Maggie smiled as Virginia pulled out a bottle from her cloak and held it up beside a golden loaf.
It was so little.
But somehow, in these circumstances, it meant much.
* * *
A mile from Pravik, the Ploughman bade his driver pull off the road by a stream. Maggie watched as the tall warrior knelt and washed his face and hair. He knelt by the water for a time, then wandered upstream. He pulled his boots off by a great boulder and began to wash them. She couldn’t help watching, as much as she knew she was intruding.
There was to be a celebration in Pravik tonight. They had hoped to bring back something special for it—Virginia’s wine and bread would have to do. Added to the meager feast Mrs. Cook was even now preparing, it would serve as a benediction on the announcement of the Ploughman’s engagement to Libuse, the lady of Pravik.
Virginia’s quiet question cut into her thoughts. “Is he preparing for tonight?” she asked.
“Yes,” Maggie said.
“Maggie…” Virginia paused. “Take the bread and wine to the celebration.”
“Aren’t you coming?” Maggie asked.
Virginia shook her head. “I want to be alone. I feel that sight may come.”
“Surely you could wait till later?” Maggie said, aware of the tone of her voice but unable to change it. Pravik’s survival depended so much on the loyalty and unity of its people, especially its leaders. It didn’t seem right for Virginia to go off on one of her solitary rambles when the others were all gathered together to show their love and support for the Ploughman and Libuse.
Virginia didn’t answer. She was looking with her hands for the bottle of wine, which she’d laid in the straw on the bottom of the cart. It was obvious from her expression that she was troubled. Maggie sighed in frustration.
Virginia’s abandonment of the celebration was just one more bad turn in a day that had not gone well.
* * *
Maggie saw the Ploughman relax as they passed through the gates and entered the familiar narrow streets of Pravik. The entrance would widen until it became the thoroughfare that crossed the Guardian Bridge over the Vltava River and led to Pravik Castle, high on the plateau across the river.
Unhailed, they drove through empty, silent streets and dark houses. Beyond the bridge were lights and voices. The people who now lived in Pravik were clustered around the castle. Maggie felt the tension and unhappiness of the day leaving her as they rumbled past the statues on the Guardian Bridge and approached the warmth of home. The wagon pulled to a stop in the courtyard of the castle, and Virginia pressed the bottle of wine into Maggie’s hand before slipping away.
Maggie sighed again. She tucked the bottle into her own brown cloak, packed the loaves of bread beside it, and jumped as a loud, cheerful voice hailed her from behind. “Maggie!” Patricia Black called, her voice a slap on the back. “It’s about time. We were about to start the Ploughman’s engagement party without the Ploughman.”
She took the last of the loaves from Maggie with a grin. “This is nice. Were you successful then?”
Maggie’s silence and a glance at the empty wagon—empty of wares but also of food in trade for them—answered the question. “Oh,” Pat said. “Never mind. I refuse to be brought down by it. You should too. Tonight we celebrate.”
“As best we can, Pat,” Maggie said. She smiled at her old friend and foster sister, whose short dark hair contrasted oddly with the purple dress she had chosen to wear for the party.
“You look lovely,” Maggie said.
Pat snorted. “I feel like a girl.”
“You are a girl,” Maggie said. “Even if you carry a sword more naturally than you keep house. You look like you’re planning to attack me with that loaf of bread.”
Pat looked at the loaf in her hand and laughed. “You? No. You’re no threat. But if the High Police should arrive—” She thrust the loaf forward like a blade.
Maggie grinned and held out her arm. Pat looped arms with her, and they laughed.
Together they left the castle courtyard, where the driver was looking after the horse and wagon, and walked into the street. Cheerful evening voices sprinkled the air. Carriage wheels and horse hooves rattled on the cobblestones; somewhere in the distance the river rushed with melted snow from high in the Eastern Mountains. Cool air, full of spring, had fallen over the city of Pravik and filled it with hope that refused to die, even now, even at the end of a day like this.
