Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  Talk resumed—there were rumors that Barca had conquered the Wyrre, that the general had slaughtered the royal families of the southern islands and named himself ruler of the kingdom. This last news gave Ren pause. If the royal families were dead, Tye’s imprisonment in the Priory was done. With Ren, Suten Anu had forgone the usual procedure, but it was tradition that the ransoms who were released from the Priory were let go when the moon disappeared from the sky each cycle. It was called the new moon, or Thieves’ Moon. It was a time when boys became men, their childhoods stolen away in the night.

  That night, exhausted but awake, Ren gazed at the half disk in the sky and guessed Tye had a pair of weeks, maybe ten days, before the Thieves’ Moon and her release. He tried wandering off into the woods, hoping to escape, but found guards blocking his path, guiding him back to the camp. Ren was not a prisoner, but he was a foreigner, and he guessed the Ferens didn’t want him in the kingdom. If he did not find Adin soon, Ren decided, he would return alone to Solus for Tye’s release from the Priory. She meant something to him. He could not push her from his thoughts; he didn’t want to imagine her alone in the Priory, without his protection, or running through the darkness of the Hollows, alone and vulnerable.

  * * *

  The next day he woke with thoughts of the wedding and his sister. The Feren slaves had spent a day loading the wood for the Queen’s Chamber onto dozens of carts, and now they hitched up their horses and headed north, toward the High City, where the wedding would take place. Ren found work with the carters, helping clear brush as the carts moved through the dense forest.

  Whenever the caravan stopped at a town or a settlement, Ren asked after Adin, the presumed heir to the throne until Dagrun had taken it by force. Had anyone seen him or heard news of him, did anyone know what had become of him? No, no one had seen him, no one had any news of him. The Ferens scowled and shook their heads at the mention of Barrin, Adin’s father. They called him the Barrin the Black, the Worm King of the Gray Wood. Ren knew little about Feren, but he guessed the old king was not well liked. After a few conversations Ren began to think Adin’s father was not the good king his friend had always imagined and he wondered if Dagrun was not the tyrant Adin had blamed for his father’s death.

  Dagrun had taken Adin’s throne, and was now betrothed to Kepi, his sister. Which meant Dagrun was in one way a foe and in another way family, a description that now seemed all too familiar. Perhaps the bonds of family were not what he thought; they seemed now more like chains, links that were unwelcome and hard to break.

  When night fell, he slept with the rest of the company, taking space in an abandoned barn and sleeping restlessly in an otherwise empty stall.

  As the sun rose the caravan set out for Rifka, but they did not arrive at the Feren capital until the day was nearly spent. In the fading light, they passed between cottages with straw-thatched roofs and walls woven from blackthorn twigs daubed with reddish clay or smeared with brown, hay-speckled dung, the place stinking of garbage, a rumbling sound in the air. The city was dark, and the noise seemed to come from everything, from the very walls of the place, as if the whole city were trembling. When the caravan passed under the gate of ironwood logs, he was struck by a strong urge to turn around and go back. But he passed beneath the gate and into the walls of the fortress nevertheless.

  Inside, the sound was stronger and he realized it was actually a song, a keening without words. It was there, within the wall, amid the chaos of the day, that Ren slipped from the company of woodworkers and disappeared into the narrow streets of Rifka.

  He followed the rumbling noise through the alleys, past towering war machines, shabby inns, and a torchlit marketplace that sold little but hard strips of dried goat. A group of Ferens in their thin rags was rushing toward the noise too, clutching bouquets of the small white flowers Ren had been seeing in the forest for days. He followed them, not wanting to get too close.

  Soon the city opened up into a grassy yard, where a great platform had been erected, a wooden stage held up by columns carved with vines and flowers. Reached by a tall set of stairs, the platform was topped with a smaller central dais on which a man wearing a thorny crown stood waiting amid a ring of torches. A white-robed priestess waited at his side. Alongside her stood a second, younger girl dressed in a muddy gray robe, a Feren priestess of some type.

