He raised his eyes to meet his father’s gaze. He laid bare the alien silver, the cursed blood that crawled in his veins. He’d always been a devastating disappointment to his father and his only hope for forgiveness lay in this difficult confession. “I know what I am,” he rasped. “I don’t deny my part in this.” His throat tightened so much he couldn’t continue, but an instinct urged him—an instinct deep in his spirikai and reaching as far back as he could remember—to speak from the heart. “I was never the son you wanted. Please forgive me. Help me—somehow—to get it right.”
Red suffused Tarn’s cheeks and he grabbed the front of Sheft’s shirt. “How dare you glare at me in shameless defiance!”
Stunned, Sheft felt ice rush to his heart, as if his father’s words had been a slashing blade. Too late, he lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “Sorry you see it like that.”
Tarn’s grip trembled with intensity. “How else should I see it? What are you sorry for? For what exactly do you take responsibility?” He pushed him away. “For nothing!” He turned to Moro. “Is this what you want for your daughter, Moro?”
“This is not the time for family quarrels,” Riah said.
“This goes far beyond family quarrels! What if tomorrow I’m summoned like some criminal before the council, to answer for Sheft’s behavior?”
“He did nothing but defend himself at the fair,” Etane objected. “Some fathers may have been proud of him.”
“Proud of a man who attacks from ambush? Who takes up a weapon against one who has none?”
“That’s not how it happened!” Sheft cried.
Mariat stepped to his side. “I was with Sheft at the market-fair. He did nothing wrong. I will swear so, under any oath, to the council.”
“The council would never accept your word,” Tarn retorted. “If you went to the fair with Sheft willingly, you would be too involved to tell the truth. If you went unwillingly, then you were under his influence and had to lie.”
“Under my influence!” Sheft turned to Moro. “What is he saying?”
Moro put his hand on his shoulder. “Some are spreading a tale that you abducted Mariat at the fair and forced yourself on her. It’s only silly girls gossiping in the village, lad. Pay it no mind.”
“Pay it no mind?” Sheft looked at Moro in horror. So this is what Etane wouldn’t tell him. “Moro, I would never do anything that would hurt your daughter! That would be the last—”
“I know, lad. I know.”
“This is all madness!” Mariat cried.
“Madness or not,” Tarn said, “someone wrung the neck of that rooster, trapped our hens, and set fire to our property. Something instigated that. Such actions don’t arise from pure air.”
Etane extended his hands as if to show him the obvious. “They arise from cowardly prejudice!”
Moro wiped his soot-stained forehead on his sleeve. He looked deeply tired. “Dorik is a sensible fellow,” he said to Tarn. “He won’t summon you in front of the council without better ground than rumors. If anything, you should demand an inquiry into who started this fire.”
Riah had been looking around uneasily and now spoke. “It’s getting dark, Moro.”
They had been too distracted to notice, but their faces were beginning to blur in the last of the twilight.
“I think we can make it home,” Etane said, “if we hurry.”
“No,” Riah said firmly. “All of you will all stay the night. Etane, bring in the leftover food your sister packed for us. It will be enough for our dinner.” She left the ruined yard and headed toward the house. The others, too tired to argue, followed while Sheft took care of the horses. By the time he finished and went inside, the lanterns had been lit and water heated. He looked down at his best clothes, which were wet and streaked with soot. His hands were covered with greasy ash, which must be all over his face and hair.
He joined the men and washed at basins set up on the kitchen table. Riah and Mariat emerged newly scrubbed from the bedroom, carrying bowls of soot-colored water which they dumped outside. Clothing that reeked of smoke was thrown on the doorstep until it could be laundered, and Riah found clean shirts and pants to more or less fit everyone except Moro, who made do with a blanket while his trousers dried by the fire. Wearing one of Riah’s dresses, loose but belted at the waist, Mariat placed a pan of leftover chicken and potatoes over the hearth and set out a jar of preserves.