They wound their way past old farmers and rebels who tipped their hats and greeted them by name, up a small flight of steps to an old brick townhouse where the smell of meat wafted tantalizingly through the air. “Mrs. Cook has been at it for three days now,” Pat said. “Where she’s found the ingredients is a mystery—well, other than the birds I caught her. I suspect she’ll be serving us shoe leather tonight. But making a good show of it, I don’t doubt.”
Pat thumped the heavy front door and pushed her way in without waiting for an answer. The inside air was warm and close; there was a fire burning in the hearth and people gathered around—every face welcome and familiar, representing the comfort and strength of friendship. The door closed behind them and shut out the mountain air with its wildness.
“Something smells delectable,” Pat announced. “Bless the one who brought our dear Mrs. Cook such a harvest of fowl for her pots.”
Jarin Huss, standing by the fire with his reddish-grey beard lit by its glow, answered her dryly. “Is it quite right to bless oneself so loudly?” he asked, and general laughter followed the comment.
Maggie smiled warmly at the professor as she settled close enough to the hearth to feel the plumes of heat flowing from the fire. His eyes crinkled as he smiled back. Huss had been Maggie’s first real friend in Pravik, the one who had opened her eyes to the truth of the worlds unseen and led her to believe in the King. His apprentice, Jerome, had just managed to capture Maggie’s heart when he died. Now, she had come to view Huss as something of a father—at least, he was the closest thing she had ever known to one.
A high-backed chair waited next to Huss, and in it a woman whose face still moved Maggie with its beauty and royal dignity. Libuse, last of a long line of eastern kings. She wore blue, as she usually did, and her long brown hair was loose and curled. A ring on her finger sparkled in the light of the fire. The Ploughman himself had taken it from a mineral deposit deep in the Darkworld, and with the help of a jeweler among his followers, had carved it to bring out its facets of purple and green and clear crystal.
Libuse remained seated as she greeted the men who came into the house, old farmers who had long fought by the Ploughman’s side. She took their weathered hands, looked into their eyes, and inspired their devotion by her graciousness and warmth. A few of the farmers stopped as they passed through the room to lay their big hands on Maggie’s shoulder and say hello. She was grateful for every one.
Voices hummed. Mrs. Cook giving orders from the kitchen. The Ploughman’s men rumbling in conversation with Jarin Huss. Pat announcing things, making people laugh, sailing in and out, everywhere at once. The smells of roasted fowl, mulled cider, and hot bread mingled with the voices and made the atmosphere warm even as they made Maggie’s stomach ache. She knew the scents indicated more food than there truly was, but even so, Mrs. Cook was a miracle worker to come up with such a feast at such a time. Some of the men had recently begun digging up the city streets in an attempt to plant them, but the soil was poor and the work slow.
Wind pushed at the door, and new feet glided over the threshold. The swish of long robes, the padding of bare feet, and courtly greetings accompanied the arrival of the Darkworld priests and their prince.
“Hail the Darkworld,” Maggie said softly. She turned to watch them enter: Prince Harutek, his head shaven but for a single lock, his small, hard stature and large eyes distinctive. He wore fish-scale armour and ornate robes embroidered with human hair, as was the custom of the Darkworld nobles. The priests who followed were als
o small, but their hair was long and flowing, and they wore grey robes that covered their bare feet and hands.
“Welcome, Harutek,” a deep voice from the other side of the room said, and the Ploughman stepped out of the shadows. Maggie smiled to see him. He strode forward and clasped elbows with the Darkworld prince.
“Deepest blessings to you both,” Harutek said, his voice warm and strangely accented. Maggie waited for Harutek to bring greetings from his father, the Majesty of the Darkworld, but he did not.
Maggie felt a small hand on her shoulder, and a thick curtain of tiny braids brushed against her skin. A young woman’s voice spoke softly in her ear. “And our blessings upon you, Singer of the Sunworld.”
