Neris thought about that for a while, and then nodded. “You may not be as smart as me, Dirk, but you’ve a better head for politics than I ever had. Belagren did, too, which is why I could never get the better of her. She was livid when she learned I’d been to see the Lord of the Suns, though. It was after that that she sent me back to Omaxin to seal the cavern and build the Labyrinth. Is that kettle boiled yet?”
“Give it time,” Dirk told him.
Neris smiled suddenly. “That’s the answer, you know.”
“The answer to what?”
“To all your questions. When is the next Age of Shadows due ... how do you kill an idea? Just give it time, Dirk. Just give it time.”
Chapter 11
For days, Tia fretted about what she had overheard Dirk telling Neris in his cave. For days she could barely think of anything else.
Tia had promised two years ago to not to reveal that it was Dirk who had killed Johan Thorn. But she had agreed reluctantly, mostly because she was desperate to protect Johan’s daughter from the pain such a revelation would bring. She was not sure she could hide the truth for much longer.
How much pain would Mellie suffer if the Lion of Senet ever found his way through the delta? The short-term hurt of Mellie learning her newly acquired brother was the man who killed her father might well be the lesser of two evils.
By the time Troitsa came around, Tia had made up her mind. She could not keep her awful secret any longer.
She waited in her room until the house was almost empty, her heart constricting as she heard Mellie chattering away to Reithan and Dirk about what she was going to wish for when she floated her garland. Tia waited until the voices had faded to nothing before making her way through the house to Johan’s study, where Lexie was putting the final touches on her own garland. To her surprise, Porl Isingrin was with her. She had not realized the pirate captain had returned from his last voyage.
“Tia!” Lexie exclaimed as she looked up. “You’re not ready yet.”
Tia glanced at Lexie and the captain with the feeling she had interrupted something important. “I’m not going.”
Lexie put down the ball of string she was using to tie off the garland. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“I have to talk to you, Lexie. Alone.”
“That sounds rather ominous. What did you want to talk about?”
“Dirk.”
“What a coincidence,” Porl said. He was standing near the open doors that led onto the balcony. “We were just talking about him,”
“What’s he done now?” she asked.
“Wallin Provin is dead.”
“Oh,” Tia said, feeling a little guilty. She had not expected that.
“We were just debating the advisability of telling Dirk,” Lexie explained.
“I’m sure he’ll get over the grief in record time.”
“That’s not the problem, lass,” Porl said. “Morna Provin has been arrested. She’s to be executed at the next Landfall Feast.”
Tia was not sure what to say. She had a rather low opinion of Morna Provin, but despite what she thought of the woman who abandoned Johan for a life of comfort as the Duchess of Elcast, nobody deserved to die like that.
“Are you afraid of upsetting him, or that he’ll do something stupid?”
“The latter mostly,” Porl agreed.
Tia shrugged. “Tell him. If he wants to go charging off to Elcast to rescue his mother, then good riddance to him, I say. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll get himself killed in the process. Anyway, you can’t hide that sort of news for long. Dirk is going to find out eventually, and I imagine he’ll be rather peeved at you for keeping it from him. And perish the thought we might do anything to upset our precious Dirk.”
“Tia, what is the matter with you?” Lexie sighed. “Have you nothing kind to say about that poor boy?”
“Poor boy?” she repeated incredulously. “ Poor boy! Goddess, Lexie, do you know what he is! Have you any inkling of what he’s done?”
“What did he do, Tia?” Lexie asked, sitting down in the big leather chair that had once been Johan’s.
“Dirk is the one ...” She found couldn’t do it, could not bring herself to say it.
“Who killed Johan?” Lexie finished for her.
Tia burst into tears as two years of pent-up secrets suddenly found release. Porl looked away uncomfortably as Lexie rose from the chair and walked around the desk. She took Tia in her arms and held her while she sobbed, muttering soothing nonsense words, as she had when Tia was a small child. “There, there, darling, you don’t have to hold it in any longer.”
