The House of Sacrifice

by Anna Smith Spark

  She does love her brother with all her heart. But.

  Marry well! There are six islands that make up the White Isles. Seven, if one counts Belen Isle, which is so small and poor and barren that no one does. Five of these islands are held by the great lords of the White Isles. She counts them off on her fingers: Deneth Relast of Third, her own father, Carin Relast her brother will be lord after him; Carlan Murade of Sel, the king’s goodbrother, he has sons and grandsons, her father hates him; Rethnen Jurgis of Heneth, he stands high in the king’s favour, his younger son Kamleth is unmarried but what use is a younger son?; Valim Erith of Feleane, his son is a child; Lord Nasis Jaeartes of Thirane, he is young and unmarried but he is an idiot. Of these five lords, none of whom are suitable, her father is the richest and most powerful, her island the largest, her home the most beautiful, the most famous, the finest. Even if she could marry one of them, she would still be nothing but a wife and still she would be poorer and weaker than her brother Carin. And the petty lords, the liegemen like Osen Fiolt… if she marries one of them, she might as well be nothing. A house, land, people: a few villages, her father means.

  If she does not marry, she will stay here like a child, she will rank lower than Carin’s wife when he marries, or she could go out into the world alone and be less than nothing. She thinks of her mother, bending her head meekly to do her father’s will.

  She thinks. The sixth island, Seneth, is held by the Altrersyr king.

  “The king,” she says to her brother that evening, after they have been scolded for cheating in his studies, are sitting together in his bedchamber looking down at the sea, their ears still ringing from being yelled at. “King Illyn has two unmarried sons, Carin.”

  “He does?” her brother says. “You astonish me. What about it?”

  She says, “You remember when Prince Marith came to stay here for the summer, when Prince Tiothlyn was ill? He was, what, eight? Seven? He followed you around, wouldn’t let you alone, drove you mad.”

  Carin says, “‘The greatest opportunity of all our lives,’ that I squandered away because I quarrelled with him? Of course. I—” His face goes white. “Yes, but…”

  Gods, Amrath and Eltheia, she thinks. Now, older, wiser, she can see in his shock, as well as in what came after, that she was the naive one.

  “They say Marith is unhappy,” Landra says carefully. “Lonely. Quarrels with the king and queen. Quarrels with Prince Tiothlyn. So Mother says. ‘Poor lonely motherless boy,’ Mother says. You’ve heard her say it yourself.” She takes a deep breath, pauses. “You are going to court with Father, in the spring,” she says.

  “He was seven,” Carin says. “He’s fourteen now. He’ll be fifteen, by the time we go to court.” Carin glances at the books piled by the window. “If I get to go.” Still looks so troubled, you can see why Father despairs of him. “I don’t think he’ll still be following me around because he covets my toy fort, Landra,” Carin says.

  Their father looks more proud of Carin than he’s ever looked of anything in his whole life, when they tell him, when it’s done. It’s beautiful.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Several hours later Landra rode back towards the north gate of Ethalden. She did not look at the land around her. When she rode through the village the children stopped to look at her. She did not look back at them.

  She reached the city. At the gatehouse, two guards stopped her to question her. Where was she going, where had she been? The usual questions, the same greasy smell to them, the boredom of guarding a gate on the road to the edge of the world where there was nothing. A girl herding geese had been the last thing in front of her in through the gate. But they seemed very nervous, twitching and eyeing her as she rode up as though she might be a danger to them. Landra felt a thrill of power. Not power. Hope.

  “What has happened?” Landra asked them, though she already knew. They liked her White Isles accent, had brightened up at her voice. “The temple of Amrath,” the taller of the two said. “It has…” licked his lips, stared fearfully at the ground, spat for luck “. . . it has collapsed.”

  “Collapsed?” A song of joy. The sun shines and all the birds sing. Had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Ah, Tobias, Raeta, she thought, what would you say? She could see Tobias’s face, his eyes creased with laughter. “Boy can’t keep his tower up, now, can he? gna ha ha,” or such. “I know it’s not a tower, Raeta, before you say it. ‘Can’t keep his building up’ doesn’t work, though, does it?”