While they were waiting for dinner to heat, the two older men sat at the table. Tarn spoke ostensibly to Moro, but loud enough for Sheft, who was sitting on the rug in his customary corner near the hearth, to hear.
“At council meetings, Moro, time and again, I have listened to certain fathers hotly deny accusations made against their wayward sons. They claim lies were being told against them, or that someone else did the deed. I always vowed I’d never excuse any wrong-doer merely because he lived under my roof. It’s only just to treat an accusation against my house as seriously as I would any other.”
Moro sighed. “Of course we must have justice. But the older I get, the more I value mercy.”
Sheft sat with his damp head in his hands. He was what he was, but had never intended to endanger his father’s position as a council elder. Tarn was a proud man, and earning his respect, much less his love, would never happen now. Without his conscious decision, his spirikai tensed as if he were being cut. Since when did it act on its own? He made an effort to unloose the inner knot.
The food was finally set out, and he ate what he could of it. Everyone was too tired and disheartened to talk much, so after the plates were cleared away, Riah passed out blankets. She and Tarn withdrew, closing the door to their bedroom, while Moro and Etane stretched out on the floor in front of the hearth, leaving a place for Sheft. Soon, soft snores came from the large mound that was Moro.
Mariat, who had been looking pale and strained, had fallen asleep on the nodding chair. After putting a clean blanket on his mattress in the loft, Sheft reluctantly shook her awake. “Sleep upstairs,” he whispered.
“I don’t want to take your bed.”
“But I want you to.”
She glanced around to make sure no one was looking, gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and disappeared up the ladder.
Sheft lay down, but even though he was bone-weary, could not sleep. This morning he had imagined that Mariat needed him, but the events of this day proved he was the last person she needed. He couldn’t be seen at her mother’s funeral or take part in her brother’s wedding. And because of him, her name had been dragged through the mud. “Is this what you want for your daughter, Moro?”
No. He must let her go. It was what love demanded.
With a deep breath, he turned onto his back and stared at the reflections from the low hearth-fire flickering on the ceiling. Above him in the loft, Mariat was lying on his mattress. His blanket covered her. In a manner, she shared his bed.
But it would be the only time, and the only way, he could ever let that happen.
# # #
Everyone except Sheft left for Moro’s house at dawn. Riah went to help Mariat clean up after the wake and the others to collect odd-sized boards that had been sitting in Moro’s barn for years. Sheft worked inside the chicken shed, scraping cooked egg and char off the walls and then helped unload the wagon when the other men returned. They fixed the roof; but even when Sheft and his father worked shoulder to shoulder, Tarn said nothing to him the entire time.
Moro and Etane returned home in the early afternoon, and Tarn drove off to purchase another rooster and a few hens. It occurred to Sheft that no one had checked on the barn after the fire, so he went inside and looked around. Nothing seemed amiss. No damage had been done and the box holding the few unsold carved items brought back from Ferce lay under the stored paper-drying tables, just where he’d left it.
So why did he feel so uneasy?
With no answer to that, he went back to replacing the nest-shelves in the shed. Thoughts about
the Rites—only a little more than twenty-four hours away—crept into his mind. He was aware when his parents came home, but quit his work only when twilight began slipping out of the Riftwood.
Dinner was eaten in grim silence. After it was over, Tarn took his seat by the fire while Riah rearranged the clothes she had washed on the drying rack. Sheft was putting away the last of the plates when his father spoke. “No one in the village would sell me any hens. Therefore, tomorrow morning, I must go all the way to Greak’s.” He cast a cold glance at Sheft.
He knew it would be ill-advised to offer to go to Greak’s himself, so he shut the cabinet door, climbed the ladder to his loft, and flung himself onto his mattress. He stared into the shadows. Tomorrow night he would be out in the dark, trying to deal with the bloody Rites.
He turned onto his stomach. Last night Mariat had lain exactly here, beneath him. His body ached for her, his groin swelled at the thought of her. But he’d made the right decision to let her go.
The mattress held too much of her, and he could bear it no longer. He rolled onto the floorboards, and there he spent the long, hard night.