“I’m so sorry, Lexie,” she sobbed. “I know he reminds you of Johan. But he’s a killer. He murdered his own father ...”
“I know, Tia, I know ...”
Tia lost herself in the comfort of Lexie’s arms for a time, and then she pulled away, staring at her foster mother. “What do you mean, you know?”
Lexie pulled a kerchief out of the sleeve of her gown and handed it to Tia before she answered.
“About three days after you brought him to Mil the first time, Dirk came to see me, Tia,” Porl said. “I brought him to Lexie. He told us what happened. He told us about Johan, about the Shadowdancer they claim he raped, even about how he acquired the dubious title the Butcher of Elcast.”
“So you got his nicely sanitized version of events,” Tia concluded, after blowing her nose loudly on the kerchief. “And now you’re on his side. Damn, he really is clever, isn’t he?”
“I doubt anything Dirk told us was sanitized for our benefit, Tia,” Lexie said. “In fact, he was quite distraught. I suspect he confessed to us in the hope that we might punish him in some way. I think he was trying to relieve the pain he was in.”
“He never suffered a moment’s remorse over what happened,” she objected. “I was there, Lexie. I saw it happen.”
“You’re wrong, darling. I don’t think a day goes by that Dirk isn’t tormented by what he did. I suspect it will haunt him for the rest of his life.”
“Good!” she declared with an inelegant sniff.
Lexie sighed. “Sit down, Tia.”
“Why, so you can convince me how wrong I am about Dirk Provin? Don’t waste your breath.”
“No, I think I need to convince you how wrong you are about Johan.”
Tia stared at her in confusion, taking the seat facing the desk. Lexie dragged another chair over to face her and sat down. “Describe Johan for me, Tia.”
“He was tall ... sort of, with dark hair and brown eyes ...”
“Not his physical description. Tell me what sort of person he was.”
“Brave. Noble. Compassionate ... I don’t see the point of this, Lexie.”
“You remember Johan as a hero,” Porl remarked.
Lexie nodded in agreement. “You never saw the man, Tia, only the tragic figure of a deposed king who was robbed of his kingdom by an evil warlord.”
“But that’s exactly what happened ...”
“In your mind, certainly,” Lexie agreed. “But you weren’t there. The fact is Johan lost Dhevyn because he invited Antonov in. Worse than that, he begged the Lion of Senet for help, and he allowed the true love of his life—”
“He loved you, Lexie!”
“Johan loved Morna, Tia, more than you will ever understand, unless you’ve loved someone the same way. Johan and I came together for comfort as much as love, and we were happy enough together, but his last thoughts were of Morna, not me.”
Tia did not want to admit such an unpleasant truth. Give my love to your mother. It was the last thing Johan said. And he said it to Dirk.
“But he—”
“No, let me finish. Johan allowed the love of his life to marry the man Antonov chose because he was too afraid to deny him.”
“Johan wasn’t afraid of anything!” she declared hotly.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tia. Johan was as full of fear as any other man. Why do you think he never tri
ed to take Dhevyn back? The Johan you have built up in your mind is ten feet tall and made of solid gold. The real Johan was a thoughtful man, a cautious man, and one who spent his entire life paying for his mistakes. Think about it, Tia. Why do you think Johan left orders to kill him if he was ever captured? He wasn’t a martyr by nature. He was a realist.”
“I still don’t see how any of this excuses what Dirk did.”
“Do you know why Morna left Johan, Tia?”
“Because she was a coward.”
Lexie shook her head. “She left him because she thought Johan was the coward. Morna was a passionate young woman in those days. A bit like you, now that I think about it. She wanted to set the world on fire. When we suffered such an appalling defeat at the end of the war, Johan decided not to try again. We were weak, hungry, demoralized and decimated. Morna disagreed. She wanted to keep on fighting.”
“So she left him and went back to her husband? Where’s the logic in that?”
