by E. A. James
No one said a word—as if anyone would object to a tradition the people of Phomentina followed for generations. Thomas Fallosi rummaged around in his pocket and brought out a tiny glass bottle. Without ceremony, he uncorked it and poured a clear fluid all over the strawberries. It drizzled into the stack and covered all the berries.
He corked the empty bottle and put it back in his pocket. Then he nodded to Paulo and turned away to the other men. He kept his back turned while Paulo climbed down from the platform and wormed his way into the crowd.
He went from one young woman to another and offered the tray. Each one took a strawberry and ate it. He stopped in front of Amara. She hesitated before she took the biggest, ripest, reddest berry she could see. Amara held the berry in her hand and stared at it. Then she looked around to find Margila watching her.
Margila didn’t have time to smile or give her friend any reassurance before Paulo came toward her. She studied the berries on the tray. They all looked so tantalizing. None was less ripe and red and perfect than another, but that meant nothing. She picked a beautiful berry off the top of the pile. She weighed it in her hand. She couldn’t escape her fate by choosing a better berry.
She eyed it with mixed emotions, but in the end, she took a deep breath, mustered her courage, and took a big bite. The delicious juice gushed into her mouth, and the bite mark showed up red and bright in her hand. She chewed the berry and swallowed it, but it stuck in her throat. She couldn’t enjoy it.
Paulo made a complete circuit of the Common and came back to the platform, where he started over with the first young women again. He still had quite a few berries left. One by one, the girls took a second berry. Some broke down crying when they tried to bite into them. One by one, their loved ones threw their arms around their necks in tears of relief.
Paulo came back to Amara. Her hand shook when it hovered over the tray. Amara’s mother had to put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders to comfort her before Amara could summon the courage to select a berry. Even then, she sniffed back tears before she bit into it.
As soon as she found the berry bright and red and sweet and juicy inside, Amara broke down in her mother’s arms. Cries of joy and relief spread through the crowd, but the girls who hadn’t yet selected their second berry shook and wept at the back of the crowd.
As if by magic, Margila found Paulo standing in front of her. He gazed up into her eyes with childlike innocence. A dwindling layer of berries remained on the tray, but each one looked as fine and tempting as the last. She couldn’t stand there hesitating while the other girls waited their turn. She closed her eyes and grabbed a berry.
Without opening her eyes, she guided it to her mouth. Better to know the truth right away. Then she could get back to preparing for the festival. She bit into the berry, and it crumbled into a sour meal in her mouth. Her eyes popped open, and she stared at the fragment left in her hand. Inside the bright red skin, the berry was white and dry.
Her mother looked over her shoulder and saw the berry in her hand. She let out a shriek that brought the whole village flocking around. Her mother’s hands flew to her mouth to stifle her screams, and other women hurried the distraught mother away.
Margila stared down at the white berry. She couldn’t make her mind comprehend the terrible truth. She’d been selected. She would be sacrificed to the dragon on the full moon so the rest of the village could survive in peace for another year. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. Should she be happy or sad?
Tumultuous cheers and laughter broke out on all sides of her. The maiden girls who escaped the lottery joined hands and danced around Margila. They laid flower garlands on her head and around her neck. Two strapping young men hoisted her onto their shoulders and paraded her around the Common. Children showered her with flower petals. Singing and festivity accompanied her everywhere.
All the attention worked its magic on her mind. She smiled down at her friends and loved ones, but she didn’t see her father in the crowd. She clasped the hands thrust up at her, and she laughed in excited joy. She was the Harvest Princess!
The young people conducted her to a special pavilion in the center of the Common. Flowers and decorations of all kinds made it gay and inviting. Only from a great distance did Margila register the fact that she herself made those decorations and put them in their place the day before.
The young men and women sat Margila on a throne surrounded with garlands and golden vessels. They draped a magnificent gown over her shoulders and laid a scepter in her hands. Then they all sat down to feast and make merry for the rest of the day.
All thought of helping her mother or anybody else flew right out of Margila’s head. From that hour, the whole village paid strict attention to her. The young maidens attended her every need and whim. They bowed to her when they spoke to her and called her “My Lady.”
Amara moved among the maidens, but she kept her distance from Margila. They passed no friendly conversation anymore. Amara slipped through her fingers, the same way her family and the rest of her friends did. Amara barely lifted her eyes to meet Margila’s gaze. When she did, her eyes remained cold and distant. She might as well be looking at a tree in the far distance.
The older villagers came and went in the pavilion to wish Margila well and to ask her blessing. Anyone who wanted a special blessing, for health, for safe childbearing, or for prosperity, could come forward, kneel at the Harvest Princess’s feet, and receive the blessing touch of her scepter.