Chapter 13. Rites of the Dark Circle
A thorny vine dragged him down. Like a sensate needle and thread, it whipstitched him onto the dirt, and out of the cuts emerged a myriad of root-like worms. A cry stuck in his throat and Sheft awoke, sitting bolt upright on the floor. He tried to rub away the crawling sensation in his arms, tried to calm himself, while the black rectangle of his window gradually faded to grey. The reality was as bad as the nightmare: it was the first day of Hawk, the dark of the moon, and only hours remained until the time of the Rites.
Etane had said something about the Rites “appeasing” Wask, which posed ominous questions that crept up the back of his spine. He crawled onto his mat and tried to pray to Rulve. But the presence and the love had disappeared as if they had never existed.
At first light, feeling as if he hadn’t slept at all, he dressed and went in search of his mother. He shouldn’t go to her; he knew that. She’d been despondent even before Ane died and was in no shape to give comfort. But he didn’t know where else to go.
The weather had turned cooler, and low grey clouds rolled over his head toward the deadlands. He found Riah at a place by the river where a willow tree had washed down from some long-forgotten flood. Soil had built up in a hollow, and in the midst of decay, a few dwarf plants grew. His mother sat there under her hooded cloak, staring at the river.
He stood beside her, tense with questions, and waited for her to acknowledge him.
Her low voice came out of the hood. “What do you want?”
He took a quavering breath. “How do you pray? How do you pray to Rulve?”
She continued staring straight ahead. “How indeed, S’eft.”
The name she used should have warned him, should have told him not to expect any answers, but he was desperate. “You said Rulve cared about us.”
“Perhaps. In his own way.” Her hands lay in her lap, and she opened one in a brief gesture of futility. “But not in any way I understand.”
“You used to understand.”
As, he once thought, did he. Even though this God had no face and this Goddess no form, he had still sensed her in different dawns: sometimes veiled in lavender clouds edged with gold, sometimes as a sun-disk that laid long ribbons of light across the furrows. In the month of Sky-path, when the winged seeds spiraled down on his head like a blessing, he felt his touch. In the old man’s tent, regardless of whatever else had happened there, he experienced the permeating love.
But today he felt afraid and abandoned. “You told me I was placed into his hands, but I can’t feel them. I can’t feel Rulve at all now. The Rites are tonight and I don’t know what to do!”
The cold murmur of the river was his only answer. Blindly, he turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.
“There is a verse, written long ago. From the Tajemnika, the red book of tales. It’s in Widjar, and a poor translation is all I can offer you.” She paused, then recited:
“Under a wide and icy sheet, the waters sleep.
Looking for a seed, the wind fingers the hard ground.
The earth lies in frost, waiting for the low command:
‘Rise up now.’”
The words meant nothing to him, and he trudged back to the barn.
For the rest of the day, what little he had gleaned about the Rites followed him around like a grotesque shadow. He forked straw into Padiky’s stall, remembering the broad hints Gwin and Voy had dropped about a self-inflicted wound. Dealing with accidents was hard enough, but the thought of cutting his own skin, in front of the priestess and the council of elders, made his stomach twist. He hauled water into the house crock, and his breath came short at the remembered image of a sickle spinning toward him. If Gwin had done that in broad daylight, what might transpire in the dark of the moon? He cut back the stems of the paper-plants, and his throat closed at the image of drops of root-ridden blood falling into the earth. Bleeding by day in village’s common field had already summoned the Groper. What would happen if he bled by night in the creature’s very domain? He ran a hand through his hair in agitation. He’d have to control the ice more tightly than he ever had, and control it in front of the priestess and twenty men. Some of whom may have accused him of crimes he didn’t commit.
Tarn came home just before dinner, his face like stone. “Greak sold me some hens, but wouldn’t part with a rooster. That means a trip to Ferce tomorrow, where I’ll have to spend at least fifteen ducats to stay the night.” He sat down at his place at the table. “I stopped at the Council House on my way home,” he said to Riah. He turned to glare at Sheft. “There is a matter we have to discuss, and we will discuss it tonight.”
