Sacrifice (Book 4)

by Brian Fuller

  Gen led her out of the Hall of Three Moons and they meandered through the scented streets of Elde Luri Mora in silence. Mirelle glanced at his face, finding it sober and thoughtful. She leaned into him, wondering how badly his heart hurt and what questions troubled his mind.

  “So, is Athan still here?” she asked as they approached a small pavilion by the lake.

  “He left on an errand. He wanted to return his staff of office before coming back. I thought it best he not be here when you arrived. For all his penance and piety, I still cannot look on him without anger.”

  “You are wise,” Mirelle agreed. “I am not ready to confront him without killing him, nor do I think I will ever be.”

  Gen nodded. “He wishes to make amends to you, but having suffered from your wrath a time or two, I knew that he would best serve your feelings by simply never showing his face again.”

  They ascended the pavilion, the structure delicately carved entirely from a white stone that gleamed in the sun. The sunlight played long the ripples on the lake, and they took a bench that afforded them a view of the dazzling water.

  “What is weighing on you, Gen?” Mirelle asked.

  He took her hand in his. “How to do right by you.”

  She swallowed hard, suddenly fearful. He was trying to find a way out, a way to politely part ways without harming her feelings. She fought down the urge to let her tears flow as they had so often for the last year. She wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t throw herself at him. She wouldn’t tease and flirt and seduce. She would let him go if that’s what he wanted.

  “You need not worry for me,” she answered once she had control of herself. “I am quite well provided for and can care for myself.”

  “I know you don’t need me, Mirelle. You never have,” Gen said, taking her hand. “Your independence is something I have always loved about you. I believe that when you choose to love a man, you do it freely because you want to be with him, not because you need a protector or a provider. I know you loved me that way once. After all that has happened, after I failed the one person you considered the most precious in the world, can I still be that man? My respect and love for you only grows every minute I am with you. I would never part from you from this day onward if you could love me like that again, if when you looked at me, you didn’t see the man who led your daughter to her death.”

  The tears refused to be shut away. She smiled at him, her heart beating with such strength she could feel it pounding. “Oh, Gen, you think too much! Nothing could separate you from my love! I am already yours in every way.”

  Leaning forward, he kissed her. It was loving, and it was sweet, and Mirelle simply closed her eyes and enjoyed it until he broke it and held her eyes.

  “Thank you. You are, I would have you know, the most amazing, intimidating woman I have ever met, and I hope you never change.”

  A tickle on her hand turned Mirelle’s gaze downward. A flowering vine had crept up the side of the pavilion and slithered at them, entwining about both their wrists before blooming in deep red flowers, rich and luxurious to the touch.

  “More of your magic?” Mirelle asked.

  “No,” Gen said. “Not my magic.”

  Mirelle knew what it meant and whose approval of their union it was, tears coming again to her eyes. She would have the gift she had always meant for her daughter—when she wasn’t busy wanting it for herself. They stared at the verdant ribbon of flowers about their wrists in wonder for many minutes, leaning together in quiet peace.

  “It is my opinion that we are officially wedded now,” Mirelle finally announced. “Thus we can avoid any marriage ceremonies—which mostly end in disaster anyway—and the honeymoon can begin.”

  “No, Mirelle,” Gen laughed. “We will be proper and do this the right way. We just won’t set a date. The first Pureman we stumble across we will press into service and be done. Though I really had hoped to see you all dressed up in a beautiful gown.”

  “You’ll just have to settle for seeing me all undressed,” she quipped. “But where will we go?”

  “I had a little country place in mind. It’s not Blackshire, but it has the wonderful rolling hills and trees and flowers.”

  “Sounds nice,” she said dreamily. She kissed him, and while it was loving and sweet, she put a little fire in it to encourage him to perhaps seek out a Pureman rather than simply wait to stumble upon one.

  “So, it’s settled then?” Maewen said, startling them both.

  They laughed while the half-elf and Falael looked on with some amusement.