  He elbowed through the crowd, the song growing louder, the mob growing denser, the hymn like a dull pounding in his ears. A long line of slaves, their necks collared, blocked his path. All around them the hymn rang out, but these slaves acted as if they could not hear it, as if they were not present. Why? What was wrong and who were these people? None of them looked up, none of them so much as made eye contact. Women and men, children and babes. He heard them referred to as gifts, these men and women were gifts to the new bride and groom, slaves of exceptional worth, he heard said. What slave could carry such worth?

  In the center of the line kneeled a tall boy whose skin was paler than the rest, his body thin and malnourished, his ribs so visible that Ren could count them. His long hair fell into his eyes, but then he raised his head slightly and Ren recognized him. Adin.

  33

  There was a struggle, jarring her from her stupor, sounds of screaming, battle. Kepi opened her eyes blearily and turned to the girl at her side.

  “A slave, my lady.”

  “What of him?”

  “He has broken his bonds and fled.”

  “Fled?”

  “It is of no consequence.” The air outside was once more quiet. “There is no escape from the caer, the soldiers will find him. They find everyone.” Kepi was uncertain how to interpret the scuffle.

  The slave girl offered her another drink and she gladly accepted.

  She’d been drinking since early that morning, trying to calm her nerves. But there was something odd about that last sip. Her head spun as if she had drunk too much amber. Had she had too much? Was the amber here so much stronger than what they served in Harwen?

  She peered down and grimaced at the drink. A milky wisp ran through the golden liquid, laced with some opiate, probably. She had thought of running, of fleeing the ceremony, but she was suddenly so weak she could barely stand. She wondered if she would still be conscious when the wedding took place. Her head spun, the opium coursed through her veins, and the tent obscured her view of the gathering outside. Dimly she heard the servants bickering, blaming one another. Didn’t you tell her? said one. No, said another. It’s tradition, said a third. The queen drinks opium before the Night Wedding, didn’t she know?

  No. Kepi shook her head as her eyes closed and her head swam.

  A low hum broke the stillness. The hymn had started again. Dissonant chords filled her ears as her handmaids carried her out of the tent. Kepi flinched at their touch, at the strange noise and the flickering torches. The hymn was hummed, not sung. It had no words, and its vocalists did not stand in a choir. The men were spread throughout the crowd, as if the song emanated from the forest itself, surrounding her in a single, mighty sound. A sound whose power seemed amplified by the darkness. It occurred to Kepi that the hymn was not quite music but was the sound of the trees themselves, a song of the forest, a rumble like thunder that pounded the listener’s chest, that rattled the earth.

  Leaving the tent, Kepi’s thoughts wavered and her ears pounded. She was barefoot and cold, naked from the chest up, a crown of lavender hanging on her brow. Slaves wearing woolen mantles, their hair braided and wreathed with wildflowers, held her arms while she struggled against the opiate, her vision wavering, her head throbbing. The ground was uneven beneath her feet, and she kept stumbling, and when she looked up she saw a priestess in a white robe, a member of the Desouk cult standing alongside what Kepi guessed was a priestess of Llyr, the forest god. The girl wore a gray robe caked in the red mud of the forest floor. It was an ugly gown, a matted, tattered robe. She had heard of the priestesses but never seen one; Roghan had not bothered to find a priestess
to seal their union. Now Dagrun, her second husband, peered down on her from atop the wedding platform.

  He wore clan stripes, gray and black and green. The Feren crown sat atop his head. The bronze circlet, cast in the image of blackthorn twigs and woven with curling barbs, drew slender shadows across his face. His nose was broken, slightly, at the ridge. In the past, she had not noticed this detail. Perhaps it was the firelight that highlighted the wavering line. The torchlight illuminated the upper half of his face while leaving the rest cloaked in shadow. She could not see if he was smiling or frowning, nervous or angry. His features were masked, an illusion that made him appear all the more intimidating.

  She had been dreading another Feren wedding for years, but now there was little she could do to stop it. Memories of her first nuptials returned, of that cottage in the woods, of the fog and murk, the way the guests had stared so sadly at her as they stole food from the small feast and left without bidding her goodbye.

  If I had a blade in my hand, I could end this wedding, and Dagrun along with it. But she had no blade and no armor, and she was barely clothed. She shivered, wanting to cover her breasts, but decided that would be seen as a sign of weakness and so she kept her arms held tightly at her sides.