Maggie smiled as she turned and grasped Rehtse’s hand. The youngest of Divad’s priests, Rehtse was striking with her ankle-length, tightly braided hair and luminous eyes. Although she was bound to the service of the Majesty and the people of the Darkworld, Rehtse interacted often enough with the people of Pravik to show herself for what she was: a deeply faithful believer in the King, full of enthusiasm for the new world represented by Pravik, someone to whom the wind seemed to cling and few setbacks could dampen.
The Ploughman took Libuse’s hands and pulled her to her feet as the priests of the Darkworld fanned out and blessed them in their formal, archaic ways. The warrior and his lady looked deeply into one another’s eyes, and for a moment it seemed that everyone else in the room retreated into shadow before the firelit brightness of their love. A ruby ring, Libuse’s long-ago promise to love the Ploughman, glimmered on his finger. When the blessing was finished, he turned to face the others who filled the room and crowded the doorways.
“My friends,” he said. “My family. You are all so much more than followers, as the villagers would call you. You have taken us into your hearts, and so you care to hear me say what I say tonight: that I will take the princess Libuse to wife a fortnight hence.”
He smiled as the old soldiers and farmers voiced their approval, and Maggie kept back a chuckle as she thought of how hard Pat was working to hold back an unladylike whoop.
“I thank you all for who you are,” the Ploughman said. “Pravik needs you. I fear I have less happy news to give you also. Our hope of establishing trade with the villages is…”
He could not finish. Some sort of commotion was taking place in the street. Those closest to the window moved toward it, and Maggie stood and tried to peer past their shoulders. Pat dashed through the crowd and looked out into the darkness.
“Strangers,” she said.
The farmers at the window moved aside to make room for the Ploughman, Libuse, and Harutek. Three men with an unmistakably military air were riding up the street on horseback. The street lamps, lit by a faithful few who had appointed themselves to the task, illuminated their faces.
“Do you know them?” Harutek asked.
“I have never seen them before,” the Ploughman answered.
“They are not peasants,” Libuse said as she peered into the street striped by torches and the darkness of the impending night. “They ride like lords.”
“Worse,” Pat said, her voice sharp. “They ride like High Police.”
* * *
Chapter 2: Visions of Ash
Virginia watched the strangers ride toward the castle.
She stood on a rope bridge, high in the cliffs where spectators could look down over the city and the fifteen great bridges that spanned the black river and connected the halves of Pravik. She had heard the disapproval in Maggie’s voice when she declared her intention to be alone, but alone she needed to be.
She was not surprised when sight stirred in her and they were there.
Their leader turned toward her, though she was too far away and it was too dark for him to see her. And yet, as he looked up at the cliffs where Virginia was, fear darted through his expression.
As the strangers rode by, Virginia watched their hoofprints burning. In her sight every step was aflame, and they left burning places in the cobblestones that turned to black ash and began to crumble away, opening a chasm beneath the streets of Pravik. Still they rode, step by step, flame by flame, crumbling by crumbling, and the holes became a fissure that ran the whole length of the street until the city began to collapse into it, swallowed by the darkness below.
Virginia stayed on the bridge as her sight faded away. A cold breeze blew against her cheek, and she pulled her woolen cloak tighter. The night heightened her senses; her heart beat more alive beneath the warmth of her cloak.
For a bare moment, the wind leaped and swirled and blew Virginia’s hair.
“Llycharath…” she breathed.
No answer met her ears. Yet the wind was more than wind tonight. There was an urgency in it that hastened her steps as she turned and made her way from the bridge down the paths in the cliffs that she had memorized by scent and touch and sound. She made it down and felt cobblestones under her feet again, then the furrows where the Ploughman’s men had been digging up the streets for sowing. The shape of streets and paths laid themselves out in her mind, and she began to run, until a pair of arms grabbed her in mid-flight.
She struggled, but a friendly voice broke into her struggles. It was one of the Ploughman’s farmers. “Seer!” he said. “Seer, what’s wrong?”