  “Yes,” Gen answered. “It is settled.”

  “Then she will accept our gift?”

  “What gift?” Mirelle asked.

  “Falael and I are ready to pass on, now,” Maewen explained. “We would give your our blood. With blood magic and a Trysstone, Gen can give you your youth. You can be as immortal as he his. Will you accept this gift from us?”

  Mirelle said, “Maewen! I . . . I don’t know what to say!”

  Maewen’s face scrunched. “Yes would be the word, I believe. Don’t annoy me with any human sentimentality, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, then,” she answered, almost too stunned to speak.

  “Very well,” Maewen replied. “Then let’s begin. I believe there is a Pureman to be hunted for.”

  Falael said something in Elvish, and Gen and Maewen smiled.

  “What?” Mirelle asked.

  “Well,” Gen explained, “Falael says he has only one regret about passing on.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That he won’t be able to see what our children are like.”

  EPILOGUE - AN ORDINARY LIFE

  Pureman Whatman of Chesborough shut and locked the door of his white stone Church as his acolyte led his white gelding horse around from the stable. The Pureman had few dark hairs left upon his head, but those he had he let grow so he could flop them over the territory abandoned by their brothers. In his wisdom, he had dressed in his best white robe of office and even shaved so that he would inspire the reverence that was due him and the respect that was needed to accomplish a delicate task.

  Young people, he disparaged as he mounted and set off at a steady pace. Why Eldaloth had designed the race of man to have the most passion, vitality, and power when least able to use them wisely was a mystery of creation he had yet to settle in his own mind. While not old himself, his back hurt after performing tasks as mundane as fetching water from the well, and his eyes no longer permitted him to study by candlelight for more than half a watch. More subtly, when the young women of the Church interacted with him, they treated him with the notice they would give a father rather than an eligible man, though he castigated himself for even noticing.

  But age held some advantages besides wisdom. It brought an ability to convey gravity and solemnity, and these abilities he needed today to deal with the young Mr. and Mrs. De’Bellamaine. When the two first took Greenwood cottage on Bristlebridge Lane during the winter (an odd enough time to move in, as it was), they did not seem disposed to much troublemaking and kept to themselves save for their steady attendance at Church each Seventh Day (for which Pureman Whatman was initially satisfied with regards to their moral characters). Soon after their settling in, several parishioners complained that the two had slighted them by refusing invitations to dinners, dances, and other social occasions, besides the apparently unforgivable crime of not hosting any themselves. Pureman Whatman agreed that Greenwood cottage had long been abandoned and needed visitors, and the master and mistress of Greenwood, being so young, would profit from good society.

  But as winter wore on and eventually thawed, their reclusiveness melted with the snow. They visited and were visited in turn. They attended every event for which they received invitation and a few for which they had not, much to the consternation of the hosts. For the last year, the alarming reports of their behavior had trickled in, and for a year the Pureman ignored them. Nothing Mr. and Mrs. De’Bellamaine did
, technically, violated any principle that it was his calling or the Magistrate’s to address, but the fastidious Mrs. Foresythe, a widow and close neighbor of the De’Bellamaines, had at last worn him down with her nagging.

  As she explained it, the parents or family of the offenders were the ones normally applied to in order to deliver censure and effect restraint in these cases. Since the De’Bellamaines hailed from a distant country and had no near relations, Mrs. Foresythe felt the burden of corrective intervention naturally fell to their religious authority. The Pureman doubted this logic, but the stalwart widow’s droning would only be silenced upon the performance of this task, and as the city proper faded behind him, he felt at peace with what he would do. Perhaps he could inspire some good sense in the De’Bellamaines after all. Besides, he had never called on them personally as he should have done when they first arrived in town, and a closer association with a Pureman would also aid them in acquiring a bit more sobriety.