  The slaves urged—no, pushed—her forward, their arms locked around hers, Kepi’s feet barely touching the ground. Higher voices joined the hymn, passing the melody through the crowd, echoing the song from side to side, voice to voice. The whole city was in attendance, gathered around the large wedding platform in a grove of trees, a miniature forest in the heart of the caer. The grove’s sloping ground enabled all in attendance to see the king and his new queen, the dazed girl at whom the people were throwing star-shaped white petals, carpeting the forest floor in white like falling snow. They stuck to her made-up face, to her hair and her hands, and Kepi reached up to brush them away with shaking fingers. Let this be over soon. The beauty of the forest and the white flowers made the ceremony somehow all the more terrible.

  The people were gathered in circles around the platform, Feren warlords nearest in their colored mantles, sworn men at their sides. The freemen of Rifka next, then vast rows of slaves, bare chests and knotted hair, everywhere that the eye could see, and all the while the hymn grew louder and less intelligible. How can they all just stand and watch as I’m forced to marry against my will? She wondered how they could smile at this misery. Kepi wanted to hear beauty in the song, but she couldn’t: it sounded like a dirge, like grief, like a slave’s song. Appropriate, perhaps—but no less painful.

  Now she stood at the base of the platform. The slave girls clustered around her. Up the low steps they went, then the staircase, a rain of white blossoms falling from some unseen hand. She shivered in her wedding dress, her chest bare, so cold. I won’t do this, she thought. I can’t do this.

  Kepi kept her hands at her sides, clenching and unclenching. Her ladies had powdered and dressed her face and breasts with gold flakes that now and then caught the torchlight. The image was no doubt stunning, but Kepi had never felt less like a bride than she did at that moment. She felt like a sacrifice. How she longed for her armor and sword. I want my freedom.

  The song stopped and the girls parted. Slaves lit braziers on all sides of the platform and the blackthorns came alive with flickering lights. Dagrun spoke to the crowd—words that rang out in a voice that might have been stirring had Kepi been capable of being stirred by anything Dagrun did or said. Either way she did not bother to listen to the content of the words—she had no interest. Across from her she saw Merit, wearing their father’s double crown, their mother’s short sword, and a dress of sheep’s wool, warm and long-sleeved, a look of naked triumph on her beautiful face. Why does she hate me so? Kepi wondered, not for the first time.

  The hymn stopped abruptly. Kepi struggled against the slaves and the opiate, stumbling as she tried to free herself from their hold. Dagrun caught her before she fell to the ground, but she pushed herself up, pushed him away. I need no help.

  The priestess in the gray robes picked up Kepi’s cold hand and placed it in Dagrun’s large, rough one. She wrapped their grasped hands with the sleeve of her muddy robe. The gesture was symbolic. Feren handfasting—the girls who dressed her had explained—bound the wife to the husband and the wedded couple to Llyr. The Feren priestess, her skin caked with mud, spoke in a language Kepi could not understand, her prayer a single, unaccented stream of words. “Tha-llyris-colla-han-fere-an-Dagrun-inne-Kepina-shri-bal-tanne,” she chanted, then spoke in the common tongue. Kepina Hark-Wadi, she announced, was now queen to Dagrun Finner, first of that name, king of the Ferens and Lord of the Gray Wood.

  Bells chimed in the distance. The warlords of Feren scaled the wedding platform. Feren had twelve clans, and the head of each clan gave a speech in her honor, rambling on about her unparalleled beauty, her unequalled worth. Each wore their respective clan colors, gray and green and black strands woven into their mantles. Ferris Mawr of Caerwynt spoke first, then Deccan Falkirk of Caerfrae, Seken Anders of Caerkirk, Arni Faerose of Caerspirren, and Cowen Ulli of Caeriddison.

  For each tribute Kepi wanted to snort in laughter—surely they weren’t talking about her, the youngest and least attractive, the least worthy of the females of the house of Hark-Wadi. Her sister would have glowed under such praise; to Kepi, who recognized them for the false accolades they were, they felt hollow.

