Ritual of the Stones (Ballad of Frindoth)

by Donovan, Rob

  “Okay, what’s this feeling?”

  Rhact took a deep breath. They had been friends since they were born. When they became teenagers, they decided they wanted more than to be farmers’ sons and had decided to explore Frindoth. Whilst this was not unheard of in their small village, it was rare enough for their parents to be bitterly disappointed in them. This had not deterred them, however, and they set out with dreams of making it big in Lilyon, aspiring to become squires and one day knights for King Jacquard.

  They had their fair share of adventures travelling from town to town, but as soon as they reached Longcombe, Rhact knew they would never go any further. He had fallen in love with a young dark-haired seamstress. Now sixteen years later, the young seamstress was his wife and they had two children together. Mertyn had been keen to go on at first but he too had fallen in love and his first child was born a week after Rhact’s firstborn. In other words, they were inseparable and Rhact knew Mertyn would not give up the issue.

  Around him the tavern began to empty as people made their way back to their homes. Mr Hollington had gone along with his entourage of girls. A couple Rhact knew by face but could not place their names helped each other to the door. The woman stumbled over and fell to the floor, whilst the man overdramatically rushed to help her.

  “I can’t explain it; I just got a bad feeling about the Ritual.”

  “Gloomsday?” Mertyn said, a frown appearing. Rhact winced, he hated it when Mertyn trivialised it like that. His friend seemed to notice his discomfort as he felt compelled to continue. “Look, the Ritual of the Stones is an awful thing, horrible in fact. Some of the stories we have heard are enough to give any man nightmares. But it has never even come close to affecting us. Never.”

  “That doesn’t mean it won’t. It could easily be someone we love this time.”

  “Yes it could, but the Ritual asks for twelve people, Rhact, twelve. Out of the whole of Frindoth. I think our chances are pretty good.”

  “I know all that, doesn’t mean I don’t have this feeling.”

  “No, and I am not dismissing that. I am also not dismissing the fact that we’ve had a lot to drink as well.”

  Mertyn drained the last of his ale and then picked up his own small glass. He toasted Rhact and knocked the drink back and grinned at his friend. When he saw Rhact’s mood had not lifted, he said, “Look, why are you worried? You never worry. I’m the worrier, remember? I would worry that the sun would not rise tomorrow if I thought about it long enough. I’ve known you my whole life and nothing has bothered you, so why are you suddenly getting all serious?”

  Rhact shrugged. He couldn’t say for sure why he was worried. His friend was right, he tended to laugh away his problems rather than acknowledge them. The fact he was worried about this made him even more worried.

  “You are worrying about nothing. I bet you two silver coins that come winter we will be sitting here, just as drunk, with no recollection of this conversation.”

  “Now I am worried,” Rhact said as he stood up and drained his own drinks. “I’ve known you my whole life and never known you to win a bet.”

  * * *

  Rhact entered his house and stumbled over the mat.

  “How was your drink?” Kiana said. There was no sarcasm in her voice; it was an innocent question.

  “Moist,” Rhact replied.

  Kiana smiled, she was sitting in her rocking chair Rhact had got for her last summer. Although the night was fairly hot, she sat with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Rhact knew this was for comfort rather than warmth. His wife was never comfortable being left alone in the house when the children were in bed.

  “Our son still isn’t home yet,” Kiana said. “He promised he would be in before dark.”

  Rhact waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “He’s a young boy, that is what he is supposed to do,” he said.

  He walked over to the basin of water that was on the kitchen table and plunged his head into it. When he emerged, his long black hair dripping with water, Kiana handed him a towel.

  “He is only fifteen years old, Rhact. He should be in bed now.”

  When Rhact did not respond, she sighed.

  Normally Jensen’s lateness would not have bothered him. When it came to parenting the children, Kiana was the one who was the more cautious of the two. He was constantly persuading her to let the children do things she had reservations about. Only a couple of days ago he convinced her to allow them to venture beyond the town walls, something other children their age had been doing for a number of years.