  The innkeep’s son at her inn was full of it when she asked him to tend the horse. “A great crash, no warning, a crash like thunder, and the whole building fell. It was packed full of people, they all died, they couldn’t dig them out.” The boy’s eyes bulged. “They say blood was literally oozing out of it.”

  “Do they?” Gave him a couple of copper pennies. “My horse needs a good grooming and a feed.”

  The boy’s eyes bulged at the state of the horse too, ashy dust on its legs, fretful. Landra went to see the ruins. The innkeep’s son was begging his father to let him go when she left. The whole city was gathered there, a weight hanging over them almost visible, thick crowds packed close. Muttering, whispering, cowering. Landra could not get anywhere near it, was pushed and trampled in the crowd.

  “It just gave way. A roar, a crash, it fell down.”

  “Best part of an hour, they’ve been digging. Still haven’t got anyone out.”

  “Watch it. Watch it.” The crowd pulled apart as soldiers and horsemen came down the street away from the temple. Landra recognized Lord Stansel of Belen Isle, Marith’s regent in Illyr, his face pale and grave. He was shaking his head, talking to the man next to him; there was black dust smeared in his hair.

  “. . . fault with the roof. Built too quickly,” Landra heard him say as he rode past. “I told him.”

  The woman beside her spat. And not for luck. “The king will have him flayed,” she said to Landra.

  “It can hardly be his fault, that a building fell down?”

  “Can’t it? And not a building: His tomb. What will we do if His coffin has been damaged? His bones, damaged?”

  “Rebuild it all twice as big as before, I expect,” said Landra. “With more gold.” She returned to her inn, where the innkeep’s son begged her for news, wanted a description of everything. Served her bread and cheese and salt meat, wanted to know, over and over, what she thought it meant. She was from the White Isles, like the king—so she must, somehow, know things.

  “It means something, doesn’t it?” the boy said. “Some great thing, it means, for the king.”

  “Great things,” Landra said.

  By sunset, the bodies of five master stonemasons were hanging in chains from the fortress gates. The rubble was being cleared, the golden coffin emerging, magically unscathed. So the drinkers said. People moving from inn to inn, talking of it, on edge, drinking one drink and moving on to another inn to talk of it again. Later that night shouting rang out in the street, “Look! Look!” and the innkeep rushed out to look: a shooting star had been seen, very bright and clear in the north sky, half the city had witnessed it. “But I was too late,” he said ruefully. Later that night a great storm came in from the sea bringing thunder and hailstones. “As big as pebbles,” the innkeep’s boy said as he served Landra bread and beer the next morning. “They broke the branches of the tree opposite, took half the leaves off, I looked out of my window last night and they were covering the ground like brown snow. Didn’t you hear it?” the boy asked Landra. “Or the thunder? Noisy enough to wake the bloody dead.” His face went pale, he made a warding gesture. “Or maybe not that loud. Didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” said Landra. The innkeep came shouting that the hail had damaged the stable roof; the boy leapt up and out to see to it. “Your horse will be fine,” he said to Landra as he went out, “I’m sure.”

  “I hope so. I may need him saddled, later.” The wooden spire that Landra
had watched rise up the previous day was damaged, she noticed. Many trees had indeed lost branches; dried leaves had been crushed down littering the pavements. Dirt and rubbish had been washed into heaps.

  The city streets were almost empty. In the ruins of Amrath’s tomb people were packed thick like insects, crawling over the black stones like insects, black with dust. Landra watched them a while. Their hands clawed at the stones. They were tearing their hands raw. Bodies were beginning to be dug out. A woman, a man, a child, a woman with offering flowers still clutched to her breast. A sigh ran through the crowd as her body came up. Her face was crushed in, but her hair hung down thick and black. A voice wailed out at the sight of her. Her gown was fine pale silk, fringed with gold embroidery. They did not make such things in Illyr. From Tereen, or Arunmen. Landra turned away. Walked to the gatehouse of the fortress of Ethalden itself.

  The woman might have bought the dress in all innocence. Briefly, Landra might think this, feel shame or guilt. But the man who sold it to the woman, or the man who sold it to that man… someone knew, could have told the buyer where the dress came from. The woman could have asked where it had come from, Landra thought. Look at the prices of these beautiful things now on sale here. It should have been obvious to everyone.