  When he was done speaking, each warlord presented a slave to Kepi, a gift from the clan to the new queen. Eleven now sat before her, and one was missing, but no one seemed bothered by the slave’s absence. The girls who dressed her had described the ritual: After each clan offered a slave to the queen, she was to pick one slave—a slave who would be sacrificed—an offering to Llyr, the kitefaethir. Llyr’s followers named him the mud god, the lord of chains, deity to all who served and suffered in the Gray Wood. The sacrifice of the slave sealed the marriage and brought good fortune to the couple.

  Silence.

  She had only to lift her finger and the task would be done, but Kepi did not move. One to kill and ten to consign into her service till the end of their lives. Another barbarian practice. Her arms at her sides, her mind frozen with rage and fear, Kepi remained silent. I will not choose.

  Merit cleared her throat. “Choose,” she hissed. “Choose one and be done with it.”

  Dagrun nodded, waiting. “Whatever my queen desires, she will have.”

  But still she did not move.

  Choose one.

  “I have no—” Her mind went blank; the opiate still pulsed in her veins. “I have no need for more waiting women and no desire to see death on the day of my wedding.” Kepi heaved a long breath. “And as for tradition, perhaps, since it is the first union between a Feren king and a Harkan king’s daughter, may I suggest a new offering?”

  Dagrun raised an eyebrow.

  “I choose to give them all their freedom. The Harkan gift.”

  For a moment, she thought Dagrun might slap her. Merit took a deep breath and her eyes blazed. Foolish girl.

  But the king of the Ferens only laughed in amusement. He clapped his hands. “The Harkan gift of freedom. A worthy gift.” He gestured to his men. “Whatever my queen desires, she will have,” he said. “Take your freedom as a sign of good faith from my new bride.”

  Kepi flushed, her chest a rosy pink, and for a moment she was as beautiful as Merit, if not more beautiful. She felt Dagrun’s eyes on her face, on her body, and saw the slow curve of his smile and returned it with one of her own. Next to her, she felt Merit’s anger, coiled and ready to spring.

  But there was nothing her sister could do about it. Merit was only queen regent of Harkana.

  But today, Kepi was queen of the Ferens.

  34

  Ren shouldered through the noisy streets of Rifka, blood on his hands, fingers gripping Adin’s wrist as he pulled him through narrow alleys and courtyards where packs of beggars roamed like sheep, past a gate of dangling logs and th
e blackthorn bridge. All the while, they saw soldiers searching the crowds, soldiers on the walls and in windows. “Find the boy,” shouted one. “Capture or kill the filthy little bastard,” said another. If the streets were not dark, if the crowds were not so dense, they would surely have been spotted. Ren pictured himself in Feren chains, kneeling alongside Adin, explaining that he was heir to the Harkan throne. No time for that. Adin’s a prisoner and I need to get him out.

  Ren had struck at Adin’s guard when all eyes were on the wedding platform. He’d pierced the man’s silvery mail with his father’s blade, freeing Adin, the two of them stealing away into the crowds. Ren had wanted to find his sister, the queen, but after he’d seen the way the Ferens treated Adin, chaining his friend like a common slave, Ren had lost all interest in Kepi. Why bother; she must be just like Merit, ruthless and unkind.

  Past the gate, they hurried through the thronged streets, over the newly poured sand that covered the muddy roads, past the herds of peasants bearing white flowers. Beyond the densest parts of the city, they stumbled into a wide, lightless field. Drunken woodsmen and skinny dirt-farmers filled the dark, muddy pasture, men who had come not for the wedding, but for an excuse to drink and brawl while their children ran wild through the fields. Ren and Adin pushed through the revelers, their hearts pounding, wind in their faces.

  “Mithra’s burning balls,” Adin said as he ducked halfheartedly to avoid an amber-filled mug. Sour-smelling liquid splashed over the boy’s shoulders. Adin shook, his breath quickening, a flush returning to his hollow cheeks. “Dammit, Ren, it’s really you.”

  “Real as your mother’s stink.” Ren caught a spatter of ale on his cheek. Blood still covered his hands, so when he moved to brush aside the amber he smeared red viscera across his brow. “Dammit,” he cried as he struggled to clean the blood from his face and arms.

  Adin stole an unattended tank of amber from a tree stump. Stumbling in the darkness, he gulped it down in a single mouthful, holding the downturned vessel over his lips as he savored the last drops. Ren knocked him lightly on the jaw.