They had been waiting for about twenty minutes before the governor himself opened the door to his inner office and invited them in. Even a day later, he still looked flushed with victory, his round cheeks apple red, his blunt features shining with excitement.
“Welcome, children,” he said, rubbing his hands together as he looked at them. Donial was put in mind of an ogre in a children’s story who was preparing to eat two little children—and he didn’t like being referred to that way in the first place, being fourteen and no longer a child. But to people like Sharzen, he guessed, everyone was a child until he or she was decidedly adult. Annoying, but there it was. Donial decided to let it pass.
“Come in,” Sharzen added. Donial wished he would stop rubbing his hands. He looked like he was cold, rubbing them together for friction, or to start a fire. He backed away from the door, and Donial and Alanya followed him in.
Donial had been in his office before, but was surprised once again at how much fancier it was than most places here on the border. The furniture had all been brought in from Aquilonia, not hewn from native woods. There were fine rugs on the floor, and wall hangings, and pillows of the softest yellow silk to sit on.
Sharzen indicated a couple of piles of pillows, and Donial and Alanya sat with legs crossed. Alanya had agreed that she would do most of the talking, and she didn’t let Donial down. “Thank you for agreeing to see us, Governor,” she began.
“What can I do for you?” Sharzen asked as he lowered himself onto his own stack of pillows. “I hope you know how sorry I am about your father. Still, he went down with his sword arm swinging and his enemies clustered thickly about his feet, a warrior to the end.”
“Then you there when he died?” Alanya asked.
Sharzen looked troubled for a moment. “Not right on the spot,” he said. “I was directing activity down the slope a bit.”
“So you did not actually see him killed,” she pressed.
“I heard about it, immediately after,” Sharzen hedged. “Lupinius could not stop talking about how brave he was.”
“We have heard all about that,” Alanya said. Donial had to suppress a smile. “But it seems that Uncle Lupinius was the only witness.”
Sharzen seemed to think that over for a moment. “Perhaps, yes. The only one I have heard about it from.”
Donial could see his sister steel herself. “We are not convinced that it really happened that way, Governor,” she said.
Sharzen looked astonished. “You think your uncle is . . . what, mistaken?”
“Sometimes in battle people get confused,” Donial interjected. “Or so I have heard.”
“Sometimes,” Sharzen admitted with a sage nod. “But in this case . . . I think Lupinius would recognize his own brother.”
“Probably he would,” Alanya agreed, shooting Donial a look meant to remind him who was supposed to be talking. “But what he describes does not sound like our father,” she explained. “He liked the Bear Clan shaman. They were friends.”
“That is a strong word—I cannot imagine an Aquilonian and a Pict ever really being friends. Anyway, friendship doesn’t always survive war,” Sharzen pointed out.
“But we were not at war with the Picts,” Alanya said. “In fact, our father was working hard to prevent war. I just cannot imagine him turning into someone who would try to kill his own friend. It isn’t his way.”
“Even if he saw that shaman trying to perform a spell that would kill many Aquilonians?” Sharzen offered.
“Possibly then,” Alanya said. “Was there such a spell?”
“I know not,” Sharzen said. “We know there are spells used in war all the time.”
“I’m sorry, Governor, but that is not very convincing,” Alanya replied. “If there was such a spell, why have there not been other tales of its use by the Picts? Why would my father be the only one who witnessed it?”
“Perhaps not convincing to you,” Sharzen said, ignoring her question. He put on sympathy like a mask. “But then, you have lost your father, and I’m not surprised that you would cling to an idealized version of his death.”
“We are not . . .” Alanya didn’t even finish her sentence. It was clear that Sharzen was dismissing their suspicions, and them. To make it even more apparent, he stood up and folded his muscular arms over his massive chest.
“I’m afraid I am very busy,” he told them. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Alanya rose, looking to Donial like she was stifling her rage. Her skin had darkened a little, her brow knitted together, and her eyes burned with barely contained fire. For a moment, Donial hoped she would let fly. But she probably knew it would do them no good to antagonize Koronaka’s governor—especially with their father gone and no one to protect them except Lupinius, Sharzen’s good friend and ally.
No, if they were ever to find out the truth of what had happened in the Bear Clan village, they would have to do it on their own.
KRAL WAS THREE days away from the village when he saw the smudge of smoke on the horizon. He didn’t know what it meant, but guessed it was trouble. Even though he had not finished his Spirit Trek, he could tell by its location between two faraway mountain peaks that the smoke came from the region of the Bear Clan village. He had been working on setting a trap using vines and sticks, trying to catch something for dinner, but he abandoned his efforts and set off at a run.
He covered ground quickly and tirelessly, taking long strides at an even pace. He had gone into the wilderness without clothing or weapons, as tradition demanded, so had no constrictions slowing him down or adding unwanted weight. The days were still warm, so the breeze blowing across him as he ran was welcome.
When night’s full darkness came on, he had to stop for fear of running into a tree—the light of the moon and stars didn’t penetrate the thick forest canopy overhead. He ate some fruit and berries he found, and allowed himself to sleep. Before first light, he was up and running again.