“The Rites are tonight.”
“I know well when they are. Our discussion will take place afterward.”
All three ate in silence, the only sound being the clink of Tarn’s spoon against his bowl. A part of Sheft wanted to insist on having his father’s discussion immediately, but the larger part was too agitated about the ordeal ahead to risk what was sure to be another argument. His stomach was so knotted up it rebelled at the sight of his lentil soup. Under Tarn’s disapproving gaze, he pushed it away. Twilight faded into darkness as they put on two black cloaks that Tarn took out of the clothes chest and shook out. They pulled the deep hoods over their heads and left the warm house for the dampness of a heavy autumn fog that had crept into the Meera Valley.
Sheft hitched up Padiky, hung the lantern on its pole in front of the wagon, and they rode off. Soon the smell of smoke from their chimney gave way to the tang of old, wet leaves. The small circle of light from the lantern passed over skeletal trees and twig-fingered bushes that reached out of the darkness on either side of the Mill Road.
“On this night,” his father said, “we can travel safely after dark. On this night, Wask doesn’t have to cross the Meera.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tonight we cross, and go to him.”
What felt like a leech dropped onto his hand and Sheft almost cried out. But it was only a sodden leaf, which he quickly peeled away. “What—” the word came out as a croak, and he tried again. “What else happens?”
Tarn stared straight ahead. “Just don’t shame me in front of the others.”
The words screwed into his heart. He could never redeem himself in Tarn’s eyes, but tonight at all costs he must not add to his humiliation.
They reached the Council House, across the road from the House of Ele, where they tethered their horse next to the other wagons. A group of silent figures waited in back. Several of them held torches, which seemed to be smothering in the foggy night.
“They’re tense,” Tarn muttered. “More than usual.” He disappeared into the murk, leaving Sheft left alone with a group of cloaked and hooded men. One of them would be Gwin, a resourceful and intelligent enemy who’d already made an attempt to get rid of him.
Others were no doubt convinced he was a lecher who molested women and a coward who attacked from ambush.
He tried to keep his eyes and face out of the torchlight and his hair well covered. In only a few hours, he told himself, it would be over. Then he would go home, to face what was sure to be an unpleasant confrontation with his father. Even worse, he’d have to tell Mariat their relationship had ended.
He soon realized no one was paying him any attention. The hoods all faced the Meera, as if the eyes within sought to penetrate the wall of fog. He found his own gaze drawn there, but could see nothing. Yet, across the river, he felt a diffuse awareness, slowly separating itself from the gauzy blanket of the night.
He turned away, trying to think of something else. Etane and Moro, son and father who loved each other, were probably sitting warm by their fireplace at home. Perhaps Mariat had made tea, and they were reminiscing about Ane, their faces half in shadow, half in hearth light.
The men stirred as Parduka, wearing a red cloak, emerged from the fog. Six hooded figures marched behind her. Four carried a live sheep tied by its legs to a pole and two bore a ceremonial drum suspended from a wooden stand. Was one of the figures Tarn? Was that tall one Gwin? He couldn’t tell. His eyes cut back to Parduka. She carried two objects at her belt: a narrow leather pouch and a knife. The blade of the knife, finely honed, flashed out of the dark and into torchlight as she walked.
A sharp rattle startled him. It was a pebble-gourd, which began to shake out a slow and measured rhythm. As if for protection, everyone gathered closely around Parduka, who moved toward the river. They followed her like blind men, marching to the rattled cadence and crunching stones underfoot, while the sound of the gourd ran up and down his arms like shivers. Fog hemmed them in on all sides. Torches glimmered inside pearlescent spheres and illuminated nothing. They marched on, and the Meera seemed much farther away than it did in daylight. At last, with a long shake, the gourd fell silent, and Sheft heard the riffling of the invisible river.
Blood Seed: Coin of Rulve Book One Page 12