In the evening, fires warmed the pavilion. Old and young joined in festive merrymaking with music, dancing, drama, and stories for the children told by their elders. Margila noticed her parents in the crowd, and the weight of responsibility lifted off her shoulders. They would be all right. The village would close ranks around them and help them through the coming weeks. The village people always helped anyone in need.
Margila laughed at the drama plays and enjoyed the dancing. She relished the attention and the fine food. Her attendants kept her plate full of the best meats the village could offer, and her cup never emptied of the choicest wines. For a few hours, she forgot all about her former life of toil and want for the most basic necessities of survival.
Only one shadow clouded her joy when she spotted Marcus hanging around the periphery of the pavilion. He never entered into the light and warmth of gaiety and plenty. He scowled at the merrymakers and especially at her. He brought back to her, for a fleeting instant, the glaring fact that this celebration would end in only one way. When she saw him, the shadow of the dragon darkened her joy.
She tore her eyes away from him. She couldn’t let him rob her of the few moments’ reprieve this celebration offered her. She couldn’t turn a frightened or uncertain face to these people. They counted on her to embody the joy and celebration of the season.
The merrymaking lasted late into the night. The fires burned through the darkness, and a dozen young maidens fluttered around Margila to attend her every need. Long after she got tired, people approached her for one final blessing or a touch of her hand or a reassuring smile.
In the small hours of the morning, the maidens made a bed for Margila between two blazing fires. They draped warm quilts of goose down over her and stood at her head and feet to protect her while she slept.
She let her eyes drift closed, but she couldn’t settle down to rest. A dark presence called to her from beyond the fire’s glow. With a power she couldn’t resist, it pulled her away from the people who loved her.
She kept her eyes closed for hours, but her racing heart kept her tense and alert. She listened to the fires crackle. Only when she heard them start to die down did she dare open one eye to peek out.
Sure enough, her two attendants dozed at their posts. Without a sound, she slipped out of bed. She laid her cloak and crown and scepter on the bed and glided out of the pavilion into the night.
A large orange moon, almost full, lit up the countryside almost as bright as day. She ran over the chilly grass
, across the Common, toward the fields in the distance. She ran all the way to the plowed farmland beyond.
A huge black barn loomed some distance back from the road, but she ran straight past that. She wouldn’t find what she was looking for there. She crossed the bumpy field to the trees lining the stream of the far side.
The branches closed over her head and blocked out the moonlight. Margila hesitated next to a deep pool. She whispered into the dark, “Marcus!”
A black figure emerged from behind a tree. “So, you came.”
“I told you I would.”
“But you didn’t come for me. You promised you would come to me, to belong to me, after the Festival ended. That will never happen now.”
She rushed toward him and threw her arms around him. He stood stiff and still under her arms. Not a breath of life warmed him. “I’m here now. Oh, Marcus, hold me! I can’t keep my heart still.”
He put his arms around her, but his body remained cold and lifeless. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I had to come. I had to see you.”
“You belong to them now. They’ll never let you go, and they’ll give you to the dragon. I’ll never see you again.”
She raised her face to his and tried to kiss him, but he dodged aside and turned his head away. “We’re together now. Can’t you love me anymore, now that I’m to be the sacrifice?”
“Do you think I can rejoice that you’re going to die, that you’ll be ripped away from me just when I was about to marry you? Go back to the Common, if you want someone to be happy about it. I would rather kill myself along with you than see you taken from me this way. It’s criminal, and I’ll use all my strength to fight it and stop it. You’ll see if I don’t.”
“Don’t talk like that. I had to enter the lottery, and I was chosen, just like hundreds of other young maidens before me. You knew this could happen. Now we just have to accept it.”
“I won’t accept it. I’ll never accept it. I’ll put a stop to this if no one else will. I won’t let the dragon kill you.”
Margila froze. “What do you plan to do?”
He grabbed her in his powerful arms, but his embrace frightened her. “Marry me, Margila.” He grabbed two handfuls of her buttocks in his fists and crushed her against his hips. He ground his crotch against her vulva. The movement sparked her old passion for him. “Give yourself to me tonight, before they offer you as a sacrifice.”
“You know I can’t do that. The sacrifice has to be a virgin.”
“That’s the whole idea. If you marry me and lose your virginity tonight, they won’t be able to sacrifice you. You’ll be free, and we can run away together.”
“I couldn’t do that. My whole family would be disgraced, and my father is Alderman of the village. Besides, if I back out now, they would have to do the lottery all over again. Some other poor girl would be sacrificed in my place. I couldn’t do that.”
Marcus flung her away from him. He strode down to the stream and stood with his back to her. “Then I’ll kill the dragon. That’s the only way to save you.”
Margila ran around to face him and she grabbed him by the shoulders. “Don’t do anything foolish, Marcus. You know you couldn’t defeat the dragon. You would only kill yourself trying.”
“Others have done it, so I can do it, too.”
