asked, his voice echoing in the vacant chamber. The circular observatory took up the entire top floor of the Keep, and had an onion-domed roof that was flaked and peeling with neglect. There had been a telescope here once, so Dirk had been told, before the Age of Shadows. He had never been able to discover what had happened to it.
“Don’t you want to see what’s going on down there?”
“I thought you didn’t want anything to do with the Festival?”
“I don’t,” she said, climbing onto the window seat. “But I think you should see what’s happening. Come on! They’re about to start!”
Dirk hurried to her side and looked down over the common. In the distance he could see the wicker suns and around them a large crowd of adults gathered for the ceremony. He was too high up to make out individual figures. So high up, in fact, that it seemed pointless even being here. Then Alenor reached under her nightgown and produced a small brass tube.
He stared at the small instrument in awe.
“What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“That’s a telescope!”
“How else are we going to see what’s going on?”
“I thought all the telescopes were destroyed during the Age of Shadows.”
“They were. Belagren ordered them destroyed because she claims it was the people looking on the face of the Goddess that caused her to turn from us.”
“That makes no sense. We can look up and see the suns any time. Why would looking at them through a telescope make any difference?”
“I don’t know. She says the heavens are the key to the Goddess’s power.”
Dirk took the polished brass tube and examined it thoughtfully. “Perhaps the High Priestess was afraid of what they might learn by studying the suns too closely. Where did you get this one, anyway?”
“It belongs to Prince Antonov.”
“But... how?”
Alenor shrugged. “Just because a thing is banned doesn’t mean it ceases to exist, Dirk. Look, there’s your brother.”
Dirk placed the tube to his eye and aimed it at the scene below. It took a little getting used to, but in a moment the small figures came into focus. The people were masked now, although the masks were more decorative than an effective disguise. He could make out Rees’s distinctive red coat and curly dark hair, even from this distance. The mask he wore covered only his eyes and formed the head of a bird. The beak protruded out over his nose and the feathers over the eyeholes glinted red in the ruby light of the evening sun. Rees stood a few paces from Tovin Rill and Prince Antonov, whose mask was made of gold-tipped white feathers that perfectly matched the gold embroidery on his white jacket.
The crowd had separated into two circles, men in the inner circle, women forming the outer, encircling the wicker suns and the altar, where a large bowl filled with dark liquid sat ready and waiting. The music changed tempo as it drifted up to them on the still night air—a primal beat that seemed to underscore the mood of the gathering. There were small silver cups being handed out by the Shadowdancers. One he recognized as the tall redhead, Ella Geon. The other was Olena Borne, who had also arrived with Antonov. Standing by the altar was the High Priestess, Belagren. Of the Sundancer Brahm, there was no sign.
Dirk adjusted the focus as the cups were passed along the line. He found Rees in the crowd again, watching as his brother took a sip then handed the cup on to the next man. He seemed to be swaying on his fee
t.
“What are they doing now?” Alenor asked.
“Handing out small cups to everyone,” he told her, without taking his eyes off the scene below.
“The Milk of the Goddess.”
Everyone was swaying now in time to the primal beat of the drums. Ella walked to the center of the inner circle. He could see her lips move as she chanted something that he could not hear. Then a number of uniformed figures appeared, wearing the livery of Antonov’s personal guard. They were holding two men, ragged and weak, between them. The soldiers hauled the prisoners across to the wicker suns and chained them to the posts. The lines of men and women swayed hypnotically, but the two men about to be sacrificed made no attempt to resist. Perhaps they were drugged. Dirk couldn’t imagine he would allow himself to be dragged unresistingly to his own execution.
“Who are the men they’re sacrificing?”
“I’m not sure,” Alenor shrugged beside him. “I think they’re Baenlanders. They were on the Calliope with us.”
“They’re prisoners?”
“They always use convicted criminals. Prince Antonov says it saves the cost of an execution.”
And it explains why nobody objects too strenuously. Dirk lowered the glass and stared at her for a moment. “If you’ve never been to a ritual, how do you know all this?”
“I pay attention.”
Dirk found her answer less than satisfactory, but he couldn’t really think up a suitable retort, so he returned his gaze to the common.
Dirk caught sight of Belagren, who was now dressed in a long blue robe. She moved away from the altar, clutching a flaming torch in her hand.
The crowd swayed in time to the drums as she danced toward the man tied to the post in front of the largest sun. The people cried out, so loud that the faint sound reached Dirk and Alenor, high in the tower.
Belagren danced toward the second wicker sun, where the other emaciated Baenlander slumped against the post, his eyes dull. The crowd fell to their knees as the High Priestess cried out something Dirk couldn’t hear, then she touched the flaming torch to the dry kindling piled at the base of the sun. The wicker caught with a whoosh, the flames leaping upward. She then danced back to the second sun and set it alight, too. Dirk looked away hurriedly, afraid he was going to be sick. Then he forced himself to look back. For a moment, silence descended on the crowd, then a roar of approval rose up, drowning out the faint screams of the burning men.
Dirk turned his back on the scene, his stomach heaving. The shouts were so loud they could hear them in the tower. Alenor was watching him curiously. She seemed much more accepting than he was. But then, she’d been raised on the mainland. She probably saw this every year.
“Have you ever taken part?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m too young.” Then she tried to snatch the telescope from him. “That’s why I wanted to see this one.”
Another shout from the crowd drew Dirk’s attention. The wicker suns were well and truly ablaze now. They must have been treated with something flammable, as each sun burned a different color. The smaller sun burned red, while the larger lit the red night with bright yellow flames. Dirk’s stomach tightened as he watched in sick fascination as the flesh blackened and curled from the bones of the man chained to the closest pyre. In his mind, he could imagine the screams. As Helgin’s assistant, he’d seen his share of blood and death, but nothing prepared him for the horror of watching a man burned alive. What made it worse was that the drugged and chanting crowd surrounding the dying men—the people close enough to taste the smell of charred flesh—seemed totally unmoved by what was going on before them.