At that pace, he swallowed the miles much more quickly than when he had left at a walk. It was late afternoon on the second day when he reached the village. Since midmorning, he had feared the worst, as the smoke still clung to the sky, and it was obvious at last that it came from the village. A little closer, and he could see swarms of vultures circling overhead. But it wasn’t until he was wearily climbing the clan’s hill, beyond the tree line, that he knew how bad it really was.
The Bear Clan’s village had been burned to the ground. No hut was more than a smoldering pile of rubble or scorched mud walls. Bodies lay everywhere—everyone Kral had ever known, his friends, his neighbors, his aunts and uncles, mother and father, brother and sisters. Not even one of the clan’s dogs moved among the carnage. The air was thick with the smell of spilled blood and the buzzing of flies. The buzzards took wing at Kral’s arrival, but the effect of their work was plain.
Someone had obliterated the entire Bear Clan.
And there was little question who. Even through eyes clouded with grief and fury, Kral saw broken Aquilonian weapons, buckles from belts, pieces of sandal or boot. And there was a path leading from the base of the hill back toward the Black River and Koronaka that a toddler could follow. A Pictish toddler, at any rate.
Unable to stop himself, Kral found his own family’s hut—like the rest, a scorched and ruined mess. Blood and the scuff marks of bodies that had been hauled away by the attackers gave a good indication that his people had fought hard and taken many Aquilonian lives.
He had expected no less.
But he should have been here to help. His clan had needed him, and he had been away.
A sudden, terrible thought struck him. The Guardian of the Teeth! It was possible that he, at least, had survived—the Aquilonians had come up the opposite slope, and might not have seen the cave’s entrance. Suddenly hopeful, he hurried to the far rim and skidded downhill to the mouth.
Even before he reached it, though, he saw the corpses piled around it and that the bushes guarding
it had been butchered. From inside he could smell the alien stench of fire and death—two smells that he had never associated with the cave, as long as he had lived. Swallowing, he went in anyway, finding his way through the familiar dark passage. In the inner chamber he searched for the Guardian, and for that which the Guardian was sworn to protect. He found neither. The Teeth of the Ice Bear, the most sacred relic of the Bear Clan, was gone!
Murdering everyone, putting his village to the torch—those were terrible things, for which someone would pay. Kral swore that even as he made his way from the cave, back into the light of day, into the stink of smoke and slaughter, the incessant drone of the flies, the leathery flap of the vultures’ wings.
But taking the Teeth . . . that was a crime compounding the rest, somehow more horrible because it was clearly not an act of war, just the most base kind of thievery. Someone had the Teeth; someone had stolen it.
“That someone will pay,” Kral declared aloud. “This I vow!”
10
THE FUNERAL WAS held the next day.
Ordinarily, their father’s social rank would mean that his body would lie in state for several days, while people he knew, and family members, visited to show their respect for him. In Tarantia, that might have happened.
Here in the Westermarck, however, Donial understood that things were different. Their father had no relatives besides them and Lupinius. And he had not died alone, but in the company of a couple dozen soldiers. All of their bodies had been brought back to Koronaka by the invading force. Rather than allow them to sit out in the early-autumn heat, they were to be cremated immediately, on a group pyre just outside the fort’s walls.
So his body was one of many, laid out on the parade ground where, just days before, soldiers had drilled for the attack. Donial and Alanya went to see him one last time. Standing before his father’s lifeless form, Donial felt his knees grow weak. Alanya’s hand was suddenly in his, clutching it tightly.
A mixture of powerful emotions coursed through Donial. He believed himself to bear much of the responsibility for his father’s death. If he had not told what he saw in the forest that day, none of these things would have happened. But fault belonged to Alanya as well. She was the one who had carried on a secret relationship with a Pictish boy. The fact that both were culpable in some way kept either one from pointing fingers of blame, Donial thought.
None of which helped him feel better about looking at the handsome, empty figure on the platform. Donial loved his father, but perhaps more important, he respected the man. Father had always been hardworking, honest, available to his children. After his wife died, he took on the sole responsibility for raising Donial and Alanya, and he taught them the same virtues by which he lived.
Uncle Lupinius said that their father had asked him to care for them if anything ever happened to him. They had already been staying with Lupinius while Father was gone on his mission, so that would not change.
Alanya sobbed softly at his side. Elsewhere on the parade grounds, people stood silently, or wept openly, or prostrated themselves in the dirt in unabashed sorrow. Donial blinked back his own tears and wished there was something he could say to Alanya. But he didn’t trust his own voice. He vaguely remembered their mother’s funeral, back in Tarantia, at which he had cried long and loud, then been too choked up for anything resembling normal conversation for days. He was older now, more mature. And with Father gone, he had to carry more of the family’s weight. Whether he was ready or not, he had to become a man. He felt like everyone in the town was watching them, knowing it was their fault the raid had happened. So he kept his mouth closed, refused to let the tears fall.
He had heard people say their hearts were broken. He had just never known before exactly what they meant.
