Ritual of the Stones (Ballad of Frindoth)

by Donovan, Rob

  It was on the night that Jensen had thought of one of these impish schemes he started to see her in a different light. He had come up with the idea to break into the cellar of the Green Stag Inn and steal a whole cask of ale. Brody and Janna were quick to protest, pointing out the flaws in the plan and the trouble they could all get into, but Brenna encouraged the idea. When she began calling her elder brother a chicken, he agreed to the idea out of defiance.

  As it happened, alleviating the inn of a cask of ale proved to be the easy part. It was an unusually busy night in the inn and Banbury had sent Trement down to the cellar to replenish the stock. Trement, being a willing but ultimately stupid boy, left the cellar door open whilst he was wheeling two barrels at a time to the bar.

  Seeing their opportunity. Jensen and Brody dashed into the cellar and grabbed the nearest cask whilst the girls stood watch. They then fled into the safety of the woods.

  The hard part had actually been trying to find four mugs to drink the ale in without raising any suspicion. In the end, the four of them settled for drinking directly out of the tap and proceeded to get very drunk.

  Jensen had staggered off into the woods to relieve himself and found Brenna squatting in the trees before him. This was not unusual, as the four of them were more than comfortable with each other and often relieved themselves in front of each other.

  Jensen had been fumbling with his trousers and was surprised to see Brenna standing in front of him.

  “We did it,” he slurred, smiling.

  Brenna smiled at him and then kissed him on the lips, before whispering in his ear, “You did it.”

  Jensen had been too dumbfounded for words. The rest of the night, he had been confused and quiet, which Brody and Janna put down to his drinking.

  Over the next couple of days, he couldn’t get the kiss out of his head. He would lie awake at night remembering how it felt, the softness of her lips and the slightly sweet taste. No matter how much he tried to reason with himself that it was an isolated incident and nothing more could happen due to his friendship with Brody, Jensen caught himself exchanging shy and furtive glances with Brenna, smiling discreetly at each other and then acting awkwardly in the other’s presence.

  A week later the two found themselves alone again. Jensen was minding his father’s shop whilst he went into Compton to get supplies. Brenna entered the shop and after a nervous greeting appeared to be examining every candle on the shelves. Jensen knew full well that she hadn’t been interested in the candles and asked her why she was there.

  “Look, about the other night, when I kissed you,” she began, “I know it took you by surprise and I just wanted to apolo—”

  She never got to finish her sentence. Jensen had kissed her. Since that episode the two had grown closer and closer, stealing away at every opportunity to satisfy their physical needs.

  Jensen was shocked at how quickly his feelings had deepened for her over the summer. Despite the excitement of a hastened kiss and grope every now and then, he was pleasantly surprised how much he wanted to just be with Brenna and to share with her what he was feeling.

  A lot of the time he was happy to just be around her, without them having any physical contact. If Brody or Janna noticed anything, they never mentioned it or let on, although Jensen and Brenna both agreed they wanted no one else to know.

  Tonight, however, there suddenly seemed a barrier between the two of them that had not been there before. Jensen knew it was because there was a level of expectation in the air. Brenna was due to leave on the morrow, and when she returned (even if he could convince his father not to go ahead with his foolish scheme), there was a good chance things would not be the same between them. Worse still, if his father forced him to flee, then this was the last time that he would ever see her.

  He desperately wanted to tell her about his sister. Janna was her close friend, as close as he and Brody were. The last couple of days they had explained to everyone that Janna was too sick to see anyone. With all that was going on, Jensen was amazed no one connected her sudden illness with people finding the stones. But as his mother said, people are often too consumed with their own lives.

  Mertyn had made it clear that no one outside the few people he and Tyra had told was to know that Brody had been chosen. Jensen did not blame him. The other stone in the town had been found by a woman called Elsie Brookman. Jensen did not know too much about Elsie other than she was elderly and lived with her husband. They were happy in each other’s company, choosing not to have any children. However, since it had become common knowledge that Elsie had found a stone under her pillow, people had treated her differently. They either looked at her through pity-filled eyes or avoided her as if she had a highly contagious disease. The gossip fixated on the fact that the stone was silver—as if that had some significance.

  Earlier this morning she had snapped in the marketplace and began hollering at everyone, demanding they at least try to treat her like she was a normal woman whilst she was still living. Eventually, her husband gently led her away, leaving people shaking their heads and muttering amongst themselves.

  “We do not have to do anything tonight, you know, if you don’t want to,” Brenna said.

  “It is not that I am not keen. Believe me, I want to,” he said.

  “Well I could definitely tell that,” she said, sliding her hand towards his groin and squeezing playfully. “What is stopping you then?”

  Throughout the summer, Jensen had been surprised at Brenna’s forwardness. She was the one to initiate things and was generally the one that progressed their physical relationship. He wondered where she got her experience from. It was a thought he instantly pushed from his mind. He did not want to know. It was not unusual for girls her age to have been with a man (some not through choice). He wondered uncomfortably if Janna was this advanced?

  “Hey, where are you tonight?” she said.