“I don’t think her plan was to sit quietly as the Duchess of Elcast for long,” Porl suggested. “She went back to Elcast to claim her eldest son, but when she got there, Antonov and Belagren were waiting for her. She was tried and sentenced to death. Wallin begged Antonov for her life and he relented, but only as long as Morna agreed never to leave Elcast again.”
“So she pretended that Dirk was Wallin’s son, and quietly raised her boys on Elcast for the next sixteen years? Some revolutionary she turned out to be.”
“That’s a reality of life you’ve yet to learn, Tia,” Lexie warned. “You can start out with the best of intentions in the world; but somehow one day turns into another and before you know it your children have grown and you haven’t done half the things you set out to do when you were younger.”
“I still don’t see the point ...”
“The point is, Tia, you’re judging Dirk when you could not possibly know how he feels. He did a very courageous thing, and—”
“Courageous?” she cried in disbelief, jumping to her feet. “Lexie! He killed your husband!”
“And I’ll mourn Johan until the day I die. But what I won’t do is condemn a decent young man who saved my husband from months—possibly years—of torture at the hands of Antonov Latanya by doing what Johan asked of him.”
Tia sank down on the chair again. “Lexie, why is it only me that thinks he’s dangerous?”
“Because nobody else has quite the same black-and-white view of the world that you have, Tia. In real life, good people sometimes do bad things and bad people are not all totally evil. Dirk lives with what he’s done every day of his life. Just because he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, doesn’t mean he isn’t punishing himself over it. He certainly doesn’t need you twisting the knife at every opportunity.”
“It’s so unfair! He kills Johan and somehow I’m the one in trouble!”
“Perhaps you should think about apologizing.”
“To Dirk Provin? The second sun will freeze over before that happens.”
“Well, if you can’t bring yourself to apologize, at least give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“You really don’t resent him, do you. He’s Morna’s son, for Goddess’s sake! How can you even bear to have him in your house?”
“I have a penchant for taking in lost children, Tia.”
She looked away guiltily. “You both think I’m being unreasonable, don’t you? I know Reithan does.”
“I think you’re still grieving for a man you loved like a father. But he’s been dead for two years, Tia. It’s time to let it go.”
Tia wiped her eyes with the kerchief. “I can’t just forgive and forget, Lexie. I was there. I saw it happen.”
“Nobody expects you to forget. But I think it’s time you forgave Dirk.” She held up her hand when Tia tried to object. “When you harbor bitterness, my dear, happiness will find another port to dock in. I’m not saying this for Dirk’s benefit. While I’m sure he’d appreciate hearing a civil word from you on occasion, I think that young man is more than strong enough to weather your rage. But I worry about you. You cannot go on living in a state of constant fury. Your anger will destroy you long before it destroys Dirk.” She took Tia’s hands in hers and forced a cheery smile. “Now, why don’t you go wash your face and put a dress on and we’ll go down to the beach with the others. It’s not often we get to have a party here, and we shouldn’t miss this one.”
“I suppose,” she agreed glumly. “But I’m not wearing a dress.”
“It was worth a try, Lexie,” Porl said with a smile.
Tia wiped her eyes, sniffing back the last of her tears. “I’m sorry, Lexie.”
“You don’t owe me an apology. Now, off you go, or we’ll miss the garland floating.”
Tia walked toward the door, turning back to look at Porl when she reached it. “Who else knows, Captain?”
“A few of the council we thought could be trusted.”
“You never told Mellie?”
“No. You were right to keep it from her, Tia. Mellie doesn’t need to know.”
“I miss him so much, Lexie.”
“We all do, Tia. But life goes on. Johan wouldn’t want you to waste your life fretting over something you can never change.”
Tia nodded silently and walked back to her room.