While they watched, Alanya still crushing his hand with both of hers, soldiers started collecting the bodies for the procession to the pyre outside the walls. He could already smell the smoke. The keening of the mourners grew louder. As two soldiers approached Father, Donial’s stomach clenched. His face flushed. This would really be farewell. When they lifted him by shoulders and feet—with respect, Donial thought, but still giving the unintended impression that he was nothing now but a heavy piece of meat—one of them said softly to his companion, “Did you see the wound? Looks more like a sword thrust than one of their spears or arrows.” They carried the body away before the other replied.
Donial glanced in alarm at his sister, but she didn’t seem to have noticed. He would tell her what he had heard—later, when he trusted himself to speak again. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. A Pict might have used a sword taken from an Aquilonian corpse. Or the soldier’s estimation might have been wrong. Who knew how much experience he had judging such things, or on the field of battle?
Bad enough that he had to mourn his father—did he now have to suspect his uncle of some complicity in the crime? Lupinius, or someone in his employ. Glad now that Alanya held him, Donial felt like the world spun crazily beneath his feet, trying to hurl him off into space.
UNCLE LUPINIUS’S SYMPATHETIC demeanor only lasted through the cremation.
Alanya had hoped that the conversation she and Donial had had with Governor Sharzen would remain private. Apparently, that was not to be. Lupinius went to see the governor the next day, following the funeral, and came back to the house scowling furiously. He did not specifically address the accusation she and Donial had made, but he tossed both of them angry looks and stomped around the place like a petulant child.
After several hours of this behavior, during which Lupinius hadn’t had a civil word to say to either of them, Alanya went into Donial’s room and closed the door. “He knows what we did,” she speculated. “It’s the only reason for him to be acting like this.”
“Do you think so?” Donial sat cross-legged on some cushions, his dark hair unkempt and falling into his eyes, his long shirt unbelted. He hadn’t left the house today. It didn’t look like he had any intention of doing so.
“He just took me aside and told me we are restricted to the fort,” she reported. “No leaving the walls under any circumstances.”
“Not so unreasonable,” Donial said. Even now, knowing what he did, or suspecting it, he was willing to defend Lupinius when he could. “The Picts—”
“Are all dead,” Alanya interrupted.
“True, I suppose,” Donial admitted. “But what if other clans seek revenge?”
“From what I understand, that is not very likely.” Alanya went to the window of Donial’s room. She looked out, past the barracks toward the log walls that now formed the boundaries of her life. The flames of the cremation pyre seemed almost still visible, as if they had been burned into her eyes. They had leapt high, stark against evening’s indigo sky. Governor Sharzen had spoken before the pyre, and Lupinius, and two priests of Mitra who lived at the fort. She couldn’t remember a word any of them had said. “They seem to be at war with each other as much as with anyone else.”
“So you think he just wants to punish us?”
“If the raid on the Bear Clan eliminated that threat, then it should be safer for us out in the woods than it used to be, not less safe. So either he’s wrong about killing all the Picts, or he’s just angry with us. He can’t be angry with us because our father died—at least, I should not think so. And he was this way when he came back from meeting with Governor Sharzen. So I think Sharzen told him what we feared.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Donial said.
Alanya did not answer right away, just gazed out the window. Even if she could leave the fort, without Kral out there, she had very little reason to. And now with their father gone and Uncle Lupinius their caretaker, she didn’t know when she’d be able to get back home to Tarantia, or what would become of Father’s house there. In one day, not only had she lost her only remaining parent, but also any hope of seeing her friends again. Her entire future seemed in doubt. On the frontier there were few opportunities for her. As soon a
s she was able to get away from here, she would do so, but it was dangerous for a young woman to travel alone. And Donial wasn’t yet of an age to be able to escort her.
Her world had been turned inside out, with two huge holes left in her heart by the loss of her father and her friend. Both would heal, in time, she supposed. Until then, she would carry the pain with her everywhere. Being stuck inside Koronaka’s four log walls would only make it worse.
“WE NEED A bigger wall.”
Lupinius walked with Sharzen along the existing perimeter of Koronaka’s walls, glancing up now and then at the parapets from which soldiers stood watch over the forests beyond. His goal of recovering a Pictish treasure hoard having been thwarted for the time being, it looked like he might be staying in the Westermarck a bit longer than anticipated. So he had been casting about for other ways to increase his personal fortune and importance, and further reinforcing the fort was what he had come up with.
He still had the primitive crown, in a wooden box in his home. Fortunately, he had not been stupid enough to tell anyone else he was after a rumored Pictish hoard. Sharzen would have wanted to share it, and his Rangers would have expected some kind of bonus. But he wasn’t sure yet just how he was going to sell the thing. As long as he stayed near the border, there was always the chance that some other Pictish clan might pay a ransom for it. Until he was able to get rid of it, however, he needed to be protected from any Picts who might come looking for it. If it was truly the magical artifact he suspected, then the Picts might even unite in search of whoever had taken it. The wall he proposed would serve that purpose as well.
Ghost of the Wall Page 8