  “I’m sorry, I am just thinking about tomorrow and your brother.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  Jensen chastised himself. He knew he had made her feel bad that she wasn’t thinking about him as well.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.

  “It’s all right. You are right, we shouldn’t be thinking about what we want to do. I’m a bad person. I was hoping tonight we could forget everything that is going on and just have each other.”

  Brenna sat up. He thought at that moment she seemed like the younger sister of his friend. For the first time this summer, he felt like the elder person in the relationship.

  “I just meant the situation being like it is. You going away, it is kind of forcing us into a tonight or not at all type scenario. I was thinking if Brode had not been chosen, would we even be thinking of being together tonight?”

  Even in the moonlight he could see the teasing smile on her face.

  “If I had not seen your manhood, I swear I would think you were a girl,” she said and punched him on the arm.

  Jensen rolled over away from her. He hated it when she teased him. He wished he did not care about girls’ feelings. He would be better off if he just slept with them and then laughed about them the next day like every other man.

  After a while, he felt Brenna’s hand rest on his arm and felt a familiar stirring below. Immediately, his anger began to ebb away. All she had to do was touch him and he felt better.

  “I forgot to say that I love that about you too. Jensen Oberon, you are more than enough man for me.”

  With that, he swiftly turned and pushed her back onto the straw, diving on top of her and pinning her to the floor.

  “I will show you exactly what type of man I am,” he said, grinning mischievously. Brenna squealed in delight, round about the same time as the nearby screaming began.

  ***

  Anastas was in love. Not your young girl, besotted infatuation, but the proper stomach filled with a thousand butterflies, permanent smile on her face, love. The kind that completely took over your life, no mat
ter how hard you tried to deny it.

  She could not get Mikel Rhonson out of her head. At work she was driving everyone crazy, making sloppy mistakes and singing all of the time. When she woke up of a morning, the day was going to be perfect as Mikel might visit her. When she went to bed of a night, the night was going to be perfect as she would dream of Mikel and when she would see him next. Her friends couldn’t stand it. Although happy for her, they couldn’t tolerate hearing about Mikel Rhonson anymore. They found the whole thing quite frankly nauseating.

  Not that Anastas didn’t deserve to be happy. At nineteen years of age, she hadn’t had the easiest life. Born into slavery, she had been a servant for as long as she could remember. Sometimes milking cows, sometimes serving her master at one of his dinner functions. On a couple of occasions she was even used as a piece of meat to satisfy her master’s needs. She didn’t like to think of those times, though. Those times were soon going to be a distant memory. She was going to be free, thanks to the wonderful Mikel Rhonson, her true knight. This very morning, in fact.

  She was sitting on the tiled floor of the kitchen, scrubbing hard. Her hands were numb as she dipped the sponge in the bucket of cold water to rinse the suds off. Master Worrell did not permit his servants to use hot water. He felt that cold water instilled discipline in his servants, let them learn the harsh realities of life. By depriving them of such luxuries as hot water, they would not miss what they didn’t have and get ideas above their station.

  Even the cold water could not dampen Anastas’s spirits, though. She looked around the kitchen, taking in the gleaming pans that hung from the walls, the wooden worktop where she had prepared hundreds of dinners and the huge golden cauldron that was Master Worrell’s most prized possession.

  She hated the cauldron, not because she had been forced to slave over it for the majority of her life, but because she saw it as a pointless luxury. No one other than the servants ever saw it and when all was said and done, it served the same functionality as a cauldron you could find in the slums of Wissimi. Anastas saw it as a waste of gold. She didn’t begrudge anyone their riches but deplored those that felt the need to let others know their wealth.

  She had only ever seen Master Worrell use it once and that certainly was not for cooking, but to discipline another servant by forcing them to thrust their hand into the scalding water. Anastas had been very young and could not even remember what the servant had done to deserve such punishment; she learnt the lesson though—never offend or disobey Master Worrell.

  Anastas looked out the kitchen window and her heart soared. On the horizon, Mikel Rhonson could be seen on his black stallion Dusk. Even from this distance she could see he was wearing the king’s armour, the silver outfit with its signature blue and red striped emblem on the shoulder. Beside him, his steward held his banner whilst leading another horse along. A horse meant for her! Anastas squealed, unable to contain her delight.

  “We’ll be sorry to lose you, Anastas,” Ghorum the head chef said, appearing in the door way.

  He wore a huge smile on his podgy face which betrayed his statement. In truth, she knew he was not sorry at all. He considered Anastas a daughter to him and couldn’t have been happier that she had been “rescued”, as he put it.

  “I wish I could say I will be sorry to go, Ghorum,” Anastas said. She rushed to him and threw her arms around him, planting a big sloppy kiss on his cheek as she did so. “Is this really happening? Can I really be this happy?”

  Ghorum broke the embrace and looked at her, holding her shoulders with both his hands. He seemed to be measuring her. To him it would seem like she had grown up so fast.

  “It’s happening and I couldn’t be happier.” He laughed at the sceptical look Anastas gave him. “Well, okay. I’m losing an excellent apprentice and friend, but I couldn’t be happier for you.”

  “I will come back for you, Ghorum, I promise,” she said.