  All human lives, Landra thought, are based on human suffering. Every house is built on bloodshed, our feet trample others’ lives beneath them with every step. One man eats off plates of gold, another starves, a face turns away not to see. Even the kindest innocent young child… look behind them and there is a trail of others’ blood. A child has food and clothes and loving peace because his ancestors looted and pillaged, because others still suffer somewhere far away. There is nothing that is not bought in blood.

  No mercy. No one here is innocent.

  The gates to Marith’s fortress were white bone. Dragon bone. Only Marith Altrersyr, Landra thought, could be absurd enough to take the bones of a dragon that had died fighting for him and build it up into the gates of his hall. The gatehouse was white marble, whiter and colder beside the bone. The arch of the gates was topped with a row of gilded human skulls.

  Revolting. In the cool clear air Landra smelled butchery. Human bones will never cease to smell of rot. All those smiling mouths, the empty eye sockets that still gazed out. How could he bear it, she thought, to ride in and out beneath that? His enemies, smiling down cold at him, knowing. Dripping their rot on him.

  “What’s your business?” the guard at the gates asked her. His helmet and his armour were burnished silver, his cloak was blood red. His helmet covered his face. Its crest was shaped like an eagle, its plume the eagle’s wings. Landra thought: does he see what he looks like? He must see. How absurd he is.

  She said, “I have come to speak to Lord Stansel.” She stared at the guard’s eyes through his helmet. “Tell him that Deneth Relast’s daughter is here to speak with him. Give him this.” A gold ring, too big for her finger, stamped with a bird flying. Her father’s ring. She should feel anxious, handing it over. The guard could steal it, keep it, melt it down, of course, yes. She should fear that. The grass grows around the ruin of Malth Salene, the grass grows up over her brother’s grave that Marith has never been back to visit since he took up his crown as king. She might fear even that Yanis Stansel will not remember her father’s name.

  Three things she had, in a purse in her pocket, held close. A gold ring stamped with a bird flying. An old spindle carved of horse bone. A filthy scrap of yellow cloth. Of these three things, the ring was the first and the least that she would give away.

  “Wait here,” the guard said. He put out his hand to take the ring and his hand was an old man’s hand, thick dried callused fingers, his nails yellow and ugly, the skin split and healed and scarred. He had a White Isles accent. He walked away stiffly, limping, putting his weight on his left leg; his left shoulder was hunched, hung wrong on him. He is an old soldier from my homeland, Landra thought, pensioned off here. He knows the name Relast.

  Guards marched to and fro, glancing at her. Landra stood shuffling her feet, trying not to look back. An eternity, the man had been gone, he must have simply abandoned her, been distracted and forgotten, stolen the ring. Which was for the best. It made her ashamed, that he might have recognized the name Relast. A troop of soldiers went in through the gates, looked at her. A woman on a white horse rode out. A man on a roan horse rode out, fast, wrapped in a cloak. He had the look of a messenger, Lady Landra Relast thought. Bringing Marith a message that the tomb of Amrath had fallen into rubble. Or bringing Marith a message that the rumour of this was a lie, hoping that he would ignore it until the tomb was rebuilt. A wagon went in stacked with sacks of grain.

  A man came out of the gates to Landra. Not a guard but a middle-aged man, well-dressed, his gown velvet, fur trim on his sleeves, gold at his wrists. Red hair dressed with oil. A smooth dark face. Familiar. She had seen him. Recognized him. Where?

  A companion of Yanis Stansel, she thought, a member of Yanis Stansel’s household. What was his name? He was… was he not married to Yanis Stansel’s niece?

  He knew her. Through the burns and the scars. His eyes were filled with shock. The smooth voice with the accent so like her father’s, as the man said, “Come this way, please, My Lady.”

  What have I done? Landra thought with horror. My Lady. I should not have come here. Ah, gods, Amrath and Eltheia. For them to see me, to be among them once more, all that I have been. And she remembered again Marith crying out, “I didn’t ask to come back here. I was happy, before you brought me back here.” He had said it even as they knelt before him in the Amrath Chapel of Malth Salene, placed a silver crown on his head. He had become nothing. And she had forced him to return to being a king.