Dirk moved the telescope a fraction. He could just make out the vague shapes of the other dying man as he thrashed against the chains that held him. As he watched, the man tied to the yellow sun slumped forward, dead, hopefully, or maybe overcome by the smoke. The other man seemed to remain conscious for a lot longer, screaming, burning...
Dear Goddess, what a way to die...
Then the inner circle began to dissolve. At some signal he didn’t see, the men moved toward the altar to pay homage to the High Priestess. They bowed before her. She dipped her fingers in the bowl she held, smearing each man’s face with the dark, sticky substance. He turned away from the sight, sickened to the core of his being. Alenor took the glass from him and trained it on the scene below.
Dirk closed his eyes, only to discover the image of the flaming men burned into his retina. “I can’t believe my father agreed to this.”
Alenor didn’t answer him. She was transfixed on the sight below her, pale and shaking as she studied it through the telescope.
“What are they doing now?” he asked in a dull, lifeless voice.
“Marking themselves with the Blood of the Goddess ... actually, I think it’s only pig’s blood, but it’s the thought that counts.”
“That’s disgusting, Alenor.”
“It’s no worse than burning men alive.”
“I mean it’s disgusting that you can joke about it.”
The drums throbbed like a heartbeat. Dirk turned to look down. Alenor reluctantly handed the glass back to him. The men and women, their faces streaked with blood now, began moving among each other until some instinct or signal that Dirk could not fathom seemed to take hold of them and suddenly a couple would peel away from the crowd and vanish into the trees. Other, less inhibited souls didn’t even go that far. There seemed no order to their pairing, no conscious decision.
He caught sight of Rees being led away toward the trees by one of the Shadowdancers, although he couldn’t tell which one. Then Dirk focused on Tovin Rill in time to see him put his arm around a young woman who looked suspiciously like Frena, the castle baker’s daughter. With a frown, he watched them push through the crowd. Frena was a simple girl, just eighteen and madly in love with Mathi, the apprentice blacksmith, if one believed castle gossip. She was not the sort that the governor would notice. She was not even that pretty.
“Someone you know?”
He lowered the telescope and turned his back to the window, wondering if Alenor had read his mind, or if it had simply been the expression on his face that gave him away.
“Rees went with a Shadowdancer.”
“He’s the heir to Elcast.”
Dirk wasn’t sure why that was relevant. “Tovin Rill’s gone with Frena, the baker’s daughter.”
“Well, let’s just pray that he doesn’t get her with child,” Alenor remarked rather callously. “Another fatherless Landfall bastard is the last thing Dhevyn needs.”
“The child isn’t fatherless.”
“Tovin Rill won’t remember who it was tomorrow and neither will Frena.”
“But I know.”
“And who are you going to tell? You can hardly admit you sneaked up here to take a peek, can you?”
He sighed heavily as he realized the truth of her words. “Why did you want me to see this?”
“Do you think it’s wrong?” she asked, instead of answering him.
“What sort of question is that? Of course I think it’s wrong!”
Alenor nodded knowingly. “You do now. One day you won’t. One day you’ll be down there, cheering with everyone else.”
“Never!” he declared vehemently.
The princess appeared unconvinced. “You say that now, but once you take part...” her voice trailed off for a moment. “I’ve seen it happen time and again, Dirk. Antonov brings the sons of Dhevyn’s noble families to Avacas for the Landfall Festival every year. And no matter how much they say they won’t take part, no matter how hard they protest, by the time they leave Avacas, they’re singing the praises of the Goddess as loud as any Senetian. I thought... maybe you...”
“What?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose I thought that if you knew what happened, before you taste the Milk of the Goddess, maybe ...”
Dirk patted her arm comfortingly. “Alenor, I would never take part in anythin
g so barbaric.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she sighed. “The truth is, I’m not sure why I wanted you to see it. You won’t tell on me, will you?”
“Do you really think Antonov would harm you?”
Alenor laughed, but it was a short, harsh laugh that sounded much too cynical from one so young. “He slit his own son’s throat, Dirk.”
There wasn’t really an answer to that. He was silent for a long time.
“You seem to know an awful lot about what goes on in Avacas.”
“I’m a hostage, Dirk. It pays to know what’s going on.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s not your fault.”
“But at least Antonov doesn’t treat you like a prisoner.” He smiled faintly. “Neither does Kirsh.”
“That’s because I’m still the heir to the throne of Dhevyn. The Lion of Senet got away with meddling in Dhevyn’s royal succession once, but he doesn’t want to push his luck by doing it again. Besides, he wants me to marry Kirsh one day.”
“Do you want to marry Kirsh?” Dirk asked.
Alenor shrugged.
“I don’t think you should marry him.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s Senetian, for one thing. If you’re going to be queen you should marry a Dhevynian.”
“You don’t like Kirsh, do you?”
“Of course I like him. How can you not like him? That’s what makes him so annoying. Is there anything he can’t do well?”
“Use his head,” Alenor chuckled, with wisdom beyond her years. “Even Prince Antonov says Kirsh thinks with his heart. He acts first and then worries about it later. If he worries at all.” She jumped down from the window seat and headed toward the door, her small bare feet leaving a trail of footprints across the dusty floor. “Come on, we’d better get back before we’re missed.”
“Alenor ...”
“What?”
“I wish it was me instead of Kirsh going to join the Queen’s Guard.”
His ears burning with embarrassment, Dirk looked away as soon as he had uttered the words. He felt incredibly foolish for making such an admission and could not imagine what had possessed him to blurt out such a stupid thing.
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