  Ghorum’s smile faltered slightly; he knew it was a promise that she couldn’t keep.

  “The only thing that you have to promise me is that you enjoy your life from this moment forward,” he said.

  “I will. I really will.”

  A small figure appeared behind Ghorum. He was not pleasant to look at. His face looked like someone a lot bigger than him had squashed it together and it had stayed like that. Small beady eyes were set above a pug nose. Below that were two repulsive, thick lips. The bottom one stuck out a lot further than the one above giving him a look of a trout.

  “Master Worrell,” Anastas said, jumping to attention. “I was just saying good-bye to Ghorum whilst cleaning the floor. I will finish it, I promise.”

  Please don’t let him ruin this for me, she thought. Surely there was nothing he could say or do that would prevent Mikel from taking her. He was rich but he could not go against a knight of the king, especially one as notorious as the “Cadaver Knight”.

  “Oh, don’t worry about the floor, my dear,” he said.

  Anastas bit her bottom lip; she did not like his tone. Master Worrell had never let her off lightly on one of her duties before and she did not think Sir Mikel’s imminent arrival would make him start now. It was more like him to make Mikel wait whilst she finished all of her chores, just so he could show some measure of power. One glance at Ghorum told her that he was thinking the same.

  Master Worrell sauntered into the room, obviously revelling in his slaves’ unease. Anastas hated him more than ever then. She was of average height at five feet tall but she towered a good half foot over him. He looked ridiculous in his maroon velvet robe that was draped around his shoulders. A good quarter of the material dragged along the floor after him. She watched as he picked up a ladle and examined it, pretending to be interested in its craftsmanship. Say what you have to say, you despicable man, soon I will never have to look at you again. As if he could hear her thoughts, he turned and looked at her.

  “No more chores for you, Anastas. Today is your big day. You are off to Lilyon with your knight,” he spat the word “knight” out as if it was a bit of undercooked meat.

  Anastas remained silent. Ghorum put a reassuring hand on her back. Master Worrell pretended not to notice, although he was probably seething at the show of solidarity.

  “Have you got your dowry ready, Anastas?” he said.

  “I ... I don't have anything to give, Master. I don’t own anything,” she said.

  “Oh but you do, my dear child,” he said, reaching into his maroon cloak and holding up a small black stone. “Oh yes you do.”

  * * *

  Jaegal stood over Clarathea’s bed. The old woman looked peaceful in death. Her mouth open and her skin had begun to turn a slight yellow in colour. Other than that and the rancid smell, she could have been mistaken for someone in a deep sleep. A friendless woman sleeping in her shack on the outskirts of a pox ridden town, he thought.

  He glanced around the shack, it was a typical old person’s home: dust clung to all the surfaces, whilst cobwebs formed in every nook and cranny imaginable; the furniture basic and littered with hundreds of useless items hoarded over the years.

  He looked at the fragile frame of the woman. Fucking weak humans, he thought. Even when they die, they can’t do it right. In a moment of anger, he flipped the bed. Bones snapped as the rigor mortis that had set in was disturbed.

  Jaegal prodded the sheets with his foot until he found it. He carefully bent down and picked up the small bronze stone, taking care not to touch the dead body as if it could contaminate him in any way.

  “Well, that’s just peachy,” he said.

  As far as he was aware, there was no precedent for the situation he found himself in. Never in the archives had it ever mentioned that one of the twelve people chosen for the Ritual had died before the Ritual could happen. Some had resisted going and that is why the Order chaperoned them to the capital, but never had one been found dead.

  Jaegal kicked the lifeless body as if it would somehow bring her back to life. He ran
a hand over his chin, feeling the stubble as he contemplated what to do. Could he gamble on the stone being placed in the fountain and hope it was not selected? He dismissed the idea. If he returned to the capital empty-handed then the Ritual could not start. The archives clearly stated that all twelve people must be present before it begins.

  There was no other way but to take the body back with him to Lilyon. This conclusion further irritated him. Not only had he travelled for six days to get to the stinking hovel this bitch called a home, now he would have to travel all the way back, carrying her stupid carcass. He kicked the body again for good measure and smiled as another bone cracked.

  * * *

  Marybeth was not sure if she could hear the screaming or if it was her imagination. She detected it more from the disturbance in the night air, the roosting birds that fled from the trees and candles being lit in the village.

  She closed her eyes and tried to push the image of the young girl from her mind. Rhact’s aggressiveness had surprised her. The father was clearly scared but she admired his resolve. There was no doubt in her mind that he would protect Janna at all cost.

  “You did well,” she winced at his voice. She had not heard him approach and that unnerved her.

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” she replied.

  “Doing the right thing seldom does.”

  “That is if I am doing the right thing?”

  She opened her eyes and looked around the camp. Everything was the same as it had been when Rhact had been here moments before. At first she could not see him, but then he moved from behind a tree and into the light cast by the fire. He was different from how he appeared to her before. His hair was now dark and he looked more youthful. His eyes were still just as stern and unforgiving, though. He was dressed in a black cloak; the hood resting down his back seemed far too large.

  “We’ve been over this. What we are doing is for the good of Frindoth. It is what your father believed in,” he said.