  Tonight he had allowed the children to go with Mertyn’s kids and explore the old abandoned guard tower on the outskirts of the town. The building had been popular with the children of Longcombe for as long as anyone could remember. Jensen was not a bad lad, he just liked testing the boundaries Rhact and Kiana imposed upon him.

  He felt Kiana’s arms wrap around his body and her head nuzzle into his shoulder. He responded by embracing her and kissing the top of her head. He loved how she had the ability to totally drain the stress from his body with a single touch.

  “Do you want me to go out and look for him?” he asked.

  Kiana paused before saying, “No, he will come home soon.”

  Rhact knew he would not be able to sleep until Jensen was safely indoors, so he let Kiana go to bed whilst he waited up for him. He was not concerned for Jensen’s safety but he was annoyed at his son’s defiance.

  It was well into the night when the creak in the floorboard stirred Rhact from his sleep. He had dozed off in the rocking chair using Kiana’s shawl for warmth. The fire had died down to an orange glow. Outside it was now pitch-black. Another creak sounded from the stairs. Jensen!

  “Don’t think you can sneak past me, young man,” he said.

  Silence was his only response.

  Had he imagined it? Maybe Jensen was already home and in bed? Before he could get up to check, though, there was another whine of a floorboard.

  “Jensen, get back here, I do not wish to wake up the rest of the house, but we are having this conversation whether you like it or not.”

  Eventually his son emerged from the shadows of the hallway into the room. He had the decency to look embarrassed but there was also an act of defiance.

  “You’re late,” Rhact said.

  “You’re drunk,” Jensen shot back, motioning to the flask of wine in Rhact’s hand. Rhact had opened it after Kiana had gone to bed.

  “Pathetic. Is that all you’ve got to say?”

  There was no need for Jensen to act like this; he had been caught red-handed and was in the wrong, he should just take the lecture and be done with it. Instead Jensen snorted and looked away, his green eyes fixating on the floor.

  “Is there a reason why you are late or are you just deliberately out to defy me and your mother?” Rhact asked. Jensen’s response was to shrug his shoulders. “Well?”

  “Lost track of the time.”

  “That’s your excuse? You lost track of time? Son, you are fifteen summers old. You are supposed to be a man. Mertyn and I left home when we were just a little older than you.”

  Jensen rolled his eyes, as if he’d heard this story a million times before. In truth he probably had.

  “Right, well, if you are that bad at judging time, then you won’t notice the two weeks you will spend working nights in the shop, will you?”

  Jensen blew aside the hair that covered one side of his face. He seemed to weigh up whether it was worth the effort to argue with his father. Even to Rhact the punishment sounded lame.

  He hated disciplining his children. Not because he hated being strict, but because he knew he wasn’t particularly good at it. What was worse, they knew it too. It didn’t help that Jensen now towered a good foot over him. So every time he tried to be imposing he came across as weak. Why couldn’t they just follow his rules?

  “Are we done?” Jensen said.

  “No we are not done. You’ve
had me and your mother worrying ourselves all night about where you were. I was going to go out and look for you, even disturb Mayor Pinkleton to let him know—”

  Rhact stopped in mid-sentence as his son slumped down into a chair and put his boots up on the kitchen table. He watched as dried mud fell onto the surface. His son oblivious to the mess it was causing.

  In that moment, Rhact was livid. He hated Jensen’s open disrespect for him and most of all he hated the fact he was losing the close relationship he had with his son.

  Before he could think what he was doing, Rhact stomped over to his son, hauled him to his feet and slapped him across the face. Jensen looked down at him in shock and as he went to open his mouth to talk, Rhact slapped him again and gripped Jensen’s shirt, pulling him down toward him so their noses were almost touching.

  “Now you listen to me and show me the respect I deserve as your father. You will start obeying me from this moment on. This character that you are becoming, this … this sullen, defiant, damn right unpleasant little sod that you are behaving like lately stops tonight. Do you hear me? It stops tonight.”