  Bristlebridge Lane rolled over low hills lightly peppered with white spruce and a few yellow maples. A wide, shallow stream banked in thorned locust bushes divided two of the taller hills, and the gray stone bridge that bore the lane’s namesake carried him over water ponderous in its movement south. Ducks paddled about with webbed, orange feet, as complacent in movement and purpose as the stream that carried them.

  After the bridge and a turn in the road, a blooming cherry orchard exploded into view, branches cheerful with snowy spring blossoms. A Mr. Fotsman owned the orchard and the title to the cottage the De’Bellamaines rented. His sleek hunting hounds bolted out of the orchard, yapped at the horse, and bit at its heels until the Pureman cleared the last of the trees and headed out into open country again.

  The lane was well kept; the inhabitants of the pleasant country were nearly all well-to-do and traveled frequently enough to keep encroaching plants from obscuring the road. Mrs. Foresythe was forward enough to complain to the Magistrate in the event that the road ever did become too overgrown, too rutted, or in any other way unsatisfactory.

  He crested another hill and descended the steep slope on the other side. There was the abode of Mrs. Foresythe—Farrow cottage—and the De’Bellamaine’s residence, Greenwood cottage. The lane separated them, though their front doors were no more than a fifty yards from one another. Part of the problem, he concluded. The theme of Farrow cottage was grass and field, while Greenwood’s was tree and garden. The structures, however, were of similar design, two-story affairs of a light gray stone with two high arched windows on either side of the door in the front. While the walls of Farrow cottage were scoured and clean, vines had spidered over the front of the other, water dripping from the slate roof, discoloring the stone.

  He pulled the reins and guided the horse down the short cobblestone drive that circled a garden wild with untamed flowers and fecund plants. Towering spruce lined the lane and sheltered the house beneath their thick boughs as if protecting and warming a treasured egg. Woodland debris littered the modest lawn that surrounded the cottage, which brought to mind one of Mrs. Forsythe’s complaints. Peculiarly, the De’Bellamaines employed no servants or gardeners, and, as a result, the upkeep of the grounds wanted attention. No doubt the interior suffered in a similar fashion.

  Tying his horse to a post near the circular flower bed, he started toward the door when sounds from within the house caught his attention, stopping his foot on the first stair. An irregular clacking sound was punctuated by the vigorous voices of a man and a woman. The Pureman ascended, thinking, perhaps, the young couple engaged in some altercation. But as he neared the door, face lined with worry, he could hear their conversation more clearly and relaxed.

  “I think I’ve taught you better than that, Merta. Maybe I’ll need to tie both arms behind my back next time.”

  “Oh really, Lord De’Bellamaine?” The clacking resumed, along with the sound of furniture being violently pushed aside. A dull thwack.

  “Ow!” Merta cried out.

  “And maybe I’ll tie a sack full of potatoes to my legs, as well.”

  “Impertinent dog!”

  It occurred to Whatman that they were engaged in swordplay with one another; Mrs. Foresythe had not invented that little detail. What decent man would teach his wife the blade, and what decent woman would submit to the instruction? he wondered, realizing now his task was more mountain than molehill. A vase crashed to the ground, shards tinkling about the floor.

  “That vase was expensive!” Merta complained.

  “Oh really? Was this one?” Another crash.

  “I actually liked that one!”

  “I apologize, dear. You really should avoid coming toe to toe with someone stronger than you. In this position, he could have his way with you.”

  “Hmmmm,” Merta cooed. “And do what?”

  The Pureman remembered to knock at this point. Another whack.

  “Ow!” yelped Mr. De’Bellamaine. “That was uncalled for. Most dishonorable, not to mention cowardly.”

  “Don’t be a baby. We have a visitor!” Merta said cheerfully. “Put the furniture in order, and I’ll see who it is.”

  The door opened and the Pureman laid eyes on Merta De’Bellemaine. He had seen her before, a lovely blonde woman, buxom, thin-waisted, and with eyes blue enough to sink in, but he had never seen her attired in such a fashion. She was barefoot, wearing tight leather breeches and a light, sleeveless shirt that emphasized every pleasing curve. She held an air of confidence and command that unnerved him. The Pureman colored a little as she leaned the wooden practice sword against the door frame and smiled at him.