  She followed the man through into the fortress, down wide corridors with floors and walls set with jewels, great vaulting halls hung with silk tapestries and fur hangings, courtyards bright with the sound of fountains, audience chambers of marble and gold. They walked through chambers decked in silver, lined with pearls, crowned with flowers carved of amethyst. Real flowers, jasmine, lilies, orange blossom, things that should not grow here in the far north. Windows, mirrors, candles, jewels, gilded carvings, hangings of gold and silver, gold mosaics, gold and silver carpets. In a hall of white marble stood a tree made of ivory in which birds made of emeralds fluttered diamond wings. Beyond it, a small chamber where the walls were hung with blue satin that moved in a hidden wind like swimming beneath the sea. They walked up a staircase of green marble. Along more halls and corridors, up and down more stairs, past closed doors of silver, of bronze, of amber, of black jet. A wall all of living plants, green and soft. A wall all of mirrors and candles. A wall of living birds in gold cages, singing.

  The emptiness of the place was oppressive. She thought of her own lost home, Malth Salene, of Malth Elelane the seat of the Altrersyr kings. Noise and bustle. The orderly uproar of a place filled with day-to-day life. She thought of Ru’s cottage, where Ru had sat alone in silence. This place was built as a king’s home, she thought, a house for Marith and Thalia and their children and their friends. This place is like a corpse at a wedding feast.

  They came to a chamber opening out onto a rose garden, at the centre of which stood a statue of a woman robed and crowned. A carpet of petals on the earth bruised and faded, brought down by last night’s storm. Yet every rose was in full bloom. White roses, and pink, and dark lustrous red.

  Lord Yanis Stansel sat in his wheeled chair, looking out at the roses. The Lord of Belen Isle, the smallest and poorest of the White Isles. Now the right hand of the Lord of All Irlast, and he did not look happier or richer for it. He had thick black hair, despite being old enough to have four grown sons. His hair was long, falling over his shoulders, his beard was black and grey. His upper body was very strong, broad muscles in his arms and across his chest. His neck was thick as a bull’s neck, beneath the beard. He sat in his wheeled chair solid, heavy, fierce. The silk gown he wore did not suit
him, he should be wearing armour, his hair bound up with red leather, his eyes framed in gleaming bronze. His great hands rested in his lap. He had a new chair, Landra noticed, and then realized that the chair she remembered him in must have been uselessly old. It was pale wood, the arms carved as a pair of wolves, their bellies low to the ground, their teeth bared. The bronze rims of its wheels were snakes swallowing their own tails.

  He looked a thousand years older than he had when Landra had last seen him in King Illyn’s court in Malth Elelane a thousand lifetimes ago.

  He was holding her father’s gold ring.

  He gazed at her for a long time. He had known her when she was a child. What did he see? A scarred bald old woman, honed to dry metal, flayed down to dry bone. A living scar. A human wound. A rabid dog.

  Yanis said, “It is you. I thought you were dead.” He waved his hand at the other man. “Leave us, Tolan. Have some wine brought.”

  Tolan. Yes, that was the man’s name. She did remember him.

  A servant brought wine in silver cups, a plate of fruit and curd cakes. Looked at her once. Did not look at her again.

  “I thought all of your family were dead,” Yanis said. Landra sipped her wine and did not speak. What can one say, to that? Yanis said, “He talked about you sometimes as if he knew that you were dead. I wondered, sometimes, whether he had killed you himself.”

  “Really? He knows that I am alive. Or he did, when I failed to kill him. Thalia must know that I am alive, since she spared me.” She said, to hurt herself, “Perhaps he is confusing me with my brother, then.”

  Yanis Stansel spread his hands, pointed to the roses. “Look at these flowers,” he said. “Look at them. They never fade, never wither, they have been here in bloom since the day he was crowned King of Illyr. The most glorious day any man living has seen or will see. He burned the Rose Forest. Ordered the people of Chathe to burn it all. If your fool of a brother had waited a few years, Landra, your father could have been sitting here now, regent of half the world, king in all but name. Do you ever think of that?”