“No one has fought the dragons for generations. The sacrifice is our only hope of living in peace with them.”
“We hear tales about knights of old killing them, hunting them to their lairs and cutting off their heads to save their maidens. If they can do it, I can do it.”
Margila smacked her lips. “Nonsense. Those are just old stories. Even if they did it now and then, we haven’t had knights fighting dragons in the living memories of our oldest villagers. Don’t endanger yourself. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. This is the way of our people, Marcus.”
He didn’t listen. “I’ll hide on the mountaintop. When they bring you up, they’ll tie you to the post like they always do. Don’t be scared if you don’t see me. After they leave, the dragon will come. I’ll jump out and cut off its head. Then you and I can run away together. No one will ever know you weren’t sacrificed.”
“That will never work. The dragons will know I wasn’t sacrificed. When their comrade doesn’t come back with his virgin prize, they’ll descend on the village in force. They’ll be especially cruel when they find one of their own murdered. You and I will run away together, but we’ll bring disaster on our own friends and families. How can you think of doing that.”
“Someone has to fight these vicious beasts. All these old men like Aldermen Fallosi can only think of conciliation and obfuscation. I want to fight! I want to kill and maim and destroy. I can’t sit by and watch them send you to your death.”
“How do you plan to kill it?”
“I’ll steal that old sword hanging on the wall in my father’ study.”
“You have no battle training. You’re as likely to cut off your own leg as the dragon’s head.”
He didn’t answer. He stared off into the dark, full of his own thoughts
Margila laid her hand on his arm. He was solid and still as stone. “Marcus?”
He still didn’t answer. Nameless dread seized her. Why was she out here in the dark, risking everything for him? What was he to her, compared to her responsibility to her people?
She turned, and without saying anything to him, hurried back to the pavilion.
CHAPTER THREE
On the day before the full moon, no one came near the pavilion all day. Margila’s maiden attendants hung curtains around the pavilion to bathe her in a private tub. They perfumed her hair and dressed her in costly gossamer gowns. They decked her hair and wrists with flowers and crowned her with a circlet of gold.
Margila went through the whole process in a daze. She just couldn’t bring herself to imagine what was about to happen. This day, so like all the other clear autumn days she loved so much, could end only one way. She would go home to her own house and spend the evening by the fire with her parents. She would meet Marcus on the way and share a passionate kiss in some secluded spot. She would spend the evening dreaming of their future together in the fullness of love and tranquility.
By mid-afternoon, the maidens took down the curtains and the villagers gathered around the pavilion. They wore their best clothes and played music on homemade instruments. The children ran around and played and laughed. The spirit of joy and festive belonging filled the air.
Margila’s mother and father stepped out of the crowd and took their places on either side of her. Her father kissed her on the forehead, and her mother embraced her with eyes brimming with tears. Her father blessed her and thanked her for her sacrifice. Other people listened with clasped hands, and applause broke out when he finished.
Then the maidens and young men went forth from the Common. They adorned Margila’s path with flower petals, and the crowd sang all the old songs to mark the occasion.
Margila’s parents linked their arms through hers, and the whole village led her in procession across the Common, down the road, and out into the countryside. Margila didn’t see Marcus in the crowd, but she refused to think about him. He lay in her past. Whatever happened to him, she wouldn’t see him again. Their love no longer existed. The man she loved no longer existed. He’d changed into something Margila no longer recognized.
The road wound between farms and fields into the unbroken country beyond the village. The crowd kept up its exuberant music and song. Everyone ignored the mountain looming black and foreboding overhead. A single blackened post stuck out of its top. Margila kept her eyes down. She couldn’t look up the mountain without losing her nerve.
The road circled the mountain and rose into the heights. The gaiety and joy increased the closer they came to the summit. Margila’s heart beat faster, and her mother tightened her grip on her arm. Her father laid his other hand on her arm to steady her. She swallowed a lump in her th
roat, but she had no choice but to keep walking. The maidens’ ethereal dancing mesmerized her, and a tambourine beat gave rhythm to her steps.
She put one foot in front of the other, but the air on top of the mountain got so thin she couldn’t breathe. She panted through parted lips and leaned on her parents for support.
All at once, the crowd turned a corner and the post came into view. The vast countryside, for hundreds of miles in every direction, lay spread out in a complete circle all around her. There was nowhere else to go, and nothing separated her from that post.
All the gaiety and merrymaking stopped in a heartbeat. Nothing remained but the raw truth. She would die up here, and nothing could save her. Raw instinct took over her mind. She struggled to break free and run away, but her own parents laid hold of her and held her back.
Her desperation gave her superhuman strength, and she fought with all her might to break away. She kicked and scratched. She screamed insults and threats, but the young men lent a hand and dragged her to the post. She begged her parents to help her, but they turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. Her father clenched his lips together while they tied her arms above her head and her ankles, one to the other.