  “Oh Frederick, dear, it is the Pureman come at last to pay us a visit! Do come in, Pureman Whatman. We are most happy to receive you.”

  “I am much obliged, Mrs. De’Bellamaine.”

  The Pureman walked into the sitting room, scanning the floor to avoid pieces of the vase he might step on. Mr. De’Bellamaine put the couches and chairs back in their proper order on top of a series of muted gray and blue rugs patterned to resemble a clouded sky. The room filled with light from the high windows, and the Pureman thought it very cheerful. Mr. De’Bellamaine had his shirt off, his lean, shockingly muscular torso sliding the chairs, couches, and tables about with little exertion. The furniture itself was plain but comfortable, and Mrs. De’Bellamaine motioned for the Pureman to sit in a padded chair near the fireplace where banked embers glowed. She sat opposite him, but as Mr. De’Bellamaine crossed to join her on the couch, she held him up.

  “Dear, I believe you should put a shirt on for the Pureman,” she suggested.

  And you should put on a dress, the Pureman added mentally. Shameless. Mr. De’Bellamaine disappeared into the rear of the house while the Pureman collected his thoughts in spite of the distracting scrutiny of Merta De’Bellamaine.

  She smiled at him. “We had quite despaired of receiving a visit from you, Pureman Whatman. I do hope we are not such troublesome parishioners as to cause you discomfort. I know how unpleasant tasks are often delayed as long as possible. I would hate for us to be one of those.”

  “I do apologize, Mrs. De’Bellamaine,” the Pureman said. “I am tardy in my attentions to you and your husband. I can offer no excuse. I am typically very preoccupied during the winter months with caring for the sick and afflicted, but this year Chesborough has been blessed with uncommon good health. I’ve hardly had occasion to leave the Church at all. Have you and Mr. De’Bellamaine enjoyed good health the past months?”

  “Indeed, we have.”

  Mr. De’Bellamaine entered the room, still working at the top buttons of a high collared white shirt. The Pureman was gratified to see he had the decorum to wear a coat as well. The Pureman stood as the master of the house crossed to him and shook hands with him, noticing a bruised lump sprouting on the top of the young man’s hand, no doubt received from their earlier swordplay. They both returned to their seats. Mrs. De’Bellamaine smiled affectionately at her husband, snuggling up next to him as he sat and
placing her hand on his thigh. The Pureman fought to keep his countenance, but in that instant, the whole of their life history unfolded before him.

  Frederick De’Bellamaine, he speculated, is probably the second or third son of some minor lord in the south, for surely the family would not let the oldest son mingle with such a woman! He was probably destined for the Church when he met up with this coquettish tart of a lady. Since he was a lesser son, the parents likely thought nothing of their being together until he forsook his family obligations and eloped. She probably had already fled some prior indiscretion before throwing herself at Mr. De’Bellamaine.

  But as they exchanged more pleasantries about the country and the weather, he noted that whatever their ill judgments in the past, these two genuinely cared for each other. The complete ease and playfulness with which they engaged one another, the pleasure radiating from their eyes and faces, and the way each one’s words would complement, amplify, and weave in with the other’s—even in interruption or amendment—struck the Pureman. Here was no stiffness or awkwardness, no conversation where the spouses’ words and thoughts knocked together like strangers in the dark, no unnatural concealment of affection or regard. What they felt, they demonstrated plainly and without device.

  Pureman Whatman recalculated. These two had known each other for some time, most likely since childhood. Long familiarity eroded those barriers and mores that normally accompanied an engagement and persisted into the marriage state afterward. They are definitely from the country, he concluded. They have not had much experience in society to witness proper examples or to endure the kind of scrutiny that would mold their behavior appropriately. It will be difficult to change them. One should straighten the tree while it is a sapling.