Chapter 12
By the time they arrived on the beach, most of the children were caught up in a boisterous game of stingball. The game involved a circle of players, armed with a hard leather ball, aiming it at the mass of children gathered in the center, with the intention of striking them, thus eliminating them from the game. It was called stingball, because as the younger, less agile children were eliminated from the circle, the game frequently became quite savage, as the sole aim of the outer circle was to hit the remaining participants hard enough to bruise.
When Tia and Lexie arrived, there were only seven players left in the center, among them Mellie and Eleska, who squealed with triumph every time they managed to successfully dodge the ball. Reithan and Dirk both stood in the outer ring, laughing almost as hard as the girls as they hurled the ball across the circle, trying to get the few remaining players out.
Tia watched the game for a while, laughing as Reithan caught Eleska a stinging blow on the shins. She limped out of the circle and the game carried on, the children who had already been eliminated cheering on their faster, stronger team-mates.
“That really hurt!” Eleska exclaimed as she hobbled over to where Lexie and Tia were standing.
“Well, Eleska,” Lexie said with an unsympathetic smile, “if you want to play with the big boys, you have to be able to take it.”
“Still, they shouldn’t throw so hard.”
“It wouldn’t be any fun if they did that, Eleska,” Tia pointed out. “Mellie seems to be keeping up, though.”
“I bet they don’t throw it so hard at her.”
“On the contrary,” Lexie corrected. “It is the sacred duty of all brothers the world over to brand their little sisters as hard as possible when playing stingball. It’s in the rules.”
“What rules?”
Before Lexie could answer, Mellie let out a howl of pain and the game halted while she limped from the circle, rubbing her behind with a sour look.
Tia smiled as Mellie approached, looking mightily put out. “Never turn your back on the ball, Mel, you should know that by now.”
“It wasn’t fair! I wasn’t ready for it!”
“Who got you?”
“Dirk, the rotten bastard.”
“Mellie!” Lexie cried, shocked by her vulgarity. “Mind your tongue!”
“I didn’t mean that sort of bastard, Mama,” Mellie explained. “I mean the hits-you-on-the-bum-when-you’re-not-ready-for-it sort of bastard.”
“Oh,” Tia said, biting back a smile, “that sort.”
Lexie rolled her eyes. “Dear Goddess, to think that in other circumstances she’d have been raised at court!”
“That
’s right!” Eleska exclaimed. “I keep forgetting you’re a princess, Mel.”
“So does Mellie, I fear,” Lexie muttered, smiling fondly at her daughter.
A cheer went up from the circle as Tabor Isingrin was struck. There were only four boys left in the circle now, and the game was getting quite rough and very fast. Tia watched Dirk, Reithan and the other half dozen young men in the outer circle hurling the ball to and fro, thinking Mellie and Eleska had no idea how much they’d held back to prevent doing the girls any serious harm. There was an unwritten rule among those who were old enough to man the outer circle. You never aimed above the waist, and you always let the little kids think they were winning for a while. But once they were gone, once the only players left were the young, fit and rather cocky youths of the village, then nobody held back.
“Holen Baker will win,” Mellie predicted as yet another player was struck down. “He always does.” She looked around, trying to find someone in the crowd. “Has anyone seen Eryk?”
“He got hit just after the little Jarik twins,” Eleska told her. “He was a bit upset he got out so soon.”
Mellie sighed. “I’d better go find him. I promised he could float his garland next to mine.”
“That was very thoughtful of you, Mellie,” Lexie told her. “You go find him then and we’ll meet you down by the water.”
“I’ll fetch the garlands,” Eleska offered, hurrying off in the opposite direction, her limp forgotten. Another cheer went up as two more boys fell victim to the ball in quick succession.
As Mellie forecast, Holen Baker was the only one left standing and the other children swarmed him as he whooped with delight over his victory. The outer circle broke up as Reithan caught sight of them. He signaled to Dirk and they both headed over to where Lexie and Tia were standing.
“I’m getting old,” Reithan complained when they reached them. “I swear stingball never used to be that much hard work.”
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