She fought to catch her breath. “I must see the Ploughman,” she said.
“He’s in council, my lady,” the old farmer said. “We were gathered to celebrate his engagement to the princess, but strangers…”
“I know,” Virginia said, “I saw them. You understand that—what it means that I saw them? I must talk with him now.” She was struggling against tears. The old man’s voice, gruff and gentle, reminded her of her grandfather. It made her want to crumple like a little girl.
“I’ll take you to him,” the man said.
* * *
Virginia knew as soon as she entered the ancient throne room, where thrones had long been displaced by the council tables of the overseers and then by the Ploughman’s rule, that the strangers were already gone. She breathed sharply in fear.
“Virginia,” the Ploughman greeted her. She heard him crossing the stone floor, but he stopped short of touching her. “You’re trembling,” he said.
“The strangers,” Virginia said. “Did they come here?”
“They did,” the Ploughman said. She heard the guardedness in his voice and silently cursed it.
“They have brought danger,” she said.
“No…” the Ploughman said. “Perhaps not, Virginia. This time they may have brought hope.”
“Tell me,” she said.
A chair scraped across the floor as someone pushed away from the council table, and Virginia heard the rustle of a skirt. “They were emissaries from the emperor,” Libuse said. “They have offered us alliance.”
Virginia was momentarily speechless. “With the Empire?” she asked. The blackened streets of her vision, falling away into ash, suddenly seemed very real.
“Allied with the emperor, we would be free to trade and expand our borders into farmland,” the Ploughman said. “Two years ago I would not have considered it, but now… I know this is not easy for you to hear. It’s not what we pictured when we began this journey. We have not yet given them an answer.”
“But we cannot turn away the chance without even considering it,” Libuse said. “We never dreamed the emperor would recognize us as anything but rebels—but as rebels, we may not survive. We need him to recognize us. And it seems he is willing.”
“What did you tell the strangers?” Virginia asked.
“That we would take three days to make up our minds,” the Ploughman said. “And if we decide to explore the matter further, we will send an entourage to Athrom to discuss the matter with the emperor.”
“You would go back into that den of dragons?” Virginia asked.
“If we must,” the Ploughman said. “I do not trust the emperor, Virginia—I know that he has his own pu
rposes in this. But maybe his purposes can work to our advantage, at least for a while. I will lead the entourage myself. If there is danger, my warrior Gift will be enough to break us out. I have fought in the heart of Athrom before.” He hesitated. “If we go, I want you to come with us.”
Virginia sought words that she couldn’t find. Libuse’s softer voice spoke again. “We are not naïve enough to think there is no danger in this,” she said. “It might be a trick. But with your sight and the Ploughman’s strength, we can anticipate and defeat tricks.”
“Then hear what I’ve seen already,” Virginia said. “I saw the men enter the city, and destruction followed in their steps. Every step lit a flame that became ash and swallowed Pravik in darkness. You must not go with them. You must not consider this offer.”
Silence met her words. Then the Ploughman spoke again. His voice was heavy, but determined. “We have little choice,” he said. “We can take your vision as confirmation of what we already suspect—that the emperor’s motives are not entirely pure. But we must take advantage of his offer nonetheless. Virginia, our people are starving. My people. I gathered them here; they came to my banner because I promised them something better. And now it falls to me to provide for them.”
“But the King…”
“… is not here,” the Ploughman said. “If he still fights for us, maybe this is how he’s doing it. By opening a door for us in Athrom. Perhaps, face-to-face, we can persuade Lucien Morel of the justice of our cause.”
Virginia shook her head in frustration. Tears were pricking at her eyes, making her impatient with herself. “Persuade a man of justice who tried to wipe out the Gypsies at a blow? Persuade a man whose family has covenanted with the Blackness and supported the Order of the Spider in their sorcery for five hundred years? Persuade the sworn enemy of the King?”
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