  Jensen looked at him in disbelief. Rhact still gripped Jensen’s shirt as he became aware of Kiana and Janna in the doorway. Kiana put a protective arm around Janna. She looked surprised as if seeing Rhact for the first time. Janna was in her nightgown, her brown hair dishevelled from where she had been sleeping, looked openly scared of her father. Rhact released his grip on the shirt, smoothing down the creases he had caused.

  “Are we done?” Jensen whispered, looking at the floor, already there was a red hand print appearing on his cheek.

  “Yes, we’re done,” Rhact whispered.

  Jensen shrugged his shoulders again and skulked off, passing Kiana and Janna without even looking at them. After a few moments, Kiana guided her daughter back up the stairs. Rhact heard the low murmur of voices coming through the floorboards as Kiana tried to reassure her daughter that everything was okay.

  Deflated, Rhact began scooping the mud off the table into his cupped hand. When had Jensen changed from the inquisitive little boy that looked at him in awe into this moody young man? He felt like he did not know him anymore. Jensen always wanted to be off doing other things. Playing with his friends or doing who knows what. Was I like that at his age? Rhact had definitely wanted to be elsewhere in the world, exploring the cities he had only ever heard of, but he didn’t remember being so hostile.

  He threw the scooped up dirt into the fire and then went over to the front door, closing the bolt across the lock. He was reassured by the weighty sound. He then slid his back against the door and sat at its base, resting his head against the wood. He heard Kiana descend the stairs and enter the room.

  “Is he like it with just me?” Rhact asked without looking up.

  “No, my dear, he is a teenager, this is how they behave.”

  “I don’t see him doing it with you or Janna. Maybe it’s something I’ve done to upset him?”

  “You haven’t done anything. He is just being Jensen.”

  “I just don’t want our relationship to turn out like the one I had with my father.”

  He never had a great relationship with his father. They got along well enough but there was never a sense of closeness. They never did anything together other than the jobs around the farm. They certainly never really laughed together or held any long talks about Jensen’s future.

  “It won’t.”

  “Well, we are heading down the same path. By the moons, Kiana, I struck him!”

  Kiana came over and sat next to him. She rested her head on his shoulder and placed a hand on his leg. They sat like that for a little while. Rhact was grateful for his wife’s presence and for the fact she did not try and talk to him about his actions. He did not think he could handle it just yet.

  They both jumped at the sound of someone pounding on the door behind them. Rhact’s heart thumped in his chest; it was unusual to receive visitors so late. He looked warily at Kiana, who looked just as confused as he did. He licked his lips and called out in the most authoritative voice he could muster.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, let me in.” Rhact recognised Mertyn’s voice instantly.

  Kiana frowned and walked away, no doubt thinking that Mertyn was still drunk. Rhact pulled back the bolt and opened the door. Mertyn bent over and was breathing hard. He was dressed in an outdoor cloak draped over his night clothes. He had obviously dressed hastily as he did not have any socks on and the laces on his boots were undone.

  “What on earth is the matter?” Rhact asked.

  “ Just … just heard,” Mertyn said between deep breaths.

  “Heard what?” Kiana said, appearing by Rhact’s side.

  “The witch is here … just arrived …”

  Kiana gasped, the witch arriving could mean only one thing. She was here from the Order and she was here to escort someone to Lilyon as part of the Ritual of the Stones.

  “Looks like your feeling was correct after all,” Mertyn said. Rhact didn’t smile.

  Chapter 4

  Rhact woke to the clanging of the town bell. He knew from the fact all the covers were on him that Kiana was already up fixing breakfast. He reached for the jug of water by his bed and poured it into the empty glass, savouring the drink as it quenched his dry throat. Why do I drink? he thought, recalling the night before.

  After Mertyn told them of the witch’s arrival, he and Kiana had stayed up talking. Both were shocked by the news; never before had the Ritual of the Stones directly impacted their town. It was a well-known event but at the same time it seemed that it took place in another world. The closest it had come to affecting anyone in the town was twenty-four years ago when the miller Dick Enerton had a nephew in Westbury fountain selected as one of the twelve. Although the lad had never been chosen as the final person to be sacrificed, everyone knew the story of how Dick’s sister (the lad’s mother) had gone into shock, a streak of her hair instantly turning grey and her mind closing down completely to never recover.

  “What do we do if it is one of us, Rhact?” Kiana had asked him in a small voice.

  “It won’t be, there are a lot of people here, honey, over three hundred at least, you know that. The chances of it being one of us are very small,” he had said, although he had been thinking the exact opposite.

  He was now certain the feeling which had been growing inside him for weeks had been warning him of the witch’s arrival. He also had a very uncomfortable suspicion that things were about to get a lot worse.

  “I guess,” Kiana said, “there is a good chance that it might be someone we know, though.”

  Rhact had no answer to that, for he could not deny the truth in the statement. In a town where he knew the majority at least by face, he realised that if his suspicions were wrong then the best he could hope for was to watch another family fall apart.

  “It is going to be a terrible summer for Longcombe, isn’t it?” she said, already seeming to come to the terms with the terrible news that awaited someone.

  That was Kiana’s way, he thought. Establish the facts and deal with them. He knew that she was mentally processing every scenario that might occur and coming up with the best solutions.

  “I can’t even begin to imagine what it is going to be like,” he replied and that was the honest truth. How did you deal with the fact you or your loved one could be chosen for sacrifice? How do you deal with that kind of thing objectively? You could try convincing yourself that you would be saving thousands of lives if sacrificed, but how do you deal with the injustice of it all?

  As Rhact dressed himself that morning, the town bell continued to clang. It only ever rang for three reasons: a rapid ringing to indicate that the village was in danger from a fire or an attack; a slow “dong” to signal there was a significant death; or a steady clanging like this morning to notify the town there was an important village meeting.

  “Mother says to tell you to hurry up. She want
s to be able to stand at least within earshot of the mayor.” Rhact looked up to see his daughter Janna standing in the doorway to the bedroom. She had spoken whilst chewing one of her fingernails. He was pleased she did not appear to be affected by the incident last night.

  At fourteen years old, she had not yet succumbed to the teenage rebellious behaviour that so many children (most notably Jensen) went through. This morning she was wearing a simple beige dress and her brown hair was pulled back into a tiny ponytail. Being pretty did not concern her and she made no attempt to make the most of herself. Not that she was an unattractive girl, and in truth her lackadaisical approach to her appearance only highlighted her natural beauty.

  “Tell her I’ll be down shortly.”

  * * *

  It was only eight short steps up to the wooden platform, but by the time Mayor Pinkleton waded through the crowd and made his way onto the stage, he was red-faced and breathless. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. His flowing grey beard fell past his neckline and a blue flat cap gave him the appearance of a fisherman. He wore a frilly white shirt that barely contained his enormous belly. One of the buttons popped open to reveal some wispy chest hair. He raised a hand to silence the ever growing crowd and then bent over to catch his breath. This elicited a few snickers in the crowd which he didn’t notice.

  At sixty-one years of age, Mayor Pinkleton was already a year past the official legal age to own such a title. However, due to his dedication to the role and the fact that there were no serious contenders when he offered to retire last year, he remained in office.

  In a village like Longcombe, his duties were not exactly arduous. Although the village had a population of three hundred twenty-four people, everyone had their defined roles and responsibilities and tended to stick to them. Mayor Pinkleton found there was no real need to tamper with the order of things and let the village run itself. He certainly had no contact with King Jacquard other than the occasional emissary checking on the state of the town.

  Presiding over the Ritual was his first real role of importance. That is not to say that he didn’t host these regular meetings; Mayor Pinkleton loved the sound of his own voice and would often be found hosting a meeting on whether or not the village should extend its boundaries by an extra half a foot or not or whether it should erect a higher perimeter wall (the current one already exceeded eight feet and was more than sufficient). The people always voted the same, Longcombe was not a town and there was no need to pretend to be independent. The majority of Frindoth did not know that it even existed so it certainly didn’t need to control who came in and out of the village.